of that, people who came to see him liked him a lot; they felt that he was thinking about their particular situation (which was nearly always true) and that he was going to help them find a way to get better. At the beginning of his career, he would twirl his moustache when he was thinking things over, but now he didn’t have a moustache; he’d only grown one when he was just starting out in order to look older. These days, since he wasn’t exactly a young psychiatrist any more, there was no point. Time had passed.
But time hadn’t made much difference to the furniture in his office. It was the same as when he’d started out. He had an old sofa his mother had given him when he’d moved in, some nice pictures that he liked and a little statue his friend had brought back from the land of the Eskimos – a bear turning into an eagle, which is quite unusual for a psychiatrist’s office. From time to time, when Hector felt cooped up after spending too much time in his office listening to people, he would look at the bear with huge wings sprouting from its back and dream that he was flying away too. But not for long, because he would quickly begin to feel guilty if he didn’t listen properly to the person sitting in front of him telling him their woes. Because Hector was conscientious.
Most of the time, he saw grown-ups who had decided to come and see a psychiatrist because they were too sad, too worried or just unhappy with their lives. He got them talking, asked them questions and sometimes he also gave them little pills … often all three at once, a bit like someone who juggles three balls at the same time. Psychiatry is difficult like that.
But Hector loved his job. First of all because he often felt he was helping people. And secondly because what his patients told him nearly always interested him.
For example, from time to time, he saw a young woman called Sabine who always said things which made him think. When you’re a psychiatrist, it’s funny but you learn an awful lot just by listening to your patients, whereas they assume you already know nearly everything.
The first time Sabine came to see Hector it was because she was getting upset at work. Sabine worked in an office, and her boss wasn’t very nice to her: he often made her cry. Of course, she always cried in private, but, even so, it was terribly hard for her.
Little by little, Hector helped her realise that perhaps she deserved better than a boss who wasn’t very nice, and Sabine built up enough self-confidence to find a new job. And these days she was happier.
Over time, Hector had gradually changed the way he worked. At the beginning, he mainly tried to help people to change their outlook. Now, he still did that, of course, but he also helped people to change their lives, to find a new life that would suit them better. Because, to put it another way, if you’re a cow, you’ll never become a horse, even with a good psychiatrist. It’s better to find a nice meadow where people need milk than to try to gallop round a racecourse. And, above all, it’s best to avoid entering a bullring, because that’s always a disaster.
Sabine would not have been happy being compared to a cow, even though cows are actually kind and gentle animals, Hector had always thought, and very good mothers too. It’s true that she was also very clever, and sometimes this didn’t make her happy, because, as you might already have noticed, sometimes happiness is not knowing everything.
One day, Sabine said to Hector, ‘I think life is just a big con.’
Startled, Hector asked, ‘What do you mean?’ (That was what he always said when he hadn’t been listening properly the first time.)
‘Well, you’re born, and straight away you have to rush about, go to school, and then work, have children, and then your parents die and then before you know it you get old and die too.’
‘This all takes a bit of time, though, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it goes by so quickly. Especially when there’s no time to stop. Take me, for example, with my work, and evenings with the children and my husband. He’s the same, poor thing … he never stops either.’
Sabine had a nice husband (she’d also had a nice father, which improves the chances of finding a nice husband straightaway) who worked hard in an office too. And two young children, the eldest of whom had started school.
‘I always feel as if I’m up against the clock,’ said Sabine. ‘In the morning, everything needs to be organised, I have to leave in time to take my eldest to school and then dash to the office. I have meetings I have to be on time for, but while I’m in them the rest of my work piles up, and then I have to rush in the evenings too, pick up my child from school, or get home in time for the nanny, and then dinner, and homework … Still, I’m lucky – my husband helps me. We hardly have time to speak to each other in the evening: we’re so tired we both just fall asleep.’
Hector knew all this, and perhaps that was partly why he had slowly started to contemplate getting married and having babies.
‘I’d like time to slow down,’ said Sabine. ‘I’d like to have time to enjoy life. I’d like some time for myself, to do whatever I want.’
‘What about holidays?’ asked Hector.
Sabine smiled.
‘You don’t have children, do you, Doctor?’
Hector admitted that he did not, not yet.
‘Actually,’ said Sabine, ‘I think that’s also why I come to see you. This session is the only point in my week when time stops and my time is completely my own.’
Hector understood precisely what Sabine meant. Especially since he, too, over the course of his day, often felt that he was up against the clock, like all his colleagues. When you’re a psychiatrist, you always have to keep an eye on the time, because if you allow your patient to talk to you for too long, the next patient will get impatient and all your appointments will run late that day. (Sometimes, this was very difficult for Hector – for example, when three minutes before the end of a session, just as he’d start to shift in his armchair to signal that time was almost up, the person in front of him would suddenly say, ‘Deep down, Doctor, I don’t think my mother ever loved me,’ and begin to cry.)
Being up against the clock, thought Hector to himself. It was a real problem for so many people, especially for mothers. What could he possibly do to help them?
HECTOR AND THE MAN WHO LOVED DOGS
HECTOR had another patient called Fernand, a man who was not particularly remarkable, except for the fact that he had no friends. And no wife or girlfriend either. Was it because he had a very monotonous voice or because he looked a little like a heron? Hector didn’t know, but he thought it very unfair that Fernand didn’t have any friends, since he was kind and said things that were very interesting (although sometimes slightly odd, it has to be said).
One day, out of the blue, Fernand said to Hector, ‘Anyway, Doctor, at my age, I’ve got no more than two and a half dogs left.’
‘Sorry?’ said Hector.
He remembered that Fernand had a dog (one day, Fernand had brought it with him, a very well-behaved dog that had slept right through their session), but not two, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine what half a dog might be.
‘Well,’ said Fernand, ‘some dogs live for fourteen or fifteen years, don’t they?’
Hector came to understand then that Fernand was measuring the time he had left in the number of dogs he could have over the rest of his life. As a result, Hector set about measuring the life he had left to live in dog lives (that is, which he probably had left, for ye know neither the day nor the hour, as somebody who died quite young once said) and he wasn’t sure if it would be four or five. Of course, he thought to himself, this figure could change if science made incredible advances that would enable people to live longer, but perhaps on the other hand it wouldn’t change, since scientists would no doubt make dogs live longer too, which, you can be sure, no one will ask their opinion about.