Lady isn’t really the right word because she was quite young, about Hector’s age. And you’ll never guess: the book she was reading was a book on psychiatry! The lady was a psychiatrist!
They both found it funny to be sitting next to a colleague, and the lady, whose name was Marie-Louise, explained that she was going back to her country on holiday, because in fact she worked in the country they had just taken off from, where there are more psychiatrists than anywhere else in the world. Hector felt nervous about asking her why she hadn’t stayed in her own country (a little like when he asked Charles why he hadn’t built his factories in his own country, if you remember), but the lady was quick to explain why.
‘I want my children to live a normal life.’
She had two older children who had stayed at home, and Hector asked her what she called a normal life. (Even psychiatrists can ask each other questions.)
Marie-Louise replied, ‘I want them to be able to go to school without needing a driver and a bodyguard, for example.’
Hector agreed that indeed that wasn’t a normal life, even though, when he was a child, he would have been very proud to go to school with a driver and a bodyguard, but mothers don’t think like that, of course.
And then the plane began to tilt to one side and make a noise like the dive-bombers in documentaries about the war, and everybody went quiet, except for the chickens and ducks, which made more noise than ever.
Fortunately, this didn’t go on for very long and the plane finally landed quite normally, though with a lot of juddering.
Hector managed to let go of the armrests, and when all the passengers were standing in the aisle, Marie-Louise invited him to come and visit her and her family. She wrote down her address in his little notebook.
When he reached the door to the plane, Hector had exactly the same sensation as when you open the oven to see whether the roast beef is ready and the oven is very hot. This was slightly different though, because it was very bright outside and the sun was beating down. The airport was surrounded by scorched-looking mountains, a bit like the colour of overdone roast beef as a matter of fact.
At customs, the customs officers were African (but we won’t repeat this all the time, like with the Chinese; in this country everybody is African, apart from a few exceptions, which we’ll point out). Families waited in the shade. The little girls were dressed in white ankle socks and ruffs and the little boys in shorts, well, long shorts actually, like the ones worn in Hector’s country a long time ago.
Hector couldn’t see the friend who was supposed to be meeting him. And so he walked out carrying his suitcase, and the sun kept beating down. A porter soon arrived — and then another and another — to help him carry his suitcase over to the taxi rank, which was a few yards away, and Hector thought they were going to start fighting, but fortunately he saw his friend Jean-Michel coming towards him, smiling.
Jean-Michel was an old friend of Hector’s, like Édouard, although they were quite different. Jean-Michel had studied medicine. He had specialised in the germs that make people sick in hot countries. And although they had plenty of these germs, unfortunately hot countries also had the fewest doctors. So Jean-Michel had quickly gone off to work in these countries. He was tall and strong, and looked a bit like a sailing or skiing instructor. Hector remembered that he’d been popular with the girls but that he’d never seemed very interested in them, and so they became even more interested in him and often came and asked Hector about Jean-Michel because they knew the two of them were friends.
Jean-Michel took Hector’s suitcase, and they walked towards the car park. This sounds simple, but in fact it was rather complicated because there were beggars in the car park. They’d immediately noticed Hector, just like the porters had before. And
They both found it funny to be sitting next to a colleague, and the lady, whose name was Marie-Louise, explained that she was going back to her country on holiday, because in fact she worked in the country they had just taken off from, where there are more psychiatrists than anywhere else in the world. Hector felt nervous about asking her why she hadn’t stayed in her own country (a little like when he asked Charles why he hadn’t built his factories in his own country, if you remember), but the lady was quick to explain why.
‘I want my children to live a normal life.’
She had two older children who had stayed at home, and Hector asked her what she called a normal life. (Even psychiatrists can ask each other questions.)
Marie-Louise replied, ‘I want them to be able to go to school without needing a driver and a bodyguard, for example.’
Hector agreed that indeed that wasn’t a normal life, even though, when he was a child, he would have been very proud to go to school with a driver and a bodyguard, but mothers don’t think like that, of course.
And then the plane began to tilt to one side and make a noise like the dive-bombers in documentaries about the war, and everybody went quiet, except for the chickens and ducks, which made more noise than ever.
Fortunately, this didn’t go on for very long and the plane finally landed quite normally, though with a lot of juddering.
Hector managed to let go of the armrests, and when all the passengers were standing in the aisle, Marie-Louise invited him to come and visit her and her family. She wrote down her address in his little notebook.
When he reached the door to the plane, Hector had exactly the same sensation as when you open the oven to see whether the roast beef is ready and the oven is very hot. This was slightly different though, because it was very bright outside and the sun was beating down. The airport was surrounded by scorched-looking mountains, a bit like the colour of overdone roast beef as a matter of fact.
At customs, the customs officers were African (but we won’t repeat this all the time, like with the Chinese; in this country everybody is African, apart from a few exceptions, which we’ll point out). Families waited in the shade. The little girls were dressed in white ankle socks and ruffs and the little boys in shorts, well, long shorts actually, like the ones worn in Hector’s country a long time ago.
Hector couldn’t see the friend who was supposed to be meeting him. And so he walked out carrying his suitcase, and the sun kept beating down. A porter soon arrived — and then another and another — to help him carry his suitcase over to the taxi rank, which was a few yards away, and Hector thought they were going to start fighting, but fortunately he saw his friend Jean-Michel coming towards him, smiling.
Jean-Michel was an old friend of Hector’s, like Édouard, although they were quite different. Jean-Michel had studied medicine. He had specialised in the germs that make people sick in hot countries. And although they had plenty of these germs, unfortunately hot countries also had the fewest doctors. So Jean-Michel had quickly gone off to work in these countries. He was tall and strong, and looked a bit like a sailing or skiing instructor. Hector remembered that he’d been popular with the girls but that he’d never seemed very interested in them, and so they became even more interested in him and often came and asked Hector about Jean-Michel because they knew the two of them were friends.
Jean-Michel took Hector’s suitcase, and they walked towards the car park. This sounds simple, but in fact it was rather complicated because there were beggars in the car park. They’d immediately noticed Hector, just like the porters had before. And
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