*
The next day, Hector and Jean-Marcel had difficulty finding a driver as no one would go near the temple. In the end, they found a man who kept laughing all the time, and Hector wondered whether he was quite right in the head. But maybe it was the custom of the country, in which case the driver was normal. But when he saw that all the other drivers were laughing as they watched them drive off he began to get worried.
HECTOR AND THE TEMPLE IN THE JUNGLE
THE country that had been ravaged by crazy leaders was still very beautiful. The road threaded its way through lush countryside full of tall trees and pretty wooden houses on stilts. In the shade of the houses you could see people sleeping in hammocks, women squatting as they did the cooking, children at play, dogs wagging their tails and sometimes cows with a hump on their necks and a tendency to cross the road without looking.
Hector said to himself that this country was very beautiful, but at the same time he knew that its beauty came from its poverty, because the moment it became richer, people would want to have ugly concrete houses with moulded plastic balustrades, like in the neighbouring countries, and minimarkets, factories and hoardings would spring up around all the villages. On the other hand, you couldn’t wish it on these people to remain poor.
‘That idiot has taken a wrong turning,’ said Jean-Marcel.
He was following the map while keeping an eye on the driver, and all credit to him as it isn’t easy finding your bearings in a foreign country. He made the driver go back and take the right road because, although he couldn’t speak much Khmer, Jean-Marcel was the sort of person who could make himself understood very well.
Then the driver began driving very fast, which wasn’t a good idea because of the cows, and Jean-Marcel had to tell him rather loudly to slow down.
‘For God’s sake, I don’t know where they dug this one up!’
‘He was the only one who agreed to take us,’ said Hector.
The driver began laughing again.
Jean-Marcel and Hector started talking to pass the time. People found it easy to talk to Hector, and so Jean-Marcel explained to him that things weren’t so good between him and his wife because she didn’t really like him travelling to Asia all the time on business.
‘She knows I’m no saint when I’m away from home. But I really don’t want to split up with her, I want us to stay together.’
Hector showed him what he had written on the plane:
Seedling no. 5: True love is not being unfaithful (even when you want to be).
‘I know,’ said Jean-Marcel with a sigh. ‘But so long as I’m only getting laid and not having a proper affair, I tell myself I’m not really cheating on my wife. What can I do? It’s the way we’re made. I know it’s nothing to be proud of.’
Hector remembered his own thoughts about the air hostess and the pretty waitress at the hotel, and he agreed that it was nothing to be proud of either.
Just then, Jean-Marcel looked at the driver.
‘He’s dropping off, the idiot! We need to keep our eye on him, for God’s sake!’
The temple stood crumbling in the middle of the forest. In fact it was not so much that the temple was in the middle of the forest as that the forest was in the middle of the temple because a few tall trees had grown through some of the walls and you could even see roots, like giant octopus tentacles, curled around a group of statues.
The driver stopped the car in the shade of a tree and watched Jean-Marcel and Hector walk off and, for some reason which only he knew, this made him laugh.
‘I don’t know how you say “pain in the neck” in Khmer, but that’s what he’s giving me,’ said Jean-Marcel.
‘Maybe it’s his way of saying see you later,’ said Hector, who was the kind of person who always liked to smooth things out.
They walked along a little path among the trees leading to the temple. Despite the shade, it was beginning to get very hot.
Hector noticed a small stake painted red next to the path.
‘That means it’s cleared of mines,’ said Jean-Marcel. ‘Everything’s okay.’
Even so, Hector said to himself that the stake wasn’t pointing in any direction, and they couldn’t know if the ground had been cleared before the stake, after the stake or along the whole path.
‘I can see footprints,’ said Jean-Marcel, walking ahead, ‘so there’s no problem.’
Hector told himself that, after all, Jean-Marcel already knew the country and he could be trusted.
They walked into the middle of the ruined temple, taking care anyway to keep to the path.
‘Magnificent!’ said Jean-Marcel.
And it was true. On the crumbling walls beautiful dancers sculpted in stone smiled mysteriously, no doubt because they knew that with those perfect curves they would never be short of lovers of art. Reading the guide to the region, Hector had understood why Professor Cormorant had wanted to come to this temple: it had been built by a prince who, after getting to know one of the dancers intimately, had dedicated it to love. For a moment, he envisaged Clara’s face on the bodies of all the stone dancers, and wondered whether if he built a temple like that just for her she would fall in love with him again. Well, she must still be in love with him a little, mustn’t she?
‘Over here is very beautiful,’ he heard Jean-Marcel’s voice say.
Hector carried on along the path and found Jean-Marcel admiring a large doorway that had become a bit lopsided over time.
The palace must have been magnificent when it was newly built, but now, in ruins, it had a still more poignant charm. A bit like a long-lost love, thought Hector.
Jean-Marcel explained, ‘This temple was in use for a century then they fought and lost a few wars, and the jungle reclaimed it.’
Hector noticed some more little red stakes amid the ruins.
‘Hmm,’ said Jean-Marcel, ‘it’s just for show – they can’t have gone to much trouble to clear mines in here; the mines were laid mainly around the temples.’
Hector wondered whether the temple was going to teach him something or whether he had come here for nothing. Perhaps all he had done was discover the splendour of a lost civilisation, like his might be one day, and Martians might visit the ruins of his city and mistake the remains of traffic lights for icons.
He was having difficulty keeping up with Jean-Marcel, who had begun climbing a big flight of steps the sides of which were collapsing, when, suddenly, they heard female voices.
They saw two young Japanese women walking in one of the upper galleries.
‘They shouldn’t be up there,’ said Jean-Marcel.
‘Because of the mines?’
‘No, because this whole thing is liable to collapse. Even though those Japanese girls don’t look too heavy.’
They gestured to them to come down. The young Japanese women jumped when they saw Hector and Jean-Marcel, then made their way back in their direction, taking very small steps in their Nike trainers, which looked bigger than they were, and their little white sunhats.
The two men introduced themselves to Miko, who spoke very good English, and Chizourou, who spoke none at all.
As Hector was a little hot and was beginning to feel quite tired, he stayed in the