The Winner Stands Alone (9 page)

Thats impossible. He has no business in Cannes.

She would like to have said: You may be right. Ive just received a text. We should board
the next plane out of here.

Oh, Im quite sure it was him. Hamid notices that his wife is not in the mood to talk. He has been brought up to respect
the privacy of those he loves, and so he makes himself think of something else.

Having first asked Ewas permission, he makes the obligatory phone call to his stockbroker
in New York. He listens patiently for two or three sentences, then politely interrupts any
further news on market trends. The whole call lasts no more than two minutes.

He makes another call to the director he has chosen for his first film. The director is on
his way to the boat to meet with the Star, and yes, a young actress has been chosen and
should be joining them shortly.

He turns to Ewa again, but she still seems disinclined to talk, her gaze absent, staring
out of the limousine windows at nothing. Perhaps shes worried because shell have so little
time at the hotel. Shell have to change immediately and go straight to a rather
insignificant fashion show by a Belgian designer, where Hamid wants to see for himself the
young African model, Jasmine, whom his assistants tell him will be the ideal face for his
next collection.

He wants to know how the girl will survive the pressures of an event in Cannes. If
everything goes to plan, shell be one of his star models at the Fashion Week in Paris set
for October.

Ewa keeps her eyes fixed
on the window, not that shes in- terested in whats going on outside. She knows the gentle,
creative, determined, well-dressed man by her side very well. She knows that he desires
her as no man has ever desired a woman, apart, that is, from the man she left. She can
trust him, even though he lives surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in the
world. Hes an honest, hard- working man who has met and overcome many challenges in order
to be chauffeured around in that limo and to be able to offer her a glass of champagne or
her favorite mineral water. He is powerful and capable of protecting her from any danger,
except one, the worst of all. Her ex-husband.

She doesnt want to arouse suspicions now by picking up her phone again to reread the
message; she knows the message by heart.

I have destroyed a world for you, Katyusha.

She has no idea what these words mean, but no one else would call her by that name.

She has taught herself to love Hamid, although she detests the life he leads, the parties
they go to, and his friends. She doesnt know yet if she has succeeded in making herself
love him; there are moments when she feels almost suicidal with despair. All she knows is
that he was her salvation at a time when she thought she was lost forever, incapable of
escaping the trap of her marriage.

Many years before, she had
fallen in love with an angel with a sad childhood, who had been called up into the Soviet
army to fight in an absurd war in Afghanistan only to return to a country verging on
collapse. Despite this, he had overcome all difficulties to succeed. He began to work very
hard, getting loans from some very shady people, then lying awake at night, worrying about
the risk he was taking and wondering how he could ever repay those loans. He put up
uncomplainingly with the endemic corruption, accepting that he would have to bribe a
government official each time he needed a new license for a product that would improve the
quality of life of his own people. He was idealistic and affectionate. By day, his
leadership went unquestioned because life had taught him how to lead, and military service
had helped him understand exactly how hierarchies work. At night, he would cling to her
and ask her to protect and advise him, to pray for everything to go well and for him to
avoid the many traps that lay in his path each day.

Ewa would stroke his hair and assure him that everything was fine, that he was a good man,
and that God always rewarded the just.

Gradually, the difficulties gave way to opportunities. The small business he had
startedafter almost begging people to sign con- tractsbegan to grow because he was one of
the few to have invested in something that no one believed could work in a country still
plagued by near-obsolete communication networks. The government changed and corruption
diminished. Money began to come in, slowly at first, then in vast quantities. However, they never forgot the difficult times they had been
through and never wasted a penny. They made contri- butions to charities and to
associations for ex-soldiers; they lived un- ostentatiously, dreaming of the day when they
could put it all behind them and go and live in a house away from the world. When that
hap- pened, they would forget that they had once been obliged to have deal- ings with
people who had no ethics and no dignity. They spent much of their time in airports,
planes, and hotels; they worked eighteen hours a day, and for years never managed to take
a months holiday together.

They nurtured the same dream: the moment would come when that frenetic pace of life would
be but a distant memory. The scars from that period would be like medals won in a war
waged in the name of faith and dreams. After all, each human beingor so she believed then
had been born to love and to live with their beloved.

The whole process of finding work was suddenly turned on its head. Instead of them having
to hunt down contracts, they began to appear spontaneously. Her husband was featured on
the front cover of an im- portant business magazine, and the local bigwigs started sending
them invitations to parties and events. They began to be treated like royalty, and ever
greater quantities of money flowed in.

They had to adapt to these changed circumstances: they bought a beautiful house in Moscow,
a house with every possible comfort. For reasons she didnt and preferred not to know, her
husbands old associ- ates ended up in prison. (These were the same associates who had made
those initial loans, of which, despite the exorbitant interest rates, Igor had paid back
every penny.) From then on, Igor began to be accom- panied everywhere by bodyguards, only
two at firstfellow veterans and friends from the Afghan warbut they were later joined by
others as the small company grew into a multinational giant with branches in several
countries in seven different time zones, making ever more and ever more diverse
investments.

Ewa spent her days in shopping malls or having tea with friends, who always talked about
the same things. Igor, of course, wanted to go further . . . and further. After all, he
had only got where he was by dint of ambition and hard work. Whenever she asked if they
had not gone far beyond what they had planned and if it wasnt time to realize their dream of
living only on the love they felt for each other, he always asked for a little more time.
And he began to drink more heavily. One night, he came home after a long supper with
friends during which much wine and vodka had been drunk, and she could contain her feel-
ings no longer. She said she couldnt stand the empty existence she was leading; if she
didnt do something soon, she would go mad. Wasnt she satisfied with what she had, asked
Igor.

Yes, Im satisfied, but the problem is youre not, and never will be. Youre insecure, afraid
of losing everything youve achieved; you dont know how to quit once youre ahead. Youll end
up destroying your- self. Youre killing our marriage and my love.

This wasnt the first time she had spoken thus to her husband; they had always been very
honest with each other, but she felt she was reach- ing a limit. She had had enough of the
shopping and the tea parties and the ghastly television programs that she watched while
waiting for him to come home from work.

Dont say that, dont say Im killing our love. I promise that soon well leave all this
behind us, just be patient. Perhaps you should start some project of your own because your
life at the moment really must be pretty hellish.

At least he recognized that. What would you like to do? he asked. Yes, she thought,
perhaps that would be a way out. Id like to work with fashion. Thats always been my dream.
Her husband immediately granted her wish. The following week, he turned up with the keys to a shop in one of the best shopping malls in Moscow. Ewa was
thrilled. Her life took on new meaning; the long days and nights spent waiting would be
over for good. She borrowed money, and Igor invested enough in the business for her to
have a good chance of success.

Suppers and partieswhere she had always felt like an outsider took on a new interest for
her. In just two years, thanks to contacts made at such social events, she was running the
most successful haute- couture shop in Moscow. Although she had a joint account with her husband, and he never questioned how much she spent, she made a point of paying back the
money he had lent her. She started going off on business trips alone, looking for new
designs and exclusive brands. She took on staff, got to grips with the accounts, and
becameto her own surprisean excellent businesswoman.

Igor had taught her everything. He was a great role model, an ex- ample to be followed.
And just as everything was going so well and her life had taken on new meaning, the Angel
of Light that had lit her path began to waver.

They were in a restaurant
inIrkutsk,afterspendingaweek- end in a fishing village on the shores of Lake Baikal. By
that stage, the company owned two planes and a helicopter, so that they could travel as
far as they liked and be back on Monday to start all over again. Nei- ther of them
complained about spending so little time together, but it was clear that the many years of
struggle were beginning to take their toll. Still, they knew that their love was stronger
than everything else, and, as long as they were together, they would be all right.

In the middle of a candlelit supper, a drunken beggar came into the restaurant, walked
over to their table, sat down, and began to talk, interrupting their precious moment
alone, far from the hustle and bustle of Moscow. A minute later, the owner offered to
remove him, but Igor said he would take care of it. The beggar grew animated, picked up
their bottle of vodka and drank from it; then he started asking questions (Who are you?
How come youve got so much money, when we all live in such poverty here?) and generally
complaining about life and about the government. Igor put up with this for a few more
minutes.

Then he got to his feet, took the man by the arm, and led him out- side (the restaurant
was in an unpaved street). His two bodyguards were waiting for him. Ewa saw through the
window that her husband barely spoke to them, apart from issuing some order along the
lines of Keep an eye on my wife and headed off toward a small side street. He came back a
few minutes later, smiling.

Well, he wont bother anyone again, he said.

Ewa noticed a different light in his eyes; they seemed filled by an immense joy, far
greater than any joy he had shown during the week- end they had spent together.

What did you do?

Igor did not reply, but simply called for more vodka. They both drank steadily into the
nighthe happy and smiling and she choos- ing to understand only what she wanted to
understand. He had always been so generous with those less fortunate than himself, so
perhaps he had given the man money to help him out of his poverty.

When they went back to the hotel, he said:

Its something I learned in my youth, when I was fighting in an unjust war for an ideal I
didnt believe in. Theres always a way of put- ting an end to poverty.

No, Igor cant be here
in Cannes. Hamid must have made a mistake. The two men had only met once before, in the
foyer of the building where they lived in London, when Igor had found out their address
and gone there to beg Ewa to come back. Hamid had spoken to him, but hadnt allowed him to
come in, threatening to call the police. For a whole week, she had refused to leave their
apartment, claiming to have a headache, but knowing that the Angel of Light had turned
into Absolute Evil.

She looks at her phone again and rereads the message.

Katyusha. Only one person would call her by that name. The person who lives in her past
and will terrorize her present for the rest of her life, however protected she feels,
however far away she lives, and even though she inhabits a world to which he has no
access. The same person who, on their return from Irkutskas if he had sloughed off an
enormous weighthad begun to speak more freely about the shadows that inhabited his soul.

No one, absolutely no one, can threaten our privacy. Weve spent long enough creating a
fairer, more humane society. Anyone who fails to respect our moments of freedom should be
removed in such a way that theyll never even consider coming back. Ewa was afraid to ask what in such a way meant. She had thought she knew her husband, but
from one moment to the next, it seemed that a submerged volcano had begun to roar, and the
shock waves were getting stronger and stronger. She remembered certain late-night con-
versations with him when he was still a young man and how he had told her that, during the
war in Afghanistan, he had sometimes been forced to kill in self-defense. She had never
seen regret or remorse in his eyes.

I survived, and thats what matters. My life could have ended one sunny afternoon, or at
dawn in the snow-covered mountains, or one night when we were playing cards in our tent,
confident that the situa- tion was under control. And if I had died, nothing would have
changed in the world. I would have been just another statistic for the army and another
medal for my family.

But Jesus helped me, and I was blessed with quick reactions. And because I survived the
hardest tests a man can face, fate has given me the two most important things in life:
success at work and the person I love.

It was one thing killing in order to save your own life, but quite another to remove for
good some poor drunk who had interrupted their supper and who could easily have been
shepherded away by the restaurant owner. She couldnt get the idea out of her head. She
started going ever earlier to the shop and, when she came home, sitting at her computer
until late into the night. There was a question she wanted to avoid. She managed to carry
on like this for some months, follow- ing the usual routine: business trips, parties,
suppers, meetings, char- ity auctions. She even wondered if she had misunderstood what her
husband had said in Irkutsk and blamed herself for making such a snap judgment.