The Winner Stands Alone

by Paulo Coelho; Margaret Jull Costa

  “Listen, Jasmine, there are thousands and millions of people who would like to be in your position. You were chosen by one of Antwerp’s finest photographers, you’ll have the help of the best professionals, and I will personally manage your career. On the other hand, as with everything else in life, you have to believe that you’re going to succeed and, for that to happen, you need to invest money. I know you’re beautiful enough to enjoy great success as a model, but that isn’t enough in this highly competitive world. You have to be the best, and that costs money, at least to begin with.”

  “But if you think I have all those qualities, why don’t you invest your money in me?”

  “I will later on. At the moment, we need to know just how committed you are. I want to be sure that you really do want to be a professional model or if you’re just another young woman excited by the possibility of traveling, seeing the world, and finding a rich husband.”

  The woman’s tone of voice had grown severe. The photographer returned from the studio end of the room.

  “It’s the makeup artist. She wants to know what time she should arrive tomorrow.”

  “If the money’s essential, I can probably…” Jasmine’s mother began to say, but Jasmine had got up and was walking over to the door, without shaking hands with either the woman or the photographer.

  “Thank you very much, but I don’t have that kind of money, and even if I did, I would spend it on something else.”

  “But it’s your future!”

  “Precisely. It’s my future, not yours.”

  JASMINE BURST INTO TEARS AFTERWARD. First, she had gone to that expensive boutique where they’d not only been rude to her, but implied that she was lying when she said she’d met the owner. Then, just when she thought she was about to start a new life and had discovered the perfect new name for herself, she learned that it would cost her two thousand euros just to take the first step!

  Mother and daughter made their way home in silence. Jasmine’s mobile rang several times, but she just glanced at the number and put the phone back in her pocket.

  “Why don’t you answer it? We’ve got another appointment this afternoon, haven’t we?”

  “Because we don’t have two thousand euros.”

  Her mother grasped Jasmine’s shoulders. She knew what a fragile state her daughter was in and had to do something.

  “Yes, we do. I’ve worked every day since your father died, and we do have two thousand euros. We have more than that if you need it. Cleaners earn good money here in Europe because no one here wants to clean up other people’s messes. Besides, we’re talking about your future. We can’t go home now.”

  The phone rang again. Jasmine became Cristina again and did as her mother asked. The woman she had the appointment with that afternoon was ringing to apologize and explain that another commitment meant that she would be a couple of hours late for their meeting.

  “That’s all right,” said Cristina. “But before you waste any more time, I’d like to know how much it’s going to cost me.”

  “How much it’s going to cost?”

  “Yes. I’ve just had a meeting with another photographer and he and his colleague were going to charge me two thousand euros for the photos, the makeup…”

  The woman at the other end laughed.

  “No, it won’t cost you anything. That’s an old trick. We can talk about it when we meet.”

  HER STUDIO WAS SIMILAR TO the one they’d visited that morning, but the conversation they had was completely different. She asked Cristina why she looked so much sadder than when they’d first met; she clearly still remembered their initial encounter. Cristina told her what had happened with the other photographer, and the woman explained that it was common practice and one that the authorities were trying to clamp down on. At that very moment, in many places around the world, relatively pretty girls were being invited to reveal “the full potential of their beauty” and paying through the nose for the privilege. On the pretext of looking for new talent, agencies would rent rooms in luxury hotels, fill them with photographic equipment, promise the would-be models at least one fashion show a year or their money back, charge a fortune for any photos they took, call in failed professionals to act as makeup artists and hairdressers, suggest enrollment in particular modeling schools, and then, quite often, disappear without a trace. The studio Cristina had visited was, in fact, a genuine one, but she’d been quite right to reject their offer.

  “They’re appealing to people’s vanity, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong in that, as long as the person involved knows what they’re getting into. It’s not something that only happens in the world of fashion either, it goes on in other areas too: writers publishing their own books, painters sponsoring their own exhibitions, film directors who go into debt in order to buy their place in the sun with one of the big studios, girls your age who leave home and go to the big city to work as waitresses, hoping to be discovered one day by a producer who’ll propel them to stardom.”

  No, they wouldn’t take any photos now. She needed to get to know Cristina better; pressing the camera button was the last stage in a long process that began with uncovering your subject’s soul. They arranged to meet the following day to talk more.

  “You need to choose a name.”

  “It’s Jasmine Tiger.”

  Yes, her love of life had returned.

  THE PHOTOGRAPHER INVITED HER TO spend the weekend at her beach house near the Dutch border, and they spent eight hours a day experimenting with the camera.

  She expected Jasmine to reveal on her face a whole range of emotions suggested by words such as “fire,” “seduction,” “water.” Jasmine had to try and show both sides of her soul, good and bad. She had to look down, straight ahead, to the side, to stare off into space. She had to imagine seagulls and demons. She had to imagine she’d been attacked by a group of older men and left in the restroom in a bar, having been raped by one or more of them; she had to be sinner and saint, perverse and innocent.

  Some photos were taken out in the open, and even though her body was freezing, she was able to react to each stimulus, to obey each suggestion. They also used a small studio set up in one of the rooms so that the photographer could play around with different types of music and lighting. Jasmine would do her own makeup, while the photographer did her hair.

  “Am I any good?” Jasmine would ask. “Why are you spending so much time on me?”

  But all the photographer would say was: “We’ll talk about that later,” and then spend the rest of the evening looking at the work they’d done that day, thinking and making notes, but never commenting on whether she was pleased or disappointed with the results.

  Not until Monday morning did Jasmine (for Cristina was definitively dead by then) get an opinion. They were waiting at Brussels station for the connection to Antwerp when the photographer suddenly said:

  “You’re the best model I’ve ever worked with.”

  “You’re joking.”

  The woman looked at her in surprise, then said:

  “No, really, you are. I’ve been working in this field for twenty years now; I’ve taken photographs of countless people; I’ve worked with professional models and film actors, all of them highly experienced, but none of them had your ability to express emotion. And do you know what that’s called? Talent. In certain professions, talent is quite easy to measure: managing directors who can turn around a business on the verge of bankruptcy and make it a going concern again; sportsmen who break records; artists whose work lives on for at least two generations; so how can I be so sure about you as a model? Because I’m a professional. You’ve managed to show your angels and your demons through the lens of a camera, and that’s not easy. I’m not talking about young people who like to dress up as vampires and go to Goth parties; I’m not talking about girls who put on an innocent air to try to arouse the pedophile in men. I’m talking about real demons and real angels.”

  The station was full of p
eople walking back and forth. Jasmine looked at the train timetable and suggested they go outside. She was dying for a cigarette, and smoking was forbidden within the station precinct. She was wondering whether she should say what was going on inside her just then.

  “It may be that I do have talent, but if I do, there’s only one reason I was able to show that talent. You know, during all the time we’ve spent together, you’ve never said anything about your private life and never asked about mine. Do you want me to help you with your luggage, by the way? Photography’s basically a profession for men, isn’t it? There’s always so much equipment to lug around.”

  The woman laughed.

  “There’s nothing much to say, really, except that I adore my work. I’m thirty-eight, divorced, no kids, but with enough good contacts to be able to earn a comfortable living, but not to live in any great luxury. There’s something else I must add to what I said: if everything goes to plan you must never ever behave like someone who depends on her profession to survive, even if it’s true. If you don’t follow my advice, you’ll be easily manipulated by the system. Obviously, I’ll use your photos and earn money with them, but from now on, I’d suggest you get yourself a professional agent.”

  Jasmine lit another cigarette; it was now or never.

  “Do you know why I was able to show my talent? Because of something I never imagined would happen in my life: I’ve fallen in love with a woman, a woman I would like to have by my side, guiding whatever steps I need to take, a woman who with her gentleness and her rigor managed to get inside my soul and release both the best and the worst that lie in those subterranean depths. She didn’t do this by long instruction in meditation techniques or through psychoanalysis—which is what my mother thinks I need—she used…”

  She paused. She felt afraid, but she had to go on. She had nothing now to lose.

  “She used a camera.”

  Time stood still. The other people outside the station stopped moving, all noise ceased, the wind dropped, her cigarette smoke hung in the hair, the lights went out—there were just two pairs of eyes shining brighter than ever and fixed on each other.

  “YOU’RE READY,” SAYS THE MAKEUP artist.

  Jasmine looks up and sees her partner pacing up and down in the improvised dressing room. She must be feeling nervous; after all, this is her first fashion show in Cannes, and if it goes well, she might get a fat contract with the Belgian government.

  Jasmine feels like going over and reassuring her, telling her that everything will be fine, as it always has been before. She might get a response along the lines of: “You’re only nineteen, what do you know about life?”

  She would reply: “I know what your capabilities are, just as you know mine. I know about the relationship that changed our lives one day three years ago, outside a train station, when you gently touched my cheek. Do you remember how frightened we both were? But we survived that first feeling of fear. And thanks to that relationship, I’m here now; and you, as well as being an excellent photographer, are doing what you always dreamed of doing: designing and making clothes.”

  She knows it’s best not to say anything. Telling a person to calm down only makes them even more nervous.

  She goes over to the window and lights another cigarette. She’s smoking too much, but then why shouldn’t she? This is her first major fashion show in France.

  4:43 P.M.

  A young woman in a black suit and white blouse opens the door. She asks for her name, checks the list, and says she’ll have to wait a little; the suite is currently occupied. Two men and another woman, possibly younger than her, are also waiting.

  They all wait their turn in silence. “How long will this take? What exactly am I doing here?” Gabriela asks herself and hears two responses.

  The first reminds her that she must keep going. Gabriela, the optimist, the one who has persevered in order to reach stardom and now needs to think about the première, the invitations, the flights by private jet, the posters put up in all the world’s capitals, the photographers on permanent watch outside her house, interested in what she’s wearing and where she buys her clothes, and in the identity of the blond hunk she was seen with in some fashionable nightclub. Then there will be the victorious return to the town where she was born, the astonished friends eyeing her enviously, and the charitable projects she intends to support.

  The second response reminds her that Gabriela the optimist, the one who has persevered in order to reach stardom, is now walking along a knife edge from which it would be all too easy to slip and plunge into the abyss. Hamid Hussein doesn’t even know of her existence; no one has ever seen her made up and ready for a party; the dress might not be her size, it might need adjusting, and then she might arrive late for her meeting at the Martinez. She’s twenty-five years old, and, who knows, they might be interviewing some other candidate right now on that same yacht or they might have changed their minds; in fact, perhaps that was the idea: to talk to two or three possible candidates and see which of them stood out from the crowd. All three of them might be invited to the party, unaware of each other’s existence.

  Paranoia.

  No, it isn’t paranoia, she’s just being realistic. Even the fact that Gibson and the Star only ever got involved in major projects was no guarantee of success. And if anything went wrong, it would all be her fault. The ghost of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland is still there. Perhaps she isn’t as talented as she thinks, just very hardworking. She hasn’t been as lucky as some others; nothing of great importance has so far happened in her life, despite fighting day and night, night and day. She hasn’t stopped since arriving in Cannes: distributing her extremely expensive book to various casting companies and getting only one audition. If she really was that special, she would now be having to decide which of several roles to accept. She’s getting above herself and will soon know the taste of defeat, all the more bitter because she has come so close and dipped her toes in the ocean of fame…only to fail.

  “I’m attracting bad vibrations. I know they’re out there. I must get a grip on myself.”

  She can’t do any yoga exercises in front of that woman in the suit and the three other people waiting in silence. She needs to drive away those negative thoughts, but where exactly are they coming from? According to what she’s read—and she had read a lot on the subject at a time when she felt she was failing to achieve as much as she could because of other people’s envy—it was likely that another actress who had been rejected was, at that moment, focusing all her energies on getting the role back. Yes, she could feel it, it was true! The only escape is to make her mind leave that corridor and go off in search of her Higher Self, which is connected to all the forces of the universe.

  She breathes deeply, smiles, and says to herself:

  “I am spreading the energy of love all around me; it is more powerful than the forces of darkness; the God in me greets the God who lives in all the inhabitants of the planet, even those who…”

  She hears someone laugh. The door to the suite opens, and a group of smiling, happy young people of both sexes, accompanied by two female celebrities, are leaving and heading for the lift. The two men and the woman go into the room, collect the dozens of bags left beside the door, and join the group waiting for them by the lift. They must be assistants, chauffeurs, secretaries.

  “It’s your turn,” says the woman in the suit.

  “Meditation never fails,” thinks Gabriela.

  She smiles confidently at the receptionist, but the suite itself almost takes her breath away. It’s like an Aladdin’s cave, full of rail upon rail of clothes, and all kinds of pairs of glasses, handbags, jewelry, beauty products, watches, shoes, tights, and electronic devices. A blonde woman comes to meet her; she has a list in one hand and a mobile phone on a chain around her neck. She takes Gabriela’s name and says:

  “Follow me. We haven’t much time, so let’s get straight down to business.”

  They go into one of the ot
her rooms, and Gabriela sees still more luxurious, glamorous treasures, things she has only ever seen in shop windows, but never had a chance to see close up, except when worn by someone else.

  Yes, all this awaits her. She needs to be quick and decide exactly what she’s going to wear.

  “Can I start with the jewelry?”

  “You don’t get to choose anything. We know exactly what HH wants. And you’ll have to return the dress to us tomorrow.”

  HH. Hamid Hussein knows what he wants her to wear!

  They cross the room. The bed and the other furniture are cluttered with more products: T-shirts, spices and seasonings, a picture of a well-known make of coffee machine, several of which are wrapped up as presents. They go down a corridor and through the doors into an even larger room. She had no idea hotel suites could be so big.

  “This is the Temple.”

  An elegant long white poster bearing the designer’s logo has been placed above the vast double bed. An androgynous creature—whether male or female, Gabriela cannot tell—is waiting for them in silence. The creature is extremely thin, with drab, straggly hair, shaven eyebrows, beringed fingers, and is wearing skin-tight trousers adorned with various chains.

  “Get undressed.”

  Gabriela takes off her blouse and her jeans, still trying to guess the gender of the creature who has now gone over to one of the dress rails and selected a red dress.

  “Take your bra off too. It makes bulges under the dress.”

  There’s a large mirror in the room, but it’s turned away from her and so she can’t see how the dress looks.

  “We need to be quick. Hamid said that as well as going to the party, she has to go up the steps.”

  Go up the steps!

  The magic words.