Gabriela may be ingenuous about many things, but she’s still a woman and knows how to get almost anything she wants out of a man. In this case, the button to press is vanity.
“I don’t know why I always wanted this.” The Star has fallen into the trap and is now revealing his more vulnerable side, while, outside, the fans continue to wave. “Often, when I go back to the hotel after an exhausting day’s work, I stand under the shower for ages, just listening to the sound of water falling on my body. Two opposing forces are battling it out inside me: one telling me I should be thanking God and the other telling me I should abandon it all while there’s still time.
“At that moment, I feel like the most ungrateful person in the world. I have my fans, but I can’t be bothered with them. I’m invited to parties that are the envy of the world, and all I want is to leave at once and go back to my room and sit quietly reading a good book. Well-meaning men and women give me prizes, organize events, and do everything to make me happy, and I feel nothing but exhaustion and embarrassment because I don’t believe I deserve all this, I don’t feel worthy of my success. Do you understand?”
For a fraction of a second, Gabriela feels sorry for the man beside her. She imagines the number of parties he must have to attend in a year, and how there must always be someone asking him for a photo or an autograph, someone telling him some tedious story to which he pretends to be listening, someone trying to sell him some new project or embarrassing him with the classic question: “Don’t you remember me?,” someone getting out his mobile phone and asking him to say a few words to his son, wife, or sister. And he must always be the consummate professional, happy, attentive, good-humored, and polite.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, I do, but I wouldn’t mind having those problems one day, although I know I’ve a long way to go before I do.”
Only another four limousines and they’ll be there. The chauffeur tells them to get ready. The Star folds down a small mirror from the roof of the car and adjusts his tie; Gabriela does the same and smooths her hair. She can see a bit of the red carpet now, although the steps are still out of sight. The hysteria has vanished as if by magic, and the crowd is now composed of people wearing identity tags round their necks, talking to each other and taking no notice at all of who is in the cars because they’re tired of seeing the same scene repeated over and over.
Two more cars. Some steps appear to her left. Men in dinner jacket and tie are opening the doors, and the aggressive metal barriers have been replaced by velvet cords looped along bronze and wooden pillars.
“Damn!” cries the Star, making Gabriela jump.
“Damn! Look who’s over there, just getting out of her car!”
Gabriela sees a female Superstar, also wearing a Hamid Hussein dress, who has just stepped onto the red carpet. The Superstar turns her back on the Palais des Congrès, and when Gabriela follows her gaze, she sees the most extraordinary sight. A human wall, almost nine feet high, filled with endlessly flashing lights.
“Good!” says the Star, relieved. “She’s looking in the wrong direction.”
He’s no longer polite and charming and has forgotten all his existential angst. “They’re not the accredited photographers. They’re not important.”
“Why did you say ‘Damn’?”
The Star cannot conceal his irritation. There is one car to go before it’s their turn.
“Can’t you see? What planet are you from, child? When we step onto the red carpet, all the accredited photographers, who are positioned halfway along, will have their cameras aimed at her!”
He turns to the chauffeur and says:
“Slow down!”
The chauffeur points to a man in plainclothes, also wearing an identity tag, and who is signaling to them to keep moving and not hold up the traffic.
The Star sighs deeply; this really isn’t his lucky day. Why did he say all those things to this mere beginner at his side? It’s true that he’s tired of the life he leads, and yet he can’t imagine anything else.
“Don’t rush,” he says. “We’ll try and stay down here for as long as possible. Let’s leave a good space between her and us.”
“Her” was the Superstar.
The couple in the car ahead of them don’t appear to attract as much attention, although they must be important because no one gets as far as those steps without having scaled many mountains in life.
Her companion appears to relax a little, and now it’s Gabriela’s turn to feel tense, not knowing quite how to behave. Her hands are sweating. She grabs the handbag stuffed with paper, breathes deeply, and says a prayer.
“Walk slowly,” says the Star, “and don’t stand too close to me.”
Their limousine draws up alongside the steps. Both doors are opened from outside.
Suddenly, an immense roar seems to fill the universe, shouts coming from all sides—she hadn’t realized until then that she was in a soundproof car and could hear nothing. The Star gets out, smiling, as if his tantrum of two minutes ago had never happened and as if he were still the center of the universe, despite his apparently true confessions to her in the car. He is a man in conflict with himself, his world, and his past, and who cannot now turn back.
“What am I thinking about?” Gabriela tells herself. “I should be concentrating on the moment, on going up the steps!”
They both wave to the “unimportant” photographers and spend some time there. People hold out scraps of paper to him, and he signs autographs and thanks his fans. Gabriela isn’t sure whether she should remain by his side or continue up toward the red carpet and the entrance to the Palais des Congrès; fortunately, she’s saved by someone holding out pen and paper and asking for her autograph.
How she wishes this ceremony were being broadcast live to the whole world and that her mother could see her arriving in that dazzling dress, accompanied by a really famous actor (about whom she’s beginning to have her doubts, but, no, she must drive away such negative thoughts), and see her giving the most important autograph of her twenty-five years of life! She can’t understand the woman’s name, so she smiles and writes something like “with love.”
The Star comes over to her.
“Come on. The way ahead is clear now.”
The woman to whom she has just addressed an affectionate message reads what she’s written and says angrily:
“I don’t want your autograph! I just need your name so that I can identify you in the photo.”
Gabriela pretends not to hear; nothing in the world can destroy this magic moment.
They start going up the steps, with policemen forming a kind of security cordon, even though the public are a long way off now. On either side, on the building’s façade, gigantic plasma screens reveal to the poor mortals outside what is going on in that open-air sanctuary. Hysterical screams and clapping can be heard in the distance. When they reach a broader step, as if they had reached the first floor, she notices another crowd of photographers, except this time, they are properly dressed and are shouting out the Star’s name, asking him to turn this way, no, this way, just one more shot, please, a little closer, look up, look down! Other people pass them and continue up the steps, but the photographers aren’t interested in them. The Star has lost none of his glamour; he looks as if he doesn’t care and jokes around to show how relaxed and at ease he is with all this.
Gabriela notices that the photographers are interested in her too, although, of course, they don’t shout out her name (they’ve no idea who she is), imagining that she must be his new girlfriend. They ask them to stand together so that they can get a photo of the two of them. The Star obliges for a few seconds, but keeps a prudent distance and avoids any physical contact.
Yes, they’ve successfully managed to avoid the Superstar, who will, by now, have reached the door of the Palais des Congrès to be greeted by the president of the Film Festival and the mayor of Cannes.
The Star gestures to her to continue up the stairs,
and she obeys.
She looks ahead and sees another gigantic screen strategically placed so that people can see themselves. A loudspeaker announces:
“And now we have…”
And the voice gives the name of the Star and of his most famous film. Later, someone tells her that everyone inside the room is watching the same scene being shown on the plasma screen outside.
They go up the remaining steps, reach the door, greet the president of the Festival and the mayor, and go inside. The whole thing has lasted less than three minutes.
Now the Star is surrounded by people who want to talk to him and flatter him and take photos (yes, even the chosen take photos of themselves with famous people). It’s suffocatingly hot inside, and Gabriela starts to worry that her makeup will run…
Her makeup!
She had completely forgotten. She’s supposed to go through a door on the left where someone will be waiting for her outside. She walks mechanically down some steps and past a couple of security guards. One of them asks if she’s going outside for a smoke and intends coming back in for the film. She says no and carries on.
She crosses another series of metal barriers and no one asks her anything because she’s leaving, not trying to get in. She can see the backs of the crowd who are still waving and shouting at the limousines that continue to arrive. A man comes toward her, asks her name, and tells her to follow him.
“Can you just wait a minute?”
The man seems surprised, but nods his assent. Gabriela has her eyes fixed on an old carousel, which has possibly been there since the beginning of the last century and which continues to turn, while the children riding it rise up and down.
“Can we go now?” asks the man politely.
“Just one more minute.”
“We’ll be late.”
Gabriela can no longer hold back the tears, the tension, the fear, and the terror of the three minutes she has just lived through. She sobs convulsively, not caring about her makeup now, which someone will fix for her anyway. The man offers her his arm to lean on, so that she won’t stumble in her high heels, and they start walking across the square toward the Boulevard de la Croisette. The noise of the crowd grows ever more distant, and her sobs grow ever louder. She’s crying out all the tears of the day, the week, and the years she had spent dreaming of that moment, and which was over before she could even take in what had happened.
“I’m sorry,” she says to the man accompanying her.
He strokes her hair. His smile reveals affection, understanding, and pity.
7:31 P.M.
He has finally understood that you cannot search out happiness at any price. Life has given him all it could, and he’s beginning to see just how generous life has always been to him. Now and for the rest of his days, he will devote himself to disinterring the treasures hidden in his suffering and enjoying each second of happiness as if it were his last.
He has overcome Temptation. He is protected by the spirit of the girl who understands his mission perfectly, and who is now beginning to open his eyes to the real reason for his trip to Cannes.
For a few moments in that pizzeria, while he was remembering what he’d heard on those tapes, Temptation had accused him of being mentally unbalanced and of believing that anything was permitted in the name of love. His most difficult moment was, thank God, behind him now.
He is a normal person; his work requires discipline, routine, negotiating skills, and planning. Many of his friends say that he’s become more of a loner; what they don’t know is that he’s always been a loner. Going to parties, weddings, and christenings, and pretending to enjoy playing golf on Sundays was merely part of his professional strategy. He’s always loathed the social whirl, with all those people concealing behind their smiles the real sadness in their souls. It didn’t take him long to see that the Superclass are as dependent on their success as an addict is on his drugs, and nowhere near as happy as those who want nothing more than a house, a garden, a child playing, a plate of food on the table, and a fire in winter. Are the latter aware of their limitations, and do they know that life is short and wonder what point there is in going on?
The Superclass tries to promote its values. Ordinary people complain of divine injustice, they envy power, and it pains them to see others having fun. They don’t understand that no one is having fun, that everyone is worried and insecure, and that what the jewels, cars, and fat wallets conceal is a huge inferiority complex.
Igor is a man of simple tastes; indeed, Ewa always complained about the way he dressed. But what’s the point of buying a ridiculously expensive shirt when no one is going to see the label anyway? What’s the point of frequenting fashionable restaurants if nothing of interest is said there? Ewa used to say that he didn’t talk very much at the parties and other work-related events. He tried to change his behavior and be more sociable, but none of it really interested him. He would look at the people around him talking on and on, comparing share prices, boasting about their marvelous new yacht, launching into long disquisitions on Expressionist painting (but really just repeating what a tour guide had told them on a visit to a Paris museum), and stating boldly that one writer is infinitely better than another (basing themselves entirely on the reviews they’ve read because, naturally, they never have time to read fiction).
They are so very cultivated, so very rich, and so utterly charming. And at the end of each day, they all ask themselves: “Is it time I stopped?” And they all reply: “If I did, there would be no meaning to my life.”
As if they actually knew what the meaning of life was.
TEMPTATION HAS LOST THE BATTLE. It wanted to make him believe that he was mad: it’s one thing to plan the sacrifice of certain people, quite another to have the capacity and the courage to carry it out. Temptation said that we all dream of committing crimes, but that only the unbalanced make that macabre idea a reality.
Igor is well-balanced and successful. If he wanted, he could hire a professional killer, the best in the world, to carry out his task and send the requisite messages to Ewa. Or he could hire the best public relations agency in the world, and by the end of the year, he’d be the talk not only of economics journals, but of magazines interested only in success and glamour. At that point, his ex-wife would weigh up the consequences of her mistaken decision, and he would know just the right moment to send her flowers and ask her to come back, all was forgiven. He has contacts at all levels of society, from businessmen who’ve reached the top through perseverance and hard work, to criminals who’ve never had a chance to show their more positive side.
He isn’t in Cannes because he takes a morbid pleasure in seeing the look in a person’s eyes as he or she confronts the inevitable. He’s decided to place himself in the line of fire, in the dangerous position in which he finds himself now, because he’s sure that every step he takes during this seemingly endless day will prove vital if the new Igor who exists within him is to be born again out of the ashes of his tragedy.
He’s always been able to make difficult decisions and to see things through, although no one, not even Ewa, has ever known what went on in the dark corridors of his soul. For many years he endured in silence the threats made by various individuals and groups, and he reacted discreetly when he felt strong enough to rid himself of the people threatening him. He had learned to exercise enormous self-control so as not to be left traumatized by bad experiences. He never took his fears home with him, feeling that Ewa deserved a quiet life and to be kept in ignorance of the terrors that beset any businessman. He chose to save her from that, and yet he received nothing in return, not even understanding.
The girl’s spirit soothes him with that thought, then adds something that hadn’t occurred to him until then: he wasn’t there to win back the person who had left him, but to see, at last, that she wasn’t worth all those years of pain, all those months of planning, all his enormous capacity for forgiveness, generosity, and patience.
He has sent one, two, thre
e messages now, and there’s been no reaction from Ewa. It would be easy enough for her to find out where he’s staying, although, admittedly, phoning the five or six top hotels wouldn’t help because when he checked in, he gave a different name and profession. Then again, she who seeks, finds.
He’s read the statistics. Cannes has only seventy thousand inhabitants, and that number usually triples during the Film Festival, but festivalgoers all haunt the same places. Where would she be staying? Given that he had seen the two of them the previous night, she was probably staying in the same hotel and visiting the same bar. Even so, Ewa isn’t prowling the Boulevard de la Croisette looking for him. She isn’t phoning mutual friends, trying to find out where he is. At least one of those friends has all the necessary information, for Igor had assumed that the woman he thought was the love of his life would contact that friend as soon as she realized Igor was in Cannes. The friend has instructions to tell her how she can find him, but so far, there has been no news.
HE TAKES OFF HIS CLOTHES and gets into the shower. Ewa isn’t worth all this fuss. He’s almost certain that he’ll see her tonight, but this is growing less and less important with each passing moment. Perhaps his mission is about something much more important than simply regaining the love of the woman who betrayed him and who speaks ill of him to other people. The spirit of the girl with the dark eyebrows reminds him of the story told by an old Afghan in a break during a battle.
After many centuries of turmoil and bad government, the population of a city high up on one of the desert mountains of Herat province was in despair. They could not simply abolish the monarchy, and yet neither could they stand many more generations of arrogant, egotistical kings. They summoned the Loya Jirga, as the council of wise men is known locally.
The Loya Jirga decided that they should elect a king every four years, and that this king should have absolute power. He could increase taxes, demand total obedience, choose a different woman to take to his bed each night, and eat and drink his fill. He could wear the finest clothes, ride the finest horses. In short, any order he gave, however absurd, would be obeyed, and no one would question whether it was logical or just.
The Winner Stands Alone Page 26