The Winner Stands Alone

by Paulo Coelho; Margaret Jull Costa

  Did she know how to manipulate men? Yes. They all thought she was strong and confident, mistress of her own destiny, that she was capable of leaving any man, however important or eligible. And the worst thing was that men believed it. Men like Igor and like Hamid. Because she knew how to pretend, because she never said exactly what she was thinking, because she was the best actress in the world and knew better than anyone how to hide her vulnerable side.

  “What do you want?” he asks in Russian.

  “More wine.”

  He sounded as if he didn’t much care what answer she gave; he had already said what he wanted.

  “Before you left, I said something to you, but I think you must have forgotten.”

  He had said so many things: “I promise that I’ll change and start working less,” “You’re the only woman I love,” “If you leave, it will destroy me,” words familiar to everyone and which are utterly devoid of meaning.

  “I said: If you leave me, I’ll destroy a world.”

  She couldn’t remember him saying this, but it was perfectly possible. Igor had always been a very bad loser.

  “But what does that mean?” she asks in Russian.

  “At least be polite enough to speak in English,” says Hamid.

  Igor turns to face him.

  “I will speak English, not out of politeness, but because I want you to understand.”

  And turning back to Ewa, he says:

  “I said I would destroy a whole world to get you back. I started doing that, but was saved by an angel. I realized that you didn’t deserve it. You’re a selfish, implacable woman, interested only in acquiring more fame and more money. You refused all the good things I offered you because a house deep in the Russian countryside didn’t fit in with your dream world, a world, by the way, to which you don’t belong and never will.

  “I sacrificed myself and others for your sake, and that’s not right. I need to go to the very end, so that I can return to the world of the living with a sense of duty done and mission completed. Now, as we speak, I’m in the world of the dead.”

  THIS MAN’S EYES ARE FILLED with a look of Absolute Evil, thinks Hamid, as he listens to this absurd conversation, full of long silences. Fine, he’ll let things go to the very end, as Igor suggests, as long as that doesn’t mean him losing the woman he loves. Even better for him, Ewa’s ex-husband has not only turned up accompanied by some vulgar woman, he has insulted Ewa to her face. He’ll allow him to go on a little longer and will know when to bring the conversation to a halt, when it’s too late for Igor to apologize or to beg forgiveness.

  Ewa must be seeing the same thing: a blind hatred for everything and everyone, simply because one person didn’t do as he wished. He wonders what he would have done were he that man who is now apparently fighting for the woman he loves.

  He would, he thinks, be capable of killing for her.

  The waiter reappears and notices that the plates are all untouched.

  “Is anything wrong with the food?” he asks.

  No one answers. The waiter understands: the husband must have caught his wife in flagrante with her lover in Cannes, and this is the final confrontation. He’s seen it all before, and it usually ends in a fight or a row.

  “Another bottle of wine,” says one of the men.

  “You don’t deserve anything,” says the other man, his eyes fixed on the woman. “You used me just as you’re using that idiot beside you. You were the biggest mistake of my life.”

  The waiter decides to check with the host before bringing them that other bottle of wine, but one of the men has just got to his feet, saying to the woman:

  “That’s enough. We’re leaving.”

  “Yes, let’s all leave, let’s go outside,” says the other man. “I want to see how far you would go to defend a person who doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘honor’ and ‘dignity.’”

  Two males fighting over a female. The woman asks them not to go outside, but to return to the table. The man with her, however, seems ready to respond to the insult. The waiter considers warning the security guards that a fight might ensue, but the head waiter is already complaining that the service is too slow, so what is he doing hanging around there? He has other tables to serve. He’s right, of course. What happens outside isn’t his problem. And if he admits to listening in on a conversation, he’ll get told off. He’s being paid to wait at tables, not to save the world.

  THE THREE OF THEM CROSS the garden where the cocktails had been served and which is now undergoing a rapid transformation. When the guests come down from supper, they’ll find a dance floor lit with special lights, a seating area furnished with armchairs, and several small bars all serving free drinks.

  Igor walks ahead in silence. Ewa follows, and Hamid brings up the rear. There is a small metal gate at the top of the steps down to the beach. Igor opens it and asks them to go first. Ewa refuses, but he seems not to mind and goes down the many flights of steps that lead to the sea below. He knows that Hamid will not prove to be a coward. Until he met him at the party, he had considered him to be nothing but an unscrupulous couturier, a seducer of married women, and a manipulator of other people’s vanity. Now, however, he secretly admires him. He’s a real man, capable of fighting to the end for someone he believes to be important, even though Igor knows that Ewa hasn’t one iota of the talent of the young actress he met tonight. She can’t disguise her feelings at all; he can sense her fear, he knows that she’s sweating, wondering whom to call, how to ask for help.

  WHEN THEY REACH THE SAND, Igor walks right to the end of the beach and sits down close to some rocks. He asks the others to do the same. He knows that despite her terror, Ewa is also thinking: “I’m going to spoil my dress. I’m going to get my shoes dirty.” But she sits down beside him. The other man asks her to move over a little, so that he can sit there, but she won’t budge.

  He doesn’t insist. There they are, the three of them, as if they were old acquaintances in search of a moment’s peace in which to contemplate the rising of the full moon before they go back up the steps to listen to the infernal racket of the discotheque.

  HAMID PROMISES HIMSELF THAT HE will give Igor ten minutes, time enough for him to say everything that’s on his mind, to vent his rage and then go back where he came from. If he turns violent, he’ll be the loser because Hamid is physically stronger and, as a Bedouin, trained to respond swiftly and precisely to any attack. He doesn’t want to cause a scene at the party, but the Russian should be under no illusion: he is prepared for anything.

  When they go back up, he’ll apologize to their host and explain that the situation has been resolved. He knows he can speak openly to him. He’ll tell him that his wife’s ex-husband had turned up without warning and that he’d felt it best to remove him before he caused any trouble. If the man doesn’t leave as soon as they return to the party, he’ll summon one of his own bodyguards to expel him. Igor may well be rich and own one of the largest mobile phone companies in Russia, but he’s being a nuisance.

  “You betrayed me, not just during the two years you’ve spent with this man, but during all the years we spent together.”

  Ewa says nothing.

  “What would you be capable of doing in order to keep her?” he asks Hamid.

  Hamid wonders whether he should answer or not. Ewa isn’t a piece of merchandise to be haggled over.

  “Can you rephrase the question?”

  “OK. Would you give your life for the woman beside you?”

  There is pure evil in the man’s eyes. Even if Igor had managed to steal a knife from the restaurant (Hamid hadn’t noticed him doing so, but he must consider all possibilities), he will have no problem disarming him. No, he wouldn’t give his life for anyone, except God and the chief of his tribe, but he must say something.

  “I would fight for her and, if it came to it, I think I would be capable of killing for her.”

  Ewa can stand the pressure no longer; she would like to say everyt
hing she knows about the man on her right. She is sure that he murdered the actor and destroyed her new companion’s long-cherished dream of becoming a film producer.

  “Let’s go back up.”

  What she really wants to say is: “Please, let’s get out of here now. You’re talking to a psychopath.”

  Igor appears not to hear what she said.

  “You’d be capable of killing for her, so that means you’d be capable of dying for her too.”

  “If I fought and lost, yes, I think I would. But let’s not start a fight here on the beach.”

  “I want to go back up to the party,” says Ewa again.

  Hamid, however, feels his male pride is in question. He can’t leave there like a coward. The ancient dance performed by males—humans and animals—in order to impress the female is just beginning.

  “When you left, I somehow couldn’t be myself,” says Igor, as if he were alone on the beach. “My business was prospering, and I could keep control of myself during the day, but at night, I would plunge into black depression. I had lost a part of myself I could never recover. I thought I might be able to do that by coming here to Cannes, but when I arrived, I realized that the part of me that had died couldn’t and shouldn’t be resuscitated. I’ll never take you back, not even if you came to me on bended knee, begging forgiveness and threatening suicide.”

  Ewa breathed easier; at least there wouldn’t be a fight.

  “You didn’t understand my messages. I said I would be capable of destroying whole worlds, and you didn’t get it. Or if you did, you couldn’t believe it. What does it mean to destroy a world?”

  He puts his hand in his trouser pocket and takes out a small gun. He doesn’t point it at anyone, though; his eyes remain fixed on the sea and the moon. The blood starts to flow faster in Hamid’s veins. Igor either wants to frighten and humiliate them or this really is a fight to the death. But will he kill them there, at the party, knowing that he’ll be arrested as soon as he goes back up the steps? He can’t be that mad; if he were, he could never have achieved all he has achieved in life.

  Enough distractions. He is a warrior trained to defend himself and to attack. He must stay absolutely still because, although the other man isn’t looking directly at him, he knows that his senses will be alert to any gesture.

  The only part of his body he can safely move is his eyes, and he can see that there is no one else on the beach. Up above, the band is just beginning to tune their instruments, preparing for the most enjoyable segment of the party. Hamid isn’t thinking, his instincts are now focused on acting without the interference of his brain.

  Ewa is sitting between him and Igor, and she seems hypnotized by the sight of the gun. If he tries anything, Igor will turn and shoot and she might get hit.

  Yes, perhaps his first hypothesis was correct. Igor just wants to frighten them, to force Hamid to show himself to be a coward and lose his honor. If he really wanted to shoot them, he wouldn’t be holding the gun in that casual manner. It would be best to talk and try to get him to relax a little, while he thinks of some way out.

  “What does destroying a world mean?” he asks.

  “Destroying a life. A whole universe gone. Everything that person saw and experienced; all the good and the bad that came his way; all his dreams, hopes, defeats, and victories ceasing to exist. As children, we learned by heart a passage which I only later found out came from a Protestant priest. He said something like: ‘When the sea bears away into its depths a single grain of sand, the whole of Europe grows smaller.’ We don’t notice, of course. After all, it’s just a grain of sand, but at that very moment the continent is diminished.”

  Igor pauses. He’s starting to feel irritated with the noise from up above; the sound of the waves was so calming, allowing him to treat this moment with the respect it deserves. The angel with the dark eyebrows is watching and is happy with what she sees.

  “It was supposed to teach us that we were responsible for creating the perfect society, namely Communism,” he goes on. “We were all brothers and sisters, they said, but, in fact, we were spies trained to betray each other.”

  He becomes calm and thoughtful again.

  “I can’t quite hear you.”

  This will give him a reason to move.

  “Of course you can. You know that I have a gun in my hand and you want to come closer to see if you can grab it off me. You’re trying to engage me in conversation in order to distract me while you consider what to do. Please, don’t move. The moment hasn’t yet come.”

  “Igor, let’s just drop the whole thing,” Ewa says in Russian. “I love you. Let’s go away together.”

  “Speak in English. Your companion here needs to understand what you’re saying.”

  Yes, he would understand, and later on, he would thank her for it.

  “I love you,” she says again, in English this time. “I never received your messages. If I had, I would have come running back. I tried several times to phone you, but never got through. I left many messages with your secretary, but you never called me.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Ever since I started getting your messages today, I’ve been longing to see you again. I didn’t know where you were, but I knew that you would come and find me. I know you don’t want to forgive me, but at least allow me to live by your side. I can be your servant, your cleaner, I’ll look after you and your lover, should you ever decide to take one. All I want is to be with you.”

  She’ll explain everything to Hamid later. She has to say something, anything, just to get them out of there and back up the steps to the real world, where there are policemen who can stop Absolute Evil from revealing its hatred.

  “I’d like to believe that, or, rather, I’d like to believe that I love you too and want you back, but I don’t. Besides, I think you’re lying and that you always lied.”

  Hamid isn’t listening to what either of them is saying; his mind is far away with his warrior ancestors, asking for inspiration to make the right move.

  “You could have told me that our marriage wasn’t working out as we both hoped. We had built so much together; couldn’t we have found a solution? There’s always a way of allowing happiness in, but for that to happen, both partners have to acknowledge there are problems. I would have listened to what you had to say. Our marriage would have regained all its initial excitement and joy. But you didn’t want to do that, you chose the easy way out.”

  “I was always afraid of you, and now, seeing you with that gun in your hand, I’m even more afraid.”

  Hamid is brought abruptly back to earth by Ewa’s last comment. His soul is no longer somewhere in space, asking advice from the warriors of the desert, trying to find out how he should act.

  She can’t have said that. She’s handing over power to the enemy; now he’ll know that he’s capable of terrifying her.

  “I would like to have invited you to supper one day and tell you that I felt so alone, despite all the banquets, jewels, journeys, and meetings with kings and presidents,” Ewa says. “Do you know something else? You always brought me really expensive presents, but never the simplest gift of all—flowers.”

  This is turning into a marital argument.

  “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

  Igor says nothing. His eyes are still fixed on the sea, but he’s still pointing the gun at him, indicating that he should stay where he is. The man is mad, and his apparent calm is more dangerous than if he were screaming threats at them.

  “Anyway,” he says, as if unperturbed either by her words or by Hamid’s attempt to move, “you chose the easiest way out. You left me. You didn’t give me a chance; you didn’t understand that everything I was doing was for you and because of you.

  “And yet, despite all the injustices and humiliations, I would have done anything to have you back—until today. Until I sent you those messages, and you pretended not to have received them. In other words, even the sacrifice of those other people di
dn’t move you; you just couldn’t get enough of power and luxury.”

  The Star who was poisoned and the director whose life still hangs by a thread: is Hamid imagining the unimaginable? Then he understands something even more serious: with that confession, the man beside him has just signed their death warrant. He must either commit suicide there and then or put an end to the lives of two people who now know far too much.

  Perhaps, Hamid thinks, he himself is going mad or simply misunderstanding the situation, but he knows that time is running out.

  He looks at the gun in the man’s hand. It’s a small caliber. If it doesn’t hit certain critical points in the body, it won’t do much harm. He can’t be very experienced; if he were, he would have chosen something more powerful. He obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing; he must have bought the first thing he was offered, something that fired bullets and could kill.

  The band has started playing up above. Don’t they realize that the noise of the music will mask the sound of a shot? Then again, would they know the difference between a gunshot and one of the many other artificial noises that are currently infesting—yes, that’s the word, infesting, polluting, plaguing—the atmosphere?

  IGOR HAS GONE QUIET AGAIN, and that is far more dangerous than if he were to continue talking, emptying his heart of some of his bitterness and bile. Hamid again weighs up the possibilities; if he’s going to act, he needs to do so in the next few seconds. He could throw himself across Ewa and grab the gun while it’s lying casually in Igor’s lap, even though Igor’s finger is on the trigger. He could reach out to him with both arms, forcing Igor to draw back in fright, and then Ewa would be out of the line of fire. Igor would point the gun in his direction, but by then, he would be close enough to grab his wrist. It would all take only a second.