The Winner Stands Alone

Time passed, and the question became less important, until the night they attended a gala supper-cum-charity auction at one of the most expensive restaurants in Milan. They were both there for different reasons: Igor in order to firm up the details of a contract with an Italian firm, and Ewa in order to attend the Fashion Week, where she intended to make a few purchases for her Moscow shop.

And what had happened in the middle of Siberia was repeated in one of the most sophisticated cities in the world. This time, a friend of theirs, rather the worse for wear, sat down at their table uninvited and started joking and making inappropriate remarks. Ewa saw Igor's hand grip the handle of his knife more tightly. As tactfully and politely as possible, she asked the friend to go away. By then, she had already drunk several glasses of Asti Spumante, as the Italians refer to what used to be called champagne because the use of the word "champagne" was banned under the so-called Protected Designation of Origin. Champagne simply means a white wine made using a particular bacteria which, when rigorously controlled, begins to generate gases inside the bottle as the wine ages over a period of at least fifteen months. The name refers to the region where it's produced. Spumante is exactly the same thing, but European law doesn't allow it to be known by the French name, since the vineyards are in Italy and not in the Champagne region of France.

They started talking about champagne and about the laws governing names, while she tried to drive from her head the question she had tried to suppress and which was now returning in full force. While they were talking, she kept drinking, until there came a moment when she could hold back no longer.

"What does it matter if someone gets a little drunk and comes over to talk to us?"

When he answered, Igor's voice had changed.

"Because we so rarely travel together. Besides, you know what I think about the world we live in: that we're being suffocated by lies, encouraged to put our faith in science rather than in spiritual values and to feed our souls with the things society tells us are important, when, in reality, we're slowly dying because we know what's going on around us, that we're being forced to do things we never planned to do, and yet even so, are incapable of giving it all up and devoting our days and nights to true happiness, to family, nature, love. And why is that? Because we feel obliged to finish what we started, so that we can achieve the financial stability we need in order to enjoy the rest of our lives devoting ourselves to each other because we're responsible people. I know you sometimes think I work too much, but it's not true. I'm building our future and soon we'll be free to dream and to live out our dreams."

Financial stability was hardly something they lacked. They had no debts and they could have got up from that table there and then with just their credit cards and simply left behind them the world Igor apparently hated and start all over again, and never have to worry about money. She had often spoken to him about this, and Igor always said the same thing: "It won't be much longer." Besides, this wasn't the moment to discuss their future as a couple.

"God thought of everything," he went on. "We are together because he decided we should be. You may not fully appreciate your importance in my life, but without you, I would never have got where I am today. He placed us side by side and lent me his power to defend you whenever necessary. He taught me that everything is part of a plan, and I must respect that plan down to the last detail. If hadn't done so, I would either be dead in Kabul or living in poverty in Moscow."

And it was then that the Spumante or champagne revealed what it was capable of, regardless of what it was called.

"What happened to that beggar in Siberia?" she asked.

Igor didn't at first know what she was talking about. Ewa reminded him of what had happened in the restaurant there.

"I'd like to know what you did."

"I saved him."

She gave a sigh of relief.

"I saved him from a filthy, hopeless life in those freezing winters, with his body being slowly destroyed by booze. I let his soul depart toward the light because the moment he came into that restaurant to destroy our happiness, I knew that his spirit was inhabited by the Evil One."

Ewa felt her heart begin to pound. She didn't need him to say outright: "I killed him." It was clear that he had.

"Without you I don't exist. Anything and anyone who tries to separate us or to destroy the little time we have together at this particular moment of our lives gets the treatment they deserve."

Meaning perhaps that they deserved to be killed? Could such a thing have happened before without her noticing? She drank and drank some more, and Igor began to relax again. Since he never opened his heart to anyone else, he loved their conversations.

"We speak the same language," he went on. "We see the world in the same way. We complete each other with a perfection that is granted only to those who put love above all else. As I said, without you I don't exist.

"Look at the Superclass around us. They think they're so important, so socially aware, because they're willing to pay a fortune for some useless item at a charity auction or to attend a supper organized to raise funds to help the homeless in Rwanda or to save the pandas in China. Pandas and the homeless are all one to them. They feel special, superior to the average person, because they're doing something useful. Have they ever fought in a war? No. They create wars, but they don't fight in them. If the war turns out well, they get all the credit. If not, others get the blame. They're in love with themselves."

"My love, I'd like to ask you something else..."

At that point, a presenter climbed onto the stage and thanked everyone for being there that night. The money raised would go toward buying medicine for refugee camps in Africa.

"What he doesn't say," Igor went on, as if he hadn't heard her, "is that only ten percent of the total amount raised will reach its destination. The rest will be used to pay for this event, for the cost of this supper, for the publicity and the organizers, in short, for the people who had the 'brilliant idea' in the first place, and all at an exorbitant price. They use poverty as a way to get even richer."

"So why are we here?"

"Because we need to be. It's part of my work. I have no intention of saving Rwanda or sending medicine to refugees, but at least I know that I don't. The other guests here tonight are using their money to wash their consciences and their souls clean of guilt. When the genocide was going on in Rwanda, I financed a small army of friends, who prevented more than two thousand deaths. Did you know that?"

"No, you never told me."

"I didn't need to. You know that I care about other people."

The auction began with a small Louis Vuitton travel bag. It sold for ten times its retail price. Igor watched the auction impassively, while she drank another glass of Spumante and wondered whether she should or shouldn't ask that question.

An artist danced to a so

undtrack provided by Marilyn Monroe and simultaneously painted a picture. The bids for the finished work of art were sky-high--the price of a small apartment in Moscow.