The Winner Stands Alone

The boys were let off for lack of evidence; the prosecution had needed two witnesses to corroborate the charges and ensure that the guilty parties paid for their crime. After leaving court, Cristina phoned the numbers on the business cards given her by the two photographers and made appointments to see them. Then she went back to the dress shop where the owner had come out especially to speak to her and ask if she would model his clothes. The saleswomen, however, said that the owner had shops all over Europe and was a very busy man, and no, they couldn't give her his phone number.

Fortunately, photographers have better memories, and both immediately recognized her name and arranged to meet her.

Cristina went back home and told her mother what she had decided to do. She didn't ask her advice or try to convince her, she simply said that she wanted to leave Antwerp for good, and that her one chance was to get work as a model.

JASMINE LOOKS AROUND HER AGAIN. It's still three hours until the fashion show, and the other models are eating salad, drinking tea, and talking about where they'll be going next. They come from various countries, are about the same age as her--nineteen--and probably have just two things on their minds: getting a new contract that evening and finding a rich husband.

She knows their beauty routine. Before sleeping, they apply sundry creams to cleanse their pores and keep their skin moisturized, thus, from early on, making their organism dependent on artificial substances to maintain an ideal equilibrium. In the morning, they apply more cream and more moisturizer. They drink a cup of black coffee with no sugar, and eat some fruit and fiber, so that any other food they consume during the day will pass quickly through. Then they do a few stretching exercises before setting off in search of work. They're too young to start working out in a gym and, besides, their bodies might start taking on masculine contours. They get on the scales three or four times a day, in fact, most of them always have their own scales with them just in case, because sometimes they stay in boardinghouses rather than hotels. They get depressed each time the pointer on the scales tells them they've gained another ounce.

Most of the models are only seventeen or eighteen, and so their mothers go with them whenever possible. The girls never admit to being in love with anyone--although most of them are--because love makes the traveling seem longer and more unbearable and arouses in their boyfriends the strange sense that they're losing the woman (or girl) that they love. Yes, the girls think about money and earn an average of four hundred euros a day--an enviable salary for someone who is often still too young to have a license and drive a car. Their dreams go beyond being a model, however; they know that soon they'll be overtaken by new faces, new trends, and so urgently need to show that they can do more than just stride down a catwalk. They're always nagging their agencies to get them a screen test, so that they can demonstrate that they've got what it takes to become an actress--their great dream.

The agencies, of course

, agree to do this, but advise them to wait a little; after all, their careers are only just beginning. The truth is that most model agencies don't have many contacts outside the fashion world; they earn a good percentage, compete with other agencies, and the market isn't that big. It's best to get what they can now, before time passes and the model crosses the dangerous age barrier of twenty, by which time her skin will have been spoiled by too many moisturizers, her body ruined by too much low-calorie food, and her mind already affected by the remedies she takes to inhibit appetite and which end up leaving eyes and head completely empty.

Contrary to what most people think, models pay their own expenses--flights, hotels, and those inevitable salads. They are summoned by a designer's assistant to do what is known as "casting," namely, selecting who will appear on the catwalk or in the photos. They are faced at these sessions by a lot of disgruntled people who use the little power they have to vent their own day-to-day frustrations and who never say a kind or encouraging word: "awful" or "dreadful" are the ones most commonly heard. The girls leave that test and move on to the next, clinging to their mobile phones for dear life, as if these were about to offer some divine revelation or at least put them in contact with the Higher World to which they dream of ascending and from where they'll be able to look down on all those other pretty faces and where they will be transformed into stars.

Their parents are proud that their daughters have got off to a good start and regret their initial opposition to such a career; after all, their daughters are earning money and helping the family. Their boyfriends get upset, but keep a lid on their feelings because it's good for one's ego to be seen going out with a professional model. The models' agents work with dozens of girls of similar age and with similar fantasies, and are ready with pat answers to the kind of questions the girls all ask: "Couldn't I take part in the Fashion Week in Paris?" "Do you think I have what it takes to get into the movies?" The girls' friends envy them--either secretly or openly.

These young models go to any party they're invited to. They behave as if they were much more important than they are, knowing, deep down, that they would love someone to break through the artificial barrier of ice they create around themselves. They look at older men with a mixture of revulsion and attraction; they know that such men have the necessary money to help them make the big leap, but, at the same time, don't want to seem to be nothing but high-class whores. They're always seen with a glass of champagne in one hand, but that's just part of the image they want to project. They know that alcohol can affect their weight and so their preferred drink is a glass of still mineral water because although fizzy water doesn't affect the weight, it has immediate consequences on the shape of the stomach. They have ideals, dreams, dignity, but all these things will vanish one day, when they can no longer disguise the early onset of cellulite.

They make a secret pact with themselves never to think about the future. They spend much of what they earn on beauty products promising eternal youth. They adore shoes, but they're so expensive; nevertheless, they sometimes treat themselves and buy a pair of the very best. They get clothes from friends in the fashion world at half the usual price. They share a small apartment with their parents, a brother who's at university and a sister who's chosen to be a librarian or a scientist. Everyone assumes the girls must be earning a fortune and frequently ask them for loans, to which the girls agree because they want to appear important, rich, generous, and different from other mortals. When they go to the bank, though, their account is always in the red and they've overshot their credit card limit.

They acquire hundreds of business cards, meet well-dressed men who make proposals of work they know to be false, but they phone them now and then to keep in touch, conscious that they might need help one day, even though that help comes at a price. They all fall into the same traps. They all dream of easy success, only to realize that it doesn't exist. By seventeen, they have all suffered innumerable disappointments, betrayals, humiliations, and yet still they believe.

They sleep badly because of the various pills they take. They listen to stories about anorexia--the commonest illness in their world, a kind of mental disturbance caused by an obsession with weight and one's physical appearance, and which culminates in the body rejecting all nourishment. They say it won't ever happen to them, but never notice when the first symptoms appear.

They step out of childhood straight into a world of glitz and glamour, without passing through adolescence. When asked what their plans are for the future, they always have the answer on the tip of their tongue: "I'm going to study philosophy. I'm just working to pay for my studies."

They know this isn't true. Or rather, they know that something about these words doesn't ring true, but they can't quite put their finger on what it is. Do they really want a degree? Do they really need that money for their studies? They don't have time for college because there's always a casting session in the morning, a photo shoot in the afternoon, a cocktail party before dark, then another party they have to go to in order to be seen, admired, and desired.

To other people, they seem to lead a fairy-tale existence. And, for a while, they, too, believe that this is the real meaning of life; after all, they have almost everything they once envied in the girls who appeared in magazines and cosmetic ads. With a little discipline, they can even save a little money, until, after a careful, daily examination of their skin, they discover the first mark left by age. After that, they know it's only a matter of time before a designer or a photographer notices the same thing. Their days are numbered.

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Instead of going back to her book, Jasmine gets up, fills her glass with champagne (it's always there, but rarely drunk), picks up a hot dog, and goes over to the window. She stands there in silence, looking out at the sea. Her story is different.

1:46 P.M.

He wakes up bathed in sweat. When he looks at the clock on the bedside table, he realizes that he's only been asleep for forty minutes. He's exhausted, frightened, in a state of panic. He had always thought himself incapable of harming anyone, and yet this morning he has already killed two innocent people. It isn't the first time he's destroyed a world, but, before, he had always had good reasons for doing so.

He dreamed that the girl on the bench near the beach came to see him and instead of condemning him, blessed him. He lay in her lap, weeping and begging her to forgive him, but she seemed not to care about that, and simply stroked his hair and told him not to upset himself. Olivia, the image of generosity and forgiveness. He wonders now if his love for Ewa is worth what he is doing.

He prefers to believe that it is. The fact that Olivia is on his side, that he met with her on a higher plane closer to the Divine, and that everything has been so much easier than he imagined, all this indicates that there must be a reason behind what is happening.

IT HADN'T BEEN DIFFICULT TO evade the vigilant eyes of Javits's friends. He knew that such men, as well as being physically prepared to react rapidly and precisely, were trained to memorize each face, follow every movement, second-guess any danger. They probably knew he was armed, which is why they watched him for a while, but relaxed when they realized he didn't constitute a threat. They might even have thought he was in the same line of work and had gone to the tent to check out the place and see if it was safe for his own boss.

He had no boss. And he was a threat. The moment he went into the tent and decided who would be his next victim, there was no turning back, or only at the risk of losing all self-respect. He saw that the ramp leading into the tent was guarded, but that it was perfectly easy to slip out onto the beach. He left ten minutes after he had arrived, hoping that Javits's friends would notice that he had gone. He then walked round the tent and came back up the ramp reserved for guests at the Hotel Martinez (he had to show his key card) and into the area reserved for the "lunch." Walking on sand in one's shoes wasn't the pleasantest thing in the world, and Igor noticed that he was still feeling tired from the flight, from the fear that his plan might prove impossible to achieve, and from the tension he felt after destroying the universe and future generations of that poor young vendor of craftwork. Nevertheless, he had to go on.

BEFORE RETURNING TO THE TENT, he took from his pocket the drinking straw that he had made a point of keeping. He opened the small glass flask he had shown to Olivia. It did not, as he had told her, contain petrol, but something quite insignificant: a needle and a piece of cork. Using a thin metal blade, he made a hole in the cork the same diameter as the straw.

THEN HE REJOINED THE PARTY, which, by then, was full of guests strolling around, kissing and embracing, giving little yelps of recognition, clutching cocktails of every possible hue just to have something to do with their hands and to keep a check on their anxiety, as they waited for the buffet to open. They could eat then, in moderation, of course, because there were diets and plastic surgery to be considered and suppers at the end of the day, where they would have to eat even though they weren't hungry because that was what etiquette required.

Most of the guests were older people, which meant that this was an event for professionals. The age of the guests further favored his plan, since almost all of them would need glasses. Needless to say, no one was wearing them because "tired eyes" are a sign of age. There, everyone had to dress and behave like people in the prime of life, "young at heart" and "in excellent health," and to pretend that they were indifferent to what was going on around them because they were preoccupied with other things, when the truth was that they couldn't actually see. Their contact lenses meant that they could just about identify a person a few yards away, and, besides, they would find out soon enough who it was they were talking to.

Only two of the guests noticed everything and everyone--Javits's "friends." This time, however, they were the ones being observed.