The Winner Stands Alone

THEY ARE ALONE NOW ON the beach. He kneels down in front of her and places the barrel of the gun against her breast. Ewa doesn't move.

He had imagined a very different ending to this story, with her understanding his messages and giving the two of them a new chance of happiness. He had thought of all the things he would say when they were finally alone again like this, looking out at the calm Mediterranean Sea, smiling and chatting.

He doesn't want to live with those words stuck in his throat, even if those words are useless now.

"I always thought that one day, we'd walk hand in hand through a park again or along the seashore, finally saying those long-postponed words of love. We would eat out once a week, travel together to places we'd never been to simply for the pleasure of discovering new things in each other's company.

"While you've been away, I've been copying poems out in a book so that I could whisper them to you as you fell asleep. I've written letters telling you how I felt, letters I would leave where you could find them and then you'd know that I never forgot you--not for a single day, not for a single moment. We would discuss plans for the house you wanted on the shores of Lake Baikal--just for us. I know you had a lot of ideas for that. I planned to have a private airport built there, and, of course, I'd leave the decoration of the house to your good taste, to you, the woman who justified my life and gave it meaning."

Ewa says nothing, but stares out at the sea before her.

"I came here because of you, only to realize that it was all pointless."

He squeezes the trigger.

There was almost no sound because the barrel of the gun was pressed against her body. The bullet entered at precisely the right place, and her heart immediately stopped beating. Despite all the pain she had caused him, he didn't want her to suffer.

If there was a life after death, both of them--the woman who betrayed him and the man who encouraged her--were now walking along, holding hands, in the moonlight fringing the shoreline. They would meet the angel with the dark eyebrows, who would explain everything that had happened and put an end to any feelings of rancor or hatred; at some point, everyone has to leave this planet known as Earth. And, besides, love justifies acts that mere human beings cannot understand, unless they happen to be experiencing what he has experienced.

Ewa's eyes remain open, but her body grows limp and falls to the sand. He leaves both bodies there, goes over to the rocks, carefully wipes any fingerprints from the gun, and throws it into the sea, as far as possible from the place where they had been sitting contemplating the moon. He goes back up the steps, finds a litter bin on the way, and drops the silencer in. He hadn't really needed it; the music had reached a crescendo at just the right moment.

10:55 P.M.

Gabriela goes over to the only person she knows.

The guests are now leaving the supper room; the band is playing music from the sixties, the party is beginning, and people are smiling and talking to each other, despite the deafening noise.

"I've been looking for you! Where are your friends?"

"Where's yours?"

"He's gone. He said there was some problem with the actor and the director, that's all, and then he left. The only other thing he said was that tonight's party on the yacht has been canceled."

Igor realizes what has happened. He hadn't had the slightest intention of killing someone he greatly admired and whose films he always tried to see whenever he had time. Nevertheless, it's fate that makes these choices--man is just the instrument.

"I'm leaving. If you like, I can drop you off at your hotel."

"But the party's just beginning."

"Enjoy it, then. I'm flying off early tomorrow morning."

Gabriela has to make a decision quickly. She can either stay here with that handbag stuffed with paper, in a place where she knows no one, hoping that some charitable soul will give her a lift as far as Croisette, where she will take off her shoes to climb the interminable hill up to the room she's sharing with four other friends. Or she can accept the offer of this kind man, who probably has some very useful contacts, and who's a friend of Hamid Hussein's wife. She had witnessed the start of what looked li

ke an argument, but such things happen every day, and they would soon make it up.

She has a role in a film. She's exhausted from all the emotions of the day. She's afraid that she'll end up drinking too much and spoiling everything. Men will come up to her, asking if she's on her own and what she's doing afterward, and if she'd like to visit a jeweler's with them the following day. She'll have to spend the rest of the night politely avoiding people, trying not to hurt anyone's feelings, because you could never be quite sure who you were talking to. It was, after all, one of the most exclusive parties at the Festival.

"Let's go."

That's how a star behaves. She leaves when no one is expecting her to.

They go out to the hotel reception, Gunther (she can't remember his other name) asks the receptionist to call a taxi for them, and she tells them they're in luck; if they'd waited very much longer, they would have had to wait in an enormous queue.

On the way back, she asks him why he lied about what he does. He says he didn't lie. He used to own a mobile phone company, but had decided to sell it because he felt the future lay in heavy machinery.

And what about his name?

"Igor is an affectionate nickname, the Russian diminutive of Gunther."