The Winner Stands Alone

"If the money's essential, I can probably..." Jasmine's mother began to say, but Jasmine had got up and was walking over to the door, without shaking hands with either the woman or the photographer.

"Thank you very much, but I don't have that kind of money, and even if I did, I would spend it on something else."

"But it's your future!"

"Precisely. It's my future, not yours."

JASMINE BURST INTO TEARS AFTERWARD. First, she had gone to that expensive boutique where they'd not only been rude to her, but implied that she was lying when she said she'd met the owner. Then, just when she thought she was about to start a new life and had discovered the perfect new name for herself, she learned that it would cost her two thousand euros just to take the first step!

Mother and daughter made their way home in silence. Jasmine's mobile rang several times, but she just glanced at the number and put the phone back in her pocket.

"Why don't you answer it? We've got another appointment this afternoon, haven't we?"

"Because we don't have two thousand euros."

Her mother grasped Jasmine's shoulders. She knew what a fragile state her daughter was in and had to do something.

"Yes, we do. I've worked every day since your father died, and we do have two thousand euros. We have more than that if you need it. Cleaners earn good money here in Europe because no one here wants to clean up other people's messes. Besides, we're talking about your future. We can't go home now."

The phone rang again. Jasmine became Cristina again and did as her mother asked. The woman she had the appointment with that afternoon was ringing to apologize and explain that another commitment meant that she would be a couple of hours late for their meeting.

"That's all right," said Cristina. "But before you waste any more time, I'd like to know how much it's going to cost me."

"How much it's going to cost?"

"Yes. I've just had a meeting with another photographer and he and his colleague were going to charge me two thousand euros for the photos, the makeup..."

The woman at the other end laughed.

"No, it won't cost you anything. That's an old trick. We can talk about it when we meet."

HER STUDIO WAS SIMILAR TO the one they'd visited that morning, but the conversation they had was completely different. She asked Cristina why she looked so much sadder than when they'd first met; she clearly still remembered their initial encounter. Cristina told her what had happened with the other photographer, and the woman explained that it was common practice and one that the authorities were trying to clamp down on. At that very moment, in many places around the world, relatively pretty girls were being invited to reveal "the full potential of their beauty" and paying through the nose for the privilege. On the pretext of looking for new talent, agencies would rent rooms in luxury hotels, fill them with photographic equipment, promise the would-be models at least one fashion show a year or their money back, charge a fortune for any photos they took, call in failed professionals to act as makeup artists and hairdressers, suggest enrollment in particular modeling schools, and then, quite often, disappear without a trace. The studio Cristina had visited was, in fact, a genuine one, but she'd been quite right to reject their offer.

"They're appealing to people's vanity, and there's nothing necessarily wrong in that, as long as the person involved knows what they're getting into. It's not something that only happens in the world of fashion either, it goes on in other areas too: writers publishing their own books, painters sponsoring their own exhibitions, film directors who go into debt in order to buy their place in the sun with one of the big studios, girls your age who leave home and go to the big city to work as waitresses, hoping to be discovered one day by a producer who'll propel them to stardom."

No, they wouldn't take any photos now. She needed to get to know Cristina better; pressing the camera button was the last stage in a long process that began with uncovering your subject's soul. They arranged to meet the following day to talk more.

"You need to choose a name."

"It's Jasmine Tiger."

Yes, her love of life had returned.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER INVITED HER TO spend the weekend at her beach house near the Dutch border, and they spent eight hours a day experimenting with the camera.

She expected Jasmine to reveal on her face a whole range of emotions suggested by words such as "fire," "seduction," "water." Jasmine had to try and show both sides of her soul, good and bad. She had to look down, straight ahead, to the side, to stare off into space. She had to imagine seagulls and demons. She had to imagine she'd been attacked by a group of older men and left in the restroom in a bar, having been raped by one or more of them; she had to be sinner and saint, perverse and innocent.

Some photos were taken out in the open, and even though her body was freezing, she was able to react to each stimulus, to obey each suggestion. They also used a small studio set up in one of the rooms so that the photographer could play around with different types of music and lighting. Jasmine would do her own makeup, while the photographer did her hair.

"Am I any good?" Jasmine would ask. "Why are you spending so much time on me?"

But all the photographer would say was: "We'll talk about that later," and then spend the rest of the evening looking at the work they'd done that day, thinking and making notes, but never commenting on whether she was pleased or disappointed with the results.

Not until Monday morning did Jasmine (for Cristina was definitively dead by then) get an opinion. They were waiting at Brussels station for the connection to Antwerp when the photographer suddenly said:

"You're the best model I've ever worked with."

"You're j