The Winner Stands Alone

She obeys. Now she just has to convince him that she's not a threat, to listen to his deserted husband's lament, to promise him that she has seen nothing, and then, as soon as a policeman appears, doing his usual round, throw herself to the ground and scream for help.

"I know exactly what you're feeling," the man says, trying to calm her. "The symptoms of fear have been the same since the dawn of time. They were the same when men had to face wild beasts and they continue to be so right up to the present day: blood drains away from the face and the epidermis, protecting the body and avoiding blood loss, that's why people turn pale. The intestines relax and release everything, so that there will be no toxic matter left contaminating the organism. The body initially refuses to move, so as not to provoke the beast in question by making any sudden movement."

"This is all a dream," thinks Olivia. She remembers her parents, who should have been here with her this morning, but who had been up all night making jewelry because the day looked likely to be a busy one. A few hours ago, she had been making love with her boyfriend, whom she believed to be the man of her life, even though he sometimes hit her; they reached orgasm simultaneously, something that hadn't happened for a long time. After breakfast, she decided not to take her usual shower because she felt free and full of energy and pleased with life.

No, this can't be happening. She must try to appear calm.

"Let's talk. The reason you bought all my stuff was so that we could talk. Besides, I wasn't getting up in order to run away."

He presses the barrel of the gun gently against the girl's ribs. The elderly couple pass by, glance at them, and notice nothing odd. "There's that Portuguese girl," they think, "trying, as usual, to impress some man with her dark eyebrows and childlike smile." It's not the first time they've seen her with a strange man, and this one, to judge by his clothes, has plenty of money.

Olivia fixes them with her eyes, as if trying to tell them what's going on just by looking. The man beside her says brightly:

"Good morning."

The couple move off without uttering a word. They're not in the habit of talking to strangers or of exchanging greetings with street vendors.

"Yes, let's talk," says the Russian, breaking the silence. "I'm not really going to try and disrupt the traffic. I was just giving that as an example. My wife will realize I'm here when she starts to receive the messages. I'm not going to take the obvious route, which would be to go and meet her. I need her to come to me."

This was a possible way out.

"I can deliver the messages, if you like. Just tell me which hotel she's staying at."

The man laughs.

"You suffer from the youthful vice of thinking you're cleverer than everyone else. The moment you left here, you'd go straight to the police."

Her blood freezes. Are they going to sit on this bench all day? Is he going to shoot her after all, now that she knows his face?

"You said you weren't going to shoot."

"I promised I wouldn't if you behaved in a more adult fashion and with due respect for my intelligence."

He's right. The adult thing to do would be to talk a little about herself. She might arouse the compassion that is always there in the mind of a madman by explaining that she's in a similar situation, even though it isn't true.

A boy runs past, an iPod in his ears. He doesn't even turn to look at them.

"I live with a man who makes my life hell, and yet I can't leave him."

The look in Igor's eyes changes.

Olivia thinks she's found a way of escaping from the trap.

"Be intelligent. Don't just give up; think of the woman who's married to the man sitting next to you. Be honest."

"He's cut me off from my friends. He's always jealous even though he can get all the women he wants. He criticizes everything I do and says I have no ambition. He even takes the little money I earn as commission."

The man says nothing but stares at the sea. The pavement is filling up with people; what would happen if she just got to her feet and ran? Would he shoot her? Is it a real gun?

She senses that she has touched on a topic of possible interest to him. It would be best not to do anything foolish, she thinks, remembering the way he spoke and looked at her minutes before.

"And yet, you see, I can't bring myself to leave him. Even if I were to meet the kindest, richest, most generous man in the world, I wouldn't give my boyfriend up for anything. I'm not a masochist, I take no pleasure in these constant humiliations, I just happen to love him."

She feels the barrel of the gun pressing into her ribs again. She has said the wrong thing.

"I'm not like that scoundrel of a boyfriend of yours," he says, his voice full of loathing now. "I worked hard to build up what I have. I worked long and hard, and survived many a setback. I was always honest in my dealings, although there were, of course, times when I had to be hard and implacable. I was always a good Christian. I have influential friends, and I've always been grateful to them. In short, I did everything right.

"I never harmed anyone who got in my way. Whenever possible, I encouraged my wife to do what she wanted to do, and the result: here I am, alone. Yes, I killed people during the idiotic war I was sent to fight, but I never lost my sense of reality. I'm not one of those traumatized war veterans who goes into a restaurant and machine-guns people. I'm not a terrorist. Of course, I could say that life has treated me unfairly and taken from me the most important thing there is: love. But there are other women, and the pain of love always passes. I need to act, I'm tired of being a frog slowly boiling to death."