"On the other hand, none of my assistants has any contacts among the people you mentioned, and so I will be paying you a small monthly allowance to keep you from having to beg in the streets. You will return a winner; you will represent our country, and it's important that other nations should learn to respect our culture. Before leaving, you will have to learn the languages of the countries to which you are going. Which languages are they?"
"English, French, and Italian. I am most grateful to you for your generosity, but what about my father..."
The sheikh gestured to him to be silent.
"My second decision is as follows. Your father's house will remain where it is. In my dreams it will be surrounded by skyscrapers, no sun will enter its windows, and, in the end, he will have to move. However, the house will stay there forever. In the future, people will remember me and say: 'He was a great man because he changed his country. And he was just because he respected the rights of a seller of cloth.'"
THE HELICOPTER LANDS AT THE very end of the pier, and he leaves aside his memories. He gets out first and then proffers Ewa a helping hand. He touches her skin and looks proudly at this blonde woman, all dressed in white, her clothes glowing in the sunlight, her other hand holding on to the lovely, discreet beige hat she is wearing. They walk past the ranks of yachts moored on either side, toward the car that awaits them and the chauffeur standing with the door already open.
He holds his wife's hand and whispers in her ear:
"I hope you enjoyed the lunch. They're great collectors of art, and it was very generous of them to provide a helicopter for us."
"Yes, I loved it."
But what Ewa really means is: "No, I hated it. Worse, I'm feeling really frightened. I've just received a text on my mobile phone and I know who sent it, even though I can't identify the number."
They get into the vast car made for just two people, the rest being empty space. The air-conditioning is set at the ideal temperature, the music is exactly right for such a moment, and no outside noise penetrates their perfect isolation. He sits down on the comfortable leather seat, opens the mini-bar in front of them, and asks if Ewa would like some champagne. No, she says, mineral water will be fine.
"I saw your ex-husband yesterday in the hotel bar, before we left for supper."
"That's impossible. He has no business in Cannes."
She would like to have said: "You may be right. I've just received a text. We should board the next plane out of here."
"Oh, I'm quite sure it was him."
Hamid notices that his wife is not in the mood to talk. He has been brought up to respect the privacy of those he loves, and so he makes himself think of something else.
Having first asked Ewa's permission, he makes the obligatory phone call to his stockbroker in New York. He listens patiently for two or three sentences, then politely interrupts any further news on market trends. The whole call lasts no more than two minutes.
He makes another call to the director he has chosen for his first film. The director is on his way to the boat to meet with the Star, and yes, a young actress has been chosen and should be joining them shortly.
He turns to Ewa again, but she still seems disinclined to talk, her gaze absent, staring out of the limousine windows at nothing. Perhaps she's worried because she'll have so little time at the hotel. She'll have to change immediately and go straight to a rather insignificant fashion show by a Belgian designer, where Hamid wants to see for himself the young African model, Jasmine, whom his assistants tell him will be the ideal face for his next collection.
He wants to know how the girl will survive the pressures of an event in Cannes. If everything goes to plan, she'll be one of his star models at the Fashion Week in Paris set for October.
EWA KEEPS HER EYES FIXED on the window, not that she's interested in what's going on outside. She knows the gentle, creative, determined, well-dressed man by her side very well. She knows that he desires her as no man has ever desired a woman, apart, that is, from the man she left. She can trust him, even though he lives surrounded by some of the most beautiful women in the world. He's an honest, hardworking man who has met and overcome many challenges in order to be chauffeured around in that limo and to be able to offer her a glass of champagne or her favorite mineral water. He is powerful and capable of protecting her from any danger, except one, the worst of all. Her ex-husband.
She doesn't want to arouse suspicions now by picking up her phone again to reread the message; she knows the message by heart.
"I have destroyed a world for you, Katyusha."
She has no idea what these words mean, but no one else would call her by that name.
She has taught herself to love Hamid, although
she detests the life he leads, the parties they go to, and his friends. She doesn't know yet if she has succeeded in making herself love him; there are moments when she feels almost suicidal with despair. All she knows is that he was her salvation at a time when she thought she was lost forever, incapable of escaping the trap of her marriage.
MANY YEARS BEFORE, SHE HAD fallen in love with an angel with a sad childhood, who had been called up into the Soviet army to fight in an absurd war in Afghanistan only to return to a country verging on collapse. Despite this, he had overcome all difficulties to succeed. He began to work very hard, getting loans from some very shady people, then lying awake at night, worrying about the risk he was taking and wondering how he could ever repay those loans. He put up uncomplainingly with the endemic corruption, accepting that he would have to bribe a government official each time he needed a new license for a product that would improve the quality of life of his own people. He was idealistic and affectionate. By day, his leadership went unquestioned because life had taught him how to lead, and military service had helped him understand exactly how hierarchies work. At night, he would cling to her and ask her to protect and advise him, to pray for everything to go well and for him to avoid the many traps that lay in his path each day.
Ewa would stroke his hair and assure him that everything was fine, that he was a good man, and that God always rewarded the just.
Gradually, the difficulties gave way to opportunities. The small business he had started--after almost begging people to sign contracts--began to grow because he was one of the few to have invested in something that no one believed could work in a country still plagued by near-obsolete communication networks. The government changed and corruption diminished. Money began to come in, slowly at first, then in vast quantities. However, they never forgot the difficult times they had been through and never wasted a penny. They made contributions to charities and to associations for ex-soldiers; they lived unostentatiously, dreaming of the day when they could put it all behind them and go and live in a house away from the world. When that happened, they would forget that they had once been obliged to have dealings with people who had no ethics and no dignity. They spent much of their time in airports, planes, and hotels; they worked eighteen hours a day, and for years never managed to take a month's holiday together.
They nurtured the same dream: the moment would come when that frenetic pace of life would be but a distant memory. The scars from that period would be like medals won in a war waged in the name of faith and dreams. After all, each human being--or so she believed then--had been born to love and to live with their beloved.
The whole process of finding work was suddenly turned on its head. Instead of them having to hunt down contracts, they began to appear spontaneously. Her husband was featured on the front cover of an important business magazine, and the local bigwigs started sending them invitations to parties and events. They began to be treated like royalty, and ever greater quantities of money flowed in.