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Igor would say: "Right, I'll stop today." And Ewa would smile and stroke his cheek, and then he would remember something important he'd forgotten to do and go over to the phone to ring someone or to the computer to send an e-mail.
A MAN IN HIS FORTIES gets up, looks around the terrace, and, brandishing a newspaper, shouts:
"'Violence and horror in Tokyo' says the headline. 'Seven people killed in a shop selling electronic toys.'"
Everyone looks at him.
"Violence! They don't know what they're talking about. This is where you get real violence!"
A shudder runs down Igor's spine.
"If some madman stabs to death a few innocent people, the whole world is shocked, but who cares about the intellectual violence being perpetrated in Cannes? Our festival is being killed in the name of a dictatorship. It's not a question of choosing the best film, but of committing crimes against humanity, forcing people to buy products they don't want, putting fashion above art, choosing to go to a lunch or a supper rather than watch a film. That's disgraceful. I'm here to--"
"Be quiet," someone says. "No one cares why you're here."
"I'm here to denounce the enslavement of man's desires, for we have stopped using our intelligence to make choices and instead allow ourselves to be manipulated by propaganda and lies! People get all steamed up about these stabbings in Tokyo, but they don't give a damn about the death by a thousand cuts suffered by a whole generation of filmmakers."
The man pauses, expecting a standing ovation, but there isn't even a thoughtful silence. Everyone resumes their conversations, indifferent to his words. He sits down again, trying to look dignified, but with his heart in shreds for making such a fool of himself.
"VIS-I-BIL-I-TY," THINKS IGOR. "THE PROBLEM is that no one took any notice."
It's his turn to look around. Ewa is staying at the same hotel, and a sixth sense born of many years of marriage tells him that she's sitting not very far away on that same terrace. She will have received his messages and is probably looking for him now, knowing that he, too, must be near.
He can't see her, but neither can he stop thinking about her--his obsession. He remembers one night being driven home in his imported limousine by the chauffeur who doubled as his bodyguard--they had fought together in Afghanistan, but fortune had smiled on them in very different ways--and remembers asking the driver to stop outside the Hotel Kempinski. He left his mobile phone and his papers in the car and went up to the terrace bar. Unlike this terrace in Cannes, the place was almost empty and getting ready to close. He gave a generous tip to the waiters and asked them to stay open for another hour, just for him.
And that was when he understood. It wasn't true that he would give up work next month or next year or even next decade. They would never have the house in the country and the children they dreamed of. He asked himself that night why this was impossible and he had only one answer.
On the road to power, there's no turning back. He would be an eternal slave to the road he'd chosen, and if he did ever realize his dream of abandoning everything, he would plunge immediately into a deep depression.
Why was he like that? Was it because of the nightmares he had about the trenches, remembering the frightened young man he'd been then, fulfilling a duty he hadn't chosen and being forced to kill? Was it because he couldn't forget his first victim, a peasant who had strayed into the line of fire when the Red Army was fighting the Afghan guerrillas? Was it because of the many people who hadn't believed in him and had humiliated him when he was looking for investors for his mobile phone business? Was it because in the beginning he'd had to associate with shadows, with the Russian mafia eager to launder the money they earned through prostitution?
He'd managed to repay those questionable loans without himself being corrupted and without owing any favors. He'd managed to negotiate with the shadows and still keep his own light burning. He knew that the war belonged to the di
stant past and that he would never again set foot on a battlefield. He'd found the love of his life. He was doing the kind of work he'd always wanted to do. He was rich, very rich, and, just in case the Communist regime were to return tomorrow, he kept most of his personal fortune abroad. He was on good terms with all the political parties. He'd met famous people from around the world. He'd set up a foundation to care for the orphans of those soldiers killed during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
But it was only when he was sitting on that terrace cafe near Red Square, knowing that he had power and money enough to pay the waiters to work all night if necessary, that he finally understood.
He understood because he saw the same thing happening to his wife. Ewa was also constantly traveling, and even when she was in Moscow, she would arrive home late and go straight to her computer as soon as she walked in the door. He understood that, contrary to what most people think, total power means total slavery. When you get that far, you don't ever want to give it up. There's always a new mountain to climb. There's always a competitor to be convinced or crushed. Along with two thousand other people, he formed part of the most exclusive club in the world, which met only once a year in Davos in Switzerland, at the World Economic Forum. All the members were millionaires, and they all worked from dawn until late at night, always wanting to go further, never changing tack--acquisitions, stock markets, market trends, money, money, money. They worked not because they needed to, but because they judged themselves to be necessary; they felt that thousands of families depended on them and that they had a huge responsibility to their governments and their associates. They genuinely thought they were helping the world, which might be true, but they had to pay for this with their own lives.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, HE DID something he hated having to do: he went to a psychiatrist. Something must be wrong. He discovered then that he was suffering from an illness that was fairly common among those who had achieved something beyond the grasp of ordinary folk. He was a compulsive worker, a workaholic. According to the psychiatrist, workaholics run the risk of becoming depressed when not immersed in the challenges and problems of running a company.
"We don't yet know the origin of the disorder, but it's associated with insecurity, childhood fears, and a desire to block out reality. It's as serious an addiction as drugs. Unlike drugs, however, which diminish productivity, the workaholic makes a great contribution to the wealth of his country. So it's in no one's interests to seek a cure."
"And what are the consequences?"
"You should know, because that's presumably why you've come to see me. The gravest consequence is the damage it causes to family life. In Japan, one of the countries where the illness is most common and where the consequences are sometimes fatal, they've developed various ways of controlling the obsession."
Igor couldn't remember listening to anyone in the last two years with the respect and attention he was paying that bespectacled, mustachioed man before him.
"So there is a way out, then?"
"When a workaholic seeks help from a psychiatrist that means he's ready to be cured. Only about one in every thousand cases realizes that he needs help."
"Oh, I need help, and I have enough money..."
"That's what all workaholics say. Yes, I know you have enough money, you all do. I know who you are as well. I've seen photos of you at charity balls, at congresses, in private audience with our president, who, by the way, shows the same symptoms. Money isn't enough. What I want to know is this: do you really want to change?"
Igor thought of Ewa, of the house in the mountains, the family he'd like to have, the hundreds of millions of dollars he had in the bank. He thought of his position in society and of the power he possessed and how difficult it would be to give all that up.
