he Beretta Px4 compact pistol is slightly larger than a mobile phone, weighs around seven hundred grams, and can fire ten shots. It is small, light, invisible when carried in a pocket, and its small caliber has one enormous advantage: instead of passing through the victims body, the bullet hits bones and smashes everything in its path.

Obviously, the chances of surviving a shot of that caliber are fairly high; there are thousands of cases in which no vital artery was severed and the victim had time to react and disarm his attacker. However, if the person firing the pistol is experienced enough, he can opt either for a quick deathby aiming at the point between the eyes or at the heartor for a slower oneby placing the barrel at a certain angle close to the ribs and squeezing the trigger. The person shot takes a while to realize that he has been mortally wounded and tries to fight back, run away, or call for help. The great advantage of this is that the victim has time to see his killers face, while his strength ebbs slowly away and he falls to the ground, with little external loss of blood, still not fully understanding why this is happening to him.

It is far from being the ideal weapon for experts. Nice and lightin a ladys handbag. No stopping power though, someone in the British Secret Service tells James Bond in the first film in the series, meanwhile confiscating Bonds old pistol and handing him a new model. However, that advice applied only to professionals, and for what he now had in mind it was perfect.

He had bought the Beretta on the black market so that it would be impossible to trace. There are five bullets in the magazine, although he intends to use only one, the tip of which he has marked with an X, using a nail file. That way, when its fired and hits something solid, it will break into four pieces.

He will only use the Beretta as a last resort. There are other ways of extinguishing a world, of destroying a universe, and she will probably understand the message as soon as the first victim is found. She will know that he did it in the name of love, and that he feels no resentment, but will take her back and ask no questions about her life during these past two years.

He hopes that six months of careful planning will produce results, but he will only know for sure tomorrow morning. His plan is to allow the Furies, those ancient figures from Greek mythology, to descend on their black wings to that blue-and-white landscape full of diamonds, Botox, and high-speed cars of no use to anyone because they carry only two passengers. With the little artifacts he has brought with him, all those dreams of power, success, fame, and money could be punc- tured in an instant.

He could have gone up to his room because the scene he had been waiting to witness occurred at 11:11 p.m., although he would have been prepared to wait for even longer. The man and his beautiful companion arrivedboth of them in full evening dressfor yet another of those gala events that take place each night after every important supper, and which attracted more people than any film premiere at the Festival.

Igor ignored the woman. He shielded his face behind a French news- paper (a Russian newspaper would have aroused suspicions) so that she wouldnt see him. An unnecessary precaution: like all women who feel themselves to be queen of the world, she never looked at anyone else. Such women are there in order to shine and always avoid looking at what other people are wearing because, even if their own clothes and accessories have cost them a fortune, the number of diamonds or a par-

ticularly exclusive outfit worn by someone else might make them feel depressed or bad-tempered or inferior.

Her elegant, silver-haired companion went over to the bar and or- dered champagne, a necessary aperitif for a night that promised new contacts, good music, and a fine view of the beach and the yachts moored in the harbor.

He noticed how extremely polite the man was, thanking the wait- ress when she brought their drinks and giving her a large tip.

The three of them knew each other. Igor felt a great wave of happi- ness as the adrenaline began to mingle with his blood. The following day he would make her fully aware of his presence there and, at some point, they would meet.

God alone knew what would come of that meeting. Igor, an orthodox Catholic, had made a promise and sworn an oath in a church in Moscow before the relics of St. Mary Magdalene (which were in the Russian capi- tal for a week, so that the faithful could worship them). He had queued for nearly five hours and, when he finally saw them, had felt sure that the whole thing was something dreamed up by the priests. He did not, however, want to run the risk of breaking his word, and so he had asked for her protection and help in achieving his goal without too much sacri- fice. And he had promised, too, that when it was all over and he could at last return to his native land, he would commission a golden icon from a well-known artist who lived in a monastery in Novosibirsk.

At three in the morning, thebaroftheHotelMartinezsmells of cigarettes and sweat. By then, Jimmy (who always wears different colored shoes) has stopped playing the piano, and the waitress is ex- hausted, but the people who are still there refuse to leave. They want to stay in that lobby for at least another hour or even all night until something happens!

Theyre already four days into the Cannes Film Festival and still nothing has happened. Every guest at every table is interested in but one thing: meeting the people with Power. Pretty women are waiting for a producer to fall in love with them and give them a major role in their next movie. A few actors are talking among themselves, laughing and pretending that the whole business is a matter of complete indiffer- ence to thembut they always keep one eye on the door.

Someone is about to arrive. Someone must arrive. Young directors, full of ideas and with CVs listing the videos they made at university, and who have read everything ever written about photography and scriptwriting, are hoping for a stroke of luck; perhaps meeting some- one just back from a party who is looking for an empty table where hell order a coffee and light a cigarette, someone whos tired of going to the same old places all the time and feels ready for a new adventure.

How naive!

If that did happen, the last thing such a person would want to hear about is some really fresh angle on a hackneyed subject; but despair can deceive the desperate. The people with power who do occasion- ally enter merely glance around, then go up to their rooms. Theyre not worried. They have nothing to fear. The Superclass does not for- give betrayals and they know their limitationswhatever the legend may say, they didnt get where they are by trampling on others. On the other hand, if there is some important new discovery to be madebe it in the world of cinema, music, or fashionit will emerge only after much research and not in some hotel bar.

The Superclass are now making love to the girl who managed to gatecrash the party and who is game for anything. Theyre taking off their makeup, studying the lines on their faces, and thinking that its time for more plastic surgery. Theyre looking at the online news to see if the announcement they made earlier that day has been picked up by the media. Theyre taking the inevitable sleeping pill and drinking the tea that promises easy weight loss. Theyre ticking the boxes on the menu for their room service breakfast and hanging it on the door handle along with the sign saying Do not disturb. The Superclass are closing their eyes and thinking: I hope I get to sleep quickly. Ive got a meeting tomorrow at ten.

However, everyone knows that the bar in the Hotel Martinez is where the powerful people hang out, which means theres always a chance of meeting them.

It doesnt even occur to the hopefuls that the Powerful only talk to the Powerful, that they need to get together now and then for lunches and suppers, to lend allure to the big festivals, to feed the fantasy that the world of luxury and glamour is accessible to all those with the courage to pursue an idea, to avoid any nonlucrative wars and to pro- mote aggression between countries or companies where they feel this might bring them more power and more money, to pretend that theyre happy, even though theyre now hostage to their own success, to con- tinue struggling to increase their wealth and influence, even when both those things are already vast, because the vanity of the Superclass con- sists in competing with itself to see who is the top of the tops.

In an ideal world, the Powerful would talk to the actors, directors, designers, and writers who are now bleary-eyed with tiredness and thinking about going back to their rented rooms in distant towns, so that tomorrow they can begin again the marathon of making requests, fixing possible meetings, and being endlessly ready and available.

In the real world, the Powerful are, at this moment, locked in their rooms, checking their e-mails, complaining that these Festival parties are always the same, that their friend was wearing a bigger jewel than they were, and asking how come the yacht a competitor has just bought has a totally unique decor?

Igor has no one to talk to, nor does he want to talk. The winner stands alone.

Igor is the successful owner and president of a telephone company in Russia. A year ago, he reserved the best suite in the Martinez (which makes everyone pay up-front for at least twelve nights, regardless of how long theyll be staying); he arrived this afternoon in his private jet, was driven to the hotel, where he took a bath and then went down- stairs in the hope of witnessing one particular scene. At first, he was pestered by actresses, actors, and directors, until he came up with the perfect response for them all:

Dont speak English, sorry. Polish. Or: Dont speak French, sorry. Mexican. When someone ventured a few words in Spanish, Igor tried another ploy. He started writing down numbers in a notebook so as to look neither like a journalist (because everyone wants to meet journalists) nor like a movie mogul. Beside him lay a Russian economics magazine (most people cant tell Russian from Polish or Spanish) with the photo of some boring executive on the cover.

The denizens of the bar, who pride themselves on their keen under- standing of the human race, leave Igor in peace, thinking that he must be one of those millionaires who comes to Cannes in search of a new girlfriend. That, at least, is the rumor doing the rounds by the time the fifth person has sat down at his table and ordered a mineral water, alleging that there are no other free seats. Igor is duly relegated to the category of perfume.

Perfume is the slang term used by actresses (or starlets, as theyre called at the Festival) because, as with perfumes, its easy enough to change brands, but one of them might just turn out to be a real find. Perfumes are sought out during the last two days of the Festival, if the actresses in question havent managed to pick up any- thing or anyone of interest in the movie industry. For the moment, then, this strange, apparently wealthy man can wait. Actresses know that its always best to leave the Festival with a new boyfriend (whom they might, later on, be able to transform into a film producer) than to move on to the next event and go through the same old ritual drinking, smiling (must keep smiling), and pretending that youre not looking at anyone, while your heart beats furiously, time ticks rapidly on, and there are still gala nights to which you havent yet been invited, but to which the perfumes have.

They know what the perfumes are going to say because they always say the same thing, but they pretend to believe them anyway.

(a) I could change your life. (b) A lot of women would like to be in your shoes. (c) Youre young now, but what will become of you in a few years time? You need to think about making a longer-term investment. (d) Im married, but my wife . . . (This opening line can have various endings: . . . is ill, . . . has threatened to commit suicide if I leave her, etc.) (e) Youre a princess and deserve to be treated like one. I didnt know it until now, but Ive been waiting for you. I dont believe in coincidences and I really think we ought to give this rela- tionship a chance.

Its always the same old spiel. The only variable is how many pres- ents you get (preferably jewelry, which can be sold), how many in- vites to yacht parties, how many visiting cards you collect, how many times you have to listen to the same chat-up lines, and whether you can wangle a ticket to the Formula 1 races, where youll get to mingle with the same class of people and where your big chance might be there waiting for you.

Perfume is also the word used by young actors to refer to elderly millionairesses, all plastic and Botox, but who are, at least, more intel- ligent than their male counterparts. They never waste any time: they, too, arrive in the final days of the Festival, knowing that money pro- vides their only pulling power.

The male perfumes deceive themselves: they think that the long legs and youthful faces have genuinely fallen for them and can now be manipulated at will. The female perfumes put all their trust in the power of their diamonds.

Igor knows nothing of all this. This is his first time at the Festival. And he has just realized that, much to his surprise, no one here seems very interested in films, except the people in that bar. He has leafed through a few magazines, opened the envelope in which his company has placed the invitations to the most prestigious parties, but not one of them is for a film premiere. Before traveling to France, he tried to find out which films were in the running, but had great diffi- culty in obtaining this information. Then a friend said:

Forget about films. Cannes is just a fashion show.

Fashion. Whatever can people be thinking?Dotheythink fashion is something that changes according to the season of the year? Did they really come from all corners of the world to show off their dresses, their jewelry, and their collection of shoes? They dont under- stand. Fashion is merely a way of saying: I belong to your world. Im wearing the same uniform as your army, so dont shoot.

Ever since groups of men and women first started living together in caves, fashion has been the only language everyone can understand, even complete strangers. We dress in the same way. I belong to your tribe. Lets gang up on the weaklings as a way of surviving.

But some people believe that fashion is everything. Every six months, they spend a fortune changing some tiny detail in order to keep up their membership in the very exclusive tribe of the rich. If they were to visit Silicon Valley, where the billionaires of the IT industry wear plastic watches and beat-up jeans, they would understand that the world has changed; everyone now seems to belong to the same social class; no one cares anymore about the size of a diamond or the make of a tie or a leather briefcase. In fact, ties and leather briefcases dont even exist in that part of the world; nearby, however, is Hollywood, a rela- tively more powerful machinealbeit in declinewhich still manages to convince the innocent to believe in haute-couture dresses, emerald necklaces, and stretch limos. And since this is what still appears in all the magazines, who would dare destroy a billion-dollar industry in- volving advertisements, the sale of useless objects, the invention of en- tirely unnecessary new trends, and the creation of identical face creams all bearing different labels?

How ridiculous! Igor cannot conceal his loathing for those whose decisions affect the lives of millions of honest, hardworking men and women leading dignified lives and glad to have their health, a home, and the love of their family.

How perverse! Just when everything seems to be in order and as families gather round the table to have supper, the phantom of the Su- perclass appears, selling impossible dreams: luxury, beauty, power. And the family falls apart.

The father works overtime to be able to buy his son the latest sneak- ers because if his son doesnt have a pair, hell be ostracized at school. The wife weeps in silence because her friends have designer clothes and she has no money. Their adolescent children, instead of learning the real values of faith and hope, dream only of becoming singers or movie stars. Girls in provincial towns lose any real sense of themselves and start to think of going to the big city, prepared to do anything, absolutely anything, to get a particular piece of jewelry. A world that should be directed toward justice begins instead to focus on material things, which, in six months time, will be worthless and have to be replaced, and that is how the whole circus ensures that the despicable creatures gathered together in Cannes remain at the top of the heap.

Igor is untouched by this destructive power, for he has one of the most enviable jobs in the world. He continues to earn more money in a day than he could spend in a year, even if he were to indulge in all possible pleasures, legal and illegal. He has no difficulty in finding women, regardless of whether they know how much money he has hes tested it out on more than one occasion and never failed yet. He has just turned forty, is in good physical shape, and, according to his annual checkup, has no health problems. He has no debts either. He doesnt have to wear a particular designer label, go to a particular res- taurant, spend his holidays at a beach where everyone goes, or buy a watch just because some successful sportsman is promoting it. He can sign major contracts with a cheap ballpoint pen, wear comfortable, elegant jackets, handmade by a tailor who has a small shop next to his office, and which carry no label at all. He can do as he likes and doesnt have to prove to anyone that hes rich; he has an interesting job and loves what he does.

Perhaps thats the problem: he still loves what he does. Hes sure that this is why the woman who came into the bar some hours earlier is not sitting at his table with him.

He tries to keep thinking, to pass the time. He asks Kristelle for an- other drinkhe knows the waitresss name because an hour ago, when the bar was emptier (people were having supper), he asked for a glass of whisky, and she said that he looked sad and should eat something to cheer himself up. He thanked her for her concern, and was glad that someone should care about his state of mind.

He is perhaps the only one who knows the name of the waitress serving him, the others only want to know the namesand, if pos- sible, the job titlesof the people sitting at the tables and in the arm- chairs.

He tries to keep thinking, but its gone three oclock in the morn- ing, and the beautiful woman and her courteous companionwho, by the way, looks remarkably like himhave not reappeared. Maybe they went straight up to their room where they are now making love, or perhaps theyre still drinking champagne on one of the yachts where the parties only begin when the other parties are all coming to an end. Perhaps theyre lying in bed, reading magazines, ignoring each other.

Not that it matters. Igor is alone and tired and needs to sleep.