The Imperfectionists (12 page)

All this has been the most extraordinary surprise; he had expected an unhappy life, yet ended up with the opposite. It's barely credible.

When Miriam arrives home, she raves about the trip to Philadelphia and shows off all the photos on her digital camera. They are so wrapped up in talking about the grandkids that they hardly discuss Jimmy's stay. She turns to Herman on the sofa--they are sitting side by side.

"What?" he asks suspiciously. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking how handsome you are."

"How fat, you mean."

"No," she says. "Handsome." She kisses his cheek, then his lips. "You are. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, either."

"So I've got admirers now?"

"I'm not about to tell you, am I. You might run off."

"I made soup, by the way."

"Yes," she says, amused. "I know."

A couple of months later, Herman receives an email from Jimmy. It is long and rambling, full of philosophizing and poetic citations. Which is another way of saying he's in splendid spirits with his daughter in Tempe, Arizona.

The email, for no reason Herman can articulate, upsets him. He sees no reason to write back, and perhaps that is why.

1960. AVENTINE HILL, ROME

Ott opened his copy of the paper across the dining-room table and touched a
finger to his tongue, which was dry from all the medication the doctors had him on. He
flipped the pages: Eichmann caught in Argentina, African colonies declaring
independence, Kennedy running for president
.

He was proud of what the paper had become but sorry to read it here in his
mansion and not in the office, among his staff. He had not visited Corso Vittorio in
weeks. He'd told Betty and Leo that he was traveling in the United States; he'd told his
family in Atlanta that he was on the road in Italy. The only travel he did, however, was to
clinics in London and Geneva
.

His symptoms had been worsening for months: blood, pain, exhaustion. He came
to despise his bathroom in the mansion, all the intimate revulsions awaiting him there.

He had the cooks prepare steak, eggs, liver pate, but still he grew thinner
.

A surgeon in London cut out half of Ott's cancerous insides, but the procedure did
no good. On his return to the mansion, he ordered the servants away. A delivery boy
dropped each day's paper outside the gate; a maid left him food. Otherwise, he was on
his own
.

He washed in the bathtub, soap bar bruising his skin, bumping bones beneath. He
climbed out, arms straining on the rim of the tub. In the fogged mirror, he caught sight of
himself, thick white towel around jagged hips. He was dying
.

He walked across the mansion, bathwater dripping off him, over the floorboards,
up the stairs to the second floor. Cautiously, he lowered himself into the chair at his desk-

-no buttock flesh to cushion him anymore--and opened his letter pad
.

The first note he addressed to his wife and son, whom he had left in Atlanta years
earlier. "Dear Jeanne and Boyd," he wrote. "The important thing to realize, and I need to
make this clear."

His pen hung above the line
.

He glanced at the wall, at one of the paintings Betty had chosen, theTurner. He
approached it and reached behind himself, as if to take her wrist, to lead her closer. "Tell
me about this one. I don't understand it. Explain it to me."

He returned to his desk and started a new letter. It was time, he decided, to
explain matters
.

As days passed, copies of the paper piled up outside the mansion. The maid who
left Ott's meals noticed that they were not being consumed. She unlocked the mansion.

"Mister Ott?" she called out. "Mister Ott?"

His family in Atlanta, against all evidence, had always expected him to return.

Now they could not even retrieve his body. Legally, there was no way: his will specified
burial in the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. They refused to believe this had been his wish
and boycotted the funeral in Italy, holding an alternative service in Atlanta
.

The paper came out with a black border around page one, accompanied by a
front-page editor's note in tribute to the founding publisher. Leo sent Ott's brother,
Charles, a letter of condolence (he did not respond), then followed up with a polite
entreaty that the paper be allowed to survive. Again, Charles--now chairman of the Ott
board--did not respond. Nor did he halt funding
.

Six anxious months passed before Charles announced that he was coming for a
visit. On arrival, he shook hands coldly with Leo and ignored Betty altogether. He made
one demand--that at the top of the masthead, in bold print and in perpetuity, it state:

"Founded by Cyrus Ott (1899-1960)." Betty and Leo heartily endorsed the idea
.

"This is an enterprise that mattered a great deal to my younger brother," Charles
said. "Letting it end now would be, I believe, a smear on his memory."

"I thoroughly agree," Leo said
.

"How many copies do you people sell?"

"Around fifteen thousand on a good day."

"Well, I want more. I want my brother's name in front of as many eyes as possible.

It may not mean much in the grand scheme, but it does mean something to me and to my
family."

"We were extremely fond of him," Betty said
.

This irked Charles for some reason. He concluded the conversation and went into
the newsroom to address the staff
.

"Putting out the paper each day is your business," he told them. "But that the
paper gets put out--this is my business. I consider the enterprise to be a standing
memorial to my brother, and it'll keep standing as far as I'm concerned."

The staff, seeing that he had finished, broke into applause
.

"U.S. GENERAL

OPTIMISTIC ON WAR"

* * *

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF--KATHLEEN SOLSON

W HEN SHE REALIZES THAT NIGEL IS HAVING AN AFFAIR, HER FIRST

sentiment is satisfaction that she figured it out. Her second is that, despite all the palaver about betrayal, it doesn't feel so terrible. This is pleasing--it demonstrates a certain sophistication. She wonders if his fling might even serve her. In principle, she could leave him without compunction now, though she doesn't wish to. It also frees her from guilt about any infidelities she might wish to engage in. All in all, his affair might prove useful.

She toys with this while onstage during a media conference at the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome. The subject of the panel discussion is "How the International Press Views Italy," an enduring preoccupation in the country. She resents having to attend--it's clearly a task for their young publisher, Oliver Ott. But he has gone missing again and ignores her phone calls. So the conference is left to Kathleen and the paper must manage in her absence. It is not managing well, if the constant stream of text messages on her BlackBerry is any indication.

"Will the newspaper industry survive?" the mediator asks her.

"Absolutely," she tells the audience. "We'll keep going, I assure you of that.

Obviously, we're living in an era when technology is moving at an unheralded pace. I can't tell you if in fifty years we'll be publishing in the same format. Actually, I can probably tell you we
won't
be publishing in the same way, that we'll be innovating then, just as we are now. But I assure you of this: news will survive, and quality coverage will always earn a premium. Whatever you want to call it--news, text, content--someone has to report it, someone has to write it, someone has to edit it. And I intend for us to do it better, no matter the medium. We are
the
quality source among international newspapers, and I encourage anyone who doubts this bold claim to buy the paper for a month. Better yet"--lilt in voice; complicit smile to audience; pause--"better yet, buy a two-year subscription. Then you'll really see why our circulation is rising." The audience laughs politely. "My work is putting together
the
outstanding publication in its class. If we can do that, readers will turn up. Those of you who have followed the paper's progress since I became editor in 2004 will know the radical changes under way. There are more to come.

It's thrilling to be a part of, to tell the truth."

What truth? The paper is hardly at the cutting edge of technology--it doesn't even have a website. And circulation isn't increasing. The balance sheet is a catastrophe, losses mount annually, the readership is aging and dying off. But she has acquitted herself well onstage. The audience applauds and hurries out for the free lunch, while she excuses herself to the organizers. "I wish I could stay," she tells them, "but that's life at a daily newspaper."

On her way to the cloakroom, she is approached by a Chinese American student from the audience. He introduces himself as Winston Cheung, dabs sweat from his face, wipes his glasses, and proceeds to rattle off his academic credentials. Since he won't get to the point, she gets there for him. "Okay," she interrupts. "And the punch line is, Do I have a job for you? You said you're studying primatology, right, so I'm guessing you'd be interested in a science section, which we don't have. If you wanted to report general news, lots of publications are hunting for people with language skills. Do you speak any Asian languages?"

"My parents only spoke to me in English."

"Pity. Languages are key. You don't, by any lucky chance, speak flawless Arabic?"

"Not flawless Arabic, no."

"Meaning you speak
flawed
Arabic?" she says. But this guy is a nonstarter--no experience, no languages, and look how jittery he is. She needs to get rid of Winston Cheung. "Look, if you want to send us something--purely on spec--we'd look at it." She rattles off Menzies' email address and ducks into the cloakroom.

As she heads for the exit, someone touches her shoulder. She turns irritably, expecting Winston Cheung again. But it's not him.

She steps back with surprise. "My God," she says. "Dario."

Dario de Monterecchi is the Italian man she lived with in Rome during her twenties. When she left the city in 1994 to take a reporting job in Washington, she left him, too. Now here he is, temples graying, eyes bagged, slightly handsome but slightly jowly, wearing the sleepy surrender of the family man. "Sorry to sneak up like that," he says. "Did I scare you?"

"You have to try harder than that. I am somewhat caught off guard, though. My God, it's so strange seeing you. How are you?"

"I'm well," he says. "And you were excellent today. I'm most impressed. But are you leaving?"

"Sadly, yes. I have to. They need me at the office," she answers. "I'm sorry, by the way, that I haven't been in touch since I got back to Rome. It's been crazy. You knew I was back, right?"

"Of

course."

"Who

from?"

"Just heard--you know how small Rome is."

"Weird having my private life pop up when I'm in professional mode. Puts me off balance," she says. "You might not believe this, but I really wish I didn't have to go."

"Not even time for lunch?"

"I don't get lunch, alas. We close the first edition in a couple of hours. If I'm not there, the world ends. What are you doing at this event anyway?"

He hands her his business card.

"Oh, no," she exclaims, reading the card. "I'd heard a rumor about this. But Berlusconi? Ouch."

"I do press for his party, not for him personally."

She raises her eyebrows skeptically.

Dario

says,

"I

was
always on the right, remember."

"Yes, yes, I know. I remember you."

"Well, anyway," he says, "I should let you go." He kisses her cheek. She rubs his back. "You don't need to keep comforting me," he says, smiling. "I'm not still upset."

She grabs a taxi outside. As the cab speeds toward the city center, she consults her BlackBerry, which is pulsating with messages from Menzies: "General Abizaid testifying to Senate about Iraq. How should we cover?? Call please!" Meanwhile, Dario--who slept beside her and woke beside her for six years of her life--has vanished from mind. She can't help it: she's of the newspapering temperament, and he's no longer front page.

When, she wonders, do people have time to contemplate anything? But she has no time to answer that.

She passes through the paper's various departments to consult on tomorrow's edition. Her arrival halts conversations, prompts sheepish expressions and flurries of phone calls that should have been made earlier. The afternoon meeting is a farce. The usual suspects trickle in and settle around the oval table. Kathleen listens. Then she speaks. She isn't shrill--she never is. She is deliberate and pulverizing. She commands actions, concludes with "All right?" and walks out of the room.

Her chief ally--the only person she holds to be her intellectual equal at the office--is Herman Cohen. He is waiting in her office when she returns. At the door, she covers her face playfully to block him from view, then enters, crossing her index fingers as if before a vampire. "Please don't."

"You know you want it," he says, handing her the latest copy of his in-house newsletter,
Why?
, with which he chronicles mistakes in the paper. "Everything well, my dear?" he asks.