Numero zero Read online

  “And you want me to write the book? Why not write it yourself? You’re a journalist, no? At least, given you’re about to run a newspaper . . .”

  “Running a newspaper doesn’t necessarily mean you know how to write. The minister of defense doesn’t necessarily know how to lob a hand grenade. Naturally, throughout the coming year we’ll discuss the book day by day, you’ll give it the style, the pep, I’ll control the general outline.”

  “You mean we’ll both appear as authors, or will it be Colonna interviewing Simei?”

  “No, no, my dear Colonna, the book will appear under my name. You’ll have to disappear after you’ve written it. No offense, but you’ll be a nègre. Dumas had one, I don’t see why I can’t have one too.”

  “And why me?”

  “You have some talent as a writer—”

  “Thank you.”

  “—and no one has ever noticed it.”

  “Thanks again.”

  “I’m sorry, but up to now you’ve only worked on provincial newspapers, you’ve been a cultural slave for several publishing houses, you’ve written a novel for someone (don’t ask me how, but I happened to pick it up, and it works, it has a certain style), and at the age of fifty or so you’ve raced here at the news that I might perhaps have a job for you. So you know how to write, you know what a book is, but you’re still scraping around for a living. No need to be ashamed. I too—if I’m about to set up a newspaper that will never get published, it’s because I’ve never been short-listed for the Pulitzer Prize. I’ve only ever run a sports weekly and a men’s monthly—for men alone, or lonely men, whichever you prefer.”

  “I could have some self-respect and say no.”

  “You won’t, because I’m offering you six million lire per month for a year, in cash, off the books.”

  “That’s a lot for a failed writer. And then?”

  “And then, when you’ve delivered the book, let’s say around six months after the end of the experiment, another ten million lire, lump sum, in cash. That will come from my own pocket.”

  “And then?”

  “And then that’s your affair. You’ll have earned more than eighty million lire, tax free, in eighteen months, if you don’t spend it all on women, horses, and champagne. You’ll be able to take it easy, look around.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re offering me six million lire a month—and (if I may say so) who knows how much you’re getting out of this—there’ll be other journalists to pay, to say nothing of the costs of production and printing and distribution, and you’re telling me someone, a publisher I imagine, is ready to back this experiment for a year, then do nothing with it?”

  “I didn’t say he’ll do nothing with it. He’ll gain his own benefit from it. But me, no, not if the newspaper isn’t published. Of course, the publisher might decide in the end that the newspaper must appear, but at that point it’ll become big business and I doubt he’ll want me around to look after it. So I’m ready for the publisher to decide at the end of this year that the experiment has produced the expected results and that he can shut up shop. That’s why I’m covering myself: if all else fails, I’ll publish the book. It’ll be a bombshell and should give me a tidy sum in royalties. Alternatively, so to speak, there might be someone who won’t want it published and who’ll give me a sum of money, tax free.”

  “I follow. But maybe, if you want me to work as a loyal collaborator, you’ll need to tell me who’s paying, why the Domani project exists, why it’s perhaps going to fail, and what you’re going to say in the book that, modesty aside, will have been written by me.”

  “All right. The one who’s paying is Commendator Vimercate. You’ll have heard of him . . .”

  “Vimercate. Yes I have. He ends up in the papers from time to time: he controls a dozen or so hotels on the Adriatic coast, owns a large number of homes for pensioners and the infirm, has various shady dealings around which there’s much speculation, and controls a number of local TV channels that start at eleven at night and broadcast nothing but auctions, telesales, and a few risqué shows . . .”

  “And twenty or so publications.”

  “Rags, I recall, celebrity gossip, magazines such as Them, Peeping Tom, and weeklies about police investigations, like Crime Illustrated, What They Never Tell Us, all garbage, trash.”

  “Not all. There are also specialist magazines on gardening, travel, cars, yachting, Home Doctor. An empire. A nice office this, isn’t it? There’s even the ornamental fig, like you find in the offices of the kingpins in state television. And we have an open plan, as they say in America, for the news team, a small but dignified office for you, and a room for the archives. All rent-free, in this building that houses all the Commendatore’s companies. For the rest, each dummy issue will use the same production and printing facilities as the other magazines, so the cost of the experiment is kept to an acceptable level. And we’re practically in the city center, unlike the big newspapers where you have to take two trains and a bus to reach them.”

  “But what does the Commendatore expect from this experiment?”

  “The Commendatore wants to enter the inner sanctum of finance, banking, and perhaps also the quality papers. His way of getting there is the promise of a new newspaper ready to tell the truth about everything. Twelve zero issues—0/1, 0/2, and so on—dummy issues printed in a tiny number of exclusive copies that the Commendatore will inspect, before arranging for them to be seen by certain people he knows. Once the Commendatore has shown he can create problems for the so-called inner sanctum of finance and politics, it’s likely they’ll ask him to put a stop to such an idea. He’ll close down Domani and will then be given an entry permit to the inner sanctum. He buys up, let’s say, just two percent of shares in a major newspaper, a bank, a major television network.”

  I let out a whistle. “Two percent is a hell of a lot! Does he have that kind of money?”

  “Don’t be naïve. We’re talking about finance, not business. First buy, then wait and see where the money to pay for it comes from.”

  “I get it. And I can also see that the experiment would work only if the Commendatore keeps quiet about the newspaper not being published in the end. Everyone would have to think that the wheels of his press were eager to roll, so to speak.”

  “Of course. The Commendatore hasn’t even told me about the newspaper not appearing. I suspect, or rather, I’m sure of it. And the colleagues we will meet tomorrow mustn’t know. They have to work away, believing they are building their future. This is something only you and I know.”

  “But what’s in it for you if you then write down all you’ve been doing to help along the Commendatore’s blackmail?”

  “Don’t use the word ‘blackmail.’ We publish news. As the New York Times says, ‘All the news that’s fit to print.’”

  “And maybe a little more.”

  “I see we understand each other. If the Commendatore then uses our dummy issues to intimidate someone, or wipes his butt with them, that’s his business, not ours. But the point is, my book doesn’t have to tell the story of what decisions were made in our editorial meetings. I wouldn’t need you for that—a tape recorder would do. The book has to give the idea of another kind of newspaper, has to show how I labored away for a year to create a model of journalism independent of all pressure, implying that the venture failed because it was impossible to have a free voice. To do this, I need you to invent, idealize, write an epic, if you get my meaning.”

  “The book will say the opposite of what actually happened. Fine. But you’ll be proved wrong.”

  “By whom? By the Commendatore, who would have to say no, the aim of the project was simple extortion? He’d be happier to let people think he’d been forced to quit because he too was under pressure, that he preferred to kill the newspaper so it didn’t become a voice controlled by someone else. And our news team? Are they going to say we’re wrong when the book presents them as journalists of the highest integrity? It’l
l be a betzeller that nobody will be able or willing to attack.”

  “All right, seeing that both of us are men without qualities—if you’ll excuse the allusion—I accept the terms.”

  “I like dealing with people who are loyal and say what they think.”

  3

  Tuesday, April 7

  FIRST MEETING WITH THE EDITORIAL STAFF. Six, that should do.

  Simei had told me I wouldn’t have to traipse around doing bogus investigations, but was to stay in the office and keep a record of what was going on. And to justify my presence, this is how he started: “So gentlemen, let’s get to know each other. This is Dottor Colonna, a man of great journalistic experience. He will work beside me, and for this reason we’ll call him assistant editor; his main task will be checking all of your articles. Each of you comes from a different background, and it’s one thing to have worked on a far-left paper and quite another to have experience of, let’s say, the Voice of the Gutter, and since, as you see, we are a spartan few, those who have always worked on death notices may also have to write an editorial on the government crisis. It’s therefore a question of uniformity of style and, if anyone is tempted to write ‘palingenesis,’ then Colonna will tell you not to, and will suggest an alternative word.”

  “Deep moral renewal,” I said.

  “There. And if anyone is tempted to describe a dramatic situation by saying we’re in the ‘eye of the storm,’ I imagine Dottor Colonna will be just as quick to remind you that according to all scientific manuals, the ‘eye of the storm’ is the place where calm reigns while the storm rages all around.”

  “No, Dottor Simei,” I interrupted. “In such a case I’d say you should use ‘eye of the storm’ because it doesn’t matter what science says, readers don’t know, and ‘eye of the storm’ gives exactly the idea of finding yourself in the middle of it. This is what the press and television have taught them.”

  “Excellent idea, Dottor Colonna. We have to talk on the same level as the reader, we don’t want the sophisticated language of eggheads. Our proprietor once said that his television audience had an average mental age of twelve. That’s not the case with us, but it’s always useful to put an age on your readers. Ours ought to be over fifty, they’ll be good, honest, middle-class folk, eager for law and order but desperate to read gossip and revelations about other people’s misfortunes. We’ll start off from the principle that they’re not what you’d call great readers, in fact most of them won’t have a book in the house, though, when they have to, they’ll talk about the latest book that’s selling millions of copies around the world. Our readers may not read books, but they are fascinated by great eccentric painters who sell for billions. Likewise, they’ll never get to see the film star with long legs and yet they want to know all about her secret love life. Now let’s allow the others to introduce themselves. We’ll start with the only female . . . Signorina, or Signora . . .”

  “Maia Fresia. Unmarried, single, or spinster, take your choice. Twenty-eight. I nearly graduated in literature but had to stop for family reasons. I worked for five years on a gossip magazine. My job was to go around the entertainment world and sniff out who was having an affair with whom and to get photographers to lie in wait for them. More often I had to persuade a singer or actress to invent a flirtation with another celebrity, and I’d take them to the appointment with the paparazzi, the two walking hand in hand, or taking a furtive kiss. I enjoyed it at first, but now I’m tired of writing such drivel.”

  “And why, my dear, did you agree to join our venture?”

  “I imagine a daily newspaper will be covering more serious matters, and I’ll have a chance to make a name for investigations that have nothing to do with celebrity romance. I’m curious, and think I’ll be a good sleuth.”

  She was slim and spoke with cautious gaiety.

  “Excellent. And you?”

  “Romano Braggadocio.”

  “Strange name, where’s it from?”

  “Ha, that’s one of the many crosses I have to bear in life. Apparently it has a pretty unattractive meaning in English, though not in other languages. My grandfather was a foundling, and you know how surnames in such cases used to be invented by a public official. If he was a sadist, he could even call you Ficarotta, but in my grandfather’s case the official was only moderately sadistic and had a certain learning. As for me, I specialize in digging for dirt, and I used to work for What They Don’t Tell Us, one of our own publisher’s magazines. I was never taken on full-time, they paid me per article.”

  As for the other four, Cambria had spent his nights in casualty wards and police stations gathering the latest news—an arrest, a death in a high-speed pileup on the highway—and had never succeeded in getting any further; Lucidi inspired mistrust at first glance and had worked on publications that no one had ever heard of; Palatino came from a long career in weekly magazines of games and assorted puzzles; Costanza had worked as a subeditor, correcting proofs, but newspapers nowadays had too many pages, no one could proof everything before it went to press, and even the major newspapers were now writing “Simone de Beauvoire,” or “Beaudelaire,” or “Roosvelt,” and the proofreader was becoming as outmoded as the Gutenberg press. None of these fellow travelers came from particularly inspiring backgrounds—a Bridge of San Luis Rey—and I have no idea how Simei had managed to track them down.

  Once the introductions were over, Simei outlined the different aspects of the newspaper.

  “So then, we’ll be setting up a daily newspaper. Why Domani? Because traditional papers gave (and still give) the previous evening’s news, and that’s why they called them Corriere della Sera, Evening Standard, or Le Soir. These days we’ve already seen yesterday’s news on the eight o’clock television news the previous evening, so the newspapers are always telling you what you already know, and that’s why sales keep falling. Domani will summarize the news that now stinks like rotten fish, but it will do so in one small column that can be read in a few minutes.”

  “So what will the paper cover?” asked Cambria.

  “A daily newspaper is destined to become more like a weekly magazine. We’ll be talking about what might happen tomorrow, with feature articles, investigative supplements, unexpected predictions . . . I’ll give you an example. There’s a bomb blast at four in the afternoon. By the next day everyone knows about it. Well, from four until midnight, before going to press, we have to dig up someone who can provide something entirely new about the likely culprits, something the police don’t yet know, and to sketch out a scenario of what will happen over the coming weeks as a result of the attack.”

  Braggadocio: “But to launch an investigation of that kind in eight hours, you’d need an editorial staff at least ten times our size, along with a wealth of contacts, informers, or whatever.”

  “That’s right, and when the newspaper is actually up and running, that’s how it will have to be. But for now, over the next year, we only have to show it can be done. And it can be done, because each dummy issue can carry whatever date we fancy, and it can perfectly well demonstrate how the newspaper would have treated it months earlier when, let’s say, the bomb had gone off. In that case, we already know what will fall, but we’ll be talking as though the reader doesn’t yet know. So all our news leaks will take on the flavor of something fresh, surprising, dare I say oracular. In other words, we have to say to our owner: this is how Domani would have been had it appeared yesterday. Understood? And, if we wanted to, even if no one had actually thrown the bomb, we could easily do an issue as if.”

  “Or throw the bomb ourselves if we felt like it,” sneered Braggadocio.

  “Let’s not be silly,” cautioned Simei. Then, almost as an afterthought, “And if you really want to do that, don’t come telling me.”

  After the meeting I found myself walking with Braggadocio. “Haven’t we already met?” he asked. I thought we hadn’t, and he said perhaps I was right, but with a slightly suspicious air, and he instantly adopted
a familiar tone. Simei had established a certain formality with the editorial staff, and I myself tend to keep a distance from people, unless we’ve been to bed together, but Braggadocio was eager to stress that we were colleagues. I didn’t want to seem like someone who puts on airs just because Simei had introduced me as editor in chief or whatever it was. In any event, I was curious about him and had nothing better to do.

  He took me by the arm and suggested we go for a drink at a place he knew. He smiled with his fleshy lips and slightly bovine eyes, in a way that struck me as vaguely obscene. Bald as von Stroheim, his nape vertical to his neck, but his face was that of Telly Savalas, Lieutenant Kojak. There—always some allusion.

  “Cute little thing, that Maia, no?”

  I was embarrassed to admit that I’d hardly looked at her. I told him I kept my distance from women. He shook my arm: “Don’t play the gentleman, Colonna. I saw you watching her on the sly. I think she’d be up for it. The truth is, all women are up for it, you just have to know which way to take them. A bit too thin for my taste, flat boobs, but all in all, she’d do.”

  We arrived at Via Torino and made a sharp turn at a church, into a badly lit alley. Many doors there had been shut tight for God knows how long, and no shops, as if the place had long been abandoned. A rancid smell seemed to hang over it, but this must just have been synesthesia, from the peeling walls covered in fading graffiti. High up was a pipe that let out smoke, and you couldn’t work out where it came from, since the upper windows were bricked up as though no one lived there anymore. Perhaps it was a pipe that came from a house that opened on another side, and no one was worried about smoking out an abandoned alley.