One Trillion Dollars

by Andreas Eschbach

  “Remarkable.” That almost sounded like a compliment. “May I ask for what reason?”

  John went over to the sofa and sat down. With a moist finger he tried in vain to remove the scuffmarks from Marvin’s shoes. “I think that all of mankind’s problems are intertwined. Certain problems develop out of certain situations, which are the product of other situations. And when you look deep enough, sooner or later you get to the root of all our problems, which is the ever-expanding human world population. Saddam Hussein would probably have called it the ‘mother of all problems’.”

  The stranger seemed amused by the expression. “I agree with you so far.”

  “I don't think any of these problems can be solved on their own, but maybe only if the roots are eradicated.” It did John good to think out loud like this. Up until now he hadn’t even worked through the things he was now telling the stranger. He surprised himself. “And the problem of overpopulation can only be solved with birth control.”

  “Nice. Basically correct and close enough to the truth. But I can’t give you any bonus points for the originality and depth of your thoughts on the subject, unless you can describe concrete details how this project could be implemented.”

  John’s forehead creased at those words. “Concrete details? Well, birth control means contraception. People all over the world are going to have to be provided with the means of contraception and taught how to use it.”

  “What people are we talking about? Men? Women? And what types of contraception do you want to provide? The pill? Condoms?”

  “Those are merely minor details.”

  “Right. But, in life it’s the details that often make the differences. What will you do about countries that forbid this sort of thing? What to do with countries that are ruled by fanatical mullahs, or are under the influence of the pope? And what about those people who want lots of children? You are wrong if you think that children are unwanted in underdeveloped countries.”

  “Hmm,” John hummed. He really did have to think about those details. So far his ideas how to fulfill the prophecy was little better than barroom talk.

  “I think it may be time for us to meet,” the stranger said.

  “First you’re going to have to tell me who you are.”

  “You will see when we get together.”

  “I won’t meet with you without knowing your name first.”

  Stalemate.

  The dark voice said, “Very well then, we won’t meet. But remember one thing, Mr. Fontanelli; I know what has to be done. You don’t. If you wish to find out, then you’ll have to meet with me. That’s the very least you’ll have to do.”

  He hung up.

  John looked irritably at the phone. “Who the hell does he think he is?” he murmured.

  The next morning John raced down to Rome accompanied only by Marco. At one point, after John had slammed on the brakes, Marco told him dryly that he could protect him against assassins and kidnappers, but not against collisions with trucks.

  They got to the outskirts of the city just as the first stores were opening. John got a large bouquet of flowers in one of them. The florist assured him that the flowers were appropriate for bereavement.

  Lorenzo’s mother was a pretty woman in a mournful sort of way. She was slim, had fine facial features, and was at most forty years old. She greeted John solemnly but with warmth. John introduced Marco to her and explained who he was. She invited them to come into the kitchen.

  “You look like your father,” she told John and put coffee cups on the table. After John, who was unsure of himself, called her ‘Signora Fontanelli’ again, she shook her head, and told him, “John, please call me Leona.”

  She didn’t look as if she had been crying all morning; she looked as if she had been crying incessantly for the past three months and decided only a few days ago to try and get her life back to a normal life. Her skin looked soft, almost translucent, but her long dark hair hung straight down, dull, and lifeless.

  “He didn’t come home that evening,” she began to tell him in a flat voice, staring into thin air. “He had gone out after lunch to meet with someone, a school friend. I can still see him going up that hill. You can see it from the kitchen window. Sometimes … I expect him to come back down any moment, and then I stand here and wait for him … It was a sunny day. I put some flowers outside in the afternoon …” her voice faded. She sat there quietly — lost in her thoughts.

  Then she came back to the present, looked at John, and asked: “Would you like to see his room?”

  John had to swallow hard. “Yes, I would.”

  It was a large room located up on the second floor, but it was so full of dark, old-fashioned furniture and a piano that it still seemed small and cramped. There was a stack of sheet music on the piano and on top of them a case for a flute, which lay open, the silver instrument half-covered with a cloth. There was a picture frame hanging on the wall behind it with a certificate.

  “That’s the certificate he got after winning the math contest,” Leona explained with her arms crossed. “And he also got five hundred thousand lira, which he promptly spent on books.” She gestured over to the bookshelf. John cocked his head and tried to read the titles of the books; lots of math books, some on astronomy, a handbook on economics, and a well-read copy of the Reports on the Club of Rome.

  “May I take a look at this?” John asked Leona.

  “Yes, yes. He read that one a lot, even when he was much younger. I don’t even know where he got it from.”

  John opened it. Every page was full of markings underlining the text in different colors, and comments in the margins, or scribbled over the illustrations. John flipped through the pages. His Italian wasn’t enough to skim the text and all he could really understand were the captions. But that was enough to see that for years Lorenzo had been studying the very same topics that John had recently stumbled upon. The entire book was marked, from front to back.

  John felt empty and sad, like some swindler about to be caught. A terrible mistake had been made. Fate had got it wrong; the fortune had gone to the wrong individual. It had gone to him, and he didn’t have a clue what to do with it.

  A piece of paper slipped out of the book and fluttered to the floor. John quickly picked it up. It was a newspaper clipping. It showed a boy of about twelve or thirteen standing before a chalkboard filled with math problems and the kid holding a certificate, the same one framed and hanging on the wall. The boy looked sincerely and self-confidently into the camera.

  “Oh, that’s where he put it,” Leona exclaimed and took the cutout. “I’ve looked everywhere for this. Thanks.”

  Seeing Lorenzo had thoroughly shaken John. It wasn’t enough that Lorenzo was intelligent and well educated, but on the photo he also beamed with self-confidence and determination; features John had always wished he possessed. He had no idea how to describe Lorenzo: self-confident maybe. He was someone who had a hold on his life, had a certain charisma.

  He now understood too well why the Vacchis had been so sure about this boy. What I don’t understand is how they can possibly see me as the true heir, he thought bitterly. But maybe they really don’t. He felt like an idiot. He was a daydreamer, just like his mother always said. He had no goals and no drive. And he most certainly wasn’t the one who the prophecy meant. He only wore Lorenzo’s suits, drove his car and lived in his house.

  Leona rolled back the lid of a writing desk, to reveal a typewriter. It was small and black and almost looked like it belonged in a museum. “He sat here a lot and wrote. Of course he wanted a computer, like all the boys. He got this typewriter from his grandfather.” Her fingers ran smoothly over the keys.

  “What did he write?” John asked because he felt he was expected to. He actually felt like running away. Disappearing into thin air.

  “All sorts of stuff. I’m not sure. I’ll look through it all some day. Once he showed me a play he had written. I don’t know if it’s good. He wrote a lot of letters, to
all sorts of people, and school newspaper articles too, all kinds of things.”

  “School paper articles?” For some reason this interested John.

  “There was one in the last issue, wait …” She looked through a small stack of booklets with odd drawings on the covers, “here.”

  John took the booklet. The title was Ritirata — toilet. He went to the table of contents. The main article was titled Humanity’s Path into the 21st Century, by Lorenzo Fontanelli. John felt his pulse race.

  It was unbelievable. It was really and truly a long article that dealt with the problems of mankind on the threshold of a new century in just ten pages. “Could I make a copy of this?” John asked with a dry mouth.

  “You may take the whole booklet with you. I have a couple more copies. Please, go ahead, I’d really like that.”

  He wanted to say thanks, but he somehow couldn’t get it out of his dry throat. He flipped to the last page and read the last paragraph. He read it again, scarcely able to believe what he was reading:

  The world has many problems at once and at first sight it all looks pretty grim for humanity. However, I will demonstrate that this is only a simple flaw in the way our civilization is constructed, one that we ourselves can also eliminate. So, don’t commit suicide yet, and stay around to read the next issue of Ritirata!

  $16,000,000,000,000

  AFTER HE FINISHED the call, Cristoforo left the phone lying on his lap a while longer, looking out into the distance; he smiled silently.

  Gregorio cleared his throat, bringing him out of his reverie.

  The Padrone sighed. Young people just didn’t understand when subtle forces are at work behind the scenes and the seemingly objective reality around us, he thought. “You’re in a pensive mood?” he asked his son.

  “Definitely. I’m wondering whether you know what you are doing.”

  Cristoforo put the phone away. “It is time to come out with the whole story.”

  “That is against the agreement.”

  “Perhaps I just can’t resist the temptation to tinker with fate.”

  “Nothing!” said Marco defeated. “It’s not there.”

  John stood among the papers like a general among his troops and looked at the empty shelves and the equally empty drawers. “We didn’t miss anything?”

  “No,” the bodyguard sighed.

  Reluctantly, Leona had allowed John to hunt for the manuscript of the second part of the article. But she had to leave the room, she had told him. John got Marco to help since his Italian was far better. Together they had gone through every piece of paper they could find in the room. They found poems and the play Leona had mentioned and a few pieces of prose, typed lists of books that Lorenzo must’ve borrowed from various libraries, a few disrespectful essays on religious themes, summaries of school work on biology and geography, but none of it organized in any particular order. Two thick folders were filled with math calculations that meant less then nothing to John.

  They did come across a few manuscripts obviously intended for the school paper; a collection of quotes from teachers, over-the-top critical comments on the state of society and government, a bit about human rights and animal welfare.

  But the second half of the article remained elusive.

  Marco said, “Maybe he’d already submitted it.” He sat on the floor next to the bed like a tired bear and didn’t look at all interested in reading through all those papers a third time.

  John nodded. “We’d better clean up.”

  The office for the student newspaper was in the basement of the school. It had small windows high up on the walls, leaving lots of room for shelves laden with torn-open packs of paper, empty beer cans, cigarettes, and Coke cans as well as books with loads of page markers in them, and tons of binders. The chairs were just as worn as the tables, the monitor of the only computer was on, the phone belonged in a museum, and the printer was making strange squeaking noises. The whole place stank of cigarette smoke, unsurprisingly seeing as the gaunt, straw-haired youth with bright eyes behind thin-framed glasses who introduced himself as the editor-in-chief was either rolling a cigarette or smoking one at the same time as his nimble fingers scribbled notes.

  “What an honor, what an honor,” he said greeting them and cleared cartons and ashtrays off two chairs. “Please, have a seat, Signor Fontanelli. Unfortunately, I can offer you only this humble chair to sit in, which is not to say that I would turn down a small donation to improve the furniture situation …”

  John sat down. Marco preferred to stand by the door with his arms crossed.

  “On the phone you were, how should I put it, mysterious, which caught my interest. But all I really gathered was that Lorenzo was you cousin, right?”

  “His father is a cousin of my father,” John. “I‘m not sure if there is a proper term for my relationship to John.”

  “Ah, I see, ‘second cousin once removed,’ maybe? But whatever, you’re looking for something Lorenzo wrote?” He pulled out a small tape recorder from underneath a stack of newspapers, large envelopes, and a dusty cap. “Do you mind if I record our conversation? An exclusive interview with the richest man in the world could give a new lease on life to our nearly bankrupt little newspaper. And to be honest with you that’s my main problem at present.”

  John hesitated. “I’m not sure …”

  But the youth was already fingering with the buttons, and then said into it: “Interview with John Fontanelli, trillionaire, in the afternoon of the … where’s the calendar? No idea what date it is today — Maybe July 7?.” He placed the tape recorder on the table between them. “Signor Fontanelli, you are a distant relative of our deceased fellow student Lorenzo. If I remember the newspaper articles correctly, Lorenzo would now be the heir of the vast fortune if he hadn’t died before the set date. Is that correct?”

  “Yes,” John said slowly. He somehow had been blindsided again. “That is correct.”

  “You found among his papers an article from the most recent issue of Ritirata written by him, which describes the problems facing mankind, or so you told me on the phone. You have come here to the editorial office to look for the second part of the article, which is supposed to outline the solutions to the said problems. Please allow me to ask, Signor Fontanelli, are you searching your cousin Lorenzo’s estate for ideas to help you do something useful with your fantastic wealth?”

  John realized this boy was pretty darn sharp and a sly dog to top it. He pointed at the recorder. “Turn it off.”

  The eyes behind the glasses blinked a few times as if he had a speck of dust in them. “Signor, it is no big deal. I’m only asking a few questions … He saw Marco move, not much, maybe an inch or two, but it was enough to make him reach for the recorder and turn it off. “Alright already.”

  “Okay,” John began, “what about the manuscript for the second article?”

  “Well, that’s a bit of a problem,” the editor, whose name was Antonio or something — John had already forgotten — said. “Thing is: I don’t have it.”

  John and Marco briefly exchanged looks. Then John said slowly, “If it’s a matter of money, I see no problem in making a substantial donation in exchange for this favor.”

  “Well that would be great, but the thing is, I published the first part only because Lorenzo promised me that he had the second part as good as finished and would send it to me as soon as possible. He was always dependable like that so I didn’t give it a second thought. I mean no one could guess that he would stuff a pear full of bees into his mouth and … But to get back to the point, I don’t have the second part. In the next issue we’ll print an obituary instead.”

  “He told you he would send it?” John asked. “Didn’t Lorenzo attend this school?”

  “He did, but he never came to the paper’s office. I think he didn’t like the air in here — the smoke, which I’m afraid we need when we’re working. He and I mostly talked on the phone and out in the schoolyard sometimes. He had always sent h
is manuscripts. I guess he felt more like an author that way.”

  “How long ago was it when he said he was going to send it?”

  “Hmm … yeah, wait. The last time I talked with him was three or four days before his death, so I’d say it was about two months ago, probably more.”

  John looked disturbed. “Then it can’t be in the mail system anymore.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Anything is possible with the Italian postal system. My dad once sent a love letter to his first great love, but she didn’t receive it until after she gave birth to her first child, from another man, of course. Because she got married in the mean time and…”

  “In other words,” John said interrupting the flannel, “the second part probably doesn’t exist.” They’d been on a wild goose chase.

  The youth’s nimble hands crushed the cigarette he was smoking into a half-empty Coke can and promptly reached for the tobacco. “I’ll happily take another look. How much did you say you’d donate, a million dollars?”

  “I didn’t say,” John said and stood up. He handed the boy his business card. “In case you find it.” John would have to tell his office staff to make sure any letter from the school reached him.

  The high windows of the office building looked down on Hamburg swamped by rain, an ocean of gray, wet rooftops, skirting the dank overcast harbor. Ursula Valen took the visitor’s seat, which Wilfried van Delft had cleared off for her, and she waited while the head of Stern magazine’s department for entertainment, media, and modern life found somewhere on the overstuffed shelves in his office to put the stack of books and cassettes that he moved from the chair.

  “It’s always frustrating …” the man sighed. He was in his mid-fifties, with thinning reddish blond hair and had a remarkably good figure for someone who sat behind a desk all day. “Who coined the word information explosion? Somebody with foresight in any case. A prophet, I’d almost be willing to say.” He finally gave up and put everything in a big pile in one corner of the room and sat down behind his desk. “How was America?” he asked with folded hands.