The Imperfectionists

by Tom Rachman

  "What would you like to drink? I'm having tea."

  "Tea would be perfect."

  "So can I assume," she asks, half turned toward the kitchen, "that you're writing my obituary?"

  He is caught out. "Oh," he says. "Why? Why do you ask?"

  "What are you writing, then? You said on the phone it was a profile." She disappears into the kitchen, returning a minute later with his steaming mug. She places it on the coffee table, motions him to a black leather armchair, and sits on the matching couch, which does not sink to accommodate her as he expects but holds its shape as if bearing her upon its palm. She reaches to the table for her cigarette pack and lighter.

  "I mean, yes," he admits. "It is for that. For an obituary. Is that awful to hear?"

  "No, no. I rather like it. This way, I'll know it's accurate--I won't have a chance to send a letter of complaint afterward, will I." She coughs, covering her mouth with the cigarette pack. She lights one. "You?"

  He declines.

  A lick of smoke slithers from her mouth, her chest rises, and the thread is yanked back inside. "Your German is excellent."

  "I lived in Berlin for six years as a teenager. My father was a correspondent there."

  "Yes, right--you're the son of R. P. Gopal, aren't you."

  "I am."

  "And you write obituaries?"

  "Primarily, yes."

  "Claw your way to the bottom, did you?"

  He responds with a polite smile. Writing for an international newspaper in Rome normally earns him a degree of respect--until, that is, people learn of his beat.

  She continues: "I liked your father's books. What was that one with 'Elephant' in the title?" She glances at her bookshelf.

  "Yes," Arthur says. "He was an excellent writer."

  "And do you write as well as he did?"

  "Alas, no." He sips his tea and pulls out a notepad and a tape recorder.

  She crushes her cigarette in the ashtray, picks at the stitches on her slippers. "More tea?"

  "No, I'm fine, thank you." He turns on his tape recorder and inquires about the start of her career.

  She answers impatiently, adding, "You should ask me other things."

  "I know this is basic. I just need to confirm a few facts."

  "It's all in my books."

  "I know. I'm just--"

  "Ask what you want."

  He holds up his copy of her memoirs. "I enjoyed this, by the way."

  "Really?" Her face lights up and she takes a quick drag of her cigarette. "I'm sorry you had to suffer through the boring thing."

  "It wasn't boring."

  "I'm bored by it. That's the problem, I suppose, with writing a book about your life. Once you're done, you never want to hear about it again. But it's hard to stop talking about your own life--especially if you're me!" She leans forward solicitously. "Parenthetically, Mr. Gopal, I do like obituaries. I didn't mean to sound as if I was denigrating your work. You didn't take it that way?"

  "No, no."

  "Good. That makes me feel better. Now listen, when do I get to read this piece?"

  "You don't, I'm afraid. It's against our rules. Otherwise everyone would demand to edit this bit or that. I'm sorry."

  "Pity. How entertaining it would be to know how I'll be remembered. The single article I'd most like to read is the one I never can! Ah, well." She weighs the cigarette pack in her hand. "People must grow terribly upset when you turn up with a notepad. No? Like the undertaker arriving to measure the dowager."

  "I hope I'm not that bad. Although in truth, most people don't realize what I'm researching. Anyway, I'm relieved that I don't have to pretend tonight," he says. "It makes life a great deal easier for me."

  "But does it make death a great deal easier for me?"

  He attempts a laugh.

  "Ignore me," she says. "I'm only playing with words. In any case, I'm not afraid of it. Not in the least. You can't dread what you can't experience. The only death we experience is that of other people. That's as bad as it gets. And that's bad enough, surely. I remember when for the first time a dear friend of mine died. Must have been, what, 1947? It was Walter--he's in the book, the one who's always wearing his waistcoat to bed, if you remember. He got sick, and I abandoned him in Vienna and he died. I had a terror of illness. I was petrified by--by what? Not of getting sick and dying. Even then, in an elementary way, I understood what death was at its worst: something that happens to other people. And that is hard to bear; that is what I couldn't face back then with Walter, what I've never been good at.

  "But my point, you see, is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself. From one's own perspective, experience simply halts. From one's own perspective, there is no loss. You see? Yet maybe this is a game of words, too, because it doesn't make it any less frightening, does it." She sips her tea. "What I really fear is time. That's the devil: whipping us on when we'd rather loll, so the present sprints by, impossible to grasp, and all is suddenly past, a past that won't hold still, that slides into these inauthentic tales. My past--it doesn't feel real in the slightest. The person who inhabited it is not me. It's as if the present me is constantly dissolving. There's that line of Heraclitus: 'No man steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.' That's quite right. We enjoy this illusion of continuity, and we call it memory. Which explains, perhaps, why our worst fear isn't the end of life but the end of memories." She considers him searchingly. "Do I make sense? Does that seem reasonable? Mad?"

  "I hadn't thought of it that way before," he says. "You probably have a point."

  She reclines. "It's an extraordinary fact!" She leans forward again. "Don't you find it striking? The personality is constantly dying and it feels like continuity. Meanwhile, we panic about death, which we cannot ever experience. Yet it is this illogical fear that motivates our lives. We gore each other and mutilate ourselves for victory and fame, as if these might swindle mortality and extend us somehow. Then, as death bears down, we agonize over how little we have achieved. My own life, for example, has been so inadequately realized. I will scarcely be recorded anywhere. Except, of course, in your eccentric newspaper. I won't question why you've chosen me--thank God someone has! It extends the lease on my illusions."

  "That's much too modest."

  "Nothing to do with modesty," she retorts. "Who reads my books anymore? Who has heard of me at this stage?"

  "Well, me for one," he lies.

  "Oh dear--listen to me," she goes on. "I say that ambition is absurd, and yet I remain in its thrall. It's like being a slave all your life, then learning one day that you never had a master, and returning to work all the same. Can you imagine a force in the universe greater than this? Not in my universe. You know, even from earliest childhood it dominated me. I longed for achievements, to be influential--that, in particular. To sway people. This has been my religion: the belief that I deserve attention, that they are wrong not to listen, that those who dispute me are fools. Yet, no matter what I achieve, the world lives on, impertinent, indifferent--I know all this, but I can't get it through my head. It is why, I suppose, I agreed to talk to you. To this day, I'll pursue any folly to make the rest of you shut up and listen to me, as you should have from the start!" She coughs and reaches for a fresh cigarette. "Here is a fact: nothing in all civilization has been as productive as ludicrous ambition. Whatever its ills, nothing has created more. Cathedrals, sonatas, encyclopedias: love of God was not behind them, nor love of life. But the love of man to be worshipped by man."

  She leaves the room without explanation and her heaving coughs are audible, muted by a closed door. She returns. "Look at me," she says. "No children, never a husband. I reach this stage of my life, Mr. Gopal, with the most comical realization: that the only legacy is genetic material. I always disdained those who made children. It was the escape of the mediocre, to substitute their own botched lives with fr
esh ones. Yet today I rather wish I'd borne a life myself. All I have is one niece, an officious girl (I shouldn't call her a girl--she's going gray) who looks at me as if through the wrong end of a telescope. She comes in here every week with gallons of soup, soup, soup, and an entourage of doctors and nurses and husbands and children to look me over one last time. You know, there's that silly saying 'We're born alone and we die alone'--it's nonsense. We're surrounded at birth and surrounded at death. It is in between that we're alone."

  Erzberger has veered so far off topic that Arthur is unsure how to lead her back without appearing rude. She herself, from the industry of her smoking, seems to sense that this is not what he came for.

  "Can I use your bathroom?" He closes the door after himself, rolls his shoulders, consults his watch. It's already so much later than he'd wanted. He must get some usable quotes. Nothing she has said will work. But the task feels insurmountable. All he wants is another career, one that pays him to make Nutella sandwiches and cheat at Monopoly with Pickle.

  He checks his cellphone, which is set on silent mode. It shows twenty-six missed calls. Twenty-six? That can't be right. Normally, he doesn't get twenty-six calls in a week. He checks again--but yes, twenty-six calls in the past hour. The first three are from home, the remainder are from Visantha's mobile.

  He steps from the bathroom. "Sorry, I have to make a call. Excuse me." He goes out onto the porch. The air is freezing.

  Erzberger smokes on the leather couch, hearing the murmur of his conversation but not the sense of it. His talking stops, but he does not come back in. She stubs out her cigarette, lights a new one. She swings open the front door. "What's going on? You're not even on the phone anymore. What are you doing out there? Are we finishing this interview or not?"

  "Where's my bag?"

  "What?"

  He walks past her into the living room. "Do you know where my bag is?"

  "No. Why? Are you leaving? What are you doing?" she shouts after him. He doesn't even close the front door after himself.

  In the following days, Arthur does not return to the paper. Soon, everyone knows why. Kathleen telephones to offer her condolences. "Come back whenever you feel ready."

  After a few weeks, his colleagues begin to grumble.

  "Hardly makes a difference with him or without him," they say.

  "We have interns doing Puzzle-Wuzzle now."

  "And doing it better."

  "He used to leave early every day. I mean, I do feel bad for the guy. But, you know? This is kind of--kind of pushing it. Don't you think? How long's he gonna be gone?"

  The news editor, Craig Menzies, turns out to be Arthur's truest ally during this period. He lobbies on Arthur's behalf, arguing that the paper should leave him alone as long as he needs. But after two months Accounts Payable informs Arthur that he must return in the New Year or lose his job.

  Menzies suggests that Arthur soften his reentry by attending the Christmas party--it'll be a relatively painless way to see everyone in one go. The party involves prodigious amounts of booze, posturing, and flirtation, which means the rest of the staff should be too occupied to pay much attention to him.

  Menzies greets Arthur and Visantha outside the office and leads them up, where they immediately bump into a group of colleagues.

  "Arthur. Hi."

  "You're back."

  "Arthur, man, good to see you."

  None of them appear glad; they seem abruptly sobered.

  Menzies intervenes. "Where are the free drinks kept?" He shepherds Arthur and Visantha away.

  Intermittently, staff members approach Arthur, repeating how good it is to see him. The brave ones raise the topic of his absence, but he interrupts: "I can't discuss that. Sorry. And things here? Same as ever?"

  In the far corner of the newsroom is a Christmas tree, its base surrounded by presents wrapped in brilliant red paper and tied with curled golden ribbons. Children rush over to collect theirs, shaking little boxes that mustn't be opened quite yet--the company has a tradition of giving gifts to employees' kids ahead of Christmas. Menzies and Arthur had forgotten that children would be at the party, but are keenly aware now. Menzies positions himself before Arthur and Visantha, standing erect and speaking loudly to block sight and sound of the young ones in the corner.

  Clint Oakley circles Arthur, Visantha, and Menzies from a wide radius, throwing glances and touching his lips to an overfull glass of punch. When Visantha and Menzies step away to get a plate of hors d'oeuvres, Clint swoops. "Good to see you, buddy!" He slaps Arthur's shoulder, sloshing punch on the filthy carpeting. "Are you gracing us with your presence full-time now, or is this just a one-night stand? We miss you, man. You gotta come back. Puzzle-Wuzzle barely works without you. How long you been off now?" He continues to talk in this jackhammer fashion, never allowing Arthur to respond. "Nice of us to let you in here so you can drink our liquor. Eh? Good of us, ain't it. My kids got their free Christmas presents. Some nice shit this year--I made 'em show me. Just to see how cheap the Ott Group is. But it's some not-bad shit. Like, toy guns and Barbies and whatever. I shouldn't have peeked. Not supposed to before Daddy Claus comes down the chimney, right? But I never could hold out. You know, like when it was Christmas morning and, like, your parents were asleep and shit, and you snuck down and pulled open the wrapping paper? You know what I mean, right, my Hindu buddy? You did that when you were a kid, right? I know you did! Only, don't go stealing a Christmas present for the kiddies this year. You don't get one this year, buddy. I'm gonna get me some cake." He struts away.

  When Menzies returns with the hors d'oeuvres, Arthur asks him, "Does Clint know?"

  "Know what?"

  "What happened."

  "How do you mean? With Pickle? I'm sure he does. Why?"

  "Doesn't matter. I just needed to check. Have you seen Visantha?"

  On the cab ride home, he and his wife find nothing to talk about.

  He digs into his pocket. "Not sure I have change. Do you?"

  As arranged, he returns to the paper in the New Year. He drops by Kathleen's office to signal his arrival, but she is on the phone. She covers the receiver and mouths, "I'll come see you later."

  He sits in his cubicle in the far reaches of the newsroom and turns on his computer. As it rumbles to life, he glances around, at the senior editors' offices along the walls, the horseshoe copydesk in the center of the newsroom, the spattered white carpeting that smells of stale coffee and dried microwave soup, its acrylic edges curling up but held down in places with silver gaffer's tape. Several cubicles are empty nowadays, the former occupants long retired but never replaced, their old Post-its fluttering whenever windows open. Under the abandoned desks, technicians have stashed broken dot-matrix printers and dead cathode-ray-tube monitors, while the corner of the room is a graveyard of crippled rolling chairs that flip backward when sat on. Nobody throws anything away here; nobody knows whose job that is.

  Arthur returns to routine, preparing This Day in History, Brain Teasers, Puzzle-Wuzzle, the Daily Ha-Ha, World Weather. He listens to the demands of Clint and obeys. Apart from this, he talks to no one but Menzies. And he no longer leaves early; he leaves on time.

  Eventually, Kathleen stops by his desk. "We haven't even had a coffee yet. I'm sorry--nonstop meetings. My life has become one long meeting. Believe it or not, I used to be a journalist."

  They chat in this vein until Kathleen deems that enough time has been devoted to her bereaved subordinate. She'll leave and, ideally, they won't speak again for months. "One last thing," she adds. "Could you possibly call Gerda Erzberger's niece? She's rung me about a thousand times. It's nothing important--she's just venting about you not finishing the interview. But if you could get her off my back I'd really appreciate it."

  "Actually," he says, "I'd like to go back up there and finish that piece."

  "I don't know if the budget can afford a Geneva trip twice for one obit. Can't you finish it here?"

  "If you give me a day off, I'll pay m
y own travel costs."

  "Is that a ploy to get a day away from Clint? You've only been back a week. Can't say I blame you, though."

  Arthur flies to Geneva this time and finds that Erzberger has been moved to a hospice in the city. She has no hair; her skin is jaundiced. She removes her oxygen mask. "I run out of breath, so take notes fast."

  He places his tape recorder on her bedside table.

  She turns it off. "Frankly, I don't know if I'm talking to you at all. You wasted my time."

  He collects his tape recorder, his overcoat, and he stands.

  "Where are you going now?" she asks.

  "You agreed to this meeting. If you don't want to cooperate, I don't care. I'm not interested."

  "Hang on. Wait," she says. "What happened exactly? My niece said you went away for 'personal reasons.' What does that mean?" She takes a breath from the oxygen mask.

  "I don't intend to discuss that."

  "You must give me some sort of answer. I don't know if I want to bare myself to you anymore. Maybe you'll just go to the toilet and not return again."

  "I'm not discussing this issue."

  "Sit down."

  He does.

  "If you won't tell me anything interesting about yourself," she says, "at least tell me something about your father. The famous R. P. Gopal. He was an interesting man, no?"

  "He was."

  "So?"

  "What can I say? He's always remembered as very charismatic."

  "I know that. But tell me something you yourself remember."

  "I remember that my mother used to dress him--not choose his clothes, I mean literally dress him. I only realized in my teens that this wasn't normal or common. What else can I say? He was handsome, as you know. When I was younger, the girls I went out with were irritatingly impressed by family photos. He was always much cooler than I am. What else? His war writings, of course, from India. I remember him composing poetry: he used to do it while sitting in my old crib. He said it was comfortable in there. I don't remember much more. Except that he enjoyed his drink. Until it took him, of course."

  "So all you do is obituaries? What did your father think of that?"