The Imperfectionists

by Tom Rachman

  "Nice to be irresistible."

  "No, then?"

  "Not a good idea."

  "If we closed the shutters?" She raps suggestively on his leather-topped desk.

  He laughs. "You're crazy."

  "What time do you finish here?"

  "We have a dinner strategy session after work."

  "What time does that finish?" She cuts the distance between them and rests her hands on his shoulders. He places his palms on hers. While they kiss, she looks at him. His eyes are closed. They step apart, their hands sliding down until they find each other's hips.

  "That was."

  "Strange."

  "Very strange."

  "You. Again."

  "Yes. You, again."

  She buttons her coat. "I'll return after the paper closes tonight. A little after ten, say?"

  "It'll be in the middle of this dinner thing."

  "So come back here for some reason. I'll be downstairs."

  She arrives as planned, and he escapes from his dinner. He leads her up to his office.

  "I have one demand," she says.

  He is uncertain whether to sit behind his desk or remain standing.

  "I don't want to be like I was before," she continues. "I sounded awful the way you described me."

  "I'm not like I used to be, either," he says, sitting. "Which is maybe why this doesn't make sense."

  "We'll just talk, then. But can we at least talk on the same side of the desk? Or are you afraid you're going to launch yourself at me?" She comes around, leans down, and kisses him. She sits on his lap.

  She studies him, his vulnerable face. Look at him: he wants to have sex with her. Reading this, she is suddenly quenched. She flips a forelock from her brow and exhales. "What time is it?" she asks. "I guess I should leave."

  She checks her BlackBerry on the way home. She has an email from Accounts Payable saying the Ott board is considering her request for fresh investment. The only condition is that the paper cut labor costs. If a few layoffs win her money for new reporters overseas, it's well worth it.

  She tips the cabbie generously and takes the elevator up to her apartment, imagining all that the paper will now be able to afford. A proper correspondent in Paris, finally. A full-time stringer in Cairo--God, that would make such a difference. She walks in with the standard apologies to Nigel, who hands her a glass of Vermentino. She pats him affectionately and sips. "Mmm, delicious. Really nice."

  "Nothing that special," he replies modestly, but is clearly buoyed by her approval.

  "Hits the spot. Truly does. Good choice. I felt like something like this. By the way, I have very cool news." Triumphantly, she recounts her victory over the tightfisted Ott board. He grows enthused along with her and, filling each other's wineglasses, they plot what the paper might do with the money.

  She allows him to go first. He works himself up, eyes glowing, as if this modest tranche could transform the publication. She indulges him, touched by his excitement. Then he looks up and says, "I don't know, maybe that's dumb." He's a funny man, she thinks--he strikes these bombastic poses, then shrinks when our eyes meet, as if his every intellectual foray were like being caught singing in the shower.

  At the office, she leaks news of the possible investment, shrewdly omitting specifics, so that each department becomes charged up and hopeful. Rumors spread about merit raises. She tamps down the most exuberant fantasies but allows a bit of pleasant dreaming to percolate through the newsroom.

  She receives an email that afternoon from Dario but doesn't immediately open it. Must she answer right now? Maybe she shouldn't answer at all. How would a dalliance look? Highly unethical. The paper reports regularly on his employer. And Berlusconi is such a joke. If people knew she was mixed up with a Berlusconi flack, it would not look good. It's a double standard, she thinks. Everyone is so censorious when professional women have affairs--they can't pay attention at work, their judgment is affected, they're under the sway of their lovers. Yet when a male editor seduces some P.R. babe, it's he who has the upper hand, he who's taking her for a ride. It's bull. However, she has heard women demolished over less. She'll go back to the States someday, back as something bigger. She needs her reputation intact. This job, whatever its flaws, should upgrade her; she intends to leave here as executive material. Don't risk stains.

  Meaning? Well, meaning Dario. A pleasant man, but weak. He had a breakdown, poor guy. Not a total surprise. Perhaps he ended up in P.R. because that's what he is: P.R. material. A sweet person, but not an exceptional one. Maybe he's found his level.

  She reads his email. It's merely a remembrance of a trip they took on the Adriatic in 1988, when they rented a yacht that neither could navigate. She smiles at the mention of ajvar, the Yugoslav vegetable spread they ate throughout the vacation to economize. She pinches her hand, disgusted with herself--that assessment of Dario was such a betrayal. She rereads his email and responds: "Hey, shall we get a drink after work?"

  They meet at the cocktail bar in 'Gusto. The hostess crams them into a low table by the window. A jazz band is playing at the back, and they must sit close in order to hear each other.

  "Have you tried a caipiroska?" Dario asks. "They make it with strawberries here. Let me order you one."

  "What is it?"

  "It's like a caipirinha, only with vodka instead of cachaca."

  She laughs. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

  "You don't drink cocktails?"

  "Pretty much wine for me. I see you've gotten into cocktails since I left."

  He winks. "Drowning my sorrows."

  "Don't people drown their sorrows in things like scotch? Not strawberry whatever-it's-called."

  "Caipiroska. I'm ordering you one. Come on."

  This isn't innocent, she thinks. This is flirting. She triggered something in him when they were in his office. She visits the toilets and, on her return, finds their drinks on the table: a strawberry caipiroska for her and a glass of pinot grigio for him.

  "After all that," she exclaims, sitting, "I'm stuck with the girl drink and you got wine! Unfair!" She tastes hers. "Mmm. It's got bits of real strawberries."

  "I told you."

  She takes another sip. It's one of those fruity mixes in which the liquor goes straight to the knees. "I could drink this all day." She wants to touch him across the table. She won't. It's irresponsible. She has to make clear that this is going nowhere. She needs to put down the strawberry whatever-it's-called and concentrate. "Hey," she says, taking his wrist.

  He places her hand in his palm and grips her fingers.

  She says, "So nice to be with you again." What is she doing? This is cruel. He's clearly still in love with her.

  "It was really difficult after you left Rome," he says.

  "I know. I'm so sorry."

  "And it's difficult seeing you again."

  She considers kissing him.

  He places her hand gently on the table. "I have to say something."

  "I know, I know." Her mind races for a way to stop him--he's about to announce himself. She's going to have to jilt him yet again. She must cut him off.

  He goes on, "I have to make clear, Kath, before this goes any further, that we can only be friends."

  She sits back. She leans forward, then sits back again. "Well." She takes another sip of her cocktail.

  "Not drift back into anything like before, I mean. Is that ... ? What do you think?"

  "This thing is cloying, has a cloying taste. It's too sweet." She puts down the straw. "Yes, I completely agree. I was about to say that myself." She looks around the room. The jazz band is too loud. She takes another sip. "Hmm."

  "What's the hmming for?"

  "No, nothing." She pauses. "How come, though? I mean, I agree--I'm not trying to change your mind. But I'm kind of confused. A few days ago, if I'm not mistaken, you wanted to have sex with me in your office."

  "No, I didn't."

  She gapes at him. "Did that not happen? Was I
hallucinating?"

  "Nothing more was going to happen."

  "It almost did happen, Dario."

  "It didn't. It wouldn't have."

  "Oh, come on."

  "It wouldn't have happened," he insists. "I'm not attracted to you anymore."

  "How do you mean?" It's perfectly clear what he means, but she is prevaricating until she can compose herself.

  "I'm not sexually attracted to you anymore," he says. "I don't mean to be harsh."

  She flips her hair aside. "Evidently I need to start dyeing out the gray."

  "It's not age."

  "Yes, right--Ruby's older than me and age never stopped you with her."

  "I told you, with you it's like you're the aggressor. And I don't understand you sometimes. Even in my office, you seemed eager but then, when I responded, you just went away."

  "You're fixated on how things used to be between us. But we agreed that we wouldn't revert to our old habits, no? And I'm not like that anymore, if I ever was."

  He drinks the last of his wine; her cocktail is gone, too. But neither is ready to leave. This encounter has been so sour.

  "Another drink?"

  "I'd have another."

  He catches her smiling. "What? What's funny?"

  "Us. We had my dumb honesty session before--it was supposed to get rid of all my bad habits! But instead." She shakes her head. "You really are smart, you know. I haven't given you enough credit." She runs her forefinger down the bridge of his nose.

  "I know you haven't."

  She holds her head in her hands, peeking theatrically through her knitted fingers. "I sound so awful when you describe me. And I can't even disagree. Well, I can. But not honestly."

  He shifts his stool closer and, as her face emerges, he strokes her hair. He touches her forehead. "You," he says. "You again. You're still dear to me. You are goodness." He smiles. "I told you that before."

  She shifts away. "What," she says hurriedly. "What are you talking about?"

  "You--you're so driven. Like a mole burrowing in the earth, just pushing ahead. But I remember you." He smiles. "I remember you waking up. You sleeping. You getting the hiccups at the movie theater."

  She can't talk.

  "But it makes me sad," he concludes. "You make me sad a bit. I still love you, but we're not going to start anything."

  Her eyes well up. Quietly, she says, "Thank you." She wipes her nose. "When I'm old and bent and sitting in a chair, you come and hold my hand. All right? That's your job. Okay?"

  He takes her hand and kisses it. "No," he says. "When you're old and bent, I'll be gone. I'll hold it now. Later, you'll have to remember."

  1962. CORSO VITTORIO, ROME

  Newsroom noises drifted into Betty's office: guffaws and murmured gossip, the clack and bing of typewriters, copyboys emptying crystal ashtrays into the garbage can. She sat at her desk, unable to work, spirits sunk beyond all reason.

  Ridiculous--that's how she felt. Absolutely laughable. She had no right to be mourning still. To have cultivated the notion that she and Ott had a particular bond. Looking at paintings together. But what about the old days in New York?

  Everyone felt this way about Ott, she supposed--this amplified sense of their importance in his life. He had that effect. His attention had been a spotlight; all else dimmed.

  However, she had exerted no such force on him. He had left her in New York, had gone back to Atlanta, pursued his life of profit and expansion. He had married, produced a son. Betty should have forgotten about him; his absence shouldn't have mattered as much as it had and for as long. Eventually, she moved away from New York, traveling to Europe to report on Hitler's war. In London, she met a fellow American reporter, Leo, and they married. After the war, they settled in Rome, she consuming more Campari than she'd imagined the first time she tasted the stuff, writing less than she'd planned, too.

  Then Ott had turned up, his presence at once magnifying all the small compromises she had made over the years, while offering an escape from them. She wanted to write again and believed she could. He installed her as the voice of the paper. Leo had the title of editor-in-chief, but everyone knew she was the brains of the operation. She came back to life with Ott across the newsroom. But outside the paper?

  Ott had never sought to resume anything with her. Their outings to buy paintings, their lunches at his mansion--meaningless. Look, she reminded herself, he never even told me he was sick. He never asked for help. He never contacted me when he was dying. I didn't have that role in his life. I have no right to this grief.

  One night, when Leo was out boozing with the staff, Betty took a taxi up to the Aventine Hill and stood before the spiked fence surrounding Ott's old mansion. Nothing remained in there. Only the paintings they had collected together: the swan-necked Gypsy by Modigliani; Leger's wine bottles and bowler hats; the acrobatic blue chickens and emerald fiddlers by Chagall; Pissarro's cozy English parsonage, smoke twisting out the chimney; the sloshing shipwreck of Turner--all of them, hanging in the pointless dark. She held down the buzzer, ringing the empty house, knowing it to be futile yet pressing till her fingertip went bloodless white. She let go; the house fell silent.

  Without Ott around, Betty and Leo diverged more and more on how to run the paper. They hid their discord at the office, but barely. So it was with trepidation that they greeted news of a visitor from headquarters in Atlanta: Ott's son, Boyd, who was to pass the summer of 1962 in Rome before starting his junior year at Yale.

  Leo, eager to curry favor, lined up a series of glitzy events to impress the young man and dispatched cleaners to dust off the old mansion on the Aventine Hill.

  As a teenager, Boyd had flown to Rome each summer to spend a few weeks with his father. The pinnacle of those visits came when he and his father spoke alone. Even Ott's most cursory remarks entered Boyd as purest fact, as certain as the planets. When each vacation drew to an end, Boyd yearned to stay, to quit school in Atlanta, to live in Rome with his father. But Ott never invited him. On the flight home, the teenager mocked himself mercilessly, recalling his errant remarks, stinging at the memory, deeming himself an idiot, a disgrace.

  Now, two years after his father's death, Boyd had returned to the city, a young man. To everyone's surprise, he spurned Ott's old mansion in favor of a hotel. And he showed no interest in carousing with Leo and the staff. Boyd disdained alcohol, disliked food, and betrayed no sense of humor. His goal in Rome, he said, was to learn the business of newspapering. But he seemed more interested in learning the business of Ott. "What did my father think about this?" he asked. "And what did he say about that? What was his plan for the paper?"

  "The kid strikes me as sort of angry," Betty remarked. "Do you get that at all?"

  "Well, I happen to like him," Leo responded, almost scolding.

  "That wasn't what I was saying."

  Not until Boyd returned to Atlanta did Betty and Leo separate. She liked to say, "I got the record player, he got the paper."

  Betty moved back to New York and found a desk job, editing features at a women's magazine that specialized in recipes utilizing cans of condensed mushroom soup. She rented a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that overlooked a primary-school playground and, every weekday morning, awoke to children's squeals. She pulled her dressing gown from the nail on the door and sat at the window, watching them: boys wrestling, examining bleeding kneecaps, resuming battle; new girls casting about for friends, digging their hands into pinafore pockets.

  Betty never did return to Rome.

  "THE SEX LIVES OF

  ISLAMIC EXTREMISTS"

  * * *

  CAIRO STRINGER--WINSTON CHEUNG

  HE LIES UNDER THE CEILING FAN, WONDERING HOW TO START. Every day in Cairo, news events take place. But where? At what time? He connects his laptop and reads the local press online but remains bewildered. These news conferences--how does one get in? And where does one obtain official statements? He wanders around his neighborhood, Zamalek, vaguely hoping a bo
mb might explode--not too close, of course, but within safe note-taking distance. He'd make front page of the paper, get his first byline.

  No bombs go off that day, however. Nor in the following days. He checks his email constantly, anticipating a flaming missive from Menzies demanding to know what in hell he's doing. Instead, Winston finds an email from another person trying out for the Cairo stringer position, Rich Snyder, who announces his imminent arrival, ending with the line "Can't wait to see you!"

  That's friendly, Winston thinks. But are we supposed to meet up? He composes a cordial response: "I hope you have a safe flight. Regards, Winston."

  This prompts an immediate answer: "Hope you can pick me up! See you there!" He includes his flight number and arrival time.

  Is Winston expected to fetch the man from the airport? Aren't they rivals? Perhaps it's professional courtesy. Nobody from the paper mentioned this. Then again, he hasn't a clue how journalism works. Since he has nothing else to do, he takes a taxi to Cairo International.

  "You came all the way out here--that is so awesome," Snyder says. He grips the younger man's shoulder and lets a bag slide from his own. Snyder is nearing fifty and wears an army surplus jacket and a white T-shirt, souvenir dog tags clinking around his neck. A corona of thick curly hair encircles his head and pinprick eyes dart about under a thick brow. It's hard for Winston to ignore: Snyder resembles a baboon.

  "Wicked to be back in the Mideast," Snyder says. "I am so exhausted, you have no idea. Just got back from the AIDS conf."

  "The AIDS what?"

  "The AIDS conference in Bucharest. It's so dumb--I hate getting awards. And journalism is not a competition. It's not about that, you know. But whatever."

  "You won an award?"

  "No big deal. Just for the series I did for the paper on Gypsy AIDS babies. You saw that, right?"

  "Uhm, I think maybe. Possibly."

  "Bro, where have you been? It got suggested for a Pulitzer."

  "You've been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize?"

  "Suggested," Snyder specifies. "Suggested for one. What pisses me off is that the international community refuses to act. It's like nobody cares about Gypsy AIDS babies. In terms of the Pulitzer." He points to his carry-on bag. "You mind lugging that to the car? I've got serious vertebrae issues. Cheers." He snaps open his cellphone to check the screen. "I'm totally paranoid--keep thinking I'm gonna call someone by mistake while I'm talking about them. This thing is off, right?" He snaps it shut. "I love Kathleen," he continues. "Don't you love her? She is so great. When she was at her old job, Kath was always trying to hire me as, like, Washington's main national-desk writer. But I was deep in Afghanistan at the time, so I was, like, 'Appreciate that, but your timing sucks.' She's still kicking herself. Missed ops. Whatever. You dig her?"