“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’ll 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.”
III, 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
