In short, mine hadn’t been much of a life. And now, at my age, I receive Simei’s invitation. Why not? Might as well try it.
What do I do? If I stick my nose outside, I’ll be taking a risk. It’s better to wait here. There are some boxes of crackers and cans of meat in the kitchen. I still have half a bottle of whiskey left over from last night. It might help to pass a day or two. I’ll pour a few drops (and then perhaps a few more, but only in the afternoon, since drinking in the morning numbs the mind) and try to go back to the beginning of this adventure, no need to refer to my diskette. I recall everything quite clearly, at least at the moment.
Fear of death concentrates the mind.
2
Monday, April 6, 1992
“A book?” I asked Simei.
“A book. The memoirs of a journalist, the story of a year’s work setting up a newspaper that will never be published. The title of the newspaper is to be Domani, tomorrow, which sounds like a slogan for our government: tomorrow, we’ll talk about it tomorrow! So the title of the book has to be Domani: Yesterday. Good, eh?”
“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.”