The Dismal Science

by Peter Mountford

  At one point, Walter even said. “God! Have you talked to Wolfowitz, because I bet he’ll take your side.”

  “I actually did talk to him. And you’re right. He took my side.”

  “So, what’s the point?” Walter shot back with unusually stark emotion in his voice. Like so many of the old guard in the DC press, Walter was a wan and debauched preppy—blond and fond of seersucker in the summer, tasseled loafers whenever; he was Buckley-esque. Still, his mind was a ferocious instrument dulled only around the periphery by years of monomania and heroic boozing. That his ex-wife had endured nineteen years with him, sans children, only spoke to her own delicious kind of madness, and his infuriating magnetism. But he was clipped now. That ballooning vein beside his eye was a newer development, and it did, Vincenzo thought, almost irreparable damage to his roguish authority.

  “I don’t know.” Vincenzo had started going through the drawers of his desk and putting anything he wanted to keep in a plastic garbage bag. Things he kept included several pens he’d picked up at annual meetings, pictures, a dull rock he’d found on a hill in Scotland while on holiday with Cristina, some foreign currency, unread mail from the credit union and from other official organizations—then he got up and started shoveling files, his crucial outgoing correspondence, into the bag. Things he didn’t keep: everything else. He didn’t keep four other drawers of documents, including letters of recommendation that he’d written and all the contracts. He put the painting by his daughter into the bag, along with several of the books on his shelf, but left the rest, which he didn’t care about anymore, or not enough to take it past the threshold.

  “Vincenzo, do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  By now, he was winded. So he paused. The easiest explanation was what Wolfowitz had alluded to, that this was the kamikaze’s strategy. It had an appealingly straightforward quality: he resented the Bank and he despised himself for participating in its work, so he torpedoed himself into the Bank. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the truth. Yes, he was exhausted by the Bank’s bloated ineptitude and inefficiency, its inertia, but this wouldn’t change any of that. William Hamilton was only as cunning as his job required him to be and his request, in retrospect, wasn’t even that inappropriate. Vincenzo had seen worse.

  And, contrary to what many onlookers would inevitably assume, it wasn’t about ideology, either. The fact that Vincenzo, and more or less everyone else who was paying attention, detested George W. Bush was, in the end, beside the point. Actually, as he saw it, the kind of policies that Evo Morales was proposing made very reasonable grounds for at least a partial suspension of Bolivian aid.

  Although even he had trouble understanding why he was doing it, he knew with an immaculate, blank certainty that he wouldn’t regret this. Or, alternatively, he knew that it was the right decision, even if he did regret it. This was a problem to be sorted out later. There was an opportunity here, today, and there might never be another. The time to act was now. The way to act was this.

  After reconfirming, yet again, that they were going to talk on the record, Walter recorded the conversation. He said that he couldn’t wait much later than five or six before the story was a lock for the next day.

  Vincenzo told him not to wait at all, but Walter insisted. He said, “If I don’t hear from you by then, it’s a go. Is that okay?” he was barking especially firmly, evidence of the degree of his concern. There would be an initial short piece, he said, which would be followed by a feature, and maybe more, depending on how his editor responded.

  Vincenzo stopped rummaging through his things for a minute. He’d already filled one and a half plastic bags with garbage. He drew a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. “This is the start of something good for me, I think.” He walked over to the window. “It’s—” he shrugged. He leaned forward. Standing there, he could almost hear the crowd below. With his face right next to the glass he could almost see them, but not quite.

  5

  SCANDAL

  The following morning Vincenzo—who had slept more or less normally, surprisingly enough—donned his mustard corduroy slacks, a too-large Redskins hooded sweatshirt he’d been given years ago but hadn’t yet worn, his camel hair greatcoat, his gardening loafers, and his daughter’s white crocheted skullcap to protect his bald dome, and then, looking like a homeless man who’d had his way with a Neiman Marcus freight container, stomped off in search of a Washington Post. In Los Angeles, in Chicago, such an outfit would be merely eccentric, but in straitlaced DC he looked genuinely insane, a fugitive from reality. Still, amazingly, disappointingly, the man behind the counter at the Brookville Market didn’t appear to be surprised. The man was black, young, plainly fed up with the cheerful white suburbanites who traipsed to and fro, fragrant with exotic perfumes, within the shop. But this was Vincenzo’s moment, the first evidence of his undoing, such as it was, and he wouldn’t have minded a little recognition from the clerk. It wasn’t to be. Instead, he was just an oddity, some well-off old guy with a madman’s fashion sense.

  On his way home he stopped, despite the lacerating wind, and set the newspaper down on the hood of someone’s Jeep. He hadn’t seen the article on the front page, so he checked inside, feeling both mildly panicked and relieved that it might not have been published at all. But then, on page three, he saw a small picture of his face beside the large headline: WORLD BANK VP QUESTIONS U.S. ROLE. The article was prominently displayed. It encompassed almost the entire right column.

  He read:

  WASHINGTON — A veteran economist and vice president of the World Bank abruptly resigned yesterday, offering an unusually frank critique of the United States’ influence on World Bank policies.

  Vincenzo D’Orsi, who had been with the Bank for twenty-four years, indicated that he’d witnessed a long-standing pattern of diplomatic pressure from the United States toward senior members of Bank management. “This pressure comes in regarding issues that are not related in any way to World Bank programs, but are rooted in political disagreements,” D’Orsi said.

  Specifically, D’Orsi cited an incident that occurred yesterday, when he said the United States’ chief representative at the Bank, William Hamilton, attempted to pressure D’Orsi into reducing Bolivian aid if Evo Morales, a Bolivian presidential candidate who opposes U.S. influence in the region, is elected in next month’s presidential election. “Aid programs are not intended to be awarded or withdrawn based on the outcome of an election,” D’Orsi stated.

  Reached at his office yesterday, Hamilton declined to comment. The World Bank’s director of communications, Vera Gallash, stated that she had no knowledge of any disagreement between D’Orsi and Hamilton and had not received a letter of resignation yet from D’Orsi.

  The World Bank, the largest international aid provider . . .

  Vincenzo folded the paper back up, pulled out his mobile phone, and called Vikki, his assistant. She wasn’t there, of course. It was far too early. He left a message: “Vikki, I’m not going to be in. You probably know why. Or, if you don’t know”—he stopped, beginning, for the first time, to feel the true weight of this shift—“you can take a look at today’s Post. I—” He drew a breath, looked up from the newspaper and saw a neighbor’s house, grand and symmetrical, well tended to. Every year, they pressure-washed their driveway. They had a tremendous lawn. The lights were on and he could see a child in a puffy black coat casting his head back, exasperated by something someone else in the house was doing or saying. “I just wanted—I don’t know if I’m going to be back,” he continued, “but I wanted to say that I really enjoyed working with you and if I can be of any help in the future . . . well”—at which point he started to choke up, his eyes stung. He tucked the paper under his arm. “I just—um, well . . . just give me a call, if you want.”

  He hung up and drew a sharp breath, the icy air scorching his lungs. He wiped away his tears with his sleeve, sniffled, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed home.

  Reading the article w
as one of the more surreal experiences of his life. To begin with, the tidiness of the narrative that Walter had arranged was bizarre beyond measure, especially when contrasted against the altogether more complicated and confusing reality of what had happened. Equally surreal, on a separate level, was how strange it was that Vincenzo’s complaining to a friend on the phone about his job had become a prominent story in a major newspaper. Of course, it wasn’t about him—not at all.

  His ego was set straight once and for all when he read the comments in the online version, in which people didn’t seem remotely aware of his particulars.

  There were fifteen comments so far. He read the first few:

  RRFavallin:

  oh man now what if the rest of them would do it too

  Tina_The_Irish_1122:

  I for one think that its about time everyone sees the World bank is a big waste of tax dollars. No more! Especially when we cant afford things we need at home! Are we going to keep the world’s “pan handlers” living the good life while our own middle class is starves. Why do we have to pay for these other countrys lives? This is F-ing stupid!!!

  SrMixALotsaDrinks:

  Amen, RRFavallin, one at a time, like lemmings.

  MuchaMadHatter:

  All I know is that all you grumpy fistdowners should just leave well enough alone about this. I love the cojones on this chap. Face it, dude is the badassest mother f*cker on his country-club’s golf course for the next year. All I gotta say is “Jeeves, hurry along and get that man another gin and tonic.”

  He closed the browser.

  Standing in the kitchen and feeling wholly enveloped by what he’d done in the worst way imaginable—or, in ways worse than he could have imagined—he blushed at the sickeningly public nature of it. He tried to steer his mind into benign territory—pondering, to start with, the things he could do with his extra time. There were tasks, so many tasks! He glanced back at the computer, half tempted by, but too panic-stricken to face, the other comments. No—better to focus on the tasks.

  For example:

  The garage had been overtaken with huge empty cardboard boxes and blocks of Styrofoam from his buying blitz at Williams-Sonoma and from maybe a dozen other large and less large objects he’d bought over the years. Those boxes and their ice-floe-sized hunks of Styrofoam never fit into his garbage can. Life was sieve-like with trash: sooner or later, all that was left was the oversized flotsam. Vincenzo had ceded the garage to clutter long enough ago that he felt sure that Cristina had a hand in letting it happen. So he could haul that to the dump, or maybe some of it could go to Goodwill. That was one thing. The attic, likewise, had two decades of things that they had not wanted to think about. Who had time for those things? Well, he did, now.

  Then there were the gutters, which needed cleaning: he’d seen a huge tropical epiphyte sprouting in his rear gutter at the end of the summer. The asphalt on his walkway was cracking and countless eager weeds and mosses were only making matters worse. The sink in the basement, the one beside the washer, drained slowly enough that whenever he ran a load the water filled the basin nearly to the rim; he was still paying a gym membership at a gym he hadn’t set foot in for two years. And this was only the local clutter—he really needed to figure out what he was going to do with his house in Italy, which was probably completely overrun with ivy and mold and God knows what else by now. The mortar was disintegrating inside the chimney there, had been since they bought it. And there’d been termites—someone had seen termites a year ago.

  This list was perilous: once you started to populate it, dozens of uninvited deeds popped up. He needed to get a new career going, for example. Yes, he would not merely tend the garden for his remaining decades. And there were other things, too. Like women. He could start dating women.

  His phone rang—strange at that hour, so he picked up. “Hello?”

  “Vincenzo D’Orsi?”

  “Yes, this is Vincenzo.”

  “Good morning, I’m Matthew Hastings with the Financial Times, and I was wondering if you have a minute to talk.”

  “I don’t think so. How did you get my phone number?”

  “You’re listed.”

  Vincenzo groaned.

  “It’d just be a minute of your time.” When Vincenzo didn’t speak, the reporter said, “For what it’s worth, it’s really not that hard to find someone’s phone number.” He was trying to nudge things along with his jaunty attitude.

  Vincenzo sat down at the island in the kitchen. It was raining outside now, lightly pattering on the deck, dribbling down the window. The fence out back was collapsing into the neighbor’s garden and needed to be repaired. It’d been that way for a year, another thing he could fix.

  “Am I the first to call?” the reporter said.

  “Yes.” It hadn’t occurred to him yet that other journalists would call. But, of course they would. He grunted involuntarily.

  “Can you talk?”

  “Oh—” he said and then sighed. He wasn’t used to dealing with journalists. “I think so.”

  “Was this the first time Mr. Hamilton tried to pressure you over a country?”

  “Oh,” he said again, caught off guard by the directness. The question was simple enough on one level, but also impossible to answer without being controversial in one way or another. “I would rather not answer this right now.”

  “Really?” He sounded surprised. “Why? You don’t work there anymore, do you?”

  “No, I think I—” Vincenzo hadn’t officially resigned yet, he also hadn’t officially been fired, so he did still work there, legally speaking. “Let me—can you call me back in a couple hours?” he said.

  “Should I give you my number?”

  “No, just call me again in two hours.” Vincenzo hung up on him.

  He quickly checked his e-mail and saw that there were eight messages. None of the names of the authors were familiar. He felt sick as he began to see that this scandal—his scandal—was unfolding in such a conspicuous way. It was horribly public. Strangers were contacting him before dawn. There’d been occasional e-mails before, and he’d been quoted in articles, but nothing like this. And, to his surprise, it was incredibly embarrassing. It wasn’t exciting, it was mortifying. He’d sort of imagined liking a flare of celebrity, but he couldn’t help wonder what his coworkers were thinking—all of the thousands of people he’d worked with. Would they all be disappointed in him? Yes, all of them.

  He got up and made himself another espresso, banging the black puck of old grinds out into his kitchen can, rinsing the silver cup, and pitching in a few more spoonfuls of the fair-trade stuff that he’d purchased for his daughter’s benefit. On the kitchen clock that Cristina had bought but hated, one of the few old things left in the kitchen, he saw that it wasn’t even eight yet. More than anything, he wanted to take it back—or at least to do it differently, less dramatically. This was too much. Way too much.

  No sooner had he drawn the espresso than he sat down and forwarded the article to his daughter. He wrote and erased several different messages to her, but couldn’t find the right tone. Everything he tried came out with accidental subtexts: “What have I done??” and its many incarnations sounded too regretful; “Look what I did!” was weirdly childish; “What do you think?” was much too offhand. No message at all would be peculiarly inexpressive.

  At last, he collected himself—the phone was ringing again—and wrote:

  I made this decision quickly, and I hope it was right. We should talk soon.

  Love, Papi

  He clicked send.

  Then he got up and looked at the caller ID: Unidentified Number. He grabbed his coat and went out for a brisk walk through the neighborhood—pondering the chaos he’d wrought, turning it over and looking at it from different angles, searching for a way to comprehend it.

  He was home again, a little after nine, when the woman from human resources called.

  The conversation was mercifully straightforward. After some form
alities, she said: “I’m sure you’re not surprised, but I wanted to offer you early retirement.”

  “Right, yes, that makes sense,” he said.

  “We were hoping you’d be willing to accept a severance of two years full salary with most of the same benefits.”

  “You—” he started, but stopped because he was shocked by the generosity of the offer. He withheld for a moment. If it seemed too good to be true, it was. “I’m wondering about the state of my pension.”

  “Nothing has changed with your pension. You’re retiring early. You’ll receive two years of pay and benefits as if you were an employee. In twenty-four months, you receive the package that you would have received had you retired then.”

  This still didn’t compute. “What do you want from me?” he said.

  “We would also like you to sign an agreement that clarifies the scope and amplifies the terms of your existing nondisclosure agreement.”

  He snorted and said, “I will not sign a gag clause.”

  “I know, which is why we’re not proposing that. You’re free to speak or write about the Bank, as you please, but there will be limitations on what you’re able to discuss. Basically, you’ll be prevented from discussing specifics. I can fax over the agreement. We need you to avoid speaking to any more press until you’ve seen the contract. If you don’t agree, the entire package is void, and you’ll be fired.”

  He was glad that he’d cut off that interview with the Financial Times. “I don’t have a fax machine,” he said.