by Tom Rachman
She smiles. "Is that why you quit grad school?"
"The matters are not unrelated. The downside of studying primates, I realized, is that you grow overly conscious of rank, submissive behavior, alliance-forming. In academia, I was always going to be a low-status primate. But journalism seemed like an alpha-male profession."
"Journalism is a bunch of dorks pretending to be alpha males," she says. "Speaking of which, did I mention that Snyder called me from Dar-fur?"
"What for?"
"He wanted me to interpret something from Arabic. Had some pretty interesting material, too."
"Did you help him?"
"Why would I? Actually, I've been in touch with Kathleen at the paper."
For a chilling moment, he thinks Zeina has interceded to get him the stringer position after all, and that he might be compelled to stay.
This isn't what she meant. "I'm tired of wire-service hackery," she explains. "It'd be nice to actually detach my ear from the telephone and go out and report once in a while. Even if it's just as a stringer for the paper."
"I didn't know you wanted this job."
"Well, I did."
"I guess it was even more generous of you to have helped me, then," he says, wondering suddenly how much she really had helped. "Why didn't you mention this before?"
"We were opponents."
"I didn't realize."
"So you're going back to your studies in Minnesota, then?"
"I have a plan," he responds archly, but goes no further. He isn't going to reveal himself to her. And, anyway, he doesn't have a plan. "You know," he remarks, "it occurs to me that I've been wrong about something: I always assumed that age and experience weather you, make you more resilient. But that's not true. It's the opposite." He turns to her. "Don't you think?"
But she's checking her cellphone for missed calls from Snyder and doesn't respond.
1963. CORSO VITTORIO, ROME
With Betty out of the picture, Leo assumed full control of the paper and declared that his first goal was to raise status. Whether he meant the paper's status or his own was a matter of debate.
His obsession was "marquee pieces," which he defined as articles to make you fall over at the newsstand. However, he distrusted his own staff to produce anything that good, so he purchased the stories from outside writers, which endeared him to no one at the office. The atmosphere grew increasingly toxic; the old collegial days were over.
Circulation declined marginally, but Leo claimed that the readership had merely grown more refined. When corresponding with the board in Atlanta, he pledged to cut costs, but privately he was cocky. After all, Charles had tipped his hand: he'd said the paper was untouchable.
In 1969, Charles stepped down as chairman of the board and Ott's son, Boyd, age twenty-seven, took over. Leo sent Boyd a letter of congratulations, with a hint that more cash would be timely--the paper could do with a few new hands. Instead, Boyd got rid of an old one: Leo himself.
The justification was that Leo had betrayed the paper and its late founder. Ott had left his family, had toiled day and night, to build a publication that served the world, Boyd said. But Leo had turned the paper into little more than a personal fiefdom. Boyd even alleged that Leo had altered the masthead to shrink "Founded by Cyrus Ott (1899-1960)" and enlarge "Editor-in-Chief: Leopold T. Marsh." A measuring stick seemed to prove the point.
Leo lingered around the capitals of Europe for a while, nosing about for a route back into the international press. In the end, he returned to the United States, taking home a before-breakfast Cognac habit and scant cash. He accepted a job in Pittsburgh running a trade publication on the coal industry and was lucky to get it.
Boyd pledged to lead the search for a replacement editor-in-chief but proved too absorbed by the rest of the Ott empire. He had grand ambitions and began by selling off many long-standing holdings, even the sugar refinery that had started it all, in favor of speculative investments overseas. It was audacious--just the sort of thing his father would have done.
Or so Boyd believed.
For he had barely known Ott, who left for Europe when Boyd was eleven. He had not even been born during his father's fabled early days, when Ott had built an empire from nothing. Most of what Boyd knew about those times came from sundry courtiers nibbling at the edges of the family fortune.
Still, these myths spurred him on. He was bold because his father had been, and proud because this, too, had been Ott's fashion. Yet Boyd's boldness lacked pleasure, and his pride lacked dignity. He styled himself a man of the people, as his father had been. But the people mistrusted Boyd, and he in turn despised them.
"KOOKS WITH NUKES"
* * *
COPY EDITOR--RUBY ZAGA
THE JERKS TOOK HER CHAIR AGAIN, THE CHAIR SHE FOUGHT FOR six months to get. It's amazing. Just amazing, these people. She hunts around the newsroom, curses bubbling inside her, bursting out now and then. "Pricks," she mutters. She should just quit. Hand in her resignation. Never set foot in this place again. Leave these idiots in the dirt.
But wait, stop! Yes, there it is: the chair--over there, behind the watercooler. She hurries over and grabs it. "Get their own damn chair." She rolls it to its rightful place at the copydesk, unlocks her drawer, and lays out her tools: a cushion for her lower back, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse, RSI wrist braces, antibacterial wipes. She decontaminates the keyboard and the mouse. "Impossible to feel clean in this place."
She adjusts the height of her chair, pats the pillow into position, and sits. "Disgusting." The seat is warm. Someone has been sitting in it. "Should just walk out." Seriously. Wouldn't that be rich. Never have to see these losers again.
The paper is the only place Ruby Zaga has ever worked. She started here after quitting a doctorate in theology. She was twenty-seven at the time and self-conscious about taking an unpaid summer internship. At forty-six, she's still at the paper, working on the copydesk, her temper shorter and her body stouter, though she dresses just as she did on her arrival in 1987: bangles, silver hoop earrings, sweaterdress cinched with an oversize belt, black leggings, white Keds. It's not simply the same styles but the same items in many cases, dotted with fuzzballs, colors faded.
She always arrives early for her shift because the newsroom is empty then, except for Menzies, who seems never to leave. Regrettably, her colleagues on the copydesk eventually turn up. The first to do so today is the slot editor, Ed Rance, who barges out of the elevator, nose running, aerating a damp armpit with waves of his hand. He bicycles to work and sweats profusely, stains mottling his khakis. She won't allow him the chance to not say hello--she'll not say hello first. She rushes off to the toilets and hides in a stall, giving the finger to the door.
She returns, late for the start of her shift.
"Try to be here on time," Ed Rance says.
She slams her ass into the chair.
Ed Rance and the other copy editor on duty, Dave Belling, are proofreading the early edition. Ed Rance hands Ruby the last few pages--the dullest--to check over, then whispers something to Dave Belling. They laugh.
"What?" she asks.
"Not talking about you, Rube. World doesn't revolve around you, Rube."
"Yeah, well. I seriously don't need this."
In fact, they aren't talking about her but about Saddam Hussein. It's December 30, 2006, and Saddam was hanged at dawn. For amusement, they're hunting for footage of the execution on the Internet.
Meantime, all the senior editors cluster around the layout desk to discuss page one. "We got art?"
"Of what? Dictator on a rope?"
"What are the wires offering?"
"Him on the slab. His head is, like, all at an angle. Like, all twisted around to the side."
"That's gotta hurt."
"Can we do a frame grab off Al Jazeera?"
Someone jokes: "Why don't we do a frame grab of the whole New York Times front page and just publish that? Then we can go home right now."
This w
ins a ringing endorsement and a fast-dying chuckle--they don't like to laugh at each other's jokes.
Dave Belling finds footage of the hanging online and calls over his friends, Ed Rance and Clint Oakley. The three men watch as Saddam refuses the hood. Executioners place the noose around his neck. They tighten the knot. The video stops.
"That's it? No drop?"
"Poor sweet Saddam."
"Poor adorable Saddam."
"Somewhere an angel just got his wings."
"Somewhere an angel is shooting a rifle in heaven."
Ruby wasn't invited to watch. "Jerks."
They pretend not to hear her and hunt for fresh video, something smutty this time.
She happens to like their infantile humor--it's her taste, too. But they never include her. And when she tells a joke they're repulsed. Why do they treat her like a freak? "Like I'm malignant."
This coven of losers, ogling babes on YouTube--and they consider her a menopausal troll. But she's the same as them: middle-aged, pervy, bored. Why do they have to make her feel like some piece of crap. "They're infants is why."
Copy for the late edition drizzles in. The room grows quieter. One can tell time by the noise level. Early, the newsroom is abuzz with humorless jokes. Later, now, a hush settles but for tapping keyboards and nervous coughs. At deadline, the outbursts come.
Ruby stares at the blinking cursor. They've given her nothing, not one story to edit. And then they're gonna dump Saddam on her at deadline. "Assholes."
But when the Saddam story does land Ed Rance assigns it to Dave Belling.
"Jerks." Instead of anything important, Ruby is assigned a series of mind-numbing briefs: a Nigerian pipeline blast; skirmishes in Mogadishu; the Russian gas standoff. Then Ed Rance gives her a news analysis on nuclear arms in Iran and North Korea, with ludicrous headline dimensions. The story is huge, two thousand words, but the head is tiny: one column wide and three lines deep. How do you summarize all this crap in three words? They treat her like she's a goddamn slave or something. "Pricks."
As is his habit, Herman Cohen pauses at the copydesk on his way home, standing behind each editor in turn, reading their screens. Dave Belling has a bag of sunflower seeds open and Herman digs in without asking, as he does whenever he spots open food containers. He orders tweaks to the Saddam headline, then thuds away.
The senior editors call Kathleen on her mobile to discuss page one. They put her on speakerphone so everyone can go on record endorsing her, then hang up and mock her, as if to cleanse the air of their sycophancy.
Minutes to deadline, Ruby has finished everything but a brief. She's struggling to fit "Mogadishu" into a one-column headline. Clint Oakley appears. "Who did the head on the Nigeria pipeline explosion?" he says. "Are you guys kidding me? 'Blast Kills People Again.'" He cackles with laughter. "What retard wrote that?" Ever since Clint was demoted from culture editor to obituaries, he has hung around the copydesk looking for easy targets--Ruby, above all. He knows full well it was she who handled the Nigeria pipeline story. "Who did that?" he persists. "Whoever it was should be fired. You're changing it, right? Ed Rance?"
"Already changed, Clint Oakley." The guys refer to each other by full names, as if this were boarding school.
"Cool, Ed Rance. Wanted to make sure." He walks away, sneering. "'Blast Kills People Again'! I fuckin' love it!"
Ruby is trembling with rage. That headline was a one-column-four and Ed Rance was screaming at her to finish it. What's she supposed to do? Now it's minutes from deadline and the word "Mogadishu" stares insolently at her. "Can't concentrate."
"I need that Somalia head," Ed Rance says.
"I know!"
"Now, Ruby."
"It's not ready!"
"We're at deadline. Put it down."
"Gimme a minute!"
"If you can't do it, put it down and I'll give it to someone who can."
"Jesus Christ!" She closes the file.
"Unprofessional," Ed Rance mutters.
Soon, the inside pages are finished. Page one is double-checked and put to bed. It's 10 P.M., the shift is over, the staff are sprung.
Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, so everyone has the day off. A few journalists and technicians linger to discuss party plans, but most slip out one by one; they stagger their departures to avoid having to share the elevator down. Soon the newsroom is empty except for Menzies, who is still at his computer, and Ruby, who packs up her tools: cushion, disinfectant wipes, RSI wrist braces, ergonomic keyboard and mouse. She locks her drawer and rakes a shivering hand through her hair, as if to dislodge spiders. "Such pricks." It'll feel good when she fucking quits. "Cannot wait."
It's dark as she heads for the bus stop. To her surprise, the paper's young publisher, Oliver Ott, is walking his dog in her direction--why is he coming to the office at this hour? He is a tall man, blemished and ungainly, and stares down at his basset hound, which sniffs the sidewalk. Oliver and the dog pass right by--her own publisher seems not to have the faintest idea who she is.
"Hello?" she says indignantly as he walks past her. She turns: "Am I invisible? Do you not see me?" He looks back. "Fuckin' asshole!" she shouts and storms away. "Good for you," she tells herself, continuing down Corso Vittorio, past her bus stop. "Good for you! Screw him!" Those weasels will use this to fire her now. "Fucking pricks. Hope they do fire me." Kathleen would love it--love to see Ruby gone. Almost worth staying just to spite her. "Almost worth it." Kathleen. "Bitch."
Ruby and Kathleen joined the paper in the same crop of interns in 1987. Ruby arrived a week earlier, so was able to show the younger girl the premises, pointing out all the editors, presenting her around--even introducing her to the good-looking Italian intern, Dario de Monterecchi, whom Ruby had a crush on. Within three months, the editor-in-chief, Milton Berber, had hired Kathleen as a news assistant while he'd not even spoken a word to Ruby. And within ten months, Kathleen and Dario had moved in together. Over the following years, Kathleen became a hotshot reporter at the paper, a star, moving up the ranks, and finally jumping to a big-shot newspaper in Washington. Now, years later, Kathleen has returned triumphant, the boss, while Ruby--who never left, who was loyal--is a piece of dirt. "Which is exactly how they treat me." Kathleen included. "Cow." If these idiots won't fire Ruby for swearing at the publisher, she'll walk in and quit on New Year's Day. That'll be sweet. Get out of this lousy country. "Home, finally."
She takes a seat on the bus home. The irony is that she's actually good at her job. "Not that they give a shit."
The bus halts to allow New Year's tourists to flood across the intersection, then continues over the bridge toward St. Peter's, whose cupola is lit purple-yellow. As they drive past, she cranes her neck to keep the basilica in view until the last possible moment. Then it is gone.
She lives in a modern building that overlooks the Porta Portese flea market and the dog pound. The barking never ceases, so she keeps her windows closed at all times. When she was new to Rome, friends from America used to come stay with her. But each visit proved tense. It's the design of this place, like a New York railroad apartment, every room feeding into the next. These days, it's strewn with dirty clothing--tangled bustiers, oversize T-shirts, banana hair clips. The kitchen is as jumbled, with torn muffin papers, empty milk bottles, used aluminum sheets, shopping bags. No outsider has visited for years, so what's the point in tidying?
She changes into her Fordham sweatshirt, opens the refrigerator, and yawns into its white light. She cracks a Heineken and drinks it before the open fridge, her mind emptying with the can. The sharp corners of her day go smooth.
She scans the fridge: a jar of black olives, no-name ketchup, cheese slices. To eat or to sleep--the perennial night-shift conundrum. She confronts her dilemma as always, with a tub of Haagen-Dazs on the couch and Tony Bennett on the stereo, volume low. The CD came free with a magazine and has become part of her after-work routine. She has the TV on, too, with the sound off. She watches Ballando con le Stelle without seeing,
listens to Tony Bennett without hearing, eats Vanilla Swiss Almond without tasting. Yet the mix is the most splendid she knows.
Next up, the silenced television has a documentary on the deposed Italian royal family. She changes to a news show, which is running clips of Saddam's career, from Halabja to Kuwait to the gallows. She switches back to the royals.
Explosions go off down the street: adolescents testing fireworks for tomorrow. Her feet rest on the coffee table, beside a pile of family photos she brought back from New York after her father's funeral. She drapes the edge of a blanket over the pictures to hide them from view.
She shuts her eyes, shakes her head. "Vicious place." That office. "Let them fire me." They'll do it by email: Ruby, we want to talk to you. "Performance review." Administrative probation. Fired for shouting at that idiot man-child Oliver Ott. Back to Queens. "What a relief that'd be." Seriously. "No reason to stay here." Dario? "He's not a reason."
By 2 A.M., she is drunk. She opens her cellphone, smiling at Dario's name on the list of contacts. She'll invite him over, right now. Why not? She dials him, boozy, brassy.
He doesn't answer.
She closes the phone, wobbles over to the medicine chest. From a toilet bag, she retrieves a bottle of men's cologne, Drakkar Noir. She dabs it on her hands, breathes in, breathes out, eyes closed. She touches her palms lightly together, runs her fingers down her cheeks, around her throat, until she smells Dario all around.
A pebble of melting Haagen-Dazs remains in the container. She slurps it and cracks the last beer, drifting off in front of the TV.
The next morning, a grinding noise wakes her. A high-pitched drilling follows. Then hammer against stone. Construction? On New Year's Eve? "Must be illegal." Not that it matters here. Fucking Italians. She hides under the blanket but can't sleep. In the bathroom, she laps water from the open tap. Noise judders the apartment. She blinks murderously between the blinds at the workmen shouting over a blasting radio.
