Globusz^® Publishing 

Valdo gave him a look he could read very well. Paul kept silent. He relit his pipe, and drew smoke, placidly, so as not to show his vulnerability. It wasn’t the moment to press for an answer—he’d already made a bad move. Now that Valdo knew about Lelia, about her involvement, he held everybody in the palm of his hand.

Paul’s mind drifted back to Debby. What was he going to tell her? The truth? Of course. She hadn’t told him the whole truth. Not about that Bosnian, anyway. But he’d always told nothing but the truth. About everything; about all his own miseries. To everybody—Rupert, Giulia, Rosanna Veneziani, even Valdo…even to the first passer-by he met on the street.

Why was he such a wet? He’d decided to give Valdo a plausible excuse and hadn’t. He could have said, I’ve no elements to produce the story—I’ve uncovered nothing. No, he’d told him who Lelia was and what she’d done without first trying to see the issue from Valdo’s point of view. Valdo was an opportunist, he’d have it two ways. He pretended he didn’t have another reporter pursue the San Bernardo story in order to not get Lelia into trouble, but would also approach Lodiacono, and use what he’d learned about him to intimidate him into placing some advertisements for the San Bernardo products on the Meridiano. And eventually he’d say the cooperative was short of money and so they could not issue any pay-off…

“I’ll do another story next week. Any ideas?”

Valdo rubbed his face. “The immigration crackdown?”

“You mean the boat people?”

Valdo nodded.

“Let me think of something else. “

“Why?”

“Don’t feel like going to Sicily.”

Valdo looked deep in thought. “I’m sorry you’re leaving,” he said, at last. “It isn’t a negative decision, is it?”

“Why do you think it may be a negative decision?”

“Because you haven’t even told me which paper you’re going to work for.”

“Debby must do some serious research. We’ve got to go back.”

“I imagined something along those lines.”

Paul smiled.

Valdo went on, “I’m worried for you. You see, I don’t think I can get you your payoff before the end of the year. We’ve to wait for the settlement of our advertising invoices. They’re usually ten months in arrears.”

There he was—as Paul had anticipated. “It’s not a big amount. Can’t you get a bridge loan from the bank?”

“Not even one euro.”

Paul opened his mouth to say something, then hesitated.

Valdo continued, “If I could bridge I would bridge, but I can’t.”

“We could do it another way.”

“Tell me.”

“Forget about the payoff: use me from London as a foreign correspondent at the present salary. I’d be very cheap indeed—and would cover not only the UK, but also the US and the Third World. A piece from London is convincing even if it’s about Sudan.”

“Paul, the only place where a small magazine can justify the cost of a correspondent is Washington. And we cannot afford it.”

“London is a mine of information.”

“I know, but the fucking man of the street underrates Britain. You know that.”

Valdo had a point: it was the answer Paul had expected. The Press didn’t employ foreign correspondents as it used to before the fall of the Berlin wall. Foreign news sold badly, and when something happened somewhere editors could always dispatch a visiting correspondent. It was cheaper that way. It was also less reliable—visiting correspondents had a very superficial knowledge of the place. They confined themselves to what they got from press attachés and leading newspapers, and ended up recycling the resultant of the local pressures rather than their inner reasons.

“Look, think things carefully through. The UK is not what it was, but London remains a great place for analysis, even about American politics and society and the developing countries. I know, at first sight Washington and New York sound better. I also know that with the sources I have in the City I can trace the routes of multinationals’ investments everywhere. I can explain in plain words why the repatriation of profits and dividends from the developing countries have been making them poorer and more dependant on the capitalist powers than ever before.”

“Nothing new.”

“I’m not saying it’s new. I’m saying I’ll show why it’s true—why the claim that globalization is good for all countries is a charade. With hard data.”

“No way. The fucking board won’t buy it.”

“They will if you present a realistic picture. You save the payoff money and at the cost of a local reporter get what no other small or big magazine has got.”

“Don’t be silly, Paul.”

“Silly?”

“Don’t quit. You’re quitting because Debby gives you a bad time. That’s very silly.”

“Cut the crap, Valdo.”

“Don’t you see that both your sister and your wife have been slowly destroying you?”

Paul clenched his fists…Did Valdo know something he didn’t? When he left the bathroom this morning, Debby was on the telephone, and he heard her saying: Stefan, I’d better ring off now…But the Bosnian wasn’t her type, was he? She’d just met him…It could be a coup de foudre…but Valdo would be the last to know…

“What are you talking about?”

“I wouldn’t be a friend if I didn’t speak the truth. Everybody knows your sister is a disgrace to you, and everybody who exchanged a couple of words with Debby can tell she doesn’t fit in here. So, go back to England, but only if and when you’ve landed a satisfactory job, not to please your pretty English wife and work as a London correspondent for a magazine that cannot meet the costs of one.”

It occurred to Paul that he was entitled to more than thirty days paid leave. So if he gave them the mandatory one month’s notice he could stop working straightaway. Under the national contract for journalists, the magazine should make the payoff available in one month at the latest. If they didn’t, he could sue them.

He got up. “I’ll let you have my notice in writing by Monday. If I don’t get what’s due to me by the right time, I’m afraid I’ll have to take legal action. Ciao.”

As he reached the door, Valdo shouted, “Paul, come here, sit down. Don’t be silly.”

“Fuck you.”

* * *

A comment from one of Giannetto’s guests caught his attention. “Uncivilized…the Italians are uncivilized.” Paul raised his eyes and understood it had come from the chairwoman of a Roman charity.

A handsome baroness in her fifties, who’d converted her country house into a tourist attraction for Japanese visitors, began to titter. “Don’t tell me we are all uncivilized.”

Paul looked at that snobbish lot. They’d stuffed themselves like peasants at a wedding party and now sat on deckchairs beside the swimming pool. A Filipino manservant circulated with a tray of drinks. Paul picked up a neat Scotch. It was a small one; he took half of it in one gulp. He stood by the garden table where he’d placed his pipe, matches and tobacco pouch. He couldn’t sit down, because he felt nervous; he couldn’t pace the floor, because that would show his nervousness. Giulia was supposed to have talked to Debby separately, but he doubted whether she would get a word out of her. It was midnight; it would be nice to go home. But he couldn’t go home either. He didn’t know Debby’s intentions.

Urbano’s vibrant voice made him turn. “They are uncivilized. We are not completely uncivilized.”

“Who are they and who are we?” asked Debby.

“They’re the canaille. We may be defined negatively. We don’t belong to the canaille.”

“How d’you define the canaille then?”

“In terms of what they do, what they like, and what they feel. I think all of us recognize the canaille. Come on, people,” urged Urbano. “Give your opinions. Speak up.”

Paul observed Debby. What was she up to? She’d accepted Giannetto’s invitation to Sacrofano, but said to Giulia that she’d bring a friend along. And the friend turned out to be Stefan Popovic. And she’d also been adamant: they must give him a lift. And during the journey she’d treated him, her husband, as if he were the chauffeur—she and the Bosnian kept talking between themselves, saying how unbearable life in Rome was and how despicable the Romans were.

Who would have guessed it a few months ago! Paul finished his Scotch. He’d lost his job and she’d found a friend, if Popovic the Bosnian was only a friend…A prize bitch, that’s what she was. There were people who loved and people who were loved; he belonged to the wets who loved. A black polyester sheath she wore, to make him happy. She’d done it on purpose—knowing he hated polyester...And now she was also patting and smoothing her hair. She knew he hated it—knew he even hated the sound of the phrase “patting and smoothing one’s hair”. Why was she doing it? To feel closer to that slob of a Bosnian…

“I’ll tell you who make up the canaille,” said an attractive brunette in a cobalt-violet cocktail dress. “People who’ve got affluent through shady dealings,” she added with a grin.

“And people who dress flashy,” said a red-haired girl wearing a green bias-cut strappy lace-edged dress.

“And men who dye their hair.” It was Giulia.

Urbano exclaimed, “Good, very good! Go on.”

“Everybody who’s either pushy or too ambitious or both. Which means all career women,” said a slim man in a white jacket and midnight blue trousers.

“Very good!” repeated Urbano. “A career woman –”

“Oh God,” Debby barged in. “This is sexual discrimination.”

“Hang on—let me explain. A career woman is not a woman who works because she needs the money or because she pursues a genuine interest in an art or a science. A career woman is one who would do any job, whatever it is, in order to climb her way to the top.”

“Right you are!” confirmed Giannetto.

“Then you shouldn’t speak of career women,” continued Debby. “You should speak of career people, because there are also men –”

“Of course, of course…A career man who is a career man and nothing else is a cad and as such a de jure member of the canaille.”

“I’d stick to the politically correct,” proposed a naval officer sporting a black linen suit. “I would include in the definition those who toot their horns, park on the pavement, and shout abuse at other drivers.”

Popovic said timidly, mopping perspiration from his forehead, “And I would also include all those who use their cars to go to the shop round the corner and –”

“And those who don’t stop at the zebra crossing,” put in Giannetto, shooting an eloquent glance at the Bosnian’s black cargo trousers and black T-shirt with a few buttons at the top.

“And those who raise the question of dogs fouling the street and then dump all sorts of things, especially plastic bags, on the floor,” said a well-known eventer, smiling broadly.

“How come nobody thought about those who use a mobile?” asked Urbano.

“What’s wrong with a mobile?” It was the youngest of them all, a girl with large dark eyes who looked just over twenty and attracted plenty of lustful stares from the eventer.

“Well, the mobile is the mark of the small-timer. Only small-timers use mobile telephones for social contacts and only small-timers want to be reached on the telephone at any time.”

“There are people who need it for work,” remarked Debby.

“Then they don’t qualify for membership of the canaille. Not on that account only, I would say.”

“We’ve forgotten about two categories of people who do qualify,” said the handsome baroness. “First, the men who think they are well-dressed men and that the men of the past generation were scruffy. To be sure, they may compare favourably with their ancestors, who were working class. They’re now not working class, though. They are bourgeois, and compare very unfavourably with the bourgeois of past generations. The second category is that of prosperous working women who look down on housewives. They are guilty of discrimination, as were their non-working prosperous mothers or grandmothers when they looked down on working women who needed the job to make both ends meet.”

“And there is a third category,” pointed out Urbano. “Men and women who, when they were in their twenties, would label as old everybody above thirty, and now that they are in their forties speak of themselves as if they were young.”

Giannetto rose from his seat, as if he wanted to take the floor in a political debate. “Ladies and gentlemen, let me also remind you of other people who deserve being counted among the honourable members of the canaille. Former heavy smokers who are intolerant of smokers. Smokers who fail to ask permission from those present before lighting their –”

“It seems that the canaille is not only an Italian phenomenon!” interrupted a Venetian aristocrat.

“You have a point,” replied Urbano. “However, it’s an Italian phenomenon because of its proportion, that is, as a statistical aggregate. In Italy and only in Italy— and I hope you’ll appreciate my political correctness—does the average ‘person’ belong to the canaille.”

The baroness gave a grin, and so did Giannetto and the eventer. The others chuckled, except the Bosnian, who dissolved into laughter. It was a boorish laugh, and Debby followed suit. Then she whispered something in his ear, patting and smoothing her hair again. Paul reached for his pipe, matches and tobacco pouch, and walked slowly towards her, breathing heavily. As soon as he could have a quick word with her without being heard, he would suggest they should now go home.

* * *

He’d been sitting on the sofa by himself only a few minutes when he heard her footsteps in the corridor. Jesus, a door clicked shut—it must be that of the bedroom. So Debby wasn’t coming here, she was going to sleep. Alone. So she didn’t want to talk. No explanation for the way she’d treated him during the journey there and back. Had he been her chauffeur or a cabby, she would have said thank you. But he was her bloody husband, so he didn’t deserve it. She had to spare her mawkishness for the Bosnian. Thank you, dear…thank you very much for coming with us, Stefan…thanks for standing that awful debate for so long…

What did she find in the Bosnian? OK, so the Bosnian was young, younger than him and even than her. But in an unpleasant way. Small, thin—scraggy. With those rough unshaven cheeks. With that pair of hipsters. What did she like in that oik who clung on like a piece of dirty chewing gum to the leg of a chair? The odour of stale sweat? Didn’t she see it was even more repulsive because it wasn’t radiated by a homeless person, but by a guy with access to plenty of soap and hot water?

He got up and picked his photo album from the bookcase. That was it—Debby’s photo when he hadn’t introduced her to his Italian friends...Then she couldn’t complain that he hobnobbed with people who refused to entertain even a pinch of liberalism. She wouldn’t ignore him in the car to talk to a guy like Popovic the Bosnian. She couldn’t speak about her nasty moments when she had to put up with their siege mentality. Hinting that he was one of them. Hinting that going to their parties every now and then was the only source of her anxiety.

He took a second look at Debby’s photograph. Why had he fancied her so much? He always took her beauty for granted. Persuaded himself into seeing her as beautiful and graceful. She was no beauty. She was beautiful in the photo. When she moved she wasn’t so graceful. That hair patting and smoothing, and then that face touching. She grimaced at the food when she didn’t like it. And what about her heavy gait, as if she was walking on the snow? Rupert was right…His feelings for her had been self-induced—he’d been driving away all his doubts about her imperfections, about her lack of grace. Driving away the imagined furrows in her brows as if she were in perennial concentration. The image of her thick wrists, the memory of her yawning with boredom when he spoke about his work, as if he were a hack writing mundane stories.

Bloody slut. She must have met the Bosnian before. They hadn’t met the first time last Sunday…Or perhaps they had, perhaps they hit it off straight away…the chemistry between the two of them was obvious from the start…The Bosnian hadn’t an erection problem. He, her husband, had an erection problem. He was older. He was too heavy at the waist. He was half-Italian, and in her stupidity, she also saw him as a snob.

What had there been between her and the Bosnian? Had she opened her thighs to him? Where? Here? In a motel? In the Bosnian’s car like a teenager? When, in the morning, in the afternoon…when? Paul lit a cigarette. Maybe he was going too far…At any rate, she wasn’t attracted to the Bosnian; she was just grateful to him for his help on the Via del Mare when she was badly shocked…The Bosnian was pushy…To her, his insinuating tone was just the tone of a caring, understanding man…Perhaps she’d spoken the truth. The Bosnian had telephoned that he’d pop in and she asked him for supper, and when she got the invitation to Sacrofano, she didn’t feel like letting him down.

Paul sighed. Jesus, he loved her—really did. It wasn’t her fault if he failed to satisfy her…It hadn’t been a one-off. He knew, he felt it hadn’t. It might be the tip of the iceberg…There might be deeper causes than he could puzzle out, but he wouldn’t easily get over it. She must have realized that as well…and yet she’d humiliated him, bloody slut. Not a word to him. All her words had been for the Bosnian. She hugged the bloody Bosnian, kissed him on both cheeks on the front door of his bloody hovel…But to her husband, her impotent husband, the man who lost his job for her, she didn’t even say goodnight.

Jesus, he had three hundred euros on him and nothing on the bank. The available amount to spend on his Visa didn’t exceed eight hundred euros. Nobody would buy the furniture of this bloody flat. The Beetle was the only thing he could sell. He should get at least this month’s salary from the Meridiano. And then…what was he going to do in England, live on benefits? Had it ever crossed her mind that her snobbish husband was far too pink for the British press?

His bloody contradictions…A bit of a snob who was a left-winger. A bit of a left-winger who was a snob. The left viewed him as a fucking elitist, and the new fucking middle class in the money didn’t trust him—to them, he was either too red or too snobbish…And with these credentials he should go job hunting in England to please a prig who may have opened her thighs to a seedy-looking young man.

It had been stifling hot but now was getting fresher. He was starting to drift off, and unexpectedly had a vision of Lelia. She might be in danger. He’d told Claudia Fossati he would get in touch pretty soon. Would she talk to Lodiacono when she realized he wasn’t going to turn up? He was too tired—would feel a lot better after one hour’s kip…Perhaps Debby still loved him. Perhaps it was all a misunderstanding…