The Imperfectionists: A Novel Read online

  Menzies suggests that Arthur soften his reentry by attending the Christmas party--it'll be a relatively painless way to see everyone in one go. The party involves prodigious amounts of booze, posturing, and flirtation, which means the rest of the staff should be too occupied to pay much attention to him.

  Menzies greets Arthur and Visantha outside the office and leads them up, where they immediately bump into a group of colleagues.

  "Arthur.

  Hi."

  "You're

  back."

  "Arthur, man, good to see you."

  None of them appear glad; they seem abruptly sobered.

  Menzies intervenes. "Where are the free drinks kept?" He shepherds Arthur and Visantha away.

  Intermittently, staff members approach Arthur, repeating how good it is to see him. The brave ones raise the topic of his absence, but he interrupts: "I can't discuss that.

  Sorry. And things here? Same as ever?"

  In the far corner of the newsroom is a Christmas tree, its base surrounded by presents wrapped in brilliant red paper and tied with curled golden ribbons. Children rush over to collect theirs, shaking little boxes that mustn't be opened quite yet--the company has a tradition of giving gifts to employees' kids ahead of Christmas. Menzies and Arthur had forgotten that children would be at the party, but are keenly aware now. Menzies positions himself before Arthur and Visantha, standing erect and speaking loudly to block sight and sound of the young ones in the corner.

  Clint Oakley circles Arthur, Visantha, and Menzies from a wide radius, throwing glances and touching his lips to an overfull glass of punch. When Visantha and Menzies step away to get a plate of hors d'oeuvres, Clint swoops. "Good to see you, buddy!" He slaps Arthur's shoulder, sloshing punch on the filthy carpeting. "Are you gracing us with your presence full-time now, or is this just a one-night stand? We miss you, man. You gotta come back. Puzzle-Wuzzle barely works without you. How long you been off now?" He continues to talk in this jackhammer fashion, never allowing Arthur to respond. "Nice of us to let you in here so you can drink our liquor. Eh? Good of us, ain't it. My kids got their free Christmas presents. Some nice shit this year--I made 'em show me. Just to see how cheap the Ott Group is. But it's some not-bad shit. Like, toy guns and Barbies and whatever. I shouldn't have peeked. Not supposed to before Daddy Claus comes down the chimney, right? But I never could hold out. You know, like when it was Christmas morning and, like, your parents were asleep and shit, and you snuck down and pulled open the wrapping paper? You know what I mean, right, my Hindu buddy? You did that when you were a kid, right? I know you did! Only, don't go stealing a Christmas present for the kiddies this year. You don't get one this year, buddy. I'm gonna get me some cake." He struts away.

  When Menzies returns with the hors d'oeuvres, Arthur asks him, "Does Clint know?"

  "Know

  what?"

  "What

  happened."

  "How do you mean? With Pickle? I'm sure he does. Why?"

  "Doesn't matter. I just needed to check. Have you seen Visantha?"

  On the cab ride home, he and his wife find nothing to talk about.

  He digs into his pocket. "Not sure I have change. Do you?"

  As arranged, he returns to the paper in the New Year. He drops by Kathleen's office to signal his arrival, but she is on the phone. She covers the receiver and mouths,

  "I'll come see you later."

  He sits in his cubicle in the far reaches of the newsroom and turns on his computer. As it rumbles to life, he glances around, at the senior editors' offices along the walls, the horseshoe copydesk in the center of the newsroom, the spattered white carpeting that smells of stale coffee and dried microwave soup, its acrylic edges curling up but held down in places with silver gaffer's tape. Several cubicles are empty nowadays, the former occupants long retired but never replaced, their old Post-its fluttering whenever windows open. Under the abandoned desks, technicians have stashed broken dot-matrix printers and dead cathode-ray-tube monitors, while the corner of the room is a graveyard of crippled rolling chairs that flip backward when sat on. Nobody throws anything away here; nobody knows whose job that is.

  Arthur returns to routine, preparing This Day in History, Brain Teasers, Puzzle-Wuzzle, the Daily Ha-Ha, World Weather. He listens to the demands of Clint and obeys.

  Apart from this, he talks to no one but Menzies. And he no longer leaves early; he leaves on time.

  Eventually, Kathleen stops by his desk. "We haven't even had a coffee yet. I'm sorry--nonstop meetings. My life has become one long meeting. Believe it or not, I used to be a journalist."

  They chat in this vein until Kathleen deems that enough time has been devoted to her bereaved subordinate. She'll leave and, ideally, they won't speak again for months.

  "One last thing," she adds. "Could you possibly call Gerda Erzberger's niece? She's rung me about a thousand times. It's nothing important--she's just venting about you not finishing the interview. But if you could get her off my back I'd really appreciate it."

  "Actually," he says, "I'd like to go back up there and finish that piece."

  "I don't know if the budget can afford a Geneva trip twice for one obit. Can't you finish it here?"

  "If you give me a day off, I'll pay my own travel costs."

  "Is that a ploy to get a day away from Clint? You've only been back a week. Can't say I blame you, though."

  Arthur flies to Geneva this time and finds that Erzberger has been moved to a hospice in the city. She has no hair; her skin is jaundiced. She removes her oxygen mask.

  "I run out of breath, so take notes fast."

  He places his tape recorder on her bedside table.

  She turns it off. "Frankly, I don't know if I'm talking to you at all. You wasted my time."

  He collects his tape recorder, his overcoat, and he stands.

  "Where are you going now?" she asks.

  "You agreed to this meeting. If you don't want to cooperate, I don't care. I'm not interested."

  "Hang on. Wait," she says. "What happened exactly? My niece said you went away for 'personal reasons.' What does that mean?" She takes a breath from the oxygen mask.

  "I don't intend to discuss that."

  "You must give me some sort of answer. I don't know if I want to bare myself to you anymore. Maybe you'll just go to the toilet and not return again."

  "I'm not discussing this issue."

  "Sit

  down."

  He

  does.

  "If you won't tell me anything interesting about yourself," she says, "at least tell me something about your father. The famous R. P. Gopal. He was an interesting man, no?"

  "He

  was."

  "So?"

  "What can I say? He's always remembered as very charismatic."

  "I know that. But tell me something you yourself remember."

  "I remember that my mother used to dress him--not choose his clothes, I mean literally dress him. I only realized in my teens that this wasn't normal or common. What else can I say? He was handsome, as you know. When I was younger, the girls I went out with were irritatingly impressed by family photos. He was always much cooler than I am.

  What else? His war writings, of course, from India. I remember him composing poetry: he used to do it while sitting in my old crib. He said it was comfortable in there. I don't remember much more. Except that he enjoyed his drink. Until it took him, of course."

  "So all you do is obituaries? What did your father think of that?"

  "I don't think he minded. He got me my first job in the business, on Fleet Street.

  After that, he didn't seem bothered one way or the other. But I never really had the journo bug. I just wanted a comfortable chair. Not an ambitious man, me."

  "Meaning you're a bit of a dud."

  "That's very kind of you."

  "Compared with R. P. Gopal, anyway."

  "Yes, you're right. I don't compare to him. He didn't leave me his mind, the bastar
d." He looks at her. "Since you're being scathing about me, I hope you won't mind my being direct. Actually, I'm not sure that I care. You really are at odds with your writing, you know. When I read your memoirs before our first meeting, I was nervous about interviewing you. But you're much less admirable in person."

  "I'm starting to like this conversation. Is all this going in the obituary?" She coughs painfully, wheezes into the oxygen mask. When she speaks again, it is a rasp.

  "This is a quiet room," she says. "I was lucky to get my own. My niece comes to visit every day. Every single day. Did I tell you about her?"

  "Yes, you complained about her. Said she tormented you with hot soup and cold comfort."

  "No, no, no," she responds, "I never complained about her. You're remembering wrong. I adore my niece. She's the dearest woman. Gerasim--that's my nickname for her.

  Her real name is Julia. She's an angel. I'm devoted to her. You can't imagine her kindness in these past months." She coughs. "I'm running out of words. I'm losing my voice. I'll shut up. Though I've said nothing. Nothing useful." She produces a pad and writes, "I'm supposed to communicate with this thing." She sits at the ready, but he asks her nothing.

  The only noises are medical machinery and her wheezing.

  Until he speaks: "Here's something interesting. Actually, I'll tell you something. It doesn't matter but ... This thing that happened." He stops short.

  She nods and writes on the pad: "I know. An accident. Your daughter."

  "Yes. My daughter. It was an accident."

  She writes, "It is over now."

  "I can't talk about it." He puts his tape recorder and pens in his pocket.

  She takes off her mask. "I'm sorry," she says. "I had nothing to say to you in the end."

  As he waits to board his flight back to Rome, he writes out all he can recall about Erzberger. He works on the plane and, once home, looks for a space where he will be undisturbed. Only one is free, Pickle's former room. He sits on her bed and taps away at his laptop until 4 A.M., sipping whiskey to keep himself going--an old trick of his father's. The next day, he stays late at the office, compiling background on Erzberger. He stacks her books on the edge of his desk, his efforts plain to all. Kathleen passes, noticing.

  Erzberger, as she depicted herself in writing, is morally bold, uncompromised by her epoch, endearing, even inspiring. In person, she showed little of this. But when Arthur writes the obituary he adheres to the Erzberger of the memoirs, the fictional Gerda, overlooking the woman he met. This is the article they want. To add an air of authority, he inserts the phrase "in a series of interviews conducted shortly before her death." He revises the piece until he can imagine no further amendments. He reads it aloud to himself in Pickle's old room. He has made an effort this time. It's almost as good as something his father would have submitted. He emails it directly to Kathleen, bypassing Clint. This is irregular, and she points it out. In her office, Arthur explains: "I thought you'd have a better feel for this edit. I don't want to step on anybody's toes. But if you have a chance to glance at it, that'd be great. If not, or if it's inappropriate, of course no trouble."

  She does read it, and is impressed. "When Gerda dies," she says, "we'll run this as it is. Full length, if possible. This is exactly the sort of writing we need more of. With a real voice. With something to say. Really terrific. You captured her perfectly. Make sure Clint gives you the proper space. Okay? And if there's any trouble, say I said so."

  He takes the opportunity to propose a few more stories to Kathleen--not obits but general features. She doesn't object, so he pursues them in his own time. Maintaining precedent, he files directly to her, not ostensibly for her to edit but because, as he puts it,

  "I'd really appreciate your opinion, if you have a second." Once she has read each and enthused, he forwards it to Clint with a note stating, "KS edited." With that, Clint cannot touch a word.

  Gradually,

  Arthur

  converts

  Pickle's old room into his study. That is, he calls it his study. Visantha won't.

  One night, he looks up from his notes. "Hi. What's up?"

  "You busy?" she asks.

  "Fairly. What's going on?"

  "I'll come back later. I don't want to interrupt."

  "What's

  up?"

  "Nothing. I just wanted to talk."

  "About?" He turns off the desk light. He sits in darkness. She is silhouetted in the doorway. He says, "I can't talk about that."

  "I haven't said what."

  "I'm done here for the night."

  "Age-wise," she says, "it's a rush. If we want to."

  "I got a fair amount done tonight, I think."

  "Because of my age. I'm just saying."

  "No, no," he says, rising. "Not for me. No. Couldn't bear that. I'm done in here.

  Done for the night." He approaches and touches her shoulders. She responds, expecting an embrace. Instead, he shifts her gently aside and passes.

  The next day, a Cuban man who claimed to be 126 years old dies. Nobody believes the claim, but the paper needs to fill out page nine. So Arthur is assigned to write eight hundred words. He steals the basics from the wires and adds a few clever flourishes.

  He reads it over a dozen times, emails it to Clint. "You have the fake Cuban," Arthur informs him, and does a last check of his email in-box before heading to the door. He finds a message from Erzberger's niece: Gerda has died.

  Arthur checks the time to see if he can still make deadline. He calls the niece, offers his condolences, inquires about a few compulsory details: when exactly Gerda died, what the official cause was, when the funeral will be. He types these updates into the obit and walks into Clint's office. "We need to knock something off page nine."

  "Not at this hour."

  "An Austrian writer, Gerda Erzberger, just died. I have preparedness ready to go."

  "Are you insane? We've got the fucking Cuban on nine."

  "You need to kill him and put in Erzberger."

  "I

  need to? Kathleen didn't say I need to do nothing."

  "Kathleen wanted it in."

  Each man cites Kathleen's name as if hoisting a club.

  "Nuh-uh. Kathleen wanted the 126-year-old Cuban. She said so at the afternoon meeting."

  "Well,

  I want Erzberger in. At full length."

  "Who heard of this dumb-ass Austrian, anyway? Look, man, I think we can safely hold your masterpiece till tomorrow."

  "Kathleen specifically said she wanted something in the paper as soon as Erzberger died. Obviously, we could tack a brief onto the bottom of the world's oldest liar and that might satisfy her. But I don't want to do that. This is my personal request, nothing to do with Kathleen: dump the Cuban and run Erzberger. And don't hack my piece. I don't want to open the paper tomorrow and read it as a brief at the end of the Cuban. Is that clear?"

  Clint smiles. "I'll do whatever I got to do, man."

  Arthur sleeps poorly that night--he's too impatient. When the paper arrives, he flips immediately to page nine. "Yes!" he declares. "Oh, Clint, dear, dear Clint!" Just as Arthur had hoped, Clint has destroyed the Erzberger article, condensing her life into one hundred words and making it a brief at the bottom of the dead Cuban. "Perfect," Arthur says.

  He composes himself and phones Kathleen from his study. "Sorry to bug you this early at home, but did you see our obits today?"

  "Obits plural?" He hears her flipping pages. Her voice turns metallic. "Why did we run this as a brief?"

  "I know--I don't see why we couldn't have just held it for a day."

  "You didn't know it was running like this?"

  "Not a clue. I'm only seeing it now. The thing that bothers me is--well, a few things, I guess. First, there's all the money the paper spent sending me up there. Second, there's the effort I took in going back. Especially after everything that happened." He kicks the door of the study closed so Visantha won't hear.

  "Exactly," Kathlee
n says.

  "But more than anything else," he goes on, "it feels like a disservice to Gerda. An important twentieth-century writer, a serious thinker, in my view. Already she's way too overlooked. And what do we do? Clint turns her into a brief. At the bottom of some Cuban liar. I don't want to get anyone in trouble, but I find it offensive. And it makes the paper look bad. It makes us look like philistines, when all Clint needed to do was hold it for one day and then run it at full length, as I told him to. As I said you wanted. I told him, 'Don't run anything today. Kathleen would want you to hold it until tomorrow.'

  Anyway. I'm sorry--I'm bitching," he says. "I don't mean to slag off Clint. It's just--"

  "No, you're right to be angry. I'm pretty annoyed myself."

  "Could we run my piece at full length today?" He knows the answer.