The Imperfectionists

"U.S. GENERAL OPTIMISTIC ON WAR"
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF-KATHLEEN SOLSON

W HEN SHE REALIZES THAT NIGEL IS HAVING AN AFFAIR, HER FIRST sentiment is satisfaction that she figured it out. Her second is that, despite all the palaver about betrayal, it doesn't feel so terrible. This is pleasing-it demonstrates a certain sophistication. She wonders if his fling might even serve her. In principle, she could leave him without compunction now, though she doesn't wish to. It also frees her from guilt about any infidelities she might wish to engage in. All in all, his affair might prove useful.

She toys with this while onstage during a media conference at the Cavalieri Hilton in Rome. The subject of the panel discussion is "How the International Press Views Italy," an enduring preoccupation in the country. She resents having to attend-it's clearly a task for their young publisher, Oliver Ott. But he has gone missing again and ignores her phone calls. So the conference is left to Kathleen and the paper must manage in her absence. It is not managing well, if the constant stream of text messages on her BlackBerry is any indication.

"Will the newspaper industry survive?" the mediator asks her.

"Absolutely," she tells the audience. "We'll keep going, I assure you of that. Obviously, we're living in an era when technology is moving at an unheralded pace. I can't tell you if in fifty years we'll be publishing in the same format. Actually, I can probably tell you we won't be publishing in the same way, that we'll be innovating then, just as we are now. But I assure you of this: news will survive, and quality coverage will always earn a premium. Whatever you want to call it-news, text, content-someone has to report it, someone has to write it, someone has to edit it. And I intend for us to do it better, no matter the medium. We are the quality source among international newspapers, and I encourage anyone who doubts this bold claim to buy the paper for a month. Better yet"-lilt in voice; complicit smile to audience; pause-"better yet, buy a two-year subscription. Then you'll really see why our circulation is rising." The audience laughs politely. "My work is putting together the outstanding publication in its class. If we can do that, readers will turn up. Those of you who have followed the paper's progress since I became editor in 2004 will know the radical changes under way. There are more to come. It's thrilling to be a part of, to tell the truth."

What truth? The paper is hardly at the cutting edge of technology-it doesn't even have a website. And circulation isn't increasing. The balance sheet is a catastrophe, losses mount annually, the readership is aging and dying off. But she has acquitted herself well onstage. The audience applauds and hurries out for the free lunch, while she excuses herself to the organizers. "I wish I could stay," she tells them, "but that's life at a daily newspaper."

On her way to the cloakroom, she is approached by a Chinese American student from the audience. He introduces himself as Winston Cheung, dabs sweat from his face, wipes his glasses, and proceeds to rattle off his academic credentials. Since he won't get to the point, she gets there for him. "Okay," she interrupts. "And the punch line is, Do I have a job for you? You said you're studying primatology, right, so I'm guessing you'd be interested in a science section, which we don't have. If you wanted to report general news, lots of publications are hunting for people with language skills. Do you speak any Asian languages?"

"My parents only spoke to me in English."

"Pity. Languages are key. You don't, by any lucky chance, speak flawless Arabic?"

"Not flawless Arabic, no."

"Meaning you speak flawed Arabic?" she says. But this guy is a nonstarter-no experience, no languages, and look how jittery he is. She needs to get rid of Winston Cheung. "Look, if you want to send us something-purely on spec-we'd look at it." She rattles off Menzies' email address and ducks into the cloakroom.

As she heads for the exit, someone touches her shoulder. She turns irritably, expecting Winston Cheung again. But it's not him.

She steps back with surprise. "My God," she says. "Dario."

Dario de Monterecchi is the Italian man she lived with in Rome during her twenties. When she left the city in 1994 to take a reporting job in Washington, she left him, too. Now here he is, temples graying, eyes bagged, slightly handsome but slightly jowly, wearing the sleepy surrender of the family man. "Sorry to sneak up like that," he says. "Did I scare you?"

"You have to try harder than that. I am somewhat caught off guard, though. My God, it's so strange seeing you. How are you?"

"I'm well," he says. "And you were excellent today. I'm most impressed. But are you leaving?"

"Sadly, yes. I have to. They need me at the office," she answers. "I'm sorry, by the way, that I haven't been in touch since I got back to Rome. It's been crazy. You knew I was back, right?"

"Of course."

"Who from?"

"Just heard-you know how small Rome is."

"Weird having my private life pop up when I'm in professional mode. Puts me off balance," she says. "You might not believe this, but I really wish I didn't have to go."

"Not even time for lunch?"

"I don't get lunch, alas. We close the first edition in a couple of hours. If I'm not there, the world ends. What are you doing at this event anyway?"

He hands her his business card.

"Oh, no," she exclaims, reading the card. "I'd heard a rumor about this. But Berlusconi? Ouch."

"I do press for his party, not for him personally."

She raises her eyebrows skeptically.

Dario says, "I was always on the right, remember."

"Yes, yes, I know. I remember you."

"Well, anyway," he says, "I should let you go." He kisses her cheek. She rubs his back. "You don't need to keep comforting me," he says, smiling. "I'm not still upset."

She grabs a taxi outside. As the cab speeds toward the city center, she consults her BlackBerry, which is pulsating with messages from Menzies: "General Abizaid testifying to Senate about Iraq. How should we cover?? Call please!" Meanwhile, Dario-who slept beside her and woke beside her for six years of her life-has vanished from mind. She can't help it: she's of the newspapering temperament, and he's no longer front page. When, she wonders, do people have time to contemplate anything? But she has no time to answer that.

She passes through the paper's various departments to consult on tomorrow's edition. Her arrival halts conversations, prompts sheepish expressions and flurries of phone calls that should have been made earlier. The afternoon meeting is a farce. The usual suspects trickle in and settle around the oval table. Kathleen listens. Then she speaks. She isn't shrill-she never is. She is deliberate and pulverizing. She commands actions, concludes with "All right?" and walks out of the room.

Her chief ally-the only person she holds to be her intellectual equal at the office-is Herman Cohen. He is waiting in her office when she returns. At the door, she covers her face playfully to block him from view, then enters, crossing her index fingers as if before a vampire. "Please don't."

"You know you want it," he says, handing her the latest copy of his in-house newsletter, Why?, with which he chronicles mistakes in the paper. "Everything well, my dear?" he asks.

"I go out for one morning and this office turns into the monkey enclosure."

"You're starting to sound like me."

"And I'm getting bombarded with emails from Accounts Payable," she says, meaning the chief financial officer, Abbey Pinnola. "Supposedly I have to offer human sacrifices."

"She wants layoffs now?"

"So it seems. Not clear how many."

"Technical staff or editorial?"

"We'll see. Who would you pick from editorial?"

At the top of his list is Ruby Zaga, a copy editor who's notorious for inserting errors into stories.

"Is she really the worst?" Kathleen asks.

"I forgot, Ruby's a friend of yours."

"Hardly a friend. But can't we fire Clint Oakley?"

"Someone has to put together Puzzle-Wuzzle, my dear."

"I'm telling Accounts Payable that I'll consider layoffs if I get money for a stringer in Cairo, plus someone to replace Lloyd in Paris."

"Good for you. Stick to your guns."

"It's beyond me," she says, "how Abbey can say that covering Cairo and Paris is a luxury. How is that a luxury? It's a necessity. Luxury these days is actually having a conversation about what goes in this paper. All I do is cover over cracks. It's depressing."

"Learn to delegate."

"Who to?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"To whom," she corrects herself. "I thought I'd delegated to you. Aren't you supposed to be helping me?" She means this but must convey it as jest-he is an institution here, and she can't risk alienating him.

"I was delegated to be in charge of these." He shakes a packet of hard candies at her.

As she closes her glass office door after him, a few staffers in the newsroom glance over, then look away. It's strange to be the boss, knowing they discuss you, doubt you, resent you, and-since they are journalists-complain, bitch, and moan about you.

Her BlackBerry rings. "Menzies," she answers with a sigh, "why are you phoning me? I'm right here across the room." She raises her hand.

"Sorry, sorry-didn't see you. Can you come over? We need you."

She obliges.

That night for dinner, Nigel makes osso buco.

"Smells wonderful," she says, arriving home later than promised, as always.

Their apartment off Via Nazionale is spacious enough for an extended family but houses only the two of them. It is thinly furnished, as was her intent, with chrome chairs in the living room, granite in the bathroom, a gas range and matching overhead fan in the kitchen. In each room, the only decoration is a giant black-and-white photograph framed in the center of the wall. Each is obliquely themed to its room, so the kitchen contains a huge photo of cooks stuffing dumplings at the Luk Yu Tea House in Hong Kong; the dining room has a gargantuan picture of empty tables at El Bulli on the Costa Brava; the salon shows the interior of Skogaholm Manor in Stockholm; and in the bathroom is a vast photograph of the crashing sea off Antarctica.

"Glass?" He pours her one.

"What is it tonight?"

He displays the bottle, then reads the label: "Montefalco. Caprai. 2001." He thrusts his nose into the wineglass.

She takes an unceremonious gulp. "Not bad, not great," she says. "You must be starved. Sorry I kept you. Can I get us some water?"

"Allow me, pasha."

Nigel, an attorney-at-rest since they left D.C. more than two years earlier, thrives on this life: reading nonsense on the Internet, buying high-end groceries, decrying the Bush administration at dinner, wearing his role of househusband as a badge of progressive politics. By this hour, he's normally fulminating: that the CIA invented crack cocaine; that Cheney is a war criminal; that the September 11 attacks were conceived by agents of Big Oil. (He talks a lot of shit about politics. She has to smack him down intellectually once a week or he becomes unbearable.) This evening, however, Nigel is restrained. "Good day?" he asks.

"Mmm, yeah, not bad." She's amused-he's so transparent. He has clearly done something and is writhing about it. That English girl-Nigel and she had been meeting weekly to discuss the failure of the left. Then, abruptly, he stopped mentioning her. To Kathleen's knowledge, the left hasn't stopped failing. Presumably, an act occurred.

And yet, savoring her osso buco, tickled by his mendacious face hiding in a fishbowl wineglass, she cannot bring herself to care terribly. If it is a full-blown affair, she will be angry-such a development would jeopardize their situation. But this doesn't have that feel. He is more a skulking fornicator, not a marriage-busting cheater. If Kathleen ignores the matter, what happens? It will seep away.

At work the next day, her desk phone rings.

"Hi there-it's me again."

"Sorry, who is this?"

"Kath, it's me."

"God-Dario, I didn't recognize you."

"I wanted to invite you to lunch. Forza Italia will foot the bill."

"In that case, definitely not," she says. "No, I'm kidding-I'd love to. But I'm insanely busy. I told you, I don't get lunches, tragically." Then again, she thinks, a contact with Berlusconi's people could be useful. The Prodi government is bound to fall, meaning early elections, at which point having ties to Dario could prove handy. "But it would be nice to meet up. What about an early aperitivo?"

They meet at the Hotel de Russie garden bar, a courtyard of shaded cafe tables upon sampietrini cobblestones, as if this were a private Roman piazza for the use of paying guests only.

"If you misbehave," Kathleen says, studying the drinks menu, "I'll order you the Punjab health cocktail: yogurt, ice, pink Himalayan salt, cinnamon, and soda water."

"Or how about the Cohibatini?" he responds. "Vodka, Virginia tobacco leaves, eight-year-old Bacardi rum, lime juice, and corbezzolo honey."

"Tobacco leaves? In a drink? And what is corbezzolo honey?"

"Boringly," he says, "I'm taking the Sauvignon."

"Boringly, me too."

They close their menus and order.

"Odd weather," he remarks. "Almost tropical."

"Sitting out in November-not bad. I think I'm in favor of global warming." She resolves to stop making this fatuous remark, which parachutes off her tongue anytime someone mentions the climate. "Anyway, nothing more boring than talking about the weather. Tell me, how are you?"

Thin-that's how he is on second sight. He wears a mauve tie and a spread-collared shirt that hangs on his shoulders as if upon a hanger. His countenance-naive and affectionate-is the same, and this makes him younger somehow.

"You're not the same," she says.

"No? Well, that's good. Imagine if I was unchanged after all these years."

Unchanged: this is how she thinks of herself. Fresh as ever at forty-three, legs long and strong under the business slacks, tight midriff under tight waistcoat, lustrous chestnut hair with only a couple of strands of gray. She takes unearned pride in her looks. "So funny to see you again," she says. "Kind of like meeting up with an old version of myself." She asks about their old friends and his family. His mother, Ornella, sounds as cold as ever. "Is she still reading the paper?"

"Hasn't missed a copy in years."

"That's what I like to hear. And Filippo?" she asks, referring to Dario's younger brother.

"He has three kids now."

"Three? How un-Italian," she says. "And you?"

"Only one."

"That's more like it."

"A boy, Massimiliano. Just turned six."

"So, married, obviously."

"Massi? We're waiting till he turns seven."

She smiles. "I mean you must be married."

"Yes, of course. And you?"

She caricatures her domestic situation, rendering Nigel as a comic subaltern, as is her habit. "He feeds me grapes most evenings," she says. "It's part of his duties."

"That must suit you."

"Depends on the quality of the grapes. But hang on," she says. "I still don't have a sense of what's going on with you."

"I'm well, very well at the moment. I did have a rough patch last year. But that's over. The family weakness." By this, he means depression, which afflicted his father, ultimately ending the man's career in diplomacy. The ambassador's breakdown in 1994 came the week that Kathleen left Dario. "They were good about it at work," he goes on. "Say what you will about Mr. Berlusconi."

"And how is your father, incidentally?"

"Well, sadly, he died about a year ago now. On November 17, 2005."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," she says. "I really liked Cosimo."

"I know. We all did."

"But your problem wasn't as serious as his used to be, right?"

"No, no. Not nearly. And they have much better medicine these days."

They taste their wine and glance around the garden bar-its potted lemon trees, a discreetly burbling fountain, the leafy escarpment climbing to Villa Borghese Park.

"I asked to meet up for a particular reason," he says.

"Ah, the ulterior motive-are you going to fob off some Berlusconi puffery on me now?"

"No, no, nothing to do with work."

"But I do want to hear about Il Cavaliere," she says. "I'm dying to hear what it's like working for such a fine man."

"He is a good man. You shouldn't write him off."

"And this is your pure, unadulterated opinion? You do what again? Public relations, is it?"

"Can't blame me for trying, Kath. But no, I wanted to ask you something else-I need your advice."

"Shoot."

"Are you still close with Ruby Zaga?"

It had slipped Kathleen's mind that Dario and Ruby knew each other, but all three were briefly interns at the paper in 1987. Indeed, Ruby introduced Dario and Kathleen. "Copydesk Ruby?" Kathleen says. "I was never close with her. Why do you ask?"

"Just that I've been having a bit of a problem with her," he says. "I hadn't seen her for ages, then a few months back, not long after my father died, I ran into her on the street. We agreed to meet up for a drink, I gave her my number, and forgot about it. She did phone, though, and we went out. It was a normal night. Nothing special. But since then she keeps calling my cell and hanging up."

"That's weird."

"It's been going on for weeks. She must have called fifty times. My wife thinks I'm having an affair."

"And you're not."

He dips into the bowl of olives. "No."

"Hmm," she says. "Suspicious."

He looks up, smiling. "I'm not. Honestly. Anyway, maybe let's shift topics. Berlusconi-you wanted to talk about Berlusconi, right?"

"Well, you're off the hook for now."

"What do you want to know about him?"

"First off, how can you work for that guy? The face-lifts, the hair transplants-he's such a buffoon."

"Not to my mind."

"Oh, come on."

"Don't forget, Kath, I'm on the right."

"So you keep telling me. How did I ever bear you?"

"Were you on the left?"

"Of course," she says. "But couldn't you have done better than Berlusconi?"

"Couldn't you have done better than the paper?"

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. But please, if you don't mind, try not to belittle me. You're too good at it."

"I don't belittle you." She pauses. "What do you mean I'm good at it? Is that how you remember me?"

"Not for the most part."

"Well, if I used to I'm sorry."

"We do get great gift baskets at Christmas," he says, changing topics. "Berlusconi is unmatched in that area: torrone, champagne, foie gras."

Yes, this is what she's here for: the inside line on life under Berlusconi, Europe 's court jester. At the least, Dario can give her an amusing tale to recount at parties. He might even feed her a story. No one can resist a Berlusconi-is-ludicrous piece. But hang on, hang on-she isn't quite finished talking. "I hope I wasn't awful to you."

"Don't be crazy."

"I feel as if maybe I was."

"You know how deeply I loved you."

She takes an olive, just holds it. "That's fairly blunt."

He says, "You were goodness." It sounds like a language mistake, but his English is usually flawless.

"Now I really feel like a shit." She eats the olive.

"I didn't say you weren't a shit."

She laughs. "Beware-I'm probably more of one now than I used to be."

"I imagine you are. But that's normal, isn't it? One becomes more of a shit as one gets older. I, for example-and you'll find this shocking-had a minor indiscretion involving another woman."

"Oh, really?"

"And I always hated infidelity."

"I know. I remember."

"But I never felt guilty about it. Never told my wife. Just felt irritated-irritated with Ruby. She was the person, the woman."

"You had an affair with Ruby Zaga?" Kathleen says, grimacing. "Our copydesk nun?"

"I never slept with her. I kissed her."

"Does that count as an affair?"

"I don't know. Anyway, it was ridiculous. It was that time we went for a drink. A boring night, in all honesty. We disagreed about something minor-can't remember what. She got all touchy. I paid, went outside, waited for her. She came out, crying. I tried to calm her down and-I don't know why-I found myself kissing her. We did that for a while in this alley in Trastevere, near her place. I remember it stank of garbage." He shifts with embarrassment. "Anyway, nothing happened after that. We had no further contact. Until a few weeks later, when she started calling me. As I told you, she never talks, never says anything. But it's starting to cause problems. She doesn't get the hint."

"Well, well, well," Kathleen says.

"Mm," he says.

"I wouldn't have guessed that one." She utters a dry laugh. "Ruby Zaga!"

"I'm mortified to confess this. But you're the only person I know who knows her."

"What can I suggest? Just change your cellphone number."

"I can't. I gave her my work cell, which is what every journalist has. If I change that, I'm suddenly out of contact. My whole job is being in contact."

"I've barely spoken ten words to Ruby since I moved back to Rome. I could try to broach it with her, but it'd be deeply weird," she says. "I'm asking myself now whether you did this sort of thing when we were together."

"Of course not. We didn't lie to each other back then."

"I lied to you-I never told you I'd applied for the job in Washington. You didn't know I was going to leave."

"True, true."

"Sorry," she says.

"Forget it. Far too much time gone by."

They sit eating olives.

She gets a funny look. "Listen," she says, "would you be willing to do something unusual?"

"I don't know. What?"

"Well," she says, "would you be willing to tell the entire truth about me, about what you thought of me? From the old days-what you thought of me then. I'll do the same for you."

"What for?"

"To hear all the bits that you can't say to a person when you're still with them. Aren't you curious?"

"I'd be afraid to hear."

"I'd like to. I'm curious," she says. "I'd like to understand myself better. Even improve myself, heaven forbid. And I trust you. Your opinion. You're smart."

"You and intelligence!"

"What about me and intelligence?"

"You're very preoccupied with it, with ranking brains. Yours, in terms of everyone else's."

"That's not true."

"We can't do an honesty exchange if you get defensive."

"If I promise not to, will you?"

"It's silly, don't you think? Dissecting ourselves like that? Are we good in bed, are we bad-that sort of underbelly stuff. Sleazy, no?"

"This is why you got out of journalism while I never did: I can't tell the difference between interesting and sleazy. Oh, come on! It'll be fun. Be heartless. Say anything."

He shifts in his seat, then nods. "All right. If you want."

She smacks her thighs with delight. "I've always wanted an opportunity like this. Let me get another drink as I steel myself for your ruthless critique." As she awaits a second glass of Sauvignon, she telephones Menzies to say that she'll be out of contact for fifteen minutes. She switches off her BlackBerry.

"A quarter of an hour?" Dario says. "That's all the time we need to rip each other apart?"

"This isn't ripping apart. Just honest commentary. That's what I want. And be heartless: I have a hideous ass or I'm a bad lay or whatever. Really."

"You want something sexual, then?"

"Why, is there something sexual?"

"Not necessarily."

"There is."

"Let me think of something." He pauses. "It's not a big deal, really. Just I guess you were kind of aggressive."

"How? Sexually?"

"Yes. I was slightly intimidated by you."

"For six years you were intimidated by me?"

"Pathetic, I know. It's hard to explain. It was sort of like, sort of like being screwed rather than doing the-"

"Rather than doing the screwing," she says uncomfortably. "Go on."

"Although, at the same time, you never seemed to have much of a sex drive. Making love with you felt like something else. Like, I don't know, an act of a different sort."

"It didn't seem to revolt you so much back then."

"See, you're getting defensive."

"I'm not."

"Do we continue this, Kath? It's turning kind of unpleasant."

"No, no. I'm interested."

"I'm just someone who-"

"Who wanted a more submissive woman."

"Maybe less aggressive. Is that bad?"

"You should have gone for Ruby from the start."

"I know you're kidding, but that's probably what attracted me to her."

"You're attracted to women who sob when you buy them a drink?"

He doesn't respond.

She says, "Sorry. It's funny, though-you hated that I made you submissive. And I hated that you were so passive, that I was always the one initiating it. You know? But God, you make it sound like I was forcing myself on you, slobbering all over."

"There was a little slobbering," he jokes.

She laughs.

"There," she says, exhaling. "That wasn't so hard. Any other thoughts about me?"

"Not really," he says, hesitating. "Well, one tiny thing-not sexual. Just that I always thought you were kind of an instrumentalist with people. Can I say that in English? I mean, you were always looking to gain something. I remember watching you meet people-I could see the cogs turning in your mind. Doing calculations."

"You make me sound horrendous. I'm the person who you-" She balks at saying loved. "Who you claim to have liked so much."

"I don't mean this as criticism."

"No, no, it sounds like a huge compliment," she says sarcastically. "But is it possible that your view is colored by how I left?"

"I don't care about that now. I'm happy you went. If you'd stayed, I wouldn't have met my wife, I wouldn't have had Massi. I did love you. But the thing about you back then was that you were completely conditional."

"As opposed to what? To stupid? I hope I was conditional. Everything intelligent is conditional."

"That's a strange thought."

"So, to summarize: I'm emasculating, calculating, and unloving. What a nice portrait. If I was any of that stuff, it was inexperience. I was in my twenties. But," she continues, "I have to wonder if you're not being slightly naive here. I mean, are you saying you want nothing from people? You have no motives? Everybody has motives. Name the person, the circumstances, I'll name the motive. Even saints have motives-to feel like saints, probably."

"That's pretty cynical."

"It's realistic."

"Which is what cynics always say. But honestly, Kath, do you calculate everything? Even in your private life?"

"Maybe not. Not like I used to. I was a bit bad that way with you, I admit. But still, the point of any relationship is obtaining something from another person."

"I can't see it that way."

"So why do you kiss someone?" she asks. "To give pleasure or to take it?"

At dinner that evening, Nigel irritates her. The paper, he complains, has already published a look-ahead to the World Economic Forum in Davos, though it's weeks away, while there hasn't been a word on the World Social Forum in Nairobi. The mainstream media care only about rich white guys, he says. She notes that the paper has no reporters in Africa and so couldn't cover the World Social Forum. He opens his mouth to contest the point, then closes it.

"You are allowed to disagree," she says.

"I know."

"That's all you're going to say? How about: 'The fact that you don't bother to hire anyone in Africa only proves what I'm saying'? Or, 'A setup story doesn't need to be written with a Kenya dateline'? Both of which would be pretty good arguments. You could even roll out your thing about the paper's European-to-African ratio. What is it? 'One dead white man equals twenty dead Africans'? None of that tonight? Just because you're feeling guilty doesn't mean you have to be a pushover, Nigel."

"Feeling guilty?"

"I'm guessing it's over your girlfriend."

"What are you talking about?"

"The English girl. Right?"

He goes into the bathroom. After a few minutes of silence, the faucet runs. Once it stops, he remains there, in hiding. She takes this as confirmation. When he emerges, a conversation will ensue. He must be sitting on the edge of the bathtub, hunting for a way out of this mess. What will result from the coming confrontation? What if he's seriously entangled with this English girl? Kathleen is annoyed with herself-she's still raw from Dario's critique and has misplayed this exchange.

Nigel emerges and makes coffee. She watches his rigid movements around the kitchen. He acts as if he's not within his own home but trespassing in hers. He's lazy, Kathleen thinks. He dreads employment more than he dreads humiliation. He'll cling to this marriage.

"I know," he says. "I know."

"You know what?"

He won't look at her.

Before marrying, they set a policy on adultery that sought to be as grown-up as they considered themselves to be. Statistically, at least one of them was bound to cheat. So, they decided, when it happens the guilty party is categorically forbidden to let on.

"This is exactly what was not supposed to happen," Kathleen says. "I actually feel more hurt by this than I expected. Idiotic."

"It's not. You're not idiotic."

Dario's description of her sexuality crosses her mind. She won't degrade herself by demanding details from Nigel. "I want to ask you details," she says.

"Don't."

"I won't. But I keep wanting to."

"Don't. It's stupid. Of me, I mean. Not you."

"We agreed this wasn't supposed to happen, but never worked out what to do if it did. Unless, of course," she says, "you intend to make this important. Ending-marriage important."

"Don't be insane." He opens and closes the fridge for no apparent reason. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm an asshole. It was such a total nothing. If you'd let me tell you the details, would you feel better? To see how dumb it was?"

"I'd feel worse."

"So what do we do?"

She shrugs.

He tries to lighten the atmosphere. "Now you have a fling and we'll be even."

She isn't amused. "Me, have sex with someone else?"

"I'm kidding."

"Why kid about it? Maybe it's a good idea."

"I didn't mean it."

"Look, I don't want to have an affair. For God's sake. I'm just more hurt than I expected."

"Than you expected? You expected this?"

"I knew this was happening. You're easy to read," she says. "And who knows-maybe I'll take you up on your idea of a free affair, maybe I won't. You can wonder sometimes."

"Are you kidding?"

"No."

"What can I say-if you want to be that way, fine. I can't stop you, but I really regret it."

"You regret it?" she says, raising her voice. "I fucking regret it. I didn't precipitate this. I fucking regret it."

In the coming days, she is rude to the interns-always a litmus test of her mood-and seeks confrontations with reporters, then batters them. She phones the publisher, Oliver Ott, and leaves another message on his answering machine, demanding an increase in the budget, implying that her resignation is not unthinkable. She sends an email to the Ott Group board in Atlanta with a similar warning.

The way she left matters with Nigel disgusts her. A free affair-what kind of people are we?

Later that week, she turns up at Dario's office in Berlusconi's party headquarters on Via dell'Umilta. He meets her downstairs. He is more lordly than he used to be, has more confidence; his colleagues clearly respect him. He ushers her into his crimson-carpeted office, a muted flat-screen TV on the wall playing an all-news network, a Napoleonic cavalry battle frescoed on the ceiling. "Maybe you're right about Berlusconi if he hands out office space like this," she says, leaning out the open shutters over a courtyard four floors below.

"Can I order you a coffee?"

She sits. "Don't have time, I'm afraid."

"This is just a quick hello, then?"

"Just a quickie," she says. "Funny, isn't it-our offices are so close, but we never bumped into each other around here."

"I knew you were back at Corso Vittorio, so I steered clear."

"You shouldn't have."

"I know-it was stupid."

"Anyway." She stands.

"That was quick." He rises, rounds the desk.

She touches a hand to his neck. She moves to kiss him.

"That's actually not a good idea." He pats her hand but does not remove it from his neck.

"One kiss? To remind myself what it's like?" She's kidding-she releases him. "Sorry. I couldn't resist you."

"Nice to be irresistible."

"No, then?"

"Not a good idea."

"If we closed the shutters?" She raps suggestively on his leather-topped desk.

He laughs. "You're crazy."

"What time do you finish here?"

"We have a dinner strategy session after work."

"What time does that finish?" She cuts the distance between them and rests her hands on his shoulders. He places his palms on hers. While they kiss, she looks at him. His eyes are closed. They step apart, their hands sliding down until they find each other's hips.

"That was."

"Strange."

"Very strange."

"You. Again."

"Yes. You, again."

She buttons her coat. "I'll return after the paper closes tonight. A little after ten, say?"

"It'll be in the middle of this dinner thing."

"So come back here for some reason. I'll be downstairs."

She arrives as planned, and he escapes from his dinner. He leads her up to his office.

"I have one demand," she says.

He is uncertain whether to sit behind his desk or remain standing.

"I don't want to be like I was before," she continues. "I sounded awful the way you described me."

"I'm not like I used to be, either," he says, sitting. "Which is maybe why this doesn't make sense."

"We'll just talk, then. But can we at least talk on the same side of the desk? Or are you afraid you're going to launch yourself at me?" She comes around, leans down, and kisses him. She sits on his lap.

She studies him, his vulnerable face. Look at him: he wants to have sex with her. Reading this, she is suddenly quenched. She flips a forelock from her brow and exhales. "What time is it?" she asks. "I guess I should leave."

She checks her BlackBerry on the way home. She has an email from Accounts Payable saying the Ott board is considering her request for fresh investment. The only condition is that the paper cut labor costs. If a few layoffs win her money for new reporters overseas, it's well worth it.

She tips the cabbie generously and takes the elevator up to her apartment, imagining all that the paper will now be able to afford. A proper correspondent in Paris, finally. A full-time stringer in Cairo -God, that would make such a difference. She walks in with the standard apologies to Nigel, who hands her a glass of Vermentino. She pats him affectionately and sips. "Mmm, delicious. Really nice."

"Nothing that special," he replies modestly, but is clearly buoyed by her approval.

"Hits the spot. Truly does. Good choice. I felt like something like this. By the way, I have very cool news." Triumphantly, she recounts her victory over the tightfisted Ott board. He grows enthused along with her and, filling each other's wineglasses, they plot what the paper might do with the money.

She allows him to go first. He works himself up, eyes glowing, as if this modest tranche could transform the publication. She indulges him, touched by his excitement. Then he looks up and says, "I don't know, maybe that's dumb." He's a funny man, she thinks-he strikes these bombastic poses, then shrinks when our eyes meet, as if his every intellectual foray were like being caught singing in the shower.

At the office, she leaks news of the possible investment, shrewdly omitting specifics, so that each department becomes charged up and hopeful. Rumors spread about merit raises. She tamps down the most exuberant fantasies but allows a bit of pleasant dreaming to percolate through the newsroom.

She receives an email that afternoon from Dario but doesn't immediately open it. Must she answer right now? Maybe she shouldn't answer at all. How would a dalliance look? Highly unethical. The paper reports regularly on his employer. And Berlusconi is such a joke. If people knew she was mixed up with a Berlusconi flack, it would not look good. It's a double standard, she thinks. Everyone is so censorious when professional women have affairs-they can't pay attention at work, their judgment is affected, they're under the sway of their lovers. Yet when a male editor seduces some P.R. babe, it's he who has the upper hand, he who's taking her for a ride. It's bull. However, she has heard women demolished over less. She'll go back to the States someday, back as something bigger. She needs her reputation intact. This job, whatever its flaws, should upgrade her; she intends to leave here as executive material. Don't risk stains.

Meaning? Well, meaning Dario. A pleasant man, but weak. He had a breakdown, poor guy. Not a total surprise. Perhaps he ended up in P.R. because that's what he is: P.R. material. A sweet person, but not an exceptional one. Maybe he's found his level.

She reads his email. It's merely a remembrance of a trip they took on the Adriatic in 1988, when they rented a yacht that neither could navigate. She smiles at the mention of ajvar, the Yugoslav vegetable spread they ate throughout the vacation to economize. She pinches her hand, disgusted with herself-that assessment of Dario was such a betrayal. She rereads his email and responds: "Hey, shall we get a drink after work?"

They meet at the cocktail bar in 'Gusto. The hostess crams them into a low table by the window. A jazz band is playing at the back, and they must sit close in order to hear each other.

"Have you tried a caipiroska?" Dario asks. "They make it with strawberries here. Let me order you one."

"What is it?"

"It's like a caipirinha, only with vodka instead of cachaca."

She laughs. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You don't drink cocktails?"

"Pretty much wine for me. I see you've gotten into cocktails since I left."

He winks. "Drowning my sorrows."

"Don't people drown their sorrows in things like scotch? Not strawberry whatever-it's-called."

"Caipiroska. I'm ordering you one. Come on."

This isn't innocent, she thinks. This is flirting. She triggered something in him when they were in his office. She visits the toilets and, on her return, finds their drinks on the table: a strawberry caipiroska for her and a glass of pinot grigio for him.

"After all that," she exclaims, sitting, "I'm stuck with the girl drink and you got wine! Unfair!" She tastes hers. "Mmm. It's got bits of real strawberries."

"I told you."

She takes another sip. It's one of those fruity mixes in which the liquor goes straight to the knees. "I could drink this all day." She wants to touch him across the table. She won't. It's irresponsible. She has to make clear that this is going nowhere. She needs to put down the strawberry whatever-it's-called and concentrate. "Hey," she says, taking his wrist.

He places her hand in his palm and grips her fingers.

She says, "So nice to be with you again." What is she doing? This is cruel. He's clearly still in love with her.

"It was really difficult after you left Rome," he says.

"I know. I'm so sorry."

"And it's difficult seeing you again."

She considers kissing him.

He places her hand gently on the table. "I have to say something."

"I know, I know." Her mind races for a way to stop him-he's about to announce himself. She's going to have to jilt him yet again. She must cut him off.

He goes on, "I have to make clear, Kath, before this goes any further, that we can only be friends."

She sits back. She leans forward, then sits back again. "Well." She takes another sip of her cocktail.

"Not drift back into anything like before, I mean. Is that…? What do you think?"

"This thing is cloying, has a cloying taste. It's too sweet." She puts down the straw. "Yes, I completely agree. I was about to say that myself." She looks around the room. The jazz band is too loud. She takes another sip. "Hmm."

"What's the hmming for?"

"No, nothing." She pauses. "How come, though? I mean, I agree-I'm not trying to change your mind. But I'm kind of confused. A few days ago, if I'm not mistaken, you wanted to have sex with me in your office."

"No, I didn't."

She gapes at him. "Did that not happen? Was I hallucinating?"

"Nothing more was going to happen."

"It almost did happen, Dario."

"It didn't. It wouldn't have."

"Oh, come on."

"It wouldn't have happened," he insists. "I'm not attracted to you anymore."

"How do you mean?" It's perfectly clear what he means, but she is prevaricating until she can compose herself.

"I'm not sexually attracted to you anymore," he says. "I don't mean to be harsh."

She flips her hair aside. "Evidently I need to start dyeing out the gray."

"It's not age."

"Yes, right-Ruby's older than me and age never stopped you with her."

"I told you, with you it's like you're the aggressor. And I don't understand you sometimes. Even in my office, you seemed eager but then, when I responded, you just went away."

"You're fixated on how things used to be between us. But we agreed that we wouldn't revert to our old habits, no? And I'm not like that anymore, if I ever was."

He drinks the last of his wine; her cocktail is gone, too. But neither is ready to leave. This encounter has been so sour.

"Another drink?"

"I'd have another."

He catches her smiling. "What? What's funny?"

"Us. We had my dumb honesty session before-it was supposed to get rid of all my bad habits! But instead." She shakes her head. "You really are smart, you know. I haven't given you enough credit." She runs her forefinger down the bridge of his nose.

"I know you haven't."

She holds her head in her hands, peeking theatrically through her knitted fingers. "I sound so awful when you describe me. And I can't even disagree. Well, I can. But not honestly."

He shifts his stool closer and, as her face emerges, he strokes her hair. He touches her forehead. "You," he says. "You again. You're still dear to me. You are goodness." He smiles. "I told you that before."

She shifts away. "What," she says hurriedly. "What are you talking about?"

"You-you're so driven. Like a mole burrowing in the earth, just pushing ahead. But I remember you." He smiles. "I remember you waking up. You sleeping. You getting the hiccups at the movie theater."

She can't talk.

"But it makes me sad," he concludes. "You make me sad a bit. I still love you, but we're not going to start anything."

Her eyes well up. Quietly, she says, "Thank you." She wipes her nose. "When I'm old and bent and sitting in a chair, you come and hold my hand. All right? That's your job. Okay?"

He takes her hand and kisses it. "No," he says. "When you're old and bent, I'll be gone. I'll hold it now. Later, you'll have to remember."

1962. CORSO VITTORIO, ROME

Newsroom noises drifted into Betty's office: guffaws and murmured gossip, the clack and bing of typewriters, copyboys emptying crystal ashtrays into the garbage can. She sat at her desk, unable to work, spirits sunk beyond all reason.

Ridiculous-that's how she felt. Absolutely laughable. She had no right to be mourning still. To have cultivated the notion that she and Ott had a particular bond. Looking at paintings together. But what about the old days in New York?

Everyone felt this way about Ott, she supposed-this amplified sense of their importance in his life. He had that effect. His attention had been a spotlight; all else dimmed.

However, she had exerted no such force on him. He had left her in New York, had gone back to Atlanta, pursued his life of profit and expansion. He had married, produced a son. Betty should have forgotten about him; his absence shouldn't have mattered as much as it had and for as long. Eventually, she moved away from New York, traveling to Europe to report on Hitler's war. In London, she met a fellow American reporter, Leo, and they married. After the war, they settled in Rome, she consuming more Campari than she'd imagined the first time she tasted the stuff, writing less than she'd planned, too.

Then Ott had turned up, his presence at once magnifying all the small compromises she had made over the years, while offering an escape from them. She wanted to write again and believed she could. He installed her as the voice of the paper. Leo had the title of editor-in-chief, but everyone knew she was the brains of the operation. She came back to life with Ott across the newsroom. But outside the paper?

Ott had never sought to resume anything with her. Their outings to buy paintings, their lunches at his mansion-meaningless. Look, she reminded herself, he never even told me he was sick. He never asked for help. He never contacted me when he was dying. I didn't have that role in his life. I have no right to this grief.

One night, when Leo was out boozing with the staff, Betty took a taxi up to the Aventine Hill and stood before the spiked fence surrounding Ott's old mansion. Nothing remained in there. Only the paintings they had collected together: the swan-necked Gypsy by Modigliani; Leger's wine bottles and bowler hats; the acrobatic blue chickens and emerald fiddlers by Chagall; Pissarro's cozy English parsonage, smoke twisting out the chimney; the sloshing shipwreck of Turner-all of them, hanging in the pointless dark. She held down the buzzer, ringing the empty house, knowing it to be futile yet pressing till her fingertip went bloodless white. She let go; the house fell silent.

Without Ott around, Betty and Leo diverged more and more on how to run the paper. They hid their discord at the office, but barely. So it was with trepidation that they greeted news of a visitor from headquarters in Atlanta: Ott's son, Boyd, who was to pass the summer of 1962 in Rome before starting his junior year at Yale.

Leo, eager to curry favor, lined up a series of glitzy events to impress the young man and dispatched cleaners to dust off the old mansion on the Aventine Hill.

As a teenager, Boyd had flown to Rome each summer to spend a few weeks with his father. The pinnacle of those visits came when he and his father spoke alone. Even Ott's most cursory remarks entered Boyd as purest fact, as certain as the planets. When each vacation drew to an end, Boyd yearned to stay, to quit school in Atlanta, to live in Rome with his father. But Ott never invited him. On the flight home, the teenager mocked himself mercilessly, recalling his errant remarks, stinging at the memory, deeming himself an idiot, a disgrace.

Now, two years after his father's death, Boyd had returned to the city, a young man. To everyone's surprise, he spurned Ott's old mansion in favor of a hotel. And he showed no interest in carousing with Leo and the staff. Boyd disdained alcohol, disliked food, and betrayed no sense of humor. His goal in Rome, he said, was to learn the business of newspapering. But he seemed more interested in learning the business of Ott. "What did my father think about this?" he asked. "And what did he say about that? What was his plan for the paper?"

"The kid strikes me as sort of angry," Betty remarked. "Do you get that at all?"

"Well, I happen to like him," Leo responded, almost scolding.

"That wasn't what I was saying."

Not until Boyd returned to Atlanta did Betty and Leo separate. She liked to say, "I got the record player, he got the paper."

Betty moved back to New York and found a desk job, editing features at a women's magazine that specialized in recipes utilizing cans of condensed mushroom soup. She rented a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that overlooked a primary-school playground and, every weekday morning, awoke to children's squeals. She pulled her dressing gown from the nail on the door and sat at the window, watching them: boys wrestling, examining bleeding kneecaps, resuming battle; new girls casting about for friends, digging their hands into pinafore pockets.

Betty never did return to Rome.