Giorgio Faletti: I'm God

Knowing him, it might be a joke. But given his sudden fame I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true.

‘Bye, Dad.’

‘Goodbye. I can’t say it was a pleasure.’

He walks to the door. His steps are noiseless on the carpet. So is the door when he opens it. I stop him as he’s about to go out.

‘Russell…’

He turns his face to me, that face everyone says is the image of mine.

‘Yes?’

‘One of these days, if you’d like to, you could come to lunch at the house. I think your mother would be very pleased to see you.’

He looks at me with eyes I’ll have to become familiar with in future. He takes a moment to reply. ‘I’d like that. I’d like it very much.’

Then he leaves the room.

I sit there for a moment, thinking. In my life I’ve always been a businessman. Today I think I made a good deal. Then I reach out my hand to the recorder and press the button, ready to listen to the recording.

It hits me immediately. I always thought my son was a lousy poker player. But maybe he’s one of those people who have the ability to learn from their mistakes.

The tape is blank.

There’s not a damned thing on it.

I get up and go to the window. Below me is New York, one of the many cities I’ve conquered in my life. Today it seems to me a little more precious. An amusing thought crosses my mind.

My son, Russell Wade, is a great journalist and a great son of a bitch.

I think he got that second aspect of his character from me.

I’m in Boston, in the cemetery where my brother is buried. I’m inside the family vault, which has been welcoming the remains of the Wades for many years. The stone is white marble, like all the others. Robert smiles at me from his ceramic photograph, on which his face will never age.

We’re more or less the same age now.

Today I had lunch with my family. I’d forgotten how big and luxurious their house was. The domestics when they saw me come in gave me the kind of looks Lazarus must have had after he had risen from the dead. There were even a few of them who’d never seen me in person. Only Henry, who walked with me to meet my mother and my father, squeezed my arm as he opened the door and stood aside to let me pass.

Then he whispered a few words. ‘The true story of a false name. Nice work, Mr Russell.

At lunch, in that mansion where I grew up and shared so many things with Robert and my parents, things were a bit awkward after being away all those years. All that silence and all those harsh words couldn’t be wiped out in a moment just by an effort of goodwill. But the food was excellent and we talked as we hadn’t done for a long time.

Over coffee, my father mentioned something he had heard. He said several people had talked about my name in connection with the Pulitzer. When he added that this time nobody would take it away from me, he smiled. My mother smiled, too, and I was finally able to breathe.

I acted as if nothing unusual had been said, and stared down at the dark liquid steaming in my cup.

I remembered the call I had made on my way back from Chillicothe. I called the New York Times , gave my name and asked to be put through to Wayne Constance. Many years earlier, in my brother’s time, he had been in charge of the foreign desk. Now he was the editor of the whole damned paper.

Over the phone, his voice had sounded just the way I remembered it. ‘Hi, Russell. What can I do for you?’

A touch of coldness. Suspicion. Curiosity.

I hadn’t expected anything different. I knew I didn’t deserve anything different.

‘I can do something for you, Wayne. I have a real scoop on my hands.’

‘Oh, yes? What’s it about?’

A little less coldness. A bit more curiosity. Plus a hint of irony. The same suspicion.

‘For the moment I can’t tell you. The only thing I can tell you is that you can have the exclusive, if you want it.’

He took a moment to reply. ‘Russell, don’t you think you’ve disgraced yourself enough in the last few years?’

I knew the best response to that was to tell him he was right. ‘Absolutely. But this time it’s different.’

‘Who can guarantee me that?’

‘Nobody. But you’ll see me and look at what I bring you.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘Two reasons. The first is that you’re as curious as a polecat. The second is that you’d never miss an opportunity to disgrace me even more.’

He laughed as if I had cracked a joke. We both knew perfectly well it was the truth.

‘Russell, if you waste my time, I’ll tell security to throw you out the window and I’ll make sure personally they’ve done it.’

‘You’re a great man, Wayne.’

‘Your brother was a great man. In his memory I’ll take a look at what you have.’

I never heard from him again until after that night at Joy, the night when everyone’s certainties had been overturned to give way to the vast emptiness of all the things we didn’t know.

As we were waiting for the police to arrive and make their initial investigations, I went looking for a room with a computer and an Internet connection. When I found it, I shut myself away and drafted the first article. I managed to get it all down, as if someone behind me was dictating the words, as if I had always owned that story, as if I’d lived it a thousand times and told it just as often.

Then I emailed and sent it to the paper.

The rest is well known.

Two weeks have gone by since Vivien’s sister’s funeral. Two weeks since the last time I saw her, the last time we talked. Since that moment I’ve been on a merry-go-round that’s been moving so fast. Now it’s time for that merry-go-round to stop, because I still feel an emptiness that the lights of the TV studios and the interviews and my photograph on the front page, this time without any shame, can’t fill. This whole crazy business has taught me that words left unexpressed are sometimes more dangerous and more damaging than those we scream at the top of our voice. It’s taught me that sometimes the only way not to run risks is to take risks. And that the only way not to have debts is not to incur them.

Or to pay them.

And that’s exactly what I’ll do as soon as I get back to New York.

That’s why I’m standing here by my brother’s grave, looking at his face smiling back at me. I return that smile, hoping he can see it. Then I tell him something I’ve been dreaming of telling him for years.

‘I made it, Robert.’

Then I turn and walk away.

Now we’re both free.

The elevator reaches my floor and as soon as the sliding doors open I get a surprise. On the wall facing the elevator, stuck to the wall with transparent adhesive tape, is a photograph.

I go closer to get a proper look at it.

The photograph shows me, in profile, in Bellew’s office, with an absorbed expression, my face slightly shaded by my hair. The shot has caught me in a moment of reflection, and captured to perfection the doubts and the sense of uselessness I was feeling at that moment.

I turn my head and on the wall to my left, just above the bell, is another photograph. I take it in my hand and by the light on the landing look closely.

I’m in this one as well.

In the living room of Lester Johnson’s house in Hornell. My eyes are circled with fatigue but they have a determined expression, as I look at the photograph of Wendell Johnson and Matt Corey in Vietnam. I remember that moment well. It was a moment when everything seemed lost and yet suddenly hope was reborn.

The third photograph is attached to the middle of the door.

Me again, in the apartment in Williamsburg, studying the drawings in the folder for the first time. When I didn’t yet know that they weren’t bad works of art but the ingenious way a man had found to draw a map of his own madness. I remember my mood at that moment. I wasn’t aware of my expression.