Tom Rachman - The Imperfectionists

The workday passes like any other-no one even mentions his disappearance of the day before, and Kathleen doesn't seem to remember that he never returned her calls. At newspapers, what was of the utmost importance yesterday is immaterial today.

That night, their phone rings at home and Menzies answers. It is an Italian man. He asks for Annika. Menzies hands it over. She hears the voice and immediately puts down the receiver. "Hang up next time," she tells Menzies. "Don't give it to me if it's him. Just hang up."

Paolo keeps calling. He rings late and wakes them. They change the phone number. All goes quiet for a few weeks. Then legal papers arrive-astonishingly, he's suing Annika for breach of promise, claiming that she broke a verbal contract to leave her partner and buy an apartment with him. The suit says that he carried out his part and even took on a mortgage. Now he wants compensation.

No one at work asks Menzies about the humiliating email, but they haven't forgotten it. Reporters challenge him more often. Senior editors undermine him in news meetings. Only Kathleen is unchanged: she bosses him around and takes out her moods on him, same as ever.

As for Menzies and Annika themselves, they behave almost the same as before. But the scale is off. His praise of her photo project is too intent; her queries about his inventions are too assiduous. Previously, they used to try different dishes each night at dinner. Now they repeat the same few. "It's one of your favorites, I thought."

"Yes. Great. Thanks."

When they meet with the lawyer, he advises Menzies to settle, otherwise the case will drag on. Annika almost intervenes, but she shuts up. Menzies knows that she wants to fight Paolo's case-she is raging.

"I'd prefer to be done with this," Menzies tells the lawyer. "I'll happily pay for that. Well, not happily, but…"

They return to their apartment in silence. Later, they have a ridiculous spat: she criticizes the way he grates Parmesan. The apartment is suddenly too small for two people.

"I'm going downstairs for a bit of tinkering," he says.

And she is left alone.

She flips through their music and puts on Chet Baker's soundtrack for Let's Get Lost, a documentary by one of her favorite photographers, Bruce Weber. The tune is "You're My Thrill." She frowns with concentration to make out the lyrics, then loses interest. She opens her cellphone-no messages. What if she messaged him? Saying? She types into the phone keypad, erasing each snippet in turn: "this song" (delete) "idiot" (delete) "i wish" (delete) "why is it always dumb stuff?" (delete) "so stupid." She erases this, too, and writes "i miss u, can i come for visit?" She sends it. From the stereo, Chet Baker sings, "Nothing seems to matter… Here's my heart on a silver platter… Where's my will?"

Down in the workshop, Menzies flicks a rubber band, trying to hit a mark on the wall. He achieves it once, then tries for three consecutive hits. He tires of the game and turns to sketching unrealistic inventions that he will never build.

She knocks at the door. "Hi," she says uneasily. "Am I disturbing?"

"No, no. What's up?"

She takes a hop closer. "What can you show me? Some new invention that's gonna make us millions and revolutionize life as we know it?"

"I wish."

"You're not working on some evil plot against me, are you?"

"Yes, I'm going to drive you slowly mad with my diabolical cheese-grating."

She sticks out her tongue.

"We should work on a revenge invention," she says.

"For him, you mean?"

"Yeah."

"I must admit I've thought about that."

"You have to tell me."

"No, it's stupid."

"Come on."

He half smiles. "It's this: a little audio player that we'd stick in his bedroom and that would play an endless loop of a mosquito whining. But it would only activate in darkness, so every time he turned off the lights the whining would start. Then he'd turn on the lights to hunt for it and the mosquito wouldn't be there. And so on and so on, until straitjackets were required."

"That's genius! We have to do it!"

"No, no."

"Why not?"

"Well, many reasons."

"Like?"

"First of all, I'm not even sure how. Also, we'd definitely get caught. And I don't want to spend my time building a gadget for the purpose of tormenting someone. What would be the point? Making this guy's life a bit annoying? So we'd sit around at night feeling happy that someone else was irritated?"

"Okay, not your mosquito thing necessarily. But something-a bit of revenge. No?"

"I suspect revenge is one of those things that's better in principle than in practice. I mean, there's no real satisfaction in making someone else suffer because you have."

"You are so wrong there."

"And does revenge even work? I mean, is the point to get justice-to balance out something unfair? Nothing does that. Is it to make you feel better? It wouldn't make me feel better."

"So if someone does something shitty to you, there's no way to fix it?" She looks away, as if casually.

"I don't think there is, no," he answers. "The way to get over stuff, I think, is by forgetting. But there's no way to 'fix' in the way you mean. Not in my opinion."

She shakes her head. "I hate this."

"What?"

"I feel-I don't know-out of balance. You're not a vengeful person like me. You should get pissed off."

"At him?"

"At me. You know?"

"That doesn't appeal in the least, making you suffer."

"Then I end up suffering more."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Why are you getting mad? We're just talking."

"I'm not mad. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do." He clears his throat. "What you don't realize is that I'd be in real trouble without you. That sounded melodramatic-sorry. I just meant that, to be honest, even if you did something worse, I'm not about to reject you. I can't. Getting hurt by you only makes me need comfort more. Comfort from you. Not something I should admit. But…"

"It's okay."

It isn't okay. He ought to shut up. She's drifting away, more with each word of pardon he thrusts upon her. "I'm forty-one now," he says, "I live in a country whose language I don't speak, where, without you, I don't remotely fit it, where my colleagues consider me some kind of weasel."

"No, they don't."

"They do. Look, I'm Kathleen's henchman. She gives orders and I hop to it. And I don't have another option. That one day I'll come up with some great invention and get out of journalism? It's not going to happen."

"It might."

"It won't. I have no alternative to this life. Without you, I'm-you've seen me, Annika. I told you what I was before you. So I'm slightly worried. I mean, I'm terrified essentially."

"Of what?"

"I spent almost a decade alone before you."

"I know. I know that. But-" She pauses. "You can't be with someone just because you can't face being alone."

"No? Isn't that the best reason to be with someone? I'd put up with anything for that reason. I mean, look, I've never been so humiliated as I have over this situation with you. Did you know he sent that letter to everyone in my office?"

She freezes. "What?"

"I'm serious."

She covers her mouth. "You never told me that."

"And there was a photo with it. Of you. On our bed."

She goes pale.

"I'm not joking," he says. "It went to everyone."

She closes her eyes and shakes her head. "I want to die."

"It's okay," he says. "It's okay. Look, my point is that all of this, from start to finish, makes me want to, makes me want to be sick or-or, because, I don't know. Sorry, I'm sort of overwhelmed. Feel free to laugh at me. But that is how I feel about it. It doesn't matter. It's all right." He touches her cheek. "Thank you," he says, "for traveling out here to Italy with me." He kisses her. "Did you come downstairs to leave me?"