Numero Zero Read Online Free Page A

proof everything before it went to press, and even the major newspapers were now writing “Simone de Beauvoire,” or “Beaudelaire,” or “Roosvelt,” and the proofreader was becoming as outmoded as the Gutenberg press. None of these fellow travelers came from particularly inspiring backgrounds—a
Bridge of San Luis Rey
—and I have no idea how Simei had managed to track them down.
    Once the introductions were over, Simei outlined the different aspects of the newspaper.
    â€œSo then, we’ll be setting up a daily newspaper. Why
Domani
? Because traditional papers gave (and still give) the previous evening’s news, and that’s why they called them
Corriere della Sera
,
Evening Standard
, or
Le Soir
. These days we’ve already seen yesterday’s news on the eight o’clock television news the previous evening, so the newspapers are always telling you what you already know, and that’s why sales keep falling.
Domani
will summarize the news that now stinks like rotten fish, but it will do so in one small column that can be read in a few minutes.”
    â€œSo what will the paper cover?” asked Cambria.
    â€œA daily newspaper is destined to become more like a weekly magazine. We’ll be talking about what might happen tomorrow, with feature articles, investigative supplements, unexpected predictions . . . I’ll give you an example. There’s a bomb blast at four in the afternoon. By the next day everyone knows about it. Well, from four until midnight, before going to press, we have to dig up someone who can provide something entirely new about the likely culprits, something the police don’t yet know, and to sketch out a scenario of what will happen over the coming weeks as a result of the attack.”
    Braggadocio: “But to launch an investigation of that kind in eight hours, you’d need an editorial staff at least ten times our size, along with a wealth of contacts, informers, or whatever.”
    â€œThat’s right, and when the newspaper is actually up and running, that’s how it will have to be. But for now, over the next year, we only have to show it can be done. And it
can
be done, because each dummy issue can carry whatever date we fancy, and it can perfectly well demonstrate how the newspaper would have treated it months earlier when, let’s say, the bomb had gone off. In that case, we already know what will fall, but we’ll be talking as though the reader doesn’t yet know. So all our news leaks will take on the flavor of something fresh, surprising, dare I say oracular. In other words, we have to say to our owner: this is how
Domani
would have been had it appeared yesterday. Understood? And, if we wanted to, even if no one had actually thrown the bomb, we could easily do an issue
as if
.”
    â€œOr throw the bomb ourselves if we felt like it,” sneered Braggadocio.
    â€œLet’s not be silly,” cautioned Simei. Then, almost as an afterthought, “And if you really want to do that, don’t come telling me.”
    Â 
    After the meeting I found myself walking with Braggadocio. “Haven’t we already met?” he asked. I thought we hadn’t, and he said perhaps I was right, but with a slightly suspicious air, and he instantly adopted a familiar tone. Simei had established a certain formality with the editorial staff, and I myself tend to keep a distance from people, unless we’ve been to bed together, but Braggadocio was eager to stress that we were colleagues. I didn’t want to seem like someone who puts on airs just because Simei had introduced me as editor in chief or whatever it was. In any event, I was curious about him and had nothing better to do.
    He took me by the arm and suggested we go for a drink at a place he knew. He smiled with his fleshy lips and slightly bovine eyes, in a way that struck me as vaguely obscene. Bald as von Stroheim, his nape vertical