I have no idea, either. I think at the time everyone was simply busy hooking up with everyone else, and no one stayed with anyone for very long.

“I graduated from university, became a defense lawyer, and spent my life between crooks and the completely innocent, between scoundrels and the totally honest. What started out as a temporary job became a permanent decision: a need to help. My list of clients grew and grew. My reputation spread throughout the city. My father insisted that it was time for me to give it all up and go and work in the law practice of a friend of his, but I was just too excited by each new case I won. Then I came across a completely archaic law that has absolutely no relevance today. We needed major changes in how the city was governed.”

All this is in his official biography, but hearing it from his lips feels quite different.

“At one point, I decided I wanted to stand as a candidate for deputy. We campaigned with almost no money, because my father was completely opposed. But my clients were all in favor. I was elected by a tiny majority, but I was elected nonetheless.”

He looks around again, having hidden the cigarette behind his back. But since no one is looking, he takes another long drag. His eyes have a vacant look as he gazes back at the past.

“When I started out in politics, I used to sleep only about five hours a night, yet I was always full of energy. Now I can easily sleep for eighteen hours at a stretch. The honeymoon is over. All that’s left is my need to please others, especially my wife, who has fought like crazy for me to have a great future. Marianne has made a lot of sacrifices and I can’t let her down.”

Is this the same man who, only a few minutes ago, suggested that we start going out again? Or is this what he wants: someone to talk to who will understand him because she feels the same way?

I have a gift for inventing fantasies with extraordinary speed. I’m already imagining myself lying between silk sheets in some chalet in the Alps.

“So when shall we meet again?” he asks.

It’s up to you, I say.

He suggests meeting on another day. I tell him that’s when I have my yoga class. He asks me to skip it. But I’m always skipping it and have promised to be more disciplined.

Jacob seems resigned. I’m tempted to change my mind, but I mustn’t appear too eager or too available.

Life is becoming fun again, my previous apathy replaced by fear. How wonderful it is to be afraid of missing an opportunity!

I tell him it’s impossible, and that we’d better rearrange it for Friday. He accepts, phones his assistant, and asks him to put it in the diary. He finishes smoking his cigarette and says good-bye. I don’t ask him why he’s told me so much about his private life, and he adds nothing very significant to what he said in the restaurant.

I would like to believe that something has changed during that lunch, just one among hundreds I’ve had where I eat extremely unhealthy food and pretend to drink wine that remains almost untouched when the time comes to order coffee. One can never lower one’s guard, despite all that fuss about tasting the wine.

The need to please everyone. Saturn in opposition.

JOURNALISM is not as glamorous as people think—it’s not all interviewing famous people, being invited to amazing places, brushing shoulders with power, money, the fascinating world of criminality.

The fact is that we spend most of the time at our cubicle desks, talking on the phone. Privacy is only for the bosses, sitting in their glass aquariums, with curtains that can be occasionally closed. When they draw them, they still know what’s going on outside, but we can no longer see their fish mouths moving.

Being a journalist in Geneva, with its 195,000 inhabitants, is the most boring job in the world. I glance through today’s issue even though I already know what it contains—endless reports on foreign dignitary meetings at the United Nations, the usual complaints about the end to banking secrecy, and a few more things that have made it to the front page: “Morbidly Obese Man Banned from Plane,” “Wolf Decimates Sheep on Outskirts of City,” “Pre-Columbian Fossils Found in Saint-Georges,” and, finally, in banner headlines, “Newly Restored Genève Returns to the Lake Looking More Beautiful Than Ever.”

My boss summons me to his office and asks if I managed to get an exclusive out of my lunch with that politician. Needless to say, someone saw us together.

No, I didn’t. Nothing that isn’t in his official biography. The lunch was intended to get me closer to a source. (The more sources a journalist has, the more respected he or she is.)

My boss says that another reliable source has told him that, even though Jacob König is married, he’s having an affair with the wife of another politician. I feel a pang in that dark corner of my soul where depression keeps knocking but I refuse to answer.

My boss asks if I can get closer. They’re not particularly interested in his sex life, but his source suggests that König might be being blackmailed. A foreign metallurgical company wants to airbrush out certain tax problems in its own country, but has no way of getting in touch with the minister of finance. They need a little help.

My boss explains that Jacob König isn’t our target; what we want is to denounce the people who are trying to corrupt our political system.

“And that shouldn’t be difficult. We just have to say we’re on his side.”

Switzerland is one of the few countries in the world where a man’s word is still his bond. In most other places you need lawyers, witnesses, signed documents, and the threat of legal process if the secret were leaked.

“We just need confirmation and photos.”

So I’ll need to get closer to him.

“That shouldn’t be difficult, either. Our sources tell us that you’ve already arranged another meeting. It’s in his diary.”

And this is the land of banking secrecy! Everyone knows everything.

“Use the usual tactics.”

The “usual tactics” consist of four points: One, ask about something that the interviewee would like to discuss in public. Two, let him talk for as long as possible to make him think that the newspaper is going to give him lots of space. Three, at the end of the interview, when he’s convinced he has us nicely under control, ask the one question that really interests us. That way, he’ll feel that if he doesn’t answer it, we won’t give him the space he’s hoping for and he will have wasted his time. And four, if he responds evasively, reformulate the question and ask it again. He’ll say it’s of no interest, but you must get some answer, at least one statement. In ninety-nine percent of the cases, the interviewee falls into the trap.

That’s all you need. You can throw the rest of the interview away and use that one statement in an article that isn’t about the interviewee, but instead about an important subject featuring journalistic research, official facts, unofficial facts, anonymous sources, et cetera.

“If he proves reluctant, tell him we’re on his side. You know how journalism works. And it will be to your advantage, too …”

Yes, I know how it works. The career of a journalist is as short as an athlete’s. We achieve power and glory early, then step aside for the next generation. Very few continue and progress. Most see their standard of living drop and become critics of the press, writing blogs, giving talks, and spending more time than necessary trying to impress their friends. There is no intermediate stage.

I’m still in the category of “promising professional.” If I can get those statements, it’s likely that next year I won’t have to hear someone say “We’ve got to cut costs” and “With your talent and your name, you won’t have any trouble finding another job.”