Why had Ott stayed here so long? This place hadn't been his home. That had been in Atlanta. But buildings adjusted to Ott, not the other way around. He had deemed that the world needed the paper. So he damn well set about inventing it. He never sat still. That was how the great man had been.

Thinking of the paper's current state, Boyd went rigid with anger and shame. It was an affront to his father's memory, and Boyd himself was responsible.

The next morning, he met with all the section editors and asked them to hold tight-a new editor-in-chief was on the way. When Boyd returned to Atlanta, he employed a headhunting firm to poach a star from a top American newspaper. Someone young, bright, with spark. He got two out of three.

Milton Berber was hardly in the first bloom of youth. He'd already had a long journalistic career at a Washington paper, starting after military service in World War II. He'd reported on district court, got a break covering the State Department, became deputy metro editor, then deputy national editor, then deputy assistant managing editor. But by 1975 he had to admit it: he wasn't going any higher.

This annoyed him, since he believed he'd make a fine boss. But no one had ever given him a chance, not when he was driving a jeep around Naples for the U.S. Army, nor as an editor in Washington. True, it was not exactly a dream come true to work at a second-tier international newspaper. But at least he'd be running the place.

Boyd flew out to Rome with Milton to introduce the man around. After meeting the downtrodden staff and grasping the paper's mood, Milton had doubts. But Boyd-not the most charming man, perhaps-did seem intent on turning the paper around. So Milton said yes.

He gathered the staff and told them, "Newspapers are like anything else: they're pure and incorruptible and noble-as far as they can afford to be. Starve them and they'll kneel in the muck with the rest of the bums. Rich papers can afford to be upstanding and, if you like, self-important. We don't have that luxury right now."

"So you're saying we have to kneel in muck?" a reporter asked.

"My point is the opposite. We need to start making money here. People don't read us at the moment. We're writing stories we think we should write, but not what people actually want to read."

"Hey," an editor objected, "we know what our readers want."

"Look, I don't intend to ruffle feathers here," Milton proceeded. "I only want to be straight with you. And this is how I see the situation. The paper started out as a pamphlet."

Boyd bristled at this, interrupting to say, "It has always been more than that."

"Broad strokes, I'm using broad strokes here. Bear with me."

The staff wondered if they were witnessing a fiasco. This was Milton's first public encounter with the owner and the employees, and he was on the verge of alienating both. "Withhold your judgment," he said. "I'm going to say some lousy things. Awful things. You ready? Here goes. This publication started out as a cute pamphlet-please don't fire me on my first day, Boyd!"

Everyone laughed.

"The paper started as a terrific idea," Milton went on. "But somehow it has ended up as blotting paper. That's what it is now. That's not meant as a slight against anyone here. It certainly isn't a slight against the institution itself. I'm saying it's time to make this paper into a real paper. The way we do this is with two ingredients-the same two you need for any success: brains and hard work. I want to quit the wishy-washy approach. We don't have to match the big newspapers all the time. And we don't have to be renegades just for the sake of it. I want serious stories that are our own, on the one hand, and entertaining trifles, on the other. All the rest we run in the briefs column. And I want laughs. We're too scared of humor-so reverent all the time. Bullshit! Entertainment, folks! Look how the Brits do it. They print pretty girls, offer weekends in Brighton. And they sell a hell of a lot more copies than we do. Now, I'm not saying we turn this into a red top or a big top, let alone force anyone to go to Brighton. Heaven forbid. But we've got to acknowledge that we're entertainers of a sort. That doesn't mean phony. Doesn't mean vulgar. It means readable in the best way-so people wake up wanting us before their coffee. If we're so reverent about public service that nobody reads us, we're not doing the public any service at all. We're going to raise circulation, and make money doing it."

The staffers were right to applaud with circumspection. Milton's remarks did not bode well for everyone, particularly those who had always relied on brains and hard work not being requirements of the job. Boyd, for his part, was tempted to fire Milton immediately. But he knew how badly it would reflect on him. He'd chosen the man, had flown all the way over here. He would give him a year, then fire him.

Milton stood among his staff, shaking hands, memorizing names. He already knew them in a way-he understood this breed backward and had foreseen how his speech would be received. Journalists were as touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists. He couldn't help smiling.

ANNIKA CROUCHES BEFORE THE WASHING MACHINE IN THEIR apartment, unloading damp clothes. "I'm beginning to suspect that my purpose in life is laundry," she says. "All the rest is just fleeting glory."

Menzies stands behind her and touches his forefinger to the crown of her head, following the swirl of her dyed-black hair. He opens his palm across the top of her skull as if to measure it, then hooks his thumbs under the straps of her dungarees and tugs. She leans against his palm and kisses his fingers, looking up. "Seven hundred and twenty-eight socks last year," she tells him. "That's how many I washed."

"You counted?"

"Of course." She reaches into the washing machine and draws out a bedsheet that seems never to end.

He kneels beside her, hugs her around the middle. "I have the day off," he says. "Let me do something."

He gets few days off from the paper. Normally, he starts his labors at 6 A.M., logging on from home to see what has happened overnight in the United States and what is happening at that moment in Asia. He scans the websites of competing news organizations and responds to emails, typing softly so as not to wake her in the other room. By seven, he is at the bus stop on Via Marmorata, urging the No. 30 to hurry up. He's first in the office and turns on the lights: throughout the newsroom, fluorescent beams flicker on like reluctant morning eyes. He places a thermos of American coffee on his desk, turns on the TV, checks CNN and the BBC, consults the news wires, compiles a list of stories to assign. Other employees arrive: secretaries, technicians, editors, reporters. By nine, he is consulting with staff correspondents and the few stringers they have left overseas. Then Kathleen shows up, demanding a rundown of the world at that moment. She never appears to pay attention, yet absorbs it all. "Quiet day," she says. "Let's hope something happens." He shepherds the main stories through their various stages: writing, backfielding, copy-editing. He consults with layout, sizes up ad space, requests photos and orders graphics-all through a blizzard of phone calls. Colleagues pester him to take a break, not because they care but to underscore that he's a sucker to toil like this. When the late edition closes, everyone else goes home and he puts the newsroom to bed: the fluorescent beams flicker back to sleep. On the bus ride home to Testaccio, he is assaulted by headlines that stream across his mind like a news ticker: " Iran test-fires 3 new missiles… 90% of maritime life forms extinct by 2048… Evangelical leader resigns over gay hooker scandal." He takes the elevator upstairs. The news ticker continues: "Keys in right pocket, officials say… Unlock deadbolt, sources suggest… Call Annika's name, report recommends." He does so, and she arrives to kiss him on the lips. She shuttles him into the kitchen, has him tasting bubbling sauces, hearing about her day. All that mattered a minute before no longer does. The news stops.