The Dismal Science (7 page)

In a smart but controversial essay published in
Foreign Policy
, William Hamilton wrote that the spark that lit the Holocaust was not to be found in “Hitler's warped mind, but in the flawed calculus of the Reichsbank's president's notebook, circa 1923, which created space for Nazism. The target of the Nazis' ire was, not surprisingly, the ethnicity most associated, by crude stereotype, with the banking sector.” Hamilton continued: “If Rudolf Havenstein [the German finance minister in the 1920s] had pursued a rational policy, Hitler would have been just another deranged, failed painter. Likewise, if the average Rwandan made a living wage in 1993, there would not have been genocide there.”

William Hamilton didn't play chess, though, and neither had Machiavelli. Chess is, counterintuitively, a game that requires extraordinary creativity, even emotionality; it demands a person capable of recognizing the cold realities of a given strategic landscape, but that person must also be able to make surprising and apparently self-destructive moves—to offer the throat of his queen, if need be, and to feel that loss for what it is. Why else do
our most advanced computers—machines capable of untangling a thing as complex as our very genome—find themselves struggling to outwit a tubby Russian in this game of logic?

As he walked through the fluorescent-lit tunnel connecting the
IMF
's parking garage and the World Bank's garage, Vincenzo knew that while his job was interesting enough, in the event that this confrontation with Hamilton marked the end of his career, it wouldn't be so bad. Not really. Despite a gut aversion to the scenario, he knew, logically, it was fine. He could just as easily pass the rest of his life rereading the Russian masters and firing off the occasional angry letter to the editor of the
Financial Times
. More than anything, it was clear to him, as it had been for a while, that he had little left to keep him in DC. His daughter lived in New York, and his friends had mostly moved away. Those who remained in DC were really Cristina's friends, and despite their generosity, he never felt entirely comfortable with them. They were forever sighing when he was around. They wanted to talk about her, or didn't—either way it felt wrong. While he still saw them once a month or so, he found that they squinted at him often, as though he were out of focus.
Do I just remind them of her?
he had wondered.
And, if so, how sad—because they just remind me of her
.

Now, waiting for the elevator in the World Bank's basement, Vincenzo returned his attention to the conversation with Hamilton. Both of them had made mistakes, had overplayed their positions.

Over the long weekend, Leonora had said that she thought the World Bank was “basically run by the US government,” which had bothered Vincenzo more than he could explain. It had kept him up at night formulating and editing counterarguments, which he'd never used, because the subject hadn't come up again. But now, this morning, witnessing Hamilton's swagger at breakfast—Vincenzo was more than a little dismayed by the way it dovetailed with her comment.

They would not fire him, he knew, because to do so would only exacerbate whatever PR problems his conversation with the press would cause. The management would, instead, offer a large severance. Not that money was an issue anymore. This was one of the sadder things about hitting his middle fifties as a widower: suddenly the debts were all gone and the investments were pulling record returns, the house in Bethesda was worth five times what he and Cristina had paid. And yet, apart from his dinosaurian nest egg, he had no significant use for this money. He had begun eating osetra caviar casually, and drinking Barolo with his carryout from Obelisk. He had bought that stupid Mercedes-Benz and the new kitchen supplies. It was a mirage, of course, the shimmering apparition of newness. What he wanted was sad and predictable: a younger woman, not too much younger, but enough to be truly beautiful, with whom he could settle at his farm in Piedmont and pass his remaining years in peace, tending to the olive trees. He wouldn't ask much from her, certainly not that she adopt the same pace of life. If she went out and didn't return until late, he could live with that. Maybe he'd even feel okay if she had boyfriends. In theory, he could live with all that. He just wanted the company
of someone beautiful and lively and carefree. During his free time, he could play chess, read, write, and pick up the other hobbies of the educated and indolent: gardening, watercolors, tennis, cycling, cooking, all the rest of that.

Vincenzo stood in the elevator alone. Above the doors, the numbers lit one by one as he ascended.

He grasped the wooden railing and stared at his blurry face, bisected by the crack in the brass doors. There were always finger smudges on the doors, he'd noticed, especially near the black space in the middle, as though someone had been trying to pry them open. Sometimes there were more smudges and sometimes there were fewer, but they were always there.

He passed the rest of his morning anxiously, repeatedly checking his e-mail, waiting for the message from Wolfowitz requesting that he come in for a talk. The phone rang twice, but neither call had anything to do with the confrontation with Hamilton.

When it rang a third time, Vincenzo saw from the caller ID it was Wolfowitz himself. He let it ring three times. He readied himself, and picked up. “Hello.”

“Hello, Vincenzo, how are you?” He sounded light and friendly, even unaware.

“Fine, fine.” He processed Paul's tone and decided to move cautiously. “What can I do for you?”

“It's the protestors. I've invited their leader up to talk to you. Their complaint involves our Latin America program, and while it's essentially meritless, it's in our interest to meet with them briefly. Don't spend a lot of time on it. I thought you'd be the man to talk to. His name is, let's see—um . . . Jonathan
Paris. Economics degree from Yale—good for him.
2002!
Wow, he's a child. Okay, let's see: magna cum laude—and, well, you get the idea. A frisky guy, altogether, so I thought we'd try to mollify. Carrot is better than stick with these people; they live for the stick.”

Vincenzo had spoken only a few times to Wolfowitz and didn't know whether he was joking or not. Standing there, he pictured the face: jug ears and gnomish features, squinting eyes. Paul really wasn't as bad as they said, but he was also hard to understand at times. And this was one of those times. Did this have to do with his conversation with Hamilton? It seemed likely. “Did you really invite him up to my office?” he said.

“Absolutely. I've met with a number of protestors so far. With these ones—look, they're just kids. You have kids?”

“A daughter, twenty-four years old.”

“So you understand. This is not as big a deal as people think it is. At the Pentagon, Don had a policy against even acknowledging protestors, but I always felt that if it'll stop them spraying us with pigs' blood every time we step outside, let's hear them out. They'll feel like they achieved something and we can get back to work.”

“Well, Paul, I'll let you know what this boy says.”

“Good. Thanks. Please feel free to call me whenever.” And, with that, Paul hung up.

Vincenzo barely had time to recover from the surreal phone call when Jonathan Paris himself, escorted by a lanky North African security guard, knocked on his open door. Vincenzo stood, told the guard he could leave, and beckoned the young man inside. Jonathan had a freshly shaved face and an ill-fitting
suit, possibly on loan from his father. He was maybe about Leonora's age—out of college, but not yet acquiescing to the realities of full-blown adulthood. He shook Vincenzo's hand and flashed a future-politician's smile, toothy and hollow and curiously beguiling.

“What can I do for you?” Vincenzo motioned for him to sit.

Jonathan ignored the chair. He turned and walked to the window, put his hands behind his back—it was an affected gesture, but Vincenzo sympathized. He often interviewed young men like this for positions at the Bank. They were often handsome and boasted fresh degrees from legendary institutions; they felt, in short, like destiny was in their favor, but they were always the most conspicuously insecure candidates. Jonathan Paris wore his nervousness a little proudly, as if the reticence were itself a product of his morally superior position.

“You can't hear us from up here,” he observed glumly. He leaned toward the glass, peering down. “You can't even see us, can you?”

Vincenzo squinted, put his fingers into a steeple, as if this were a very weighty matter.

While sitting at the desk he had occupied since the promotion, he could see the corner of the International Monetary Fund's top floor and a tidy rhombus-shaped swath of sky. “If you were a block away, I could see you when I stood at the window,” he explained. “If you rented a hot air balloon, I could see you when I sat at my desk, but I'm guessing that the propane isn't”—he shrugged, winced—“it doesn't burn very clean, does it?”

Jonathan turned and smiled at Vincenzo, but kept his hands still latched together behind his back. There was a
confidence—affected or not—that felt off-putting in someone so young. Vincenzo was tempted to ask if Jonathan had seen his Leonora down there. Any green combat boots? He had pictures of her in frames on the shelf. But no, it wouldn't be appropriate.

“Do you want a cappuccino?” Vincenzo said, wanting to make him feel more at ease. “We have a coffee shop on the mezzanine level. We could talk there.”

Jonathan nodded.

In the elevator on the way down, Vincenzo talked about Leonora. He explained that she had tattoos covering her arms, and that she supported the Rainforest Coalition. He said that she was beautiful and bright, that she lived in New York. He managed to resist the urge to say that she might be out there. He didn't know why he was able to manage that one piece of self-control, but gave so much on other fronts. She had majored in something called media studies at Oberlin, he explained. When they arrived at the mezzanine level, he realized it sounded like he was trying to set Jonathan Paris up with his daughter. And then, walking across the buffed travertine lobby, he realized he
was
trying to set Jonathan Paris up with his daughter.

“Oberlin is a good school,” Jonathan said.

“Well, yes.”

They arrived at the café and Vincenzo glanced around but saw no one he knew. “Oberlin is also an expensive school,” he said. “And I told her that if she went to a state school, I'd give her the difference. That is, I would give her the money that I saved.”

Jonathan shook his head, amused. “Well, you're definitely an economist.”

“True. But she could have made a hundred thousand dollars if she'd gone to Maryland. She said no. What does that tell you?”

A small pause. “It tells me that people have a difficult time seeing the long-term consequences of their actions. We prefer to burn our resources now, deal with the consequences tomorrow.” He smiled at Vincenzo, understandably satisfied.

Vincenzo smiled back. “That was nicely done,” he said, and patted the boy on the shoulder. “That wasn't what I had in mind, but it was nicely done.” Since they were apparently switching from banter to business, he said, “I think the Bank understands quite well the long-term consequences of its actions. What would you like to drink, Jon?”

Jonathan did not try to refuse when Vincenzo offered to pay for their coffees. They sat at a table in the corner, and Vincenzo listened to Jonathan talk about the problem of prioritizing short-term economic growth over the long-term welfare of the planet. He could not have done it better himself, and enjoyed especially Jonathan's ability to whip himself into an emotional climax that corresponded with the sharpest points of his argument. Not quite Bill Clinton, but definitely impressive. This part of the conversation was painstakingly choreographed, he knew. The edginess from before, when their conversation had been improvised, was replaced by a frosty certainty.

Vincenzo wasn't really up for a battle, though it probably would have been easy enough to hand the boy his own head. Instead, he offered a few halfhearted counterexamples, because it would be unseemly not to. Jonathan's argument was sound, in a sense, although it hinged on a critical misunderstanding
of the World Bank's role. It was like critiquing the rules of a game, or not understanding the rules . . . To Jonathan, the World Bank wasn't
fair
, as if being fair was something they set out to be.