Great Men Rest

Great Men Rest

Pour me one, Giuseppe. No, not that one. The one on the left. How many times do I have to say it — the left. Left hand. The one you cross yourself with. No, that's the right. Never mind. The bitter one.

"They're all bitter, Aldo."

Then any of them. But the one on the left.

So listen. I turned on the television this morning and turned it off after three minutes. Three minutes. Because in three minutes I heard more stupidity than in seventy-four years of life. And my life has been long.

"Especially for the people around you."

Listen. World trade. Everyone's screaming — deficit, balance, agreements. And the solution is simple. Tariffs. On everything. On phones. On cars. On those — what are they called — semiconductors.

"You don't know what those are."

I don't need to know. I know they're not made here and they're expensive. That's enough. Fifty percent tariff. Someone complains — make it seventy. Someone takes it to court — let them. I'll find another law. There are hundreds, Giuseppe. Hundreds. Laws are like boxes in my garage. You don't know what's in them, but one of them always does the job.

"Your garage door hasn't opened in two years."

That's a mechanical issue.

"You welded it shut because you thought your neighbor was stealing your tools."

There were grounds.

"It was your own drill. You forgot you'd lent it to Pietro."

So? I secured the perimeter. Quickly, decisively. The drill came back. The door — collateral damage. But the principle works. Remember Marco, who built the fence without a permit?

"I remember."

By the time the council got involved, the fence was already up. And a chicken coop behind it. That's politics.

"Marco spent three years in court after that."

But is the fence still standing?

"The fence is standing. They demolished the coop. His wife left him over the fines."

The fence. Is standing. Everything else is details. Great men don't deal in details.

Pour me another. And move that stool over here.

"It's bolted to the floor."

See? This is why nothing works in this country. Everything's bolted down.

So. War. They'd bring me the intelligence — so-and-so has shut the strait, charging for passage. Through the sea. Millions. Like he built a toll road.

"Like the parking lot at city hall."

Worse. Parking is four euros. This one charges millions. From ships!

I'd send the fleet. The biggest. And I'd say — "Open it or your entire civilization dies." All of it. The whole thing.

"You said the same thing to Renzo last August at Lake Bracciano over a boat slip."

That was justified!

"You capsized your own boat trying to block his way out of the cove."

That was a strategic withdrawal. And Renzo didn't speak to me for two days after. Two days! It worked.

"Renzo wasn't speaking because he was pulling your boat off the bottom of the lake."

The point is the signal. First you scare them, then you go soft. Like my father. First the belt. Then the ice cream.

"You're still afraid of belts."

I respect them. I respect the belt. It's different.

"And you don't eat ice cream."

Complex emotions. Don't change the subject.

Next. Negotiations. I'd send someone. Young, in a suit, with a face that says nothing. He'd talk for a long time. With folders. Very serious. And then he'd come back with no result.

"And that's the plan?"

The best plan! Because while he's flying around talking, I'm sitting ringside at the fights.

"At the fights."

With cameras. Because a president who can sit ringside while his man is negotiating — that's a president people fear.

"Or he just doesn't care."

Strategy! Like De Luca, when he shut off Benedetto's water because Benedetto blocked the road to his olive grove. While Benedetto was running to lawyers, De Luca sat in the piazza drinking coffee. In plain sight. Calm.

"De Luca ended up with no olives and no water. Lives with his daughter in Perugia now. One room with the grandchildren."

He won morally.

"Benedetto bought his grove at auction."

...But everyone remembers who shut off the water first.

"Nobody remembers, Aldo. Except you."

Fine. Friday — results. I'd come out and say: "Greatest week ever. Nothing like it in history." And it would be true. Because truly, no one has ever seen anything like it.

"That's for certain."

Tariffs working. Fleet in position. Enemy nervous. The rest is temporary. I'd say it every day — "great things are happening." Morning — "great things are happening." Evening — "incredible progress." Saturdays — "never been done before."

"And Sundays?"

Rest. Great men rest.

"You rest every day."

I'm in training. In case they call.

"They're not going to call, Aldo."

You don't know that. Maybe tomorrow they'll ring and say: "We need a man who thinks big."

"You've owed me for the vermouth for two months."

It's different.

"You run the world economy at a twenty-cent loss too."

I don't understand, Giuseppe. I don't understand how that's the same thing to you.

Aldo finished his drink. Set down the glass. Looked at Giuseppe the way people look when they're certain the world doesn't deserve them. He fished out a handful of coins, counted four euros onto the counter — twenty cents short of two vermouths, same as every evening — and walked to the door.

"I'll come earlier tomorrow," he said. "I want to sort out Asia."

The door closed.

Giuseppe wiped a glass. Then looked at the television in the corner. No sound, as always. On the screen, a man behind a podium was gesturing. The ticker at the bottom: something about tariffs. Something about a fleet. Something about "the greatest week."

He turned the sound on. Listened for ten seconds. Turned it off.

Looked at the door. Then at the screen.

"Madonna santa," he said to the glasses. "There are two of them."

He put the coins in the register and added twenty cents to the notebook, on Aldo's page, filled from top to bottom.