A Zero-Sum Game. Eduardo Rabasa

after a given number of words, there should be a box recapping the main points, a smaller box summarizing the larger one, yet another that would continue the compression, and so on until it was condensed into the keyword that was the focus of the entire text. Ponce had demonstrated that this optimized the retention of information because it allowed each individual to go into the text as deep or shallow as he pleased. At first sight, the articles looked like those charts representing the stages of a competition, in which the winning words advanced to the next heat, until the supreme word had beaten the rest. The language was colloquial; the reporters were trained not to insult the intelligence of their readers: they should refrain from using vocabulary not in the daily lexicon of the majority.

      The aim was to attain a delicate balance: gathering the opinions of people so as to then mold them. Perdumes explained it using the allegory of a fountain that feeds on the water of a river, only to then return it, transformed, to the stream before feeding once again on that slightly modified source, in a patient reiteration that eventually modifies the raw material through its own elements.

      The articles should utilize the time-honored inductive technique of representing a general idea by a few individual testimonies. It was prohibited for reporters to explicitly reveal their beliefs. Every case required the support of an impartial witness. In this respect, The Daily Miserias also introduced an innovation: it made absolutely no difference whether or not the witness to an event actually existed. This wasn’t a con or some arbitrary decision. Ponce explained to Perdumes that, from a statistical viewpoint, one person’s opinion in a population consisting of anything over 878 was already irrelevant when it came to representing the feelings of the majority. He’d demonstrated this in practice with a simple exercise: comparing the reportage of four newspapers, each with a different political tendency, on an antiwar march in a distant country. In every case, the testimonies offered to illustrate the mood of those present coincided with the editorial line of the paper in relation to the war. The most progressive reproduced the words of a father, heartbroken at the death of his son—a medical student specializing in epidemiology—who planned to go to a poverty-stricken region to fight a pandemic. The most conservative, in contrast, interviewed an elderly lady waving a placard with a picture of a hippie wiping his ass with a national flag. She’d lost a grandson, but was proud of her “hero who gave his life to protect our freedom.” The two newspapers holding the center ground offered the opinions of people who were against war but understood that it was sometimes necessary, or who supported this war but demanded transparent information in relation to its cost and duration. If this was correlated with the papers’ estimations of the number of marchers, his point was proven.

      What’s the difference, asked G.B.W. Ponce, between looking for someone who expresses the viewpoint you want to transmit and a sensible journalist who captures the atmosphere through the words of a person who doesn’t exist, but is more representative of the collective feeling? Why always use a tangible witness? In statistical terms, it’s the same thing to be one in a million as to be zero in five thousand. Used correctly, the new technique was, in fact, more objective than its predecessor. But it couldn’t be employed lightly: it had to be carefully introduced until there was no longer any noticeable difference.

      Readers were also given a voice. Subscribers were offered the privilege of entering a raffle for the right to compose their own columns in the section called Para-Doxa. The topic could be chosen at will since the idea was to discover the views of the common or garden resident, whose voice was not generally heard. Feedback was important, so the contribution was accompanied by a comment in the leader column. This wasn’t to intimidate the amateur writer; it simply pointed out issues that had been omitted, clarified myths not in keeping with the new times, or cited eminent experts who had demonstrated a particular phenomenon. Gradually, the tone changed. The veiled message slowly permeated the invited contributors. Para-Doxa was a reflection of the change in the pulse of the average Villa Miserian.

      The Daily Miserias became the main media organ on the estate. Its readership was so varied that the editorial staff even organized a competition for the most successful publicity campaign. Talented young creative producers came up with highly ingenious ideas. In the end, a designer rocking chair shop with an abundance of exotic letters in its name won the prize with a strategy based on insulting its customers. The central image showed a young couple relaxing in their stylized rocking chairs; the expression on their faces was one of vacant surprise, as if they had been caught at a blank moment. The caption above them read: “The Espumas were dumb enough to fork out three months’ salary to experience our exclusive brand of comfort. Are you going to be left behind?” The unpronounceable rocking chairs became the emblem of homes with aspirations to respectability in Villa Miserias.

      Orquídea López had been appointed editor-in-chief of the newspaper. Her combative style fitted perfectly with the braggadocio journalism of The Daily Miserias. Even the first issue had exposed a scandal: embezzlement perpetrated by the estate’s treasurer. As part of the maintenance of the buildings, the board had to arrange for greasing the hinges of doors, cleaning external windows, carpeting halls and stairways, and putting fertilizer on the green areas, among other tasks. It was the treasurer who supplied the necessary products, and the residential estate had an informal arrangement with a hardware store that offered its principal client discounts.

      Disaster loomed when the unfortunate treasurer started dating a much younger girl whose needs exceeded his income. In collusion with the hardware store, he began to buy poorer quality products and used the savings to give her the rubber charm bracelets all her girlfriends were wearing. And there were also dinners at the best taco bars. Orquídea López undertook a thorough investigation to expose this crime to the community.

      The eight-column headline announced: DUSTSTORM OF EMBEZZLEMENT. Based on anonymous sources, the article gave details of the operation, the amounts involved, and the items the corrupt official squandered them on. There was a sketch representing those involved with plump figures and tracing the embezzled funds from the hardware store to the girlfriend. The box summarizing the main points of the story gradually tapered down to the word “rat.” One resident corroborated the report: “I knew something was going on. The doors were more squeaky than usual, even though they were regularly greased. My kids said I was crazy.” This first revelation of a filthy scandal had established the credibility of the newspaper as an organ working in the defense of civic truth.

      21

      Before ringing Pascual Bramsos’ doorbell, Max Michels fixed his eyes on his own apartment, just visible in the distance. Had she come back from her morning’s tasks? How could you say you were the owner of a concrete structure hanging in midair? Leaving him the apartment had been his defunct father’s most generous and perverse deed. Where would he be living with her now otherwise? Since he was by then closer to completing his registration as a candidate, he allowed himself a small provocation of the Many: Going to let this pass without even a “Fuck you,” are you? Nothing. Well I’ll be damned! Their silence maddened him more than their aggression. Just the thought of blowing up the apartment with all of us in it…

      The works he now felt so ashamed of had commenced with the commercial expansion, but the truth was that the dust was never going away. The T&R construction company had taken on the task of transforming of the structures of Villa Miserias; its hydraulic equipment demolished the nostalgia standing in the way of an inflexible future. The task consisted of transferring, as faithfully as possible, the inequalities of the new order to the external reflection that would give them visible form. T&R had to ensure that the environment adapted to the proprietor and not the proprietor to the environment. Incentives to be different had to be created.

      Through a new twist in the financing scheme, the residents were given the chance to locate themselves in their corresponding realities. The original concept of Villa Miserias had involved two apartments per floor. At Perdumes’ request, T&R suggested a new design. The apartments on the first floor and one of those on the second were divided in two; the third floor remained as it was and the top floor would become a single, spacious penthouse.

      The assessed value of the properties increased and with it the rent, so that a number of families had no choice but to move to the smaller apartments. The prices of the most luxurious properties ensured that they were out of the reach of the great