Let the Games Begin (6 page)

A polite smile was sculpted on his face. ‘Well, maybe you should read them. You might not like them.'

‘What do you mean? Are you serious?'

Another book. Another autograph.

‘What's your name?'

‘Aldo. Can you make it out to Massimiliano and Mariapia? They're my children, they're six and eight years old, they'll read it when they've gro . . .'

He despised them. They were a bunch of idiots. A herd of sheep. Their appreciation meant nothing to him. They would have gathered with the same enthusiasm for the family memoir of the director of the Channel 2 news, for the romantic revelations of the most uncouth showgirl in television. They only wanted to have their own conversation with the star, their own autograph, their own moment with the idol. If they could, they would have ripped off a piece of his suit, a lock of hair, a tooth, and they would have carried it home like a relic.

He couldn't bear another minute of having to be polite. Of having to smile like a moron. To try and be modest and gracious. He was usually able to conceal perfectly the physical revulsion he felt towards indiscriminate human contact. He was a master at faking it. When the moment came, he threw himself into the mud, convinced that he enjoyed it. He emerged from bathing in the crowds weary but purified.

However, that evening a ghastly suspicion was poisoning his victory. The suspicion that he didn't behave properly, with the discretion of a real writer. Of a serious writer like Sarwar Sawhney. During the presentation the old man had not uttered a word. He had sat there like a Tibetan monk, his ebony eyes offering wisdom and aloofness, while Fabrizio played court jester with all that crap about the fire and culture. And as per usual, the question upon which his entire career balanced sneaked into his mind.
How much of my success is thanks to my books and how much is thanks to TV
?

As always, he preferred not to answer himself, and instead drink a couple of whiskies. First, though, he had to shake off that swarm of flies. And when he saw poor Maria Letizia push her way towards him, he couldn't help but rejoice.

‘Sawhney wants to talk to you . . . As soon as you finish, would you mind going to him?'

‘Now! I'll come now!' he answered her. And as if he'd been summoned by the Holy Ghost himself, he stood up and said to those fans who still hadn't received their certificate of participation: ‘Sawhney needs to talk to me. Please, let me go.'

At the drinks table he sank two glasses of whisky one after the other, and felt better. Now that the alcohol was in his body, he could face the Nobel Prize winner.

Leo Malagò came over to him with his tail wagging happily like a dog who's just been given a wild-boar pâté bruschetta.

‘You legend! You knocked them all out with that little tale about the fire. I wonder how you come up with such ideas. Now Fabrizio, though, please don't get drunk. We have to go to dinner afterwards.' He folded his arm through Fabrizio's. ‘I had a look at the book sales. Guess how many copies you sold this evening?'

‘How many?' He couldn't help answering. It was an automatic reflex.

‘Ninety-two! And you know how many Sawhney sold? Nine! You don't know how pissed off Angiò is.' Massimo Angiò was the foreign-fiction editor. ‘I love seeing him so pissed off! And tomorrow you'll be splashed across the papers. By the way, how fucking hot is his translator?' Malagò's face relaxed. The look in his eyes suddenly softened. ‘Imagine what it would be like to fuck her . . .'

Fabrizio, instead, had lost all interest in the woman. His mood was dropping like a thermometer in a cold snap. What did the Indian want from him?! To tell him off for the crap he had shot off? He plucked up his nerve.

‘Excuse me a moment.'

He could see him in a corner. He was sitting opposite the window and was watching the tree branches scrape the yellow skyline of Rome. His black hair shone under the light of the chandeliers.

Fabrizio drew near carefully. ‘I beg your pardon . . .'

The old Indian turned around, saw him and smiled, showing off a set of teeth too perfect to be real.

‘Please, take a seat.'

Fabrizio felt like a child who'd been sent for by the headmaster.

‘How's it going?' Fabrizio asked in his high-school English, as he sat down opposite Sawhney.

‘Well, thank you.' Then the Indian thought again. ‘To tell you the truth, I'm a little tired. I can't sleep. I suffer from insomnia.'

‘I don't, luckily.' Fabrizio realised that he had nothing to say to the man.

‘I read your book. A little hastily, on the aeroplane, I do beg your pardon . . .'

Fabrizio coughed out a suffocated ‘And?' He was about to hear the verdict of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. One of the most important writers in the world. The man who had the best press reviews of anyone in the last ten years. A part of Fabrizio's brain wondered whether he really wanted to hear it.

I bet he hated it
.

‘I liked it. A lot.'

Fabrizio Ciba felt a shot of well-being float through his body. A sensation like what a drug addict feels when he injects himself with good-quality heroin. A sort of beneficial heat that made the back of his neck tingle, slid down across his jaw, shut his eyes, slipped between his gums and his teeth, went down his trachea, it spread out pleasantly boiling hot like Vicks VapoRub from his sternum to his spine, through his ribs, and skipped from one vertebra to another until it reached his pelvis. His sphincter tensed briefly and goosebumps shot up his arms. A warm shower without getting wet. Better than that. A massage
without being touched. While this physiological reaction – which lasted a few seconds – took place, Fabrizio was blind and deaf, and when he snapped back to reality Sawhney was talking.

‘ . . . places, facts and people are unaware of the force that wipes them away. Don't you agree?'

‘Yes, certainly.' He answered. He hadn't heard anything at all. ‘Thank you. You've made me happy.'

‘You definitely know how to keep the reader interested, how to move the best chords of your sensitivity. I would like to read something you've written that's a bit longer.'

‘
The Lion's Den
is my longest work. I've recently . . .' – it was actually five years ago – ‘ . . . published another novel,
Nestor's Dream
, but that is also quite short.'

‘How come you don't venture further? You most certainly have the expressiveness to do so. Don't be scared. Let yourself go without fear. If I may give you a piece of advice, don't hold yourself back, let yourself be taken by the story.'

Fabrizio had to stop himself from hugging that dear adorable old man. How true what he had said was. Fabrizio knew he was capable of writing THE GREAT NOVEL. What's more, THE GREAT ITALIAN NOVEL, like
I promessi sposi
to be exact, the book the critics said was missing in our contemporary literature. And after various attempts, he had begun work on a saga about a Sardinian family, from the seventeenth century until the present day. An ambitious project that was definitely much stronger than the
Gattopardo
or
I Viceré
.

Fabrizio was about to tell Sawhney all this, but a little humility held him back. He felt obliged to return the compliments. So he began inventing: ‘I wanted to tell you that your novel had me literally inspired. It is an extraordinarily organic novel and the plot is so intense . . . How do you do it? What is your secret? It has a dramatic energy that left me shaken for weeks.
The reader is not only called on to weigh the consciousness and innocence of these powerful female characters, but, through their stories, how can I say it . . .? Yes, the reader is forced to transfer your point of view from the pages of the book to his own reality.'

‘Thank you,' said the Indian. ‘How nice to pay each other compliments.'

The two writers burst out laughing.

 

9

The leader of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon was seated at the kitchen table hoeing into a plate of lasagne floating in a lake of reheated Béchamel sauce. It made him feel nauseous, but he had to pretend he hadn't eaten.

Serena, sitting with her feet up against the dishwasher, was painting her nails. As always, she hadn't waited for him for dinner. The television on the Formica worktop was showing
Who Wants to be a Millionaire
?, Saverio's favourite programme after
Mysteries
on RAI Tre. But the Wilde Beasts' leader's mind was far away. He kept thinking back to the phone call with Kurtz Minetti.

I am such a legend
. He cleaned his mouth with the serviette.
What did I say again? No. I'm not interested
. Could he think of any Satanist on the circuit who would have had the guts to turn down an offer to become the manager of Central Italy for the Children of the Apocalypse? He felt like calling Murder to tell him about how he had told Kurtz to fuck off, but Serena might have overheard him, and then he also didn't want them to find out what that shithead Kurtz thought about the WBA. They'd be offended.

He was surprised at how powerfully and confidently he had pronounced that no. He couldn't help himself from pronouncing it again: ‘No!'

‘No what?' Serena asked, without lifting her gaze from the fingernails she was painting red.

‘Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking . . .'

Saverio felt an urge to tell his wife all about it, but he held back. If she found out that he was the leader of a Satanic sect, the least she would do is file for divorce.

But that no might be the beginning of an existential turning-point. It was a no that would inevitably lead to an avalanche of no's that it was time to enounce. No to working on the weekends. No to having to babysit. No to him always having to take the rubbish out.

‘There's left-over turkey from yesterday. Heat it up in the microwave.'

Serena was standing up and waving her hands.

‘No,' he answered naturally.

Serena yawned. ‘I'm going to bed. When you're finished, clear the table, take out the rubbish and turn off the lights.'

Saverio looked at her. She was wearing elastic denim shorts covered in rhinestones, patent white-leather cowboy boots and a black t-shirt with an enormous V for Valentino on it.

Not even the girls who hang out at the shopping centres put on that sort of get-up
.

Serena Mastrodomenico was forty-three years old, and all those years of sunbathing had dehydrated her like a sundried tomato. She was very skinny, despite having given birth to twins less thank a year ago. From far away she looked great, with her toned physique, those balloon tits and that caffé latte-coloured complexion. But if you moved in closer and took a better look,
you discovered that her derma was stretched and leathery like a rhinoceros's, and a tangle of thin wrinkles ran across her neck, the corners of her mouth and her cleavage. Her green eyes, sparkling and lively, sat upon cheekbones that were as shiny and round as two Annurcan apples.

She often wore open-toed shoes that showed off her tapered ankles and delicate feet. She preferred little summer dresses that left room for lacy bras and two synthetic hemispheres to stick out. She covered herself in more ethnic jewellery than a Berber princess at her coronation.

During their long years of marriage, Saverio had noticed that his wife was very popular with men, especially the younger ones. Every time he went down into the factory warehouse the couriers, a pack of letches, would pull him into their banter. They didn't even respect the boss's daughter.

‘Your wife must be something to watch in bed. Forget about these young chicks, she's got experience. She'll open you like a sofa bed.' ‘Go on, do a sex tape for us.' ‘Save, how do you keep her satisfied? I reckon she needs a whole team of beasts . . .' ‘She's the classic type of woman who acts all sophisticated, but in reality she's a total animal . . .' And other vulgarities it's best not to mention.

If those morons only knew the truth. Serena deplored sex. She said it was crude. She abhorred any type of nudity, and found body fluids and everything that was involved in physical relationships repellent (except for massages, and those only to be done by a woman).

But something in all of this didn't make sense to Saverio Moneta. If sex disgusted her so much, why did she dress like a playmate? And why, of all the vacant spots, did she always park the car right in front of the storeroom?

*    *    *

Saverio got up from the table and began putting things away. He didn't feel ready for bed, he was too excited. Luckily, the twins were asleep. The time was right to concentrate on the idea that would shake up the WBA and the rest of the world. He took out a note pad and a pen, and grabbed the remote control to turn off the television when he heard Gerry Scotti say: ‘Unbelievable! Friendly Francesco from Sabaudia has made it, all hush-hush, to the question worth a million euro . . .'

The contestant was a fidgety little man with a sneer pulled across his mouth. It looked like he was sitting on a hedgehog. Gerry, instead, had the satisfied expression of a tabby cat who's just scoffed a tin of tuna. As if he was about to sprout claws and start scratching the couch. ‘So, dear Francesco, are you ready?'

The little man swallowed and adjusted his collar. ‘Pretty much . . .'

Gerry puffed out his chest and turned towards the audience, enjoying himself. ‘Pretty much? Do you hear what he says?' Then, suddenly serious, he spoke to the people at home. ‘Which of you wouldn't be nervous in his place? Put yourselves in his shoes. One million euro can change your life.' He began talking to Francesco. ‘You said your dream was to pay off your house loan. And now what? If you won, in addition to your loan, what would you do?'

‘Well, I'd buy my mum a car and then . . .' The contestant was suffocating. He gasped and managed to answer. ‘I'd like to make a donation to the San Bartolomeo Institute of Gallarate.'

Gerry studied him down his nose. ‘And what do they do, if I may ask?'