Let the Games Begin Read Online Free Page A

presence . . .’ He made a point of staring noticeably at his watch. ‘I believe, if you agree of course, that we may begin.’
    â€˜I agree.’
    For Fabrizio Ciba, the highly esteemed Professor Tremagli, without beating around the bush, was a huge pain in the arse. He had never attacked him with one of his poisonous reviews, but he had never praised him either. Quite simply, for Professor Tremagli, Ciba's work did not exist. Whenever he talked about the current, regrettable, state of Italian Literature, he began to go into raptures over a series of little writers only he knew, and for whom the sale of one thousand five hundred copies would trigger a family party. Never a mention, never a comment about Fabrizio. Finally, one day, on Corriere della Sera , when asked directly ‘Professor, how can you explain the Ciba phenomenon?’, he had answered: ‘If we must talk of a phenomenon, it's a passing phenomenon, one of those storms greatly feared by meteorologists but which pass by without causing any damage.’ And then he'd clarified: ‘However, I haven't read his books thoroughly.’
    Fabrizio had foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog andthrown himself onto his computer to write a fiery reply to be published on the first page of La Repubblica . But when his ire had died down he had deleted the file.
    The first rule for each true writer is: never, ever, not even on one's deathbed, not even under torture, reply to insults. Everyone expects you to fall into the trap and reply. No, you have to be as intangible as a noble gas and as distant as Alpha Centauri.
    But he had felt like waiting for the old fogey on his front doorstep and ripping that fucking walking stick out of his hands and beating it down on his skull like it was an African drum. It would have been so enjoyable, and it would have strengthened his reputation as an accursed writer, one of those who answered literary insults with his fists, like real men, and not like fuckwit intellectuals using bitter comments in page three of the Culture section. Only thing was, that fogey was seventy years old and he would have ended four paws up in the middle of Via Somalia.
    Tremagli, in a hypnotist's tone of voice, began a lesson on Indian Literature, starting with the first texts in Sanskrit dating back to 2000 BC found in the rock cave tombs of Jaipur. Fabrizio calculated that it would take him at least an hour before he made it to 2000 AD . The first ones to be anaesthetised would be the old biddies, then the officials, then everyone else, including Fabrizio and the Indian writer.
    Ciba leant an elbow on the table and his forehead on his palm, in an attempt to do three manoeuvres at once:
    1.
Check out which officials were present at the event;
2.
Work out who the goddess sitting next to him was;
3.
Contemplate what he would say.
    The first manoeuvre took a few seconds. The whole of the Martinelli senior staff was sitting in the second row: Federico Gianni, the managing director, Achille Pennacchini, the general manager, Giacomo Modica, the sales manager, and a rally of editors including Leo Malagò. Then the whole gynaeceum of the press office. If even Gianni had unnailed his arse from Genova, then that showed the Indian's book meant a lot to them. Who knows, maybe they hoped to sell a few copies.
    In the first row he recognised the Councilman responsible for Culture, a television director, a couple of actors, a thread of journalists and some other faces he'd seen a thousand times but couldn't remember where or when.
    There were little cardboard markers with the names of the participants on the table. The goddess's name was Alice Tyler. She was murmuring the translation of Tremagli's speech in the ear of Sarwar Sawhney. The old man, with his eyes closed, was nodding as regularly as a pendulum. Fabrizio opened the Indian's novel and realised that the translation was by Alice Tyler. So she wasn't just the translator for the evening. He began