Let the Games Begin Read Online Free Page B

to seriously think that he had found his perfect woman. As beautiful as Naomi Campbell and as intelligent as Margherita Hack.
    Fabrizio Ciba had been reflecting for some time on the idea of building a stable relationship with a woman. Perhaps this could help him to concentrate on his new novel, which had paused at chapter two for the past three years.
    Alice Tyler . . . Alice Tyler . . . Where had he heard that name before?
    He almost fell off his chair. It was the same Alice Tyler who had translated Roddy Elton, Irvin Parker, John Quinn and all the new breed of Scottish writers.
    She must know them all! She must have had dinner with Parker and then afterwards he fucked her in a London squat,amidst fag-ends stubbed out on the carpet, used needles and empty beer cans .
    A frightful suspicion. Has she read my books ? He needed to know now, straight away, immediately. It was a physiological need. If she hasn't read my books and has never seen me on television, she might well think that I am just anybody, might mistake me for one of those mediocre writers who get by attending presentations and cultural events . All of this was unbearable for his ego. Any balanced relationship, where he was not the star, caused unpleasant side effects: dry mouth, headspins, nausea, diarrhoea. If he were to seduce her, he'd have to rely solely on his charm, on his biting wit, on his unpredictable intelligence and not on his novels. And it was a good thing he didn't even take into consideration the hypothesis that Alice Tyler had read his works and hated them.
    He came to the last point, the most prickly one: what would he talk about once the old gasbag finished his rambling speech? Over the past few weeks Ciba had tried to read the Indian's huge volume a handful of times, but after ten pages or so he had turned on the television and watched the athletics championships. He'd really made the effort, but it was such a deadly boring book that it had boiled his balls. He had called a friend of his . . . a fan of his, a writer from Catanzaro, one of those insipid, subservient beings who buzzed around him in an attempt, like cockroaches, to feed themselves on the crumbs of his friendship. This one, though, unlike the others, had a certain critical spirit, a certain, in some ways, bubbly creative ability. Someone whom he might, in an undefined future, get Martinelli to publish. But for now he assigned this friend from Catanzaro secondary tasks, such as writing articles for him for women's magazines, translating pieces from English into Italian, library research and, like now, reading the behemoth and composing a nice short criticalsummary that he could make his own in quarter of an hour.
    Trying not to be too obvious, Ciba slid the three pages jotted down by his friend out of his jacket.
    Fabrizio, in public, never read. He spoke freely, he let himself be inspired by the moment. He was famous for this talent, for the magical sense of spontaneity that he bestowed upon his listeners. His mind was a forge open twenty-four hours a day. There was no filter, there was no depot, and when he started in on one of his monologues he captivated everyone: from the fisherman from Mazara del Vallo to the ski instructor from Cortina d'Ampezzo.
    But that evening a bitter surprise was awaiting him. He read the first three lines of the summary and blanched. It spoke of a saga revolving around a family of musicians. All of them forced, thanks to an unfathomable destiny, to play the sitar for generations and generations.
    He grabbed the Indian's book. The title was The Conspiracy of the Virgins . So why was the summary about A Life in the World ?
    A terrible realisation. The friend from Catanzaro had made a mistake! That dickhead had cocked it up and done the wrong book.
    He devoured the blurb in desperation. There was no mention at all of sitar players, but of a family of women on the Andaman Islands.
    And at that very moment, Tremagli terminated his monologue.

 
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