Let the Games Begin. Niccolo Ammaniti

I'm sorry. Really, I'm not angry with you. It's just that I'm tired. You know, the twins, my father-in-law, it's been hard going . . .’

      ‘Yeah, I hear ya. But if you think of anyone who could help me out, give me a bell. I've got to find four kids by tomorrow morning. Think about it, OK? Tell them the pay's great and during the party there's even a concert with Larita and fireworks.’

      The leader of the WB pricked up his antennae.

      ‘What did you say? Larita? Larita the singer? Who did Live

      in Saint Peter and Unplugged in Lourdes? Who sings that song “King Karol”?’

      Elsa Martelli, known artistically as Larita, had been the lead singer of the Lord of Flies for a couple of years, a death metal group from Chieti Scalo. Their songs had been the anthems of the Evil One and they had been much appreciated by the Italian Satanic community. Then suddenly Larita had left the group and converted to the Christian faith, been baptised by the Pope, and had undertaken a solo career as a pop singer. Her releases were a flavourless mix of new age, teenage love affairs and feel good sensations, and as such had obtained a huge amount of success in the world. But she was loathed by all Satanists.

      ‘Yeah. I think it's her. Larita . . . The one that sings “Love Around You”.’ Antonio was no expert of pop music.

      Saverio realised that the air had a nice smell, of earth and grass from the freshly mowed street islands. The moon had disappeared and it was completely dark. The windows vibrated and the ficus was restless, tossed about by a sudden breeze. It began to rain. Huge, heavy drops stained the bricks on the small terrace, and a lightning bolt, like a crack in the wall, tore open the shadow and for an instant the sky lit up like it was day with an explosion that shook the earth, set off burglar alarms and started dogs barking.

      Saverio Moneta, seated on the couch, saw a fleet of large and twisted black clouds heading towards Oriolo Romano. One of them, the biggest of all, right in front of him, folded in half and stretched out, turning into a sort of face. Black eyes and mouth wide open. Straight after the shadows returned.

      ‘Madonna of Carmine!’ he sputtered instinctively. He ran to close the windows, where the rain was drenching the parquet floor. ‘All right!’ he panted into the receiver.

      ‘All right, what?’

      ‘I've found your three.’ Then he beat himself on the chest. ‘I'm the fourth.’

      12

      Fabrizio Ciba and Alice Tyler were sitting calmly on a marble bench opposite an oval-shaped fountain. On their right was a bamboo forest illuminated by a halogen floodlight. On their left, a hydrangea. Between them a distance of twenty centimetres. It was dark and cold. The lights from the villa behind them were reflected in the water, and on Alice's splendid legs.

      Fabrizio Ciba took a sip of alcohol from the bottle and passed it to the girl, who lifted it to her mouth. He had to make his move quickly. It was so cold they risked paralysis. What to do? Jump her? I don't know . . . You know how these Anglo-Saxon intellectuals can be.

      The dominator of the bestseller lists, the third-sexiest man in Italy according to the women's weekly Yes (behind a motorcycle racer and a sitcom actor with blond highlights), could not bear to think about being turned down. It would probably force him to undertake years of psychoanalysis.

      The silence was becoming eerie. He took a shot: ‘You've translated Irvin Parker's books, too, haven't you?’ As he spoke he realised that it was the worst thing to say if he was aiming for a quick approach.

      ‘Yes. Everything except his first one.’

      ‘Ah . . . Have you met him?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘Parker.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘What's he like?’

      ‘Nice.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Very.’

      No! This wasn't working. What's more, he felt she was distracted. The twenty centimetres between them felt like twenty metres. It was better to pull back in and leave it be. ‘Listen, mayb . . .’

      Alice looked at him. ‘I have to tell you something.’ Her eyes were shining. ‘It's a bit embarrassing . . .’ She took a deep breath, as if she was about to share a secret. ‘When I finished reading The Lion's Den, I cried . . . I felt terrible, just thinking that I was supposed to go out that evening. I stayed at home, I was too shaken. And the next day I read it again and it was even more beautiful. I don't know what to say, it was a unique experience . . . It holds so many analogies with my own life.’

      Ciba was overwhelmed with waves of pleasure, by endorphins trickling from his head downwards, swishing through his veins like petrol in a pipeline. Except that this time, unlike what happened with Sawhney, the pleasure channelled its way into the urethra, in the epididymides, into the femoral arteries and exploded inside his reproductive organ, which filled with blood, causing him a ferocious erection. Fabrizio grabbed her by the wrists and stuck his tongue in her mouth. And she, who was about to confess that she'd written him a long letter, suddenly found it between her tonsils. She muttered a collection of vowels, ‘Ae u aei!’, which meant ‘Are you crazy?!’ Instinctively she tried to free herself of the oesophagogastroduodenoscopy, but unable to do so she figured she was done for and put her hand in his hair, pressed her lips hard against his and began windmilling her small, thick tongue.

      Fabrizio, feeling her giving in, wrapped his arms around her back and squeezed his chest up against hers, testing its firm consistency. She raised one of her marvellous legs. He pushed his erection against her. She then lifted her other marvellous leg. And he put his hand between her thighs.

      Federico Gianni, the managing director of Martinelli, and his faithful steed Achille Pennacchini were leaning on the banister of the grand terrace that overlooked the garden and Rome.

      Gianni was a dapper beanpole in his windswept Caraceni suits. When he was young he had played basketball in the A2 league, but at twenty-five years of age he had given up the sport to take on the management of a sports-shoe company. Then, who knows by way of which street and contacts, from starting in a small Milanese publishing house he came to land at Martinelli. He didn't know squat about literature. He treated books like shoes, and was proud of his way of thinking.

      The exact opposite of Pennacchini, who Gianni had pulled out of the University of Urbino, where he taught comparative literature, and placed at the head of the publishing house. He was an academic, a literary man, and everything about him was proof of this: his round, tortoiseshell glasses that sat in front of blue eyes ruined by books, the worn checked jacket, the rough cotton shirt with the buttons on the collar, the woollen ties and striped cotton trousers. He spoke very little. Always in a soft voice. And he hesitated. It was never possible to understand what he was really thinking.

      ‘Another one over.’ Gianni stretched. ‘I think it went well.’

      ‘Very well,’ Pennacchini echoed.

      Rome appeared like an enormous dirty blanket encrusted with diamonds.

      ‘This city is big,’ Gianni mused, staring out at the panorama.

      ‘Very big. It goes from Castelli across to Fiumicino. It is really immense.’

      ‘How big would its diameter be?’

      ‘Hmph, I don't know . . . At least about eighty kilometres . . .’ Pennacchini guessed.

      Gianni glanced at his watch. ‘How long till we go to the restaurant?’

      ‘About twenty minutes, maximum.’

      ‘The buffet was disgusting. The two salmon sandwiches I ate were dry. I'm hungry.’ He paused. ‘And I need to piss, too.’

      Following his boss's last statement Pennacchini bounced his head backwards and forwards like a pigeon.