Let the Games Begin Read Online Free PDF

hand like a wet bar of soap, ending up between his legs. He took his foot off the clutch to get to the phone and the engine began hiccuping and turned itself off.
    Behind him horns were honking while Saverio shouted at Kurtz: ‘Hang on . . . I'm driving. Hang on while I pull over.’
    A motorcyclist on a big three-wheeled scooter knocked on the passenger window: ‘You realise you're a fuckwit?’
    Saverio picked up the phone, started the engine again and managed to pull over.
    What did Kurtz Minetti want from him?

 
    6
    As soon as Tremagli concluded his speech, the audience began pulling themselves up in their seats where they had cuddled up, stretching their numb legs, patting each other on the back out of solidarity at having survived such a gruelling test. For a second Fabrizio Ciba hoped that it would end there, that the professor had used up all the time available for the event.
    Tremagli looked at Sawhney, convinced that he would comment, but the Indian smiled and, once again, lowered his head in a sign of recognition. At that point the poisoned chalice was passed to Fabrizio. ‘I believe it's your turn.’
    â€˜Thank you.’ The young writer rubbed his neck. ‘I will keep it short.’ Then he turned towards the audience. ‘You all looka little worn out. And I know that, over there, a delicious buffet awaits.’ He cursed himself the moment the words came out of his mouth. He had offended Tremagli in public, but he recognised in the eyes of the audience a spark of approval that confirmed what he had said.
    He looked for a way in, any nonsense to get him off to a start. ‘Ahhhh . . .’ He cleared his throat. He tapped the microphone. He poured himself a glass of water and wet his lips. Nothing. His mind was a blank screen. An emptied chest. A cold starless universe. A jar of caviar without the caviar. Those people had come here from all across the city, facing the traffic, struggling to find a parking space, taking half a day off because of him. And he had fuck-all to say. He looked at his audience. The audience that were waiting with bated breath. The audience that were wondering what he was waiting for.
    La guerre du feu .
    A fleeting vision of a French film, seen who knows when, came down into his mind like a divine spirit and tickled his cortex, which released swarms of neurotransmitters that rained down on the receptors ready to welcome them and to awaken other cells of the central nervous system.
    â€˜Forgive me. I was distracted by a fascinating image.’ He tossed back his hair, adjusted the height of the microphone. ‘It's dawn. A dirty and distant dawn of eight hundred thousand years ago. It's cold, but it's not windy. A canyon. Low-lying vegetation. Stones. Sand. Three small hairy creatures, a hundred and fifty centimetres tall, covered in gazelle skins, are in the middle of a river. The current is tempestuous, it's a full-blown river. One of those water courses which, many years later, American families will travel down harnessed with inflatable life-jackets atop coloured rafts.’ Fabrizio took a technical pause. ‘The water is grey and it is shallow and freezing. It only comesup to their knees, but the current is bloody strong. And they have to cross the river and they move forward, placing each foot carefully. One of the three of them, the biggest, whose hair braided with mud makes him look like a Jamaican Rastafarian, holds a sort of basket tightly in his hands, one of those things made with small woven branches. At the centre of the basket a weak flame flickers, a miniscule flame prey to the winds, a flame that risks going out, poor little thing, which needs to be fuelled continuously with kindling and dried cactus pads, which the other two hold tightly in their hands. At night they take turns to keep it alight, curled up inside a damp cave. They sleep with just one eye closed, taking care that the fire doesn't go out. To gather wood,