Let the Games Begin

by Niccolò Ammaniti

  He ran to her and hugged her tight, feeling her small body jolted by sobs. She was so small. So helpless.

  Larita, her eyes soaked in tears, her face on fire, swallowing air, tried to talk to him: ‘Po . . . po . . . poor thing . . .’

  Who's she talking about?

  ‘It's not . . . it's not fair . . . He had done no . . . thing wrong.’ And she was gripped by sobs again.

  About the elephant, you idiot.

  He hugged her head and laid it on his shoulder. ‘Don't cry. Please . . . Don't cry,’ he whispered in her ear as he stroked her hair. But she wouldn't stop. As soon as the rhythm slowed, she'd start over again.

  Fabrizio tried to say something. A gabble of senseless sentences. ‘No . . . It didn't suffer much . . . It broke its back, it didn't feel anything . . . It has been freed . . . A life spent in chains.’

  Nothing, she kept on crying, like she was battery-powered. In despair, unable to find a way to calm her, he grabbed her by the back of the neck, brushed her hair from off her face and, with a naturalness that he had never felt before in his life, he parted his lips and kissed her.

  51

  Zombie made it to the electrical plant; he was tired, but still determined.

  Halogen spotlights created a bubble of light around the building, which shone in the dark like an underwater sea station. The plant was surrounded by three-metre-high metal fencing. To get inside, you had to pass through a gate with a yellow sign. It had a skull painted on it and warned: ‘HIGH VOLTAGE. DANGER. KEEP OUT.’ In the yard around the little brick building two rows of big metal transformers were lined up and hummed like bee hives. Heaps of wires were wrapped around some ceramic electrodes and then stuck into the ground.

  Zombie, in his brief career as an apprentice electrician, had at most dealt with the electrical plant of Villa Giorgini in Capranica, a nine-kilowatt, three-phase system for domestic use, with a safety switch and electricity meter.

  Now he was faced with a real, proper miniature power station. He remembered having read something about them in the correspondence course he'd done with Scuola Radio Elettra. There were thermal power stations, hydropower and nuclear power stations. It couldn't be hydropower because there weren't any rivers or dams around. He ruled out nuclear power. So it was probably thermal and, anyway, who gives a fuck, all he had to do was sabotage it.

  Luckily there weren't any guards at the power station. The gate was secured with a padlock and chain.

  Zombie placed the silver poultry shears on one of the links and squeezed. The steel wouldn't give. He ground his teeth and squeezed harder. His faced turned purple from the effort. Slowly the ring began to bend. He increased the pressure and in one blow the chain and the poultry shears broke apart. He was left holding the two handles of the tool. He threw them away and walked inside.

  The little metal door was obviously locked. He kicked at it with the sole of his shoe and it flew open onto a small room full of electronic panels. Ammeters, switches, cursors, lit-up LEDs, levers. Zombie studied the instrumentation, looking perplexed. It was like being in the cockpit of an airplane. He tried to press some buttons, lower a couple of levers, but nothing significant happened. Fiddling with stuff he might succeed in turning it off, but it could always be turned back on again. He needed to destroy it and leave the park in the dark.

  Inside a glass cabinet he saw an axe with a red handle. He broke the glass and grabbed a hold of the tool. He noticed that in the middle of all of that equipment a big metal plaque was bolted to a wall. Three cables, as thick as mooring lines for a ferry, wound inside a huge steel switch. In the middle was a lever and a lock to stop anyone from lifting the switch. That was the heart of the power station.

  He had to cut one of those cables and . . .

  What sort of voltage would it have?

  He had no idea. But it was enough to toast him.

  He would die, and so he would complete his mission. Even if, to be honest, he didn't give a fuck about the mission, the Devil, Mantos, that Satanist crap.

  He felt as sad as a dead duck, but he had the strange sensation that an audience was observing him as he completed his final gestures. He was the cursed hero of his own, tragic, film.

  There was a note pad on the bench. He ripped off a page and, without thinking too much about it, he wrote down a couple of lines. He folded it and wrote on the front: ‘For Silvietta’.

  52

  Mantos, naked, was standing on a rock, studying the moon and its craters. The wind caressed his skin.

  Arms stretched out. Legs slightly bent. The Durendal in his hands, pointed in front of him. He inhaled and exhaled, freeing himself of useless thoughts. Serena melted away, the old arsehole melted away, Silvietta and Murder melted away, and Mantos concentrated on the miracle of coordination his body held. With every movement he became more aware of the energy running through the fibres of his muscles, of the deadly power held within the Durendal.

  He felt the pain of separating himself from his earthly life rising up. He greeted it and bid it welcome. He lowered the Durendal, brought the hilt up against his stomach and raised his left leg. He isolated every tendon, every muscle, enjoying the feelings it gave him. The cold grabbed him by the scrotum.

  Mantos was finally at ease. He was able to hear everything. The swishing of the wind in the trees, the guttural grunting of the warthogs in the swamp, the cries from the bat colony from Siam hanging on the pine branches, the traffic on the Olimpica, the tellies in lounge rooms, the sick world.

  Then something made him startle. His windpipe closed and a shiver went up his spine. The feeling that someone, hidden in the darkness, was spying on him.

  It wasn't an animal. But it wasn't human either. What was it?

  He stretched out the sword and began turning around. He couldn't see anyone. The leader of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon jumped down from the rock and, keeping the weapon ready, took the torch from his backpack and turned it on. The ray of light shone on the laurel bushes, on the blackberry bushes, on the tree trunks, on a rusty bin.

  Nobody was there. Maybe his senses had made a mistake. Yet the feeling that someone was observing him remained. Eyes full of hate.

  Mantos quickly slipped on his trousers, shoes and the black tunic. He then pulled on the backpack and ran off.

  53

  Zombie brushed the corner of his mouth with his middle finger – there, where Silvietta had kissed him. He stuck the letter in the panel, spat in his hands, grabbed the axe and, with his legs parted, positioned himself in front of the cable.

  The moment had come to show everyone the courage he had kept hidden inside.

  ‘Man delights not me: no, nor woman neither.’

  He lifted the handle and, with all the strength and desperation he had in his thin body, he cut the cable.

  Twenty thousand volts of electricity were rushing through that copper wire, about ten times as much as is used for the electric chair. The flow of electrons travelled down the blade and the handle of the axe, which, even though it was made of wood, was burnt to ashes in a second.

  The hands and the arms of the adept followed the same destiny. The rest of his body caught fire in a spectacular blaze.

  The human torch began to knock around and bounce against the walls of the small room. Then he stopped, threw his arms wide like a fallen angel that wants to fly, and slumped to the ground, burning away until what remained of Edo Sambreddero, aka Zombie, was nothing more than a charred log.

  The turbines of the power station stopped. The buzzing was silenced. The lights of the park and the villa went off. Even the computers that controlled the waterfalls, the flow of water into the lakes, the sheds for the animals and everything else, were turned off.

  A generator went into action. It turned on the emergency lighting in the house and activated the pneumatic pumps of the solid-steel gate at the entrances, which closed, leaving Villa Ada in the dark and cut off from the rest of the city.

  Arrival at the Bivouac and Dinner />
  54

  Fabrizio Ciba and Larita were kissing next to the elephant's corpse when the streetlights on the path went out. The writer opened his eyes and found himself immersed in complete darkness. ‘The lights! The lights have gone out!’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Larita hugged Fabrizio in fear. ‘Now what? What do we do?’

  The writer took a while to understand the nature of the problem. The passionate kiss had stunned him. The rage had dissipated and a strange feeling of well-being made him feel weak all over. Now that, finally, he had found love, everything else seemed irrelevant. His sole desire was to wash her, care for her, tend her wounds and make love to her. The elephant ride through the woods, the fall, the certainty of death and the surprise at being alive, that mix of fear, anger and death, had turned him on big-time.

  ‘And now what do we do?’ She squeezed up to him.

  Fabrizio felt Larita's heart beating strongly behind her tits. ‘I don't know . . . But hey . . . Can't we just stay here? What do we care?’ He had forgotten that ancient pleasure of feeling the consistency of a pair of silicone-free tits.

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Why? We wait for dawn. We could hide in the thickets and behave like primitives without rules . . .’ If that hadn't been real life, but one of his own novels, the main character would have taken Larita now and, without too much chit-chat, he would have undressed her and then he would have had her on the elephant's carcass, with the blood, the sperm and the tears running together as in an ancestral orgy. Yes, in his new novel he'd include a nice little sex scene like this. In Sardegna, somewhere near Oristano.

  Larita interrupted his thoughts. ‘The park is full of man-eating animals. The tiger . . . the lions . . .’

  He had completely forgotten about the wild beasts. He squeezed her hand. ‘Yes, you're right, we've got to get moving. But I can't see a thing. Let's hope they repair the problem quickly.’

  ‘We have to keep to the path.’

  ‘Which way is the house? To the right or to the left?’

  ‘To the left, I think. I hope . . .’

  ‘All right. We'll walk along the path. It's just a few metres away.’

  Fabrizio was suddenly decisive. Despite his fear of ferocious beasts, having this woman beside him in need of protection made him feel strong and fearless. He got to his feet and helped Larita to pull herself up. ‘Hold on to my belt and stay behind me.’ He put out his arms like a sleepwalker and, wobbling over the rocks, he took a few uncertain steps in the dark. ‘This way we'll hurt ourselves, though. We're better off on all-fours.’

  And so they crawled until the two of them felt the gravel beneath their hands.

  There, in the centre of the ravine, where there were no trees, the sky reflected the lights of the city and they were able to make out a fence that surrounded the trench in the middle of the road.

  ‘Here we are!’ Fabrizio stood up. ‘Let's hold on to the fence and walk along here. But first I need something, otherwise I can't go on any further.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Another kiss.’

  He opened his mouth and felt her tongue slide over his, lapping at his palate and tonsils. He hugged her tight, he pulled her up against him, but he held back from making her feel his erection.

  Yes, we really are a beautiful couple.

  I'm going to marry this girl . . .

  I'm so lucky to have met her. And it's all thanks to that clown Salvatore Chiatti and his rubbish party.

  All right, Sasà, I'll let you off. I won't write an article against you.

  55

  ‘Yes! Zombie, you're the best!’ the leader of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon had screamed, pushing his fists into the air when darkness had shrouded the Villa.

  It was about time something went in his favour. Now all he had to do was grab the singer.

  Mantos shone the torch around, to try and understand where he was. The road he was walking continued on into a sort of ravine that split the wood in two. He pulled the small map of Villa Ada out of his backpack and studied it carefully.

  ‘Perfect!’ He was in the right direction, he had to go down the canyon and would come straight to the lake where they had organised the bivouac for the participants in the tiger hunt. That's where he would find the singer, along with the other guests, all of them afraid. In the confusion and under the cover of the darkness, it'd be a piece of cake to drug her and kidnap her.

  Elated, he began to run, the Durendal in his left hand, the torch in his right, and adrenalin flooding his arteries. What a weird phenomenon: now that he was about to die, he felt more alive than he had felt in his whole life, capable of doing anything. Satan was finally on his side. He was a free swinger, an anarchical spirit, a bloodhound of chaos. Someone like him was not afraid of death, and gave his best when chaos reigned.

  You'll finally see who you're up against, my dear Mr Kurtz Minetti.

  Just as he was jumping over a puddle, a flash of light behind him lit up the road. The leader of the Beasts turned off his torch, threw himself to the side, hiding behind an oak tree.

  A car was coming. He could see the headlights coming closer, but he couldn't hear any noise. It had to be one of those electric buggies that they used to move around the Villa.

  He stood still and waited for it to go by. There was only the driver inside the small convertible.

  And if I hijacked the car? I could use it to load up Larita and take her to the sacrificial spot.

  Without stopping to think, he took off, head down, following the small car.

  56

  Fabrizio Ciba, feeling happy, was thinking that in a couple of days’ time he would be with his beautiful girlfriend in Majorca, at Capdepera, in his house. But then he remembered how humid it was, the dead spiders in the bath tub, the central heating with air locks. And the table with the novel on it, waiting for him. He had to reconstruct the entire storyline, cut out some charac . . .

  The writer's brain stalled for a second and reset, wiping out that last thought.

  What was the name of that five-star hotel with the spa . . .?

  They should go on a proper holiday, go to a far-off place where they could unwind and live out their love affair. He laid an arm across Larita's shoulders, as if they were old companions. ‘Listen, what do you say to a nice little holiday to recover? How about the Maldives? You know those bungalows by the sea, the sultry nights beneath the dome of stars, the beds with mosquito nets . . .’

  ‘Of course. I'd like that.’ Larita was silent for a moment. ‘Listen, Fabrizio . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  It took her a few too many seconds to ask him the question. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

  ‘Me? Don't be silly!’ Ciba answered quickly.

  ‘Does the idea make you sick?’

  ‘No, not at all. It's just that I'm a writer . . . Well, you're a musician, maybe you can understand me. I'm a little afraid of my feelings. If they're too strong, I worry they'll dry me up. It's an irrational fear, I know, but I have the feeling that when I let love into my life, I don't have enough to give to the characters in my books.’ He was revealing something that he had never told anyone before. ‘That doesn't mean that I'm not ready to give it a go. What about you?’ He would have liked to look at her, but the darkness only let him intuit her silhouette.

  ‘I ended a relationship with a guy who didn't love himself at all. In other words, an arsehole. And I risked my life following him. Don Toniolo's rehab centre, and my faith, saved me.’

  While Larita spoke, Fabrizio recalled having read somewhere that she had been in a relationship with a drug addict singer, and that they both nearly died of overdoses.

  ‘And then since I got back to a normal lifestyle, I haven't had the guts to get into other relationships. I am afraid I'll meet another arsehole. Even if being on my own, sometimes, is sad.’

  Fabrizio pulled her towards him and wrapped his arm around her waist. ‘The two of us could really be happy together. I can feel
it.’

  Larita laughed. ‘Who knows why, but I was convinced you had a girlfriend. After the lunch back in the Villa, I tried to call my agent to find out, but he had his mobile off. Do you believe in destiny?’

  ‘I believe in the facts. And the facts say that we are both survivors. And they say that we have to give it a chance.’ He hugged her hard, as if she might run away, and kissed her. What a pity they were in the dark, he would have liked to look in her eyes.

  She suddenly pulled away. ‘And if we went to Nairobi instead?’

  ‘You want to go to Kenya? I went there once. Malindi. The sea isn't bad, but nothing compared to the Maldives.’

  They began walking again.

  ‘No . . . No . . . What are you thinking? To the slums of Nairobi, to vaccinate children. I do it every year. It's really important. If you came, too, a famous writer, you would be giving them a gift. You would help the missionaries to throw light on this terrible situation.’

  Fabrizio rolled his eyes up at the sky. Bloody fucking hell, he wanted to spend a quiet week relaxing and she, in answer, offered him a humanitarian nightmare.

  ‘Well, yeah . . . Sure . . . We could . . . But . . .’ he stuttered.

  ‘But what?’

  Fabrizio was unable to be insincere. ‘Well, I was thinking of a holiday. Five-star. Breakfast in bed. That sort of thing.’

  She caressed his neck. ‘You'll see . . . It'll be a thousand times better . . . I'm sure the experience will help you to write, too. You can't imagine how many ideas come to mind standing amidst all that pain.’

  The writer didn't speak. If he wanted to have a serious relationship with a woman, he had to learn to take into consideration her wishes, and to trust her. And Larita was special. She had a strength greater than he would ever have imagined; she was a typhoon that swept away everything that stood in front of her, and at the same time she was vulnerable and innocent in a way that made you reconsider who you were.