Let the Games Begin. Niccolo Ammaniti

train across Europe. Go to Transylvania to visit Count Vlad's castle. See the dolmen and the sculptures on Easter Island. Study Latin and Aramaic. He hadn't done any of these things. He had gotten married too young to a woman who loved holiday villages and sifting through factory outlets.

      He went back to the basin and looked at himself in the mirror, as if he wanted to check that it was still really him. He picked up a towel and placed it over his head.

      ‘Hang on . . . Hang on just a moment,’ he said to himself.

      He couldn't forget. This had been a special day and one fight with Serena shouldn't erase it. He could feel in every fibre in his body that this was the beginning of a new existence. All he needed was the courage to rebel. And it wasn't because of Gerry Scotti, and not even because of the big cloud with the face of Satan that had come to him like an omen. It wasn't even because of Kurtz calling to ask him to be his representative. It was because of that no. It had been so great. So gratifying. He couldn't ruin it like that. It had been the first time he had said NO. A real NO.

      If you abandon the sect now, you must be conscious of the fact that from this point on your life will be a long series of YES. You must be conscious of the fact that you will go out slowly, amidst the general indifference, like a votive candle on an abandoned tombstone. If you lay down the Durendal now, and you go to sleep on the sofa-bed, there will be no more black masses, Satanic orgies, and graffiti on viaducts. Never again. And you will be unable to mourn them because you will be too depressed to mourn them. You decide now. Decide if you are your wife's slave or if you are Mantos, the grand master of the Wilde Beasts of Abaddon. Decide now who the fuck you are.

      He took the towel off his head. He swigged down the last of the Jägermeister. He grabbed the clippers, turned them on, and he shaved his head.

      16

      Washed up.

      Fabrizio Ciba was driving his Vespa down the winding road of Monte Mario. Foot to the floor, he curved right and left like he was Valentino Rossi. He was fit to be tied. Those cowboys from Martinelli had said that he was washed up and they wanted to slip him the pill. Him, the one who pulled them out of bankruptcy, who had sold more than all the other Italian writers together. Him, the one who had been translated into twenty-nine languages, including Swahili and Ladino.

      ‘And you even cop twenty per cent of the sales of the translation rights!’ he shouted as he swerved to overtake a Ford Ka.

      If they thought they could treat him like the bulimic nun, they were making a big mistake.

      ‘Who do you think you are? Everybody wants to publish me. You'll see when I publish my new novel, you worthless bastards.’

      He began zig-zagging through the traffic of Viale delle Milizie. Then he threw himself down the tramway, screeching to a halt at a red light.