What followed the conversation that had taken place on the
terrace
of the five-star hotel is difficult to reconstruct. The words fired from The Publisher’s mouth like darts from a blowpipe could have been listened to by the lizards crouching in the cracks in the warm walls, could have been crushed in their hard beaks by the crows, like seagulls’ eggs, or pecked at like seeds by the pigeons with coral-coloured feet, or maybe they could have been seized in flight by the falcon, and would have emitted the soft noise of a swallowed mouse or the electric quiver of a lizard’s thrashing tail. But the only one who could not have reported them was The Writer.
On that terrace, with those sentences vibrating in the sunset, with the ice melting in his third (or fourth? or fifth?) drink left half drunk, with the wind drying his sweat-streaked forehead
and sliding beneath his linen shirt, making him feel itchy, with The Publisher silent at last, staring at the motionless horizon—it was there, on that terrace, for the first time since he had started to write, or rather, for the first time since he had come into the world, with the city of Rome as the one unreliable witness, that The Writer saw, with superhuman clarity, the pallor of his
existence
compared with the blinding glitter of legend.
And for a brief moment he saw them flying together, and then separate. Like that pair of seagulls in the sunset.
Kissing a woman who isn’t your wife or girlfriend while the curious white Google Maps car complete with cameras and periscopes is passing cannot be dismissed as mere misfortune. Let alone as fate. It is a privilege. A privilege granted only to a chosen few, a stern divine warning that serves to remind you of your own finiteness, your own smallness, your pathetic attempt to elevate yourself above your own irredeemably mediocre nature. That was why destiny, or whatever, had chosen The Beginner’s book from a pile of manuscripts that had arrived by post, that was why it had had it published, that was why it had entered it for an important prize, that was why against every expectation it had made sure it became a finalist, that was why it had given it wide coverage in the press (much more than it deserved), that was why it had made sure a small publishing company on the other side of the English Channel had noticed it, acquired it, translated it, that was why it had invited The Beginner to London to present it, that was why it had put him up in an exclusive hotel, that was why it had equipped his translator with a C-cup bra size and a weakness for Italy and Italian wines, that was why it had made sure that, after a night of sex, the two of them had said goodbye and kissed with their feet on that stone pavement, at the very
moment the stereoscopic Google Maps camera was capturing, with a wealth of details, one of the many insignificant frames to be sewn into its stunning urban patchwork. That was why destiny, which is the hitman of chance, had conceived all this. To remind him that such things are not done.
“Which language?”
“Italian.”
The Writer mumbled the words and absorbed the cautious scepticism of the guide who was barring his way on the running board of the bus. She must have assumed he was an American, or at least a German. And with his baseball cap and his shirt unbuttoned over his chest and his aviator sunglasses he could easily have been either. But no, he was only an Italian.
The guide held out her hand and gave The Writer a pair of headphones in a cellophane packet.
The Writer instinctively put his hand on his wallet, as he did every time he was in difficulty, every time he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do, to check that that reassuring swelling was still there with him, that it hadn’t abandoned him, because in his life money had got him out of trouble every time he had got into it. He took out the shiny wallet, stuffed with large, colourful banknotes, and offered one at random to the young woman.
The guide gave an embarrassed smile and with her hand invited him to put his weapon back in its holster: he’d already bought a ticket, and the headphones were included in the price of the tour.
“Channel 1 for Italian.”
The Writer nodded, without really understanding. He could not even have said what route he had taken to get here from the
hotel terrace, let alone what he would do afterwards. He was so drunk that he would have stubbornly denied that he was.
But his stomach was a cloudy fish tank, and the drinks he had had a school of tropical fish eating each other. He got on, his heart swelling with every step, and with difficulty climbed to the light-drenched upper deck. He had been preceded only by a couple of tourists, who, as they took their seats in the front, passed each other a camera with a telephoto lens.
The colours of the world seemed brighter, the tones more vivid, the light clearer, more transparent. And that must be an effect of the gin, the clear alcohol that leads to levity and
clear-headedness
. But the noises—of the bus with its big engines, the pneumatic drills on the building sites, the cars rolling over the cobbles—were becoming dark and menacing, and this was because of the rum, the dark alcohol that weighs down the senses and discourages all initiative. And his cheeks were red, which must be due to the Aperols and Camparis, which excite and exaggerate; his forehead sweaty because of the wine, which congeals thoughts and makes them jingle like coins; his lips salty and his tongue parched because of the tequila and the salt in the margarita, which leave you feeling as tired and thirsty as a shipwrecked sailor.
And his mind… Well, his mind was a prodigy of sensations, imbued with a reckless beatitude that would soon abandon him, but for the moment was keeping him going. Indeed, encouraging him. Even though his anxiety was merely suspended, taking the form of a premonition that would soon come crashing down on him, along with a hangover. Right now, though, on the upper deck of that double-decker bus, as the last light of day gave way to a grey dusk, between heaven and hell it was—for a while yet—heaven that was closer.
He staggered down the aisle to the front, and sat down. Once seated, he put on the headphones and after a couple of attempts
managed to insert the jack in the socket on the armrest. He heard a crackling. He took off the headphones. But the world outside sounded the same.
In the meantime the bus was filling up, but he didn’t see anyone, didn’t hear anyone, didn’t think about anyone. His only desire was to get moving, to break this stasis he couldn’t bear much longer. Fortunately, the bus now set off, shaking like the deck of a ferry when they switch on the turbines in the engine room.
Slowly, the bus moved out of the noisy dock of the station. The Writer took off his sunglasses and tipped his cap back. He looked at the sky, vast and impregnable above the heads of the tourists. He reached out a hand to touch it. And this time the sky did not retreat, but let itself be caressed.
The imposing brick structure of the baths of Diocletian
If a writer kills himself he’s only doing his duty
Built in only eight years at the end of the second century
AD
You’d get all the critics on your side
They could accommodate up to 8,000 people
Nobody would ever again be able to pan a book of yours
Both sexes were admitted to the baths but at different times
Home and dry at last
The Aqua Marcia aqueduct that supplied
The Olympus of writers
From which the name “Termini” derives
Top of the best-seller lists
Via Nazionale, decreed by the government of the newly unified country
Never mind fiction, top of the general list
Quirinale, the highest of the seven hills
You’ll never again be able to ruin your reputation with a minor novel
The great basin of the Dioscuri, which the poet Shelley
There’ll be tons of reviews
The fountains are enough to justify a trip to Rome
Reassessing is their job
Torre delle Milizie, from the top of which, according to legend, Nero
Nobody will be able to deny your stature
Thirteenth-century fortress built on the remains of the Servian Wall
We’ll reissue the complete works
The transept windows lighten the volumes
Of course we’ll choose the paper together
Which later became the Embassy of the Republic of Venice
A lovely Morocco leather cover
Famous balcony from which Benito Mussolini
Red with gold lettering
Vamos a tomar la via de los foros imperiales
With his elbow, The Writer had inadvertently pressed the button on the audio guide and was now on channel 2.
Back to 1
Known as the Coliseum. It could accommodate up to 300,000 people
On 2
Gladiatores destinados a ser devorados por las fieras
1
The classis pretoria, the famous military fleet
Channel 3
Trois niveaux d’escaliers ici se chevauchent
1
In the first sat the emperor, in the second the senators
Your opportunity
Used as a quarry for material
Revenge on other writers
After the sack of Rome by the Goths
Front pages of the newspapers
Now running alongside the cavea of the Circus Maximus
A street or a university course
Velabrum or river port
Piles of books
Boarian Forum
The windows of the bookshops
Here the Sibyl predicted for the emperor the coming of Christ
Maybe a gift edition or a boxed set
Sacred area of greatest architectural importance from the fourth century
Boxed set
Palace of the Chancellery
Boxed set
Marbles plundered from the Theatre of Pompey
Boxed set
Clement VI
If it’s gratuitous it’s a cowardly act
Alexander II
But if it’s a protest
The magnificence of the Castel Sant’Angelo
Think about it
Formerly Hadrian’s Mausoleum
An act of humility
The Vatican. The oldest absolute monarchy in the world
We’re sure to win
Transformed into a fortress and finally a prison
To leave a mark on history
Tosca, the lover of Cavaradossi
The road to immortality
Typical colours of Rome are pink, orange and peach-yellow
Take all the time you need
Piazza del Popolo
Remember it’s a week to The Ceremony
The work of Valadier, who was also responsible for the slopes of the Pincio
A week
Along the kilometre and a quarter that goes from the Piazza del Popolo to
You have a young wife
A race between Berber horses
Your children have their whole lives in front of them
The weakest set off from what is now the Via del Vantaggio
Time heals everything
Belonging to the Barberini family
Life isn’t a solution
Taxes and tallage, which earned him the famous comment Quod non fecerunt barbari
It can be done
Which the Romans call Esedra
Think it over
Palazzo Massimo, now the Museum of Civilization
Give me an answer
In 1964 the mummified corpse of a little girl was found during excavations
It depends on how you see it
A discovery that moved the entire city
It isn’t the end
Next to the little girl’s body
It may be only the beginning
A small treasure
If you want to win The Prize
A splendid ivory doll
If
That is the end of our tour
You want
The commentary was written by Professor
To win
Thank you for choosing
The
Rome Open Bus
Prize
Wishes you
(If you want to win)
Goodbye
It
All
Depends
On
You
When an attack is made on our lives, we are usually the last to know. The attack is prepared in distant places, far from us and our insignificant little daily gestures. The fuse is lit, sometimes it burns for a very long time, it crackles, almost risks going out, has a little strangled sob, then starts burning again, inexorably.
At other times, though, the explosion is sudden, and takes even the attacker by surprise. But that’s of little importance, because in both cases the fuse burns. We bustle about, minding our own business, and the fuse burns, we follow our dreams, and the fuse burns, we sin, and the fuse burns, we are absolved of our sins, and the fuse burns, in parallel, behind the scenes, the fuse burns. And we can’t snuff it out or cut it. Because we are the ones who thought up the attack, made the home-made device by assembling mistakes, triggering lies and mixing the weaknesses according to an infallible recipe, and then planted the bomb in the unlikeliest corner of our lives, in the knowledge that one day, when the fuse has burnt all the way down, then we will indeed hear a great bang.
A boom that will make us as free, fast and light as a blast, an explosion that will break everything that enchains us, so that everything is recomposed in a new, different order of rank and meaning. And the firework display is so spectacular, it’s worth an entire life.
The Beginner had been prostituting himself at a book-signing in a bookshop in the city centre. He hadn’t called The Girlfriend to tell her he’d be late. If he had, she wouldn’t have answered the phone. But he couldn’t have known that.
He had stayed longer than he should have in the bookshop. Answering people’s questions (questions from which it was obvious that almost nobody had read his book) without losing your mind was a task that required commitment and thought.