Florence I shake hands with Salman Rushdie

It was five to six and I knew that Salmon Rushdie would be at the Pelagio di Parte Guelfa just a couple of minutes walk from my apartment. I expected to see crowds of people as the event to launch the Italian translation of his latest novel ‘The Enchantress of Florence’ had been advertised in all the bookshops around town, But as I approached, I could see only five carabiniere standing smartly to the side of the alley. Then I saw a television crew scuttling away with their story leaving just three people in the middle of the lane.

It was Salman Rushdie with two of his friends. I joined them and he chatted about the novel and how it related to him personally. He had come to Florence at the age of 19 one summer with very little money. And he had never forgotten the city. The interesting point that he made here and not during his later lecture was that he had tried to write a “nice novel”. I made congratulatory comments about his “Anton” life and he shook my hand. “Thank you”, he said.

He’s still the same person that he was twenty years ago. Like any British author, he is modest but very soft spoken. “I’ve only written ten novels. Agatha Christie wrote a hundred, didn’t she?!!”

Then we went upstairs and I discovered where everybody had gone. There was the usual imposing atrium leading to yet another of those incredibly magnificent halls today chock full of people on available seating and students seated on the floor everywhere in the aisles and around the stage. I stood up for a bit then made my way to the balcony entrance so I could catch a nice breeze from outside.

Salman Rushdie appeared and sat at the ‘High Table’ along with his translator. After an introduction, he started to give the rationale for his novel. It took about an hour but he was talking about all the historial personages I had been encountering for the length of my stay in Florence.

His interesting reference to Agatha Christie is probably linked to what he called his “riddle” presented at the outset of the novel. The surprise to some people will be the fact that Machievelli was a thoroughly ‘good chap’, a republican, and a great drinking pal. The Medicis tortured him six times and, as he didn’t confess, they couldn’t execute him. So he was exiled. Akbar was another good chap who loved peace but was a despot.

This ‘good guy’, Akbar, when he was slightly angry with one of his subjects, took this ‘subject’ to the top of his palace and threw him off the roof. Unfortunately the ‘subject’ was still alive after the fall so Akbar had him taken to the top of his palace once more and threw him off again. I suppose that’s what ‘good guys’ did in those day!!

Winston Churchill quoted Machievelli when he began a period in office as Prime Minister. “We do all the bad things immediately. We spread all the good things out over the remaining period of government”.

Salman Rushdie’s version was, ‘As soon as we come to power, we kill everybody we need to eliminate immediately. Then, as time goes on, people will say, “He’s not as bad as he used to be!”‘

This was the launch of the Italian version of the novel. The English version has been available in England and the USA for some time now, I understand.The Italian translation of each section of Rushdie’s talk started off by being rather lean then, as the translator tried to emulate the eloquence of Rushdie’s style of speech, it took over twice as long for the translator to say the Italian as it took Rushdie to say his English.

Nobody mentioned the fatwa. He did give a solitary hint. He felt so lucky to be a writer because he could work on his own. In this novel, he made things happen that never happened in history. He even invented a character and made up a life history of a genuine historical personage about hardly anything is known.

When the talk had finished, I stood on the balcony looking out at the market below with a Professor of Philosophy from the University of Florence. We talked about the Medicis and then he went to find his pal who was Professor Of  History. Between them they spoke every European language except English!! Somehow we managed to talk about the history of Florence at the time of Machievelli and the shape of the palace in which we were standing.

Earlier in the day, Salman Rushdie had sat in Machievelli’s old office, still used today. He was quite carried away by the fact that he was ‘famous’ enough to get this type of privilege but didn’t say it quite like that. He got his point across by referring to “Shakespeare in Love” where Shakespeare jumps off the table and says, “I’m famous!!!” Rushdie simply said, “I really hope he said that!!”