The Arena Star

Last year, I stood on the top tier of seats in Verona’s ancient Arena, all too keenly aware that soon I would have to pick my way down the rain-slick steps. Climbing up, I’d powered my way like Edmund Hillary, but now I remembered the old mountaineers’ maxim that the finish line is at the bottom and that these steep steps had been worn smooth and uneven by millions of feet for thousands of years, ever since the time of Christ. Vertigo was setting in, or maybe it was altitude sickness.

So I tried to concentrate on