Bitter Remedy (4 page)

But however many times they clicked on the flashing message, they found out no more about the University, but plenty about the need for credit cards. Following these links, they soon found themselves in a world of non-stop pop-up gambling sites, and clicks to close these down led them eventually to images of women giving blow jobs, sometimes with the same star flashing just where mouth met cock, but just as often uncensored. Nadia tried to be grown up and casual about the pictures, and Alina made a great show of laughing at them, while all the time grimly persisting with the mouse clicks, convinced that she would eventually hit the enchanted link that would show them how to enrol in the Hogwarts University in magical London. The dream lasted two days, until Alina’s brother, Michael, scoffingly introduced them to the concept of spam and online scams.

That was all a lifetime ago. Years passed, Harry Potter was replaced by reality stars and boy bands and Alina left school to become a hairdresser. But apart from three Saturday afternoons sweeping up hair from the floor of the beauty salon at the north end of Bulevardul Oituz, she did not go far. And yet, she had not quite let go of the dream of London, or at least somewhere that was not the town of Onesti in the snow, a place whose greatest claim to fame was a gymnast from sometime long ago in the previous century and the Rafo refinery, where Michael had failed to get a job.

Nadia stayed on in school a little while longer, but she was never going to take the final exams. Her father had long ago vanished ‘abroad’. All that remained of him in her mind was the memory of a smell of oil, though he had not worked in the factory or been a mechanic.

Nadia had once had an older brother, of whom she also had little memory. Apparently at the age of fifteen he had been crushed by a reversing cement mixer. He lived on in agony for three months before dying, and her father – she had to work out the chronology herself – had left 1 month later.

Her mother, who had kept her figure and for whom alcohol had a thinning rather than a fattening effect, suddenly lost all her teeth. They came out one by one over three weeks. Saliva and blood was everywhere in the bathroom, even in the kitchen, along with crushed tissues lying around the house that Nadia dared not open.

On the day her last teeth fell out, a front tooth and a molar, Nadia’s mother howled and yelped like a tortured dog. Her gaping mouth with black gums spoke unintelligible angry words. The following day she was silent and motionless, and so she remained for three years.

In the meantime, Alina and Nadia had been deliberately hanging out with the wrong sort of people. Older boys, men even, who would buy them beer, snacks, take them for drives. The older men were always the same, but the turnover among the younger ones was fast. Some tearaway aged sixteen would arrive, get into trouble, hang around a year, and then he’d be gone, off on his adventures in Europe, England, Italy, France, Germany. The girls, too, came and went, and one night, drunk, sitting in the back of someone’s car, Nadia turned to Alina, or Alina turned to Nadia – neither of them could ever say for certain who it had been – and said, ‘We have been here too long.’

One of the ways out was through the wife of a man who worked as a city clerk, handing out building permits. Olga was her name. It was not easy to get a meeting with her husband, let alone Olga. When they did, it was in a bar outside the town-planning department, and he demanded a fee before telling them that he was not sure if they would be lucky enough to get a meeting with his wife.

No one liked Olga, even those who had never met her, but all agreed that she made things happen, moved people on, arranged contacts, knew people abroad, and, it was said, spoke six languages. There was talk about Milan, possibly a Vidal Sassoon Academy, but the details were vague and the trip would be a roundabout one.

They heard nothing for months. Olga’s husband refused to speak to them, refused even to acknowledge Nadia when one day she tried to waylay him as he left the office. A day later, the two of them turned up, but so did two men, who threatened them.

And then, on the day the clocks went back, Olga got in contact. She phoned both of them, and invited them round for tea in her house, which was outside the city. She sent a man to pick them up. Olga’s house was brand new, so new it still smelled of cement and new carpet, and it was stiflingly warm. They had salami and pickles, cakes, tea, coffee, a few liquors. Nadia and Alina were not the only girls there. The mood became quite raucous, and they all left in high spirits. Olga winked at the girls a lot, and many jokes at the expense of men were whispered. The girls giggled, and Olga laughed uproariously. She asked them about passports, cash, and, in detail, about their family situations, even though she seemed surprisingly well informed already. On their third visit, Olga offered them nothing to eat or drink, cracked no jokes about men or anything else, and told them she had made arrangements for the New Year. They were to be ready by then.

Nadia’s mother did not even bestir herself from her bed when, a few days before Christmas, Nadia announced that she was leaving. On 2 January,
Anul Nou
, she left Romania and her toothless, useless mother.

Looking back, Nadia could not quite remember at which point she had allowed herself to be properly deluded. She had walked into the trap with her eyes open. She wondered about Alina, who really spoke as if she were going to work with Vidal Sassoon in person. Their friendship seemed as deep as ever, deeper even now that they knew they were going away together, but somehow their conversations about the future skated along the surface of things. Neither of them seemed to want to be the first to confide her fears, to admit that she knew what they were getting into, because then they would have to back out, and what would be left?

Alina’s ignorance may have helped. She did not even notice that the coach that was supposed to take them on the first leg of their journey to Italy was headed east. As they crossed the Moldova border, Olga cheerfully told them and the six other girls, one of them no older than fifteen, that they were going to Odessa, where they would catch a boat.

Alina put up her hand, which is something she had never done in the classroom, and said, ‘Excuse me?’

‘What is it, my pretty thing?’

‘Nadia and I, we’re going to Italy. We’ve paid the fare.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Olga. ‘But you didn’t pay very much, did you? You don’t think that was nearly enough to get a plane all the way to . . . where was it, Rome?’

‘Milan.’

‘Oh, Milan. I envy you. It’s a great city. But I am afraid it will be a long journey. We’ll be stopping off before we reach it.’

‘Where?’ asked Alina.

‘Ports of call. I don’t suppose you can name them, can you?’

Geography had never been Alina’s strong point. Nor had much else. She shook her head, brushing Nadia’s face with her red hair.

‘Odessa, Istanbul – perhaps we’ll stay a day or two there. Thessalonica, probably, but it might even be Athens! Then a short ride across to Patras and a ferry to Bari. Don’t worry. I have your passport here.’ Olga patted her massive bust as if it was filled with all the passports she had taken off the girls, and the girls before them and the girls before them.

They rattled their way across the uneven roads of Moldova. They somehow managed to fall asleep and missed the border crossing into the Ukraine, but Olga handled everything. No one even came on board to check.

Finally, Odessa. Nadia had not expected it to have so many impressive boulevards and trees. Banks, luxury hotels, boutiques, prosperous people everywhere. The buildings looked like they belonged in France or Italy. She nudged Alina awake.

‘This place is like Milan. Maybe we could stay here.’

Alina stared grumpily out the window, just as the coach, its wheels making a plopping sound on the cobblestone road, passed a row of boarded-up shops. ‘You’ve never been to Milan, how would you know,’ she said crossly, and tried to fall asleep, using Nadia as her pillow.

Nadia shrugged viciously, causing her friend’s lazy head to hit the broken armrest between them. ‘At least I knew Milan wasn’t in the Ukraine.’

The coach pulled into a parking area and stopped beside a lump of slate with 1941–1945 inscribed in it. The air below them glinted and sparkled, and Nadia felt her heart leap with excitement and possibility.

‘Look, Alina, the sea!’ She grabbed her friend’s hand in excitement. Maybe it was going to be a great adventure after all.

Chapter 4

‘Time is muscle,’ said a voice. ‘Good morning.’

Blume opened his eyes. He felt a bit nauseous. Above all, he felt frightened. The person who had spoken was a man with a bright round face which seemed unreasonably cheerful, and wisps of white hair.

‘It’s a phrase we doctors use,’ said the man. ‘You need to thank the gardener, Greco, with the pretty daughter who came here with you. If it hadn’t been for him, we might have wasted time listening to your nonsense. Silvana, that’s her name, the poor girl you say poisoned you. How can you say a thing like that?’

‘Not deliberately.’

‘You were never poisoned, Mr . . . Blume? Is that how you pronounce it, rhymes with boum-boum? The name was on your driver licence. Tell me, what’s your profession, Mr Blume?’

‘Why?’

‘For your prognosis. If you work in an asbestos factory or a steel mill, it’s going to have an effect on your health. If you spend the day seated or standing, if your job is stressful or not: it makes all the difference.’

‘I understand,’ said Blume.

‘So what are you?’

‘A tax accountant.’

‘Really?’

‘Is that so interesting?’

‘Well, it is for me, because the one I have, well, he forgot to deduct his own fees from my taxable income. Can you imagine?’

Blume could not. He was bothered by the fact the room was small yet contained an echo.

‘But obviously your practice is in . . . ?’

‘Rome. Can you lower your voice, please?’

‘I am speaking in a normal tone. You appear to have an overstimulated auditory sense. That’s interesting.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘I am Doctor Bernardini. You are in a semi-private clinic for now. Breakfast?’

‘What time is it?’

‘Half past seven. Here, I brought you this.’ The doctor reached behind him and produced a tray holding a small carton of apricot juice, two slices of melba toast, a plastic knife and a capsule of sugar-free strawberry jam.

‘No coffee?’

‘The nuns don’t really go in for coffee, and it’s probably best not. Avoid stimulants for the next few days.’ He watched as Blume munched his way through the dry bread. ‘You seem fine. So, how
do
you pronounce your name?’

‘Blume.’

‘It does rhyme with
Boum
! Do you know the song?’ asked the doctor. ‘No? By Charles Trenet?’ He stood back from the bed to give himself some space. ‘I’ll need to raise my voice a little for this.’

‘For what?’

The doctor sang:

‘
La pendule fait tic-tac-tic-tic

Les oiseaux du lac pic-pac-pic-pic

Glou-glou-glou font tous les dindons . . .

They almost ruined it for me by using it in a biscuit commercial. You should eat fewer biscuits. Do you take prescription drugs, Mr Blume?’

‘No, not really.’

‘
Mais . . . BOUM!

Quand notre cœur fait BOUM!

Tout avec lui dit BOUM

Et c’est l’amour qui s’éveille.’

The doctor stopped, his face flushed with pleasure. ‘I first learned that in primary school. Some time ago, now. I have always loved Trenet, Brel, Brassens, Gainsbourg. An area where the ubiquitous rhythms of English have yet to penetrate. So no drugs, but herbal poisoning? I am not sure I can possibly believe that.’

‘I ate these seeds . . .’

‘And you almost had a heart attack, but didn’t,’ finished the doctor for him. ‘Pure coincidence. This is how I see it: the burning sensation in your mouth set off a panic attack causing acute arrhythmia, but it was your own panic that did it, not the seeds, whatever they were. We could have wasted valuable time looking for poisons if we had listened to you. But Greco kept insisting it was not the plant you ate.’

‘How could he be so damned certain?’

‘Too fast, he said. The symptoms hit you too fast. Also, he knows a lot about the plants in those gardens. Greco’s quite the expert. A bit of a loner, but . . . lovely gardens. The highlight of our little town, I suppose. Usually worth a visit, though . . .’ The red face turned even redder and the doctor giggled. ‘What a stupid thing for me to have said. My wife will find that hilarious when I tell her. She loves it when I make a
faux pas
. Here am I telling you to visit the gardens, and you have just come from there with definite signs of a heart attack.’

The doctor’s words sank into him like a heavy gas. ‘I’ve had a heart attack?’

‘No! A panic attack! God, I am so sorry. Another gaffe. I am so gauche!’ Bernardini gave Blume a knowing wink. ‘You seem to have reacted poorly to our extraordinary gardens. An allergic reaction. I see you have hives, too. Were they there before?’