Playing the Moldovans At Tennis (12 page)

'Mr Rotaru says,' said Iulian finally, 'that you have his permission to play tennis with his midfielder Sischin, and that you can do this whenever you like once they have played their game against Roma Belţi.'

If this was an immense relief, then even better news was to follow. Mr Rotaru thought it would be good exercise for Sischin to be playing tennis on one of his days off and that before we left he would give us his home phone number so that we could ring and arrange the game.

Furthermore we could come and watch the match against Roma which which was taking place the following day, and I could meet Sischin afterwards if I so desired. I sat back in my chair unable to prevent a smug grin from forming. To think that this morning I had been close to giving up.

Unexpectedly and unreasonably, I left the office of The Green One quite liking him. And it wasn't just because this man had given me what I wanted. He had charm. Once he had begun to relax he had been a genial host and it had become difficult to imagine him as having a cruel or violent side to his nature. Then it occurred to me that charm is an essential tool for the attainment of real power. The ruthless dictator needs to be able to manipulate, to lull his potential foes into a false sense of security, and he can do this easier behind the smokescreen of courteous affability.

All ruthless dictators have the knack. Take Saddam Hussein. Whenever I watch him on TV he always strikes me as having the appearance of a rather benign fellow – cuddly even. He's the best. He can be the genial host one minute and then pick up the phone and order someone's assassination the next From good to bad in 6.4 seconds. That's what's got him where he is today. Those with the good grace to be consistently evil never really get on. But then it's a cruel world, isn't it.

Dinner with the family provided further evidence to support that premise. Following a discussion in which I remarked on the extraordinary discrepancy between the wages paid to The Green One's footballers and the average Moldovan monthly wage, I discovered that for those who worked for the government it wasn't only the size of the wage packets, but whether you actually received one
at all
which was the real problem. Dina had not been paid since May. This I found difficult to believe since it was October now. Grigore also had received no wages for two months.

'But how do you manage?' I asked.

The patients look after my farver and my muwer,' explained Adrian.

I learned that a primitive and unofficial social structure had developed in which patients brought gifts of food or money each time they made a visit to the doctor. They had to – all that was on offer from the government were empty promises and they are difficult to live off. Sometimes the government would pay workers in goods and commodities rather than money. Dina's mother, a pensioner in the countryside, was regularly paid in sugar, rice or flour. Once she even took a carpet instead of half a year's pension. It was quite common for factory workers to receive their salaries in the goods they produced, like boots, stepladders or light bulbs. I was even told of one poor fellow named Vitalie who worked in a factory which made bicycle pumps and all he received at the end of each month were hundreds more of these infernal things which he had to try and sell at the market. Perversely, his survival depended on inflation.

I went to bed feeling rather guilty about my life. Here were my good and kindly hosts working hard in run-down under-funded hospitals and not even getting paid for their troubles, and here I was swanning round the place spending my time stubbornly trying to prove a point by winning an infantile wager. As I lay in bed, drifting from consciousness, my somnolent mind filled with unanswerable questions. What was going on? Who had dealt us such contrasting hands? Had He shuffled properly? How was it all going to end? Should I buy some bicycle pumps to take back to England? So many questions and only the letter Z could provide the answer.

'Zzzzzzzzzzz.'

Not for the first time, sleep had come to the rescue.

Today was to be my last with Iulian for four days. Right at the outset he had told me about this previous booking that he had – translating at a conference – but I had forgotten all about it.

'It will be interesting to see how I manage without you,' I said as we strolled to the Republican Stadium. You have become my voice and my ears in the last two weeks.'

Yes, it will be interesting.'

The Republican Stadium was sensibly located for the home ground of a Chisinau football club. It was in Chisinau. This was where FC Zimbru had slipped up. They probably lacked the persuasive qualities of The Green One, who had managed to secure the national side's ground for his team's home matches. Iulian and I had somehow failed to find the proper entrance on to the spectators' terraces and found ourselves approaching the pitch by walking down the players' tunnel.

For a moment I shared the same tingle of nerves that the players must get as they walk side by side towards the magic green carpet which awaits them. My imagination took hold and as we left the tunnel I was about to wave to the expectant crowd who were anticipating yet another tantalising performance from the wunderkind Hawks, when rousing music began to blare from loudspeakers and the real players ran into the centre circle and began waving to the crowd. Had there actually
been
a crowd the whole thing would have been far less tragic. All around us empty seats. Just a small pocket of around a dozen Constructorul fans who looked suspiciously like the fans I had seen shouting encouragement to FC Zimbru just days before. I began to wonder whether Moldova only actually possessed twelve football fans and that they had to move around the place in various disguises switching allegiance whenever required. Maybe they were mercenaries and they cheered for the highest bidder, and today The Green One had secured their services. Maybe he would fine them if they didn't chant loud enough.

Constructorul, in their distinctive green shirts, began the game well, launching promising attacks which unfortunately came to nothing.

'Mr Rotaru is expecting a big win today,' said Iulian. 'Anything else and he won't be happy.'

I looked over to the Constructorul bench and there was the big man, his face filled with anxiety. He was dividing his time equally between shouting furiously at his team and taking long drags from his cigarette, and generally behaving in a manner unlikely to reduce blood pressure. He looked like someone who could suddenly clutch his heart and keel over at any minute. This would have bothered me more if I hadn't already been in possession of Sischin's phone number.

The football match turned out to be just as bad as the one I had watched just days earlier. As the uneventful game drew to a close I realised that I had now watched over two and a half hours of Moldovan football and still not seen one goal. In the eightieth minute it fell to Sischin, whom three little boys had helped us to identify, to put this right. Constructorul had won a rather dubious penalty and it was Sischin – lithe, dark haired and handsome – who had been selected to take it. This was no surprise since he had been a class above the rest of the footballers on show. His deft touches and visionary passes belonged in an another arena. He deserved to have a crowd watching him play.

Sischin stepped up to take the kick. The goalkeeper jigged and bounced up and down on his line like a puppet on a string and Sischin composed himself. Then he did something I suspect he hadn't done for years. The bastard missed the penalty. He hooked it wide of the left-hand post. Like me, he hung his head. I turned to Iulian.

'Fucking unbelievable.'

This is not good, certainly.'

Football, as they say, is a funny old game, although funny wouldn't have been the adjective I'd have chosen on this day. Infuriating would have been nearer the mark. Following the missed penalty Sischin went on to get himself booked, and although Constructorul did scrape a 1-0 win with a scrappy last-minute goal, once again the post-match atmosphere was not likely to be conducive to effective socialising. In spite of this I still insisted that Iulian and I waited outside Constructorul's dressing room in the hope of meeting Sischin and letting him know about our intended phone call, but after forty unforthcoming and very cold minutes I conceded defeat on that one. The Green One's post-match team talk had outlasted my body's heating system. Maybe it was taking him so long because he'd become confused as to whether to give his players a bonus for getting a win, or fine them for playing like donkeys. Either way they'd be unlikely to come out of it with more than a bicycle pump each.

'Have a good conference,' I said to Iulian as he left me at the stop for the maxi taxi. 'I'll see you on Monday. You will promise to keep trying Sischin's number, won't you?'

'If I have time, I shall be very busy in the next few days.'

Trust me to have hired somebody who had a life.

'Do your best.'

'OK.'

And with those two letters, he meandered off into the uncompromising darkness of the Moldovan night. It was Wednesday evening and I had no realistic prospect of playing any footballer until at least Monday, especially now I'd lost my translator. I was faced with a new and in some ways more challenging problem.

I had four days' holiday.

On the Thursday morning, the prospect of four totally free days seemed daunting. Predictably enough, there hadn't been a flood of suggestions at the Journalism Centre for how to pass this time.

'Have you been to Orheiul Vecchi?' American Tom had said. That's great.'

But that had been it. Period.

Unfortunately it was a period I had to fill.

Unlike Romania, Moldova has no tourist industry. Only one consideration has hampered its development and that is its total lack of anything whatsoever to offer the tourist. No mountains, no coastline, no water sports, no transport, no quaint little villages, no night-life, no streetlights, no cuisine, no smiles and no bloody idea. This place really was as unlike Venice or Ibiza as you could possibly imagine.

I'd had one thought, that I could spend this time in St Petersburg trying to track down the player Alexandru Curtianu, but this had been dismissed when I discovered that the Russian Embassy took four days to issue a visa. I also considered visiting Romania, since the mountains of Transylvania and the resorts on the Black Sea were within reach, but both these trips would involve miserable twelve-hour train journeys as well as administrative problems given that I didn't have a re-entry visa.

So, Moldova it was. Unless I went home, of course. Gave up and went back to England. Hard though I fought it, I just couldn't help but consider this as a very real option. I mean, what was I doing? Soon I would have been here for over two weeks and still not played one footballer. I certainly wasn't having fun, and that was something this adventure was always meant to be. Was there really any point in pursuing this absurd task any further? I felt like a dog hanging on to a stick, close to exhaustion, with its gums growing bloodier by the minute. I didn't need this any more – I was ready to go lie in my basket, have someone throw me a biscuit, wrap me in a blanket or pat me on the head. Did I really want the damned stick that much anyway? It wasn't worth anything, was it?

At breakfast with the family, which somewhat disconcertingly involved the consumption of pasta, I put a brave face on things.

'What will you do today?' asked Adrian.

'Oh, I have lots to do up at the Journalism Centre.'

'And when will you play your first footballer?'

'Soon.'

Soon. A good word 'soon'. It sounds so much nicer than 'fuck knows'.

Will you come to my English class at school?' asked Elena, pleasingly changing the subject.

'What for?'

'You can teach us and talk to us in English. I have told all the other children about you and they want to meet you.'

'Really?'

'Yes, please come. I have asked my teacher and she says that it is OK. Why don't you come tomorrow morning?'

'Er . . . all right then, I suppose I could make time.'

After the family had left the house and distributed themselves evenly among the city's hospitals and schools, I went for a run in a nearby park to try and figure out just what to do. Sometimes I find that the physical exertion and gentle rhythm of the feet on the ground can help focus the mind. On this occasion I both ran and thought hard.

The reason ought to have been not wanting to lose my bet with Arthur, or that I didn't want to concede that my philosophy of optimism was hopelessly flawed, but in the end it was neither. Something else entirely made me decide to hold on to the stick. For the first time since I'd got here, somebody had
wanted
me for something. Elena wanted me to come to her school. Oh I know it was only a tiny thing but it meant so much. On no other occasion since I'd set foot in Moldova had anyone asked me or invited me to do anything. It had always fallen to me to make things happen. I had always been the instigator and this had become both exhausting and disillusioning. Now however, an 11-year-old girl had changed all that. By issuing the invitation to her school she had showed that someone cared. Elena cared about me. It didn't matter if no-one else did, this was reason enough to stay put. For the moment at any rate.

As the day progressed things continued in the same positive vein. When I called the Journalism Centre and was given a message that Marcel had invited me to Orheiul Vecchi on Saturday, I was stunned. Nothing for two weeks and then two invitations in a day. I began to wonder whether this sudden upturn in my social life had anything to do with the fact that I was without Iulian now and that being alone meant that people made more effort. Maybe I should have done this earlier.

I walked to the National Tennis Centre in the hope of picking up a game, and on my arrival I was lucky enough to bump into my old French-speaking chum Jan, who arranged for me to play with a promising young 15-year-old, Alexandru. After an hour's practice he beat me rather soundly in a tie break. Suddenly I was only too aware that I was out of shape and that I would need to perform much better than this if I was to win my bet. Maybe I could use these four days to get my game up to scratch.

After the game, the outgoing and rather cheeky-looking Alexandru taught me how to score tennis in Romanian. In a few minutes I knew all I hoped I'd need for my upcoming encounters.

Cincisprezece
zero
Trezece
zero
Patruzece
zero
Avantaj
Hawks
Ghem
Hawks

Alexandru, oddly assuming that I was some sort of authority on the game, asked me if I knew why tennis has such an unconventional scoring system. Yes, good question, this had been something which had always bothered me. Why fifteen? Why deuce? Why love? Advantage this, advantage that? Back in London, an afternoon in the library had done little more than reveal to me that no-one is entirely sure, tennis being a very old game which originated in France before people bothered to write things down much. The method of scoring by 15s is believed to be medieval in origin, and 40 is used as an abbreviation of the original 45. 'Deuce' is a corruption of the French à
deux,
indicating that one player had to win two consecutive points for the game. No-one is certain about the origin of 'love' being used for zero, but it either came from
I'oeuf
– meaning egg and being the shape of a nought – or the fact that the word 'love' had become equated with 'nothing' in such phrases as 'a labour of love' and 'neither for love nor money'. (It says something of the savagery of the times that 'love' could have come to mean 'nothing'.) It was called a 'service' because the task of beginning the rally was carried out by a servant for his master. The canny player might have used this to his advantage: 'Ah, my good Lord Salisbury, I am so looking forward to the game. Have you met my servant, Sampras?'

Alexandru didn't look entirely satisfied as I attempted to translate the gist of all this into simple English.

'Did you follow that Alexandru?' I asked.

The most of it, yes,' he replied.

'You know what I always say,' I continued. 'I think it would be better if we took what the umpire says at the beginning of every match as a piece of advice. "Love all". If we did, then the world would be a much better place. It's only as shitty as it is because we're all trying to get the advantage.'

A baffled Alexandru eyed me blankly.

'I do not understand.'

You're not alone there, Alexandru.

Elena was thrilled. Maybe she'd thought that I wouldn't turn up, but her little face beamed with excitement as I met her outside the school gates.

This is my friend Mariana,' she said, gesturing to a pretty girl who did a kind of half curtsy. 'You must come inside now, Miss Tudoreanu is expecting you.'

She was too. She ushered me into the class and proceeded with her lesson much as if I was a school inspector. Had that actually have been my metier then I would have been well impressed, as the attentive children took it in turns reading from a text book. Soon I found myself engrossed in the gripping story of Uncle Oscar and Aunt Agatha.

"'My Uncle Oscar was a very nice man",' began Elena, who in volunteering herself as the first reader had raised her arm with such enthusiasm that she must have nearly pulled it out of its socket. "'Every morning on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday he usually took the seven forty-five bus and started for work . . ."'

Only the occasional corrections from Miss Tudoreanu prevented me from losing myself totally in the dramatic events of Uncle Oscar's life.

'"Uncle Oscar went to the bank early in the morning and returned home rather late. He didn't go in for sports. He liked music but didn't play the piano, the violin, the flute or any other instrument. He practically never went to the theatre or to the cinema and he didn't visit exhibitions or museums either . . .'"

He was quite a guy this Uncle Oscar. Had anyone secured the film rights to his story, I wondered?

For all my reservations about the communist system, education appeared to be one domain where they had got things largely right. The schools had been well funded, the teachers had been highly respected members of society, and the kids were well disciplined. I hate to sound like a conservative old fogy on this one, but children
need
discipline. They bloody love it. They just can't get enough of it, and, from my experience, they don't. I am now at that hellish age where you go to parties and people bring their children along. Consequently too many times at too many barbecues and for too many years have I had my afternoon ruined by some spoilt little brat trying to poke my eye out or pour ketchup in my hair. There's a lot to be said for a regime which rewards that kind of behaviour with a lengthy stint in a Siberian gulag. At least at barbecues under a communist regime you'd never hear the sentence; 'Sweetness, don't insert the meat skewer there, I don't think Tony likes it.'

As the lesson drew to a close, Miss Tudoreanu turned and addressed me.

Tony, will you finish the lesson by doing a short talk for the children?' she asked, taking me quite by surprise.

'About what?'

'About London. Maybe you could talk about the British Museum.'

Before I had a chance to explain that I knew absolutely nothing about the British Museum, I had been ushered to the front of the class and been announced in such a way as to suggest that I was the world's leading expert on the subject.

What followed was a curious mixture of bullshit and fabrication. My hope was that none of the children was really listening, and instead they were allowing the curious foreign sounds coming from my mouth to become the background noise to a world of daydreams. However there remains the worry that one day there'll be a Moldovan teenager inside the British Museum demanding to see the Crown Jewels and asking where the Beefeaters are. I finished my talk and the kids cheered and applauded rapturously. They'd been an easy audience to please. Frankly, all I'd had to do was not be Miss Tudoreanu, and I though I say so myself, I'd carried it off with some aplomb.

In the coming days I made absolutely no progress in the attainment of the goal which had brought me here, but significantly I began to feel more at home than I had before. Instead of breeding contempt, familiarity was beginning to instil a nagging respect and fondness for the place. I started to see behind the grim faces of the people on the streets and to realise that there was a smile within which couldn't be coaxed out by a mere pleasantry. This was a land where the people had suffered, were still suffering, and expected to suffer tomorrow. This culture had no room for benign social platitudes. This was not a society where you urged people to 'Have a nice day' because they would simply turn round and say 'No thanks, I've already made other plans.' I was discovering that you had to be patient and wait for people to open up instead of trying to force it. Trust, like so many other commodities here, was not something which was acquired easily, but once it had been earned then the doors would begin to open.

The family began to warm to me in a way that I had not expected. Maybe there was an empathy between us which hadn't existed when I had first arrived in their country, rather cocky as I was, and full of the joys of spring. Perhaps since things had gone wrong and become a struggle, I had started to display a humility which made me more accessible to them. At the dinner table we laughed more. Sure the language was still a barrier, but I found the route to their funny bones through big visual slapstick gags. Dina, on watching me mimic a vodka-sodden man I had seen stumbling from a bar one afternoon, said that I reminded her of Mr Bean. (It was at this point that I decided to tone my performances down somewhat.)

I was now included in family outings. Adrian began to shun the confines of his room in favour of conversation. For Elena, who had always been on my side, I could do no wrong, especially since her popularity rating had greatly increased at school after the guest appearance at her English class. Grigore, who still seemed to be genuinely surprised each day when I returned to the house not having become fluent in Romanian, became more tactile, patting me on the back or putting his arm round me each time our fruitless attempts at communication ground to a halt. The barriers were down. I was starting to feel like one of the family.

On one occasion I was invited down from my room to share in a toast to Grigore's old schoolfriend Anatol, who had called round after just having been promoted to colonel in the army. As he stood proudly in his full military regalia, he made an unnerving sight for a Westerner like me who had only ever seen figures like this represented as the enemy. A brandy later, however, we felt comfortable enough to pose for photos together and put each other right on a couple of common misconceptions which we both held about the other's politicians. I now knew that Gorbachev was a prat, and Anatol that Margaret Thatcher was completely bonkers.

Marcel was the opera singer brother of Andrei from The Flying Postmen, the overly loud fellow I had met briefly on my first morning. He had promised to organise a car and a driver to take us out to Orheiul Vecchi where he was going to let me film him singing the Moldovan national anthem from a cliff top. I couldn't think of a better way of presenting to Arthur the musical piece which he would have to perform. The only difference between the two renditions would be that Marcel's would be performed with his clothes on, and that Arthur's would be crap. I allowed myself an inward chuckle at the thought of this, valiantly failing to acknowledge that the way things stood it was far more likely that I'd be the one who'd be doing all the naked singing.