Playing the Moldovans At Tennis (8 page)

'I'll have a Big Mac and fries please,' I said to the uniformed girl behind the till.

Yes, I'm afraid it had come to that. My search for night-life and culture had led me to McDonald's. I pray for the people of Moldova that this is not an omen for their cultural future.

'O zi buna,'
said the girl, this neatly turned out servant to multi-national profit

This, I took it, meant 'Have a nice day'. What else? That anodyne platitude which has come to so irritate me. I have nothing against common courtesy and manners, but surely Thank you' and 'Goodbye' suffice. Whenever someone in a fast food restaurant says 'Have a nice day' to me, I want to go back to that establishment the next day and tell them exactly what kind of a day I had – in great detail – when they're really busy.

I made my way over to a characterless synthetic table and planted myself on the standard McDonald's plastic seat, designed in such a way as to provide adequate comfort for the consumption of a meal but not to nurture any desire to sit back and relax after its completion. You can imagine some ambitious American go-getter standing up to speak at the 'Profit Maximisation' meeting: 'Every second that a table is occupied by a non-eater costs us dollars and cents. Remember – time is money.'

I walked home, as unsatisfied with my meal as by what it had come to signify for me. I found it upsetting that however hideously wrong their previous economic system had been, countries like Moldova were so eager to replace it with one which was also so manifestly flawed. They wanted to be capitalists, and they wanted to be capitalists fast This was to be the answer. Now all they had to do was work out what the question was.

That night I became ill. My stomach erupted like a mini-volcano and my bowels were evacuated as thoroughly as wartime London. I had begun to feel the nascent rumblings earlier in the day but had chosen to ignore them in the hope that they would go away. This very rarely works (not just with regard to ailments but in other areas too – mortgage lenders, stalkers and occupying foreign troops), but somehow I feel it's always worth giving it a go. The tactic had once again failed. The stomach was having its say – finally revolting against the melange of Eastern European foodstuffs to which it had been submitted in recent days. The irony was that the meal which appeared to have triggered the releasing of the sluice gates was as Western as they come. A Big Mac and fries. That bloody gherkin.

Up until now my stomach had stood up pretty well to the rigours of world travel, certainly having performed considerably better than the intestines of an erstwhile travelling companion of mine Tim, whose stomach would flush out the entire contents of his body as soon as the ferry docked in Calais. Of course being such a sufferer, the contents of his baggage always included an entire medicine cabinet containing potions which could regulate the speed at which he bad farewell to his food intake. My problem was that I was hopelessly unprepared. I didn't want to disturb the two sleeping doctors in the house so I had a quick rummage through my bag in search of medication, but was only able to produce some Strepsils. Damn. Oh well, I took one anyway, thinking that not to take anything at all would have been negligent.

It was a miserable night. For eight interminable hours I lay in my bed shivering, knowing that it was only a matter of minutes before the house's dubious plumbing system was subjected to another deposit from mine. I tried to convince myself that this experience wasn't entirely negative.

It's OK. It's character building,
I thought to myself.

But did I really need any more character built? And even if I did, hadn't I reached a point in my life where I could get character builders in? A reputable firm of character builders, with references and everything, who'd do a good job and not let me down?

At 4 am, in a weakened state close to delirium, my mind began to run further out of control. I imagined a beer-bellied foreman standing before me, from just such a company.

FOREMAN
: And you say you want us to do something with your pain threshold?

TONY
: Yes, it definitely needs building up. Perhaps you could add an extension?

FOREMAN
: Could do, but an extension's a big job. It'd take us at least four weeks.

TONY
: Oh, I was hoping you could do it quicker.

FOREMAN
: Not a chance. They're tricky numbers – your pain thresholds. You look like you've got some cracks appearing in your resilience.

TONY
: Really? Is that expensive to put right?

FOREMAN
: Not really. We can just concrete over them.

TONY
: Good. Talking of concrete . . . and cracks – you couldn't concrete over my arse could you?

FOREMAN
: We could, but not until Tuesday week.

TONY
: That's no good, I need it done now. Can't you see that it's urgent?

FOREMAN
: Oh dear. Your patience is in a terrible state. Who put that in for you? Cowboy character builders, I bet. They give us lot a bad name.

*

Morning finally arrived. I could confidently state that, other than my vital organs, there wasn't a single solid left in my body. The only consolation was that my throat wasn't sore, and that throughout the long and hellish night, I hadn't coughed once. Those Strepsils really are terribly good.

Still feeling shaky, I made my way down to join the family at breakfast. At last here was an opportunity to take advantage of the fact that I was in the house of two doctors whose counsel I could seek on the subject of my ailing stomach. Even in a country like Moldova, which isn't known for its stockpile of the world's latest drugs, surely they would be able to offer a more effective treatment than Strepsils. The problem, as ever, was communication. Adrian was still asleep and Elena had absolutely no idea what the word 'diarrhoea' meant. (She had obviously not paid attention in the English class which had covered bottom disorders.)

While I struggled to make myself understood, Grigore went about the business of offering me food. My polite refusal only served to make him re-double his efforts to find me something I wanted. And so here was the scene: an Englishman trying to describe the nature of diarrhoea in simple words for the comprehension of an 11-year-old Moldovan girl, while her father ransacked a fridge in order to hold a range of dairy products in front of the said Englishman's nose for his immediate rejection. All my life had been building to this. Finally I nodded to a yoghurt, thinking that not to do so might have serious consequences for Grigore's health. There was no point in two of us being ill. The Status Quo thus prevailed, which involved my being ill and nobody else knowing about it.

At one point I excused myself and went to my room to see if my
Teach Yourself Romanian
book could be of any assistance. Of course it couldn't. According to its authors, 'Acrobat' is a far more important word than 'Diarrhoea'. Not a lot of use unless I wanted to be prescribed a cure for cartwheels. And so I returned to the breakfast table with only one option open to me. Unfortunately that option was mime.

I looked at Elena, a little girl desperate to know what it was I was trying to tell her. I shook my head at Grigore for a final time as he waved what looked like a pig's head in front of me. Then I did something that I didn't want to do, especially to a host family happily engaged with breakfast, but my hand had been forced. I stood up, walked to the middle of the room, pointed to my bottom and then ran out of the room in the direction of the toilet. It was brief, it was unsubtle, but it was successful – because seconds later, when I returned to a room full of people desperately suppressing laughter, there was a small bottle of medicine waiting for me at my place setting.

Thank you so much,' I sighed, immensely relieved at the sight of the drugs.

The junky had finally got his fix.

The plan was uncomplicated. Go to the match and make friends with Testimitanu, Miterev, Rebeja, Romanenko and Fistican. Easy. Provided Zimbru had the big home win which was expected of them, I could see no reason why the players wouldn't be absolutely delighted to meet the man responsible for giving them the T-shirt which had so enhanced their wardrobe.

'At home', for FC Zimbru Chisinau, meant playing at a stadium in a small village thirty miles out of the capital. Quite why they did this, the football expert Leonid had failed to explain, but I had accepted it as just another of this country's many anomalies. Like Moldova's night-time streets, I was to remain in the dark.

I had hired a car (well, to be more precise a Lada) and a driver, and as I climbed into the back seat I prayed that Grigore's magic potion would ensure that the yoghurt I had eaten at breakfast would remain inside me. I did not wish my first meeting with a Moldovan footballer to coincide with a small accident in my trousers which left them thinking:

'My goodness, he
is
nervous.'

We were looking for a small village called Speia and, naturally enough, we got lost Iulian was involved in the now standard map reading quarrel with the driver, a pasty fellow called Iura. I resisted the strong urge to point out that we would get there quicker if we worked from the assumption that Iulian was always wrong. When Iura realised this for himself, he got us on to the right road and finally to Speia which was no more than an ugly spread of a few small apartment blocks with all the community atmosphere of Croydon. We drove around in search of the ground but found the streets to be deserted but for the occasional stray dog. Where were the hordes of fans making their way to the game? After all this was Moldova's premier football club we were attempting to find – there ought to be a fan or two on show.

Twenty minutes later, after having visited a school, a doctor's surgery, and the Moldovan equivalent of an industrial estate (a lockup garage), quite by chance we found ourselves driving towards the stands of a surprisingly big ground. All around it were fields and gently rolling hills. It was bizarre to see such a big stadium in so emphatically a rural setting. No doubt it had been one of the absurd decisions taken during the years of communism by the People's Committee for Absurd Decisions:

COMRADE
1: Comrades, the Proletariat must have recreation, and the Workers must be rewarded for attaining the levels of production specified in Comrade Brezhnev's last Five Year Plan – therefore it is proposed that we reward them by building a stadium with a capacity of 22,500 in the middle of sodding nowhere.

COMRADE
2: Excellent idea Comrade.

COMRADE
3: Nice one.

COMRADE
4: (Aside) He talks a lot of sense, but he will spoil it by swearing.

There was no admission fee to enter the ground. It was unclear whether this was because of a continued adherence to the philosophy that this was a stadium which belonged to the People, or because nobody could be arsed to build a wall around it. Maybe turnstiles were considered to be a bourgeois Western idea – or maybe they were just bloody difficult to get hold of. Either way, it didn't matter given that no-one turned up anyway. Zimbru Chisinau may have won the domestic Championship five years out of the last six, but they appeared to have acquired only three loyal followers for each of the years that they had done so. It was only down to our last-minute arrival, which bolstered the attendance by three, that the crowd outnumbered the 22 footballers who were warming up down on the pitch.

In my view, not charging an admission fee, however nominal, is always a mistake. It's a psychological thing. If the punter parts with some money then he
commits.
He's more likely to have a good time because he'll work harder to try and get his money's worth. Even if he hates what he has come to see, he has the satisfaction of being genuinely aggrieved
because
he has paid to see it. Had it been something free which had irked him so, then the punter would be forced to accept that the blame lay with him for having been mug enough to have used his time so wantonly. Therefore I conclude that the old adage The best things in life are free' is erroneous, and should be replaced by The best things in life are £12.50, £10.50, £8.50, and £6.00 for concessions.'

Whatever the best things in life are, and whatever they cost, I was not experiencing any of them on this particular Saturday. My stomach still threatened treachery and my entire body felt weakened by the exertions of, to put it poetically, The night of a thousand poos'. Furthermore, the dire football which I was watching was rendered even more tiresome by my translator's spectacular ignorance.

That was a good kick . . . Oh. What did he blow the whistle for?'

'Because he was off-side.'

'Oh . . . what is off-side?'

It wasn't as bad as explaining the rules of cricket to an American, but bringing Iulian up to speed with the nature of the off-side laws wasn't a breeze. My initial attempt at keeping it simple left him utterly confused, and in my next effort I made the mistake of providing far too much detail. This still left him utterly confused, but somehow feeling obliged to give the impression of comprehension. This took the form of him asking pointless follow up questions throughout the afternoon, beginning with:

'Do you think they are going to use the off-side trap?'

'I don't know Iulian.'

And then, twenty minutes later:

'Did you say that you cannot be off-side from a throw-in?'

Yes Iulian.'

Concluding with:

'Shouldn't the defence be pushing out now?'

I didn't reply to this one. I felt this was a better option than saying what I was thinking.

*

To our right, behind one of the goals, a group of some fifteen youths were gathered in a huddle chanting enthusiastic support for their team.

'FC Zimbru! FC Zimbru!'
they shouted, somehow believing this to be a worthwhile activity.

It said something for the drabness of their lives that what was unfolding before them appeared exciting. It was one of the worst football matches I had ever seen.

At half time the score remained 0-0 with neither goalkeeper having been troubled by anything other than wayward backpasses. As the players traipsed off the pitch for their half time team talks ('Look, for God's sake – be better!'), I noticed that the president of Zimbru with whom we had spoken earlier in the week, didn't follow his players into the dressing room.

'Let's go and talk to him,' I suggested to Iulian.

You think we should? I imagine that he does not want to talk right now.'

Well, there's only one way of finding out'

'I don't know – he looks anxious.'

'Come on Iulian. I'm never going to win this bet if I do things by half measures.'

Iulian, who even on a good day was only a quarter measure man, followed me reluctantly down to the touchline where we cornered Nicolae Ciornii and asked if I could meet the players after the game. He told us that this would not be a problem, news which lifted my spirits for the second half.

According to Iulian, Zimbru meant Zebra. Of course it did, and no doubt that was why the team played in those well-known zebra colours of yellow and green. The highlight of the second half was when an Olympia Belţi defender went to clear a ball and his boot flew off. I might have found this funny if I hadn't felt so ill, bored, and pissed off that Zimbru couldn't score. A nil-nil draw would be a disaster for me since the players, who had been expected to win easily, would be depressed and in no mood for socialising.

The referee blew the whistle for full time. A nil-nil draw. Iulian and I wandered down to the touchline and were told by Nicolae Ciornii that the players, having been expected to win easily, were depressed and in no mood for socialising. It seemed that tonight, Testimitanu, Miterev, Rebeja, Romanenko or Fistican would not be my drinking partners in one of the hostelries in fun-packed Chisinau.

On my insistence, we hung around by the Zimbru coach in the hope of falling into a conversation with one of the players after they had showered, changed and been given a thorough dressing down by their manager. I hovered over Iulian urging him to stop players and introduce me to them. His face told the story of a man who was in the employ of someone who had lost his mind, but who was paying him and therefore needed to be gratified. We managed to intercept one footballer with a shaven head who turned out to be one of the players I needed – Ion Testimitanu. Iulian addressed him in Romanian and pointed to me in a way which I took to be an introduction. Of course he may have been saying 'Look I'm sorry about this, but this bloke pays me thirty dollars a day to bother footballers. Just shake his hand and I promise I'll get him out of your hair straight away.'

I moved forward and shook Testimitanu's hand. He looked like he was going to cry. The after-match team talk must have been severe. Football managers are evidently the same the world over. After their players have failed, they motivate them for the next game by telling them that they are lazy, talentless shits. It says something about footballers that they respond to this.

'Did you receive my Wimbledon T-shirt?' I said to an exhausted looking Testimitanu.

The fatigued footballer launched into a long speech which appeared not to be entirely positive in nature. What could the problem be? Was he not happy with an Extra Large? When he finally ran out of words, he turned and got on to the coach without even so much as a goodbye.

'What did he say?' I asked Iulian.

'He said he was tired.'

How could that have been? I knew that I was no expert in Romanian but how could Testimitanu have spoken for such an extensive period only to have articulated a feeling of tiredness? Either Testimitanu was a master in circumlocution, or Iulian was knackered. He just couldn't be bothered. Or, was he saving me from the savage truth of Testimitanu's words so that my increasingly fragile optimism wouldn't have to take a further knock?

'Let's go home,' I said, skilfully gauging the general humour.

Testimitanu was in a bad mood. Iulian was in a bad mood. I was in a bad mood. There was nothing else for it. As the Zimbru coach roared off, we piled back into Iura's car for the hour's drive back to Chisinau. What fun.

The entrance to Moldova's capital is marked by what locals call The Gates of Chisinau'. Disappointingly these aren't ancient gates but rather two vast triangular apartment blocks on either side of the main highway into the city. Pretty they may not be, but they are striking. I asked Iura to slow the car down so I could film them for posterity and he happily obliged, although I noticed that he did so while remaining in the fast lane. Moments later there was a blaring of a horn behind us. Seeing that I was still filming Iura maintained his slow speed despite the noisy protest from the car behind.

'It's OK Iura I've finished filming,' I said, eager not to witness an incidence of Moldovan road rage.

I was too late. A spanking brand new navy-blue Mercedes drew up alongside us and the man in the passenger seat began shouting obscenities at Iura. At least I assumed they were obscenities – it did not look like he was enquiring as to the nature of the time.

'Oh no, this is not good,' said a nervous-looking Iulian.

'Why?'

That guy is well known – a very powerful man. He is known as "The Television".'

Why do they call him that?'

'Because he is famous for having crashed his car while watching television in it.'

Evidently Moldovan soap operas make compulsive viewing. I suppose his one consolation would have been that after the accident he could have watched himself on the traffic news – 'Look, there's me! Being cut free from that car!'

Whatever he was watching at the moment wasn't calming his nerves. I wondered whether his behaviour was governed by his viewing subject matter. I just prayed that he wasn't presently engrossed in a movie involving a high-speed car chase which ended with a roadside shooting.

'He is mad,' whimpered Iulian. 'He is trying to force us off the road.'

He was too. The blue Mercedes kept cutting in front of us while The Television waved his arms frantically, gesturing towards the side of the road.

'I think, Iulian, that he wants us to stop,' I said, as calmly as I could.

'I agree that this is what he wants,' replied an ashen-faced Iulian. 'And I think we should stop.'

Iulian instructed Iura to pull over, and the blue Mercedes drew to a halt in front of us, enabling The Television and another man in a suit to get out and walk back to our car like traffic cops. My mind raced with the possibilities of what the next few minutes might hold for us. None of them involved all of us being invited back to their place for tea and scones.

An anxious Iura was ordered out of the car, and he wisely obeyed. He was then given a five-minute lecture by The Television, the subject matter of which I could only assume involved a list of negative consequences should he not produce an apology for his foolish driving. Iura nodded meekly to each point which was being made to him. Precisely the right course of action, I thought. No point in getting involved in a protracted argument over the finer points of the Highway Code with this man – broad-shouldered, mean-looking, as he was. The problem with this Television was that if you didn't like what you saw you couldn't just switch channels – 'I've had enough of all this violent gangster stuff, what I'd like now is a nice gentle wildlife documentary.'

Iura's apologies must have been accepted because the two men who'd been so concerned for our road safety returned to their car and drove off without demanding any further redress.

'Iura says that this guy wasn't The Television after all,' said Iulian, as Iura climbed back into the driver's seat

'Really?'

Yes, I made a mistake.'

'Easily done,' I quipped. The Television all looks the same these days.'

Iulian didn't smile. Either because he was still thinking about what had just happened, or because he had spotted that I hadn't said anything funny. The look of relief on both his and Iura's face suggested that we may have been in more danger than I'd actually realised. It was comforting to know that we could now continue our journey into Chisinau without recourse to stopping at any hospitals on the way.