The Union of Synchronised Swimmers

by Cristina Sandu

  He disappears through the security check. I go to the counter where I am just in time to buy a ticket. I will have thirty euros left. I will return, after all, a winner.

  Despite the fabulous sports complex that The Near Side of the River has, its athletes don’t get to show their skills to anyone except their own countrymen. But, if they are good enough, they cross the bridge to the neighbouring country on The Far Side of the River, where they get a new passport and membership to a sports club that is internationally recognised. Sports is important on both sides of the river: a fragile link between two countries looking away from each other. In fact, in international competitions, the athletes of one side carry the flag of the other, and even sing their national anthem.

  The girls arrived in the country they had thus far seen only as a bushy landscape behind the river bank. The city smelled of snow melting under car wheels, and of exhaust fumes and chestnuts cooked in huge pans in the middle of the street. Unlike at home, the chimneys of the factories did not puncture the horizon; instead, rows of sturdy, rough apartment blocks pushed the sky up further. The girls recognised the McDonald’s from afar, even if they had never visited one before.

  They walked, the burger wrappings rustling in pace with the snow under their shoes, making them advance slowly, tip-toeing between excitement and anguish. They ended up in a park, where they greeted the stony face of an exiled poet. The snow was mostly grey and yellow. Only the cathedral boasted a clean white. Next to the cathedral, a scrawny dog was sniffing the frozen core of an apple.

  From that day on, the girls’ view of the country that now owned them was limited to the windows of the swimming hall: first, new layers of snow one after the other; then, when the snow melted, a faceless street corner. What happened inside the swimming hall was all that mattered. For the first time, this side of the river would be part of the Synchronised Swimming Championship, and all because of the girls who had stretched their languid bodies on a river bank not so long ago.

  The coaches stood by the pool, stone-hard determination on their faces, shouting when one toe pointed in the wrong direction. The toe straightened quickly. Insubordination would be a sign of disloyalty, so the girls did as they were expected. They tore their legs into splits even more impressive than before. They made propellers out of their hands. Their bodies became masts rising above the water’s surface. The smallest of them was thrown into the air, darting like a cannonball, at which point she would spread her arms and legs like a five-pointed star. The black swimming suits changed to canary yellow. A music compilation was put together for them, a balance of classical and modern music with some local folk melodies, during which they ploughed across the surface of the pool.

  In the evenings, when they fell on their beds like lumbered trees, the girls felt the movement of water inside their bodies. It rocked them to a place that belonged neither to this nor to that side of the river. The beauty of the threshold: on the other side of it, everything was still possible. Perhaps they were happier then, more complete and satisfied, than they ever have been or would be.

  When the visas arrived, they were elegantly folded in between the girls’ passports, like they had always belonged there.

  NINA, ROME

  6.15 am

  Nina makes herself a quick breakfast in the kitchen and returns to her room, where she curls up in the still-warm sheets and nibbles at some bread. She looks at a black crucifix hanging on the wall, a framed map of Rome, and a metal shelf filled with Italian novels — her silent and meaningless companions. Her eyes stick to the titles like flies caught in glue. She springs from her bed, opens one of the books at random, and starts reading. She realises that not only the text but also her own thoughts are in a language that’s not her own.

  7.00 am

  The customers pour out while Nina holds the café door open. Sentences do not glide past her but through her. Even people look different today. Now that the movements of their lips, the arches of their eyebrows, the expressions in their eyes, and the sloping of their shoulders chime with what they say, their features have sharpened. Nina orders a cappuccino, places her bag on the counter, and tastes the words in her mouth.

  Tourist season starts soon, right?

  The waiter rolls his eyes dramatically. Don’t even mention it, he scoffs, banging the strainer against the sink.

  Where I come from, there are no tourists, Nina says.

  Oh, I thought you were from around here. From the south then?

  No! Actually, I’m not Italian.

  The waiter asks with casual surprise: Wow, where did you learn Italian?

  Nina scoops the foam with her spoon and licks it, quickly, like wiping away a secret. She grins and tilts her head. The door is constantly opening and closing, the cups are chinking, somebody wants brown sugar. She looks for an answer but only manages to laugh.

  Her lips, which have grown accustomed to silence since her arrival in this country, now feel supple. Words do not come to her from the outside, but from within, whole and ready. The articles slip into their places effortlessly: they don’t make her stutter, but drip from her lips. The endings of words, which are forever changing in her mother tongue, straighten. Diminutives, usually everywhere, fade.

  The coffee is so strong. I just had one sip and I’m completely awake, Nina giggles.

  She drinks her coffee like it’s an espresso and orders another. A drop of sweat lingers on her temple. It’s so easy to be here and pause the morning for a while. Now she can even recognise irony — Whatever you do, don’t let your coffee get cold, miss, says the waiter — and she answers in the same way, making words circle around the intended message.

  She leans her elbows on the counter, pushes her short hair back behind her ears, and fiddles with the empty cup. She is completely alert. She thinks that something is missing and soon realises it’s shame. She places the bill under the cup and hurries to the bus stop.

  8.15 am

  Nina doesn’t know much about what’s going on at the warehouse, except for her own tasks. Valeria helped her get the job as a picker. The boxes handled by pickers contain drinks and food that stay unchanged for years: cheese crackers, sugary popcorn, crisps, and sodas.

  She leaves her bag inside a locker marked with her name and puts on a yellow safety vest. She sees a glint of Valeria’s red perm in the glass-walled office. Valeria is speaking intensely on the phone and does not see her. They will catch up later. Nina was lucky to meet her immediately after moving to Italy. Valeria helped her settle into Italian life, showed her around and told her what she needed to do to fit in. That was a month ago. Even if Valeria isn’t from the same place as Nina, they share a mother tongue.

  There is a constant humming in the warehouse: computers, air conditioners, lamps. The steel shelves rise like giants. The lamps aren’t visible — their white light spills in between the ceiling and the uppermost shelves. The safety vest swishes as Nina pushes the cart towards the first shelf, the location of which is written down on the day’s to-do list. Every time she moves, the safety vest reeks of years-old sweat.

  There’s nothing that I can’t say in both languages, she thinks, and grabs the handles of the cart. Nothing stays inside one language. Each thought — like the one of how she will eventually grow numb to the noise and the smell of the warehouse — begets its double.

  10.22 am

  The delivery vans wait in the car park in sturdy silence. One has just arrived. The door opens and Angelo appears. He’s the only driver who always greets Nina with a charming hello, which is why she now heads towards him, lips already prepared for an opening sentence. There is a naive excitement on her face as she asks: How are you today, mister Angelo?

  He is focused on searching through his pockets and looks startled, as if this little woman has sprung up from under the asphalt.

  Spring is here, isn’t it, Angelo?

  She can feel that new enti
ty that is absent from her mother tongue, the copula: to be. How naturally it falls into place, like rainfall on a dry stream.

  A lovely day! she says, panic now creeping into her voice.

  A few darts of spittle land on Angelo’s sunglasses. He straightens his back, smiles amusedly, touches his ponytail, and, as he jangles his keys, says in English: Very good miss, very good Italian!

  The tattoo at the bottom of his neck moves. It’s one half of a swordfish who has speared a hairy mole with its bill. Angelo swings the keys in the air, notices something, and starts walking towards it. There is a woman at the door of the warehouse. He lights a cigarette for her before doing one for himself. The woman takes the cigarette sulkily and glances at Nina.

  Who’s that?

  Angelo gazes at Nina and snorts. He stretches his arms, the cigarette fuming skyward, and says: Ah, no one, just some Russki.

  Like a flung stone, the word catches Nina off guard, almost toppling her over. He waves his hand high and smiles at her.

  12.30 pm

  Nina squeezes her way between the lunch tables to the back of the room, where Valeria and Mia are sitting. They both work in customer service. At the beginning, when Nina’s back ached every day, they comforted her with prospects of a promotion. Some day, when Nina’s Italian is fluent enough, she will sit in a comfortable chair and just answer the phone.

  Valeria asks her: How are you, amore?

  Since this morning, Nina has been waiting to tell them, her only friends, what happened. Maybe she will switch straight into Italian and share her news like it’s nothing, let shock settle on their faces and then welcome their hysterical queries. Afterwards, when they have calmed down and digested the situation, they will start a new conversation in effortless Italian, the three of them, heads bent together in confidence.

  I’m okay, Nina says in English, fiddling with her piercings. She smiles timidly, like a child in front of older playmates, and opens the plastic container with yesterday’s leftovers.

  The women nod encouragingly and return to Italian. Mia, who is from Naples, looks relieved, like she has dipped from a cold pool into a warm one. She tells Valeria about the coming weekend trip home, pronouncing the last word dreamily, like it was not just a train ride away.

  When Valeria unwraps her sandwich, the smell of ham bursts out and a wrinkle appears on the side of Mia’s nose. Nina closes her container; the pasta is overcooked and the tomatoes watery.

  12.45 pm

  On the surface of it, it’s a day like any other. Dust grows in the corners of the room with the first dead flies of spring. The sun isn’t visible, but its light condenses on the surface of the vans and enters the room through the window.

  Cолнышко. Not sun, but little sun. Nina’s lips form the edges of the word, rounding her mouth like a glassblower. The fact that her thoughts have been floating around in Italian for the whole day only now sinks in — but it comes back to her, her mother tongue, with that gentle, playful solnyshka. Unlike its Italian counterparts, the word implies a childhood sun that hisses as it sinks behind a river.

  A very young woman stands in front of the draining board and empties an instant coffee sachet into a mug. The safety vest stretches across her enormous back, almost bursting at the edges, and squeezes under her armpits.

  Mia leans towards Valeria and puts her hands together. Speaking of whales, she says, I don’t know if you’ve seen our new employee yet. I hear she’s the boss’ niece and failed all her exams in Roma Tre.

  Valeria’s eyes are narrow as she frowns. Nina expects her to snap at Mia for her meanness.

  That one is a real p–—, Valeria says cheerfully, and looks at the girl who is now stirring her coffee. She beckons her to join them. The girl, insecure but content, walks towards them holding the coffee mug against her chest. Valeria notices that Nina is frowning at her, so she winks.

  She’s new here, she slyly tells Nina in Russian, who realises she has just been given an incomplete translation of the dialogue.

  The expression Valeria used is Italian slang, harmless-sounding at first. Its meaning, which is only recognised by speakers of Italian, refers to overweight women. And if you change one letter, the meaning also changes, this time to a derisive word for vagina. Nina carries this knowledge inside her now. It’s like a stomach ache.

  2.17 pm

  If you forget to push the boxes through your legs when you lift, you might seriously injure your back. A box falls on the floor and its contents, tiny red soda cans, roll around in the buzzing white light. Nina picks them up slowly. Her mind is still humming with the inexplicable realisation that she can now speak Italian. Inside the office, she sees Valeria holding the phone between her cheek and shoulder. It pains her to realise that she doesn’t know her after all, that the only one here who shared her language up until now is an entirely different person.

  5.52 pm

  The bar across the street from the train station is empty. The chairs and tables spread across the pavement, which is spotted with chewing gum. Nina chooses the chair closest to the road and slumps. Her feet are throbbing. Her window is on the top floor of the building behind the bar. Going there now seems impossible, as if the person who got back from work yesterday and the person who is sitting here now couldn’t occupy the same space.

  A cluster of small lamps hang above the entrance of the bar. Their light blocks the waiter’s face as he walks towards Nina. She orders a glass of house red, even if she would like a whole carafe. The waiter realises she doesn’t want to chat and leaves her alone. She feels the presence of something superfluous, and notices that she’s still wearing the safety vest. She pulls it off with one gesture, crumples it into a ball, and, without knowing what to do with it, places it under her chair.

  A train dashes through the darkness and makes the evening hold its breath. The things around her no longer feel duplicated but interlocked. Wine is just grapes in a glass. The chasm between the two languages has disappeared, leaving space for something else that, for the time being, she can only anticipate. She takes a more comfortable position in her chair and puts her cold hands in between her thighs. Even if she dragged herself here like a wounded animal, she’s suddenly so hungry that she’s ready to sink her teeth into the edge of the table. Instead, she gobbles all the nuts in the bowl and asks for more. She will just sit here to observe the trains and their passengers framed by lit windows, and guess whether they are coming or going.

  On the street next to the entrance to the tavern, three little girls imitated swimming movements. They scooped the air, which smelled of sand and manure. Their necks craned and their mouths affected a photogenic smile. They were wearing tiny, neon-coloured shorts with patterned t-shirts that revealed their rapidly growing legs and arms.

  Behind the children, the window of the tavern was blurry with dirt. It was time to turn on the TV. Beer flowed, the ashtrays filled up, and husks of sunflower seeds fell to the floor. The men sat quietly. The competition that was soon to be broadcast did not excite them in the way football did — it was, after all, just women in a pool.

  Now, shh.

  The TV crackled for a while before the image of the swimming pool settled on the screen. The tavern keeper’s fingers, yellowed from nicotine, turned the volume up. A strange language could be heard as an echo under the commentator’s voice.

  The screen homed in on the colourful swimsuits, the tight hairdos and the tense faces, identical in their makeup. Music filled the room, a place so far from the world depicted on the TV that it could have belonged to a different time altogether. Teeth cracked open the salty sunflower shells. Mouths made observations about the half-naked bodies.

  Despite the feigned disinterest on the men’s faces, their feet, stomping against the floor, betrayed excitement. Maybe the girls weren’t the most beautiful and talented competitors, but they belonged to them, like the berries and fruits growing on their soil
. Even if the other country had claimed them. And so they waited.

  But their turn never came. Other girls, beautiful indeed, delicious in their colourful swimming suits, but foreigners nonetheless, appeared. The blue of the swimming pool dissolved into their empty beer glasses. The TV went quiet. A hand stubbed out a cigarette on the counter with a disappointed gesture.

  The tavern keeper spoke first. Well that’s that, he said, clearing his throat and grabbing a grey rag. He looked at it as if expecting confirmation.

  Maybe they chickened out, said a half-blind man who was sitting right in front of the TV, gloating, with his hands protectively around his pint. And now they are hiding, embarrassed, in a corner somewhere.

  How does that saying go? With their tail between their legs …

  A sudden slap put an end to the discussion and the faces turned to the tavern keeper, who had thrown the rag down.

  Goddamn! he shouted. They escaped, don’t you get it? And they aren’t coming back, those wenches.

  He had created the kind of silence that only people of his status can create. The faint outrage gathered like phlegm in the patrons’ throats and then it was coughed away. The men rubbed their salty palms against their thighs and got up. The door of the tavern inhaled dust and slammed shut.

  Two men loitered inside. They tucked their shirts in their pants, tied a dragging shoelace. As the tavern keeper disappeared into the kitchen, they assured each other, with the solemnity that comes after drinking, that there was an explanation for everything.

  Maybe the girls won after all, one of them suggested. Then with more determination: And soon the whole world will talk about that victory!

  Reporters will come here, the other added. They’ll want to see where those missuses lived and swam. How great the land that raised them actually is!

  On the street, the little girls were about to start their performance. They raised their arms into triangles and each lifted one leg up, preparing for a jump, like they had seen on TV. A small sandal slipped out of place.