Playing the Moldovans At Tennis

by Tony Hawks

  'Blimey, it works!' she screamed excitedly.

  To me, her surprise seemed unjustified. Did she think that everyone who had come here to date had actually sunk, but that they'd all got together to concoct a story simply to fool her?

  This feels weird,' she exclaimed while reclining awkwardly on the water. This is a whole new feeling!'

  Was it a whole new feeling? I looked at her there, lying on her back with her legs wide apart, and I don't know why but I doubted her for a moment.

  According to Genesis,4 it was along these shores that the Lord rained fire and brimstone on the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord, who seemed to have been ever so snappy and irritable around this time, also turned Lof's wife into a pillar of salt. Either that or Lot's wife had run off with another man and left a pillar of salt with a note pinned to it.

  4It was the angel Peter Gabriel, I think.

  GOD HAS DONE THIS TO ME TO PUNISH YOU. TEA IS IN THE OVEN.

  YOU'LL HAVE TO GET THE SHOPPING IN THOUGH – I FORGOT

  (WE DON'T NEED SALT).

  The bus journey continued south through the Negev in the direction of the Sinai desert. It was here that Moses had received the Ten Commandments from God, carved on to a tablet of stone. It is my view that a piece of that stone had broken off by the time chroniclers and historians found it, so there are vital bits missing from the commandments which we are urged to follow. For instance; Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not kill and Thou shalt not commit adultery – should read; Thou shalt not kill time, Thou shalt not steal glances, and thou shalt not commit adultery that much. Adherence to these would be so much simpler.

  We arrived in Eilat ten minutes before the sun went down which is exactly the amount of daylight you need to get to know the place. The town is little more than a cluster of modern hotels nestled at the northernmost tip of the Red Sea. The most remarkable thing about it is that the airport is just a matter of yards from the beach. When it's time to leave you can simply pick up your bags and walk to the airport. Taxi drivers must hate this place. I dumped my bags at my hotel and strolled down to the water's edge. The Red Sea struck me as being particularly blue, but then I suppose the Blue Sea wouldn't have been a very imaginative name. The truth is that it had originally been named The Reed Sea', but the omission of an 'e' by a seventeenth-century English printer had turned it Red. The typographical error could have been worse; a 'p' instead of the 'r' and it would have ended up being called the Peed Sea. That would have made the swimmers think twice.

  I went out that night looking for some fun but there was none to be had. Saddam's 'magnificent victory' over the Americans and British had fed people's irrational fear of getting bombed, so there were no big groups of pissy tourists to get lost among. Just a smattering of earnest travellers and long-haired Aussie divers. I had a meal in one of Eilat's many empty restaurants and walked back to my hotel feeling lost and alone. That night as I lay in my bed, I chanted a one-word mantra which I believed would lull me into a liberating slumber.

  'Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit . . .'

  I wasn't taking this losing thing very well at all.

  Over the next two days I tried to be a good tourist. I nurtured my tan, snorkelled and visited the Coral Underwater Observatory. None of it made me particularly happy. The trouble was that there was nothing around to snap me out of my present state of self-pity. I needed something to happen, or I needed to meet some people – anything to stop me feeling that all I was doing was killing time for three days until my flight left. It was crazy – I was spending my days sunbathing on the beaches of the Red Sea, occasionally swimming among exotic fish adjacent to the coral reefs, and all I wanted to do was go home. I couldn't help it, that was how I felt.

  The Jerusalem Post turned out to be my ticket to freedom. This Israeli paper, which is printed in English, had enabled me to keep in touch with world events.5 On my third morning of purgatory, I took tea on the hotel roof garden and thumbed through the sports pages to see if they would give any kind of update on the English football results. My eyes were drawn to a picture of two footballers locked in a tackle. There was nothing unusual in the photograph but the words written beneath it were intriguing, to say the least.

  5For 'world events' read 'Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky'.

  Lod's Yossie Arat is flattened in a clumsy tackle by Marin Spynu of Maccabi Kfar Kana, in yesterday's 1-1 draw.

  I studied the photograph more closely. The paper must have made a mistake. Neither player bore any resemblance to Marin Spynu. Mistakes happen all the time. I only had to look out over the Reed Sea for confirmation of that.

  I put the paper down and returned to my tea, but my mind would not rest If the paper had not made an error, and let's face it – that was also conceivable, then I had not played Marin Spynu. Could Johnny have screwed up and got the wrong player? Had his physiotherapist friend sent the wrong guy? I trawled my memory and recalled the conversation I'd had with Leonid, the sports journalist in Chisinau, who had told me that two Moldovan players were playing for this same club in Israel – Marin Spynu and Sergiu Nani. Could it just be that I had played the wrong one and the bet was still alive? I tried to block out all thoughts that told me that I was indulging in a large amount of straw-clutching.

  As I dialled Johnny's number my heart was pumping hard, desperate to deal with the new levels of hope which were coursing through my veins.

  'Hello, Johnny?'

  Yes.'

  'It's Tony Hawks here.'

  'Oh thank goodness you've called, we've been desperate to get hold of you, but we haven't known how to. We've been phoning England to see if anyone knew where you were.'

  Why?'

  'Because that wasn't Marin Spynu that you played in Zichron.'

  Yes! I punched the air.

  'I thought as much,' I said, 'there was a cock-up and that was the other Moldovan – Sergiu Nani, wasn't it?'

  'I wish it was that innocent,' he said, nervously. The fact is we played a trick on you Tony. The guy you played wasn't Moldovan at all. He was a local tennis pro. Arthur put me up to this I'm afraid. It was all a practical joke – but I was supposed to tell you after the game. It all went wrong when I couldn't get there. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.'

  How embarrassing, I'd been duped. The fact that this scam had been so successful was either a tribute to Arthur's initiative or to my gormlessness. I thought for a moment and then decided it was the latter. There had been clues which I had overlooked. For starters, the ease in which the whole match had been arranged. I should have known that something was amiss when it all fell into place so easily. Experience had shown that you couldn't just lift a phone and then be on court with a Moldovan footballer. You had to suffer, you had to sweat, and you had to grovel.

  Another clue had been something the phoney Spynu had said to me after the match;

  Thanks be to you.'

  No Moldovan had said that to me in all my three week stay there, when they did manage some English they always got 'thank you' right Thanks be to you' was clearly the language of someone pretending that they couldn't speak English.

  'Have you told Arthur what happened?' I asked, returning my attention to the guilt-ridden Johnny.

  Yes, and he thinks it's hilarious that you believe that you've lost. He says that he's not going to tell you that the thing was a set-up until you've finished singing the Moldovan National anthem – naked.'

  The sly bastard. I'll get him back for this.'

  'How?'

  'I don't know yet, but I'll think of something.'

  'If there's anything I can to do to help, just let me know.'

  'My, you switch allegiance pretty quick.'

  Well, I've messed up your trip – I feel awful.'

  You can do one thing for me Johnny – if Arthur calls, don't tell him that you've spoken to me.'

  'OK And listen, I've got you the mobile phone number of a guy called Faisal who seems to run the club Macca
bi Kfar Kana, let me give it to you – it might speed things up for you.'

  Thanks.'

  I took down the number, accepted yet more apologies, and hung up. I forgave Johnny. He was just a nice guy who'd fallen under the influence of evil for a short while, that's all. It could happen to any of us.

  I went straight to the hotel reception and checked out With a spring in my step I hot-footed it to the bus station, confident that I no longer required the heat of Eilat's winter sun. Now I was warm on the inside, where it counted.

  According to the map, the village of Kfar Kana was only a few miles up the road from Nazareth so this seemed like the most logical place to use for base. It made perfect sense to me that a story such as mine, which had taken on such biblical proportions, should end here in the place where one of the greatest and most famous stories in the world had begun. It was here that the Angel Gabriel brought Mary the news of her forthcoming virgin birth; it was here that Mary was charged with selling this information to a confused and slightly insecure Joseph, and it was here that Jesus grew up and worked as a carpenter.

  Actually, it has always struck me as being rather odd that Jesus should have spent so long studying and honing his carpentry skills and then not used any of them during his ministry. We read how he turned water into wine, fed the five thousand and took a bit of a stroll on some water, but there's never a mention of him stopping off anywhere and putting some shelves up for anybody. Never once is he reported as saying:

  'Arise now, and ye shall walk – oh and while I'm here, you don't want me to knock you up a bookcase to go beside the settee, do you?'

  Being the kind of chap he was, I think that's exactly the kind of warm-hearted thing Jesus would have done, but the fact is that the chroniclers of his story were trying to market him as the Son of God and probably felt it was an easier sell if people didn't see him as the kind of bloke who carried a Black & Decker Workmate around with him wherever he went. If they'd have been invented then he surely would have done. That's Messiahs for you – they're just your average human being who happens to have a shedload of wisdom. The New Messiah will most likely be an ordinary type too: a plumber, a school caretaker or a postman. I wouldn't have a problem with that; I'd happily follow him just as long as he didn't have a great big bunch of keys on his belt. You have to draw the line somewhere.

  I don't know what I had been expecting, but Nazareth was something of a disappointment. Roadworks were everywhere. Apparently the town was gearing up for 'Millennium Fever' and the expected rush of religious pilgrims and unhinged fanatics who intended to come here and commemorate the momentous occasion by doing anything from praying quietly to committing suicide en masse. Religious cults which incorporate suicide as an end to the day's activities seem to be becoming more and more common. I just wonder whether they mention it in their publicity when recruiting new membership.

  JOIN THE CULT OF THE SOLAR TEMPLE

  FOR EXCITING NIGHTS OF PRAYER, TABLE TENNIS

  AND EVENTUAL SUICIDE

  (Delete as applicable)

  I prefer to be buried/cremated/used for dodgy experiments.

  The first two hotels I called at were full, but the man in the second one, which was a Roman Catholic hospice, said that I should find a vacancy with the Sisters of Nazareth. The Guest House wing of a convent didn't seem like the most exciting place in the world to stay, but since I was growing tired of lugging my bags around, it would have to do.

  The convent stood behind a forbidding wall and was arranged around a magnificent courtyard complete with fountain and palm trees. Nuns criss-crossed it, eager to go about their business. For a moment I stood there, bags at my feet, dazzled by this exquisite scene. No doubt about it, I had missed my vocation. I should have been a nun. Maybe they'd let me join? I could found the tennis department. All I would ask is that they let me off 6.00 am prayers – I'd just pray twice as hard after breakfast.

  Tour room is over on ze left,' said Sister Anne Marie in a strong French accent, clearly disconcerted by the way I'd been eyeing the place. 'Zair is a nine o'clock curfew.'

  In by nine o'clock, righto. I would have to give Nazareth's Studio 54 a miss tonight

  That night I again ate in a restaurant where I was the sole diner. Single-handedly I was keeping the Israeli tourist industry ticking over. After a kebab designed to give courage, I called Faisal, the boss man of Maccabi Kfar Kana. I was nervous. If Faisal was obstructive then life would be very difficult indeed. My mobile connected with his and a precarious signal afforded us the kind of conversation two people might share who were shouting through a six foot thick stone wall. Everything was repeated four times and nothing was properly understood. Thank God for mobile communication. From what I could make out though, Faisal had not been hostile and I was under the impression that he had invited me to training in the morning. This would have been better news if the signal hadn't disappeared before I could find out where it was taking place. Never mind, I would think of something.

  I returned to the convent at 8.59 pm, having been careful not to have wasted the time available to me in the free world, and I went to make a hot drink in the area designated as communal lounge and kitchen. Here I made the acquaintance of two Japanese guys and a Frenchman called Jean. The Japanese didn't speak much English and Jean didn't speak much sense. The combination of these two factors made for a painful twenty minutes. They say that a watched kettle never boils (from my experience I've found that the same is true if you don't push that little button in at the back) and boy was I watching that kettle. It turned out that all three of my new chums were religious pilgrims who were keen to quote the Bible whenever possible, Jean with an unstoppable enthusiasm. He was a nice enough chap and, to be fair, he did give me quite a lot of his biscuits, but I did have to suffer 'how he found God' in return. It was a fair trade though. They were good biscuits. Good biscuits were turning out to be about all I could hope for in the fun department on this trip. Oh well, just do the job you came here for, I told myself, after all I was closing in on the real Spynu.

  According to the Gospel of John it was in the Arab village of Kfar Kana that Jesus performed his first miracle – turning water into wine at a wedding feast, a trick that is always going to see you pretty high up on the list when the invitations are being drawn up.

  Who shall we invite?''

  Well, Jesus would be good. He's ever such a nice fellow. And cancel that order with Oddbins.'

  My miracle, though small in comparison, is still worthy of a mention. Having alighted from the Nazareth bus, I was standing in the middle of Kfar Kana's deserted main street unsure of what to do next, when a car pulled up in front of me and a young man got out and moved towards the bread shop behind me.

  'Excuse me,' I asked, 'but is there a football ground anywhere round here?'

  Why do you want to know?' he replied.

  'Because I'm going there.'

  'Me too, wait here, I will take you in my car.'

  This guy turned out to be Wasim, one of Maccabi Kfar Kana's footballers who was on the way to training. OK not water into wine, but not bad for a beginner.

  What was to follow was quite at odds with my Moldovan 'football experience'. At the ground Wasim introduced me to a handsome-looking man called Mywan.

  'Ah Tony, pleased to meet you. Faisal told us you were coming. You are most welcome.'

  Mywan was a former player who was now the club's general manager. He was also so charming and friendly that I decided he was my hero.

  Would you like some tea?' he enquired.

  Tea. I'd been offered tea. No-one in the Moldovan world of football had even come close to offering me a cup of tea.

  'Ooh, yes please Mywan, I'd love one.'

  A young lad was sent scurrying off to fetch me one and when he returned, I held the cup proudly in my hands. Each sip confirmed for me that I was among friends. I was introduced to Baruch, a big man whose figure provided his track suit with lavish contours. He was from Moldova and was both Mari
n Spynu and Sergiu Nani's agent, his implausible job being to facilitate the movement of footballers from Moldova to Israel. I assumed his company was called Wilderness Transfers Ltd'. I explained to him why I was stood here at an Israeli second division football club's training ground and he laughed heartily, especially at the mention of the naked anthem singing.

  'So you played Miterev?' he said.

  Yes, he was the first one actually.'

  'And Testimitanu?'

  'Yes.'

  'I was trying to bring him out here. What about Sischin?'

  And so the conversation went on, the surprising arrival of this eccentric Englishman affording Baruch the opportunity to remind himself of the country and friends he'd left behind.

  'Do you think Marin would agree to play tennis with me?' I asked, cautiously.

  'I don't see why not. You know that he doesn't speak any English?'

  'Yes, I was wondering if you might translate for me?'

  'No problem.'

  Mywan arrived with another cup of tea. I did like it here.

  Coincidentally the real Spynu didn't look unlike the phoney one had done. Similar height, similar hair colour and similar features. Just as long as his tennis bore no similarities, I would be happy. Baruch introduced me to him and I was greeted with the now familiar combination of confusion and shyness. It transpired that neither he nor Sergiu Nani had heard a thing about me. Evidently to Moldovan footballers, an Englishman who had devoted months of his time traversing the world in their hot pursuit did not constitute news. They didn't indulge in long phone calls with colleagues catching up on news and gossip. The Moldovan footballer says what needs to be said and then gets on with the business in hand with an air of resigned stoicism.

  Baruch explained to Marin what was expected of him and he listened and nodded obediently.

  'He will play you tomorrow morning,' said Baruch assuredly.