by Shawn Keys
“You want to tell him about Flora’s team?”
Daniel grinned. “You hadn’t told me her name. Flora. That’s your friend?” Seeing Azélie nod, he went on, “Honestly, I don’t think it’s necessary for me to be involved in all this. I’m merely another stranger they’d have to trust. I’ll call Matteo and tell him to expect your call. Let him know that he might be able to do a little good. If I give you his number, will you call? Chat him up? See if he can do anything?” Daniel shrugged. “I’d say it isn’t much of a risk to let him in on a few details if there’s any hope he can help her team get to where they need to go.”
“That’s a very kind offer, Daniel.” Azélie said it carefully, as if searching for any reason that she should reject it. She couldn’t find one. A wry smile crept onto her face. “You really can’t help yourself, can you?”
“What do you mean?”
“This sort of thing is what some demand a finder’s fee over. Or at least a favor being owed.” Before Daniel could object, she rushed on, “Oh I know you aren’t doing that. That’s what I mean. Just helping out of the goodness of your heart, aren’t you?”
With a gently self-deprecating laugh, Daniel answered, “Had a lot of people help me out. You know how it is when you’re young. Especially when you are filled with all that personal power, feeling like you can eat the world all on your own… it’s hard to see all the sacrifices others are making around you. I don’t blame myself for that. They made those choices of their own will, and I’m thankful. But I’d be a hypocrite if… well, now that I know about what they did… if I didn’t look for ways to make a difference for others. This doesn’t cost me much. But it might mean a lot. Seems like a pretty easy choice.”
Azélie rewarded him with a pat on his hand. “For some people, it is. Thanks again, Daniel.” She waved at the door through which the three women had departed. “You helped them. Seems to have worked out pretty well. How could I say no? No promises. Flora might want nothing to do with any of this. But we’ll see where this goes.”
Daniel nodded firmly, glad to hear it. Hate to see any team go down in flames without ever having gotten a decent shot. God knows the system is rigged enough against the small and desperate. If there’s even a chance I can give them a light at the end of this particular tunnel, it’s worth it.
What really brought a smile to his face was to see how Azélie’s shoulders seemed to relax, emerging a little from under the cloud she’d been dwelling under. He sincerely did hope her friend’s team found a way forward but giving Azélie a little hope and a way to fight back for the sake of her friends was his real reward.
With that in mind, he opened his phone and let her copy Matteo’s number from his contact list. He’d call the man in a few minutes. He didn’t worry very much that Matteo wouldn’t be willing to help. He would be the first to insist on that ‘no promises’ clause, at least not until he’d done a little research. But Daniel was confident that Matteo would be quick to commit to doing anything he could to help. Daniel knew him well enough that he could count on Matteo for that much. No doubt whatsoever.
* * *
Matteo walked slowly down the steep, stadium steps surrounding the recreation center’s main pool area. He was a big man with a powerful build. Agility wasn’t foreign to him; he wouldn’t have done very well in either of his chosen sports of judo and wrestling if he couldn’t move with a certain level of dexterity. Conversely, he hadn’t made it to the highest levels of international competition, partly because of his lack of finesse. He had seen people take nasty spills down steps like this. Once you started falling, there wasn’t a whole lot to stop a person until they impacted on the lower railing and risked getting a broken neck.
Beyond prudent caution, he had a second reason to go slower. He was scanning the pool, getting the lay of the land. It was a public facility during the early evening. Most of the late afternoon rush had cleared out. There might be a small evening rush at some point, but it wouldn’t amount to more than a half dozen people.
As it turned out, locating those he was here to find would have been easy even if the place was packed.
There were three separate pools. One was a wading pool for children, which was understandably empty at this hour. The second was a lap-pool. It was a full 50 meters, though narrow with only six lanes. It wasn’t an incredibly rich facility, so they been forced to sacrifice width for length. The last was a multi-use pool, deep enough for platform diving, but otherwise not very large.
The last was where the artistic swim team was practicing. There wasn’t any music playing, and they weren’t conducting a routine as far as he could tell. If he had to guess, he would say they were going over specific moves. That didn’t surprise him. A solid foundation of basic principles was usually at the heart of every high-performing athlete. For every hour spent polishing the artistry of a performance, it wouldn’t be strange to spend three or four hours perfecting individual movements and timing.
It was the latter he was watching them do now. As he had been told ahead of time, there were four swimmers on the team. That was a small group as artistic swimming teams were considered, but Matteo was surprised even this many had come together in Portesara. There wasn’t a single school on the island that taught this type of swimming. The four women had been self-taught until they won some money and hired a coach from abroad.
The team was shooting back and forth across the deep, square pool. Two going horizontally from his perspective, the other two vertically. Part of the exercise was for them to swim at exactly the same speed and stroke length as each other. As such, they were crossing each other’s paths in a hashtag manner. If they failed to keep pace, they would inevitably run into each other. As it was, the water that trailed behind them formed an interlocking pattern that was a ‘#’ when viewed from above.
As he neared the railing at the front of the stands, Matteo watched them. He couldn’t make out many details of each woman while they darted back and forth, as home in the water as sleek otters. Though he noticed slightly unique elements of each of them: one was taller than the others, while another had hips that were a little more prominent. He was sure he would be able to tell them apart if they were standing in front of him, but he couldn’t help but think their faces looked remarkably alike. As close as sisters, he would have said, though he had learned from Azélie that they weren’t related.
He realized that the four women were emphasizing their similarities in every way possible. It wasn’t an accident that their hair was tied back in identical bobs behind their heads. Not happenstance that their eyebrows were plucked to form the same gentle arch. Not a coincidence that they had on the same shade of waterproof lipstick. It was all part of the art that made up their chosen sport. One pattern. One symmetrical dance. One team. Four fragments of one person.
Matteo thought they were likely closer than most sisters. They spent hours with each other, mirroring each other’s movements. They would need to connect with each other emotionally both away from and during their musical performances. Understand each other. Judges and spectators would have to sense the chemistry and comradery between them. If not, they could still make a decent mark in the world, but they would never become international medal contenders.
Not about to interrupt their training, he shifted his focus to the periphery. He saw a dark-haired woman in a track suit seated on the bench below and to the left of where he was standing. Carefully heading down the rail, he moved to where he was within earshot of her. “Ms. Flora Van Niekerk?”
The woman snapped out of her contemplation. From what he could see of the papers she had been intently studying, they were a record of statistics on the team’s performance that she had compiled. “Yes?”
“Matteo Jaquet. I believe Azélie LaSouris passed on that I’d be stopping by.”
She put down her clipboard. “Hold on. I’ll come up there, so I don’t get a crick in my neck.” Rounding the end of the structure, Flora took the stairs into the specta
tor areas with a spring in her step. Matteo placed her somewhere around thirty, mature and self-assured while still carrying the air of youthful energy about her. She was the coach, but her personal fitness kept her in decent shape, though her body was well hidden under her loose-fitting track suit.
As she stepped to the railing beside him, he offered his hand, “Nice to meet you, Ms. Van Niekerk. I’m glad we were able to connect.”
“Considering you’re already in my business, Mr. Jaquet, why don’t you call me Flora?”
Inclining his head in an acknowledgement of the slightly accusatory comment, Matteo apologized, “Azélie knew she was walking a bit of a line. But she was also right in that I might be able to help. She only told me enough to get me interested.” Matteo kept Daniel’s name out of it. Eventually it was going to creep out that he was involved, but for now, he decided to keep things simple.
Gesturing down at the women swimming, Flora spoke firmly, “I’m not going to give you a chance to give these girls any false hope. I already feel bad for agreeing to this much.”
“But you did agree,” Matteo replied. “Because the only thing worse than false hope is having no hope at all. Dead in the water, so to speak, is a bad place to be. I promise that I won’t commit to do more than I can. But I’ve helped others find a path. Yours might not be a straight one. Might end up being too long or too expensive or… well, I don’t know. There are many obstacles, and I don’t know your situation or the roadblocks standing in the way of your team.” Compassion flooded his tone. “So… tell me. Let me see if I can help.”
Flora gritted her teeth, wrestling with her own mind. “It’s a lot of pressure, you know. These girls trusted me with their future. I thought we were on the right track. I honestly did. It’s hard to admit that I can’t take them all the way.”
Matteo let out a dark chuckle. “Would it help at all to say that I know how you feel?”
“Do you?” Her question came out more like a disbelieving accusation.
“As much as anyone can, what with no two situations being quite the same. Made a bad call last year. Handed off someone I cared about to a coach who I thought could take her all the way. He offered her a deal.”
“Oh yeah? What happened?”
“His name was Gregoire Rimouldi. Ever heard of him?”
“Oh.” Flora might have been an immigrant to Portesara, but being in the sporting world meant she had likely consumed at least one article on the failed Olympic team. Like everyone other person on the island, she had seen the news of him being arrested, tried and convicted of attempted murder.
“Now you know one of my secrets. Thankfully, we got her away from him before he did too much damage. She stood up to him when it mattered. Made it twice as hard for her to trust anyone to look out for her.”
She read what he was implying. “But you did.”
“Only way she was ever going to figure out a way forward. I couldn’t take her there. Hardest thing I ever had to admit.” Matteo glanced her way. “You’ve heard the expression that it takes a village to raise a child. Doesn’t stop being true when it comes to athletes. Azélie is looking out for your team’s business interests. You’re going to forge them into champions. Maybe you just need one more in your village to make sure they get noticed.”
“Shouldn’t need to convince anyone to see their potential!”
“I get it. I’ve seen a lot of good kids get left behind because their parents couldn’t afford to put them in the right school or buy them the right gear. Worst feeling in the world is trying to pull two ends of a rope together and realizing that the two halves aren’t long enough to meet in the middle. Then everything falls apart.” He shook his head, regret passing in front of his eyes. “Damn hard.” He jutted his chin toward the swimmers. “If I can connect the two ends for them, I’ll do it.”
Weighing his words, Flora came to a decision. She asked, “What do you already know?”
“Not much. Like I said, Azélie wanted to give you the final say in bringing me all the way in. She told me the sports commission wasn’t going to be taking your girls to the Central American and Caribbean Games, even with a hundred spots on the team. That’s gotta be hard news. Did they tell you why?”
With a sharp nod, Flora said, “Oh, they did. At least the official ones.”
“What do you think the unofficial ones are?”
Flora huffed. “Not hard to see. I might have gotten myself a decent tan since coming to the island, but I’m still a South African Caucasian woman with a British-descent accent. How well do you think that plays in a former French colony with a population mostly made up of people who my ancestors treated horribly? My country is finding its way out of a long, dark past. Even though I didn’t treat them like that, I don’t blame anyone for their anger over it. Thought I had factored that into my plans when I accepted this job.” She shook her head. “As much as I hate to admit it, to be fair… if there hadn’t been a restriction on numbers, I don’t think the commission would have denied me being involved. But no-one is going to be bending over backward to do me any favors. I think we need to get them thinking about the girls, not me.”
Matteo didn’t offer any false platitudes. She was an outsider in almost every way imaginable. Except here she is, trying to do right by four of our own. I’d say that puts her on the same side as us. “Let’s focus on the official reasons, then. Best way to fight prejudice is to take away all the official-sounding reasons they have to say no.”
“First off is their lack of experience,” Flora admitted. “No getting around that. They’re good, but none of them have been off the island. There isn’t anywhere else here teaching this sport on the island. I can’t even set up a local competition. There isn’t any. I considered coaching a few other teams myself if only to develop some rivalry and give everyone a little experience, but that fell through. Not enough interest.”
It wasn’t hard to see the trap. Matteo spelled it out. “If you can’t compete on the island, then you need to compete off the island. Regional competitions.”
“From which the sports commission is freezing us out. Even if they could afford to pay their own way, which they can’t, the commission isn’t giving them the option.”
“So… you need experience to compete but can’t compete to get experience.” He grunted at the all too familiar, unforgiving loop. “There are private competitions out there.”
“Those take money. Entrance fees. We might be able to afford one. Two at the outside. That would consume almost all the rest of their money. Not to mention they team needs to be high profile. You need to be invited. Or we’ll end up at competitions that no one cares about. We need exposure that forces the commission to sit up and take notice.”
Objecting a little, Matteo said, “You might need to accept the fact that this is going to be a longer road than you wanted. Those smaller competitions might not give you much glory, but they lead to the invitations for the big events that you want.”
“And I told you we don’t have the money for that path. Even if we could afford two or three entrance fees for the smaller events, that would bleed their bank account dry and leave them unable to attend a big event. After that, they’re going to be stuck in this facility without enough money to buy a bus ticket. Or anything else for that matter.”
“They’re running out of money to pay you?”
It was another sore point. Flora nodded bitterly to admit it. “That was another of the commission’s arguments. They didn’t like the fact that I was on a short clock with them. They think I’m going to bail once the well runs dry.” She scowled. “Like I would ever leave my girls just because of that.” She scowled. “Wouldn’t put it past them for them to remind the immigration department that my work visa should expire once I’m no longer being paid.”
“Other people might leave.”
“Which is precisely what they said.” Flora grimaced. “I haven’t been out of university that long. Not long enough to have a reputation t
o lean on. I came into the country as a hired gun. That’s all they can see. They expect me to run for it.”
“You seemed to be suggesting there is something more,” Matteo pointed out.
That provoked another bitter nod. “My team doesn’t exactly fit into the commission’s master plan. I was at the meeting last week. As soon as I heard what they intended, I knew what their answer would be even before I got their official notice. They are looking for wide exposure. Priority is going to individual athletes who can do multiple events. I swore I could hear them laughing from their office when they looked at our application. Four athletes in one event. Not only that, but an event that has no standing or much interest from people on the island.”
His expression scrunching as he worked the problem, Matteo ventured, “Aren’t there at least two types of events in artistic swimming?”
“Three. Team, Duet and solo,” she confirmed.
“If they can do all of them, that could up your stock,” Matteo said.
“Doing both also splits their focus.” Flora sighed. “But even before we were rejected, two of the girls expressed interest in putting together a duet routine. Melodie is also inspired to do a solo which seems really excellent from her drawings and music choices.”
“What about the other two?”
“Do you mean form another duet?”
Matteo shrugged. “If that’s what they want, though they’d be competing against each other and only one would likely end up attaining an Olympic berth.” He pointed down into the pool. “I don’t know them yet, but I’ve been watching them here for a while. The one touching the far wall now…”
“Laura Masson,” Flora offered.
“She’s got a beautiful breaststroke. Smooth yet powerful. She’s holding back to stay in rhythm with the others. Is she one of the two interested in doing the duet?”
“No. That would be Melodie Michaud and Daphne Travere.” The coach pointed them out.
Matteo smiled. “I’m sure glad to hear you say that. Because your last girl there…”