Nul Points

by Tim Moore

  Lopišine Mylimai begins with a wailing snatch of guitar that gives an utterly misleading impression of what is to come, except in suggesting it won’t be at all good. Seeing Ovidijus in his jumper I’d been looking forward to some offbeat Slavic folk, but no: it’s another rent-a-ballad, sullied by a dismaying axe solo, and delivered with as much emotional sincerity as that conspicuously ill-chosen wardrobe will allow, which is very, very little. ‘The smell of your lips is like rain,’ runs a translation of its first line that I discover later.

  Ovidijus – the ‘j’, if the Eurovision comperes are to be trusted, is pronounced as a ‘y’ – looks unhappy with his lot. His unlubricated Meatloaf rasp cracks in places it shouldn’t, the microphone is visibly shaking in his hand, and towards the end that large face crumples slightly. We’re watching a man die alone, far from home and dear ones. Yet though a decade later that online poll will declare Lopišine Mylimai the second-worst Eurosong of all time, it isn’t easy to see how it ended up 226 points shy of Rock ’n’ Roll Kids. In a year of soul-siphoning musical tedium, the song also known as Sweethearts’ Lullaby was just another drop of cheese in the fondue, no better than a dozen or more rivals but certainly no worse. I can only assume it’s his age, his sex and those trousers.

  The interval act introduces what will become known as the most lucrative Eurovision-launched phenomenon since ABBA. All I can really bring myself to say about it is this: it’s Riverdance. And then, for the first time ever, we’re introduced to the jury spokespeople by live video link-up, rather than just encountering their propaganda-broadcast voices. The Swedish telematron, the Hungarian granddad with a tumbler of whisky on his desk: with faces put to votes, Paul and Charlie’s rapidly inevitable victory seems immediately less mysterious. For ten rounds of voting Ovidijus has nine performers keeping him company, before his own countrywoman, with a strident bark of ‘Norway – wan pant!’ begins the process that will leave him conspicuously alone. There are no backstage shots to see how he’s taking it, but with 226 points for the winner, that 0 has never looked smaller. After the most humiliating debut in Eurovision history, it would be five years before Lithuania dared return.

  Hampered by a certain inconsistency in official renditions of his name and its incorporated accents, tracking down Ovidijus isn’t quite as simple as I’d hoped after my ‘world of Forstner’ hunt through the cyber haystack. After a long afternoon I home in on two Ovidijus Vyšniauskases – a weightlifter, and a performer listed as having appeared on Lithuanian Television’s 2002 New Year’s Eve bash. More realistically than Thomas Forstner the mulleted teen idol and Thomas Forstner the Nazi academic, they could be one and the same. But the LTV listing mentions a live-music venue in the capital Vilnius that appears to have welcomed their Ovidijus in the past, and within four hours of emailing the Kolonada Club I have his mobile number in my inbox.

  What follows is the most unnerving telephonic interchange of my adult life. After a dozen rings, my ear is assaulted by a damply breathless, basso profundo growl, as if I’ve caught Chewbacca at a bad moment. It’s two in the afternoon, Lithuanian time. ‘Um … is that Ovidijus?’ I’ve had a stab at the j/y substitution, but the following silence encourages me to volunteer a few alternatives, the unhappiest of which comes out as ‘Overjuice’. Silence, then another snorting snuffle, like a bear waking up after winter.

  ‘Do you … speak English?’

  The response is contradictory but final. ‘No!’ snarls the bear, and the line goes dead. That night I dream I’m sleeping in a field in the back seat of an abandoned car. A rustle wakes me, and there, looming over the headrests, is the massive, grinning head of Ovidijus Vyšniauskas.

  Already aware that I will never dial that number again, in the morning I track down – via the ever-helpful Kolonada – a man called Valdas who claims to be Ovidijus’s agent. He’s almost too helpful: after a quickfire exchange of explanatory emails, his office posts me a message reading thus, ‘Mr Tim Moore. The Ovidijus will meet with you at 9th of March in town of Kaunas as we told. As you know the Ovidijus don’t speak good English.’

  It’s less than a week away. Can he really have agreed to a meeting so swiftly? Without any confidence that I’ll ever use them, I book flights and a hotel room in Kaunas, coughing up an immoderate sum for a chauffeur transfer from Vilnius airport. With two days to go I phone Valdas’s office. ‘I give you number for him,’ says the woman who answers, ‘but as you know the Valdas don’t speak good English.’ Ah: it’s the voice of the emails. I was rather hoping Valdas would be in Kaunas to translate for us, I explain. ‘OK.’ Not quite, I say: as you know, he don’t speak good English. ‘No problem.’ Well, it kind of is. Will anyone else be there to translate? A shuffle of papers; a pause. Then: ‘As you know, I don’t speak good English.’

  A little under forty-eight hours later, I’m stepping off the Gatwick Express with dark thoughts inveigling themselves into my ponderings. Is all this business down to innocent incompetence, or is something more sinister at work here? And why were they so apparently eager to invite me over? Either Valdas is planning a huge global relaunch for The Ovidijus, or the whole thing is a trap to chasten – no, punish – the mockers.

  All in all, it isn’t a great time to settle down with the reams of Lithuania facts I’ve printed off from the internet. Waiting at the Baltic Air gate, I swiftly learn that the waxy-skinned beanpoles around me have been killing each other with an efficiency bested only by Colombians and South Africans, and killing themselves more readily than the nationals of any other country on earth. (The prominent appearance of Austria in this latter chart siphons away any lingering temptation to doorstep Wilfried and Thomas.)

  And though few nations in the region can look back over a glowing history of ethnic tolerance, it’s still a shock to discover the appalling tradition of pro-active anti-Semitism in the city I’m about to visit. In June 1941, with the advancing Nazis not yet on the horizon, the townsfolk of Kaunas embarked on a frenzied massacre that claimed the lives of 3,500 local Jews. When the SS arrived, even they were taken aback; the supply of enthusiastic volunteers was to make the city a centre for the imprisonment and extermination of Jews from as far away as Marseilles.

  What kind of holidaymaker does this troubled land attract? The virtualtourist.com message board has the answer: ‘You guessed it right – I am going to Vilnius come May, because I have never eaten bear, and I would certainly like to try it before EU rules prohibit selling their meat. I know that in the Baltics in general, the hunt for bears is legal. So, rather then eating smoked pig ears, could someone recommend me a restaurant where bear is served (and where, if needed, I could make a reservation by mail)?’

  By the time we troop aboard, I’m already up to speed with the potato-centric diet and basketball prowess that are cause and consequence of my lofty, pallid fellow passengers’ twin distinguishing characteristics. I’m also conversant with Lithuania’s pride in its lingering pagan tradition (it was the last European kingdom to accept Christianity, and pagan temples were well attended until 1790), and aware, thanks to the captain’s welcoming announcement, that the temperature at Vilnius airport is currently -18°C. In seven Icelandic Christmases and an ascent of Kilimanjaro, I’ve never faced anything quite that extreme. And night is only just falling: the mercury’s hardly about to head north.

  Baltic Air’s inflight reading material provides further indigestible food for thought. I learn that my arrival overlaps with the nation’s pagan-flavoured Lenten fast, which culminates in the ‘burning of an effigy of our archetypal scapegoat figure, The More’. Naturally I have to read that last word twice, and even when satisfied there’s just the one ‘o’ I can’t stop gagging slightly on a mistimed swig of the Lithuanian lager I’ve just bought off the stewardess for a quid. I’m the archetypal scapegoat, and he’s the pagan pyromaniac. It would certainly explain the indecent haste with which I’ve been summoned here, and the nonchalance regarding the whole interview business. Of course no English will be spoken.
The Ovidijus will address The Moore in the international language of petrol and matches.

  We cruise over Germany in silence: a quiet lot, these suicidal murderers. Glancing across at the cropped head pressed glumly to the window opposite me, I despair of the enigmatic melancholy that is my lazy, default perception of East Europeans. For almost a year now, the three Baltic states have been EU members – all this lot are bona fide economic migrants, electricians and bricklayers heading back home for a quick visit; I look at my sallow neighbour and see paint spattered on his hands. Yet still I know so little about them. All of them: I’ve been able to find out almost nothing about The Ovidijus – must remember to cut that out when I meet him – beyond a translation of his entry’s lyrics and the official 1994 Eurovision biography. For the third time since morning, as we touch down at Vilnius I get it out and go through it again:

  ‘Ovidijus Vyšniauskas was born in 1957 in the small Lithuanian town of Marijampole, and after singing in the church choir went on to to study cello and percussion as well as choral conducting. Later he took up synthesiser and sang and played in several groups before devoting himself full time to composing and singing. He writes and arranges his own songs, working closely with his friend Gintaras Zdebskis on the lyrics. Ovidijus is a frequent television and radio guest and has represented Lithuania at many international festivals including the Cavan Song Contest, and has been a frequent prizewinner.’

  There’s only one guy toting a name card in the arrivals lounge, a chilly, strip-lit lobby that feels more like a provincial railway terminus. ‘Mrs Noone’, it reads, which means I’m compelled to withdraw 200 Litas from a cashpoint, visit the gents (oh dear: lit by ultra-violet to deter those intravenous drug users who haven’t yet learnt to pre-mark their veins in biro) and pace loudly about stamping life back into my underclad feet, all whilst waiting to satisfy myself of her non-existence. When the last Baltic Air passenger shuffles out into the fearsome cold, I approach the – yes – waxy young beanpole holding the sign aloft. ‘I think that might be me,’ I say.

  ‘OK,’ he replies, looking down with a cheerful shrug.

  Our people carrier rumbles out through broad, moribund streets, the haggard Soviet apartments interspersed with garishly lit chrome-and-glass car showrooms. ‘So,’ I say, once my chauffeur has told me in the most proficient English I’ve yet heard from Lithuanian lips that it’s going to be a ninety-minute drive, ‘what do you think about Ovidijus Vyšniauskas?’

  I’m heartened that he understands me first time, but not by his reply. ‘A singer, yes?’ And that’s all he has to say. Zero points? News to him. He didn’t even know Ovidijus had been to Eurovision. When I prompt him with the year, he emits a small titter. ‘But in this time I was nine year old.’ Once again I’m forced to accept the epic scale I’m working on: for some people, 1994 was a very long time ago. The break-up of the former Soviet empire seems recent history to me, but this chap – a proper grown-up who’s already shown me his public-service-vehicle licence – would barely have a sentient memory of life in pre-independence Lithuania.

  Not that this has precluded him from nurturing an impressive hatred for his nation’s former overlords. Russia, he wastes little time in telling me, used Lithuania as a dumping ground for its hoodlums and undesirables, whose burgeoning influence in the post-Soviet years lies behind that extraordinary murder rate (and I’m guessing the ultra-violet lights in the airport loos). ‘Many Russians are still here, but they are not speaking Lithuanian, so for them is not any good career. Ha! My father must learn Russian in school, but why he must speak it with them today? If they are not mafia, they are cleaning the road, with … like this [he mimes the act of sweeping with an enthusiasm that makes me glad we haven’t seen an oncoming vehicle for fifteen minutes] in one hand, and in other hand vodka bottle.’

  He mellows into silence as we leave the streetlights of Vilnius behind, spearing through conifer forests and vast agrarian swathes of flat blackness. But as Kaunas takes illuminated shape ahead of us, he begins to extol its virtues with ratcheting emotion. ‘This city is true capital of my country,’ he says, his quavering intensity enhanced by the many tram-tracks the road now traverses. ‘No Russians here!’

  The hotel he drops me outside is spanking new, well appointed and almost painstakingly pruned of character. Its restaurant is already closed; having clad myself to the point of limb inarticulation with almost the entire contents of my suitcase, I head outside.

  It’s heart-attack cold: my innards clench in shock as a frigid gust blasts straight through five layers of textile protection. Browned heaps of snowplough dung are piled up around lampposts and tree trunks, with the bits they’ve missed hardened to a lethal, translucent crust. Every drainpipe disgorges a fat gout of glassy lava, caught in suspended animation. And where is everyone? It’s only just 11 p.m., yet the streets are eerily unpeopled, Chernobyl-empty. They can’t all be at home assembling me-shaped wicker men.

  On the corner of what looks like the main drag I find a twenty-four-hour café, and heave open the door to join the two policemen who are my sole fellow customers. They’re wearing hats and coats, and so is the waitress who takes my order. Wisps of exhaled condensation accompany her response, which being a serviceable ‘Just one moment please’ encourages me to ask for her thoughts on the big O and his big O. ‘Ovidijus lives here in Kaunas,’ she says, encouragingly, ‘but his music … I don’t know. It’s maybe for older people?’ Soon after she appears with a beer that’s too cold to drink and a kebab too enormous to complete. The bill is 10 litas; offloading the other 190 is clearly going to take some work. As I glean next morning from the Lithuanian Business Review in my bathroom, I’m now in Europe’s cheapest country.

  I’ve emailed the details of my hotel to Valdas, and received a reply promising that The Ovidijus will meet me in the bar there at 10 a.m., translator in tow. I yawn and count cars as I wait: 100 Audis and Hondas go by before the first Lada. In material terms at least, they’ve come such a long way in such a short time. The Scandinavian plumbing in my hotel room would have been beyond the reach of even the most energetically corrupt party official, and prone in its splendid incorporated bath I’d read Lithuanian Business Review’s account of a chap who’d spent the 1980s making TV aerials out of the runners from old kids’ sledges, and was now the millionaire boss of the country’s largest firm of satellite installers. My breakfast buffet could have been laid out in Zurich without adverse comment, yet between the wars Lithuanians found themselves obliged to casserole crows.

  At ten past, a tiny young russet-haired woman with something of the Lulu about her pushes open the bar’s door with a Christ-it’s-bitter-out-there shuddering huff, and before it closes a grizzled, rheumy hulk of a man in a vast overcoat squeezes in behind. A decade on he’s almost hairless, but there’s no doubt who that is, hanging his coat up and acknowledging my silly little wave with an uncertain nod. And the good news is he doesn’t appear to be armed, or gripped by any emotion more threatening than gruff bemusement.

  We shake hands and order hot drinks – coffees for me and the translator, a disarming green tea for the man I’ve now internally abbreviated as the Ov – all in an atmosphere of slightly circumspect affability. They don’t really seem to know what they’re doing here, and when the translator introduces herself as ‘woman of music office’, I know just how they feel.

  In inevitable consequence, the ensuing two hours cast only random patches of half light around the pitch-black, dripping-echo cavern that is the Ov’s fact warehouse. I learn of a small-town childhood spent mastering judo (eek!) and half an orchestra – guitar, saxophone, drums, piano, double bass – but nothing of the years between school and his mid twenties, when Ovidijus plumped for a full-time career in music. His influences, I’m told, range from late-fifties’ Italian infant soprano Robertino, to ‘romance melody rock – Deep Purple, by example’; his nearest West European equivalent would be ‘maybe Joe Cocker’. But I never really get a handle on the man and his m
usic, his level of fame and success, the highs to balance that obvious low.

  Many of the questions I fire at Lulu ricochet waywardly on their way to the Ov, with the returning answers shooting back miles over my head. I ask how Ovidijus’s feelings for his country are expressed in his music, and after a prolonged and intensive conference between the pair, receive the confident response: ‘Twelve.’

  Sometimes, though, there’s a suspicion of deliberate deflection. I’m particularly eager to hear of his experiences as a Soviet-era rocker – he was thirty-four when the tanks went back to Moscow – but even my most assiduously simplistic probings into this arena are ignored, rebuffed or clumsily brushed aside. Did the Soviets make it difficult to play music or write songs? ‘For him, in personally? No. Everything was fine.’ What about for others? Were lyrics censored? ‘Oh, some say this, but the Ovidijus he don’t know.’ How did he feel when he saw the demonstration at the Vilnius TV station in 1991, when the Russians killed eighteen people? ‘Uh-ha.’ When the anti-Soviet movements really got going across the Baltic states, all the music and ballads involved earnt them the nickname ‘The Singing Revolution’ – was Ovidijus involved in this? ‘Robert Plant.’

  I can only assume that old habits die hard: excluding a twenty-two-year hiatus between the wars, Lithuania was under Russian control from 1795 to 1991. Shoot your mouth off to a nosy Englishman in the Iron Curtain days, and the next time you belted out Smoke on the Water, Alexander Solzhenitsyn would start banging on the cell wall.