Playing the Moldovans At Tennis

by Tony Hawks

  My God. They couldn't even move about their own country without creeping to some sycophantic bureaucrat. I realised how I had taken freedom for granted. I looked out of the window, and as the trees and houses sped past me as if on rewind, I let my mind spool back to my childhood in England, and the number of times I'd said, 'I can do that, this is a free country.' I'd used those words without any comprehension of what not being in a free country meant.

  The conversation with Iulian brought other explanations as to why the average Moldovan face when in relaxed mode looked sullen. His grandparents had saved hard all their lives and finally had enough money to buy a small house of their own when independence came and private ownership was permitted. Then the Moldovan currency collapsed overnight and in the morning their savings were enough to buy them a joint of meat.

  'My God. They must have felt terrible,' I said, rather regretting the crass obviousness of the comment.

  'It killed them. Within two years they were both dead.'

  It was another ten miles before I could resume any conversation.

  I was the last one off the bus when we reached Soroca, struggling with my royal gift.

  'I suppose we should head for the centre now,' I said, looking at the deserted streets around me.

  This is the centre,' said Iulian.

  'Are you sure? You said you hadn't been here before.'

  'I'm ninety-five per cent sure. This is the main street.'

  'But there's nothing here.'

  'I know. Chisinau is dull but it is nothing compared to the rest of Moldova.'

  Iulian, I took it, had never applied for a job at The Moldovan Tourist Office. I looked around me and all I could see were decaying concrete buildings. No shops, no cafes, no people.

  'I can't believe,' I said, 'that we've spent three and half hours on a bus to come here. And we're going to spend the night.'

  'We could get last bus back,' quipped a chuckling Iulian, 'Anita will know when it leaves.'

  Anita was Glen's friend. Like all the Americans I had met so far she was another volunteer from the Peace Corps. This was an entirely philanthropic organisation set up by President Kennedy in 1961 for the purpose of fighting tyranny, disease, poverty and war. That's what JFK said anyway – others might feel that one significant bi-product of its work was to make Third World countries think more kindly of the Americans and therefore facilitate the insidious invasion of their economies by incoming US companies. So, was the Peace Corps benevolent or cynical? As far as I was concerned the jury was out But not in Soroca. No-one was out in Soroca, the place was dead.

  Over lunch I asked Anita why she had signed up to this organisation.

  Well,' came her reply, 'that depends who you ask. If you ask me, I'll tell you that my life back home had gotten into a rut and that I wanted to do something new and I reckoned I could live with the hardship, especially if I was helping others. If you ask my brother he'll tell you it's because I'm a fucking idiot.'

  Two perfectly sound arguments. From Iulian's face I could tell which one he favoured. The irony was that he would have loved the chance to make a go of it in America, the land of opportunity, and yet here was someone who had voluntarily turned her back on that playground of plenty to come and struggle along with the Moldovans. I could see both his point of view and also Anita's, but I wasn't sure whether either of them could see mine.

  'And you're doing all this just to win a lousy bet?' crowed Anita between sips of soup.

  'Is it so lousy? I think it's rather a good bet.'

  Her face told me that she shared the same feelings towards my reason for being here as her brother did about hers.

  What do you know of the gypsy community here?' I asked her.

  Well, they were forced to settle under the Soviet regime and they've prospered living that way. They're a wealthy community and they live in these great big houses on the hill but I've never been up there. The Moldovans in the town say that it isn't safe.'

  We'll be alright, we come bearing gifts. Well, one gift anyway.'

  I pointed to the round table which was leaning against the wall still neatly wrapped and dotted with Air Moldova stickers and an entirely inappropriate 'Fragile' sign.

  'Glen said you were bringing that,' said Anita with a chuckle. 'You do know that Moldova is absolutely full of plastic round tables.'

  Yes, but this is a special one though, it's from Do it All,' I replied to an increasingly bemused Anita.

  'Why do you want to meet this King so much?'

  Well, when I last took on a bet of this nature I went to Ireland and I met a king there – the King of Tory island – so meeting royalty is a tradition.'

  'Makes sense. Can I come with you guys? I could do with an adventure.'

  There probably weren't that many adventures to be had here in Soroca so it was probably a good idea to grab them when they came along.

  'Of course you can come with us Anita. The more the merrier, and it'll be one more person to take turns in carrying the table,' I said, gallantly.

  The fortress, like almost everything else I had experienced in Moldova so far, was a disappointment. It was just an old round fortification and what's more it was closed. Anita, who had brought us there as part of a short sightseeing tour, said that it was quite interesting inside but to obtain admission you had to go round to some bloke's house who had the key and hope that he was in and not too soaked in vodka to conduct a guided tour. Moldovan tourism.

  Anita, who had previously been lucky enough to have done the tour, explained that the original builder of the fortress, Stefan cel Mare, had been the cousin of Vlad the Devil who himself was the father of Vlad the Impaler. Interesting family. I wondered whether they'd all been vicious sadistic killers or if there had been a rather more gentle brother called Vlad the librarian. I liked to think so. I could picture the scene at dinner.

  VLAD THE DEVIL: (Munching on the dismembered arm of a victim)

  Well Vlad, what kind of day have you had?

  VLAD THE IMPALER: It was a good one today Dad – six eviscerations.

  VLAD THE DEVIL: No impalings?

  VLAD THE IMPALER: No, but I've got two booked in for tomorrow.

  VLAD THE DEVIL: Excellent. And how about you Vlad?

  VLAD THE LIBRARIAN: Well, I've had quite a day too, Father. We fined Vlad the Tardy for returning two books which were three weeks overdue and I had to say 'Ssssh' eight times to Vlad the Bellower in the reference section.

  VLAD THE DEVIL: (Under his breath)

  Where did Vlad the Mother and I go wrong with that boy?

  We continued walking along the banks of the Nistru river looking over to the Ukraine on the opposite bank. Not far up from the fortress there were deserted looking international checkpoints on each side of the river. There was no bridge linking them. Movement between the two countries was such that a ferry sufficed.

  'We could nip over to the Ukraine for a cup of tea,' I suggested.

  'No you couldn't,' replied Iulian, 'not unless you have a visa.'

  'Couldn't they issue me one there?'

  Iulian laughed.

  'You don't understand how things work here,' he said. 'You would have to apply for one in Chisinau and it could take up to two weeks before it was issued – and it would cost you one hundred dollars.'

  'It's crazy,' I moaned. These countries desperately need foreign money injected into their economies and yet they make it so hard for people to go there.'

  'I know, but most of the former Soviet bloc countries are being run by guys who came up through the Party system and they are still suspicious of the West'

  And so the Ukraine was to remain unvisited. It was a case of so near and yet so far.

  What would be the first big town we hit if we kept walking in that direction?' I asked, pointing into the far distance.

  'Chernobyl, I think.'

  Okay. Maybe not going to the Ukraine wasn't such a great loss. Chernobyl; a place where Grigore's first sentence to me in English woul
d have made complete sense.

  'Me, I have forty-three ears.'

  Yes I can see that. Nice to meet you.'

  We left the river bank and wandered up to Soroca's hotel where Iulian and I were intending to stay. It was unusual for a small Moldovan town to have such a hostelry but this one had been built to cater for Communist Party officials who visited Soroca and its fortress as part of a tour which they took as one of their many perks. The drab grey crumbling structure before us resembled a closed-down factory. I reached the large glass double doors and pushed. To my surprise they opened. Inside there was no sign of life. Iulian called out and presently a grumpy unhelpful looking woman appeared. (She must have pipped hundreds of other grumpy unhelpfuls to the post) She explained that a double room with two single beds would cost the equivalent of $20.

  'That's expensive,' said Iulian.

  Well, we're not exactly spoiled for choice here,' I replied. Tell her we'll take it.'

  The woman then asked me for something and held out her hand.

  'She wants your passport,' explained Iulian.

  'But I haven't brought it,' I said, recognising yet another reason why the Ukraine was off limits, 'I thought since we weren't leaving the country . . . look, tell her we'll pay her in advance and she can have a credit card as further security if she wants it.'

  The grumpy unhelpful one was having none of it. Forms needed to be filled out which required my passport number. She was adamant – no passport, no bed for the night. The thought of a cold night sleeping rough did not appeal, but pleading fell on deaf ears.

  'Ask her,' I said to Iulian, 'if she is going to turn away two paying customers from an hotel which is clearly empty, simply because of some minor administrative detail.'

  Iulian did so, and got shouted at for his trouble. This was a state-run hotel and the notion of profit meant nothing. This lady moved in a world where rules, regulations and looking grumpy were what mattered, and she was good at her job. She would have earned promotion had such a concept existed.

  'You're both welcome to my floor,' said Anita generously.

  Thanks. It'll be nicer than this place anyway.' I said.

  I thanked the woman with a grace intended to provoke a modicum of shame (it didn't) and left her to punch the air in celebration at having turned two more people away.

  Huge houses, some as big as palaces, dominated the skyline at the top of the hill.

  'Quite something isn't it?' said Anita.

  'It certainly is,' I replied, shaking my head in wonder. They must be so rich – they're the opposite of gypsies everywhere else in the world.'

  I clung on tight to my video camera remembering what Anita had been told by the villagers about it not being safe but I did not feel worried. I felt that this was probably a paranoid fear which had been nurtured over centuries of prejudice against the Romani peoples of the world. Theirs has not been a happy history. Persecution mostly. Their social organisation probably hasn't helped them much in acquiring a general acceptance wherever they end up, since gypsies are largely encouraged not to socialise with non-Romani, whom they call gadje. Keeping yourself separate in this way is always going to result in your being pretty high in the International Scapegoat chart. But with wealth comes power and here in Moldova, in an extraordinary twist on our expectations, the gypsies had it better than everyone else.

  'Do gypsies build houses like this in England?' asked a gypsy man as he proudly stood outside his palace. Of course, he already knew the answer.

  We had asked him if he knew where King Arthur lived and he promised that he would tell us, but not until he and his wife had taken us on a guided tour of their house. It was built on a lavish scale with an oriental and Moorish design and with an extraordinarily shiny metal roof. Inside it was commodious and ostentatious with exotic chandeliers and frescos of biblical scenes covering the walls. The husband who appeared to be in his late fifties explained that he had built the house with the money that he had earned from working in Russia for one year. It was fairly apparent to all of us that in a year you simply couldn't make that amount of money legally. He must have been involved in drug smuggling or some such illicit activity. It was odd to be accepting the hospitality of someone who we were sure was a criminal. Quite possibly this whole community was built on criminal activity. Theirs was a lopsided culture in which breaking the law was the norm, and boy did it pay. For them it was not indecent, and it wasn't wrong. Those who followed the rule of law were mugs. Like the Moldovans struggling down in the village.

  I felt nervous as Iulian listened to the directions to King Arthur's place. As expected, a long period of aimless wandering followed. At almost every turn we stumbled on a house which was fit for a king, but sadly not King Arthur's. Iulian looked decidedly pissed off. Since I was filming with my video camera it had fallen upon him to lug the Do It All round table and he was not enjoying the experience.

  Eventually, by taking the opposite direction to the one proposed by Iulian, we met a little old lady in a black headscarf who was sitting on a seat in front of some big, black wrought-iron gates. She told us we were standing directly outside King Arthur's house. We asked if she was sure and she replied that she was, and we felt confident of this when she went on to explain that she was his mother. She told us that King Arthur had gone to Chisinau and wouldn't be back until tomorrow.

  Great, I thought. He was in exactly the place from which I'd just spent three and a half hours travelling on an uncomfortable bus. However, once the mother learned that I had travelled all the way from England with a gift for her son, she immediately invited us inside and gave us the now standard tour of the property.

  It was capacious and gaudy with frescos of the family on all the walls. Justifiable I suppose since they were a royal family. The gypsies governed themselves according to an intricate pattern of family relationships with a group of related families forming the vista (clan) which was headed by a leader called the baro (king). King Arthur's mother, Anushka, babbled in a mixture of Russian and the gypsy language Roma which Iulian struggled to translate. She had been recently widowed when her husband Mircea, the former King, had died. She may have all these riches, she said pointing around her, but she was nothing without a husband and so she no longer went out. Anita let out a little yelp. These were hardly the feminist views which she had learnt on America's West Coast.

  'Is it true,' I asked, 'that according to gypsy tradition, the belongings of the deceased are buried along with them?'

  I had read about this and thought it a rather noble custom since it encouraged people to distribute wealth while they were still alive rather than hoard it and then pass it on to some spoilt child for subsequent squandering. It seemed that Mircea's death may have been rather sudden and precluded a satisfactory distribution of his assets, since according to Anushka he had been buried along with a computer laptop and a mobile phone. The spiritualists and psychics in the gypsy community must have felt under threat. No need for a seance to contact the dead any more. Just ring the mobile. (Assuming that Mircea had gone to heaven of course – one of the major drawbacks of hell is that you can't get a signal down there.)

  After we had toured the huge bedroom which was almost like a dancehall, Anushka showed us a smaller room which contained some of Mircea's other possessions which for some reason had not been buried. One was a gun. A large rifle.

  What did he use it for?' I asked.

  'Shooting at night – just shooting at night,' came Iulian's translation.

  'Shooting at what?'

  Anushka spoke for some time.

  'Anything – he'd just go out and shoot,' was Iulian's abridgement.

  Fair enough. A man needs hobbies.

  Back in the living room we met two new old ladies; one was Anushka's mother, Dunea, and the other a cousin named Natasha. I announced that I wanted to make a formal presentation of my gift. On learning this, Anushka scuttled off to bring drinks. I don't know what kind of gift she felt that I had brought for her son,
but the impressive array of champagnes and cognacs which were laid before us suggested that she was expecting it to be rather better than a Do It All round table. I became a little nervous as to what response its eventual offering might elicit.

  We were asked if we wanted Moldovan brandy with champagne chasers and we said Yes, thank you'. Well, it would have been rude not to. Dunea and Natasha didn't put up much of a fight either. An easy half an hour passed with regular replenishment of all of our glasses and I marvelled at how quickly we had gone from being strangers outside the gates to being treated like old family friends. These people either prided themselves on being excellent hosts or would settle for any old excuse to sit around and get pissed.

  Then the moment arrived. I stood up on slightly wobbly feet and made a slurred speech to three old gypsy ladies in a remote outpost of northern Moldova explaining the historical significance of King Arthur and his round table. (An inevitable event in my life – in fact I couldn't understand why it had taken so long to come about.) My now drunk translator did his best, but frankly I don't think he had a clue what I was rambling on about.

  I made a formal presentation of the table to Anushka and she accepted it with good grace. She showed neither pleasure nor disenchantment. She had every right to be insulted, it was after all a shabby present, but she remained unmoved, her years as a royal probably having required her to develop an expression which disclosed no emotion, even in the light of disappointing furniture. She left the room and I felt a tad nervous that she might have been fetching her late husband's gun with a view to demonstrating how it was still in full working order, but she returned bearing gifts. She proudly presented Iulian and Anita with a pair of socks each, and I was given some underpants with 'Made in Romania' stamped on them. A fair exchange. A plastic round table for a slightly dodgy pair of pants. (I only wished I'd suggested a similar barter in Do It All instead of parting with cash.)

  I enquired whether my new lady friends knew of anyone who could read my fortune, and Natasha was quick to put herself forward as something of an expert in reading the cards. I was whisked into another room where I was promptly asked to part with 50 lei (around ten dollars). I began bargaining, believing that not to do so would be an insult. I waved twenty lei back at Natasha and she shook her head dismissively. I was just about to produce another ten when I heard Anushka's voice and turned around to see her at the door sternly castigating her cousin. Natasha meekly nodded to her, took my twenty lei and began the reading. My, Anushka really must have been taken with that table.