was almost a shame that Radu Constantin wouldn't be around to see it.
****
Arad, November 1974
'Here, Catalina, you can help me move the mats back tonight.'
I'm thrilled, so happy to be chosen. It's a sign that he likes me. Usually he selects Patrizia to help clear up at the end of the day. Patrizia is the best of us. She can already do the Korbut flip on the bars and she's only two years older than me, just twelve. There's talk of her leaving, going to the national training centre in Deva, maybe going to the next Olympics. I wish I could be as good. I'd give anything to be on the national team.
I help him move the mats back to their usual position, next to the row of beams. The mats are awkward more than heavy; it's hard for me to carry them with my short arms. When we've finished, he sits down on the lowest training beam, and pats it, signalling me to sit next to him.
'Thanks for helping me, Catalina,' he says.
'That's alright, sir.'
'You know, you're coming along well with your gymnastics.' He slips his arm around my waist. 'There's no reason why you shouldn't go all the way. Work hard, please me, and I'll recommend you for Deva.'
I feel so good inside. 'Thank you.'
He runs his fingers over my right leg. Then his hand moves between my thighs, rubbing gently. It feels sort of nice, but it's also strange and a bit scary and I don't know what to do.
He takes my hand and places it over his track suit pants. I can feel his willy twitching.
'I can help you achieve greatness in gymnastics, Catalina,' he says, moving my hand inside his pants. 'I can give you extra practice sessions, get you on the team. You just have to be a good girl and work hard.'
****
Arad, September 1991
I couldn't wait for the competition to be over and to see the back of the Australians. It was a nuisance having them around. I'd organised with the Romanian Gymnastics Organisation that the Australian gymnasts could train in the gym in the mornings as well as the afternoons. Our girls came in just for the afternoon. We told the Australians the girls were at school in the morning and had to go to bed early at night. At least that minimised contact between them.
It was still a long day for me though. Not only was it hard avoiding the Australians at meal times, but I was ravenous by the end of the day. On top of that, it was difficult coaching ordinary girls. I had no experience of that, and had to try to remember how Radu had coached us. Not that most of their gymnasts benefitted from excellent coaching - Rowena Harris had all the grace of a carthorse. Sarah Heathcote, though, she had real talent. She was better than the older Australians, but too young to compete at World or Olympic level. Poor girl; how disappointing to be from a country that wouldn't falsify her age. By the time she was old enough to compete in an Olympics, she'd be eighteen and probably past her best.
Sarah had refused to believe our girls were older than she was, given they were smaller. All the Australians struggled with this, pointing out age falsifications under the Communists. So at the end of the final day of training, I produced a video of Eugenia Sidon when she was ten, competing at a junior event with Nicolae Ceausescu watching.
'There,' I said. 'You can see that it's her. And that it was a long time ago. Ceausescu has been dead for nearly two years. This was taken well before the revolution.'
'She doesn't look any different,' commented the Australian coach, Marie Crago.
'She does - she's wearing a bigger hair ribbon on the video,' quipped Gary Markham.
'Melita Ungureanu's on this tape too, when she was eleven,' I said. I fast forwarded the grainy video, and there she was, twirling round the uneven bars. What a talented girl she'd been.
'Spot the difference - the hair ribbon,' joked Markham. 'Do all Romanian girls stay prepubescent forever?'
'No,' I said coldly. 'Look at me.'
'Don't most of them get really fat when they retire?' asked Rowena Harris. 'I've seen photos of when they finish gymnastics.'
'Some do,' said Nicolae Grecu, the president of the Romanian Gymnastics Organisation. 'But that will change. Under Communism, only elite athletes exercised. Now there are private gyms opening up, and there is better food in the shops.'
'I bet they eat everything in sight to make up for lost time and get fat that way,' said Marie Crago. 'We've been training with your girls for a week and we've never seen them eat.'
You wouldn't want to, I thought.
Rowena Harris commented that she'd never seen me eat either. I avoided responding by retrieving my video from the player. I excused myself and left them. I was ravenous. After all these years, I had amazing control, but really, hours and hours a day around ordinary people was too much.
I locked myself into a toilet stall and took a bottle of blood from my handbag. Slaking my thirst made me relax. The blood was rich and good. I had a steady supply from the hospital, though sometimes it didn't taste as good as others. This would fill a hole till I could go out properly later, with the girls.
When I went back into the gym, the Australians had gone to their hotel for dinner. My six gymnasts had opened their bottles of blood and were enjoying a long-overdue drink.
'Did Grecu leave as well?' I asked them.
'He's gone to the hotel for dinner, too,' said Eugenia. She took a flying leap across the floor to the uneven bars, swung around the higher bar then threw herself high above it turning three somersaults before catching it again. Beautiful as it was, this was something she wouldn't be able to do in competition or the world would become suspicious. I was careful to make sure that their routines were only just outside the realms of possibility.
'I'll give him time to eat dinner,' I said, 'then I'll go over and talk to him. We'll have to wait until later for supper, girls, I'm sorry. There are extra bottles in the fridge in the basement if you need them.'
****
The hotel that Grecu and the visitors were staying in was a few blocks away from the training centre. I knew I could make Grecu accede to my request that we did not accompany the Australians on the bus trip tomorrow. After a week of being stuck in our gym with ordinary people, I didn't want to have to spend another long day in their company. And I especially didn't want the girls to. They didn't have the many years' experience in control. We'd already had one nasty incident, when Melita Ungureanu lost control at a national meet some years ago. Fortunately, the Communists were still in power then, and it had been easy to make witnesses disappear.
The nine-storey hotel overlooked the river. Guests with river views were fortunate; the hotel had been built in the Ceausescu years and was grey, grim and depressing on the outside. It wasn't much better on the inside. Apparently the food was passable these days and there was hole-free linen on the beds.
Grecu was in his room on the fourth floor. He was watching television when I arrived. He'd been a gymnast himself and had competed in the Olympics before embarking on a career as a judge. Now, with the Communist era over and so many officials either disgraced or offered lucrative posts with wealthier foreign gymnastics organisations, he had risen to the top of the ladder. It was well beyond his level of competence, but he had me to help him achieve incredible results.
He argued a bit about the trip, but I only had to show him my fangs, and he backed down. Yes, of course, Catalina, he'd make apologies, whimper, whimper. I said good night and left him to his TV.
The lift had stopped working so I went into the stairwell and down the first flight of stairs when I caught the sound of someone crying. I stopped and tuned in.
'I have to get up early tomorrow. It's the competition. I'm supposed to get a good night's sleep.' It was a girl's voice. Tearful and young, with an Australian accent. Sarah Heathcote.
'Well, the quicker I get my good night kiss, the quicker you'll get to sleep.'
I