Chapter Thirteen

 

Evgeny Popescu was too disgusted to say much. He watched his young charges bounce around the gym, moving from apparatus to apparatus as if they were doing a good job because he wasn’t yelling at them.

What was the point? None of them would amount to anything.

Deva was losing the recruitment battle to the gymnastics club in Bucharest, and Ileana Dalca had been their only shining promise. Not only had she been immensely talented, but she’d made the other girls around her better. His hope had been one or two of the girls would step up in Ileana’s absence, seize the opportunity, but every last one of them had become lost in grief after her death, and each had regressed. It seemed to Evgeny this generation of Deva gymnasts was lost, and they should forget about them and concentrate on bringing in a new class of five to eight-year-olds to take their place.

He shared this point of view with Andrei Tatarescu, who listened but advised Evgeny to give them a bit more time to mourn their loss. “We’ve put five to seven years of work into each of these athletes,” he had explained. “We cannot release them until we are sure they will not rebound.”

Evgeny knew for sure they would not, but the decision wasn’t up to him.

This was a treacherous age for female gymnasts. Between ten and thirteen, they could either rise above the pressure or crumble. He was disturbed to see how many of his pupils had gained weight since Ileana died. It was unacceptable. If they couldn’t control it at the beginning of puberty, there was no way to take it back as they moved through their teenage years, and a gymnast who didn’t have an iron-fisted command of her weight was worthless.

He was currently spotting some of the girls on vault, and one of them missed the dismount badly, forcing Evgeny to catch her to avoid serious injury. Instead of being grateful to set her safely on the ground, he raised his finger and said, “Are you trying to kill me? My broken back won’t recover from that for days.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her lower lip trembling and eyes brimming with tears. “My hand slipped, and—”

“I didn’t ask for your excuses,” he snapped. “Let me tell you something else. If you don’t lose five pounds in the next week, you’re going to have a difficult time making the junior club for the next meet. We have gymnasts represent us, not heavyweight wrestlers.”

“Yes, Coach.” She turned and ran into the locker room.

Later that night in his apartment, Evgeny lowered himself gingerly into a hot bath after downing two prescription painkillers in a bottle of Timisoreana. He had a second beer with him in the bath, and he contemplated drinking enough to knock him out then slipping his face below the water. In a few minutes, this nightmare would be over.

There was a knock at his front door, but he ignored it. As soon as he heard the key in the lock, he knew who it was. Sure enough, he heard a woman’s voice call, “Evgeny? Are you home?”

“In the bathroom,” he replied.

The woman opened the door and gave him a concerned gaze. “Are you okay?”

“I had to catch a girl on the vault today. My back hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and crouched down next to the tub. Self-consciously, he brought his knees to his chest and rested his arms across them. The thigh that was so viciously scarred was now hidden.

Fides put one hand on each of his shoulders and began massaging. “Did the girl get hurt?”

“No,” he replied.

“Then it was worth it. Don’t you think?”

She was so optimistic, so understanding. It should have been a comfort, but it only made him angrier. “You don’t know anything about it.”

Fides Funar had been Evgeny’s girlfriend since three months before he was hit by the car. He expected her to leave him as soon as he was incapacitated. That’s what he would have done. To his surprise, she remained by his side through day and night, nursed him back to health, and remained ever cheerful and confident in his ability to recover.

He should have been grateful. If he were now who he was supposed to be, a world class athlete and Olympic champion, he’d be able to provide for her and start a family, as men in his country were supposed to do. He would support them, show them love and affection.

Evgeny felt love for no one, and affection had no definition for him. He was a hollow shell of the person he used to be, and the person he used to be hadn’t exactly been open, friendly, and emotional. Even then, he had been aloof and nearly impossible to get to know. He considered that surrendering of humanity necessary for a champion. Now he was a washed up has-been, never the winner his country wanted him to be, and he had nothing to show for his sacrifice.

At his bristling response, her hands stilled. She lowered her face to his shoulder and kissed his neck. “I wish you would open up to me, Evgeny. I wish you would let me in.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

“Are you still thinking of Ileana?”

“Every day.” Though not for reasons Fides would understand. “I’m not sure how to move forward without her.”

Once again, her fingers began massaging away the tension on the back of his neck. “You’ll figure it out. After all, you’ve come back from terrible tragedy before.”

“Sure.” He wasn’t sure he would consider this a terrible tragedy. Yes, it was sad Ileana was dead, but she died of weakness, and that being the case, perhaps she wasn’t the golden ticket he’d been dreaming of.

He’d find another gymnast to mentor. Maybe not one as naturally talented as Ileana, but if he could mold her from childhood, he’d make sure she was tougher, more trusting of his judgment, less independent and headstrong. Yes, Ileana would have been perfect, but he didn’t become her coach until she was ten, and it was simply too late.

He would not make that mistake again.

Happier now with his new plan in place, he turned to Fides and kissed her lips softly. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Let’s go out tonight.”

Surprisingly, instead of hiding in his apartment, he felt like being social. The sudden revelation of how he could get back on top gave new incentive to his coaching. “Sounds like fun.”