1969

When they are admitted to the school, a doctor examines the two little girls; they have only kept on their white knickers, and the cool tiles under their bare feet make them fidget and hop on the spot, they have to be scolded. They are told to hold their arms out to the sides, their span is calculated. Then they are shown how to touch the ground with their hands. They are measured. Hips narrower than shoulders. It is explained how they are to spin round as quickly as possible and then walk towards a fixed point in the room to assess their sense of orientation in space. They are prodded. While they are grasping the wall bars, their legs are raised in front of them until they wrinkle their noses.

Very few girls can keep their eyes fixed on an invisible line, their faces taut when more pressure is put on. Some bend their knee to avoid the discomfort of a muscle stretched too far, or wriggle. What about her? She’s got guts, he writes in his notebook, that’s for sure, but there’s nothing extraordinary about her. She doesn’t complain when he sits – taking care not to put his whole weight on her, she is only seven – on her back while she does the splits, stomach pressed against the floor. She runs round the gym clenching her fists, stops as soon as she is called, enjoys responding to instructions, to salute, her chest arched like a parenthesis. For weeks she quizzes Márta, ‘Madame, will we be on the big beam by Christmas?’ because she’s disappointed she has to learn to move on a line chalked on the floor, then on a very low beam surrounded by mattresses.

After three months, they are called in with their parents. Nadia’s mother has put a handkerchief in her handbag for the little one, she hopes this ceremony (a formality? A judgement?) won’t go on for ever, she has appointments with two clients to take their measurements. Winter is approaching, and orders are picking up, coats in the ‘Paris’ style that are in great demand among the women of Oneşti who take a folded page from a Yugoslav fashion magazine out of their pockets.

In the gym, to a soundtrack of recorded music, they are marching, chins raised, all of them in blue leotards, Nadia’s is too big for her. Following the speech by the mayor, congratulating himself for having brought to the town this experimental school that will create the elite of socialist gymnasts, Márta calls out the names of fifteen young girls. She shakes hands with those who have not been accepted, and they run and throw themselves sobbing into their mothers’ arms. The five chosen ones congratulate each other excitedly; through the window at the back of the room the sun draws a fleeting line on their chalky white thighs.

Late that evening, she finally falls asleep (they celebrated her being chosen; in the living room Nadia shows them how she can walk on her hands, until she knocks over a lamp) with her rolled-up leotard pressed against her cheek on the pillow.