‘Listen, it’s funny,’ she tells me, very excited, ‘I had seven tens and won three gold medals in Montreal. That makes twenty-one, the twenty-first Olympiad, and if you add seven and three, my competition number, you again get: ten, the perfect score!’
‘Here’s another number, Nadia. Twenty thousand. Twenty thousand attempts/repetitions of the salto before performing it on the bars at Montreal, the Comăneci salto…’
A pause at the other end of the line, during which it seems to me she is shrugging her shoulders and has become sullen once more.
‘…Of course! What else did you imagine?’
‘…You arrived in Montreal about ten days before the competition to prepare thoroughly. You were accompanied the whole time by interpreters who rephrased everything you said. What was your relationship with the other gymnasts, those from western Europe? What did you think about the obvious differences between you, their freedom?’
‘…You know, they were… quite bad. They didn’t interest me. I knew the Russians quite well, especially Nellie, because we’d been meeting at competitions for three years. As for the other things… do you think the Romanian regime was the only one to keep an eye on its gymnasts during international meets? In gymnastics, every country tries to find out what the other will do, it’s a game of chess. You’re not going to give away your secrets to your opponent! We were told to tell the press we trained three hours a day, when it was six. That kept us one step ahead!’
‘Montreal marketed the image of an innocent little girl who came out of nowhere, whereas in fact you had been winning everything for two years. You contributed to the creation of that image. And through you, the regime promoted a system. The complete success of the communist regime, the apotheosis of selection: the exceptionally gifted New Child, a beautiful, well-behaved girl who delivers.’
(An irritated laugh.)
‘Oh yes, of course! The Romanians were selling communism. Yet the French or American athletes nowadays… they don’t represent any system or brand, do they?…’