Snapshots

26–27 July 1976

The front page of an American daily carries the headline ‘BYE-BYE NADIA’, she is shown facing a microphone held by a man’s hand, she is clutching a brown doll with a drooping head.

– At Montreal airport, hundreds of people recognize her and want to touch her bunches, and she is crushed against the Air Canada counter. Nadia is eventually led to the safety of an office, where the hostess bends down to her and strokes her cheek – ‘so cute’ – while offering her a glass of water, and a pilot tells the journalists that, yes, he remembers a year or two earlier when he was flying from Bucharest to London and she was on board with her team and was allowed to come into the cockpit. She asked him loads of questions about the flight. Then a day or two ago he came across her on the television, and the judges gave her 10! ‘I was so proud… my little girl…!’

At Bucharest airport, seven thousand people are waiting for her. When they all rush onto the tarmac, the aeroplane is forced to come to a halt a long way from its regular slot. This is nothing like the arrival of those foreign heads of state they are obliged to turn up for, lining the avenues, holding a flag and forcing a smile. Here, Party officials in military uniforms struggle to contain an entire city that is waving, throwing flowers, holding up multi-coloured placards, some men have climbed the lamp-posts and are clinging on, cameras at the ready.

Dressed in a lavender suit, the team’s official dress, knee-length skirt, she puts a foot on the steps, carrying a bunch of red carnations an air hostess has given her, but then she pauses and retreats back inside the cabin, I can’t, Professor, I want to stay here, she clings on to his sleeve, but he grows angry, he has promised the Central Committee photos, General Mladescu himself has taken the trouble to come to greet this little kid who now acts as if she has discovered a monster under her bed in the middle of the night. Through the aircraft’s open door, they can hear the joyous ‘NA-DI-A, NA-DI-A’ from the expectant crowd. Without a word, Dorina straightens Nadia’s ponytail, gently pushes her towards the exit. Béla tries to make his way forward, but the crowd is too dense, a microphone appears and dances awkwardly in front of Nadia’s mouth, as she says, ‘I have brought back three gold medals, which I dedicate to the Party, to my home country and to the Romanian people.’ But this is barely audible, because a chorus of children is shouting ‘BRA-VO NA-D-I I I-A!’. A journalist grabs her by the arm, Do it again, he says, again, Béla pushes him away, Nadia rubs her arm, Béla strokes her soaking forehead, clasps her damp little hand, whispers in her ear, ‘Start again, sweetie. Go on, sweetheart.’

The following day, Scînteia reproduces the telegram sent from Montreal to Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu, thanking them for having given permission for this great victory and signed in hierarchical order: Nadia Dorina Mariana Anca Gabriela Luminița Iuliana.

– More than sixty thousand letters arrive in Oneşti from all over the world. Some of them are simply addressed to:

Miss Nadia Comăneci

Gymnast

Romania

– Two hundred thousand postcards with her picture on them are printed by the Romanian Post Office: they show her in the final pose of her floor exercise. In a white leotard, of course, her right foot pointed forward. And with a smile, the one which she now has to prove exists in order to silence her critics.

– There is only one thing they want, one wish: to see the little girl. King Hussein of Jordan, Jimmy Carter, Giscard d’Estaing, all of them dream of seeing her training during their official visits to Bucharest. What does she have to do to satisfy them? The Montreal performance, and especially that final pose, you know?

They are seated high up in the beautiful gym, she puffs out her cheeks as she steadies just in time after her tumbling diagonal. She stays up late, sitting at table with them in this fashionable restaurant reserved for influential people, diplomats and Securitate members, there are no children in Capşa, the waiters, starched white napkins folded over their forearms, bow to her ceremoniously, there is so much to eat, different kinds of meat, a variety of sauces, she is even allowed a sip of wine.

She poses between two generals. She poses in the living room of her home, seated on the old duck-egg-blue sofa that’s been recovered in a golden yellow fabric, with her father wearing a suit for the occasion, gazing at her, turned towards her as she pretends to be sorting stamps in the album on her knees. The photographer has asked her to wear yellow socks to go with her red jacket and blue tracksuit trousers.

In her school uniform with a white hairband, blouse buttoned up to the neck under her navy-blue smock, she poses, serious-looking, surrounded by her classmates, a blurry mass of hands held out ecstatically towards the medals she is wearing round her neck.

She poses with Béla in the gymnasium garden, with orchid-bows decorating her bunches. They appear to be discussing work, she is the collaborator in miniature of the world architecture they have built.

She poses in her bedroom, surrounded by her dolls ‘from the five continents’ carefully arranged on the bed by her mother.

She poses in a traditional Romanian blouse.

She poses on the beach in a citrus yellow two-piece, holding a red ball aloft. Nadia’s well-earned vacation! She poses surrounded by children in bathing costumes for whom she is signing autographs.

With the other girls in the team, on the sand, in her tracksuit (during this week of holidays offered them by the Party, they train each morning from 7 to 9, do balancing exercises on the beach, then it’s lunch, an obligatory siesta, and when they wake up an hour’s swimming followed by a race on the seashore to strengthen their ankles, before a ‘relaxed’ training session prior to supper).

She poses in the snow, the other little girls in single file behind her are wearing skis, but Nadia has to take them off after the photo because Béla won’t allow her to risk a fall.

She poses surrounded by adults in military uniforms (the paunchy general clings on to her hand for the photo, Nadia can hear his heavy breathing, his hand is podgy and soft).

On a stage, opposite an immense portrait of herself on the façade of a building, a little girl with harsh, haughty features.

This book of photographs devoted to her ends with an image of the ceremony in the Congress Palace, at which she is consecrated a Heroine of Socialist Labour, there has never been anyone so young, because normally this title is reserved for mothers with many children. She is the New Child of progress, even more modern than the Romanian oil industry, which is expanding rapidly.

In profile, she smiles at Ceauşescu. Still dressed in the team’s lavender suit, she leans forward into the microphone and recites in a high-pitched voice, ‘I am very touched. From the hand of the most beloved person in Romania! I will never forget this August day. Nor your belief in my strength, nor that of our esteemed Comrade Elena. We, all the girls in the team, have felt the warmth of your paternal love and we thank you from the bottom of our souls, beloved Conducător.’ He raises a hand and the applause dies away. ‘Here is a young girl born in a socialist country and rewarded with the highest accolades in world sport!’ Each of the Great Leader’s phrases is punctuated by ‘sustained’ applause, as the official communiqué describes it.

She poses with Béla, who bends down to be on the same level as her for the camera lens. He himself is awarded the Order of Labour First Class, a medal given to men and women who teach excellence to young Romanians. Every morning at the start of their training session, he greets the girl who has received a more prestigious honour than he has with the words, ‘Ah! Here comes our sacred, decorated cow!’