Suitcase

I’m astonished one day when, with Nadia, we look over the completed chapters to find there’s no mention of her falling in love, none of those men who might have been ‘the opposite of those who played at being managers, like that P.’… Her sudden outburst catches me out, her exasperation: ‘I’m not going to apologize yet again! P.’s aim was obviously to become my manager, he told me so in the plane to New York. It’s true that I accepted. Because my freedom was worth it, you understand?’

Why doesn’t she give me her version of this affair, a twist worthy of a TV film that came to light in the autumn of 1990, a year after her arrival, during another press conference? When she revealed that, in fact, P. kept her prisoner in the United States and stole 150,000 dollars from her that she had earned from interviews. And also that she had known him barely a week when he helped her escape: ‘I said I knew him well because he told me it sounded better if I wanted to get a visa. He also advised me to say I didn’t want to do gymnastics any more, or to see Béla again. He never left me alone. I had no one to turn to. P. and his wife talked to each other every night on the phone. The scandal was a good earner for them. He used to threaten to put me in a suitcase and send me back to the Securitate in Romania.’