CHAPTER ELEVEN
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Moonlight touched the base of the door, where, square to the mirror, Sophi twisted first right and left. Her stomach was flat and muscled, but her arms hulked on either side like cumbersome strangers. In the adjoining room, a sigh turned to a gasp, followed by a sharp slap. The rhythm began again, to shouts of encouragement and clamorous laughter. It was, she realised, the trainer’s turn to perform.
She’d considered a dip in the nearby lake. No time for that. She’d showered, lathered on body lotion, pinched Diertha’s nail varnish and painted each nail with a hideous coat of pink. The varnish felt thick and sticky as if her fingers were webbed. Diertha had been away for six whole weeks. Now she was back, and this small defiance was all Sophi had.
Next door, the man and girl reached climax; the bed heaved: one-two-three-four, against the wall.
A flake of paint dislodged from the ceiling and floated down to the carpet. Sophi didn’t know any of them. The two girls had arrived that afternoon, grunted their way through training and refused to talk to anyone. The boys’ voices were just as unfamiliar. Sophi slipped off her dressing gown as the second pair yelled. A gasp, silence and applause before the sound of running water and the door opening and slamming shut as the boys returned to their dormitory.
Even though she spent half her life in water, her hair was long, glossy and dark. It was the one thing that remained feminine.
I look like a man, Sophi decided, staring at her upper lip that hinted at a three o’clock shadow. Down there thick hair was already re-growing, strong and waxy, and she’d already shaved that day. Running her hand through the wet growth, she wished to god they’d hurry, wished they’d never come, wished she had some other way to appease the itching inside. I’m a giant mermaid she thought, imagining the lake closing over her, leading her down.
Outside the window she heard the warning shriek of a nightingale as Diertha’s throaty laugh was followed by a giggle as someone pinched her. Four of them? The training session had run late and that meant they were high on steroids. Pulse racing, Sophi recited her weekly rule: never miss training, never ever miss training. Eric, her coach, a squat man with dry skin that flushed whenever he became annoyed, had laughed when, as a novice, she’d been foolish enough to ask him about the nightly orgies.
‘You girls can’t get enough can you? Sex is good. Work hard but play even harder.’ Now he squeezed tight against her whenever he had the chance and, more often than not, he came with the rest; after the late training session – keeping an eye on her, he said, as he fucked her, his eyes the colour of dirty water, mouth panting to reveal a stained tongue and broken teeth.
They burst in through the door, jostling, laughing and stripping. Diertha caressed her first choice of mate and pulled him towards the second narrow bed.
‘She’ll do whatever you want,’ she said, waving the others towards Sophi.
The three remaining boys stood watching the two moving on the bed. They giggled, looked sideways at one another. Two began to masturbate. The third turned to Sophi and lurched towards her as she lay down, legs spread. He propped himself above her, shut his eyes and brutally entered her; no doubt thinking of Diertha’s coy teasing, her come-on laughter and explicit suggestion as he drove into Sophi again and again.
She lost herself in the sensation of movement, such bliss. Her body felt as if it were made for sex, skin and sensation, a push of life, a glorious wave of relief, and finally the silky explosion, groaning, gasping.
The next stood to take his turn, hollering out with an untimely ejaculation. At the sniggers of the third boy, the guy flinched, blushed crimson, slunk away.
Strong hands turned her over and opened her wide to bruise and caress.
Another joined another as the door opened and more athletes arrived. Beds were hastily created on the floor, sheets and blankets protecting skin as the seething, jerky, fluid motion escalated. Sophi opened her eyes. She could see the moonlight bend its light across moving naked flesh. Beauty, ugliness, what was the difference?
She sensed him standing, waiting in the shadows. Shoulders back, hips forward, blue eyes hooded – and knew he would be patient, his hand moving in practised rhythm. So she closed her eyes and lost herself once more.
They were leaving, some in pairs, some alone. The sound began to die, shouts turning to murmurs and laughter. Without warning he was next to her, pulling her close, rougher than all the others, hurting, making her bleed and cry out in pain and pleasure. Finally there was only cool air on her skin, and from out in the birch trees came the final keening of birdsong.
Sophi woke with a start. Ebbe was sleeping beside her. They were punished if they didn’t report for training by six am, well rested, ready for work. Bad things would happen, not only to them but to their families. Food tokens might not arrive, the car might be taken away, travel permits to competitions abroad refused, and mama so wanted to have a holiday this year. Worse still: your parents could be taken to Stasi headquarters for questioning.
Each and every time, the boy looked younger than she’d remembered.
Dark hair, full lips and a determined chin. He held her even whilst asleep and she wondered for a moment why. He awoke and, with a seal-like turn, entered her. Kissing her into silence. They moved together before they lay spent and silent. Sophi stared into his strange bright eyes, noting the imperfect slant of his right eye, closer to his ear, the set of his mouth and thin cheekbones. He grinned, the smile not quite registering, kissed her mouth and slid out of the bed in one long flowing movement, pulling on his trousers and standing over her, strong and beautiful.
Sophi’s legs shook as she stood under a hot jet of water in the shower room. There was blood between them and, right at that moment, she vowed: I’m not going to do this again. Ever.
She’d find another room today, or as soon as possible, another roommate. Sophi was only here for one more week, now even that felt too long. The last time, after three weeks of almost nightly orgies, she’d stopped bleeding altogether and had to have an operation. The translucent foetus removed before it grew. The weary doctor hadn’t bothered to look up as he motioned a nurse to give the injection.
It wouldn’t hurt, he’d said, but it had. A bruising pain in her belly, an ache behind her eyes, but Sophi hadn’t cried. They were training for the games and, if she won a medal, she’d be eligible for a room of her own.
The hallway leading to the pool was silent; only the distant rasp of a scrubbing brush came from the pool area.
In the fourth cubicle, Sophi locked the door and checked every centimetre of space. Nothing had been moved or painted over. There were ways of knowing when or where a bug had been placed: newly painted walls, pictures that had been cleaned or re-hung. All was well. This cubicle was the same as yesterday: safe and wonderfully quiet. Her skin began to itch. Changing into the uniform swimsuit, she checked her legs and navel for new hair growth and saw her thighs were dotted with pinpricked circles. The last time that had happened she’d been given antibiotics but with the medicine her swimming time slowed. No way was that going to happen again.
Outside there was the usual patter as the other swimmers arrived. She’d learned how to judge distance at Hochberg. To know when someone was close enough to hear or when she was being listened to. The main doors opened and closed and from the far side of the pool Eric Röther shouted, ‘Come on Künstler, hurry up.’
Her groin tightened, remembering last night’s sex, counting how many times. I’m fifteen, she thought sliding her left hand between the seat and the wall, I’m fifteen. There it was. Her very own secret: the metal ridge of a new razor blade. As long as she could keep it safe everything else would be OK. As if he’d heard her, Eric began yelling at the other swimmers to change from their warm up to fast and slow laps.
‘You’re late.’ He pointed to the nearest lane that had been kept clear for Sophi. She could smell his stale breath; recall his hands pinching her breasts, poking, squeezing until he’d done what he wanted. His daughters were the same age as her. Creamy fleshed, dimpled babies, she’d seen them sitting with their mother, applauding as his team came first.
The water was deliciously cool. The white and blue of the swimming-pool tiles magnified an underwater world, bringing her thoughts sharply into focus. If only she could talk to Ebbe as a normal girlfriend might.Maria had a boyfriend. She’d be doing the things normal kids did: walking around the town in a group, talking, laughing about things that were only funny to them. No one in this place could ever do things like that. With every vitamin, each injection or medication the athletes took, they slipped further away from the edge of normal.
After six lengths she paused and waited for the day’s instruction – bursting to take on a challenge. That moment, the burning power in her muscles, the knowledge that she could fly through water and never really tire, made training worth every moment of pain.
After the hour’s work, she was thinking about breakfast and dreading the excruciating hour of exercise theory. No need to join the queue for the vitamins they all knew to be steroids. No pills today.That afternoon she’d be in one of the hidden underground rooms, sitting in the submarine-like Barochamber, breathing in oxygen-reduced air. Following that the last series of painful steroid injections before the Olympic Games, then training in the wave pool with the hated mask over her face and a tube that fed in air.
A side-glance at Eric had her missing Maria again. Her friend would have made such fun of his fist of a face. Someone had upset the training schedule. Maybe she hadn’t swum fast enough? Frightened, Sophi knew Eric could do terrible things. Her days could be turned into one long cycle of injections and ‘exercise’ alone with him.
In its hiding place the blade whispered a promise of escape. She dug her shaking hand between the seat and the wall, pinched the blunt end between her finger and thumb, running the blade lightly across her arm careful not to cut skin. They were swimming again straight after the theory class, and people were beginning to notice the scars on her arms and her breasts.
In the adjoining cubicle, pretty, snub-nosed Heike chatted away about the theatre trip that had been arranged. She waited so they could walk to the canteen together and talk about the latest method of hand roll to create smooth water flow.
‘It’s impossible,’ Heike held her hands out, turning them first one way then the other.
‘Like this?’ Sophi slowly cupped and tilted her hands as gracefully as she could, but out of water the movement looked clumsy and wrong. Heike laughed.
‘How’s your roommate?’ she asked as Sophi looked away. Older athletes were primed to check on the younger ones. Reporting everything to the officials and getting rewarded for information with special favours. Heike didn’t even know who Diertha was. She’d never asked anything like that before, only complaining, like they all did, about the gruelling schedule and the nearly impossible new swimming styles they were supposed to perfect.
‘Everything’s fine.’
Sophi turned left towards the sentry gate, slipping into the cramped reception office. Barely ten minutes left to make her weekly phone call. When Mama answered, Sophi asked for Papa and her heart sank when she heard him saying that he was late, in a hurry to leave for his surgery. Reciting the list of clothing down the phone, she longed to whisper ‘Save me,’ and tell him what happened every night, but she knew Papa wouldn’t believe her. He’d told her that she was lucky to be chosen. He’d say she should do exactly what she’d been told to do; so she ended the call weeping silently into the arm of her sweatshirt.
After breakfast Eric was already ticking the last name on his list when Sophi astonished herself by stopping and asking him outright for a different room.
‘Diertha stays up so late,’ she said. ‘I need rest if I’m going to win.’ She amended her words to: ‘I will win,’ when he looked annoyed.
‘Better than all the others now are you?’
‘No Eric, I just need to sleep.’
Right there, at that moment, she nearly blurted out how she knew where his wife lived; she even had the phone number. If she did that she might as well cut her wrists properly. Eric would hardly miss her. There were new girls waiting to swim for him, girls that could be better than her, each one eager to give him whatever he wanted.
‘Diertha Bernstock will be leaving soon enough,’ he said. ‘You’ll have the room to yourself once she’s gone.’
Paying scant attention to the theory lesson, her mind already imagining that promise of stillness, Sophi dreamed of sleep wrapped in clean white sheets, of winning the Olympics and escaping this place of nightmares into a world of colour.