RAZ-NEVA TOURNAMENT
July/August 2000, in Romania
On the trip back to Bucharest from Monaco, Jada felt somewhat of a shift in the chemistry with Ayano. He had always been chivalrous and attentive, but now there was a sort of guardianship to his demeanor around her. It seemed like he now had to be in physical contact with her in public, in case someone thought she might be single. Jada didn’t know if it was just that they now had a secret between them or if he was being a little possessive of her.
When they got back to Ayano’s place in Bucharest that evening, Jada decided to ask him a few questions as they unpacked in the bedroom.
“So, what did you tell Nikos about Saturday night?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant. They traveled with Nikos this time, so she wasn’t able to ask him on the flight and it was driving her crazy.
“Well, I thanked him for the coke…” he said obtusely, knowing exactly what she was getting at. “I didn’t mention anything to him, iubi. I’ve known him for a few years and generally if I don’t bring something up, he won’t push it.”
“Really? Are you telling me the truth, or is there a bro-code?” she asked, sort of teasing but not entirely. She put her purple dress on a hanger in the closet, wondering how good the dry cleaning was in Romania.
“A bro-code?” he called over his shoulder, putting away his toothbrush in the bathroom.
“Bro is like brothers, like men will say things only among each other and the code is to never mention the conversation around women,” Jada explained. She noticed his English was nearly perfect, but sometimes he showed his age by not knowing some of the slang she used.
“Oh, we call that the man-conspiracy here. Of course we hide all kinds of things from our girlfriends. Murders, jewel heists, sexual details… I’d tell you more about it, but that would kind of defeat the purpose,” he said with a big smile as he walked back into the bedroom.
“Very funny. Okay, so Nikos probably knows. He saw us walking out of their room,” she said unhappily as she shoved her empty suitcase under the bed. Ayano walked up behind her and grabbed her ass as she was bending over.
“What? What does he know? Most men couldn’t imagine a night like that in their wildest dreams. The guys will think whatever they want to think, like I was watching a sexy pillow fight or something,” he joked, hugging his arms around her waist as she stood up. Jada turned around and pointed her index finger directly on the middle of his chest.
“If you ever want a night anything like that again, you’ll keep your mouth shut,” she said as he looked at her innocently. “I know men talk, but please, I don’t want to get those ‘yeah, I heard about you…’ creepy kind of looks.”
“Believe me, you’ll never get a look like that. If you do, I’ll break some bones,” he told her. “Speaking of which, I have a Răz-nevă fight Thursday night. Do you want to come?” he asked, clapping his hands and rubbing them together in excitement.
“Yes, I do. Who are you fighting?” she asked him. She pictured him the way he was when she first met him: bare-chested with sweat running down his hard body.
“Eh, this guy Cosmin Draghici. He was a class below me until a few months ago. He barely qualifies,” he said dismissively.
“Does it get bloody?” she asked.
“For him, it might. Honestly, iubi, I only lose a fight if I get paid a lot for it. And help others make some money. Sorry, you are with a man who throws boxing matches,” he consoled her, not looking the least bit sorry.
“Then what’s the scene like? Lots of criminal-types?” Jada wondered if and when she would find out if she was the only criminal in this relationship.
“Well, they serve wine there. That’s good, right?” he said, obviously trying to find something nice to say about the venue.
“Ah. So, you’re saying it’s not fancy,” she gathered. She was picturing what a Las Vegas boxing match looked like from TV and movies she had seen.
“No, no, it’s okay. It has tablecloths on the tables, everyone wears shirts. Nice shirts. What I’m trying to say is that there are only two types of women there: those who come with their boyfriends or husbands and the ones who go to look for a boyfriend or husband.” Ayano explained, getting undressed for bed. Jada loved looking at his stomach as he pulled off his shirt, his abs and the curve of his spine making him look especially graceful. Like a marble statue of a discus thrower.
“I see. Like that photo of the woman kissing your bicep,” she said, grabbing his arm. “Am I supposed to do that at the fight?” she teased.
“No, no, no.” He grinned. “Those women want to be trophies. You… are different. You are educated, talented, and you have your own biceps.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere, my friend…” she smiled back as he touched her small but strong biceps adoringly and gave her a look that made her feel like she had definitely made the right choice in coming to Romania for him.
TOURNAMENT ARENA
The night of the fight, Ayano told her a little bit more about Răz-nevă tournaments. He had to arrive early so, when the fight was due to start in three hours, he started rushing her to get ready. He was fairly prompt and he hated that she didn’t pay attention to the time, like many Brazilians. While he hadn’t given her explicit instructions on what to wear, she noticed him glancing over at her a lot as she was getting dressed. She took that to mean that she shouldn’t go out of her way to look sexy. She put on a cropped blue tank top and a long skirt with a tribal design of a dragon on it.
“Is this okay?” she asked, putting on a choker necklace. “Too casual?”
“No, iubita, it’s fine. You look great. You don’t even have to wear heels if you don’t want, it’s just drinks with a bunch of sweaty guys,” he said, throwing a few things in a duffel bag.
“I was born in heels,” she retorted.
“And I definitely recommend getting very drunk. It’s going to be loud and full of adrenaline in there. Stay with Sergei and Nikos and Dumitru. When you go to the bathroom, bring one of the girls with you. Who did you already meet, was it Antonija?”
“Yeah, she’s nice,” she said absently, opening her mouth slightly while applying her black eyeliner. She was leaning over the bureau to see in the mirror.
“Sergei invited a Moldovan woman he’s after. I forget her name. I’m sure she’s bringing some other interested parties,” he speculated. He looked at the clock on his bureau. “C’monc’monc’mon!” he said, slapping her ass a few times.
Jada turned around and made an unconvincing “how dare you” expression at him.
“You are acting like it’s Christmas Eve. It’s so cute!” she laughed, turning back to the mirror to finish her makeup. Ayano grabbed her around her bare waist and kissed her neck.
“I wish I could fool around with you before the fight, but it’s bad luck,” he told her. She rolled her eyes at him.
“You think everything’s bad luck,” she said. Other things he had said were bad luck included dropping a pair of scissors, an even number of flowers in a bouquet, and sitting in the corner of a table. He lifted her up and returned her to the ground.
“Not everything’s bad luck. This, this is probably good luck,” he said, squeezing her breasts as they both looked ahead at the mirror. She grabbed his wrists and pulled them away.
“I’d be ready by now if you’d stop being so grabby!” she said teasingly. She wriggled away and grabbed a wedge sandal while looking for the other. In a few minutes, she was ready to go.
The big guy, Iosif, drove the five of them to the venue in a black 1970 Mercedes-Benz limo. The traffic was terrible as usual in Bucharest. They would all be meeting up with several of Ayano’s friends and supporters later on. Ayano was practically bouncing with energy for the entire ride. The guys were regaling Jada with tales of his past victories and passing around a flask, which Ayano had to decline because of tournament standards.
The sun setting had lowered the temperature some, but it was still sweltering August weather. The tournament was at a large arena near the center of downtown. Iosif dropped them off and went around back to park. The five of them entered noisily through the back, the guard nodding to Ayano as they passed. It was barely any cooler indoors. Air conditioning was not as prevalent in Europe as in the US, to which Jada had become accustomed. They walked down a large hallway until they reached the locker room. Ayano quickly swooped down to give Jada a kiss.
“<I swear, guys, if you let anyone so much as spill a drink on her...>” he said in Romanian, pointing to all of them and looking lightly stern.
“<Don’t worry about a thing! She wasn't bad in the sparring in Marseille. Keep your head in the fight!>” Sergei told him.
“<We won’t let her out of our sight. Promise,>” Dumitru assured him.
Jada assumed they were talking about bets and didn’t expect them to include her in every discussion, but it was getting annoying when they’d speak Romanian in front of her when they didn’t have to. She was not going to be excluded.
Ayano looked like he was going to burst out in excitement. He gave her another kiss and looked like he swallowed a thought just in time before it came out his mouth.
“Have fun,” he told her instead. “Everyone bet large, I mean it!” he yelled over his shoulder, heading back to the locker room. He walked off, a nondescript silhouette in a black Puma tracksuit carrying a duffel bag.
On the way to their seats, Dumitru handed Jada the flask. Like a good Romanian boy, he was drinking some of that strong spirit made from plums.
“He has to win three out of five rounds. Rounds are three minutes long,” he started telling her, his cigarette hanging off his lip.
“Who is the guy he’s fighting?” she asked, taking a gulp from the flask and trying not to let anyone see her eyes water from its burn. It didn't taste like nail polish remover like the one Nikos made, at least.
“Draghici? He was just a boxer until he got into Răz-nevă a few years ago. Ayano’s been doing this a lot longer,” Dumitru reassured her.
“You will think Draghici is moving underwater compared to him,” Sergei said poetically.
“Hey, we gotta find Varujan soon,” Nikos said. “He’s the bookie, to place the bets,” he explained to Jada. They made brief eye contact, but Jada was still worried about him seeing them outside the hotel room in Monaco and looked away quickly.
“How much are you guys betting?” she asked them. They walked into the brightly lit main arena and took a table by one of the ring’s corners. Only a few other tables had people at them already, presumably other friends of the fighters. There were around sixty or seventy tables in the room, she estimated, all covered in dark red tablecloths. The tables that were occupied were already littered with glasses, bottles, and ashtrays. As she checked out the crowd, she determined it was largely made up of white guys with dark hair who didn’t trust outsiders.
“Eh, I’m gonna do five hundred thousand lei. That’s what people make in about a month here,” Dumitru said. Jada estimated that was about seventy bucks in the US, which was about what the average Brazilian made in a month, too.
“I’ll do the same, then,” she said. She wanted to show she had faith in Ayano but she also didn’t want to flash too much cash around.
“Okay, let’s get some drinks and then we’ll go find him,” Nikos decided, craning his neck to find a waitress. He waved a petite one with black hair and blue eyes over to the table.
“<We’re going to get a bottle of whiskey and a pitcher of beer.> Jada, what do you want? Wine? Brandy?” Dumitru asked.
“White wine, please,” Jada said. There were several local brandies and liquors to try in Romania. Most were very, very strong. She’d stick to wine.
“<She’ll have a bottle of the best white wine you’ve got,>” he told the waitress.
“<You got it. Thank you. I’ll be right back,>” she said, smiling warmly.
“Can I have a cigarette from one of you guys?” Jada asked the table. It was hard to handle all the cigarette smoke unless she was smoking one herself. "When in Rome," she thought. Having the taste of smoke in her mouth made all the second hand smoke less noticeable, even though she was still immersed in it. Nikos was sitting on her right. He got out a pack of a brand she had never heard of from his sleeve. When he wasn’t wearing a suit, he always carried his pack rolled up his sleeve like the greasers did in the 1950s. He presented the cigarettes to her and Jada took one.
“Ah, there’s Varujan. He’s at the long table in the back,” Nikos pointed out a fat old man in a tan lightweight suit smoking a cigar. His belly was quaking with laughter as he squeezed some poor waitress’ ass.
“I’m not going over there. Here,” Jada said, taking the lei out of her purse and handing the wad of cash over to Dumitru. She put the cigarette in her mouth and Nikos promptly lit it for her.
“He wouldn’t be like that to you. No one here would,” Nikos explained, as if stating a fact that everyone knew.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, you’re with us. Everyone knows we work for Ayano,” Nikos replied as he and Sergei gave money to Dumitru as well. Dumitru went across the room in his light jog to Varujan’s table. Jada very much doubted that a simple metallurgist warranted this much respect.
“Hey, is Tanea coming tonight?” Nikos asked Sergei.
“Yeah. I have a fight here next week. You guys should make a point to mention it, she might want to come…” Sergei said hopefully to everyone, even Jada. Sergei was dressed distinctly in 70s clothing, preferring collared button-down shirts in a dull color palette. Today’s was black and he looked strange without a leather jacket. They all usually wore them.
Dumitru returned to the table at the same time that the waitress was bringing their drinks. He said that the bets were looking about fifty-fifty for Ayano and Draghici. Jada wondered if this should worry her at all. The guy couldn't have been that bad if the betting was evenly split.
The arena was starting to fill up. Iosif had rejoined the group, scoping out each table on his way over. Shortly after, Antonija arrived with three other women. All of them were wearing short, strapless dresses and high heels. The men at the table rose to greet them.
“<Hi, sweetie!>” Antonija greeted Dumitru first with a kiss. “Hi Jada! Nice to see all of you! This is Tanea, Loredana, and Mara.” The women greeted everyone, took their seats, and ordered some more drinks. Most of the conversations at the table were in Romanian by now. It was getting louder and hotter inside.
“When does Ayano go on?” Jada asked Sergei.
“He will be in the middle. He’s a welterweight, they call it, but he’s just a kilogram below the maximum weight. That way, he’ll be stronger than most welterweights but faster than the heavyweights. The featherweights and middleweights go first, then the welterweights, then the heavyweights. Iosif is a heavyweight. He fights next week, too,” he told her, knocking back a small glass of caraway vodka. He answered a few more questions, but then couldn’t appear gracious anymore and joined the Romanian conversation.
ROUND ONE
When the tournament started, there were actual women in bikinis holding signs. Only about a fourth of the crowd was female. Nikos kissed the small gold cross around his neck and Dumitru made the sign of the cross for good luck. Jada was relieved that the fights were starting because she wasn’t engaged enough with the table’s conversation to ignore the heat.
The smaller, faster fighters went on first. They all got grand entrances, with spotlights and booming announcements over the loudspeakers. There was a path that led from the locker rooms through the crowd of tables to the ring. Advertisements for all kinds of Romanian businesses were on the ring’s floor, on the fighter’s robes, and on most of the signs in the room. The fighters were all pretty impressive, Jada noted. She speculated that she would have a chance at beating only half of the guys who went on if she had to fight them without any weapons. It reminded her how much more training she needed.
Jada was mainly observing the people at the table. Tanea, the Moldovan, chatted with Sergei in Russian. There must be some history lesson there, but she did not want to bring up anything political. Tanea’s thin arms and brusque mannerisms reminded Jada of a sexier version of that dalmation movie villainess.
The women announced a group trip to the restroom and off they went. Jada chatted with all of them through Antonija’s translation. It was mostly pleasantries about each other’s appearances and praise for Ayano’s fighting ability. She did, however, mention Sergei’s fight next week and what a smart, talented guy he was later on. Sergei was out of earshot but she had a feeling it would get back to him. It never hurts to get on someone’s good side, she thought. Tanea looked very interested, but only in her subdued version of enthusiasm. Jada was pleased to see Tanea chat Sergei up some more during the next couple rounds of fighting.