Chapter 59: Horses In The Cattle Pen

Lydia

For once things were relatively quiet for a change – quite literally. Feli wasn’t much of a screamer and except for Regina, who had to get up every night for a feeding, we mostly slept through the night.

Jenny, although under much protest, had gone to visit Bea for two weeks, which was testament to the fact how much she loved her little sister. Normally she would never miss a chance to visit mommy number three.

That gave us a bit of leeway to indulge Mark in his guilty pleasure. He would never have allowed himself to enjoy being breast-fed while Jenny was around. Of course, neither Meri, Nadja nor I had any milk on offer, but that wasn’t the point.

Today however we had some work on our hand, and that also meant we had to be clothed – all of us. We were waiting for a guest. Uwe, one of the best cross country skiers of former East Germany had agreed to give us an initial technique training over the next two weeks. It cost quite a bit of money, but we wanted to learn from one of the best, and ‘we’ that was quite an eclectic group.

Hearing of Nadja’s idea, Femke had asked to be included as well. She needed something other to do than endless indoor track training over the winter, and since the Netherlands were pathologically obsessed with ice skating, her reasoning was that if she could learn the technique even halfway right, she would almost be guaranteed a starting spot for her home nation as no more than a handful of people would take up any other discipline.

Any potential clash with Nadja was unlikely as Femke’s muscular build predestined her for the shorter distances, rather than the long ones our freshly-minted mom was shooting for. Mark had been a bit disappointed that Jonjo hadn’t come with her, but his friend had stayed back in Emden to work with Jenny on next year’s kart, which had struck me as slightly strange because it was the height of the summer holidays and they had usually started to work on the next season around October. Perhaps it was down to Jenny’s taking a hiatus this year.

The forth member of our training group was Mark himself. He didn’t have any Olympic ambitions, but he was still fed up with himself that he had barely made it back in time when Nadja had gone into labor. He had run a little over five kilometers in twenty minutes, with a ten-year old over his shoulder, which was more than respectable, but he was having none of it. Stubbornly insisting that I could run nearly twice as much distance in the same time, he had decided to increase his stamina.

Granted, he could use a good workout, but I knew how long it took to achieve a substantial result – Meri had needed half a year when she had switched to Cycling in 1993, and she had been an Olympic medalist already. I was afraid he could get frustrated if results didn’t come quickly.

Uwe

Although I was about to wind down my career in lower tier national races – the coming winter would be my last – I was still in good enough condition to make it through a 50 kilometer race and I could tell I was working with two marathon runners. Unlike Mark and the Dutch girl, Lydia and Nadezhda had absolutely no problems with the distance. Granted, their skating technique looked somewhat haphazard at best, but that was to be expected.

One thing I had been absolutely impressed by was the level of professionalism. When I had arrived at their place from the hotel I was staying in, all four of them were already warming up their muscles and they had not only bought the necessary equipment – roller skis, elbow and knee pads and the like – they had also laid out a training area.

For most of my life I had been based near the Czech border at Oberwiesenthal, and then later in Bavaria, after the reunification, so I didn’t really know this area much, but I soon realized why they preferred this area for their Cycling and running training. The whole landscape was pockmarked with exhausted open-pit coal mines, but in between those pit were many well-asphalted access roads who nobody used anymore, now that mining had stopped. They literally had square kilometers of landscape all to their own.

This was my first gig as a coach, but if things would always go this flawlessly, I had something to look forward to once I had run my last races in the winter.

Femke

“So, what’s the verdict?” I asked our coach during a break after the first twenty kilometers of the first day of training. We were all breathing quite heavily.

“You have the technique down quite nicely, actually,” he told me. But you’re Dutch, so I guess you’ve done a bit of ice skating before?”

“I did,” I confirmed. “But my arms are killing me.”

“That’s to be expected,” he explained. “You’re a cyclist. Except for steering and cheering you don’t use your arms much, normally.”

“Well, she gets to cheer a lot,” Mark said, hunched over his ski-poles in exhaustion.

“Your technique isn’t too bad either,” he told Mark. “You obviously have to build up stamina, but then you’re the only non-professional athlete here. 20 kilometers at that pace is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Mark just nodded tiredly.

“Lydia and Nadja had the most problems, which doesn’t come as a surprise. Especially the arm work. When running you swing the arms in opposite directions, so you’ll need some time to get used to it, but with your experience, I’d say a week at most and you’ll have it.”

Both Lydia and Nadja accepted his explanation with a nod.

“It’s a bit like trying to run a marathon in a pace gait,” Nadja said.

“Well observed,” he said. “The trouble for runners is, you have to learn to uncouple arm and leg movements in your head. Try inline skating without moving your arms. That should help a bit to get this automatism out of your head.”

“I could go to Dresden and buy some,” Mark offered. “I’m not sure I’m up to another 20K anyway.”

“Ask Meri to go,” Lydia told him. “You’re a bit to knackered to drive, honey.”

“Will do,” he said tiredly and skated away, straight back home.

“Has anyone told him he could actually be a pro if he put the right amount of training in?” our coach asked us. “Twenty kilometers as an untrained athlete was quite good.”

“Not another athlete,” Lydia said, shaking her head. “We don’t see each other enough as it is. I’ve just come back from Morocco two days ago.”

“I saw that one,” he said. “Nice win in those condition. I would have thought the Africans have an advantage in that heat.”

“They normally have,” Lydia confirmed. “But the current crop is still too young. Trust me, by 2002 at the latest, Europeans or Americans won’t have a chance anymore.”

“Alright,” the coach said. “Everyone up for another 15K, but slower this time? Femke, don’t you guys have that crazy skating race over 200 kilometers or something along canals and lakes in the Netherlands?”

“Elfstedentocht,” I confirmed.

“Okay, you take the lead and give us a cadence as if you were running that race. We’re not trying to break records here.”

Lydia

Poor Mark was absolutely knackered and had disappeared into the guest house right after dinner. Nadja and I were lying on the deckchairs around the pool, and I was a bit surprised when Femke joined us, as naked as we were. Even when she had still been in our inner circle, she had rarely gone completely naked, mostly topless only.

“Why has Jonjo really stayed behind?” I asked her. “Did something happen?”

“It didn’t quite work out the way we had hoped,” she said with a sigh. “We still love each other, but I was simply asking too much of him really.”

Suddenly Mark came out of the guesthouse, looking shocked – and naked, which made Nadja giggle.

“Femke, seriously?” he asked looking at her bewildered. “I’ve just talked to Jonjo. You and he ... you...”

“We broke up, yeah,” she confirmed. “How is he holding up?”

“That’s what riddles me,” he said. “He sounded quite calm. I know how much he loves you. What the hell?”

“I was just about to explain to Lydia,” Femke continued. “We didn’t break up on bad terms. We’ll probably be best friends forever, but we don’t work as life-long partners.”

“Do I have anything to do with it?” I asked. “Because we slept with each other in the altitude camp last year?”

“Indirectly,” she replied. “It could have been just about anyone else. He said he was okay with me doing it with other women, but in the end he was simply deluding himself, and he is way too bad at hiding it when he’s hurting. On the other hand he’s not the guy to try and demand I suddenly become straight.”

“You tried didn’t you?” Nadja asked her. “And then you were hurting too.”

Femke nodded.

“Welcome to my world,” Nadja said. “I stayed away from other women for years until I met Mark and Lydia. There was a reason why I always looked like the stereotypical grumpy Russian. It didn’t do me any good at all.”

Femke agreed. “You can only suppress it for so long. I became frustrated and lost all interest in it altogether, which then made him feel rejected, so basically one problem was feeding off the other. We had a long talk and agreed that it is better to break up and stay best friends instead of waiting until we’ve trampled on each other’s sensitivities long enough to part with hard feelings.”

“That sounds like a mature solution,” I said.

“For all his clownery and funny antics, Jonjo has quite a mature head on his shoulders,” Femke agreed with my assessment. “If anything, as friends we’ll probably work better than before.”

“How long?” Nadja asked. Although the question was rather vague, we all knew what it meant.

“September last year, when Meri won her champiosnhip,” Femke said and Nadja gasped. “Polniy god, Pisdez!”

She stood up and took Femke by the hand.

“I don’t think the two of us have had the honor yet,” she proclaimed. “Come!”

Femke looked at us in a mix of bewilderment and amusement as Nadja dragged her into the guesthouse.

“Well, with a bit of luck the bed is still warm,” Mark said dryly. “You’ll have to train without me tomorrow. Although Jonjo sounded quite okay, I’m going to Emden to see him tomorrow.”

“Do that,” I encouraged him and gave him a kiss.

Only two or three minutes later we heard Femke’s trademark grunt as she came noisily.

“Now that was quick, especially for Femke,” Mark said and chuckled.

Femke

Waking up in the morning left me slightly disorientated. For one and a half year I had become used to waking up next to Jonjo’s sturdy frame, but I found myself holding a rather petite woman in my arms.

I carefully disentangled myself and walked out. I had to smile when I saw Lydia and Mark, on the double-deckchair, sleeping soundly. Next to them sat Regina, breast-feeding the baby. I gave her a smile and carefully slid into the pool, trying not to make too much noise. Nadja and I had been all over each other for half the night, so I needed a bit of cleaning.

Once I had toweled myself dry, Regina handed me the baby. “Want to burp her?”

Now, I had done that countless of times with my little sister Aniek when she had been a baby and it didn’t take long until the little creature belched and I had to snicker.

“She’ll be a trucker one day,” I said with a giggle. “If there was ever a doubt who the father is...”

Nadja

Training was a little easier the next day and our coach was quite pleased with the progress.

“You guys have no idea how lucky you are to have such an area practically to yourself,” he said when we took a break. “If this was Bavaria, you’d have some youths out here racing their pimped cars.”

“The only one who races a pimped car around here is our resident ten-year old,” Lydia said with a chuckle.

“Pardon?” he asked.

“It would be too long a story to explain,” she said. “Anyway, there are two roads we can’t use here, because they’re used as access roads to the construction site of the Lausitzring, but everything else is basically our playground as the city council has barricaded all access ways. When three Olympic medalists come asking for help, you sometimes get a quick solution – even in Germany.”

“I had already wondered why you avoid the two widest roads,” he admitted.

“None of us is too keen to headbutt a forty ton truck,” Femke said with a giggle.

We resumed the training after a while.

Mark

Jonjo and I were sitting in a pub, drinking our beer.

“Was it really that bad?” I asked him.

“I was bullshitting meself, man,” he said. “At first I was even relieved that it was Mrs K, instead of some chick I didn’t know, but in the end I couldn’t really live with it.”

“That doesn’t sound like you,” I wondered.

“Look at me, man. You of all people should know that not everything about me is as it looks from the outside. Going to university in California makes you think you are the most progressive of the progressives, but I found out I’m a lot more conservative than I thought.”

“And now what?” I asked him. “You going back to the states?”

He shook his head. “I’ll stay. I like the Dutch, and besides, I’ve found a really good job here. We’ll still live in the same house, we just rearranged things a bit to give each other space. We still have our meals together or watch movies in the evening, but as friends now, not as lovers no more.”

“If you can live with that...” I wondered vaguely.

“Works almost better than before, man,” he said, and even smiled a bit. “But I guess she’ll show up at your place a bit more often now.”

“We’ve moved on a bit,” I reminded him.

“Man, please don’t leave her hangin’ now. You can’t probably go back to how things was years ago. But I would really hope you can ... well ... you know.”

“Well, that ... you know ... was well taken care of by Lydia last night,” I lied slightly. I didn’t think he was quite ready yet to be introduced to Nadja’s role in it.

He nodded and ordered two more beers.

“So you’re not really working on Jenny’s kart, are you?” I changed the topic.

“I am,” he disagreed. “Since she’s taking a break, she has a half-year head-start, man.”

“And what is the gain there?” I inquired. “You normally need two weeks to get her steed ready for a new season.”

“Because this time she ain’t gonna race some bog standard kart off the shelf, man. I’m designing the aero kit myself.”

“Wouldn’t you need to produce plastic parts and stuff like that, not to mention a wind tunnel?”

“That’s the thing, man. I’ve got a gig with a team what races the twenty-four hours of Nurburgring. They can bake carbon fiber parts and I have access to a wind tunnel.”

“You’s crazy Jonjo. I came here, worried you’d be moping and drown in self-pity. Instead you’re planning to design your own kart chassis?”

“It takes my mind off things, man,” he admitted. “Femke is the one that got away. It just wasn’t to be.”

Regina

When Mark came home we had all congregated around the pool. It had become our favorite place. Mainly because that’s the place where we didn’t need to wear anything, which was especially practical for me, as our little Feli was positively insatiable. That baby latched on every few hours and made me feel like my tits were deflating.

Mark chuckled as he was greeted by a more than healthy belch and he took the baby from me. Feeling the bottom of the diapers, he realized she had left a rather substantial deposit and carried her towards the house to get her changed.