From my room I dialed Carlos Kirmayr, as I had been instructed to do by Dick Dell. There was no answer. When I phoned the main desk to leave a message, the operator put me on hold, and I got my first inkling that much as the hotel might resemble a standard Stateside Hilton, it had its share of local eccentricities. Instead of Muzak, I heard Joe Cocker wailing “You Can Leave Your Hat On.”
For the rest of the day I phoned Carlos, listened to more choruses from Joe Cocker, and kept my hat on as the realization dawned that I was wasting my precious forty-eight hours. I dialed Gabriela’s room, but there was no answer there either.
That evening I want down to the lobby, and while double-checking whether my messages had been delivered, I spotted Sabatini emerging from and elevator. The Women’s Tennis Association media guide lists her as five feet eight and a hundred thirty pounds, but she looked much larger in a pair of tight jeans and a dark leather jacket with wide shoulders that called to mind Joan Crawford in football pads. Her face was fine-boned and chisel-featured, with glossy lips and teeth that shone unnaturally bright against her tan.
When I introduced myself, she smiled and inclined her head as if she couldn’t decide whether I was someone she knew or just another giddy fan.
“Vogue magazine. The profile,” I repeated. “We need to spend some time together.”
She nodded dreamily, said, “Oh, yes,” but drifted away, still smiling. Carlos Kirmayr took her place. He was smiling, too. A short, compact fellow with a freckled complexion and sun-streaked hair, he wore a blue denim jacket from the Hard Rock Café in Tokyo. The lobe of his left ear was pierced, but there was no earring. He said he and Gaby had practiced today at an indoor facility. The trip from Buenos Aires had taken eighteen hours, door to door, and a good workout was, in his opinion, the best way to recover from jet lag. This was as close as he came to explaining why he hadn’t responded to my messages.
We strolled over to where Gaby waited with her parents. Mr. Sabatini was a seigniorial gent with white hair, a white mustache, and a firm policy of saying nothing to the press. Mrs. Sabatini was more extroverted, but there was little opportunity to speak to her before Carlos announced that they were off for a family dinner. Gaby and he would see me tomorrow at the practice courts. Panicky at the thought of losing them, I suggested we have breakfast together. He said no, they’d meet at noon.
Next morning when I came downstairs at ten-thirty, Kirmayr and Sabatini were headed toward the door carrying equipment bags. I hurried over to ask whether there had been a change of plans.
“Yeah,” Carlos said. “The courts won’t be dry by noon. We’re practicing indoors again.”
Both Gaby and he were their polite smiling selves, but they had no intention of talking to me on the ride to the training center in Riano. “Gaby’s parents are going with us,” Carlos said. “You’ll have to catch the next courtesy car.”
There was no point in asking what would have happened if our paths hadn’t crossed. This was the kind of foul-up that anybody who writes about tennis learns to expect. But given Dick Dell’s assurances that everything had been arranged, given Gabriela’s supposed eagerness to appear as a fashion plate in Vogue, I was surprised. My forty-eight hours were down to twenty-four and fast shrinking.
***
Two stocky German women with short hair—one had a buzz cut—shared the car with me. The Italian driver kept casting glances at them in the rearview mirror, but they weren’t the self-conscious type. They introduced themselves as Gerda and Gisela, friends of Martina Navratilova’s. Which, I assumed, was why tournament officials allowed them to ride in a car reserved for players and press. But it turned out that they were, in their own words, just “crazy Martina fans,” not personal friends. They followed her from country to country all around the world. “Some friends think we’re insane, but it’s a lot of fun. You meet so many people.”
They didn’t just watch Martina’s matches. They watched her work out even on days like today when it required cadging a lift and riding across Rome, up Via Salaria to the autostrada. Altogether it was a fifty-mile round-trip, and they intended to make it again this afternoon.
We passed a guardhouse and entered a fenced-in compound full of athletic fields and Quonset huts. Gerda and Gisela spotted a diminutive figure jogging through the drizzle. “Oh God, it’s Cindy Nelson!” they exclaimed.
Cindy Nelson had come into Martina’s life after the exit of her former lover, Judy Nelson. She was invariably referred to by reporters as Half-Nelson.
A canvas bubble covered two red-clay courts. On one, Navratilova was hitting with Mary Joe Fernandez. Craig Kardon, Martina’s coach, and Ernesto Ruiz Bry, Mary Joe’s coach, watched from the sidelines. The match was more than a contrast of Navratilova’s net rushing against Fernandez’s baseline defense. It was an opposition of fire and ice. Yet ironically, the pretty Hispanic girl was the icy self-possessed one, while the blond Czech generated all the sparks, laughing at her mistakes and cursing a blue streak. “Goddammit, bend your knees. Fucking ball won’t bounce.”
On the other court, Gabriela was stretching with Carlos while Mr. and Mrs. Sabatini sat nearby, bundled up like Eskimos. It wasn’t much warmer in here than outside.
Except for Gerda, Gisela, and Mrs. Sabatini, all the onlookers, including the coaches, were men. As I would notice in the coming months, the women’s tour was largely populated by male agents, umpires, linesmen, coaches, sparring partners, gofers, and journalists, not to mention the fathers, brothers, boyfriends, and husbands of the players.
Unlike the other girls, who appeared to have put on whatever lay close at hand—boxer shorts, bicycle pants, baggy T-shirts, rumpled sweat suits—Sabatini wore an elegant warm-up designed by Sergio Tacchini. As she started off stroking the ball at half speed and with none of her trademark topspin, Mama and Papa studied her racquet preparation with the sort of intensity that stockbrokers bring to the Dow Jones averages. Gradually Carlos and Gaby began hitting harder, their strokes as rhythmic as the rain beating against the canvas bubble. The session proceeded almost entirely without words and was as beautifully choreographed as a dance routine. From time to time Kirmayr applauded his pupil by slapping a hand against his thigh. Otherwise there was silence except for the X-rated chatter from Navratilova.
Perspiration purled down Gabriela’s cheeks, falling from her nose and chin. She shed her warm-up suit, skinning down to a fuchsia shirt and a pair of shorts in a fuchsia and purple pattern. For a few minutes they did a drill in which Gaby produced delicate drop shots that nestled into the moist clay. Then Carlos moved to the net and Gaby tried to pass him. Whenever she missed, she shot him a malignant stare, but didn’t utter a word.
When they stopped after an hour and a half, Sabatini stretched as carefully as she had before practice. She leaned back against the net post, and Carlos genuflected in front of her, letting her extend a leg and cradle her heel on his shoulder. By slow degrees he stood up to his full height, pulling her hamstring taut as piano wire. Crouching, he released one leg and raised the other in the same fashion while Gaby gazed straight ahead, her face as imperturbable as the sculpted figure on the prow of a ship.
I crossed the court thinking at last this was my chance to speak with her. But Carlos moved between us. Gaby, he said, had to hurry back to the hotel for a shower. The interview would have to wait He told me to call him at 3 P.M.; he’d be happy to set up an appointment then.
“I thought I already had an appointment. I thought this was all arranged. That’s what Dick Dell said.”
Yes, yes, he nodded. “Call me. I’ll take care of everything.”
***
For the rest of that day and part of the next, I tried to keep my hat on as smoke streamed from my ears. There was never an answer at Carlos’s room nor at Gaby’s. I