As Gilberto arrived at the training ground he was greeted by incredulous looks from his team mates, he was not in the least bit surprised by these looks after all he was wearing purple velvet slippers knitted by his grandmother. Mouche let out a laugh and said something about ruby slippers and the wizard of oz. Gilberto took great pains in explaining to Mouche that they were not ruby but a deep purple and that as far as he could remember Dorothy’s slippers were not made of the same soft velvet as his. As the mirth and amusement amongst the team began to die down, Gargagno asked the question that was on everyone’s lips. “Gillo, why an earth have you come to training in your slippers?” Gilberto then proceeded to tell everyone, that when he had gone back to his room after breakfast this morning to collect his things for training, he had noticed that his favourite boots were not where he had left them. He had then walked over opened his suitcase only to discover his 15 spare pairs of boots were missing too. Now for most of the other Rio Grande players this would have been an annoyance but no more as they could have just borrowed a team mate’s spare pair, but for Gilberto it was a big problem. You see Gilberto’s ability as a defensive enforcer was partly aided by the fact that the huge Brazilian had size 17 feet. These mighty feet required him to have his boots especially made for him by old bocanegro the master shoemaker of old El Salvador and now all 16 pairs had been stolen. This was why the Brazilian now stood in front of his fellow players with his gigantico feet encased in the ridiculous purple velvet slippers his blind grandmaman had made for him last Christmas.
Despite my protestations Gilberto insisted on playing, so the training match went ahead. The Brazilian defender manfully trying to fulfil his role as the commanding centre back in the velvet slippers. The willowy young winger Acosta and the petite striker Chicarrito were making the most of this rarest of opportunities to exact some revenge on those giant feet of Gilberto’s, that had so often felled them with almost bone shattering tackles. After about half an hour I had to call Gilberto over and tell him to sit out the rest of the training session as little Chicarrito kept jumping up and down on his unprotected feet; which incidentally must be made of a similar material to stone as when he sat down next to me and José with a look of dejection I examined his feet which seemed to have been barely marked by the studs of Acosta and Chicarrito.
As I sat there watching the rest of the team going about their training in the usual light hearted manner of true Rio Grandean’s, my mind started to be taken over with thoughts of the strange and unfortunate events that had befallen the team since our arrival in this new land. The rice fight at Tumski Bridge, Pastore’s constant whoring, then the worrying behaviour of Torado that had preceded his disappearance and now the theft of Gilberto’s handmade boots. I was sure there could not be one man in Poland outside of the team who could know about the unearthly size of Gilberto’s feet. I got the sense that there were strange and dark forces as work; maybe it was the work of covert agents sent by the new military junta that had forced us to flee our beloved mountain paradise of Rio Grande. Finding it impossible to shake of these disturbing thoughts, I decided to leave my able assistant José in charge of the rest of the training session, bade good day to Gilberto and headed back to the team hotel. Walking back I decided that the only answer was to write a letter to the one man who could help unravel this mystery, Don Polvere Blanco the retired drug lord of old El Cantino. I heard through the grapevine that he had followed us in exile to Europe and was currently residing in a small Pueblito near Grenada. If anyone would have more news from the homeland it would be him Don Blanco was a man who kept his ear to the ground.
That day the letter had to wait.
As I walked through the doors at the entrance of our hotel, I noticed the paint was peeling off the frames, I wondered why no one had repainted them? Surely the entrance to any hotel should be kept looking fresh, clean and inviting; I considered pointing this out to Marek the skinny and shifty looking bell boy who was charging towards me with a look of determination on his face. As he approached I saw he was clasping a large brown Manila envelope in his clammy hand. “Mr Mr Signor Robbiati a letter for you tak” I thanked him taking the letter, which was encountering some resistance from the grip of his greasy hands, he stood there looking back at me with what I could only describe as a creepy sense of satisfaction smeared across his narrow face. Then I realised that he was waiting for something, I dug into my trouser pocket and pulled out a 10 Zloty note and placed it in his damp hand. He bowed and then scuttled off, to harass some other poor guest in another part of the hotel. I did not like him one bit, he was a fawner and a eavesdropper, you could find the quietest, darkest most deserted corner of the hotel and within a minute there he would be lurking over your shoulder. I almost half expected to see him first thing in the morning as I sat on the toilet, handing me the toilet paper with an inane grin, the thought made me shudder.
My attention was drawn back to the brown envelope I was holding in my hand, turning it over in my hand I noticed it had a very distinct smell to it, that I could not quite place, it reminded me of some sort of fruit cocktail I had once tried as a teenager, that had resulted in a night of vomiting. Now what was that drink called, it had a very English name which escaped me for the time being. Turning it over in my hand I noticed the letter had my name and the address of the hotel neatly typed in pink.
I was disturbed by the sensation of someone looking over my shoulder and turned to see that the delightful Marek had returned, he winked at me and pointed at the writing on the envelope “written in pink Mr Robbiati, maybe from a lovely lady, no sir?” I smiled as thinly as water back at him and decided to head to the hotel bar to escape his unwanted attentions.
The hotel bar was as equally unimpressive as the peeling doors that led to the lobby, it consisted of two Formica tables, six wooden chairs and one spongy armchair that reminded me of the sort you might find in an old peoples home. Its only redeeming features were its emptiness and the pleasant elderly woman who manned the bar, although her age did add to the whole feeling of a retirement home that hung over the room.
The lady silently walked over to me, smiled and placed down my usual Espresso on the ugly blue table, then returned to her task of polishing the six bottles of alcohol that stood looking rather embarrassed on the shelf behind the makeshift bar. She pulled another bottle down and started the rigorous polishing process that filled most of her working day. I watched her nimbly turning the bottle over in her hand until the label was facing me. The liquid was a sort of ruby red and the label was white with red writing on it that said Pimms No 1. That’s it that was what the smell had reminded me of, I lifted the envelope back up towards my nose and there was the same smell Pimms!!
I examined the writing again on the envelope.
Master Robbiati
Pod Pielonioum hotel, Chobrego Street, Wroclaw, Polonia
In the top right hand corner there were six stamps all with the British Queen Elizabeth on them, then underneath a postage stamp, London SW7. I carefully opened the letter and pulled out a white card that was about the same size and thickness as an invitation, it only had one word written on it TORADO, in the same red as the liquid in the white labelled bottle I had watched the old lady polishing at the bar, the liquid rolling up and down the bottle as she gently rolled it in her hands between two white glass cloths.
Below the word TORADO was a large pink symbol of a hippopotamus, nothing else!!
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