Chapter Three: ‘Cover yours balls’

My first car cost £200. A navy-blue Ford Fiesta that may have been older than me. The suspension only worked on one side, causing a tilt which carried the passenger closer to the road surface. It got me to Bristol and back, to school and back a few times, and to Blackpool and back before an MOT sentenced it to die. After less than three weeks together, the party was over and the old Fiesta was consigned to the scrap heap for £100. Amongst my mates at Nicki B academy, the fact I had a car – any car – was a privilege, because we all knew getting a motor wasn’t the pricey part: having parents who would fork out two grand for a teenager’s insurance was the real barrier. So, I was lucky, and the Fiesta was my Ferrari. 

(Riga, Latvia, 2016)

‘Audi saloons are kinda poor. Like a desperate teenage boy whose family don’t really have any money.’ 

What? Was this girl nuts? If I’d shown up at sixth-form in an Audi A4, people would have thought my dad had won the lottery. But then, my lift from Riga airport should have warned me of this. 

I don’t have many opinions about cars, they bore me if I’m honest. However, ever since I was run over by a four by four in St Albans a few years ago, I’ve decided there should be some form of extra test to prevent useless yummy-mummy- or twatty-daddy-drivers from getting behind the wheel of an off-roader. My new girlfriend¹ had bought me flights to go and visit her, so should I really have been surprised when she collected me from the airport in an enormous Range Rover? Maybe not. But she’d only passed her test the week I arrived. 

As we drove out of Riga to Jelena’s parents’ house in the suburbs, she explained how her father had chosen this particular location to build their dream property as it was the only direction you could leave the city without passing any Russians. As far as I could tell, Russians, in Latvian, means poor. This was a route out of town that didn’t pass any pre-fab tower blocks thrown up in the Soviet era. No Russians, few Audi A4s and certainly, certainly, no Ford Fiestas.

I started to wonder where I’d come and, frankly, who I was dating. This overt materialism and snobbery is viewed in England as ugly, as classless; Durham rich-kids’ purposefully dirty, worn Reeboks say it all. But I was too swept away in the novelty of Jelena, her family and of Latvia to worry too much. I soon realised that, to my hosts, I, too, was a great novelty. 

In an accent I can only recall as something of a cross between Borat and Vladimir Putin, Jelena’s father, Ernests, quizzed me on everything from Oasis and the royal family to London taxis and why ‘sheeps’ don’t huddle as much in British fields (my best guess was that it gets colder in Latvia). Her mother asked me about tea. And her little brother asked me about all sorts, in crisper English than most seven-year-olds back home. 

I was carted in the Range Rover from historical site, to fancy restaurant, to area of natural beauty. I’d been told to bring my best clothes for a treat her father had planned. Back at the house, I donned my (ironed!) shirt, smart shoes and black chinos and was ready for the evening’s surprise entertainment. 

Their house was palatial. Beautifully designed, spotlessly clean, they even had a cook. Latvian food is delicious and I made sure nothing the chef prepared ever went to waste. The problem with that was, of course, that ‘O Pato’ came out to quack and I was constantly in fear that the acoustics of a spacious property with no subtly placed loos meant certain echoes rippled through the house. My pristine image as the English gent they were all so eager to impress was in danger. 

Toilet-trouble aside, I’d unknowingly had a wardrobe malfunction too. Coming downstairs, ready to leave, unintelligible Latvian words were exchanged between father and daughter and I was quickly whisked up to his dressing room and given a blazer worth a good few multiples of my first car. Jā, now I was presentable for the opera. Yes, the opera… The Latvian opera house is an impressive building; the champagne and nibbles during the interval were tasty; above all, the seats were comfortable enough for a good kip during the show. Jelena tried to claim she appreciated it, but in a rare moment when my eyes fought the droop, I caught her napping! So, even posh people don’t like opera. Ha!

Naturally, I thanked her parents for the night and gave the blazer back gratefully. The next day, Jelena informed me her father had prepared another traditional Latvian experience for us – the sauna. The basement of their beautiful home was a boutique spa of sorts: sun loungers and drinks tables; the corner of the open area housed a wooden slatted log-fire sauna with a glass door. 

That sounded great, but I hadn’t brought my trunks and I’d feel too weird to borrow those from her dad. 

‘Nē, silly, you don’t wear anything in a Latvian sauna.’ 

But hadn’t her mum been using the sauna earlier? I couldn’t go naked in front of her mum! 

‘Nē, mamma already used the sauna today. Don’t worry.’ 

So, Jelena and I descended the steps to the basement, dropped our towels on a lounger, and hit the sauna. I’d never been in one before, and was pleasantly surprised. Ten minutes in the heat, rub a rough honey-like mixture over our skin, then chill on the loungers drinking sap from local trees. A few cycles of this and I was feeling loose as a moose. All good for your health and skin too, apparently. What’s not to like? Bliss…

Polishing off another glass of the slightly sour, but not unpleasant, tree sap, I was admiring Jelena, bare and beautiful, laying atop her towel on the adjacent lounger when, to my horror, the door to the cellar opened. A pair of green Crocs appeared and, worse, began descending the steps. The Crocs were attached to two hairy legs, and there was nothing at all covering the rest of what those legs were attached to. Jelena’s father muttered something to her and disappeared behind the steamed-glass door of the sauna before I’d had time to scramble beneath my towel.

‘What is he doing here?? I thought you said we’d be alone!’

‘Did I? I said my mom² had already used it today. He’s just here to do the traditional Latvian sauna experience for us.’

What? I’d thought the honey scrub and weird tree drink had been the traditional sauna treatment. What was her dad here for? Could she not see that I was naked? That she was naked, too? 

‘So I’m going to be naked in front of your dad? That’s normal is it?’ 

They must be having me on here.

‘Honestly, Jack, he’ll think it’s strange if you make a big deal out of it. It’s just Latvian saunas – everyone’s naked. You’ll be laying on the bench anyway. Don’t be weird about it.’

With that, she reclined in her lounger and closed her eyes. Conversation over, clearly. 

Five unnerved minutes later her father emerged, sweating, and asked, ‘Who is first?’ Jelena ushered me in without sitting up and I cautiously crossed the spa, taking my towel to protect my modesty for the walk. 

Once inside, Ernests beckoned for me to lay across the longest bench, possibly amused with my reluctance to drop my towel. While he fiddled with some birch branches in the corner of the sauna, I lay out my towel and swiftly planted myself face-down across the slats. He could see my rear. A bum’s just a bum, after all. 

So, here I am. Naked, face-down, craning my neck to work out what was in store for this ‘traditional’ experience. It looked like my girlfriend’s dad was dipping some tree branches and leaves into the steaming water by the door, but his backside was blocking my view so I wasn’t entirely sure. 

How on earth had I ended up here? I missed England and I missed Fran’s nice, normal, non-naked step-dad. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of my situation but there was no-one to laugh with.

‘I drip water from leaves on you and you tell me when feels same temperature as your skin. Otherwise can hurt.’ 

Excuse me, what can hurt? I tried to focus on the temperature but my senses were at sixes and sevens. Clueless, I obliged.

‘Yeah.. I think that’s the same temp-’

I hadn’t finished my uncertain sentence before the very certain blows began. Ernests was a man-possessed, thrashing me repeatedly from the soles of my feet, up my legs and back, all the way to my neck, jolting my face into the wooden slats of the bench. Up and down, up and down, the whipping blows of the tree branches rained on me for an indiscernible number of seconds or minutes, who knows? And, blimey! The pain. I was gritting my teeth to keep from crying out. Maybe I hadn’t judged the water temperature right or maybe this was his twisted, twiggy way of saying, ‘This what you get for ******* with my daughter.’ 

Either way, when the thrashing stopped I was just thankful the whole bizarre experience was over…

‘Sit up.’

…Or was it? Now was the moment of truth. Ernests was dipping his branches and leaves in the steaming water, preparing for round two. Jelena had said he’d find it weird if I tried to hide anything or acted awkwardly. So, sitting up, I left my safety blanket, my towel, and faced him. 

My girlfriend’s father turned back towards me, watered-weapon in hand. Everything I’d encountered in Latvia had been nuts. Now I faced a pair at eye-level.

‘Cover your balls with one hand.’ 

I did as instructed.

‘Raise your hand.’

I assumed he meant the other hand, unless this was some humiliating joke. Actually, either way this must, surely, be some kind of humiliating joke.

One armed raised, the thrashing recommenced, now from my waist, up and down the side of my torso, up and down the underside of my arm. 

‘Switch hands.’

The same on the other side. Sweat was dripping off Ernests’ flapping naked body from his exertions in such heat. And then, finally, thankfully, he stopped. 

‘Now go outside. Temperature difference is good for the… holes?’

‘Pores.’

‘Jā, good for the pores of your skin. Stand outside maybe five, ten minutes.’

It was over. What are you supposed to say? What was the courtesy here? 

‘Okay. 

…Thank you.’ 

I took my towel and left the sauna. Jelena didn’t notice me or stir from her semi-slumber on the lounger. Riga during Easter is by no means commando-kilt weather and after two or three minutes I was, quite literally, freezing my nuts off. In my twenty years to this point, I’d never paid any attention to the health of the pores of my skin. After my first experience of doing so, I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle. Blue-balled, I returned inside before the later stages of hyperthermia set in. 

Re-entering the basement, Jelena was gone. I looked to the sauna but the glass door was opaque with steam. Was she in there? What about the naked-bush-ninja? I didn’t have to wonder for long. Sitting back on the lounger, I could soon hear the swoosh of my girlfriend’s dad brandishing his branches. I could hear the whipping of the leaves on her naked body. And, worse, Jelena’s temperature gauge was clearly as faulty as mine. The pain. With each slap on skin, there followed a high-pitched, almost carnal, yelp. Crash. ‘Aaargh!’ Thrash. ‘Aaargh!’ Whip. ‘Aaargh!’ 

This was traditional³. This was normal. 

This, however, was not for me. 

There was me, worrying about what my girlfriend’s family, so wealthy and well-presented, would think of my tyrannous toilet escapades in their echoing acoustics. I really shouldn’t have worried. By the end of our traditional Latvian sauna experience, I knew her father far more intimately than I’d ever expected. I also knew her father-daughter relationship was rather more intimate than I ever plan to have with my future children. 

Nevertheless, I’ll conclude this story with an English phrase I’d taught Jelena walking through the market square in Durham a few weeks earlier: ‘Each to their own.’ 

Footnotes:

¹Jelena and Ernests aren’t their real names but if anyone can comment why I chose these Latvian names, then I’ll be impressed.
²Jelena’s English was an American English. This may help you with accents for the dialogue.
³Many friends have questioned if this is, in fact, a traditional Latvian sauna experience or whether I was being played. Here’s some evidence.

…..

Next: Chapter 4: Mr Toilet

Previous: Chapter 2: A Very Local Prison

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