Such a sign — a reminder — hangs before the entrance to the showers at the pool we have been going to for four years already. But my overall unbroken swimming record is already 13 years. All my movements in preparing to swim have been worked out to automaticity. And that is what this automaticity led me to last Sunday.
On Sundays my husband and I try to arrive at opening, at 10 o’clock. At that time there are few people; we each swim our own quota: my husband swims one and a half kilometres, and I 800 metres breaststroke. Going into the changing room I follow the rules — take off my shoes, go to the locker, undress neatly down to nothing, so as not to attract attention, say, of a 6-year-old boy whom his mother has brought into the women’s changing room (although the rules forbid this). But that happens, and no one bothers anyone or makes remarks.
And before going into the shower I wrap myself in a towel, and already in the shower I wash myself so that all the water-dwellers will find my presence in the pool pleasant. I must say that, unfortunately, not many follow the rules, and very often people go into the shower in swimming costumes. Well, I don’t know how you can wash yourself without taking off the costume… The thought of the “mysterious Norwegian nature” visits me at once. What is, is, and it is not for me to tell them.
And so, wrapped in a towel, I head for the shower and see a young woman who seems to be a “duty staff member.” I think… probably they posted her here, because of the epidemic, to watch that hygiene procedures are followed. I nod to her in greeting; she stops me (at that time I noticed only two girls of about 10 in the shower) and starts explaining something quickly to me in Norwegian. I “catch” a couple of familiar words: shower, swimming costume…
I answer helpfully in Norwegian: “ja, ja, dusje naken.” And suddenly she says: “nei, ikke naken” (no, not naked). After a pause I said: “forstår ikke” (I don’t understand). She immediately switches to English and tells me the same in English, adding a phrase about men in the shower. I quickly form my question in Norwegian: “Is the shower mixed today, with men?” — “No, not mixed,” she answers, “over there, in the corner, a plumber is repairing the shower! And you will have to put on a swimming costume.”
At last I saw the plumber, squatting, “facing the wall.” I laughed quietly, because an old Soviet joke about Sophia Loren and a Soviet plumber floated up in my mind, but there was no one to share the joke with. I went back to the changing room, put on my swimming costume, and when I entered the shower, neither the plumber nor the young woman was there. I had to take the costume off again…
And now I will try to put that old joke on paper. The world-famous beauty Sophia Loren arrived in the Soviet Union. They put her in a luxurious hotel room; she decided to take a shower “after the road” (they used to say: you’ve come from the road, you’re tired). And in the shower there was trouble, interruptions in the water. She started calling for help, standing there all beautiful, naked under the shower, and no water.
A plumber came; to Sophia — “zero attention,” he squatted down and under the washbasin began to do his work. And Sophia stands naked, turns one side toward the plumber, then the other…. And the plumber, once he had settled under the washbasin, never once turned his head toward her. Then Sophia could not stand it and quietly touched the plumber’s shoulder. The plumber turned, looked, and irritably uttered: “What, fool, never seen a plumber?!” M-yes. Plumbers in Soviet times were not very delicate, that is true. But then, no one was delicate with them either.