Olympic Affair

by Terry Frei

  “I didn’t notice if he did.”

  “He did.”

  “So why would they be following me?”

  Long stared at him, gauging whether Glenn truly hadn’t figured it out. Finally, Long said slowly, “She is not a Nazi—that is technically true, I suppose—but she is very important to them.”

  Long then changed the subject to tell Glenn what to expect at the medal ceremony the next morning.

  Glenn realized Long hadn’t even said her name.

  27

  Glenn’s Gold

  Sunday, August 9

  Glenn didn’t feel good when he awakened at mid-morning. He was amazed he wasn’t worse. At lunch in the dining hall, he accepted congratulations from the athletes who hadn’t gone to the Essen Haus the night before, including many swimmers gearing up for the start of their competition on Monday, and additional congratulations from many who had been at the beer hall.

  Glenn Cunningham was touching, saying he always knew Glenn had it in him and he had made the Glenns—Hardin, Cunningham, and Morris—two-for-three gold-medal opportunities. Glenn assured Cunningham that a silver medal in a 1,500-meter race in which the winner set a world record wasn’t anything to sneeze at.

  The runner smiled. “You’d trade your gold for my silver then?”

  Glenn didn’t know what to say.

  “Didn’t think so,” Cunningham added with a warm smile that erased any bitterness. Back at the room, as ordered to do for the medal ceremony, Glenn put on the white slacks and the blue jacket, plus the red, white and blue tie. He didn’t mind that, but he thought it a little strange that all the other winners received their medals while wearing their uniforms—or at least their sweat suits—and the decathlon men will look as if they just left church.

  Glenn couldn’t get the tie knot right on the first three tries.

  “There’s no pressure on you,” Wood teased. “Your grandchildren will be looking at this picture someday.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Wood waited quietly while Glenn tried again and was satisfied with what he saw in the mirror. He turned and showed Wood. “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Now that’s a gold-medal knot,” Wood said.

  The decathlon men again rode the same bus to the Reich Sports Field, taking gentle teasing from the other Americans among the passengers for being dressed-up.

  “Some guys just have class,” Jack Parker boasted.

  Glenn took stock of all the passengers, looking for and not finding the Gestapo man from the night before, and then wondering if another of the men in street clothes on the bus might have been his replacement for the day. But then Glenn told himself that was silly—if only because the Gestapo knew where he was going and didn’t need to follow him.

  At the stadium, they checked in at an officials’ kiosk in the dressing room tunnel, and were told the ceremony would be right after the marathon started and the runners left the stadium for their excursion through the streets of Berlin, and just before the 400-meter relay finals. The official checked his watch. “The best thing would be for you to stay right here,” he said in only slightly accented English, “and you will be escorted out for the ceremony.”

  As they waited, Jesse Owens emerged from a dressing room. Owens carried a baton in his right hand. Switching the baton to his left hand, he reached out with his right to Glenn.

  “Congratulations!” he said warmly. “Remember on the ship when that writer asked who would be deserved to be called the world’s greatest athlete?”

  Smiling, Glenn said he did remember.

  “Well,” Jesse said, “I’m looking at him!”

  “Hardly,” Glenn said. “Four gold medals to my one?”

  “Three now,” Jesse said. He lifted the baton. “And we have to make sure we don’t drop this before I get another one.”

  Owens also shook hands with Clark and Parker, and then headed to the track.

  When he was gone, Parker spoke what was on the minds of all three. “Good guy,” he said. “But he shouldn’t be running today.”

  Clark’s brow furrowed. “I was thinking of something else, too,” he said. “He’s wanting to cash in, and I don’t blame him. But I bet if he had said publicly he wouldn’t run in the relay because Marty and Sam should, and he didn’t let the coaches tell him any different, he’d be even more popular.”

  Glenn shrugged. “I agree with you guys about Marty and Sam,” he said. “But I bet before long, we’ll just be saying Jesse won four gold medals and won’t care about the technicalities. Four gold medals sounds better than three.”

  An official hustled them toward the track.

  Soon, Glenn accepted his encased medal from an IOC official and then bent forward, allowing a young German woman in white to place an oak-leaf wreath on his head. Then he was standing, looking at the three American flags side-by-side and listening to the “Star-Spangled Banner.” He told himself: Remember this moment. The song was recorded and instrumental, but he could hear the words.

  What so proudly we hailed . . .

  His eyes drifted, took note of the hundred thousand spectators—including the athletes in their section of the seats—standing for the anthem, listening respectfully. They were from around the world, and they were all acknowledging his—and his two teammates’—accomplishments.

  O’er the ramparts we watched . . .

  Leni was off to his right, beaming, as Guzzi Lantschner filmed.

  . . . the bombs bursting in air,

  Glenn checked Hitler’s box. The Führer wasn’t there.

  For the first time in his life, Glenn didn’t want the anthem to end. But it did. He mouthed the final line himself: O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

  After he also accepted one of the familiar potted oak seedlings, he reluctantly stepped down from the stand, only because it seemed as if they were expected to do so.

  Leni approached the three Americans, smiling and reaching out a hand demurely to Parker first and congratulating him. Then Clark. Then Glenn. She and Glenn were a few steps from anyone else, but she was careful. “That meeting issue we discussed yesterday?” she said.

  By now, he wasn’t as angry about the Hitler issue—it wasn’t Leni’s fault—as he was determined to stick to his guns. He wasn’t going to betray his teammates, even if others didn’t view meeting the Führer as that sort of betrayal. So he shook his head and said, “I still . . .”

  She stopped him. “They aren’t pressing for it today,” she said. “He’s got too much company, I think.”

  “Good.”

  “They might still ask for later in the week.”

  “My answer’s going to be the same. If I’m still here.”

  “I understand that,” Leni said. “You can say no. But I can tell them I asked.”

  She noticed Clark and Parker waiting. “I’ve got to go straight to the pool after the relays,” she said softly. “We’re having problems there. I trust my people to get the end of the marathon here. But the next few days are going to be crazy because everything after the track and field is so spread out, all over the area.”

  Glenn nodded in sympathy. She leaned even closer. “You have to promise to let me know if you find out when you’re leaving,” she said.

  “I promise. Nobody’s said anything. The earliest I could leave is Friday . . . and that’s only if I’m going to London.”

  “Good. See if you can come to the pool Tuesday. The diving is fun to watch and I should be able to get away afterward for a while.”

  “I’ll try,” Glenn said. Noticing Leni’s crestfallen look, he added, “Unless something comes up they haven’t told us about yet, I’ll be there.”

  Leni smiled and then raised her voice as she looked toward Clark and Parker. “Good luck to the Americans in the relays!” she called out.

  Glenn offered a meaningful nod and a little wave as he left. The Americans rushed up to the athletes’ seats, heading toward a block of their teammates. Glenn felt a
little self-conscious about carrying the oak-tree pot, but he couldn’t think of a viable option. Clark was a little ahead of them. Catching Parker looking at him strangely, Glenn asked, “What?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it? The way she reacted yesterday. And I don’t think that was a talk about camera angles.”

  “Jack . . . drop it.”

  “Okay, but I’m not the only one saying . . .”

  “What a bunch of old ladies!”

  “Have it your way, Glenn.”

  Marty Glickman was a few rows higher than the other Americans, close enough to be considered part of the group, but by himself. Glenn considered joining Marty, but Walter Wood signaled that he had a seat saved for him, among the pack. Glenn also wondered what he would say, and decided that Marty might want to be alone. Quickly, Glenn scanned the rest of the section and didn’t spot Sam Stoller.

  Glenn whispered to Wood. “You’re not talking to anyone about . . . you’re not, are you?”

  “No, I’m not,” Wood whispered back. “But I’m being asked about it more every day.”

  “Shit.”

  The starter’s gun fired, and Jesse Owens broke from the starting line in the 400-meter relay and into an instant lead. Although Owens’s baton pass to Metcalfe wasn’t efficient—Jesse actually passed his teammate before Metcalfe gathered in the baton and got going—the Americans won easily, beating the Italians and Germans by ten meters. When the results were posted, the winning team’s time—39.8 seconds—drew both gasps and cheers from the Americans. Glenn turned to look behind him. Glickman was motionless, but Glenn Cunningham was with him, off his right shoulder, saying something. Redirecting his gaze past the two American runners, farther to his right, Glenn checked the loge box. Hitler was in his seat, talking to other uniformed Germans. If Owens’s latest triumph bothered him, he seemed determined to avoid showing it.

  Tapping himself on the chest, Glenn made sure the case holding his gold medal was in his inside pocket. He took it out, opened it and looked at the medal again. “They’re not going to take it back,” Wood teased him. He gestured at the oak-tree pot, too, sitting on the cement at their feet, and added, “Not that, either.”

  Glenn told himself: Marty should be getting a medal, too. He stood up and turned, intending to go tell Marty just that. But the sprinter was gone. Glenn realized he must have gone up the aisle, past the security guards and onto the concourse level. Glenn Cunningham was moving down to join the group. When he arrived, Glenn asked the distance man: “How was Marty?”

  “He handled it better than I would have,” Cunningham said. “Said Jesse’s the greatest runner ever and it gave him goose-bumps to watch. But when he saw how far back the Germans were, that set him off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the coaches swore the Germans had something up their sleeves and we needed to have Jesse out there to beat them. No way that was true.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  “That we were always going to be his teammates and we were proud of him, including he way he handled this,” Cunningham said.

  A few minutes later, the German women were leading the 400-meter relay when they botched the final exchange, dropping the baton. Glenn quickly turned and saw Hitler plop back into his seat and slap himself on the leg with the gloves he held in one hand. The Führer didn’t seem to consider it solace that, with the Germans out of the race, his American acquaintance, Helen Stephens, roared down the stretch to secure another gold medal.

  When the American men—running a team of second-tier quarter-milers—finished second to the British in the 1,600-meter relay, Glenn and those around him noticed and discussed the contrast with the approach in the shorter relay. Neither Archie Williams nor Jimmy LuValle, the gold and silver medalists in the 400 meters, were on the relay, and that didn’t seem to bother anyone. “Guess none of those guys who ran were Jewish,” Walter Wood said.

  During and between the races, Glenn noticed that Leni again was a whirlwind, moving from cameraman to cameraman, animatedly giving instructions and framing shots with her hands.

  After the 1,600-meter event, Glenn decided he had seen enough and wouldn’t wait around for the end of the marathon. Wood agreed, snatching up the oak tree himself to help, and their movement started a mass exodus of the Americans out of the seats and down the aisle.

  As the marathon runners approached the stadium, Leni was in the dignitaries’ lounge behind the boxes, and below the Führer’s loge. Hermann Göring had been talking with the King of Bulgaria, and summoned Leni via an SS messenger when the monarch said he would love to meet her. After that formality was out of the way, the king headed up to join Hitler in the box for the end of the marathon. Göring said he would follow in a moment, and gestured Leni to a private corner.

  “How are you getting along with Goebbels now?” the air marshal asked. “Is he still plaguing you on this project?”

  Leni reflected a second. With Göring, there was no need to sugarcoat anything about Goebbels, but she didn’t have the time to list all the problems. She settled for, “He’s not making it easier.”

  “I asked the stupid bastard how he could sign off on your funding and then try and sabotage you at the same time,” Göring said. “He should be asking you what you need, not telling you what you can’t do.”

  “Exactly! That’s what I’ve been telling him, too! Many times!”

  “How is the filming going otherwise?”

  “Very well,” Leni said. “I am trying to monitor it as we go, but it’s difficult to keep up. So I know there might be some surprises when we get to the editing.”

  “Well,” laughed Göring, “the American niggers will win there, too. At least you won’t have to decide whether to show the American Jews.” He noted her quizzical look. “The Jews, their relay runners.”

  “There aren’t any, as far as I know. The relay teams just ran.”

  “I know, that’s what I mean,” said Göring. “They removed the Jews. Goebbels saw to it that American Olympic officials were told that in exchange for being so tolerant of the niggers winning, we asked for only one thing in return. Not let the Jews—I understand there were two—run on their sprint relay team. I am told there was one American official more than eager to see that it was done. And it was.”

  28

  Unwanted Company

  Monday, August 10–Thursday, August 13

  As the second and final week of the Games progressed, a running joke among the American track athletes was that they should have gone into hiding the second the track and field competition ended on Sunday. And stayed hidden until it was time to leave for London on Friday, the 14th, the day before the dual all-relays meet against the British.

  After the relays and the marathon concluded the track and field portion of the Olympics, the Badgers claimed the highest-profile runners, including Jesse Owens, Ralph Metcalfe, Jimmy LuValle, and Glenn Cunningham. The runners divided in two groups, appearing at meets in five cities—four in other German cities, plus one in Prague, Czechoslovakia—in a span of three days. Owens was the biggest draw, of course, and Jack Torrance jokingly theorized that the AOC knew that any day now, Jesse would declare himself a professional performer, commanding his own large fees for exhibitions and appearances, perhaps even on the vaudeville circuit. Torrance argued they were sending him out and making money off him while they could.

  All the Badgers would say was that the additional meets in London and Stockholm were set and everything else still was uncertain, and that all the details and itineraries would be announced in the next few days. Brutus Hamilton let it slip that he knew Glenn was down to compete in the three-day meet at Stockholm. “Think of what events you want to be in,” he said. Glenn was relieved that meet organizers apparently weren’t trying to put together a decathlon. That would be a little much.

  Glenn had mixed feelings about not going to London, but he still was tired; recovering from decathlons took time. Looking ahead, the no-pressure competition on
the other parts of the tour might be a small price to pay for seeing more of the continent. After all, who was to say when they’d get another chance? What bothered Glenn the most, though, was the Badgers’ complete lack of self-consciousness or concern about the haphazard nature of the planning.

  On Tuesday, Glenn opened another cable from the Denver Athletic Club’s George Whitman, who alluded to “possible additional opportunities. Will discuss upon your return.” Other telegrams from promoters mentioned possible clothing or watch endorsements, with no dollar figures mentioned.

  Getting away from some of the tumult, he enjoyed going to the pool and watching University of Michigan graduate Dick Degener win the 3-meter springboard diving, especially because even a trackman could see why Degener was known as “the Fred Astaire” of the sport. He spotted Leni supervising her cameramen at the side of the pool. From the athlete’s section of the seats, he caught her eye at one point and nodded decisively, confirming he would be able to do what she had suggested in a note that morning—meet her after the end of the session at the little unnamed café near the war memorial.

  Over dinner, he said he was almost certain he would be in Berlin through the closing ceremonies.

  “That’s great news!” she said, beaming.

  For the first time since he had met her, Leni looked fatigued. He asked Leni if she was all right, and she sighed. “It’s just always having to go here, go there, answer questions and tell people what to do,” she said. “The crews on this are the best, but they still need guidance. And then there always is some official who wants to upset the plans. I’ll try to get more sleep the next few days. I get so wound up in it, I lose track! I’ll be glad when the Games end. Well, except for . . . if you leave.”

  She let that hang.

  After the meal, they rode together in Leni’s limousine to her apartment. Even there, completely in private, the conversation around the lovemaking was comfortable, mainly because Leni didn’t bring up the vexing questions of their future and didn’t say anything about Hitler’s folks pushing for a meeting with Glenn. But she did bring up something they had discussed earlier. “Do you still want to see how I look at the film?” she asked.