The Berlin Boxing Club

by Robert Sharenow

  Beside him stood his wife, the Czech actress Anny Ondra, who wore a long white gown with a small white fur jacket over her shoulders. She also radiated with the special glow of the famous, as if a spotlight were on her at all times, accentuating her tight, shiny blond curls, her sharp red lips, and her perfectly angled thin eyebrows, which sat above large, confident eyes. She was one of Germany’s most famous movie stars and had recently starred with her husband in a boxing movie called Knockout, in which she played an aspiring actress who falls in love with Max, a backstage worker at a theater.

  Anny greeted someone by the door with two quick kisses on either cheek. And Max shocked me by striding right over to my father and giving him a warm handshake and a short manly hug.

  For years my father had claimed to be friends with the former heavyweight champion, but I had never quite believed him until that night. “He used to come by the gallery all the time,” my father boasted. “You were just too young to remember.”

  “Was he an artist?” I asked.

  “Only with his fists.” My father laughed. “But he loved the artists, and the artists loved him. Berlin was a different place then, Karl. Everyone mixed with everyone: artists, musicians, film stars, athletes. It was a different time. A grand time.”

  As I stood with Hildy, watching them greet each other, I wondered what someone like Max would have to say to my short, intellectual, art-obsessed father. My father said something, and Max laughed. What could he have said to amuse Max Schmeling?

  Then my father quickly scanned the crowd until his eyes found Hildy and me. He signaled to us with a snap of his fingers. I was so lost in observing the scene, I didn’t realize he was trying to communicate with us until Hildy nudged me with her elbow.

  “Karl, he wants us.”

  We both made our way toward them. As we did so, Max turned and looked at me. I felt his eyes fall on me. It was the first time I had been gazed upon by someone famous, and it felt as if I were caught in the periphery of the warm glow of his spotlight.

  “Max, this is my son, Karl, and my daughter, Hildegard.”

  “Hildy.” She quickly corrected him.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Hildy,” Schmeling said, gallantly taking her hand and giving it a small kiss. Her face flushed bright crimson, and he turned to me, offering his hand. I extended my own, and we shook.

  “What happened to you?” he said, nodding toward my face.

  “I fell down some stairs,” I responded quickly.

  “I’m afraid my son was not blessed with the grace of an athlete, Max,” my father added. “He comes by it honestly, though. I was never much for sport either.”

  My face burned a deeper red than Hildy’s. How dare my father lump me in with himself as an uncoordinated non-sportsman? In fact, I was a decent football player, although my father would never have known that. We had never played ball together. “We are people of the mind,” he once explained when I asked him to kick a ball with me. “Our brains are not in our feet.”

  “How old are you, kid?” Max asked me.

  “Fourteen.”

  “Why, he’s big for fourteen, Sig,” Max said. “He must get that from your wife’s side. And look at his reach. You’ve got a born fighter here.”

  He lifted my arms and extended them out to their full length, so my body formed the letter T. He measured my arms’ combined length with his eye.

  “His reach must be at least seventy-two inches already. And what are you, five foot nine? Ten?”

  “Ten,” I said.

  “He’s got the reach of a champion, Sig,” Schmeling said conclusively, letting my arms fall back down to the side.

  My heartbeat quickened. I had never even heard of “reach” before that night, but now I wanted to have good reach more than almost anything in the world. He said I was a “born fighter.” Could that possibly be true? My father seemed to have missed the entire miracle.

  “Karl, please take Herr Schmeling’s coat and offer him some refreshments.” He turned to Schmeling. “I must greet your beautiful wife. Hildy, come with me and help with Frau Ondra’s jacket.”

  My father and Hildy moved off toward Anny, leaving me momentarily alone with Max, who was slipping off his overcoat.

  “Here, let me take that, Herr Schmeling,” I said.

  “Danke,” he replied, handing me the coat. “And call me Max.”

  “Okay, Max,” I said, although the word sounded too informal.

  “So who got you, kid?” he said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Who were you fighting?”

  “I—I fell . . . and—”

  “I’ve been in the ring for most of my life. You may have fallen down some stairs, but you were also in a fistfight. I know a bruise from a punch when I see one. Looks like someone got you with an uppercut to the chin and a right cross just below the eye.”

  I had no idea how to respond. I didn’t want my father to know, to think I had drawn attention to my problems and myself on the night of an opening.

  “Look, there’s no shame in taking a beating,” he said. “I’ve had my fair share. As long as you fight back, there’s no shame. Right?”

  As long as you fight back, there’s no shame.

  My Adam’s apple lodged in my throat, and moisture clouded my vision. I quickly looked down at my feet, feeling an even deeper shame than when I had received the beating by the Wolf Pack. Just a few seconds earlier Max Schmeling had anointed me a potential champion with great reach, yet now he knew me for what I really was: a weakling and a coward. I quickly looked up at Max.

  “Please don’t say anything to my father.”

  The champ’s eyes connected with mine just as my father came toward us with Schmeling’s wife.

  “Max, I don’t know how she does it, but Anny just keeps getting more and more beautiful.”

  Max gave me a furtive wink as he handed me his coat. “I’m a lucky man, Sig.”

  The Barter

  AS THE NIGHT WORE ON, I KEPT MY DISTANCE FROM Max as best I could. My head throbbed from the combined weight of my injuries and my shame. My father made sure that Max and Frau Ondra always had a full cup of whatever they were drinking, but I would force Hildy to make the deliveries. Because he was in training, Max would not drink alcohol, so he contented himself with water.

  Questions whirled in my head. How could you tell if a fist had hit a face as opposed to the railing of a staircase? How had my father ever gotten to be friends with Max? Did Max know my father was Jewish? And where was my mother?

  My father was standing with the artist Hartzel, Anny, and Max in front of one of the paintings. My father called me over to fetch Max more water. I avoided eye contact with him as I brought over the pitcher and refilled his cup.

  “. . . and wouldn’t you love to own one of Herr Hartzel’s landscapes, Max? I think Anny took a shine to this one.”

  My father gestured to the canvas, a simple image of a pasture and rolling hills.

  “It is nice, Max,” Anny said. “Might look good in the country house.”

  “Yes, your paintings are very accomplished, Herr Hartzel,” Schmeling said. “Perhaps this one would look good in the library. We’ll take it.”

  “Wunderbar!” my father said.

  “I’m honored to have you own a piece of my work, Herr Schmeling,” Hartzel said, bowing slightly.

  “There is one other painting I’m interested in,” Max said.

  “Oh, yes, the mountain scene you admired over here,” my father said, gesturing to another bland canvas.

  “No,” Max said. “The painting I’m interested in isn’t on your walls tonight.”

  Hartzel’s face fell.

  “The portrait Grosz painted of me,” Max continued. “You know I’ve had my eye on that one.”

  “Ah, Max, but you know that’s not for sale,” my father said.

  “There must be a price,” Max said.

  “It is my last painting by Grosz,” my father explained. “I always tr
y to keep at least one painting by each artist I work with.”

  “Bring it out for me. Anny’s never seen it.”

  My father rolled his eyes. “If you insist.” He turned to me. “Karl, go bring up the portrait of Herr Schmeling by Grosz. It’s downstairs in bin seventeen.”

  I went back down into the basement, where one wall was lined with high wooden storage bins filled with canvases. Flipping through bin seventeen, I saw several canvases by George Grosz, and I knew my father had claimed it was his last to establish a bargaining position. In truth no one was buying anything by Grosz, Dix, Max Beckmann, Emil Nolde, or any of the other expressionist painters my father used to represent because of the Nazi ban. The bins were filled with their unsold work.

  I finally came to Grosz’s portrait of Max, a stark oil of him bare-chested, standing in profile, wearing royal blue fighting trunks with his blunt fists extended. His head was tilted down, his eyes darkened in menacing shadows, and thick black brushstrokes accentuated his arm muscles. I knew the painting well because it had been one of the works I had copied into my journal. Everything about the image seemed to convey strength, confidence, and menace. I wiped a thin layer of dust off the top of the canvas and carried it upstairs.

  Everyone gathered around as Max, Anny, and my father approached me. I held up the painting like a human easel.

  “Ah, there it is!” Max exclaimed.

  “Oh, Max, it’s beautiful,” Anny cooed. “You look thinner.”

  “It was painted some years ago,” Max said with a laugh, jokingly rubbing his biceps. “I’ve put on more muscle since then.”

  “I love it,” she said.

  “How much, Sig?”

  “Well,” my father said, “you know I don’t want to part with it. Besides, you have mirrors around your house, Max. You can admire yourself anytime.”

  “But in a mirror, it’s hard to see myself in profile like this,” Max countered with a sly grin.

  The gallery patrons laughed at their sparring.

  “It’s for me, Herr Stern,” Anny said, “to remind me of Max when he’s off on the road fighting.”

  As far as I could tell, the Hartzel canvas Max had bought was the only one sold that night, and we desperately needed to make a sale.

  “Please, Herr Stern,” Anny said.

  “Well . . .”

  Before my father could name a price, I felt Max glance at me. I was still too afraid to meet his eye.

  “Wait!” Max said. “I have an idea. We’ll make a barter arrangement.”

  “A barter?” my father said.

  “Yes. We get the painting and I’ll give your son private boxing lessons.”

  The gallery patrons reacted, nodding and whispering with approval.

  “Surely you can’t put a price on private boxing lessons with Europe’s greatest heavyweight.”

  “Boxing lessons?” my father said, aghast. “My son will be entering the art world, not the ring.”

  “A great fighter has plenty of artistry,” Max countered.

  “What does he need fighting lessons for?” my father asked.

  “Every boy should learn to defend himself, Sig,” Max replied. “Looks like he could use the lessons.”

  He gestured to me, still holding the painting. A few of the patrons tittered. My head tingled even more than it already had, as more blood rushed to my face and seemed to swirl in and out of the bruises. I felt like hiding behind the canvas, but I was also intrigued by the idea. What kid wouldn’t want to learn to box from a champion?

  “Well, boy,” Schmeling said, “do you want to learn?”

  All eyes fell on me, waiting for a reaction. I wanted more than anything to scream out “yes,” but I knew my father still held the hope of getting cash for the painting. My father stared at me most intensely, willing me to refuse with his eyes. Max looked at me with an amused smile, clearly not seeing the rope of tension that bound my father and me. Although my voice stayed silent, my head instinctively nodded yes. I saw my father’s mouth momentarily curl into a snarl and then flatten.

  “Ah, see. Of course he wants to learn to box. How about it, Sig?”

  All eyes turned to my father, and I knew he would have no choice but to agree.

  “If Frau Ondra wants the painting,” he said, “I must bow to the will of a beautiful lady.”

  “Then it’s done,” Max said, coming forward to shake my father’s hand to seal the deal. “When I am in Berlin, your boy will join me at my training gym, the Berlin Boxing Club, for lessons.”

  A few people clapped my father and Max on the back, congratulating them on the deal. Some patrons also approached me and patted me on the shoulder as I stood there, still holding the painting.

  Boxing Lesson No. 1

  THE CROWD BEGAN TO THIN AROUND ELEVEN, AND there was still no sign of my mother. At the end of the night, Hildy and I returned to the basement and wrapped up Max’s two paintings in brown paper, the only canvases sold the entire evening. Hildy held the twine in place with her little thumb as I tied the bows binding the wrapping in place. My mind raced with excitement about training with Max. Could he mold me into a champion? Would we become friends?

  “She’s so beautiful,” Hildy said wistfully.

  “Who?”

  “Frau Ondra. She looks even prettier than she does in the cinema. I wish Papa had bargained for beauty lessons for me, along with the fighting lessons for you.”

  “Beauty lessons?”

  I realized that Hildy had been thinking about Frau Ondra as much as I had been thinking about Max. She loved the cinema, and we attended weekend matinees at the grand Nollendorfplatz Theater as often as possible. Hildy liked to sit close so her whole field of vision got swallowed up by the gigantic screen.

  “She just looks so perfect. She’s the opposite of me.”

  She cast her dark eyes down. I hadn’t realized that Hildy was conscious of her own looks in that way. She was only eight years old.

  “You don’t need beauty lessons, Winzig,” I said.

  “But I’m so dark.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Easy for you to say. You’re light.”

  “What about Claudette Colbert and Myrna Loy?”

  “Claudette Colbert has red hair.”

  “Well, how about Louise Brooks? She’s got even darker hair than you.”

  “I guess so.”

  “If you ask me, Frau Ondra could use beauty lessons from you,” I said, lifting her chin.

  “Thanks, Spatz.” She gave me a weak smile.

  “Come on, we’d better get back up there.”

  When we got back upstairs, most of the patrons had cleared out, and Max and Anny were putting on their coats by the door. I brought them the two paintings.

  “Danke,” Max said. “Now for your first lesson.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small red rubber ball, which he quickly bounced off the floor toward me. I reached to pluck it from the air, momentarily bobbled it, but then held my hand tightly around it.

  “Good. You’ve got decent reflexes,” he said. “Keep this ball in your pocket and take it out and squeeze it whenever you’re walking somewhere. A fighter needs strong hands and fingers.”

  I gave the ball a few quick squeezes and felt the muscles across the back of my hand flex in a pleasing way. I hadn’t even known I had muscles back there. The night wasn’t over and already I felt that I was getting stronger.

  “Next,” he continued, “do you have coal or wood in your house?”

  “Our building has a coal furnace.”

  “Good,” he said. “I want you to talk to your building superintendent and tell him you want to shovel the coal into the furnace every morning and every night. I’m sure he’ll agree; it’s dirty hard work, but great for the arms and shoulders.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Finally, you need to be able to do the three hundred.”

  “The three hundred?”

&nb
sp; “It is the basic building block of becoming a boxer. Every day you must be able to do one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, fifty pull-ups, and fifty minutes of running, which all adds up to three hundred.”

  “What about a punching bag or something like that?” I asked.

  “We’ll worry about that once you can do the three hundred. Once you can do that, you’ll be ready for your first lesson in the gym. I’ll be back in Berlin in a couple of months, which should give you some time.”

  My father approached with Frau Ondra and Hildy to say good-bye.

  “A pleasure, as always, Sig,” Max said, extending his hand. They shook.

  “Thanks for coming, Max, even though you robbed me,” my father replied.

  “You have beautiful children, Herr Stern,” Anny said. She leaned down and gave Hildy two small kisses, one on each cheek. “Especially this one.”

  Hildy blushed and took in a sharp, pleased breath.

  Max held out his hand to me, and we shook.

  “Remember the three hundred.”

  “I will.”

  “Gute Nacht! See you soon!” he said.

  My father placed a hand on my shoulder and wore a small smile, which quickly faded as soon as they passed out the door. I felt his hand press sharply on my shoulder as he turned away.

  “Now, where is your mother?”

  Uncle Jakob

  WHEN WE ARRIVED BACK AT THE APARTMENT, IT WAS approaching midnight. Hildy had fallen asleep and my father had to carry her in his arms the final few blocks and up the stairs. Stepping inside our flat, I was relieved to hear muffled voices coming from the kitchen. Then I heard a grunt of pain, and I recognized the voice of my uncle Jakob.

  “Gently!”

  “I’m trying,” my mother replied. “Hold still.”

  Frau Kressel hurried down the hall to greet us.