Like most men who preach morality but practice its opposite, Brundage answered self-righteously. “I believe in the sanctity of marriage.”
Dario laughed. “As Shaw remarked: ‘Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.’”
The guests tittered; all but Brundage, who asked, “Is that George Bernard Shaw?” Dario nodded. “Wasn’t he a socialist?”
“My dear Mr. Brundage,” said Dario, “I think that you have an idée fixe about socialism. Hitler’s party is the National Socialists, and yet you seem to have no qualms about Germany.”
Discomfited by this remark, Brundage suggested that now was not the time nor the place to continue the discussion. He would gladly meet Dario for a walk on the ship’s deck to continue it later, perhaps tomorrow. The next day, as good as his word, Brundage invited Dario to join him for a stroll. A hot day, the calm sea offering no cooling breezes. Avery fanned himself with his straw hat, sweating from his white blazer jacket and striped linen trousers. Dario wore a cotton tan suit. Both men were tieless.
“Damn hot,” Brundage said.
Dario, carrying a Derby walking cane with an ebony shaft and a pewter collar, pointed it toward the ocean. “Calm one minute, feverish the next, like the human condition.” He paused to study the pewter. “Needs polish.” Again he paused. “In 1930, you opposed Berlin and supported Barcelona. What changed your mind?”
Brundage studied Dario’s face for a minute and then exclaimed, “I thought I had seen you before. You were an observer at the 1930 meeting that chose Berlin.”
“Quite right, and I am now a supporter of the People’s Olympics in Barcelona.”
A dyspeptic Brundage replied, “You’ll never be able to compete.”
Dario shook his head. “Perhaps not, but we will at least have made a statement about our disapproval of the Nazi Olympics.”
“Why do you object to Berlin? Is it Spanish nationalism?”
“No, racism.”
Brundage breathed deeply. His next words would take some courage. “My dear Señor Lorca, I have been told that the main reason for the Aryan movement in Germany is that the Jews, who hold a prominent position in the affairs of German life, have misused their position, as Jews often do.”
Dario tapped his cane on the deck, as if asking an audience for quiet. He then wordlessly turned and walked away from Brundage.
“Have I offended you?” asked the American, calling after him.
Dario stood motionless. “Avery, if you will allow me to call you by your first name . . .”
“Please do.”
“I have visited Germany, you have not. Let me tell you that Adolf Hitler is not what you think. You may admire him, but he would not admire you: your poor eyesight, your thinning hair, your education, and, most of all, your money. He despises the wealthy, though he does not hesitate to use them, just as he will use you.”
Never having been spoken to in this manner, Brundage expressed his resentment, as he always did, by stiffening his already ramrod straight back and insisting that the principal opponents of the Berlin Olympics were Communists and Jews.
“You are sadly out of step with history,” said Dario. “Those arguments were tried—and failed—in the last century. I will tell you what you are lending yourself to.” By this time, a number of passengers had gravitated toward the two men, who still stood apart, arguing. In addition, the baroness Polanyi, who had been relaxing in a deck chair and reading a book, put down her lorgnette, and stared incredulously.
“Perhaps it would be better,” said Dario, “if we separated.”
As a gesture of reconciliation, Brundage took the Spaniard’s arm, and they strolled down the deck. “Dario, believe me: Barcelona is a dead issue. Why continue?”
“I will tell you. The Berlin Olympics are not about sport but about Nazi propaganda. Every building, every anti-Semitic poster being removed, every newspaper report . . . all of it is designed to impress the foreign visitor, people like you. Then you will return to the United States and praise German wealth, order, security, hospitality, and organization. Your German hosts will not have shown you the concentration camps and the countless number of democrats and poets and intellectuals who are languishing behind barbed wire. So I beg you. When you arrive in Germany, ask to see the prisons and camps, ask to speak to gypsies and Jews, ask to see the training facilities for non-Aryans. Leave the Olympic site. Go off alone and walk down the side streets and avenues. Do you know what you’ll see? Frenzied brown-shirted thugs roaming the avenues, arresting and assaulting, even murdering, any person who they think violates the purity of Aryan blood: Jews, gypsies, cripples, the blind, socialists, Communists, dissenting Christians. And the police will not lift a nightstick to help. Nor will judges convict or sentence any of these barbarians. They fear for their own lives. You will see broken windows and stores painted with anti-Semitic slogans. You will see Nazi flags fluttering from every building and lamppost. You will see children dressed as soldiers, and their parents wearing Nazi pins and heiling their neighbors. And then there’s the noise. Trucks regularly pass through the streets blaring Nazi slogans and propaganda. And it seems as if every building in Berlin has a loudspeaker playing martial music. You cannot but conclude that you have reached a level of hell that even Dante would find unimaginable.”
Brundage, never having read Dante, could say only, “They are compensating for all the bad years . . . lifting their spirits.”
“With murder and mayhem?”
Feeling at a disadvantage owing to his lack of languages and familiarity with Germany, Brundage decided to break off the discussion. But as was typical of the man, he wanted to have the last word. “I will say just this,” Avery declared adamantly, “Hitler and his party have halted Communist gains in Western Europe, and to my mind, Communism is an evil before which all other evils pale. For that reason alone, Berlin deserves to host the Olympics.” Now red in the face, he stopped to catch his breath and adjust his glasses. He then added, “I fervently believe that amateur sport and fair play can rise above sectarianism and put an end to national hatreds.”
This last comment, a non sequitur, led Dario to say what he did. Making no attempt to hide his contempt for this provincial, bigoted American, he calmly remarked, “You mention politics and sport in the context of the Berlin Olympics, but you fail to indicate that the real issue is not Communism nor amateur athletics but humanity, for which you seem to have little regard.”
The men parted. They never spoke again and dined at different hours. The count and baroness joined Dario; Elizabeth and Francesca joined Avery. As if in response to the roiling opinions of the passengers, the sea grew stormy, so that by the time Brundage arrived at the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) meeting in Stockholm, he complained of a queasy stomach. In need of moral support, he found it in Karl Ritter von Halt, a bronze-faced diplomat and steadfast Nazi, whose tipped nose bore a passing resemblance to Bob Hope’s. The round-faced Brundage and the sunken-cheeked von Halt had competed against each other in the 1912 Olympics. Five years later, the German government honored him with a nobleman’s title for acquitting himself bravely during World War I. A member of the International Olympic Committee, he was told to shepherd Brundage through the Stockholm meeting and serve as his interpreter and guide in Germany. Their common values—the virtue of amateur athletics and the superiority of the Aryan race—led to an enduring friendship.
In Stockholm, the IAAF meeting took place at a villa outside the city. Rolf Hahne drove. Autumn’s bright arrival had turned the woods red, yellow, and orange. Von Halt asked Brundage to tell the other delegates the position he’d taken before leaving the United States. “The German committee is making every effort to provide the finest facilities. We should see in the youth at Berlin the forebears of a race of free, independent thinkers, accustomed to the democracy of s
port, a race disdainful of sharp practice, tolerant of the rights of others, and practicing the Golden Rule because it believes in it.”
After the meeting, Avery and Elizabeth joined four German officials for lunch in Stockholm. One of the guests was Jewish, Justus W. Meyerhof, a member of the Berlin Sports Club and the IAAF. When the talk turned to politics, Elizabeth excused herself to walk on the terrace. Brundage was shown documents to prove that German-Jewish athletes were welcome to participate freely in sports and to train for the Olympic team. Avery asked Justus if the documents were accurate.
Meyerhof answered obliquely. “As a non-Aryan, I offered to resign from the Berlin Sports Club, but my offer was not accepted. I was seldom as proud of my club as at that moment.”
Brundage, visibly impressed, repeated, “Just as I thought, just as I thought.”
That night the Brundages had dinner in Stockholm’s Gyldene Freden restaurant, a warren of small cozy dining rooms. Accompanied by von Halt and three other men, one of whom had brought his wife, the Brundages and the others ordered sauerbraten, schnitzel, rouladen, and rippchen. After the meal, the men asked for permission to smoke. The two women excused themselves. Von Halt asked Rolf, posted outside the dining room, to look after them. Brundage called for champagne, and toasted his German colleagues and “pure sport, which rewarded the natural aristocracy of ability and pointed to the right principles for the proper conduct of life.”
Ritter von Halt asked about the state of the proposed boycott in America. “As you heard from Meyerhof, we do not discriminate against Jewish athletes.”
Brundage scoffed. “Who are the Jews to complain? I don’t hear them saying anything about the condition of the Negroes in the South.” A poor public speaker, Brundage often strained reasoning and misdirected his words, as he did now. “Besides, America is a free country. My own country club won’t admit Jews.”
The other men were too polite to question Brundage’s logic, but one of them asked, “In your opinion, will the Negro athletes compete?”
Now much in his cups, Brundage said, “Their own newspapers object to a boycott. They want their Sambos to show just how good they are, though I suspect that the Aryan athletes will eclipse them.”
On September 12, the Brundages arrived in Germany at Konigsberg in East Prussia. Karl Ritter von Halt and Rolf Hahne had preceded them to prepare for Avery’s visit. Taking a train to Berlin, the Brundages checked into the Kaiserhof Hotel, as the guests of the German government. The next day, Avery was introduced to Hans von Tschammer und Osten. So well did they get on together that Avery regarded him as a soul mate. For the next five days, Brundage interviewed German officials and Jewish sports officials, but always in the company of Ritter von Halt, who did all the translating, and of other Nazis, including Rolf Hahne. When interviewing Jewish figures, Brundage’s questions never varied.
“Are conditions as bad as the foreign newspapers suggest? Are there any obstacles to Jews making the German Olympic team? Can Jews and Aryans train together?”
To the last question, von Halt explained that Jewish athletes preferred to train with their own kind. When Avery asked the Jewish officials if von Halt’s explanation was accurate, Hahne conspicuously put a hand to his holster. The Jews looked at each other, at the Nazi officials in the room, and then at Brundage. “Yes, von Halt has told the truth.” Rolf visibly relaxed and shifted his hand.
Avery smiled broadly and commented that as a matter of fact he personally believed in “separate but equal treatment,” an approach that worked in American schooling and public facilities and athletics. What was good for America was good for the Olympics.
The night before Mr. and Mrs. Brundage were to leave Berlin for the United States, they had dined well at the hotel restaurant, Elizabeth having ordered ginger glazed salmon filet with wasabi cream. An especially pretty waitress, Heidi, had been assigned to their table, and had been particularly attentive to Avery. After dinner and toasts and appreciative speeches, von Tschammer and von Halt announced that the German government, fearing for the safety of the Brundages, had arranged for Rolf Hahne to accompany them on their boat trip to the United States. More appreciative words followed. Rolf merely bowed, silently.
As Elizabeth Brundage prepared for bed, Avery stood expectantly looking out the hotel window. Before he had left the dining room, von Halt had slipped him a note. Now he waited. Soon there was a light tapping at the door. Elizabeth had already climbed into bed and reached for a book. Avery, still dressed, opened the door just a crack, enough to see standing before him the pretty blonde Heidi, who had served him liver dumpling soup, duck with spätzle and red cabbage, and a bottle of Chardonnay. She smiled and bent her index finger in a gesture of “Follow me.” Avery nodded and told Elizabeth that von Halt wished to see him.
“Don’t tire yourself,” said Elizabeth, “and if you return late, please don’t turn on any lights.”
Avery closed the door behind him and followed Heidi to an upstairs room, which shed an amber light from a small chandelier. Without so much as a word, she suggestively undressed. Brundage watched as she sat on the edge of the bed and removed her stockings, revealing a small patch of black between her legs. She slid under the comforter and smiled. He asked would she mind if he dimmed the lights. She shook her head no. Darkness.
At the dock, Rolf looked after the luggage. The Brundages had a stateroom and he a cramped single. No matter, he had space enough to review his instructions and plot a course of action. A feeling akin to pride suffused his body. The SS authorities had entrusted him to find a means to silence the loudest voices of boycott and to dig into the relationship between Axel Kuppler and Arietta Ewerhardt, whom they suspected of being in the employ of a “moral pervert,” whose pro-boycott links reached from New Jersey to California. He had come well equipped for his mission. One of his two bags held the three dental picks, a pistol, a vial of cyanide, and a small photograph of Fräulein Ewerhardt. Arrangements had been made in Germany for Axel to meet him at the dock in New York. He would soon find out whether Axel had transmitted secrets to Fräulein Ewerhardt and whether she had transmitted her information to others. To occupy his time during the ocean crossing, he lifted weights in the men’s gym and rode a stationary bicycle. Passing the women’s gym, he saw an attractive blonde woman, Francesca Bronzina. He nodded, she smiled, but he refused to follow up, focusing on the Brundages and their welfare. The German SS Intelligence Service had assigned Rolf to guard the Brundages not only to insinuate Rolf into the country for their own murderous purposes but also to see that Avery Brundage landed safely in New York. The SS had received unconfirmed reports that two Jewish commandos, dispatched from Haifa with false passports, might be boarding the boat at Bremen to assassinate Avery Brundage. Although the ship’s manifest had been carefully screened, the police found no suspicious passengers.
The first day at sea, Rolf haunted the ship trying to identify any would-be killers. Two men were sitting in deck chairs, with an empty chaise lounge between them. After several minutes, one of the men stood, dropped his newspaper on the empty chair, and departed. The other man casually reached for the paper and studied it. Were these the two? Perhaps the first had merely been doing a crossword puzzle that he failed to complete; and the second took up the challenge. Rolf watched. If the second failed to write in the paper . . . but what if he were equally stumped? Rolf needed more proof than a discarded newspaper retrieved by another.
As the second day passed into the third, Rolf decided to use Brundage as a lure. Until now, Avery had stayed well away from the deck rails, where an unseen assailant could shove him overboard. Rolf suggested that Avery, without Elizabeth, stroll to the outside railing, pause a minute, and then return to the glass-enclosed deck. If anyone made a move to follow, Rolf would of course be at Avery’s side to protect him—and might have a better idea of the persons assigned to harm Brundage. But nobody followed, and Avery returned to his wife. Standing by h
imself in the stern of the ship, admiring the great propellers leaving a wake behind the liner, Rolf heard a dog barking in the distance. Around a corner came a German shepherd running toward him. Its owner was nowhere to be seen. The dog playfully sniffed Rolf’s leg and turned its head, as if looking for its master. At that moment, Rolf leaned over, scooped up the dog, and threw it overboard. A few seconds later, the owner came scurrying around the corner looking for “Schatzi.” He was an elderly gentleman, well attired, and sporting a monocle. Had Rolf seen a dog? Yes, but it took off down the other side of the ship. The man had spoken in German. He thanked Rolf, bowed slightly, and disappeared.
After dinner, Rolf accompanied the Brundages to their stateroom. As always, he entered first, looked around, and then, seeing there was no danger, stepped aside to admit the couple. Outside the door, Rolf saw a young cabin boy coming his way carrying a tray of food. He stopped the young man to ask if any of the passengers had been inquiring about the location of the Brundage stateroom. The boy hesitated. Rolf flashed his SS badge and handed him a ten spot.
“As a matter of fact, since we left Bremen several passengers have asked me that question.”
“Old or young?”
“Mostly old, except for one person, who never leaves the cabin. But I don’t think . . .”
Rolf interrupted. “What about meals?”
“Good question. I have no idea.”
“Perhaps a friend . . .”
“I’ve never seen one.”
“Room number?”
“It’s . . . it’s 218.”
“Not a word about this matter,” said Rolf. “I am here as a representative of the German government. Secret business.”
The cabin boy’s eyes grew as wide as portholes, and he shook his head vigorously. “Not a word, sir, I promise.” And then, still balancing the tray of food, he hastily left.
That same evening and the next day, Rolf shadowed Room 218, but no one entered or exited. So he descended below deck to the kitchen, where he found his way blocked by a small, cadaverous man who belied the belief that all cooks are fat.
Dreams Bigger Than the Night Page 5