Olympic Affair

by Terry Frei

  Clark said, “I think that’s been our attitude all along, coach.”

  “Good,” said Hamilton. He reached out with his right hand, palm down. Glenn and the other two decathlon men piled their hands on top of Hamilton’s for a few seconds.

  After Hamilton left them, Walter Wood wandered over from the discus ring. “Should we start calling you the Three Musketeers? All for one and one for all?”

  A little self-consciously, Glenn said, “Our goal is to push each other to a sweep!”

  Wood laughed. “Well, Mister Morris, I agree you’ll get a medal unless your roommate smothers you with your pillow some night because you won’t stop talking in your sleep!”

  “He talks in his sleep?” Clark asked with a laugh.

  Knowing he did, Glenn shrugged.

  Wood said, “Not every night . . . or at least I haven’t noticed it. But some nights.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, nothing juicy yet.”

  One of Glenn’s first missions was to make sure he hadn’t completely forgotten everything he knew about the pole vault in the previous two weeks. He joined the Americans’ three pole-vaulters—current USC men Earle Meadows and Bill Sefton, plus former Trojan Bill Graber.

  “You know what the worst part of the decathlon is at something like the Olympics?” Glenn asked Meadows as they stretched.

  Meadows played along. “And what might that be?”

  “Practicing with ‘regular’ people who are better than you in each event.” He gestured at three nearby Japanese, picking up their poles and preparing to take practice vaults. “Those guys won’t know who I am, and they’ll be saying how could America send such a horrible vaulter here?”

  Meadows laughed. “Glenn, I hate to burst your bubble, but once they see you try this, they’ll know you’re not a regular vaulter. They’ll know you’re in the decathlon.”

  Graber said softly, confiding, “You could learn by watching the Japanese guys, too. All three of ’em have perfect form. We’re more athletic than they are, but they jump the same way every time.” Graber pointed at the oldest Japanese vaulter. “Nishida was second at Los Angeles . . . yeah, two spots ahead of me. So he’s an old man, too. But as near as I can tell, he’s a good guy.” Then he pointed at the other two, in succession. “Oe . . . Adachi . . . both of ’em could medal, or even win, too.”

  Glenn took his first few vaults—designed both to bolster his confidence and enable him to work on his form—at a paltry 3.0 meters, or not even 10 feet. The other vaulters seemed to be locked in at 3.4 meters, or about 11 feet, 2 inches, the opening height in the regular competition—a height Glenn would be giddy to accept in the decathlon. They made it look easy.

  As the Japanese vaulters continued to work, Glenn sat down on a bench with Meadows and Graber.

  “What do you think?” Glenn asked.

  “It’s not too late to switch back to right-handed,” Graber teased.

  “I’d show you how bad I am at it . . . except I might hurt myself, and that’d be on your conscience,” Glenn replied.

  “We’d at least get a laugh out of it, though,” Meadows deadpanned.

  “All right, let’s be serious,” said Graber. “From what I’ve heard, all you have to do is clear something and you’ve got the gold medal.”

  The accented voice came from behind them.

  “That is what I believe, too.”

  The Americans turned. A squat, muscular blond man in the Germany warm-up suit skirted the bench and reached his hand out to Glenn. “Glenn Morris, I am Hans Sievert,” he said warmly. Surprisingly warmly, Glenn thought.

  Still shaking Sievert’s hand, Glenn stood up. “Wow,” Glenn said. He turned to the vaulters. “This is Hans Sievert . . . the Germans’ best decathlon man.”

  Smiling, Sievert said, “I am the former world record holder.” He gestured at Glenn. “This man broke it. And I expect him to beat his own record here.”

  “What about you?” Meadows asked Sievert.

  “Alas, I won’t be in the decathlon,” said the German. “I have an injured leg and can’t run. I’m competing, but only in the shot put.” He laughed. “I’ll be fortunate not to finish last.”

  “So it’s true,” Glenn said.

  “That I won’t compete? Yes, it is true,” said Sievert. “But our Erwin Huber is a fine veteran!”

  “I’m really sorry you won’t be in it,” Glenn declared.

  “You are?”

  “Absolutely. I really want to see how good I am against the very best.”

  “I hope that whatever man wins the gold medal—you, Huber, the other Americans, anybody else—does so with a score I know I couldn’t have beaten. That way, I won’t feel as badly. So I’ll be rooting for you all.”

  Glenn thanked him.

  “I also have to ask you if you will do something for Fraulein Riefenstahl’s Olympic documentary film crew,” Sievert said.

  Glenn hoped his excitement didn’t show. “What is that?”

  “In about forty-five minutes, when the others should be done, come over to the ring and let them take film of you putting the weight,” Sievert said.

  Glenn realized he meant throwing the shot put. “I guess so,” he said.

  “Should we call you ‘Hollywood’ Morris?” Meadows asked, teasing.

  Sievert seemed to catch the gist of that. He said to Meadows, “I believe they might do the same thing with you at your event later in the week. Fraulein Riefenstahl and her people are thorough. And I need to ask the same of your other decathlon men.”

  “That’s better,” Meadows said.

  After more small talk, about the great dining hall food, the Village cabins, and the Americans’ reception in Berlin, Sievert shook hands all around again. “See you in a little while,” he told Glenn, and then headed off to find Clark and Parker.

  Meadows said, “His English sure as hell is a lot better than my German.”

  “Kind of embarrassing sometimes, isn’t it?” Glenn mused. “And then all these boys in uniform here . . .”

  They’d all noticed the uniformed boys from the Reich’s Honorary Youth Service stationed at the Village as stewards, all trained in various languages. At least half spoke English fluently and already had served as guides and aides for many Americans in their brief time on the grounds. The Americans had two English-speaking military men assigned to them—Captain Hauptmann from the Army and Captain Dierksen from the Navy. It didn’t seem right to ask their first names, so nobody ever learned them. Glenn and the Americans also had been told they could ask for the use of guides if they wanted to take sightseeing or exploratory visits into Berlin. The debate was whether it was wise to take along the guides, or to prefer the privacy of being unescorted.

  Graber said, “I think it’s kind of scary.”

  Meadows asked, “Scary? How?”

  “There’s a little too much of that over here,” Graber said. “For one thing, they sound smarter than we do. I mean, when was the last time you heard anyone say, ‘Alas’?”

  Glenn smiled, because he had been thinking the same thing.

  Graber continued, “Did you see All Quiet on the Western Front?”

  Glenn said, “Yeah. Great film.”

  Graber said, “It’s like I’m watching that again. German soldiers speaking English.”

  “Sievert’s not a soldier,” Glenn corrected.

  “He will be,” Graber said. “They all will be. And so will we.”

  “Thanks, mister gloom and doom,” Meadows said, shaking his head. “You think even if another war starts over here, we’ll be in it again?”

  “Another war’s going to start and yeah, I do,” Graber said.

  “Hope you’re wrong,” Glenn said. “On both counts.”

  Glenn, Clark, and Parker arrived at the shot put ring at the same time. Sievert introduced them to Erwin Huber, who turned out to be leaner than Sievert and physically more impressive, and was dark-haired with a cleft chin and an engaging grin; and to cameraman Albert Kling, who—
it quickly became apparent—didn’t speak a word of English. With Sievert watching, and the cameraman prone just outside the front of the shot put ring with his huge film camera, Glenn went first, throwing the shot put over Kling and his camera. He hoped he didn’t “scratch” or step out of the ring, trip over the man and fall awkwardly. Glenn imagined the headline: “Morris Breaks Arm in Camera Accident, Knocked Out of Games.” Kling filmed from the side for a third throw. Then he nodded, indicating he had enough film of Glenn, reached out, shook his hand again and said, “Thank you.” He’d been trained to say that much.

  Clark, Parker, Huber, and Sievert went through the same routine.

  When they were done, Glenn turned to Sievert. “Can you ask the photographer what it’s like to work for Leni Riefenstahl?” Sievert turned to Kling and rattled off a question with “Fraulein Riefenstahl” in it. Kling answered back.

  Sievert reported, “He said, ‘She works very, very hard, and expects the same from her crew.’”

  Glenn was genuinely curious. “Does she know what she’s doing?”

  Sievert squinted. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “Is she knowledgeable about the technical things, or does she just watch everyone work?”

  Sievert asked and Kling answered decisively. Sievert interrupted him in bursts to translate, with the cameraman figuring that out and pausing in appropriate places. Sievert turned to Glenn. “He says she has blinkers when she works. . . . She understands everything. . . . Her instructions are very precise. . . . She says what lens to use . . . what focus length . . . how many frames to run . . . what filter to apply. . . . If cameramen have not worked with her before . . . they start out thinking they know more than her . . . then they discover that she teaches them things. . . . All who know her well say . . . she studied everything during the filming when she was an actress . . . soaked it all up like a . . . sponge.”

  Glenn nodded. He had sensed as much.

  “Glenn Morris!”

  Glenn turned. The yell had come from Coach Lawson Robertson, near the broad jump pit. Robertson was with a couple of well-dressed older men, but they had started to walk away. The coach waved Glenn over.

  “How much longer you working out?” Robertson asked.

  “Maybe an hour,” Glenn said. “Just want to run a while now.”

  Robertson looked at his watch. “Okay, that’ll work out fine. When you’ve showered, put on one of the USA sweaters—over a tie, maybe—and slacks and be in the entrance plaza at 3.” He gestured at the men he had been talking with. “They say there’s going to be a big wheel visitor, and they want you to meet him and have your picture taken with him.”

  “Who is it?”

  “They wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Well,” Glenn said hesitantly, “this won’t get me in trouble, will it?”

  Robertson grinned. “I think they would have said if it was Hitler.”

  Glenn couldn’t keep his mission secret from his roommate, so Walter Wood came with him. The photographers were set up and waiting in the plaza, just inside the front gate. Glenn recognized the familiar men from Associated Press, Alan Gould and his photographer, but there were others, mostly German. He was about to ask if they knew who was coming when the entourage came into sight. As the group got closer, Glenn spotted the man in the middle. He was wearing a stylish three-piece dress suit, complete with the handkerchief fashionably showing in the outside breast pocket. His walk was leisurely, but he didn’t need to swagger to have one.

  It was the man pictured on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal sports section behind the bar in the Café Brandenburg—Max Schmeling, the former heavyweight champion of the world and Joe Louis’s recent conqueror. The boxer was with Dr. Theodor Lewald of the German Organizing Committee. Spotting Glenn near the photographers and writers—the USA sweater made him hard to miss—the German official waved Glenn and Schmeling together, as if he were a referee about to give them their pre-fight instructions in the middle of the ring.

  The boxer didn’t wait to be introduced.

  “Ah, the program boy! The decathlon hero!” Shaking Glenn’s hand warmly as the photographers did their work, he added, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Glenn Morris.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Schmeling.”

  “Max!”

  “Congratulations on your victory last month . . . Max.”

  “Did I surprise you, too?”

  Glenn smiled. Uncomfortably feeling as if the whole world was listening, he added, “Well, yes, you did. Joe Louis is a great fighter.”

  “I know that. He is a credit to his nation.”

  Schmeling asked Glenn if he had his legs back after the boat ride across the Atlantic, and Glenn said it probably would be a few more days.

  “That’s why I take the Hindenburg,” said Schmeling. “Only takes a couple of days. And I . . .”

  He turned to a German and in a quick exchange, sought help for a word in English. Turning back, he said, “I vomited only once.”

  Glenn introduced Walter Wood, who shook Schmeling’s hand as if he wasn’t going to let go.

  At the first lengthy pause, Gould spoke up. “Max, can we get a picture of you and Morris running—like you’re in training?”

  Schmeling nodded.

  “Walter, too?” Glenn asked.

  Gould looked at the photographer. “Sure,” the photographer answered. “Better picture with one on each side.”

  Glenn’s smile was genuine as they walked about a hundred feet down the cement pathway and then turned and “ran” back toward the cameras. He was enjoying himself. Imagine, he thought, he had met Jack Dempsey and Max Schmeling—two former heavyweight champions—in the last two weeks, one on each side of the Atlantic. The two American athletes flanked Schmeling as they trotted up to, and then past the cameramen.

  The conversation at dinner got around to sex. Several Australian and New Zealander trackmen crashed one of the American dinners, joking that since they arrived in the first week of July, their goal was to eat in each of the thirty-eight cafeterias within the huge dining hall building. “Don’t know how anyone eats that Japanese gruel, though,” one said. “Everything else has been great, though.” They were at the table with Glenn and a dozen Americans.

  The word already had gotten around about the Aussies and New Zealanders’ encounters with the German maidens at the lake—and, in theory, the similar opportunities that awaited the Americans or any other “Aryans.”

  “It’s kind of creepy, actually,” said one of the Aussies. “Policemen are guarding the area. Couple of Gestapo types had to wave me past. Then the girl had to approve me, too. Had to hand her my Olympic badge and she wrote down every goddamned word on it. It was like she was filling out a form at the doctor’s office. She said no way could I use a wrap. And she bled all over.”

  “Would you do it again?”

  The Aussie laughed. “I said I wouldn’t, but . . .”

  “I can guess what’s going to happen,” said an American Glenn didn’t recognize. “Everybody’s gonna say no way will they do that . . . but we’ll all be out there before this is over. And there are going to be a bunch of babies born next spring or so who look like us.”

  A New Zealander said, “Ah, but the big question is . . .” He nodded to the table where most of the American Negroes were eating. Only then, he continued, “. . . what if any of them try to get in on it? Not that I have anything against it, but these Nazis sure do.”

  The Aussie laughed and leaned forward, trying to keep his voice down. “From all I hear, your Negroes don’t need help getting sex,” he said.

  Glenn remained silent as he finished his roast beef and potatoes. When he was done, got up, and approached the doors, Archie Williams was waiting for him. At first, Glenn was worried that Williams had gotten wind of the conversation with the Aussies.

  “I understand you met Max Schmeling,” the 400-meter runner said.

  Glenn’s first reaction was to be relieved. “Yeah,
Walter Wood and I did.”

  “They say you told him it was great that he beat Joe Louis.”

  Glenn no longer was relieved. “I congratulated him. That’s all. He won. I congratulated him. What’s wrong with that?”

  Williams said, “He’s German. Joe Louis is American. You congratulated the German? Did you give him the Nazi salute, too?”

  “Come on, Archie! I didn’t mean it that way. Really. I didn’t!”

  Williams looked him in the eyes for a few seconds. “All right, I’ll take your word for it.”

  As they started walking again, Williams confessed, “They introduced him to Jesse, too. Schmeling even shook his hand. Told Jesse he knows he’s going to win a bunch of gold medals.”

  Walter caught up and unsuccessfully tried to recruit Glenn to head to the Hindenburg Hall, the community building with movie theaters and a concert hall, to hear the Berlin Orchestra.

  “You Cornell guys . . .” Glenn teased. “Noses in the air.”

  “Hey, it’s relaxing,” said Wood. “You should try it!”

  “No, thanks!”

  With Walter gone, Glenn wrote a brief note to Karen. Then he realized he owed a letter to his Denver Athletic Club benefactor, George Whitman. In it, Glenn summarized the trip over and the team’s arrival in Berlin, then finished up with:

  Maybe I shouldn’t have been so surprised that Schmeling wanted to meet me. They look at the decathlon a little different over here. The people in Germany think a decathlon man is about tops in athletics, so I have been the target of autograph seekers, movie cameras and the curious element. Hans Sievert seemed surprised when I told him I was sorry he couldn’t compete. I mean it. I wish he were competing so I can see if I really am the superior. I know I’ll have some tough competition as it is, but I’m going to be ready. I’ll not let you down if it’s humanly possible to win. I’m going over 8,000 points or die. I hope all three of us American boys do that, in fact, and we’re all standing there on the medal stand watching three of our flags go up. I hope I’m in the middle, of course, but we want to make America proud of all three of us and maybe get more people to realize they should pay as much attention to our event as the sprints or the distance races, and not just once every four years.