Fire on the Track

by Roseanne Montillo

  Nothing had happened, she told Ada Taylor Sackett, the team chaperone, who had caught her, and later in an interview she made light of the situation. But Ada quickly hurried to complain to Avery Brundage, who, although often tipsy himself, expected sobriety from his athletes.

  The reality was that Olympic team members had a standard to uphold. Eleanor had often been warned to be careful, lest she be discovered. When Ada had seen Eleanor unable to walk back to her room and fraternizing with two unmarried ship workers, she had called on Dr. Lawson, the ship’s doctor, who upon inspection announced that she was suffering from “acute alcoholism.” Several of her teammates were there. They had been shoved into the cabin to look at her, the drunk, disheveled Eleanor, held up as an example of a bad girl, exposed like a pet in a zoo, humiliated. This was not what Brundage had in mind for his athletes. Upon learning of the event, he immediately dismissed her from the team. The following morning, Eleanor learned she would not be participating in a third Olympics. But on hearing of the AOC’s decision, she was hired by the Associated Press to cover the Games, only angering Brundage further.

  —

  Betty, who witnessed the event, was astounded. She began a campaign to have Eleanor reinstated. Her efforts were futile; the AOC officials had no intention of rethinking their decision. Betty found that odd; she had seen other team members abusing alcohol, smoking, and carousing, and nothing of the sort had occurred. She had indulged in those things herself on several occasions, just a tad more sneakily. Brundage was also aware that most of the men trained while still in the throes of alcoholic stupor, but he chose not to punish them or to reprimand his own AOC members for the same infractions. Eleanor, perhaps because she was a woman, was the first athlete to be dismissed from the team.

  —

  Betty and Helen soon got into a routine, becoming nearly inseparable. The blue mornings were delightfully free of anxiety as they performed calisthenics while swaying to the rhythm of the ship, ran laps on the promenade, or walked at a brisk pace, working up a sweat and inhaling the sweet scent of the ocean, while Tidye and Louise, who were suffering from seasickness, kept mostly to their cabin.

  More often than not, Betty and Helen were distracted by the warm sunshine beating upon their backs, though the abundant meals always proved alluring. Their days began with a heavy breakfast, followed by a bountiful lunch, and then the athletes bided their time until a lavish dinner was presented, on which they gorged. Their mission had become to dodge Dee Boeckmann, who kept a watchful eye on her athletes. She was a stickler for the rules and was particularly fanatic about her charges’ diets. She knew what the results of too little training and too much indulgence were and wanted to prevent a repeat of the 1928 debacle. She supervised everything that passed through her girls’ lips, forbidding snacks between meals, as well as all forms of cakes, ice cream, pastries, and anything else that had sugar in it. As she struggled to keep them in line, she advised her athletes to fuel their bodies with chicken, vegetables, and loads of fruit washed down with water. She knew that she had a few renegades in her group, the water exchanged for liquor and champagne, but they would be the ones paying the price once they reached Germany.

  Not a day after boarding the Manhattan, Dee had come across Helen, about to shove a piece of lemon chiffon cake into her mouth, and she had barreled down the buffet line in time to stop her with a quick slap on the hand, the cake falling limply from Helen’s grip. The admonition, though perhaps warranted, struck Helen as uncalled for, and she felt her face burn with humiliation. How was Helen ever going to bring home a medal, Dee wanted to know, if she insisted on eating cake? Dee was certain that Stella Walsh wasn’t gorging on lemon chiffon cake.

  —

  As the ship traversed the ocean and the start of the Games approached, there was one thing that Helen was not thinking about: college. She had enjoyed the social life and activities William Wood had provided but disliked her classes—a reality clearly reflected in her grades. Much like Babe, her idol, she fulfilled only as much of her school’s academic requirements as necessary to play and continue to benefit from her scholarship. Though curious about the world at large, she saw sports as her only way of life and imagined that they would figure even more prominently upon her return home from Berlin, in some way or another.

  Matters were different at home. Despite Helen’s success on the track, her mother’s frustrations escalated. She was worried that Helen would eventually leave college without any tangible skills and unsuited for a job. And Frank, rather than seeing his daughter’s grades as a disappointment, regarded them as confirmation that he’d been right all along. He had always had his doubts about Helen’s attending college; her modern history major had further infuriated him, as he considered the subject useless, much like the pursuits Bertie engaged in and that she often encouraged. If things had gone according to his plans, Helen would have remained on the new farm, her size and muscles put to better use lifting bales of hay, digging ditches, and even driving a tractor. Instead, she insisted on senselessly running up and down a track. Leave college and this running business now, he demanded every time she visited. He could use the help at home, he pointed out, burdening her with hopes that were his own and that she would not and could not fulfill.

  —

  Although during the day the sea was calm, in the evening large waves pummeled the ship. A few hardy athletes braved the careening vessel and slick promenade, walking a little unsteadily to view Mother Nature’s fury, despite having been instructed to the contrary. It was often at night when, unable to sleep, Helen stepped alone onto the boardwalk, feeling the wind bluster on her face, wondering if it was strong enough to unlatch the lifeboats rattling by the side of the ship. As she stared up at the sky, the stars looked as big as the ones back in Fulton. On one such nocturnal escapade, she noticed activity by the gangway, beneath one of the lifeboats. Something was moving under the tarpaulin spread out to cover it. She waited a few moments, and then an unknown girl sprang out, adjusted her clothing, and rushed away, passing Helen and uttering a soft good night. Moments later, Jesse Owens jumped out of the boat, smiled at her, and left in the opposite direction. Helen had no idea how to respond to the sudden encounter, so she just watched him go.

  —

  As the ship neared the mainland, an unexpected shot of pain coiled itself from the soles of Helen’s feet all the way up the back of her legs. She described the stiffness and soreness to Dee; her calves felt like they were being ripped apart. They were the classic symptoms of a painful inflammation of the muscles and tendons. The doctors on board advised her to take a step back from her routine. So far, the training had not been strenuous but had included sprinting around the upper decks and some calisthenics, the coaches believing that that would be enough to keep the athletes in shape during the crossing. Yet whatever she was doing was provoking a dull ache that only the pounding of a masseuse could dissolve. Dee advised her to keep the news of her soreness to herself. She certainly didn’t want nosy reporters finding out and badgering her with questions. Helen agreed; their stories should speak only of her winning streak.

  Though Helen continued to walk on the deck, the lounge chairs became more inviting; there she sat, drinking in the warmth of the sun and playing her harmonica. She often called out to Betty, who’d join her without reserve, and together they whiled away the hours that were normally reserved for training. They also never talked about the “Berlin question,” as it was often called. Until one day the question found them.

  Helen had crossed paths with Dee early one morning on the promenade. She was surprised to notice a fine network of lines creasing Dee’s forehead and bunching out from her eyes that hadn’t been there before; the coach looked as if she had not slept well in days. She suddenly seemed tense and fidgety, lost in thought. Later that morning, Helen received a note instructing her to see Dee for a chat, and at 10:30 Helen made her way to Dee’s cabin. She knew that Helen no longer paid attention to the boycott letters she recei
ved, Dee said, speaking in low tones behind closed doors; but she worried that the rest of the girls did. She asked Helen to discreetly keep an eye on her teammates, to listen for any hints of a boycott, to talks about Hitler and his henchmen, to anything that did not include track and field.

  The sneakiness didn’t sit well with Helen, and she wondered why Dee had picked her to observe her teammates. Was it because she had noticed that, much as she had done in high school, Helen preferred to observe rather than be observed? She assured Dee that German affairs were of no interest to most of the girls, unless they had to do with their spots on the team. It was talks of boys that engrossed the girls most of all, European boys and what they would be like, as well as the idea of having an exciting time abroad. They were already mapping out their itineraries for the places they wished to visit while in Berlin, some of them outside the city itself, if they could afford the train fare. But Dee ignored Helen. She knew that some of the girls were not as tough as Helen was, and were easily persuaded by men and their arguments. She counted on Helen to watch them. Helen had to wonder if Dee knew she was attracted to women; how else would she have known that men would not persuade her, too?

  On returning to her cabin, Helen spoke to Betty about her conversation with Dee. They were alone, and Helen trusted that Betty would keep the conversation private. Betty was surprised, almost alarmed by the news. Although the athletes were about to gather in Berlin, there were still those who wished the United States would take a stand and refuse to participate. Betty and Helen understood what people feared would occur in Germany. Helen especially, who kept abreast of current events, was aware of the complexity of the Games being held in Hitler’s Berlin. They spoke for a few minutes longer and agreed that, having come this far, they would not ruin their chances for anybody, much less because of a few letters they might occasionally receive. If Dee or Brundage insisted on seeing any correspondence pertaining to the issue, they would allow her or him to peruse it.

  —

  On July 18, the athletes were invited to the Captain’s Ball, making up for the cool weather that had plagued them most of the day. The music was loud, the brilliant sparkling lights casting shadows on the giddy, buzzed competitors. Flasks filled with spirits made the rounds.

  Three days later, as slivers of moonlight crept through the portholes, many of the athletes rushed onto the promenade, where, in the distance, they saw the hills of Ireland. The morning breeze was chilly as they watched the flickering lights of a new country sparkle like frost. Helen and Betty huddled deeper into a blanket they had brought along as morning broke, watching as pretty cottages glimmered in the distance. Small buildings were sprinkled haphazardly among the hills.

  The ship docked in Hamburg on the morning of the twenty-fourth, and Helen found herself standing in line beside Dee to leave the ship. Several days had gone by since their little chat in Dee’s cabin, but every time they bumped into each other, Dee took the opportunity to sidle up to Helen, smiling conspiratorially. Here she was again, drawing closer to Helen and, out of earshot, advising her to keep her eyes open, watching not only her teammates but people in general, especially reporters. Some, Dee told her, were spies hired by the Germans to tease out information from foreign athletes.

  —

  The athletes were loaded onto buses and transported to Hamburg’s City Hall through streets decorated in flags and banners fluttering in the early-morning breeze. Following a short welcoming ceremony, they boarded a train to Berlin. Helen was whisked away to a different compartment from the rest of the team, along with Jesse Owens, NBC reporter Bill Henry, and Avery Brundage. There, for the first time in history, they would be broadcasting from a moving railroad car to radio stations in America.

  The air at the Berlin train station was heavy and the streets crowded; all of Germany seemed to be there to welcome them. The city’s monuments, offices, and churches were bedecked in German and Nazi flags, which quivered in the occasional breath of wind. Long rows of linden trees were broken by a succession of poles bearing Olympic flags and swastikas. Ecstatic spectators rested their backs on them as they waved national flags, drank beer, and munched pretzels. There was no sign anywhere that just days earlier, on July 16, some eight hundred Roma who had been living in Berlin and its surroundings had been rounded up and interned in a special camp in Marzahn, one of the city’s suburbs. The Nazis camouflaged their real selves under the cover of Olympic glamour: beyond the swastikas, the athletes were privy to little of the darkness surrounding them.

  —

  The female athletes were housed in the austere Frauenheim, a dank dormitory not far from the train station. On the first night, their windows banged heavily, and the athletes woke early every morning to constant rain pinging on the rooftops, the walls soaking up the moisture and retaining it with a tight grip. As the athletes drew their curtains apart, the hundreds of Olympic flags interspersed with red banners bearing black swastikas greeted them. They breathed in the room’s dampness, its chill, and its thin walls (which left no sound to the imagination). Each room was lit by a slender bulb hung from the ceiling, strung on a single wire, sparking to barely illuminate two twin beds, their thin mattresses covered with frayed blankets. There was a slight military feel to it; the temperature was kept below normal, chilling the athletes through their bones, as if to discipline or punish them. In the evening, beneath the windows, they saw shadows flitting about like rats, hiding and scurrying.

  As if the rooming conditions were not bad enough, the breakfast of dry, dark rye bread and tart green apples added to the unyielding ambience. Helen eventually complained, her discontent so potent that officials were pushed to replace the bread and apples with the more familiar breakfast fare to which the team was accustomed: eggs, sausage, bacon, juice, and pancakes.

  The men, on the other hand, were lodged in the Olympic Village. It was usually used as police barracks and would revert back as soon as the athletes departed. German officials had visited Los Angeles four years earlier and noted its Olympic Village. Taken by the idea, they had vowed to build bigger and better facilities when the 1936 games rolled around, repurposing what they had and adding more. In the village, the international male athletes were truly taken care of, offered all manner of food and comforts, along with the occasional smuggled cigarette, bottle of booze, or prostitute hired for the occasion by the German government.

  Despite the discrepancies between the men’s and women’s quarters, the women appreciated the location of their sleeping quarters, for they were only two hundred yards away from the training facilities and the train station was nearby. In the late afternoon, following refreshments, groups of them visited the Olympic Stadium or strolled to the city proper, where efforts had been made to rejuvenate and modernize the city. Interpreters speaking dozens of languages had been hired to roam the streets near the stadium so that they could aid visitors and help the athletes navigate.

  Just at the outskirts of the city, if one of the athletes ventured that far, the real Berlin was revealed, the dullness of the uncomely urban landscape that officials had tried to wipe away lingering. The buildings were drab and old, run-down, the squares full of tall concrete statues memorializing long-forgotten figures, framed by bloodred banners and swastikas, a few signs declaring “Kill the Jews” affixed on the sidewalks.

  —

  On July 25, the rain struck with even more passion. It was slow at first, a drizzle splashing against the windows and keeping the athletes awake throughout the night before, further dampening their spirits. In the morning, Betty and Helen did their laundry quietly, unable to shake the dreariness of their living arrangements or the weather.

  After picking up their official badges and uniforms, which cheered them slightly, Helen and Betty strolled to the swimming pool, where the male athletes were training. Tidye and Louise joined them for a walk to church, then took the subway into Berlin proper. The sound of motorcars reverberated in the streets as they stepped off the train. The loud voices of Germa
n and international visitors thronging the avenues and crowding the cafés met them in the city. They walked behind a stand of linden trees, then followed the curve of the streets to quieter areas, until they tired and returned to Via Triumphalis, which led them from the Lustgarten down Unter den Linden, then all the way back to the stadium. The city’s buildings did not seem particularly imposing, and the people appeared hospitable—though, since African Americans were not common in Berlin, they stared at Tidye and Louise as the group traipsed from street to street. Helen stared back at them, defiant.

  —

  Ill health swept through the women’s dormitories. Colds were rampant, and Helen’s shin splints were worse than ever. When the sun occasionally made its appearance, Betty and Helen ditched their workouts in favor of walking outside or opted for an outdoor massage from a sturdy German masseuse. Radio interviews were also taking up a good portion of their day, which they didn’t mind; the coverage would allow folks back in their hometowns to share in the immediacy of the Games.

  The dark, sunless days continued, punctuated by excursions. Athletes were disembarking in Berlin daily, and Helen soon learned that Stella Walsh and her Polish contingent had just arrived, whispers already trickling in that she had been running the 100 meters in 11.6 seconds. That knowledge propelled Helen to discontinue her carousing around the city and begin her workouts in earnest.