by Frank Deford
German is very guttural, you know, Teddy. It can sound downright nasty even when it isn’t. The funny thing is, too, it’s a very rigid language. Not much to move around in. There’s not even many cuss words in it. But it just has a tone to it, you know? So when the German is really and truly mean, it knocks you back on your heels. This was such an occasion. I kinda scrunched down alongside Horst.
Someone flipped the light switch on, and as the man she’d berated left, Leni turned her head just enough to spy Horst standing in the back. Well, let me tell you, Teddy, all of a sudden it was bluebirds and lollipops. “Horst! Mein schatz!” she cooed. Schatz sounds awful, doesn’t it? If I called you schatz you’d think I was mad at you. That’s German for you. But in fact schatz means something like treasure. Horst was her treasure. So then she stepped over to him and smiled and touched him.
It was merely a light finger to the shoulder, but it’s been my experience, Teddy, that some women—and a few men, but not many—instinctively know how to touch a person of the other sex exactly right. It’s not important where they touch the other person. They just have the knack. Well, that was the way Leni Riefenstahl touched mein schatz, and then they stood there and had a little chitchat, which, of course, I didn’t understand word one of.
And the way they looked at each other. It was adoring and sly, and it occurred to me that this must be the way people who have slept together look at one another when they meet again with other folks around—thinking no one else is the wiser. Of course, myself not having slept with anybody up to this point, I was not yet personally privy to this knowledge, but, nonetheless, I believe to this day that it was an accurate supposition on my part.
“Mother, you were jealous.” She actually stamped her foot.
No, Teddy, I most assuredly was not. Why? Because I knew that nothing in our lives mattered before we’d met each other. In fact, I rather felt superior to Leni Riefenstahl, because I was sure that Horst loved me now, and she would never have him again.
She still was looking at him, too, flirting with him—and, yes, he her; it takes two to tango, even when it’s just innocent foolishness—so Leni really hadn’t taken notice of me. It gave me the opportunity to look her over carefully. She was tall—taller than me—wearing gray slacks, but she was not as pretty as I’d supposed. Certainly, she could not hold a candle to Eleanor Holm. But she had a wonderfully expressive face, and large doe eyes of that color you so seldom see. A sort of gray-green, I think it is. And yes, for the record, yes, Teddy, she had very large bazooms. They were beneath a white buttoned blouse. But they were not bursting, Teddy. They were strictly under wraps. Tonight she was all business.
Finally, Horst was able to direct her attention to me and introduce us. Leni looked me over with a filmmaker’s eye, more like a man than another woman, and then she pointed a finger at me, and in English—she spoke a very accented English—she cried out, “Oh yah, yah. I know zis vun.”
It rather frightened me, but she smiled and held up her forefinger, waggling it, and said, “Yes, of course, ze girl svimming in ze pool zat Hans filmed.” And back to Horst: “Ya, Hans told me vut a naughty boy you are. You are dere to pull boat, but all ze time you are making eyes at zis beauty.”
Horst just said, “Did Hans get good film?”
“Very.” And to me: “Ya, you vere qvite good mid za svimmin’, sank you. So, no, I can’t be mad. Besides, Horst ist always eyeing ze girls.”
“Just the pretty ones, Leni.”
She cocked an eye at him and then went over and whispered to the other man who had been sitting by her. He left post haste. “So,” she said, turning back to me, “you haf been mid Horst?”
He started to interrupt, but she shooed him away. “You stay out of zis, Horst. I vill talk to her now.”
“Yes, I’ve been with Horst,” I said.
“And he has shown you Berlin?”
“Some of it, yes.”
“It’s very beautiful city, no?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Ve are showing ze whole vorld, are ve not?”
“Yes, you are.”
“And Horst . . . ?”
“Yes?”
“He’s very beautiful boy.” I smiled, a little embarrassed. “You get beautiful city and beautiful boy, bose. Not bad, no?” I only nodded. The man who’d left the room returned with a film cannister. “Ah,” Leni said, “so now I vill show you somesing else much nicer.”
Horst didn’t say anything, but he must’ve guessed what was coming because he slinked back against the wall. Leni beckoned me to take the chair next to her, calling over her shoulder, “Von’t you be vatching closely, too, Horst?”
“I’m watching,” he called back, but not, I thought, with much enthusiasm.
And then the film came up, black-and-white, and there Horst was, dressed in white shorts and T-shirt, carrying the torch, running along some sylvan road, past leafy trees and a babbling brook. It was so lovely that any moment I expected adorable little woodland animals to appear by the side of the road to cheer him on, as Walt Disney would have them do. Leni applauded, nudging me, “Nice, no?” I nodded. It was nice. And Horst was especially nice, so trim and strong, running along, holding the torch proudly, as if it were some pennant, some battle flag to follow after. Leni certainly knew what she was doing, because Horst was the epitome of youth and strength and beauty, that very Teutonic icon. Aryan, Teddy. Okay, maybe not perfectly blond. But no one could look at Horst Gerhardt and not think well of Germany.
The road he ran on wandered out of the woods, to the outskirts of some little village, and there, waiting, was another German boy, just as fair, just as lithe, and I’m sure most anyone else would say just as gorgeous as Horst. But, of course, I could only think: almost as. Horst handed him the torch, and the new boy took up his journey.
“Stoppen!” Leni called out, and the projectionist halted the film. She turned around and beckoned to Horst. “All right, dear Horst, you haf seen it now. Vhat you sink?”
He stepped forward. “It’s very pretty footage, Leni. Willy did a fine job.”
“And you are very pretty boy, no?” She smiled devilishly, nudging me again (even as I realized she’d forgotten my name), before she looked back up at him. “But still—you von’t go to Baltic?”
“Come on, Leni, I told you no.”
“Oh, vhat shame.”
“What’s the Baltic?” I asked.
“May I tell her?” Leni asked.
“Yes, of course. But it won’t change anything.”
She turned to me. “After ve are finished vid Olympics, I am sending Villy—Villy Zielke, he shot vhat you yoost saw—up to zis . . . zis . . . Vhat vould you call it, Horst?”
“Bleakness. A very barren beach, Sydney. Up to the east, almost to Lithuania. Leni wants to shoot there because it’s so lonely, primitive, and the sun will be lower then, later on in the summer, so it’ll have wonderful shadows playing across the background.”
“Danke, Horst. You see, Sydney . . .” (Now that Horst had reminded her of my name.) “You see, I vant to make it like ve haf gone back to vay Olympics zey vere, ancient time. And I vill haf my boys, running, yoomping in ze mist, yoost as it vas. Old Greek Olympics, you know, athletes vere vithout clothes.”
“Naked?” I was stunned, Teddy. The idea, then, that someone—never mind Horst—that anyone would appear naked on a movie screen was simply beyond my comprehension.
Leni loved my obvious innocence. “Ya, ya, nacht—naked.” She practically shrieked it. “Ze men. Vomen could not even enter stadium. Greeks luft bodies, men’s bodies, and I vant to show zat, show how it really vas, vere ve have come from ze past, to Berlin, now.” She sighed, looking at Horst. “But Horst vill not be one of my Greek athletes. He ist too bashful for vorld to see him. Only vants you for zat, I sink.”
Oh, Teddy, I can tell you I lowered my head at that, and probably blushed terribly. I didn’t dare look up at Horst. But Leni laughed and clapped her hands. “All rig
ht. Ve haf work to do, Horst, vhile you yoost go entertain your pretty girl. You must leaf now.”
I rose immediately. Horst said, “Thanks, Leni, I appreciated that.”
“Vell, ve all needed little break. But remember, Horst: Friday, I vant you in stadium for five-sousan’ meters.”
“I haven’t forgotten.”
“Goot.” She turned to me. “You vill let him go for avhile?”
“Yes, of course. And thank you.”
“Next time, perhaps, ve will show you doing your svimming. ”
“I’d like to see that.” And then Leni leaned forward and kissed me on the one cheek, which surprised me, Teddy, but all the more so when she kissed me on the other. I wasn’t familiar with that kind of European kissing. Leni Riefenstahl was the first person to kiss me on both cheeks. It’s a little bit of trivia about your old mother.
“Like kissing Horst standing up by the car.”
No, Teddy, that wasn’t trivia. That was just plain kissing.
Unfortunately, there really wasn’t a great deal for me to do when the team practiced. Coach Daughters gave me a stopwatch, so I timed the gals when they swam heats, but apart from that, I was pretty useless. Besides, the weather had remained chilly, so the last thing I wanted to do was get in the water unless I had to.
Then, on Thursday, we suddenly got some lovely weather—just a honey of a day. The swimming competition wouldn’t start till Monday, but it uplifted our spirits, and we were all clowning around with the American boys. Usually, they worked out at another pool near their Village, but today they had the chance to practice in the Olympic pool itself.
I was standing down by the deep end, talking with Adolph Kiefer, who was the champion male backstroker. He was a really nice guy, from Chicago. I’d met him at the Lake Shore Club. We all called him Sunny Boy. That’s “sunny” with a u, Teddy, because he always saw the bright side of things. Everybody liked Sunny Boy.
All of a sudden, there was this big commotion, and we look up, and here comes some soldiers, and right after them, old Hitler himself. You knew him right away. He had his army uniform on, and that silly mustache of his. A civilian was with him, who I realized was an interpreter, because I heard him ask where Adolph Kiefer was, and they pointed over our way, and here comes Hitler, big as life, short as he is, right up to where the two of us were standing, chewing the fat.
Well, here was the deal. Hitler specifically wanted to meet Sunny Boy because he was of German descent and because he was another Adolph. I know that’s sounds ridiculous, but it’s true, because I was standing right there the whole time. Actually, I think Sunny Boy took it more in stride than Hitler did. The Führer, of course, was used to everybody saluting him and making a big fuss, but Sunny Boy just stuck out his hand as if he was meeting a mayor or an alderman or some such character, and then, through the translator, they chatted for a couple minutes about how Sunny Boy had German ancestors and what a coincidence it was they both had the same name—zwei Adolfs!, imagine—and what a nice day it was and what a nice pool it was. Et cetera.
I was standing right there, Teddy. I mean, it was just Sunny Boy and the interpreter and Hitler and me, even if nobody paid any attention to me. But I was as close to him as I am to you right now. And frankly, he wasn’t very impressive. He was just an ordinary Joe with a foolish mustache pasted on his face passing the time of day with a kid swimmer.
So then, when this rather garden variety conversation ended—and I don’t think anybody ever gave Hitler credit for being much of a conversational whiz—he turned to go, and he found himself facing me. Adolf Hitler and me, cheek to jowl. It caught me off guard, Teddy, so before I knew it, I found myself saying, “Hi.” I laugh everytime I think about it. The kid from the Eastern Shore meets the Prince of Darkness, and all I said was “Hi.”
Well, here’s the thing, though. Since he was so used to everybody kissing his behind and saying “Heil,” I’m sure that’s what he thought I said, so he gave me that standard bit of his where he crooked his right elbow and held his arm up straight. It was a real hoot when you think about it, but you know how those things are, Teddy: you don’t think about it when it’s happening. And so then off Hitler went. Bye. (No, I didn’t say that.)
Years later, Sunny Boy said if he knew then what we all eventually learned, he wouldn’t’ve shaken hands with Hitler, he would’ve punched him right in his stupid mustache and pushed him into the pool. But, of course, that was years later when he said that.
In fact, at the time everybody was pretty impressed, and even after Hitler gave the pool a once-over and left, we all kept on buzzing. I mean, Hitler was one of the most famous people in the world. It would be sort of like going to the United States and bumping into President Roosevelt or going to London and running into the Prince of Wales and Mrs. Warfield. That was the context. Nobody got into the politics of the thing. And, like I said, everybody was in a good humor, because we finally had such a lovely day.
After practice, I walked back to the Friesenhaus with a bunch of the girls, and as we came around this corner toward our building, I saw Horst’s silver Opel roadster parked there and right away, to borrow the words, verbatim, from an old song: “Zing, went the strings of my heart.”
Horst was standing by the side of the car in the sunlight. He had sunglasses on and was wearing tan slacks and a green sport shirt, leaning up against his car with his legs crossed down by the ankles in that show of studied casualness that very few of you men can pull off, because, well, it usually looks too studied. But Horst had it down, natural. There was a kind of what I’d call a Continental Yank to him. He was a vision, Teddy. He was an absolute vision.
The other girls kidded me, but sticks and stones—right? I was walking on clouds, immune to that sort of badinage. They couldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole. I just do-si-doed over to Horst. “Well,” I said, “this is quite a morning for me. I just met Hitler and now you.”
He said, “Did Hitler ask you to go around town with him?”
“No. I think he had other fish to fry.”
“Well, good, then you can come out with me instead. It’s a perfect day to see Berlin.”
“Lemme just change.”
“And bring a bathing suit.”
“I’ve been in already. It’s wet.”
“That’s what bathing suits are supposed to be.”
And so I got into my best casual outfit, which was a tropical print dress—mostly blue, with a big red belt. I’d been saving it for a nice day. I’d’ve felt silly wearing a tropical print when it was all grim and gray. And after all, you hafta understand I didn’t have that much of a wardrobe selection. I hadn’t expected a courtship in Germany.
But today, the tropical print with the short sleeves was just the ticket. At that time we called those sorts of clothes “gay.” You know, it didn’t have anything to do with sex; it meant light and festive. And this particular gay dress worked with my coloring and showed me to best advantage, which was the point. And I wrapped up my wet bathing suit in a towel, and we took off around Berlin in Horst’s roadster.
I will spare you the travelogue, Teddy, especially since I can’t remember all the names of this street or that plaza. Strasses and platzes. But Horst was so proud of the way his city looked, and he wanted to show it off to me. It was so fresh and clean, too—but not bright, you understand. Berlin was a gray city, so you couldn’t say sparkling clean, the way we do. But it was spic and span. A lot of the Berliners had window boxes, where they grew vegetables. Times in Germany had really and truly been desperate only a short while before, so every little bit helped. But, for the Olympics, to make things prettier, the Nazis had made everybody grow flowers instead of vegetables. The Nazis were very good at spin, Teddy, although, of course, nobody called it that then.
All the buildings were scrubbed. If a store was vacant, they dressed it up as if it was thriving—Potemkin shops, if you will. Horst made a point of taking me to some plaza where the United States had bought a bi
g building for its embassy, and that one building stood out because it was all drab. The Germans were really ticked off because after we bought the building, we didn’t have enough ready cash to spruce it up. I mean, if we didn’t have enough money for bathing suits, we certainly didn’t have enough for spit and polish. That was the Depression, Teddy. People nowadays have no clue. They think you can just put anything and everything on a credit card, ad infinitum. The Germans actually wanted to buy the building back and put a shine on it, but we wouldn’t sell. So that was the one eyesore, and Horst rubbed my nose in it a little, but only in a teasing sort of way.
Well, I do remember that the plaza that the embassy was on was a big boulevard called Unter den Linden. It was lined with lime trees. Oh, it was a magnificent thoroughfare, Teddy. There were banners looped along the trees, and every fifty feet or so, there were green flagpoles flying either the Olympic banner—you know, with the interlocking circles—or swastikas. One after the other. The snow-white Olympic flag played off against that harsh red and black. Every major street was the same: an absolute cavalcade of banners and flags. Every building, every shop. The Nazis must’ve adored flags more than anyone else. They never learned less-is-more when it comes to flags, did they?
Then we turned down one side street, and it was very striking because suddenly there were no swastikas at all, just a profusion of the Olympic flags. That brought me up short, because after seeing so many swastikas, their sudden absence was all the more striking. So, naturally, I asked Horst about it. I could tell right away that he was uncomfortable, that he regretted coming this way, and he barely glanced over when he answered. “Well,” he said, “those are all Jewish stores.”
“So?”
“Jews aren’t allowed to fly the swastika.”
“Oh, I see.” It cast a momentary pall in the roadster. In fact, I think it was the first time when our conversation had wilted, even for an instant. He made a quick turn at the next corner, though, so once again we were on a street that was flying both the rings and the swastikas. I tried to think of something to say, but, of course, at times like this anything you say comes with a big stupid sign over your head that says: “I’m changing the subject,” which is worse than saying nothing.