The film concluded with a repeat of the sequence of the girl’s first, untimed run, but in slow motion, so that the minutiae of each stride, the ripple of thigh muscles, the hair’s fluidic rise and fall, took on their own fascination.
As he watched, Dryden reflected wryly on his assumption after the first few frames that he was watching a skinflick. The notion that these people were going to invite him to promote porn had leaped so readily to mind that it had taken more than a minute of the un-seductive Dr. Serafin to shift it. Now, as the film purred through its remaining footage, it was confirmed as a product launch. Dick Armitage’s story had held up: there was actually an unknown girl who appeared to run like a dream. How she measured up to Olympic standards it was impossible to tell. There was only Serafin’s word that she had covered one hundred meters in whatever he had said. It could still be an elaborate con. Camera-work can make diamonds out of drops of water.
For the present, it didn’t matter whether Serafin was on the level. Armitage believed he was. Valenti believed it, too. They had backed Goldengirl and they wanted to squeeze the maximum from their investment. This was not the moment to raise doubts about her. He would have to discuss his possible involvement on the basis that Goldengirl was just as brilliant as the film suggested. He could still provide a plausible argument for refusing the commission.
There were four sportsmen on the Dryden books in the superstar bracket — Dick Armitage, Jim Hansenburg, the world champion racing driver, and the two golfers, Marler and Patrick, who between them in 1979 had wrapped up the PGA, the Piccadilly World Match Play, the U.S. Open, and the Masters. Now that they were walking corporations with their own investment managers and tax consultants, people looked at their success and assumed every clean-living kid with muscles could do as well. The plain fact was that merchandising opportunities didn’t arise for people in sports till circumstances contrived to put them in a situation which held the world by its short hairs in front of the TV screens.
For a track and field athlete, there was only one route to Madison Avenue, and that, in 1980, was via Moscow. But these days even an Olympic gold medal didn’t get your face on a cereal box. You had to beat the world in storybook style — falling flat on your face, getting up and still winning. Goldengirl — with no competitive experience — had it all to do.
And Dryden had to spell this out to the people who were behind the girl. When they had put so much already into the sales pitch, they weren’t going to take kindly to being told they didn’t have a marketable commodity.
It was a prospect that came uncomfortably closer when the film ran out, the screen ascended smoothly out of sight, and Dr. Serafin turned his chair to face them, a propitious smile on his lips.
Chapter 3
“I begin with an apology. It was discourteous of me to decline Mr. Armitage’s invitation to preface the film with a few words.” Without amplification, Serafin’s voice sounded thin, an unequal substitute for the soundtrack. He must have decided a less assertive approach was now appropriate. “In planning this evening, I was concerned to ensure that Goldengirl made her own impact, without any preamble from me, so I left the explanations, such as they are, till now. I also apologize for bringing you here on such short notice, without specific indications of the purpose of this get-together. You are extremely active in your different spheres, I know, and I am appreciative that you rearranged your schedules to respond in this way to my invitation. The reason for the lack of advance information will, I assure you, be made clear before very long, but I do not regard a justification as an apology, and I make that now. I believe you will find the rest of this weekend both instructive and profitable.” On the last word he paused, smiling. “Comfortable, too.” He was feeling his way. It was obvious an interval was necessary to subdue the images and sounds of the film. “Melody, I wonder if you could arrange for another jug of coffee? I am sure it would be welcome.”
Armitage started from his chair. “I’ll fix that.”
Serafin put up his hand. “You’ve done enough, Dick. Miss Fryer may not look it, but she is an old-fashioned girl who has no objection on principle to fetching coffee for four men, do you, my dear? She is perfectly capable of persuading one of your staff to make it for her. I would prefer that we aren’t interrupted by waiters.”
Melody said nothing, but the swing of her bottom as she carried the tray to the door suggested she wasn’t downcast.
Serafin resumed: “Gentlemen, you are entitled to know a little more about me and my personal involvement in the project we are here to discuss. You would find, if you were sufficiently interested to look me up in the technical and scientific directories publishers unendingly produce, that my name is William Serafin, I was born in Salzburg in 1920, and I have a medical degree from the University of Geneva and a Ph.D. from Yale. I specialize in the field of physiology, and I am a Fellow of the American Academy of Physical Education. Until 1978, I was Professor of Anthropometry at the California Institute of Human Science. I still live in Bakersfield, where I amuse myself trying to keep up with the latest developments in my field of study. You may think it appropriate here to exchange biographical data all round. Dick Armitage need say nothing, he is so familiar from our TV screens. But Mr. Valenti, although yours, too, is a household name, I am sure we should all be interested to know —”
— who we’re getting into bed with, thought Dryden.
Valenti drew on his cigar, his brown eyes darting at this unexpected development. “What do I say? I’m in pharmaceuticals. Always have been. Inherited the business from my father back in sixty-four. I have an interest in sports, which is why I’m here. Just from the sidelines — don’t get me wrong. I do ten pushups each morning, and that’s plenty. I’d like to buy a basketball franchise, but do you see Jack Kent Cooke selling out? So I speculate in other sports, and here I am. Forty-two, just for the record, and I live off Wilshire Boulevard — the Beverly Hills end. Over to you, Dryden.”
“If you would oblige us,” Serafin unctuously added.
After Valenti, he was determined to keep it short. “I’m from England, as you’ve gathered. Been in business all my working life, exclusively on the entrepreneurial side. Formed my own agency in London, specializing in negotiating contracts for big-name sports stars. It prospered, but the real opportunities were over here, so I transferred to New York in seventy-three. Since then, I’ve moved the head office to Los Angeles, and opened branches in several other cities around the world. My clients are principally golfers, Grand Prix drivers and tennis players. No track stars.”
“Is that a fun remark?” asked Valenti. “Is it like a joke? You’re our big-wheel agent and you don’t know about track?”
“Skip it, Gino,” said Armitage. “He didn’t know tennis till I joined him. Jack’s just the best damned agent in America. That’s why he’s here.”
Before Valenti could answer, Serafin added, “Mr. Dryden is as much a byword in his particular profession as you gentlemen are in yours. He is here this weekend because I consider it timely to bring him in on our discussions.” He was articulating his words with an emphasis that made it clear he intended to lead those discussions. “Well, gentlemen. None of you had seen the film before. I am naturally interested to have your first impressions.”
“The girl looks good,” declared Armitage.
“Runs good, too,” said Valenti, with a sneer. “What’s your opinion, Dryden? Would you say we’ve got a Grand Prix winner there, or should we try her in the U.S. Open?”
“Knock it off, Gino,” warned Armitage.
“Leave this to me,” said Serafin. “Gentlemen, if this consortium is to operate successfully, it has to be on a basis of mutual respect. Personal insinuations of the kind we have been hearing are intolerable, and as your chairman I emphasize now that I shall not hesitate to cut short the meeting if necessary and abandon consultation altogether.”
Valenti leaned forward and stretched out a mollifying hand. “Don’t give yourself ulcers, Doc.
It’s my style. There’s no sense getting disturbed about things I say. You asked me if I liked the film. Sure, I did. That’s a twenty-four-carat dame. No argument. What do you say, Dryden?”
Drawn into committing himself, he commented, “Yes, I was impressed. I don’t pretend to be an authority on track” — he glanced Valenti’s way — “but I’ve seen my share on the TV networks, and I reckon I can spot a runner with class. The sprinting in the film was a revelation. I’d like to see what your Goldengirl could do against other runners.”
Instead of picking up the last point as criticism, Serafin was delighted by it. “So should I, Mr. Dryden — and we shall! I intend to come to that presently, but first I see Miss Fryer approaching.”
“Mission accomplished, too,” said Valenti, exuding bonhomie. “Mine’s black without, Melody.”
He was the last to be served. The coffee was in tall Troika mugs instead of the porcelain cups they had used after dinner. Whether it was the coffee, or Melody’s return, the tension had lifted when Serafin resumed.
“I propose to tell you a story which until this evening has been unknown in its entirety to anyone but myself. In all our interests, I must insist that you never repeat it. Do not worry; it will not incriminate you. I am not a breaker of laws, nor do I ask others to be.
“It takes us back more than forty years, to pre-war Nazi Germany. Dick, who majored in physical education at Berkeley, would tell you that there is a strong tradition of organized gymnastics in Germany which can be traced back at least to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the era of Johann Guts Muths and Ludwig Jahn. It was a movement that spread irresistibly through Germany and much of Europe, taking in other forms of sport as they developed. Even the First World War was not allowed to halt its progress. One of the few lasting achievements of the Weimar Republic of the post-war period was its provision of sports facilities and clubs on a scale unparalleled anywhere else in the world — facilities the Third Reich is often incorrectly credited with having provided.
“From the beginning of what he termed his Kampf, Adolf Hitler saw that the emphasis on physical improvement in Germany was a perfect vehicle for his ambitions. The strike force of the Nazi party, the Storm Troopers, or SA, was originally formed as a gymnastic and sports association as early as 1921. One of Hitler’s first actions on coming to power in 1933 was to appoint SA Group Leader von Tschammer und Osten Reichssportsführer, with instructions to dissolve all sports associations regarded as left wing and unite the remainder in a single organization, the Reichsbund für Leibesübungen. At the same time, Baldur von Schirach was performing a similar exercise with the youth organizations, welding them into the Hitler Youth Movement. The young people of Germany were to embody that crude philosophy of racial elitism culled from the Nietzschean notion of the superman and given its expression in Alfred Rosenburg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century.”
“The superiority of the Aryan race,” said Valenti, not missing a chance to reinstate himself.
“Exactly,” said Serafin. “The theory that a flaxen-haired, blue-eyed people had carried the torch of civilization since primitive times and survived in Germany to found another great culture under Hitler’s leadership, a state that would become more noble even than Aryan Greece. It was a theory that conveniently placed a high priority on sports and physical development, so that the Germans were able to continue to practice their gymnastics and outdoor pursuits, but in Nazi-oriented organizations. The Youth Movement grew to a membership of almost eight million. From the age of six in the Deutsches Jungvolk, and from fourteen in the Hitler Youth, the young people took part in a strenuous program of boxing, wrestling, gymnastics, camping and soldiering that occupied their time out of school. Much of it was, of course, competitive, which appealed to the German temperament and provided a massive pyramid of achievement. The children who emerged as the finest physical specimens were taken out of the normal schools, the Gymnasien, and placed in special schools, Nationalpolitischeerziehungsanstalten, which even Germans found too much of a mouthful and contracted to Napolas. They were equipped with outstanding facilities for every kind of physical development, and usually situated beside a lake. There, these selected few were trained, physically and politically, to become the elite of Germany, the future torchbearers of the Third Reich.
“It happened that one of these children was a girl, a pretty child of conspicuous athletic ability, who came to a Napola in Lower Saxony that took girls from the Bund Deutscher Mädel, the female branch of the Youth Movement. Let’s call her Gretchen. Even in the hand-picked community of the Napola, Gretchen showed up as a superb all-round athlete, and one morning in 1935, when she was seventeen, she was summoned to the director’s office and told that she was to join a squad of women gymnasts training for possible selection for the Olympic Games. You may imagine her excitement. The 1936 Olympic Games were scheduled for Berlin and were to be a Nazi showpiece, Hitler’s opportunity to demonstrate to the world the achievements of the Third Reich and the brilliance of his Aryan athletes.
“The story of those Games has been told often enough, gentlemen. Let us concentrate simply on Gretchen. She was duly selected to be one of the eight women who represented Germany in the Combined Exercises team event. There were no individual gymnastic contests for women in the Olympic Games at that time, or she would probably have competed in more than one event. But gymnastics was the parade sport of the Games for the Germans, their traditional ideal of sport, and every seat was sold months ahead for the program in the Dietrich Eckart Stadium, specially built in a wooded ravine at the edge of the Olympic complex. As it was, Germany’s gymnasts dominated those Games in the men’s and women’s events, and Gretchen won a gold medal. She could not have done more for her Führer.” Dr. Serafin paused, glancing down at his fingernails. The room was silent. If there had been any question earlier who was in control, it no longer applied.
“But there was one service more that was required of her. As a product of the Napola and an Olympic champion, she was a flower of German womanhood, the female equivalent of one of the SS. Had she been a man, there is no doubt that she would have graduated to one of the Ordensburgen, in which selected members of the SS received further indoctrination. Her name was certainly in the card-index system of RuSHA, the SS Race and Resettlement Bureau, for one afternoon soon after the outbreak of the war she was visited by two members of the SS. They reminded her of the benefits the Reich had bestowed on her and of her obligations as one of the Frauenschaft. Then they spoke to her of the commission the Führer had given Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS, to make facilities for RuSHA-approved racially pure unmarried women to bear children by similarly approved members of the SS.”
“The human stud farms?” said Valenti.
“Yes. The infamous Lebensborn. In setting up this ‘Fount of Life’ association, Himmler had issued a notice to all SS officers reminding them of their duty to set an example to all Germans by rearing a healthy family of at least four children. Those unable to perform this obligation were to sponsor ‘racially and hereditarily worthwhile children’ instead, and Lebensborn would provide for them. The evidence eventually provided by the Nuremburg Trials established conclusively that ‘valuable and racially pure men’ performed as so-called ‘conception assistants’ in the service of the state.”
“And that’s what happened to Gretchen?” said Armitage.
“She was driven the following weekend to a hotel in Bavaria,” said Serafin, “where she was introduced to her ‘assistant,’ a captain in the SS. Being a well-brought-up daughter of the Reich, she made no objection to what took place. As it happened, she found him reassuringly considerate and charming. They spent two nights together. During the day they skied and took meals together like any honeymoon couple. She learned that he was a former international sportsman, an expert in each of the five events comprising the modern pentathlon. She never met him again, but she heard that he was killed in the bombing of Dresden. In August 1940, she returned to Bavaria
, to one of the Lebensborn’s thirteen maternity homes, at Hochland, and there gave birth to a daughter. She elected to bring the child up herself. Money was provided by the Reichsführung of the SS for the child’s upkeep until shortly before the end of the war. The little girl’s name was Trudi.
“It was hard for Gretchen bringing up the child without a father’s help in postwar Berlin, as you may imagine. She worked in a street market, helping on a fruit stall, and her health suffered each winter. Sometimes, when she was feeling at her lowest, she would take out the gold medal from its case and draw some kind of inner strength from it. Fortunately, Trudi was a robust child, and seemed, if anything, to thrive better without the sponsorship of the SS. Being so prone to bronchial troubles herself, Gretchen formed the idea of saving enough money to make a new life in California, where the milder climate would be kinder to her health. In 1953, she contracted pleurisy and permanently damaged one of her lungs. That made up her mind; she sold her apartment and left Germany for good. They came here and rented a place in Santa Barbara. For several years her health improved, but in the winter of 1959 the pleurisy returned. This time she was not strong enough to pull through. She was forty-one when she died.
“So Trudi was left without family in Santa Barbara. By now, she was eighteen and a capable young woman, able to fend for herself. She got a job as a stewardess with TWA and took an apartment of her own near Los Angeles International Airport. She did not lack cash, clothes or boyfriends. During her childhood, her mother had often talked to her of the two cherished events of her life — the gold medal at the Olympics and the weekend in Bavaria with her SS captain. When Trudi saw that the Olympic Games were to be held in Rome in 1960, she decided to make the trip, to watch the gymnastics, almost in tribute to the mother whose gold medal had so unfailingly raised her spirits when she took it out to look at it in the dark years of the forties and fifties. As a TWA employee, Trudi got a free flight to Rome.
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