by Frank Deford
“An Amazon?”
“More’n that. A queen. An Amazon queen.”
“So, I’m just hangin’ by a thread, huh, waitin’ for her to strike?”
“’Fraid so, liebchen.”
“What? What’d you say?”
“Liebchen. Like ‘sweetie.’ You call me honey, I call you liebchen.”
I made a muscle, then, just like he had. “Well, mein liebchen, if the Amazon wants to fight me over you, I’m ready for her.”
Horst laughed. He turned the car off the main street, the Kurferstendamm (which I knew by now that if you were in the Berlin in-crowd, you called it the “Ku’damm”). I hadn’t really been paying any attention to where we were, though, until suddenly I realized we’d turned onto that street where only the Olympic flags flew—the one with all the Jewish shops. Horst surprised me—not just that he’d brought me back here, but that now he slowed down, pulled over and parked.
I’d already had a question in my mind, so I went ahead and asked it. “Is she a Nazi, Horst? Leni?”
“Why’d you ask that?”
“Well, you said how much Hitler likes her.”
“Yeah, but Leni—I don’t think Leni cares about politics. She’s her own political party. Reincarnated Amazon queens don’t have to join. Now my father, though—he’s in the party.”
“He is?”
“Dad’s a realist. That’s what diplomats have to be. He couldn’t very well be in the foreign service anymore if he wasn’t.”
“Are you?
Horst laughed. “Please. My father made me join the Hitler Youth when we got back from Portugal, but I couldn’t stand that. It’s all rock climbing and camping out, make-believe soldier stuff. As soon as I went to college, I got the hell outta that. It’s bad enough I’m gonna have to go into the navy for a couple years.” And then he suddenly turned to look directly at me, moving closer, too. I’d never seen Horst so intense. “You were upset when we came down here yesterday.”
“Well, not upset. Mostly surprised, I guess.”
“You think I hate Jews, Sydney?”
“What?”
“Do you?”
“No, Horst. I don’t think you hate anybody.”
“Thank you, liebchen.” Then he held out his hands, palms up, sorta shaking them, trying to put his thoughts together. “Look, let me try to help you understand. You can’t believe how bad it was here. My family was so glad to get to go to Japan—and it wasn’t easy there, either. The Japanese had taken our islands in the Pacific after the war, and so it was pretty sensitive for Dad. For all of us. Hell, nobody liked the Germans then. But just to get out of Germany. I mean, people were starving here. It was awful—chaos. And Hitler brought us back. He did. Not just economically, Sydney. We got our pride back.
“But I guess sometimes you need a villain to bring people together. The Nazis think so, anyway, and they said the Jews were responsible for everything bad. The Jews and the Cosi.”
“The who?”
“Cosi—Communists. But look, they weren’t any prize, either. There were fights, riots. And some of the Nazis were really bad guys—you know, bullies, thugs, riding the wave. And especially after they took care of the Cosi, they could run wild. And so that was the bad that came with the good.” He stopped and thought for a moment before going on. “You know, though, we’re not all that different from other people.”
“I don’t think you’re different at all.”
“Ah, no, I didn’t mean me. And I don’t mean you, but look at the way you are with the Negroes.” I lowered my head and fiddled with that laurel wreath that I still had in my hands. “You go to school with Negroes, Sydney?” I shook my head. “You go to church with ’em?” I shook my head. “They live in your neighborhood?” I started to mention Gentry Trappe, but I knew he was a special case thanks to my father, so I just shook my head again. “And there’s some Americans who even kill Negroes, aren’t they? What do you call that?”
“Lynching,” I said—very softly.
“Yes.” Then he grabbed the laurel wreath from me and threw it into the back and took my hands. “I’m sorry. All that is so bad. But you’re not bad. And I’m not bad.”
“No.”
“I wish I could stand on the street corner and shout about how we’re wrong about the Jews, Sydney. I wish I could do something. But I can’t. It would end my father’s career. And the thugs would probably beat me up.”
“Really?”
“Oh yeah. They would. But in your country, you—I don’t mean you. I mean anybody. You have all your freedom. You can say something. You can do something about how the Negroes are treated. But who does? So who’s worse? Us because we can’t protest? You because you can, but you don’t?”
“I don’t know, Horst. I don’t know.” This was all rushing at me, Teddy, and I wasn’t ready for it, and, anyway, Horst was right. Back then, we didn’t think through the situation with black people. Most of us. It was just the way of things. Segregation. Jim Crow. We white kids went to Chestertown High, and the black ones to Garnett. They all lived in their section of town. Away from us. And I’d just gone along with that, all my life. It took Horst to make me feel guilty. I had to go to Germany, where they were starting to kill the Jews, to see the beam in my own eye. That’s from the Bible—Jesus himself—Teddy. Don’t worry about the speck in somebody else’s eye, when you’ve got a beam in your own.
But then Horst let go my hands and drew back a little, leaning away from me, speaking conversationally. “You know Max Schmeling?” he asked.
“The boxer.”
“Yeah. He and his wife like to go to a place, the Roxy Bar, over on Joachimstalerstrasse. My father’d met him a couple times, so one night he and Mom joined them for a drink. The Schmelings. At the Roxy. This was just a few weeks ago, after he came back from knocking out Joe Louis in New York, and Mr. Schmeling said that everybody over there had called him a dirty Nazi and worse, but when he started pounding Louis, suddenly he could hear some of the Americans screaming, ‘Kill him, kill him.’ He’d never heard anything like that before when he was beating up some white boxer. And, Mr. Schmeling said, so many people over there were against him, just because he was a German, but he could walk into places —restaurants and hotels and so forth—that Joe Louis wouldn’t be allowed in. So maybe we’re all the same—all crazy.”
He looked away, then, out the window, toward all those Olympic flags. I didn’t know what to say. He turned back to me. “Am I talking too much?”
“No, no, Horst, you’re not.”
“Well, then, let me say this one more thing, that life is so much better here now. We don’t need villains anymore. And now the Olympics have come, and it’s been so wonderful, and what I want to think is that the Führer will see how it can be, how wonderful it can be when people are all together, and start to act on that. It was so awful here for so long, and, okay, if his people had to be tough to get on top, and some of them got out of control, that’s terrible, but now the Nazis can make their bad people behave and concentrate on the good things. I think maybe the Olympics have done that for us.”
With that, he broke out into a great big smile, and although he looked at me when he talked, it was almost as if he was really talking to himself. “When I was carrying that torch, when I was down there with Leni, and Willy was filming me, running along, holding it high”—he pantomimed holding a torch up—“I just felt so wonderful. It was like my whole body was being lifted up and swept along. It was like that torch was magic, and it was carrying me—not the other way round. Does that make any sense, Sydney?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded. “All my life, I was so self-conscious to be a German, to feel somehow weak and yet bad, too. All my life. But suddenly, I just felt so proud to be . . . German. I can love Deutschland now, Sydney. I can love it just like you love America.”
He reached out and took me by the shoulders. “And now, these Games. Everyone must see how we can be, how it can be.
I think—I know—it’ll be so much better now.” He took me into his arms then, but not to kiss me—only to hold me. To hold us together. I put my arms around him, too. We hugged for the longest time, and when he finally let me go, and I could look into his face, I could see that his eyes were misty. He took his fingers and rubbed them under his eyes, clearing them up. He managed a smile then, and he shrugged, and he said, “Of course, maybe that’s all just a big wish, and it’s only because I’m so happy because of you. Liebchen.”
“Liebchen,” I said. “I’m happy because of you, too.”
“Good,” he said, changing his tone completely. “Because the reason we’re here is we’re gonna go to a swell party.”
Horst took my arm and steered me toward the nearest shop. The sign on the window said simply: ROSENTHALER. The name alone —that was obviously enough for its clientele, for the window displays were filled with mannequins dressed in the finest, loveliest gowns.
“Mother’s always bought her best clothes here,” he told me. “She swears by it. Liesl bought her wedding gown here.”
“But why are you—?”
“Because I told you, Sydney. We’re going to a party. And you need a gown.”
“But I can’t afford—”
He reached into his pocket and flashed a big bankroll of marks at me. “I’m buyin’, doll,” he snarled, in that best movie gangster imitation of his.
“Horst, you can’t—”
“Yes. I can. You know where this came from?” He held it up. “This is what I got for being in the movie. So, if you want, look at it this way: Leni Riefenstahl is buying you a gown.” He waved at the store windows. “You like any of those? Which one do you want?”
I was utterly flabbergasted, Teddy. A boy is buying me a gown? The only gown I’d ever had, my mother bought for me for the senior prom. My God, that was only two months ago. It seemed like another lifetime, a yellow prom gown from Miss Margaret at Jefferson’s Dress Shop on Cross Street in Chestertown, Maryland, and here I am now, a lady on the Continent being treated to a gown in a fancy store by her new beau.
For just a second—just an instant, Teddy—it passed my mind that there might be a quid pro quo here. I buy you a gown, sweetie pie, and I’m expecting some payback. You know. Liebchen, smeechen. But, no, I couldn’t believe that. I could tell from the expression on his face how much Horst wanted me to have a beautiful gown and how much he wanted to look at me in a beautiful gown. How could I say no?
Then Mom winked at me.
Besides, Teddy, I was kinda warming to that idea of a quid pro quo.
Anyway, I pecked him on the cheek, but I told him he had to tell me what party we were going to. Well, it turned out that it was the party. The hottest ticket in town. He reached into his pocket and handed me the invitation: all embossed in gold, with swastikas adorning the four corners. You see, the party was being given by no less than that creepy Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda major domo—Sunday night at his estate. All of Germany’s medal winners from the first week were being honored, along with the who’s who of Germany and the Olympics both—well, you get the picture: everybody who was anybody. The crème de la crème, Teddy.
Now, I know you wanna know how my young Lochinvar made the cut for such a grand soiree. Well, it was somewhere in here that I finally began to appreciate that Horst’s father was something more than just another run-of-the-mill cog in the foreign service. It was he and Frau Gerhardt who’d been invited, but they were headed out of town. Klaus Gerhardt had been in the navy, so he was serving as one of the host muckety-mucks at the sailing races up at Kiel, on the Baltic. So, with a little diplomatic legerdemain, he’d prevailed on Goebbels to transfer the invitation to his son and his guest, which, of course, was yours truly. Only, then the poor Cinderella from the Eastern Shore needed a gown for the ball.
We entered the store to be greeted by an older gentleman, who I took to be Herr Rosenthaler. Horst introduced himself, and immediately, as soon as she heard his name, Frau Rosenthaler materialized, and there was a great deal of chitchat, which I took to be about Horst’s mother and sister. Then he introduced me, and explained how I needed a gown for an Olympic party. If Horst mentioned that we were going to the Goebbels’ bash, I never heard the name. I took note of that. I knew enough to know that no Jewish people ever wanted to hear that name.
Then Horst turned to me. “Okay, Mrs. Rosenthaler will take care of you.” And just like that, without so much as a how-do-you-do, he headed toward the door.
“Wait, Horst, where you goin’?”
“I’ll be right outside. What do I know about gowns? They do. This has been in their family forever.”
“Wait, wait, Horst. What type do you want me to get? What . . . ?”
He came back and took my hands. “Listen, Sydney, you get what you like, you put it in a box, and Sunday night, the first time I see it, it’s on you. And then I’m gonna take the prettiest girl in Berlin to the Goeb—” He stopped. “. . . the prettiest girl in Berlin to the grandest party.”
Then he was gone. The Rosenthalers looked me over politely, but rather as if I were some kind of specimen. It was apparent that they spoke no more English than I did German. I smiled back stupidly, but by now I knew enough to say, “Hallo. Wie geht es Ihnen?”—“how are you?” Frau Rosenthaler only replied, “Goot,” then brandished a tape. That did speak a mutual tongue, so I told her “size eight” in English, and when even that didn’t seem to register, I simply submitted my body to measurements. Now, Teddy, now we had something to go on, and she steered me over to a rack, where, apparently, there was a confluence of my size and Horst’s price range.
Frau Rosenthaler held out a couple gowns for me. One was a sky blue, the other what I’d call an ivory. It was absolutely lovely. But then, just as I reached for it, another one at the end of the rack caught my eye, and I immediately brushed the ivory aside and turned to it. “Is that my size?” I asked. “Size? Size?” I placed my hands over my busts and then on my hips. Frau Rosenthaler got the idea, and quickly checked the tag. She pulled the gown out. “Yes, ja, yes,” she said, beaming, taking the dress and holding it up before me.
Oh God, Teddy, it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in all my life. The idea that I could be encased in such glorious attire was beyond my comprehension. It was magnificent. I saw the price tag, too: ninety-five marks. That was almost fifty dollars, which doesn’t sound like much now, but trust me: it was a fortune for a gown at that time. I almost ripped it away from poor Frau Rosenthaler and held it out before me. “Ja, ja,” I said. “Wunderbar, wunderbar!”
“What color was it, Mother?” She didn’t answer me, only hurried away. When she returned, she held her purple acetate folder. Beaming, she reached inside.
This is the only souvenir I have left from that time, Teddy. The only thing I saved.
“Why just this?”
Oh, I brought a few other things back with me from Berlin, but over time I simply lost them or they disappeared, the way things you don’t care about go to a place you don’t know. But this I saved, because all I had to do was glance at it, and all the wonderful memories of that time would come flooding back. I couldn’t sit somewhere and tell these things to myself, Teddy. I needed you for that. It would’ve seemed dotty, talking to myself. But, whenever I wanted to—just to look at this was enough to remember it all.
And, with that, Mom pulled the swatch out of the folder and held it up for me. “Red,” I said. “Wow. That’s some red.”
Well, technically, Teddy: magenta. And all these years, I’ve kept it in dark places and it’s hardly lost any of its color. Look at it.
It was, I would suppose, about four or five inches by eight. It was a brilliant red. All right, magenta. I held it, touched it, giving it more care than I normally would’ve for any mere piece of fabric, because I understood the value Mother placed on this keepsake—this artifact.
There were some raised stitches. I ran my fingers over them. “What are thes
e?”
Cording. Trapunto cording is the proper term, I believe. You see—
She took the swatch back and placed it up above her bust.
You see, Teddy, visualize. This was the top of the bodice.
Oh, if you could have seen me in that little changing room. After I put it on, I just ran my fingers over it all. And this was the top. It was a high top, with magnificent wide sleeves. I think that’s what made it so special. Why, Ginger Rogers could have climbed right into it and started tripping the light fantastic with Fred Astaire—right there in Rosenthaler’s boutique.
She fingered the swatch again, caressing the cording.
And that cording, Teddy. The trapunto cording ran all across the front, and out over my shoulders and down under the arms.
She traced all that with her fingers, as she described it to me.
Then, there was a large bow in back.
“The same color?”
Oh yes. The whole gown was magenta. The back was low, where the bow was. That was often the style then, that the back was very low and the front high. There was no cleavage at all. Just a little dip in the bodice beneath my neck. And a neck could be important, Teddy. I wore my hair short, which was pretty much the fashion, curled up at the nape of the neck. My neck was on display.
And then I ran my hands down my sides, where the gown came in at my waist. So, yes, maybe there wasn’t any cleavage, but the way it was cut—well, I can assure you, Teddy, it displayed my . . . my rack to best advantage. Besides, if you could see a lady’s bare back, it served to emphasize the mystery of the front. And remember now, my hair was short. There was a lot of back. Cleavage is a tease, Teddy, but a bare back is more sensual in its own way. It is bare, after all, isn’t it? There’s much to be said for a high front and a low back, even though most men wouldn’t say it.
Holding the swatch close to her, she swirled a little, seeing it all in just the right light of her mind’s eye.
And remember, Teddy, there were dinner parties then. It wasn’t a fast-food world. A lady would sit at a table, and it was important that the front of her dress be attractive, because that would be on exhibit. If it was just a couple of straps and some cleavage, even the best of that physical display might begin to wear thin on the other guests by the main course. I know that may be hard for a discriminating gentleman such as yourself who has spent decades peering at cleavage and that which abuts it on either side, but in a genteel world, there really were other, more stylish considerations.