Dreams Bigger Than the Night (5 page)

“He was one himself before he became a nationalist,” Dario said.

Avery’s expertise was business and sports, not history, and he felt out of his element. In his correspondence with the German Olympic Committee, he had made it clear that he would, at all times, need a German translator, one who understood colloquial American diction. He hazarded, “At least Mussolini saw the light. A great many people in America have yet to do so.”

Count Stefan Galati, silent during the discussion, smoked one gold-tipped Turkish cigarette after another. Dario turned to him:

“Count, you have recently been to both Italy and Germany. What is your impression?”

Galati’s English was of the British variety, formal and terse. He blew a cloud of smoke through his nose and said, “Yes, like you I have been to both countries. I don’t suppose our opinions differ much on the matter of fascism. Italy is authoritarian and Germany totalitarian. Distinctions
with
a difference.”

“Ah, then you agree with me,” said Francesca, running a hand through her long, blonde hair, “that Benito is not so bad.”

“If he ever runs afoul of Hitler,” replied the count, “Italy will be doomed.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the baroness, massaging her neck as if to dispel the wrinkles.

“The Italians are laughter and food,” answered the count, “the Germans, mirthless and maniacal.”

Reciting her words as if trilling up and down a scale, Francesca recounted singing in Vienna, Berlin, and the Rome opera house with both Mussolini and La Sarfatti present.

“Who is Sarfatti?” asked Brundage.

“Benito’s favorite mistress,” said Francesca.

Brundage seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t approve.”

Dario looked nonplussed. “Of what?”

Like most men who preach morality but practice its opposite, Brundage answered self-righteously. “I believe in the sanctity of marriage.”

Dario laughed. “As Shaw remarked: ‘Confusing monogamy with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other error.’”

The guests tittered; all but Brundage, who asked, “Is that George Bernard Shaw?” Dario nodded. “Wasn’t he a socialist?”

“My dear Mr. Brundage,” said Dario, “I think that you have an idée fixe about socialism. Hitler’s party is the National Socialists, and yet you seem to have no qualms about Germany.”

Discomfited by this remark, Brundage suggested that now was not the time nor the place to continue the discussion. He would gladly meet Dario for a walk on the ship’s deck to continue it later, perhaps tomorrow. The next day, as good as his word, Brundage invited Dario to join him for a stroll. A hot day, the calm sea offering no cooling breezes. Avery fanned himself with his straw hat, sweating from his white blazer jacket and striped linen trousers. Dario wore a cotton tan suit. Both men were tieless.

“Damn hot,” Brundage said.

Dario, carrying a Derby walking cane with an ebony shaft and a pewter collar, pointed it toward the ocean. “Calm one minute, feverish the next, like the human condition.” He paused to study the pewter. “Needs polish.” Again he paused. “In 1930, you opposed Berlin and supported Barcelona. What changed your mind?”

Brundage studied Dario’s face for a minute and then exclaimed, “I thought I had seen you before. You were an observer at the 1930 meeting that chose Berlin.”

“Quite right, and I am now a supporter of the People’s Olympics in Barcelona.”

A dyspeptic Brundage replied, “You’ll never be able to compete.”

Dario shook his head. “Perhaps not, but we will at least have made a statement about our disapproval of the Nazi Olympics.”

“Why do you object to Berlin? Is it Spanish nationalism?”

“No, racism.”

Brundage breathed deeply. His next words would take some courage. “My dear Señor Lorca, I have been told that the main reason for the Aryan movement in Germany is that the Jews, who hold a prominent position in the affairs of German life, have misused their position, as Jews often do.”

Dario tapped his cane on the deck, as if asking an audience for quiet. He then wordlessly turned and walked away from Brundage.

“Have I offended you?” asked the American, calling after him.

Dario stood motionless. “Avery, if you will allow me to call you by your first name . . .”

“Please do.”

“I have visited Germany, you have not. Let me tell you that Adolf Hitler is not what you think. You may admire him, but he would not admire you: your poor eyesight, your thinning hair, your education, and, most of all, your money. He despises the wealthy, though he does not hesitate to use them, just as he will use you.”

Never having been spoken to in this manner, Brundage expressed his resentment, as he always did, by stiffening his already ramrod straight back and insisting that the principal opponents of the Berlin Olympics were Communists and Jews.

“You are sadly out of step with history,” said Dario. “Those arguments were tried—and failed—in the last century. I will tell you what you are lending yourself to.” By this time, a number of passengers had gravitated toward the two men, who still stood apart, arguing. In addition, the baroness Polanyi, who had been relaxing in a deck chair and reading a book, put down her lorgnette, and stared incredulously.

“Perhaps it would be better,” said Dario, “if we separated.”

As a gesture of reconciliation, Brundage took the Spaniard’s arm, and they strolled down the deck. “Dario, believe me: Barcelona is a dead issue. Why continue?”

“I will tell you. The Berlin Olympics are not about sport but about Nazi propaganda. Every building, every anti-Semitic poster being removed, every newspaper report . . . all of it is designed to impress the foreign visitor, people like you. Then you will return to the United States and praise German wealth, order, security, hospitality, and organization. Your German hosts will not have shown you the concentration camps and the countless number of democrats and poets and intellectuals who are languishing behind barbed wire. So I beg you. When you arrive in Germany, ask to see the prisons and camps, ask to speak to gypsies and Jews, ask to see the training facilities for non-Aryans. Leave the Olympic site. Go off alone and walk down the side streets and avenues. Do you know what you’ll see? Frenzied brown-shirted thugs roaming the avenues, arresting and assaulting, even murdering, any person who they think violates the purity of Aryan blood: Jews, gypsies, cripples, the blind, socialists, Communists, dissenting Christians. And the police will not lift a nightstick to help. Nor will judges convict or sentence any of these barbarians. They fear for their own lives. You will see broken windows and stores painted with anti-Semitic slogans. You will see Nazi flags fluttering from every building and lamppost. You will see children dressed as soldiers, and their parents wearing Nazi pins and heiling their neighbors. And then there’s the noise. Trucks regularly pass through the streets blaring Nazi slogans and propaganda. And it seems as if every building in Berlin has a loudspeaker playing martial music. You cannot but conclude that you have reached a level of hell that even Dante would find unimaginable.”

Brundage, never having read Dante, could say only, “They are compensating for all the bad years . . . lifting their spirits.”

“With murder and mayhem?”

Feeling at a disadvantage owing to his lack of languages and familiarity with Germany, Brundage decided to break off the discussion. But as was typical of the man, he wanted to have the last word. “I will say just this,” Avery declared adamantly, “Hitler and his party have halted Communist gains in Western Europe, and to my mind, Communism is an evil before which all other evils pale. For that reason alone, Berlin deserves to host the Olympics.” Now red in the face, he stopped to catch his breath and adjust his glasses. He then added, “I fervently believe that amateur sport and fair play can rise above sectarianism and put an end to national hatreds.”

This last comment, a non sequitur, led Dario to say what he did. Making no attempt to hide his contempt for this provincial, bigoted American, he calmly remarked, “You mention politics and sport in the context of the Berlin Olympics, but you fail to indicate that the real issue is not Communism nor amateur athletics but humanity, for which you seem to have little regard.”

The men parted. They never spoke again and dined at different hours. The count and baroness joined Dario; Elizabeth and Francesca joined Avery. As if in response to the roiling opinions of the passengers, the sea grew stormy, so that by the time Brundage arrived at the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) meeting in Stockholm, he complained of a queasy stomach. In need of moral support, he found it in Karl Ritter von Halt, a bronze-faced diplomat and steadfast Nazi, whose tipped nose bore a passing resemblance to Bob Hope’s. The round-faced Brundage and the sunken-cheeked von Halt had competed against each other in the 1912 Olympics. Five years later, the German government honored him with a nobleman’s title for acquitting himself bravely during World War I. A member of the International Olympic Committee, he was told to shepherd Brundage through the Stockholm meeting and serve as his interpreter and guide in Germany. Their common values—the virtue of amateur athletics and the superiority of the Aryan race—led to an enduring friendship.

In Stockholm, the IAAF meeting took place at a villa outside the city. Rolf Hahne drove. Autumn’s bright arrival had turned the woods red, yellow, and orange. Von Halt asked Brundage to tell the other delegates the position he’d taken before leaving the United States. “The German committee is making every effort to provide the finest facilities. We should see in the youth at Berlin the forebears of a race of free, independent thinkers, accustomed to the democracy of sport, a race disdainful of sharp practice, tolerant of the rights of others, and practicing the Golden Rule because it believes in it.”

After the meeting, Avery and Elizabeth joined four German officials for lunch in Stockholm. One of the guests was Jewish, Justus W. Meyerhof, a member of the Berlin Sports Club and the IAAF. When the talk turned to politics, Elizabeth excused herself to walk on the terrace. Brundage was shown documents to prove that German-Jewish athletes were welcome to participate freely in sports and to train for the Olympic team. Avery asked Justus if the documents were accurate.

Meyerhof answered obliquely. “As a non-Aryan, I offered to resign from the Berlin Sports Club, but my offer was not accepted. I was seldom as proud of my club as at that moment.”

Brundage, visibly impressed, repeated, “Just as I thought, just as I thought.”

That night the Brundages had dinner in Stockholm’s Gyldene Freden restaurant, a warren of small cozy dining rooms. Accompanied by von Halt and three other men, one of whom had brought his wife, the Brundages and the others ordered sauerbraten, schnitzel,
rouladen
, and
rippchen
. After the meal, the men asked for permission to smoke. The two women excused themselves. Von Halt asked Rolf, posted outside the dining room, to look after them. Brundage called for champagne, and toasted his German colleagues and “pure sport, which rewarded the natural aristocracy of ability and pointed to the right principles for the proper conduct of life.”

Ritter von Halt asked about the state of the proposed boycott in America. “As you heard from Meyerhof, we do not discriminate against Jewish athletes.”

Brundage scoffed. “Who are the Jews to complain? I don’t hear them saying anything about the condition of the Negroes in the South.” A poor public speaker, Brundage often strained reasoning and misdirected his words, as he did now. “Besides, America is a free country. My own country club won’t admit Jews.”

The other men were too polite to question Brundage’s logic, but one of them asked, “In your opinion, will the Negro athletes compete?”

Now much in his cups, Brundage said, “Their own newspapers object to a boycott. They want their Sambos to show just how good they are, though I suspect that the Aryan athletes will eclipse them.”

On September 12, the Brundages arrived in Germany at Konigsberg in East Prussia. Karl Ritter von Halt and Rolf Hahne had preceded them to prepare for Avery’s visit. Taking a train to Berlin, the Brundages checked into the Kaiserhof Hotel, as the guests of the German government. The next day, Avery was introduced to Hans von Tschammer und Osten. So well did they get on together that Avery regarded him as a soul mate. For the next five days, Brundage interviewed German officials and Jewish sports officials, but always in the company of Ritter von Halt, who did all the translating, and of other Nazis, including Rolf Hahne. When interviewing Jewish figures, Brundage’s questions never varied.

“Are conditions as bad as the foreign newspapers suggest? Are there any obstacles to Jews making the German Olympic team? Can Jews and Aryans train together?”

To the last question, von Halt explained that Jewish athletes preferred to train with their own kind. When Avery asked the Jewish officials if von Halt’s explanation was accurate, Hahne conspicuously put a hand to his holster. The Jews looked at each other, at the Nazi officials in the room, and then at Brundage. “Yes, von Halt has told the truth.” Rolf visibly relaxed and shifted his hand.