The roar of propeller engines set Eleanor’s teeth on edge.
‘Ain’t that something?’ shouted Paul Gallico, his mouth full of bratwurst. The crowd applauded in a frenzy. He was sitting next to her in the Associated Press box, rather too close for comfort. They were really crammed in on these benches.
She didn’t even look up as the Zeppelin droned overhead. She felt slightly sick to her stomach, imagining she still sensed the tilt and sway of the Manhattan beneath her. Of more interest to her was a shouting match going on nearby between some guards and a tough-looking young woman in flared slacks who seemed to be in charge of a camera crew positioned near the rostrum. According to the AP reporters in front of her, the guards had been ordered by Dr Goebbels to remove the cameras. The woman insisted she had permission to film.
‘See, these guys put on a great show of order,’ Gallico said, ‘but their whole setup is chaotic. The country is a jungle of personal empires.’
Eleanor said nothing.
‘Aw, cheer up, sweetheart. It’s not like you’ve never won an Olympic gold before.’
‘Buddy, I’m okay,’ she said, sharper than she’d meant. She squeezed his hand. ‘You boys have been swell.’
He offered her the bratwurst, and she took a bite.
‘Hey…,’ she said, chewing. ‘I always knew I’d go from bad to wurst.’
That gave Gallico helpless giggles at the moment of Hitler’s entrance.
They’d guessed the great man was near. Loudspeakers around the stadium had kept up a hyperactive commentary on the progress of his motorcade across the city, and the crowd simmered with excitement. Contingents from five continents were singing football-terrace songs and a dozen national anthems that boomed around the bowl in a cacophony of competitive cheer. Soldiers in uniform; members of hundreds of sporting and youth organisations in their white shirts; diplomats, the press, socialites, and families of Berliners with children waited in high spirits, enjoying the Olympic truce that lay over the city.
Eleanor was a stone in a field of waving grass, consigned here to the bleachers to look down on all she had lost. To hell with her newspaper column. She considered slipping away while she had the chance, and before her ex-teammates marched in.
Too late.
An earth tremor of applause. The loudspeakers rose to a shriek, and the crowd stood to greet the distant figure entering between the towers of the Marathon Gate. At the same moment sunshine dazzled on the wet granite, as if the elements were in abeyance to some diabolical luck that accompanied him. A fanfare sounded, drowned out by yells of Heil! — the first few shouted with hysteria before finding their measure in a deep chant.
The American reporters remained in their seats, which shook beneath them with the noise. To the right, beyond the glass partition of the box, a group of Italian air force cadets were whooping and whistling.
Hitler descended the monumental steps to the track, followed by an entourage of Olympic officials, military brass, and Party satraps. His left hand grasped the belt buckle of his uniform; the right acknowledged the rolling roar with a type of benediction-a limp, upturned palm, held at shoulder height.
Around her Eleanor saw faces twisted in the type of ecstasy she’d once seen among the Holy Rollers in Tennessee. Only the Italian cadets next to the box were laughing, not taking the moment seriously.
On the track, the dictator stooped to greet a small girl, who curtsied and held a bouquet towards him. Finally, he climbed the steps to his box and saluted with an outstretched arm. The crowds stamped their feet and began singing the Party anthem. Eleanor lit a cigarette.
‘Jesus H Christ,’ Gallico said. ‘Where’s the spirit of international harmony? Is there any song less appropriate?’
‘ “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” ’ said Eleanor.
The singing petered out as a great bell tolled, and sailors standing around the rim of the stadium synchronised the raising of each nation’s flag. It was the moment Eleanor had dreaded.
The French, in blue berets, were the first large team to emerge, marching from a tunnel beneath the Marathon Gate. As they passed Hitler’s box the tricolour was dipped and they gave the fascist salute, which he returned, to the crowd’s intense delight. The British were next, but gave him nothing but a brisk eyes-right.
‘Which hotel are you at?’ Gallico said.
‘Every hotel’s full. William Dodd and his wife are putting me up.’
The Italian team entered, shambolic, like the chorus of a comic opera, but the air force cadets next to the box swept off their caps and yelled, proclaiming them heroes of the patria.
‘William Dodd… our ambassador?’ Gallico was impressed.
‘He’s a college buddy of Dad’s.’
The Indian team passed by in their turbans. A single Costa Rican, carrying his flag, was given a tremendous cheer. The Australians, in cricket caps, waved at the crowd and ignored the Fuhrer. A large Bulgarian team marched in with a high kick, to much mirth in the stadium.
Soon, the crowd was reserving its biggest applause for those teams that saluted. Eleanor watched Gallico scribble: ‘… like Romans in the Colosseum of yore, condemning or reprieving chariot teams before their emperor…’
At last, the Americans. Seeing their sheer numbers, the largest team, beaming and relaxed, felt like a stab in the heart. She stood and waved, struggling to keep the quiver from her lip, but soon her shoulders sagged.
Eleanor, you damned fool.
As they passed Hitler they took off their straw boaters and held them to their hearts, and the crowd seemed to warm to their easy manner.
‘I guess we’re not too hot at marching,’ Gallico said, watching the athletes’ loose-gaited walk. ‘Apart from Brundage, that is.’ Even from this distance they could see the determination on the man’s face as his arms swung stiffly behind the Stars and Stripes. ‘Is that a goose step?’
Eleanor spoke through a loud sob. ‘His big head’s so far up his ass I think that puffed-up chest is his forehead.’
‘Hey, hey.’ Gallico put his arms around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, smelling cigarettes, Brylcreem, and bubble gum, and hugged him, starting to feel foolish.
‘I’m such a chump.’ Thick tears rolled down her cheeks, which he dried with his handkerchief.
‘You’re one of the nicest people I know,’ he said.
She linked her arm in his and tried to compose herself.
‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Me and the boys, we’re going to talk to Brundage. See if we can’t change his mind… He may not want to cross a unanimous US press corps.’
Eleanor’s breath quaked in her chest. ‘Paul, honey… I don’t deserve you.’
The team was still passing by on the track below. She spotted Glenn Morris and Lou Zamperini and waved at them with Gallico’s handkerchief. Towards the back she saw Olive and Marjorie, their faces flushed with pride. She called their names, and to her great surprise they spotted her and waved back.
Finally, a tumultuous roar greeted the home team. The Germans, dressed in white, marched in immaculate drill and executed a flawless salute.
All the teams now stood in formations behind their national flags, and a hush fell as an elderly Olympic official stepped up to the rostrum to begin a long speech. The crowd began to fidget, and Eleanor sat back, drained by tears.
Her eyes came to rest, vacantly, on the straw boater of one of the American reporters, and her mind drifted. She was remembering the long, hot family summers on Long Beach. Her father had worn a straw boater to work each day in the sweltering city. How had she forgotten that? In the afternoons her mother would drive her and her younger brother, George, to swimming lessons to keep them out of mischief-playing alone in the dunes or along the trolley tracks. When she was eleven George died of polio, but she carried on swimming, almost as an act in his memory. He was eight years old, and a really sweet boy.
She came out of her reverie to a heavy silence. All eyes were upon a tall blond runner, carrying the Olympic torch, who stood in the gap at the stadium’s western side. Gracefully he ran down to the track and cantered around the rows of athletes before sprinting up the steps of the Marathon Gate on the opposite side. The crowd held its breath. The runner paused, holding the torch high, then plunged it into the bronze brazier. Flames leapt into the air, and another huge roar shook the stadium.
Eleanor felt the noise cast her adrift, decoupling her from the existence she had known, and she was struck by a conviction that a chapter in her life had closed for good.