The Other Side of Love (5 page)

Tears lay on her cheeks.

Wyatt swallowed. He had seen his mother weep only twice, after the death of each of his Rossie grandparents.

“What was he like?”

“You,”

she said, wiping her eyes.

“Exactly like you. He was such a nice boy, Wyatt. Generous. Kind. Impulsive. A sense of humour. He would lose his temper and then be sorry right away. Tall. Goodlooking. Rangy. Extremely smart, but not one of those pretentious intellectual types. A wonderful athlete.”

“Me? He sounds like the next evolutionary step up.”

Shaking her head, she touched his cheek.

“Pa came to Boston to meet Myron. He hadn’t wanted me to go north in the first place. He cut off my support and made Myron feel so hangdog. Myron worked as a longshoreman on the Boston docks. He could have gotten a white-collar job, but they paid well on the docks, and we needed to save so he could go back to medical school. He’d always wanted to be a doctor.”

She sighed convulsively. Most of the longshoremen had despised Myron for being a Jew and educated.

“We found a cold-water flat I’d call it a tenement now. Still, we were young and hopeful, happy together.”

Tears stood in Wyatt’s eyes. Swallowing hard, he gripped Rossie’s hand.

She went on:

“We were married six months, and I was three months pregnant. That day was rainy, windy. They were unloading a Canadian freighter; Star of Nova Scotia, it was called. He slipped between the boat and the wharf. I’ve always prayed he was killed instantly. When they fished him out his bones were all broken.”

“God …

“

Wyatt blew his nose.

“Having a baby, I should have gone back south. That was the sensible thing to do. But crawling home to my family seemed like a breach of faith with Myron. Instead I went to New York and looked for a job.”

Wyatt picked up the watch, turning it over, his forefinger tracing the initials MHL as Rossie described being hired for secretarial work by the easygoing young Englishman who ran the small floundering American branch of a London concern. She had never worked, but

30

i

I

she could type and was good at arithmetic. The activity of the shop acted therapeutically.

“Humphrey was very dear, and soon I was helping him with the books. But of course he wanted to beau me around.”

“He knew that you were a widow?”

“I applied for the job as Mrs Leventhal.”

When Humphrey found out she was pregnant, he grew more insistent.

“But you know the rest,”

Rossie said.

“He’s a wonderful father, isn’t he?”

“The greatest. Mom, this’ll stay between us.”

“Thank you, dear. I never intended telling you. But since you’re so intent on going to Berlin I had to warn you. There’s a rumour that the Nazis have spies checking every American contestant’s racial background.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“I pay attention to that kind of thing. Being married to Myron made me pay attention.”

She paused.

“The marriage licence was issued to Rossie Wyatt Leventhal, widow. Myron’s name is on it. And you were born a month later.”

“How far-fetched can you get? They’d have to check the marriage licences, the death certificates.”

“I heard they’re making very complete dossiers.”

“Come on, Mom, this isn’t like you.”

“Maybe I am over-reacting,”

Rossie said. Getting to her feet, she rested both hands on his bare shoulders, looking down at him.

“So you’re all right, dear?”

“Just sad that you and he had such a rotten time.”

She bent down and tugged his hair the way she had when he was a kid.

“You’re positive?”

she said. M

“Nothing’s changed,”

he lied.

She had left the watch on the blanket cover. He had sat holding it until the gold was warm. Then he had padded barefoot to the foyer, where the telephone was, and opened the Manhattan book to L, running a finger down the line of Leventhals.

“Kingsmith.”

The coach was looking at him.

“Is that play clear?”

Wyatt realized that everybody else was standing.

“Yeah, absolutely,”

he responded.

“Then, let’s go beat the hell out of the Eyetalians,”

the coach said.

A German guide bearing a placard emblazoned Verienigten Staaten led the team into the chill grey morning. The Italians were already shooting and dribbling on the lumpy sandy clay of the tennis-court. Obviously the spectators shared the German Olympic Committee’s lack of interest in basketball. The shallow stands were nearly empty. The Kingsmith clan sat on the north edge of the court. Wyatt grinned

31

as he marched past his waving family - no matter his turmoil since Rossie’s revelation, he never considered them to be anything other than his true family.

Directly behind the American bench, a section had been roped off: at all venues, good seats were saved for other Olympic contestants. Four Americans and a couple of Italians sat far apart. In the second row, a white German blazer and skirt were like a beacon in the dreary morning.

It was Kathe. He was surprised to see her here after the way he had mown her down at the Opening Ceremonies. He was also surprised that he was grinning and waving. This, after all, was one of Hitler’s Madchen.

Since his conversation with his mother, his vision had altered, as if he’d been fitted with corrective glasses. Before the conversation, though he and his family were

“tolerant”

- a word he now loathed - he hadn’t properly seen the anti-Semitism around him. Oh, he’d known about restricted apartment-buildings, hotels, schools, the quotas in colleges, the classified job ads that said

“Jews need not apply’. But the knowledge had been intellectual. Now he viewed these wrongs sharply and personally. At home it was bad enough. In the Third Reich, bigotry was the law of the land. He had been chilled to the bone by a newsreel of Nazi plug-uglies standing around forcing a dignified old gentleman to scrub a pavement with a toothbrush. He had sent a cheque to the Jewish Relief Fund, which helped refugees. He had visited Judge and Mrs Abraham Leventhal. Firmly he pushed the memory of that painful afternoon from his mind. There was a match to win.

The whistle shrilled. The teams were introduced.

He was playing centre. As the ball was tossed, he jumped, slashing it with all his force away from the Italians, allies of the Nazis.

Every time the United States scored, Wyatt found himself glancing at Kathe. She was always applauding. Every time he made a basket, she was on her feet. The sky cleared in patches, the sun came out. The final score was United States of America 53, Italy 32.

Winners and losers shook hands.

Kathe was on her feet, smiling at him.

32

As Wyatt returned to the bench, his uniform soaked with sweat, his chest still heaving, Rathe moved forward.

“Congratulations,”

she called in that soft low English voice.

“Hey, thanks. And I hear you survived your heats in both races.”

“Sheer fluke.”

“In the Olympics you don’t make the finals by a fluke.”

“You play marvellously.”

M

He pulled on the top of his sweatsr’But you’ve never seen a basketball game before, right?”

“You’ve caught me out.”

“Stick around for the Philippines versus Uruguay, and I’ll teach you the game’s finer points.”

Across the court, the family were standing, waving, gesturing. Wyatt jogged over. Rossie smoothed back his hair, Humphrey embraced him. Porteous said:

“Well done, my boy, well done.”

Aubrey, Uncle Euan and Aunt Elizabeth shook his hand. Araminta rose on her high-heeled sandals to kiss him, leaving two smears of lipstick on his flushed cheeks.

Then the family gathered together coats, umbrellas, handbags. Wyatt held Porteous’s arm, not as if guiding his grandfather down the steps of the stand but as if it were natural for them to be so linked as he explained that the United States would go on to the next round tomorrow. Humphrey pounded his shoulder for a final congratulation, and then they all were gone. Wyatt trotted towards the shower-hut.

33

The Uruguay-Philippines game was well under way when he emerged exuding the clean smell of soap. Kathe still sat in the second row.

The openness of her smile made him nervous.

“So you stuck around,”

he said.

“Of course. I told you I would.”

During the game, he explained the plays, shifting his body, moving his arms in a modified version of throwing, leaning forward at every free throw, his eyes narrowed and intent. Neither team was any good, but he rooted ardently for the Philippines, a United States protectorate. She cheered them on, too. They stayed a few points ahead. Just before the end of the first quarter, however, Uruguay managed to tie the game. As the short Filippino centre’s shot teetered on the rim of the basket then swished through, Wyatt clenched his fist, triumphantly punching air in front of him. His bicep touched Kathe’s. Through their layers of clothing he could feel the warmth and fragility of her arm. He turned. Her irises were a very clear greenish blue, the colour of a good aquamarine; the whites had a bluish cast, like a young child’s. Her lashes were thick and astonishingly dark for anyone with platinum hair.

She’s wearing a Nazi uniform, you ass. And you’re a Jew by half. Shifting further from her, he asked:

“How come you didn’t root for the Italians?”

“Why would I? You’re in the American team.”

“The Germans and Italians are the Axis.”

She bit her lip, watching another basket scored.

“It’s a bit like hockey,”

she murmured.

“Except for the hoop.”

“Me, I think it’s an extension of an ancient Mayan game,”

he said.

“The losing side had their hearts cut out as a sacrifice to the gods. Who knows - maybe the losers were Jewish Mayans?”

She was silent.

“Aren’t you going to challenge me? Point out that some of your teams have Jews on them?”

“They do. Rudi Ball was in the ice hockey team in the Winter Games. Helen Mayer’s going to win a medal for us in fencing …” Her soft voice almost inaudible, she mumbled an excuse about returning to Friesen-Haus in time for lunch.

With her head bent she hurried along the edge of the court to the nearest exit. You’re a prick, he told himself. An unthinkable prick, taking out your confusion on her.

HI

The women’s twohundred-metre final was scheduled for 10.50 the following morning. Kathe slept very little. She kept turning the tough

34

dormitory pillow. Why couldn’t she have admitted that she despised the Nuremberg laws which humiliated Jews and cut them out of the fabric of German life? Why couldn’t she have told him that she had been best friends with Anna Elzerman, who had also lived in the Griinewald Villa Colony? Six months ago, Dr Elzerman, banned from his mostly Aryan practice, had emigrated with his wife and daughter to Mexico. Why was it so easy to talk against the Nazi regime with Sigi? And so impossible with her non-German family with her American cousin?

Before dawn she was slipping out of Friesen-Haus, jogging on the lit paths. She cut across the Maifeld, the huge parade-ground. By the time she reached the track and field practice-area near the south gate of the Olympic Stadium, the morning mist was silver, and she could see wraith-like shadows in motion. A vaulter was examining his pole, a shot-putter limbered up with slow loose shakings of his thick arms. A long-jumper kept charging in a series of approaches at the long sandy pit: peering, she saw it was Jesse Owens, the black American gold medallist whose victories on the track had been studiedly ignored by the Fiihrer.

The Olympic Committee had issued every runner a silver trowel. Kathe took hers from the back pocket of her loose warm-up jacket, gouging her starting-holes into the rough dew-wet cinders. Toes dug in, she crouched forward on her hands, rocking back and forth slightly to get her centre of balance.

“Bang!”

she whispered, sprinting forward. Reaching the two-hundredmetre marker, she slowed, bending over to catch her breath. She didn’t need to peer at her stopwatch to know her time was rotten.

When she looked up, she saw a haz but familiar tall silhouette at the far end of the practice-lane. HovPcould it possibly be Wyatt? There was no reason for him to be at the track and field practice-area. He had made it abundantly clear that he disliked all Germans, and her in particular. She waited uncertainly while he trotted up to her.

“I rattled you pretty badly,”

he said.

“What?”

“Yesterday. At the basketball match. Either that or it’s the wrong time of the month.”

Her face grew hot; no male, not even her coach, certainly not Sigi or her father, had ever broached the taboo subject of menstruation.

“Hadn’t you heard? I’m only in the team because Silke Ernst broke her ankle.”

Her anxieties had bubbled into her voice.

“I could give you a pointer or two.”

“I’m rotten,”

she said.

“Now, go and gloat about it somewhere else.”

Blinking at her sharpness, he studied her.