The Other Side of Love (6 page)

“I summon the youth of the world,”

he said in a hollow tone, swinging his head from side to side mimicking the clapper of the Olympic bell.

35

After a moment they both broke into laughter.

“I keep thinking I’m going to stumble,”

she confessed.

“In front of the entire stadium.”

“All of us have the jitters,”

he said sympathetically.

“I lettered in track. Let me see you run, OK?”

She sprinted to the marker. Her time was considerably improved.

“Dig those starting-holes again,”

he ordered.

“Why?”

“Just dig the damn holes.”

Kneeling, she complied.

“Deeper,”

he commanded.

“Our coach showed us what to do. He medalled in the Paris Olympics.”

“He’s a man. You’re a girl, a very slight girl. Hey, no kidding, deeper holes’d give you more traction for your breakaway.”

“You don’t want us to win any medals,”

she said.

“Why’re you helping me?”

He didn’t answer. Taking the silver trowel from her hand, he cut away more cinders.

“Like so,”

he said.

“Your hair’s a great colour. I’ll bet it looks terrific loose.”

IV

The pole vaulting and the long jump preliminaries riveted the attention of the capacity crowd. Only a few of them glanced at the contestants in the women’s twohundred-metre race as they entered. Kathe Kingsmith’s unplaited hair flowed in silvery gold down to her waist.

She stared across the stadium to the section between the reviewingstand and the finishing-line, where the family had reserved a row of seats. Even at this distance she could make out Aubrey windmilling his straw boater to attract her attention. Her father, and yes, there was her mother, who considered the Games vulgar and had not showed up for Kathe’s preliminary heats. Porteous had left the Adlon Hotel, braving this mob to

“see”

her run. Her American and English uncles and aunts sat together; then Araminta, her hair a crimson splotch under her wide-brimmed hat. Sigi was standing, his uniform blending in with the field-grey uniforms in the row behind.

Wyatt wasn’t in the group.

Kathe sat on the prickly grass, taking off her warm-up suit, carefully folding it in the basket marked K. Kingsmith. She did her stretches. At the whistle, she went to her lane-markings.

Again she glanced towards the family. In the shadows of the tunnel just above them stood Wyatt. He was gesturing with his hand, a scooping motion.

She made the identical gesture before kneeling to dig deep into the red cinders behind the starting-line.

36

He raised his clenched fists above his head, as victorious prizefighters do.

V The gun roared near her ear.

Propelling herself forward with her hands, she launched herself. As she went into her sprint, the air surrounding her seemed exceptionally thin, as if on a mountain peak where gravity offered less resistance, yet perversely her lungs filled with abnormal quantities of rich oxygen. Her chest expanded and contracted without pain. Each muscle in her arms and her legs moved in perfect synchronization. Time itself was transformed, with the seconds stretching to accommodate her smooth motions. Through her veins pulsed a certainty that no woman born could outrun her.

Helen Stephens, the six-foot American speed demon, had drawn the lane to her left, but Kathe did not glance in that direction; nor to her right, either. A mighty rhythm roared against her eardrums, and she knew vaguely that it was the predominately German crowd yelling her name. Kathe, Kathe, Kathe, Kathe, Kathe.

She was alive as she had never been before, exulting in the expansion and contraction of leg and thigh muscles. She willed herself to move yet faster, and her knees rose.

She arched her chest.

A slight pressure touched her breasts.

She had snapped the finishing-tape.

Slowing, she turned towards the tunnel. In the shadowed darkness Wyatt stood, arms still upraised. She lifted her own arms over her head in the same victorious gesture. M

Collapsing on the grass, she thoughtWt’ve won.

The thought held sadness, for it meant that she had been thrust forth from that bubble of purity, her performance.

Kathe … Kathe … Kathe … The roar continued, and this time when she looked up Wyatt was gone.

She stood on the central platform, bending her head while a general in a sky-blue uniform draped the ribbon that held the heavy gold medal around her neck, then placed a laurel wreath on her hair. He handed her a little oak tree to plant in commemoration of her victory. Three huge flags, two American flanking the German, rose slowly atop the stands. The band brazed out the national anthem, and thousands of voices joined in singing.

“Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles …

“

37

VI

A polite messenger came to escort her to the reviewingstand.

Hitler clasped her hand. For other German medallists this would be the culmination of their lives. Rathe, however, found herself taking stock of the dictator. His brown uniform fitted badly across his narrow shoulders. His skin had a pasty greyish pallor that didn’t show in photographs or newsreels. The famous moustache looked like cat fur.

“On behalf of the entire Volk,”

he said,

“I congratulate you.”

“Thank you, Herr Reichskanzler.”

“It gave me the greatest pleasure,”

he continued in a less oratorical manner,

“when you turned, dedicating your victory to me with that sign. Fraulein Kingsmith, you are a credit to the true Aryan spirit of the Games.”

“Thank you,”

she repeated.

“With your blonde hair flowing,”

he continued,

“you were a symbol crying out the superiority of pure Nordic blood to all the lesser races.”

His pale blue eyes were intent on her. People wrote and talked about the Fiihrer’s mystic all-seeing eyes, his preternatural eyes, his hypnotic eyes, his spiritual eyes. The studiedly penetrating gazecombined with the voicing of his master-race dogma brought chilling goosebumps to Kathe’s arms.

Hitler turned to an aide.

“See that Fraulein Kingsmith and her family are invited to the Chancellery reception next Thursday.”

38

11

“Of course Katy will explain to them at the Chancellery that she has to send her regrets, but this Thursday evening her cousin’s taking her to some dreary concert.”

“Brahms’s Third is her favourite.”

“Aubrey, you aren’t normally such a nit. Say King George invited you to Buckingham Palace, could you turn it down? This is a cornmand. But why make it such a disasterMfust exchange the tickets.”

“Every seat at the Philharmonic har been booked for months. These only came my way by a miracle.”

“Well, share your miracle with somebody else. Katy will be tete-atete with Adolf.”

They were in Araminta’s small bedroom on the third floor of the Adlon. Wearing a kimono with a vivid green dragon curling up the back, she stood at the window overlooking Pariser Platz, making the best of the light as she drew tiny strokes of eyebrows.

“You’re right,”

Aubrey said, sighing.

“It’s too inane to discuss. This is her moment. I’m a pig.”

“You selfish? Darling, I’m the sibling who got the trait of wanting everything. Lord, what I wouldn’t give for a few of your visible eyebrows.”

Araminta set her cosmetic pencil on the dressingtable.

“You really must come with Jiirgen and me tonight. Jack Hylton’s over here at the Mocca Efty, but they say Teddy Stauffer at the Delphi Palast is just as good - and, believe me, Jack’s the tops. Shall I give Jiirgen a ring to find you some lovely fraulein? Lieutenant

39

Jiirgen von und su Gilsa was one of the young Germans showing Araminta the smartest cabarets and escorting her to the livelier parties in the nearby mansions and embassies.

“Nightclubbing’s not my style, and you know it.”

“What an attitude! How do you expect to be a writer if you haven’t sampled life?”

Araminta came over to the bed, sitting next to him. Her untied kimono pulled apart, displaying the lush curves above the lace of her silk teddy.

“You do look a bit off,”

she said sympathetically.

“Daddy’s been riding you, hasn’t he?”

“No worse than usual.”

“The next time he carps about some stupid detail like not hailing a German taxi properly, tell him to bugger off.”

“The ensuing explosion would level Berlin,”

Aubrey said with a rueful smile.

“There, that’s better,”

Araminta said.

“When you’re not sunk into yourself, you’re not half bad.”

She pressed a dramatic hand against the upper curves of her left breast.

“Ah, if only they’d lift this damnable bar against incest!”

He laughed.

She went on:

“So now that you’re out of the Slough of Despond tell me, since your erstwhile moodiness wasn’t caused by Daddy, was it brought on by fiddling about for ideas to put in your essays?”

Ibis, one of those London literary quarterlies that annually sprouted and withered like leaves, had asked Aubrey to write his impressions of Berlin and the Olympic Games.

“Hardly. There’s so much going on.”

“Then, it has to be a certain lady athlete.”

His smile had faded.

“Darling, you’re so awfully clever and sensitive about people, so why can’t you understand how Katy feels? Listen to me. Katy adores you, of course. But like a brother. You’re the same as Sigi to her. Maybe even more of a brother - after all, you’re only a couple of years older. So stop wasting your time on cousins.”

“I’m holding you up,”

he said in a flat tone.

“Enjoy yourself this evening.”

As the door closed quietly, Araminta felt a minor qualm at hurting her brother, then told herself she was doing him a favour. It’s high time he faced up to the truth, she decided. Moving to the commodious wardrobe, she strewed the bed with her three summer evening dresses. The Marina blue silk jersey did the most for her figure, but Jiirgen had seen it. The white organza was lovely, but as she spread out the skirt she saw a straggling line of pale spots. She held the pink crepe de Chine to herself, smiling into the mirror inset in

40

the wardrobe door. This was her favourite. The shade of pink made her skin glow and turned her hair into jewel-like ruby. She slid the silk off the wooden hanger. And that old sow at Harrods said redheads can’t wear pink! she thought rebelliously.

Araminta Kingsmith rebelled against the conventional wisdom invoked by the older generation with the same spirited gusto that she did everything else. In her rare moments of introspection, she understood that she was being true to herself, not to others.

Fastening the small pearl buttons, she appraised herself in the pier mirror. She was not beautiful. Her hair and glowing white skin yes, those were exceptional; but she lacked eyebrows - her lashes, though long, were pale and needed mascara or her large blue eyes appeared bald. And she had inherited her father’s pointed nose and squareness of jaw. She tightened the belt. Blessedly, nature had cancelled out her flaws by equipping her with this exceptional body. Her verve call it invisible magnetism drew men. Why not use her gifts to have a lovely time? Maybe she was a bit wild and selfish, but she wasn’t hurting anyone - except an occasional stray bachelor, and weren’t bachelors put on this earth to have a bruise or two on their hearts?

Her thoughts turned again to Aubrey.

Hedonist that she was, Araminta wasted little time delving into the psyches of others. However, she had always accepted that her brother and she were polar opposites. She reached out for what she could lay her hands on - real things like fast motor-cars, stunning clothes, jewellery. He found his pleasures in concerts and scribbling his poems or stories. She knew how to cajole their dominating irascible sire. Aubrey didn’t. Aubrey wm far too diffident. Now, if she had eyes for some eligible bacheloP(married or engaged men were strictly off-limits in her somewhat unorthodox moral code), she would blow her own trumpet a bit if that were necessary. And here was Aubrey half-cracked about their cousin, and what did he do about it? Either fade into the background or buy tickets to some fusty concert attended by ancient Teutons.

Turning, she raised the long skirt high on her shapely legs to ensure her stocking seams were straight.

Even the traits she and her brother shared, like courage, generosity, loyalty, were differently expressed. She had very little fear. Aubrey needed to conquer his, but then he reacted magnificently. For example, it was she who had first rushed into the burning stables at Quarles, but it was Aubrey who had followed and thrown blankets over the heads of their maddened riding-horses and coaxed them through the flames. She splurged on gifts, while his were not lavish but invariably suited the recipient. His loyalties were quiet and steadfast, hers intense, demonstrative and shifting.

41

All in all, she decided, it was easier by half to be her.

Humming, she gave her glowing hair a final fluff, and picked up her long white kid gloves and small brocade evening bag. She was seldom on time, and poor Jiirgen had been waiting in the lounge for half an hour.