‘I know I should congratulate you. Any father would be proud of a daughter who’s made the Olympic team, and of course you must follow your own star…’
Here we go.
‘Your mother and I have given our blessing to whatever choices you’ve made. We welcomed Herb into the family… We supported your singing career. But Germany?’ He shook his head vaguely. ‘We send our athletes there and we will be condoning, lending respectability to the most iniquitous…’
‘Dad.’
‘… the most unconscionable regime ever to-’
‘Dad. ’
Exasperation flared in her eyes. ‘Quit the speech. It’s about competing. That’s all.’
They held each other’s gaze.
He said, ‘I fought hard to stop Brundage winning that vote. I lost. And now I’m entrusting you to his care?’
‘I can handle him.’
‘Can you?’ He sat slowly down at his desk, his shoulders slumped. ‘Everything’s a game, isn’t it? A high school dare, a challenge. Rules are to be broken; advice to be ignored.’ Thunder rolled and a splash of rain hit the windowsill with a thump. ‘One day, my dear, you’ll see the world for what it is. And that’ll be the day you quit being a Park Avenue playgirl and grow up-’
His desk intercom buzzed.
‘Yes?’
‘Senator Taylor, sir, I have the New York Times on the line.’
‘Well, well,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘News travels fast in this town.’
H er cab made a right at West Twentieth Street, and Eleanor braced herself for the barrage of flashbulbs. One enterprising reporter waiting on the corner had already spotted her and was running alongside her window, trying to jump onto the running board.
‘Eleanor, how’s it feel to be going to Berlin? How’s it-’
She put her sunglasses on and ignored him.
‘Hey, lady, don’t be a snob.’
It was just after rush hour on a humid July morning. The ship wasn’t sailing until eleven, but the boardwalk was already filling up with hundreds of well-wishers and passengers preparing to embark. Her cab inched past a sidewalk crowded with athletic teams in club sweatshirts, some laughing, some chanting a college yell, all heading towards the pier, holding Olympic flags and banners with good-luck messages. Hot dog vendors had set up stalls.
Directly ahead, the bow of the SS Manhattan towered above the crowd like a sheer rock promontory, shimmering in the haze of heat. Cranes lifted cargo to the top deck, where the United States Lines had painted the liner’s two funnels red, white, and blue, and festooned the rails with bunting in honour of the team.
The cab pulled up as close to the boardwalk as it could get and was mobbed.
‘Will you break the world record for backstroke again, Eleanor?’
‘I’m going to Berlin with no other aim,’ she said, stepping into the fray, long legs first, and posing briefly in the bias-cut skirt and tilted cream hat she’d chosen with this moment in mind. Flashbulbs popped.
‘Is Senator Taylor mad at you for going?’
‘My father wishes me well in whatever I do.’
‘Will your husband be joining you?’
‘No, my husband will be on tour with his orchestra.’ She pointed in the direction she wished to go, and the reporters moved aside. ‘Take it easy, boys.’
‘Say, if you meet Hitler what’re you going to say to him?’
‘Change your barber.’
The reporters laughed, and scribbled.
She pushed her way into the crowd, swatting aside an autograph book. Will your husband be joining you? They sure knew how to ask a sore question. She was still raw from her fight with Herb last night. Since she’d qualified for the team he’d acted like he’d lost his top dog status in life, one minute spilling her the sob stuff, the next, a real asshole. Same story every time she achieved something. Then this morning he’d claimed some phoney engagement as an excuse not to wave her off. Hadn’t her dad been enough to handle? What was it with men?
Nearer the barrier to the pier a group of her teammates were sitting on steamer trunks and talking in high, excited voices. Some had never been out of their home state, let alone on board an ocean liner. A few veterans, like Eleanor, had competed at Los Angeles in ’32, but most were doe-eyed college kids, plucked from the boondocks. All wore their USA team straw boaters, white trousers or skirts, and navy blazers embroidered with the Olympic shield.
‘Hey, you guys,’ she said. ‘Who’s up for a little first-night party on board later?’
Just then, the sound of screams was carried on a wave of applause from near the entry to the pier, where another cab was inching its way into the dense mass of people. Jesse Owens’s coach jumped out, followed by the man himself in a pinstriped navy suit, and the press jostled to get a word from America’s star athlete. Photographers shouted his name.
‘Make way for the golden boy,’ she said. Her teammates stood on their steamer trunks to wave and whistle.
Eleanor and Owens were the same age, twenty-three, and both were world-record holders. She’d never figured him out. The less winning seemed to concern him, the more effortlessly he won. The more courtesy he showed, the farther he left his rivals behind. For her, winning required a dedicated mean streak-and a desire above all else that the others should lose. She watched him ponder each reporter’s question, brow furrowed, and answer as though to his father-in-law, nodding and grinning modestly.
The heat on the pier was rising, and the noise and the wafts of diesel oil and dead fish were making her feel nauseated. She decided to board and made her way up the gangway. So long, New York, she thought. When I set foot here again it’ll be with shame or glory.
At the entry to the deck stood a stout, middle-aged matron wearing the team uniform and hat. She was holding a clipboard.
‘Welcome aboard, Mrs Emerson,’ the woman said with a faint, whiskery smile. ‘You’re on D deck, sharing with Marjorie Gestring and Olive McNamee. Your trunk’s in your cabin.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Hacker. D deck sounds delightful.’
‘If it’s luxury and glamour you were after, you should have booked your own first-class fare.’
‘You think I didn’t try?’
The woman ticked her list. ‘Count yourself lucky, my girl. The Negroes are sleeping below the waterline. You’ll wear your uniform at dinner, please. Bed is at ten o’clock.’
Eleanor walked on before her irritation showed. She’d had enough evenings ruined by chaperones.
‘Old drizzle puss,’ she muttered.
‘I heard that, young lady.’
S he found her two cabinmates unpacking to shrieks of laughter and felt herself tensing slightly. At school she’d stood out from the other girls in so many ways that she’d learned to endure their frequent unkindnesses. Swimming had often been her way of escaping them.
‘Hi there,’ said the nearer, a broad-shouldered blonde chewing gum. ‘I’m Marjorie, and this is Olive.’ The second girl, who wore oyster-thick eyeglasses, grinned at her. ‘It’s a privilege to dorm with you.’
‘Likewise.’ Eleanor smiled, embracing them both in turn, and suddenly realised that she recognised them from the trials. ‘Jesus, you can rely on old Hacker to put swimming rivals in the same cabin.’
‘I’m a diver,’ Marjorie said, a little crestfallen. She looked about fourteen.
Eleanor didn’t want to be a bad sport. She’d been green, too, before her Olympic debut at age nineteen. Her gold medal at Los Angeles had made her the belle of the press corps, celebrated on the covers of magazines as an all-American beauty. ‘Your body’s a head turner,’ Sam Goldwyn had told her, ‘and you’ve got a lot of class.’
She wanted to say something friendly, but Olive spoke first.
‘I heard your husband’s band at the Harlem Opera House.’
‘You’re from New York?’
