‘I am saying there is anxiety in the way you play.’
‘I see,’ said Stravinsky. ‘But why do you say that?’
‘I say that because the way you play makes me anxious.’
‘You are anxious,’ said Stravinsky. ‘Of course you are. I’m not surprised. Where is Rosa Luxemburg?’
The wheels finally came off the Eddie Munch wagon this afternoon but the Norwegian leaves a lasting impression. He was completely exhausted after his match and sat throughout the press call with his hands up to his face, his mouth open and a look of blind panic in his eyes. When asked how he was feeling he said, ‘How do I look? I’m going to take a long break.’
Today also saw the end of another struggle with the departure of Marcel Proust, whose fitness was always going to tell against him in the long run, especially as his obsession with keeping the ball in play has led to longer and longer rallies which have weakened him to the point of collapse. Dali played imaginative tennis and deserved the win although he was cautioned for draping his watch over a tree after the first set.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he asked.
‘You can’t do that. It’s not the way things are done, Mr Dali. Many people were shocked.’
‘Shocked?’ said Dali. ‘Dear me, I do apologise.’ He stood up and climbed onto the table. ‘I apologise for shocking people!’ he cried.
He was wearing no pants.
Hannah Arendt also had her hands full with Nadezhda Mandelstam but came through in the third set. Simone de Beauvoir was rather disappointing in getting past Romania’s Ana Pauker, who put up a great fight. De Beauvoir did not serve well and offered little encouragement to supporters.
The four women held a joint press conference in which they said they had agreed before their matches today that the winners, whoever they were, would refuse to play on unless Rosa Luxemburg was returned and every other player given a guarantee of safety by the tournament. De Beauvoir and Arendt both confirmed they will not play again unless the condition is met.
SuperTom did not attend the post-match press call after his doubles match, possibly because he didn’t want to be questioned about his statement that he ‘didn’t see the point in all this fuss about some Polish woman’. Another reason advanced for his non-attendance was his wish to avoid questions about exactly what he was doing out there today. He took a casual attitude to proceedings and appeared to have no interest whatever in the result.
Groucho Marx was full of praise for his partner after the match. ‘I’ve got real admiration for these guys who have proper training. I’ve really got no technique. I never learnt any. It’s just great for me to be out here with guys like Tom.’
Marx’s enthusiasm for SuperTom was in evidence on the court. He ran about like a madman while Eliot waited like an Easter Island statue. Runyon and Low are a fair package at any price and will attract interest on today’s showing but there was little doubt in the press box that SuperTom was conserving his energy for the singles.
A much better example was provided by Tony Chekhov, who peeled off a top-drawer singles performance to move past Wodehouse and then turned up on Court 3 with Arthur Miller to do battle in the men’s doubles. What a combination this is! Miller has every shot in the book and is one of the fittest players in the game; with the general controlling the back court, there is little left to chance. Their opponents today, Lardner and Fitzgerald, are neighbours and friends. They were in high spirits and throughout the match they laughed and told stories and drank rather a lot of what appeared to be water from what seemed to be water bottles. They said afterwards they thought their opponents deserved to win.
‘I thought they were very impressive,’ said Lardner.
‘They were very good,’ agreed Fitzgerald. ‘Who were they?’
‘I’ve got no idea,’ said Lardner.
The upset of the round in the men’s doubles was the loss of Einstein and Gödel, beaten by Benchley and Thurber. Einstein’s serve kept the Europeans in the contest but against two very imaginative players Gödel’s lack of speed was always a problem.
Leni Riefenstahl and Mata Hari beat Margaret Mead and Freya Stark in a lively match, making rather a nonsense of Sartre’s claim in this morning’s paper that, ‘No one associated with the German tennis authorities is any good at tennis.’
Hari, a Dutch doubles specialist known for her close association with the German game, did not turn up for the media conference and it was left to Riefenstahl to explain why they played in black skirts.
‘There is no rule preventing us from playing in black skirts.’
Had they been instructed to wear black skirts?
‘Certainly not,’ said Riefenstahl.
Had they discussed it before the match?
‘I don’t recall. I don’t think so.’
How was it that they both wore black skirts?
‘Coincidence,’ said Riefenstahl.
An hour later Riefenstahl was back out on court in a mixed-doubles match with the Austrian journeyman Hitler who went to school with Wittgenstein and has subsequently hated Jews, Catholics, homosexuals, intellectuals, aristocrats, ascetics, teachers and all madmen above average height. Neither he nor Riefenstahl attended the press conference after their match (they went down to Freud and Klein) but presumably it was also a ‘coincidence’ that the majority of the crowd was dressed in black shirts.
Day 26
Freud v. Matisse • Faulkner v. Robeson • Smith v. Elliott • Rhys v. Stein • Magritte v. van Gogh
‘Very interesting,’ said Freud after his match against Matisse. ‘I concluded that Henri was playing in a dream.’
‘Here we go,’ said Matisse. ‘What sort of dream?’
‘It was a dream in which you were playing tennis.’
‘I thought I was playing tennis,’ said Matisse.
‘In the dream?’ probed the Doc.
‘No. Just out there. Half an hour ago.’
‘Of course. And were you defeating your opponent?’
‘I won the first set,’ Matisse recalled.
