Goldengirl

‘Leave this to me,’ said Serafin. ‘Gentlemen, if this consortium is to operate successfully, it has to be on a basis of mutual respect. Personal insinuations of the kind we have been hearing are intolerable, and as your chairman I emphasize now that I shall not hesitate to cut short the meeting if necessary and abandon consultation altogether.’

Valenti leaned forward and stretched out a mollifying hand. ‘Don’t give yourself ulcers, Doc. It’s my style. There’s no sense getting disturbed about things I say. You asked me if I liked the film. Sure, I did. That’s a twenty-four-carat dame. No argument. What do you say, Dryden?’

Drawn into committing himself, he commented, ‘Yes, I was impressed. I don’t pretend to be an authority on track’ — he glanced Valenti’s way — ‘but I’ve seen my share on the TV networks, and I reckon I can spot a runner with class. The sprinting in the film was a revelation. I’d like to see what your Goldengirl could do against other runners.’

Instead of picking up the last point as criticism, Serafin was delighted by it. ‘So should I, Mr. Dryden — and we shall! I intend to come to that presently, but first I see Miss Fryer approaching.’

‘Mission accomplished, too,’ said Valenti, exuding bonhomie. ‘Mine’s black without, Melody.’

He was the last to be served. The coffee was in tall Troika mugs instead of the porcelain cups they had used after dinner. Whether it was the coffee, or Melody’s return, the tension had lifted when Serafin resumed.

‘I propose to tell you a story which until this evening has been unknown in its entirety to anyone but myself. In all our interests, I must insist that you never repeat it. Do not worry; it will not incriminate you. I am not a breaker of laws, nor do I ask others to be.

‘It takes us back more than forty years, to pre-war Nazi Germany. Dick, who majored in physical education at Berkeley, would tell you that there is a strong tradition of organised gymnastics in Germany which can be traced back at least to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the era of Johann Guts Muths and Ludwig Jahn. It was a movement that spread irresistibly through Germany and much of Europe, taking in other forms of sport as they developed. Even the First World War was not allowed to halt its progress. One of the few lasting achievements of the Weimar Republic of the post-war period was its provision of sports facilities and clubs on a scale unparalleled anywhere else in the world — facilities the Third Reich is often incorrectly credited with having provided.

‘From the beginning of what he termed his Kampf, Adolf Hitler saw that the emphasis on physical improvement in Germany was a perfect vehicle for his ambitions. The strike force of the Nazi party, the Storm Troopers, or SA, was originally formed as a gymnastic and sports association as early as 1921. One of Hitler’s first actions on coming to power in 1933 was to appoint SA Group Leader von Tschammer und Osten Reichssportsführer, with instructions to dissolve all sports associations regarded as left wing and unite the remainder in a single organization, the Reichsbund für Leibesübungen. At the same time, Baldur von Schirach was performing a similar exercise with the youth organizations, welding them into the Hitler Youth Movement. The young people of Germany were to embody that crude philosophy of racial elitism culled from the Nietzschean notion of the superman and given its expression in Alfred Rosenburg’s Myth of the Twentieth Century.’

‘The superiority of the Aryan race,’ said Valenti, not missing a chance to reinstate himself.