The Other Side of Love by Jacqueline Briskin Read Free Book Online

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.
    “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