He darted with Josie into the doorway of a store. They stood behind a counter, looking over medallions of Lenin and heroic tractor drivers, and only a few seconds later, the two men entered the store.
Remo pulled Josie down toward the floor. He heard the men walk by on the other side of the counter. Quickly, he stood up, pulled Josie to the door, and they went out into the street.
"What's that all about?" she asked.
"Just shaking our tail," he said.
They went into another shop three doors farther down. It sold medallions of Karl Marx and of heroic tractor drivers. They waited there for two minutes until the two men in flowered shirts passed them. Remo was surprised that in the entire two minutes, no salesperson came up to them to pester them under the pretext of offering help. Perhaps Communism did have something to recommend it after all.
They went back out into the street, walked to the corner and turned left on Bolshaya Ordynka Street. Half a block down they found what looked like the Russian equivalent of a coffee shop and went inside.
A waitress, whose long black dress made her look like the official greeter for a funeral home, finally understood that they wanted coffee, but even as she
117
poured it from an old pottery urn, she kept turning her head to stare at the two obvious foreigners.
"We're being watched," Josie told Remo.
"They're not watching me," he said. "It's you they can't keep their eyes off."
She took his hands in hers and told him, "You're sweet," and Remo wondered how sweet she'd think he was if she knew about the past ten years, all the deaths, all the bodies.
"Why are you running track?" she asked him abruptly. "I've seen you on the balance beam. You could win anything in gymnastics,"
"I don't know. There's just something about running, I guess," said Remo.
"They talk about you, you know," she said.
"About me?"
"Yes. They call you strange. You dress strange, you act strange, you-"
"What do you think?" Remo asked.
"I told you. I think you're sweet. And strange."
"Then I guess I'm strange. What's keeping that coffee?"
He looked toward the counter, just in time to see two soldiers enter the shop. They looked about until their eyes fell on Remo and Josie.
"Company," he told her. He felt her hands tense up and he said, "Don't worry. Just another nosy Communist waitress doing her job."
The soldiers came to the table. One said, "Excuse, please. You are with Olympics?"
"Yes," said Remo.
"You not belong outside Olympic Village by yourself," the soldier informed them. He was looking at Josie's bustline as he spoke. The other soldier was staring at her beautifully boned face. To each his own, thought Remo.
"We got lost," Remo said.
"We will take you back," the guard said.
118
"Thank you," said Remo. He helped Josie from her chair. He turned to the waitress, smiled, waved, and called, "Take poison, bitch."
They followed the soldiers outside, where they were hustled into the back seat of a waiting Army car. It deposited them into the hands of security guards at the main gate of the Olympic village. The guards insisted upon taking their names. Remo gave his name as Abraham Lincoln. Josie said her name was Sacajawea Schwartz.
The guards dutifully wrote the names down, asking to be sure the spelling was correct. Remo told them the spelling was worth a B-plus. Then both he and Josie were back inside the village.
It was dark and there was music all around, the strains of different countries competing in the nighttime air.
"Let's go to the gym," Remo said. "We'll start tonight to get you ready."
She nodded and Remo led her to a small practice gymnasium on the outskirts of the main competition complex. The door was locked but Remo slapped it open and the building was dark but Remo found the light panel and flicked on just one small light, enough to illuminate the balance beam apparatus at the far end of the hall.
He had Josie go through her routine and watched her closely. She had trouble with her front walkovers and her split-lift to a handstand.
"Damn," she said as she hopped off the beam. "I just mess up all the time on those."
"You ever do them right?" asked Remo.
"Not often."
"But once in a while?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"If you can do it once, you can do it every time," Remo said. "It doesn't change. You do."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
119
"Josie, all this competition's in your head. The beam is always the same. It never changes. Your body is always the same. The only variable involved is in your head. Get back up on the beam."
She hopped back up and stood there, looking down at him. She had stripped off the skirt she was wearing over her body suit and Remo again felt a tingle looking at her proud woman's body.
"Look at the beam," he said. "How wide is it?"
"Four niches," she said.
"Wrong. That beam is two feet wide. There is no way you can fall off it. Now, down the center of that two-foot beam there's a four-inch red stripe. Do you see it?"
She looked down, hard. "No. I see a four-inch beam."
"Close your eyes," Remo said.
"Okay." She had her eyes screwed tightly together.
"Now see it in your mind," Remo said. "Do you see it? Two-foot-wide beam, a four-inch red stripe."
She laughed. "Yes. I see it. I see it."
"Keep your eyes closed," Remo said. "Okay. Now you do your routine on that two-foot beam, but you try to stay on the four-inch red stripe."
"All right." She walked to the far end of the beam to begin her routine. She looked at Remo before starting and he shook his head, "Not with your eyes open, dummy. With your eyes closed."
"Remo, I can't."
"Yes, you can. Look. Get down off there for a moment," he said, and as she hopped down, lightly, Remo vaulted up onto the beam.
The Russians' list of rules for athletes had explained that all athletes would be treated equally, but, like Animal Farm, some were more equal than others.
Because he came from a Russian satellite country,
120
East German runner Hans Schlichter had no trouble in getting a key to the locked practice gymnasium. He had told the Russian staff he wanted to do some calisthenics. But, in fact, he wanted privacy to examine the equipment and see if he could devise a way of making his victory in the 800-meter race a sure thing.
He let himself in with the key and when he saw the light on at the end of the gym, pressed himself into the shadows against the wall.
He recognized the American man instantly. All the East German athletes had been given dossiers and photographs of all their potential opponents. It was that Remo Black, and he was considered odd even by his teammates, but what was he doing on tEe balance beam?
Schlichter watched in amazement as Remo, with his eyes tightly shut, did a flawless routine on the bar beam, and then hopped down where the Indian-looking American woman hugged him and told him he was marvelous.
"So will you be when we're done," Remo said.
Schlichter saw the young woman hold Remo in her arms, then lift her mouth to be kissed. Remo obliged, and even though Schlichter would have liked to stay to watch, he slipped back out through the door, just as the two athletes slid to the practice mat on the floor.
Schlichter had to think about this Remo Black. If he could do such wonders on the balance beam, which was not even a man's event, what might he do on the track?
Something, he decided, would have to be done about that American.
121
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning, Colonel Dimitri Sorkofsky received a message directly from the Southern Africans for Athletic Equality. The contents of the note caused him to summon Captain Bechenbauer to his office immediately.