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the pantries, runner James LuValle joked, “Of course, most of this was due to Lou Zamperini.” Louie made a habit of sitting next to the mountainous shot putter Jack Torrance, who had an inexplicably tiny appetite. When Torrance couldn’t finish his entrée, Louie dropped onto the plate like a vulture.
    On the evening of July 17, Louie returned from dinner so impressed with his eating that he immortalized it on the back of a letter:
    1 pint of pineapple juice
2 bowls of beef broth
2 sardine salads
5 rolls
2 tall glasses of milk
4 small sweet pickles
2 plates of chicken
2 helpings of sweet potatoes
4 pieces of butter
3 helpings of ice cream with wafers
3 chunks of angel food cake with white frosting
1½ pounds of cherries
1 apple
1 orange
1 glass of ice water

    “Biggest meal I ever ate in my life,” he wrote, “and I can’t believe it myself, but I was there … Where it all went, I don’t know.”
    He’d soon find out. Shortly before the athletes came ashore at Hamburg, a doctor noted that quite a few were expanding. One javelin competitor had gained eight pounds in five days. Several wrestlers, boxers, and weightlifters had eaten themselves out of their weight classes, and some were unable to compete. Don Lash had gained ten pounds. Louie outdid them all, regaining all the weight that he’d lost in New York, and then some. When he got off the
Manhattan
, he weighed twelve pounds more than when he’d gotten on nine days earlier.
    ——

    On July 24, the athletes shuffled from the ship to a train, stopped over in Frankfurt for a welcoming dinner, and reboarded the train toting quite a few of their hosts’ priceless wine glasses. The Germans chased down the train, searched the baggage, repatriated the glasses, and sent the Americans on to Berlin. There, the train was swamped by teenagers holding scissors and chanting, “
Wo ist Jesse? Wo ist Jesse?
” When Owens stepped out, the throng swarmed him and began snipping off bits of his clothing. Owens leapt back onto the train.
    The athletes were driven to theOlympic Village, a masterpiece of design crafted by Wolfgang Fürstner, a Wehrmacht captain. Nestled in an undulating patchwork of beech forests, lakes, and clearings were 140 cottages, a shopping mall, a barbershop, a post office, a dentist’s office, a sauna, a hospital, training facilities, and dining halls. A new technology called television was on exhibit in the village office. There were wooded trails, over which bounded a multitude of imported animals. The Japanese athletes were especially taken with the deer and began feeding them treats in such volume that the Germans discreetly moved the deer out. One British wag wondered aloud where thestorks were. The next day, two hundred storks appeared.
    Louie was housed in a cottage with several other athletes, including Owens. The great sprinter kept a fatherly eye on him; Louie repaid him by swiping his DO NOT DISTURB sign, leaving poor Owens besieged by autograph seekers. Louie swam in the lakes, ate appalling quantities of food, and socialized. The hit of the village was the Japanese contingent, whose tradition of prodigious gift giving made them the collective Santa Claus of the Games.
    On the first of August, Louie and the other Olympians were driven through Berlin for the opening ceremonies. Every vista suggested coiled might. Nazi banners had been papered over everything. As much as a third of the male population was in uniform, as were many children. Military units drilled openly, and though powered aircraft were forbidden under the Versailles Treaty, the strength of the burgeoning Luftwaffe was on conspicuous display over an airfield, wheregliders swooped over impressed tourists and Hitler Youth. The buses had machine gun mounts on the roofs and undercarriages that could be converted into tank-style tracks. The city was pristine. Even the wagon horses left no mark, their droppings instantly scooped up by uniformed street sweepers. Berlin’sGypsies