Memories Great and Small

By PICO IYER BARCELONA

In Bhutan arrows whistle through the silent air. Citizens, dressed by law in medieval robes, saunter past buildings, constructed by law in traditional fortress style. There is no television yet in the Hidden Kingdom, and airlines first arrived during the '80s. Last year the country saw scarcely 1,500 tourists (or roughly the same number that pour into Disneyland every hour).

Imagine, then, the sensation for three teenage archers -- half of the third Olympic team ever sent from the Land of the Thunder Dragon -- as they stepped out of their landlocked Himalayan kingdom and into the flashbulb glare of Barcelona's Olympics. Anxiously consulting an astrologer before they left, Bhutan's Olympians -- all archers -- had never boarded a plane before, or experienced summer heat. The Olympic Village was almost the size of their capital, Thimbu. And the biggest shock of all, said Namgyal Lhamu, was "the sea," which she, like the others, had only read about at home. "I thought Barcelona was going to be peaceful, like Thimbu," added a cheerful Pem Tshering. "But it's so busy!" High-rise buildings, spiceless food, subway trains -- everything was a source of wonder for them. In Barcelona the archers thought back often to the quiet field in the middle of Thimbu where they practice among the willows; now, once more in Thimbu, they are doubtless telling their friends about a place where you have to pay for water.

There are two kinds of memory: the official ones that belong to the world in highlight films, and the private ones that are preserved, if at all, in dusty photo albums. Some Olympic moments from Barcelona will now pass into the collective unconscious -- Charles Barkley dunking, Gail Devers smiling, Derek Redmond in tears hobbling on his pulled hamstring toward the 400-m finish line, leaning on his father's shoulder. Others will be as unmarked as the snapshots the Bhutanese archers take back of a city full of boats.

Carlos Saura, the dazzling Spanish director who is responsible for the movie of the Barcelona Games, has enough passionate drama to work with to film another Carmen. He could begin with Magic Johnson at the opening ceremonies, undertaking what Johnson, who has more cause than most to savor moments, called "the most important thing in my life." He could show Gwen Torrence sobbing uncontrollably as she collected her 200-m gold, and, 10 minutes later, in a raucous press conference, spitting out that drug use is "in swimming, it's in track and field, it's everywhere." And he could close with the stirring spirit of the Barcelonans themselves, gathering each night under their colored fountains in a show of happy pride.

If there was a single all-around winner in the Olympic events, in fact, it was, on every level, Spain, and not just because the country claimed at least 13 gold medals, after winning only four in the past 96 years. The Chinese team was also a consistent surprise, and its women alone were everywhere one looked -- scoring all 10s in the uneven bars, winning an archery shoot-off with bull's-eye after bull's-eye after bull's-eye, even striding off with the 10-km walk. The Unified Team forgot its differences long enough to enjoy one last triumph, and the Americans had good reason to cheer the Dream Team, as their swimmers, boxers, spikers and pitchers failed to live up to every high expectation. The Kenyans, as usual, showed all comers how to carry themselves -- and transcend themselves -- with grace.

The success of the Games was not without qualification, of course -- in part because of disqualifications. Never, surely, have so many events been decided after the competition was over. Sometimes (in the men's 10,000 m) disqualifications themselves were disqualified; sometimes (in boxing) even officials were disqualified. In some events, it seemed all those athletes who had not been suspended were at least suspected. In the first athletics event to be decided, the men's shot put, both the gold and bronze medalists had been suspended for using steroids; the silver medalist had been convicted of possessing amphetamines.

Yet still the memories kept coming, as various and many-hued as the images in the cameras lined up along the track, each trained on a different local hero. Some of them would have to be edited, some would be shown only in Kuala Lumpur. One sunny Sunday morning, the badminton hall was filled with Malaysian smiles. The country's doubles team -- the brothers Razif and Jalani Sidek -- had just advanced to the semifinals, assuring Malaysia of its first Olympic medal ever. "What more could you ask for in life?" coach Punch Gunalan asked the air around him. One hour later, though, the country's brightest hope, Rashid Sidek (another brother) was upset in the quarterfinals by a Dane, and the hall was suddenly full of smiling Danes.

Often, in fact, the memories had to be caught before they slipped away. The Canadian Curt Harnett whizzed around the cycling track in 10:368. "New Olympic record," proclaimed the public address system. Harnett exulted, while Australian Garry Neiwand came around. 10:330. "New Olympic record." Neiwand was beginning to celebrate when German Jens Fiedler whizzed past. 10:252. "New Olympic record."

Many of the memories, indeed, were checkered, and soft-focus moments were framed by harder edges. The public memory recalls Linford Christie bursting past in the 100 m, arms upraised in triumph; the private one shows Mark Witherspoon, a medal hopeful in the same event, thunder down the track for 30 meters, then suddenly collapse into a sickening heap, his tendon ruptured. On the scoreboard, the finish was played and replayed while Witherspoon lay alone, helpless on the track.

Most often, though, the private memories seemed likely to outlast the public ones: one of the charms of the Olympics is that it plays tricks with perspective, so that ordinary Joes become superstars, and superstars can seem like ordinary Joes. There was Magic Johnson, his smile as broad as an unbalanced beam, taking in the women's gymnastics, and there was Steffi Graf, looking unusually relaxed (before her loss in the final to Jennifer Capriati) and confessing that she would have liked to try the 100 m. There was Jim Courier, speaking with touching sincerity of the joys of living in a tiny room without air conditioning. "I wouldn't miss staying in the Village for anything," he said. "You get up in the morning and you see some of the best athletes in the world going for jogs or eating breakfast. It's indescribable!" A few days later, the No. 1 seed was knocked out of both doubles and singles, and his conqueror, the Swiss giant Marc Rosset, was looking pleasantly bewildered. "I like the Village so much," said the unseeded Rosset, who went on to win the gold, "maybe I'm going to buy a flat in the Village."

Iranians traded pins with Iraqis in the Games, and in the final inning of the semifinal game between baseball's archrivals, Cuban first baseman Lourdes Gourriel -- on his way back to a bankrupt island -- wished American Phil Nevin every success in the major leagues. By week's end, all those who came were leaving with some such memento: with a large round weight around their necks, or a picture of themselves with Magic Johnson; with shaved heads or ruptured tendons. Barcelona has long been famous as a city of artists and laborers, a "city of marvels" where discipline and flight converge. Now, to the famous roll call of its industrious dreamers -- Casals and Picasso, Miro and Lorca, Gaudi and Garcia Marquez -- can be added some new names: Joyner-Kersee and Jordan, Scherbo and Laumann. Besides, Barcelona now has something to remember Thimbu by, and even in television-less Thimbu there is a rumor of a place called Barcelona.