ME: The matter has never come up.
KR: But if it should. I don’t suppose there’d be any rules against it.
ME: David’s not a fag, Doctor. Let’s just get that straight. David is not a fag.
KR: Fine.
At some point during that tiresome evening we spent in the lounge, Schwartz announced that he was leaving in the morning; he was sick and tired of sitting around all day with nothing to do, he would be better off in New York City, where at least his brother and his wife could come over to play Monopoly with him. Foderman offered to play Monopoly with him right there at Semanee, but Schwartz said, “What fun is Monopoly with only two people? No, Seymour, I’m going home tomorrow. I’ve already made the airplane reservation.”
A general gloom settled over the crowd. The crowd, as such, consisted solely of Seymour Foderman. Sulking like a vaudeville performer who has just been told that Zeigfeld wants only his partner and not the act, trying bravely to maintain a stiff upper lip in the face of Schwartz’s desertion, Foderman began talking about the north face, and about how eager he was to try it in the morning. I think he wanted to make Schwartz jealous. I think he was saying, “Look, Manny, who needs you? You want to go home, go ahead. I got these nice bright kids I can ski with, they’re going to take me over to the hardest part of the mountain, who needs a cripple like you hanging around and complaining? Go on, go home. Go play Monopoly with your brother and his dreary wife, who cares?” But he was hurt.
David wandered over from the bar with Max in tow, to tell us that the instructors were getting up a game of broomball on the ice-skating rink, and would we care to join in? Broomball is hockey without skates and without a puck. Instead, each member of the team, equipped with a broom and wearing his normal footwear, runs around the ice trying to knock a basketball into the goal. The idea is to fall on your head and break your cranium. Sandy told David that one of her least favorite leisure-time activities was playing broomball, and I told him I would have been happy to join them if I hadn’t just had broomball for dinner, thank you, and off he went to slip and slide.
“The north face,” Foderman said, “is supposed to be more difficult than Ajax.” He paused significantly and said to Schwartz, “Ajax. At Aspen.”
“How do you know how bad Ajax is?” Schwartz asked.
“I heard about it. And I also heard about the north face here.”
“Who cares?” Schwartz said. “By this time tomorrow, I’ll be sitting in front of my nice fireplace, burning cannel coal and listening to Beethoven’s Fifth.”
“Aren’t you even curious about it?” Foderman asked.
“Certainly, I’m curious. You can tell me all about it when you get home.”
“I could tell you all about it tomorrow.”
“I won’t be here tomorrow.”
“I’m saying if you stayed.”
“I already made a plane reservation.”
“You could cancel the reservation.”
“Listen to this guy, will you?” Schwartz said.
“He’s concerned about you,” Sandy said gently.
“Sure. He’s so concerned, he runs off skiing all day long. While I sit around twiddling my thumbs.”
“Manny, it isn’t my fault you broke your leg,” Foderman said.
“I know it isn’t. Who said it was your fault?”
“I’m only suggesting,” Foderman said, “that you could have a good time here even with the broken leg. That’s all I’m suggesting, Manny.”
“I could have a better time in New York.”
“Doing what? Playing Monopoly?”
“And also seeing a certain person who called here today to find out how I was.”
“Ah. So that’s it.”
Schwartz nodded.
“Well, I hope you have a good flight,” Foderman said. “What time are you leaving?”
“The car is picking me up at eight.”
“I’ll help you with your bags,” Foderman said.
“Thank you, I would appreciate it.”
Foderman rose, seemed about to say something more to Schwartz, but instead turned to Sandy. “Shall we meet for breakfast?” he asked. “After I get Manny on his way?”
“If we’re going over to the north face,” Sandy said, “we ought to get started as soon as the lifts are running.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Schwartz said. “I can put myself in the car.”
“You’ve got a broken leg there,” Foderman said. “How’re you going to manage by yourself?”
“There are bellhops, don’t worry. Have your breakfast and go try the north face.”
“Are you sure?” Foderman asked.
“I’m sure, I’m sure.”
“What time will you be eating, Sandy?”
“Seven. But don’t expect conversation from me.”
“What I could do,” Foderman said, “is have breakfast with Manny and make sure his bags are all out front. And his skis.”
“You don’t have to bother,” Schwartz said. “Look at him, will you? A regular Jewish mother.”
“Well, we’ll talk about it in the morning,” Foderman said.
“There’s nothing to talk about. Have a good sleep, eat your breakfast, and go ski the farshtinkener north face. I’ll see you in the city.”
“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” Foderman said again. “Good night, everybody.”
“Good night already,” Schwartz said.
Daybreak Thursday morning was one of the most spectacularly beautiful I’d ever been privileged to witness. Awakened early by my persistent you-know-what, I dressed and went downstairs through the silent lodge, and then ventured outdoors in those last few moments before night’s candles had burnt out and jocund day stood tiptoe on the misty mountaintops. I had seen many dawns before, of course; in the city where the sun lumbers up over the rooftops like a bloodstained mugger; at the shore, where it springs out of the ocean like a Japanese dancer in silks; in the country, where it blinks like timid semaphore through the foliage and then runs molten behind the silhouetted trees. But I had never before seen it in the mountains, and I was truly stupefied.
It was a religious miracle.
I fully expected Jesus Christ to come over the summit to the accompaniment of heraldic trumpets.
Instead, a solitary skier came down the novice slope.
The skier himself (or herself, it was difficult to tell from this distance) was something of a miracle in that the lifts were not yet running, and he (or she) must have climbed to the top of the slope. Since dawn was just breaking, this meant that the uphill ascent had been made in near-darkness, not a difficult feat but certainly an energetic and unusual one. I automatically assumed that the skier coming down the slope was an insomniac, and I began to construct a little fantasy involving him (or her) lying in bed counting ascending chairs in a fruitless effort to drop off to sleep, finally saying the hell with it, and coming out to sidestep or herringbone to the top. It did not take much skill to come down the wide, gently angled hill, but the skier was obviously a good one, wedelning with graceful ease, wearing green parka and pants that seemed in perfect calm harmony with the sun-pink snow.
The skier was a girl.
As she came closer, intent on the slope, plunging directly down the fall line (such as it was) in short clicking beautiful tight motion, I saw red hair streaming from the sides of her green wool, tasseled hat and thought for a moment That’s the girl from the department store, and then thought No, it isn’t, and then she was fifty feet above me, and then thirty, and twenty, yellow goggles covering half her freckled face, ten feet, five, Yes, it was the goddamn girl who’d witnessed the theft, and she carved a quick short stop and looked up at me.