From three sides of the snowbank now, like the lead rifleman and twin grenadiers of an enemy patrol, Bryan, Duke, and Hollis started up in triangular formation, approaching Foderman, who stood looking down at them with a slightly bewildered expression on his face. He had taken the high ground without casualty and now found himself in the embarrassing position of having to defend a worthless piece of real estate against an army that had no more use for it than he had. It must have crossed his mind that this was a senseless battle in a war not of his choosing, and yet could he surrender without at least some show of resistance? Could he let them herd him into a boxcar and stuff him into an oven without protest? He clenched his fists in resolve. Short, stubby, breathless, barrel-shaped, he stood atop the ramparts of his mountain fortress, a pitiful, helpless slob awaiting the onslaught of a dedicated demolition team.
What happened next surprised me completely.
I had expected the three cowboys to toss Foderman into the air like a beanbag and then hurl him down to the street below. But instead, approaching from three sides to reach the summit simultaneously, they reached for his ankles, his legs, and his waist and, working silently and in concert, pulled his ski pants down to his boots, and swiftly retreated to the bottom of the hill. Foderman registered first surprise, and then what seemed to be relief, or even gratitude. They had not sent mortars into his castle keep, they had not used flamethrowers or grenades, he had not been routed, raped, or even ransacked. He was, in fact, still king of the mountain, however lacking in regality he may have appeared to the populace assembled below, his pants pulled down, his bare legs hanging out, and his undershorts blowing in the breeze. He didn’t seem to know quite how to cope with the indignity of his disarray. Bewildered, and a little chilly besides, he waited for some guidance from the people, some cue from the street below.
It was Mary Margaret who began laughing.
The laughter bubbled up out of her throat like a tainted underground spring, clear and cold and sparkling, but deadly to the palate. The teeny-boppers came in not a beat behind, shrilling like treetop birds, and Bryan, Duke, and Hollis belatedly brayed accompaniment until the entire valley seemed to reverberate with laughter that rose to the crest of the hill, where it completely engulfed Foderman. He hesitated. He still did not pull up his pants. A smile broke on his face, and a timid laugh escaped his lips, followed by a louder laugh, and then another. Clasping his hands over his head like a prizefighter who had just won the world’s championship, he nodded, laughed more heartily, and shook his wedded, scepterless mitts at all of us below. Bryan and Duke could barely remain standing. Each slapping the other’s back, they stumbled about drunkenly in the snow, and Mary Margaret’s chilling laughter broke on the air like falling icicles, and the teeny-boppers applauded, and Hollis threw his Stetson to the ground and jumped up and down on it, while Foderman stood with his hands over his head and his pants around his ankles, laughing.
I think the saddest sound I ever heard in my life was the sound of Foderman laughing that night.
We got back to the hotel shortly after one o’clock. Mary Margaret had elected to go on to Maury’s with the cowboys and the kids, and Foderman had finally managed to pull up his pants before frostbite attacked his extremities. He now promised to meet us at nine for breakfast, and went directly to his room. Alice was curled up in one of the big leather lobby chairs, with Helmut the drummer sitting on the arm of it and telling her how crappy the skiing was in America. She barely glanced at me as I followed David and Sandy toward the small lounge, where the action consisted solely of Mr. and Mrs. Penn R. Trate sitting by the acorn fireplace, heads together in apparent connubial bliss. Wearily, we went upstairs to Sandy’s room.
There was no question of us separating for the night, there was no need even to discuss it. All three of us were still confused and, yes, shocked, by what had just happened in the snow outside, and we felt the need to talk about it, sort it out and make some sense of it. Mary Margaret seemed a threat, and there was a need to reaffirm our contiguousness, a desperate urgency to touch again — touch minds, touch bodies, assure ourselves that we were still an inseparable, impervious, indivisible unit. Completely at ease in each other’s presence, we talked quietly as we got ready for bed, David sitting in one of the chairs to take off his boots, Sandy unbuttoning her blouse, I going into the john to pee, leaving the door open so I could hear the conversation and share in it.
“That’s the first anti-Semite I ever met in my life,” David said. “I thought they’d gone out of style.”
“Why’d he stand still for it?” Sandy asked.
“Because he’s a shmuck,” I said from the bathroom.
“She sure does take control of a situation, doesn’t she?”
“Listen, it’s a good thing she arrived when she did. I think we were about to get pulverized.”
“I didn’t know they grew them so big in Arizona,” I said.
“You going to be in there all night, Peter?”
“How’d you like Bryan not knowing what a ghetto is?”
“Hurry up, Peter!”
“All right, all right.”
I came back into the bedroom, and David, barefooted, went into the john. Sandy, wearing only her slacks, was studying one of her breasts in the mirror, her hand cupped under it.
“What’s this? she asked me.
“What?”
“This? Is it anything?”
“It looks like a little bruise.”
“Mmm,” she said. She looked worried.
“I don’t think it’s anything,” I said, and went to the bed and took off my boots and socks. “Why do you suppose she went after him that way?”
“She’s a Jew-baiter, that’s why,” Sandy said.
“You think that’s all?”
From the bathroom, David said, “Okay to use your toothbrush, Sandy?”
“What?”
“Your toothbrush.”
“Yeah, sure. But what’s she after? If she doesn’t like Seymour, why does she want to ski with him?”
“She’s a model, did you know that?”
“Who?”
“Mary Margaret.”
“What does she model?”
“Jock straps,” David said from the bathroom, and spit into the sink.
“Her hands,” I said.
“Yeah?” Sandy said.
“She’s got beautiful hands.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Peter, why don’t you go get us some pajamas?”
“What do we need pajamas for?”
“Gets mighty cold out here on the tundra,” David said, and spit into the sink again.