He resorted to a beginner’s device. He sat abruptly, his fat backside thudding into the snow. Sliding down the trail on his back, knees bent, skis flat on the ground, arms and poles up and away from his body, he might have been fine if his right ski hadn’t suddenly darted out from under him, the leg shooting straight up into the air. He slipped sideways across the trail, and the heel of the right ski came down hard, sinking deep into the soft snow adjacent to the sloping wall. He was now athwart the trail, head and shoulders against the left wall, elbows bent, left knee bent and left ski flat on the ground, right leg extended straight with the tail of the right ski anchored firmly in the snow. He looked rather like a railroad crossing, his leg effectively barricading the trial, his boot fastened to the ski. I suddenly remembered that Sandy had tightened the binding on that ski only two days ago, and I wondered if Foderman had since had it readjusted.
It was too late.
Mary Margaret was skiing toward him.
There were several things Mary Margaret could have done. She was an expert skier. She had been checking her speed all the way down the trail, and most certainly could have executed a stop now. Or she could have jumped over the barricade of Foderman’s leg; his foot, firmly bound to the ski, was no more than three feet off the ground. But she lowered her head instead, bent her knees, crouched into a downhill schuss position, and raced directly for Foderman where he lay helplessly pinioned athwart the trail. A moment before she crashed into his leg, I realized she was determined to ski through him.
His scream echoed off the walls of the narrow canyon. The force of their collision sent Mary Margaret into a somersaulting roll over Foderman’s body. Thrashing, flailing, she went skidding down the trail while Foderman lay screaming in agony, the splintered bones of his leg showing through the torn ski pants. He was still screaming when she rolled to a stop some twelve feet below him, unharmed.
Every Saturday night, at alternating hotels in the Valley, the Semanee ski instructors awarded bronze or silver pins to those of their pupils who had made the most progress during the preceding week. On this Saturday, the ceremony — further enhanced by presentation of bronze, silver, and gold medals to winners of the big race that morning — was to be held at Semanee Lodge, shortly after dinner.
The Lodge, I must say, had been decorated resplendently for the occasion and for the imminent holiday only two days off. While most of the guests were out skiing that afternoon (and while at least one of them was having his leg broken), the hotel staff had decked the halls with boughs of holly and had erected (you should pardon the expression) a giant Christmas tree in the lobby, glistening with pinpoints of light and hung with tinsel and balls (you should again pardon the expression). The mood was festive and gay as skiers from all over the Valley gathered in the large lounge to reward those among them who had performed admirably. Sandy, David, and I were depressed.
We had accompanied Foderman to the hospital, where we were informed by the resident orthopedist, a man who treated hundreds of ski injuries each season, that Foderman had suffered a highly comminuted, compound fracture of the tibia and fibula, none of which meant a damn thing to us until he explained it. Solemnly and dispassionately, the doctor said that the bones in Foderman’s right leg had been splintered into too many pieces to allow internal repair by operation. He would have to debride the skin wound, close it up, feed Foderman antibiotics intravenously (We were lucky to be on the scene, the doctor told us, because if there had been too long a delay in getting Foderman to a hospital, overwhelming infection and eventual loss of the leg would have been distinct possibilities), and put him in skeletal traction from some eight to twelve weeks, after which time he would be wearing a cast for anywhere from twenty-four to twenty-six weeks. In short, it was bad.
Leaving Foderman under heavy sedation, we had walked back to the Lodge with Mary Margaret, who tearfully insisted the accident was unavoidable. We told her exactly what we thought about that little piece of expiation, and removed ourselves from her presence the moment we got to the hotel. Now, as Hans Bittner checked out the microphone (“Vun, two, tree, testing”) and the band began setting up in the corner of the room where the awards were to be presented, I found myself thinking about Mary Margaret and wondering why she had deliberately crashed into Foderman’s extended leg.
It seemed to me there were only three possibilities worth consideration. The first of these was the undeniable fact that Mary Margaret was a bigot. Nor did it surprise me that a member of one much-maligned minority group should be able to hate a member of another minority group. When it came to hating Jews, for example, there was no one who did it as passionately as the black man. Ah yes, but couldn’t I maintain that Mary Margaret had risen above all that? Couldn’t I say that here in this wonderful land of opportunity for all, regardless of race, creed, color (or anything but the accidental beauty of a person’s hands), Mary Margaret had been able to break through the cultural restrictions placed upon her crazy immigrant father, was now coining money hand over fist (so to speak), and therefore could afford to be more generous in spirit toward those less-fortunate minority-group members who were still merely gynecologists? I could say that, but I wouldn’t believe it for a minute. Mary Margaret hated Jews, and for all her buttering up of Foderman (“You’re my date, Seymour,” and “I knew you’d love it, Seymour”), she was entirely capable of turning him into a lampshade or a bar of soap at the drop of a yarmulke. Okay. So she had broken his leg because she hated Jews. Nothing personal, you understand. She had nothing against dear old Dr. Seymour Foderman that she didn’t have against any and all Jews. Foderman just happened to be handy when the moment came to exorcise that hatred. So splat went Foderman’s leg, “Oh my, I’m so sorry, I just couldn’t avoid the accident. He was sprawled all across the trail there, you know, I couldn’t turn, I couldn’t jump, I couldn’t stop, I simply had to run right through him. Can’t you see how distressed I am? Look at me. Can’t you see I’m crying?”
That was the first possibility.
The second possibility was something darker to think about, and it had nothing to do with prejudice. It had only to do with evil. There is evil, and there is evil; as Foderman pointed out, there is a vast difference between the death and the fever. It is one thing to be an Archie Bunker type mouthing adorable racial and ethnic slurs in a lovable guy-next-door fashion, but it’s quite another thing to be mean as cat shit, and to shatter someone’s leg merely because he happens to be a Jew. That, man, is evil. That is the death as compared to the fever.