It went like that for the next hundred years or so until we finally hit bottom. By that time we'd slowed down to only about a thousand mph or so, I suppose. “Stick out your legs and dig in with your heels,” Greta said.
"What?" I opened my eyes. The snowy landscape was still spinning past like a bad dream.
“That's how we stop,” she explained. “It’s the only way. You have to use your feet for brakes.”
I did as she said. The next thing I knew I was zooming down that slope with no sled underneath me. And I had two handsful of frosty air instead of German bosom. I plowed into a snowbank and pulled the hole I’d made in after me.
One of those Swiss guides pulled me out. “Bravo!” he said, dusting the snow off me.
Then Greta came running up. “Wasn’t that great sport?” she exulted.
“More fun than a free-fall parachute jump without a 'chute,” I told her.
“What’s the matter with your voice?” she asked.
"I must have lost it back there with my stomach,” I squeaked back. I gulped a few lungfuls of air just to let the rest of me know the old lungs had been only temporarily out of order. “It's okay now,” I told Greta in something closer to my more normal tone.
“Gut,” she bubbled. “Then come on. We can just make the ski-lift."
“Wait a minute! Can’t we talk this—?” It was too late. I was in the clutches of an irresistible force.
Still, the ski-lift was almost a relief after the bobsled. All it was was a sort of wire cage which ran on a cable looped across pulleys turned by an electric motor. It ran across a deep gorge to the top of a mountain across from the foot of the bobsled run. It wasn’t so bad if you didn’t look over the side of it. If you did, you found yourself looking down at a glacier so far below it was barely visible through the thick fog of cold air.
I only looked once. After that I huddled in the cage and clutched at Greta for warmth. She was warm, all right. My hands defrosted nicely once I had them under her sweater. And those formidable ski pants she had pasted on proved as easy to remove as duck soup once I discovered where the zipper was hidden.
“We really shouldn’t,” Greta murmured. “Not here.”
But I paid her no mind. After all, I had to do something to keep my mind off that abyss over which we were dangling. “Your pelvis has really healed quite nicely,” I crooned as I caressed her.
“Yes. Hasn’t it? And I am so glad to see that our misadventure the other night left no lasting effects on you.”
“Just a bit chafed,” I said.
“Then perhaps I shouldn’t be doing this?”
“That’s all right. Don’t stop. It helps the circulation in this cold climate.”
“Now that you mention it, the air is chilly. I was forgetting all about that.”
“Quite understandable,” I told her. “Do you know that people in blizzards often do this just to keep warm?”
“Only this?”
“No-o-o. They go on to this . . . and this . . . and then . . .”
“But that can’t be so!” she interrupted. “If it were, the Alps would be impossibly overpopulated.”
Feminine logic! “This is no time to split hairs,” I told her.
“Nor to pull them!” she said. “Please be careful.”
“Sorry.”
“Anyway, we have to stop now.”
“Not now,” I insisted, feeling my rear end ice up as I shifted position to crawl over her.
“Yes, now!" She pushed me away. “Look! Another few feet and we’ll be there.” She hastily rearranged her clothing.
I had no choice but to do the same.
“Did you enjoy the ride?” the guide asked us as he helped us out of the cage.
“Very much!” Greta shot me an insinuating smile.
“It was much too fast,” I grumbled. “In the interests of safety, you should really slow this contraption down.”
"In the interests of safety,” Greta pointed out, “the speed was just right.”
“Too fast!” I insisted stubbornly.
“Forget it.” She pulled me by the hand. “Come on. We have to get our skis on.”
A few moments later I was tottering out to the edge of the slope where Greta was impatiently awaiting me. “This feels pretty awkward," I said, leaning heavily on the guide beside me for support.
“Haven't you ever been skiing before?” Greta asked me. “Only once. Back in my college days.”
“Only once? What happened? Why didn’t you go again?”
“I broke my collarbone.”
“Uh. Well, then, whatever made you decide on a ski resort for a vacation? Why did you come to Switzerland?”
“It's a long story,” I told her. “And you’d never in a million years believe it.”
“Forget it, then. Are you ready?"
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Now remember,” the guide told me, “when you want to stop, just cross one ski in front of the other.”
“I‘ll remember,” I promised.
“Then good luck!” He gave me a shove and I went flailing down the hill, somehow managing to stay erect on the skis.
A moment later Greta shot past me looking confident and graceful. She waved. I waved back and one of my ski poles went flying. I held onto the other one with both hands, using it for balance like a tightrope walker. It wasn’t long after that the trail curved. I didn’t. I made a neat three-point landing, the tips of both skis and my head all firmly embedded in a snowdrift. “Help!” I started to yell. But there was no sound, because by opening my mouth I had managed to swallow a large chunk of Alpine snow.
“Whatever are you doing there?” Hands tugged at my shoulders, and my head came loose. My ears popped just in time to hear Greta speak the words.
“Playing ostrich,” I told her. “What do you think? Want to play?”
“No, thank you.” She stood back and giggled. “Isn’t the blood rushing to your head in that position?” she asked.
“Now that you mention it, it is. But I don’t seem able to—”
“Try turning on your side,” she suggested.
I tried. My body twisted, but the skis were stuck fast. I snapped back to my original position. “Maybe if I raise up on my arms,” I said. I tried that too, and promptly plunged shoulder-deep into the snow.
“I shall have to unbuckle your skis,” Greta said.
“I'd appreciate that. At the rate my rear end’s freezing, if you don’t hurry it may end up as a landmark.”
“Here we are.” She pulled my feet loose, and I was able to get up on them. “I think you’d better walk for a while," she suggested.
I walked. Greta glided around me on her skis, an agile snow-nymph. Even without my own skis, I felt foolish and clumsy trudging through the snow.
“Oh, look!” she called after a while. “A cave.”
I watched as she triggered herself with her ski-pole and whooshed away. She went about a hundred yards and pulled up short at an ice-coated crevice in the side of the mountain. “Come on!" she called. “Let’s have a look at it.” She slipped out of her skis, leaned them against the cave entrance, and vanished from sight.
A few moments later I reached the spot where she had disappeared. I poked my head inside the cave. It was dark in there. “Hey!” I called. No answer. “Hey!” It was still quiet.
I lit a match. Before it went out, I could see that the ice-cavern widened on the inside. I went inside and across the cavern until I came up against the opposite wall. “Greta?” My voice echoed back at me. That was all.
I fumbled for another match and lit it. A few feet from me there was a break in the wall marking a natural passageway leading deeper into the interior of the mountainside. I poked my head inside it. “Greta?”
There was a tinkling giggle by way of answer. I followed the sound down the passageway. About thirty feet farther on it branched off into two separate passageways. I lit a third match. The sweater Greta had been wearing marked the entrance to the right-hand passage. As I started down it there was another giggle.