Nightwork (32 page)

“Never saw him before,” Lily said.

“It’s a tribute to our beauty,” Eunice said. “All three of us.”

“I don’t need any tributes to my beauty,” I said. At one point, when Eunice had fallen and I was climbing back to help her up and put her skis on again, the man appeared and began snapping pictures from all angles. As politely as possible, I said, “Hey, friend, don’t you have enough by now?”

“Never have enough,” the man said. He was a gaunt, easy-speaking young man in baggy old clothes and he continued to click away. “Back at the paper they like to have a wide choice.”

“Paper?” I said. “What paper?”

“
Women’s Wear Daily
. I’m doing a story on Gstaad. You’re just what I need. Chic and photogenic, with your skis together. Happy people, in the height of fashion, not a care in the world.”

“You think,” I said sourly. “There’re lots of other people around who answer to that description. Why don’t you work on them?” I didn’t relish the idea of having my photograph all over a newspaper in New York with a circulation of maybe a hundred thousand. Who knew what paper the two men who had visited Drusack read every morning?

“If the ladies object,” the man said pleasantly, “of course I’ll stop.”

“We don’t object,” Lily said. “If you’ll send us copies. I adore pictures of myself. If they’re flattering.”

“They could only be flattering,” the young man said gallantly. I suppose he’d taken pictures of a thousand beautiful women in his career and I was sure he hadn’t been shy to begin with. Meanly, I envied him.

But he did ski off, loose and careless over the bumps, and we didn’t see him again until we were on the terrace of the club, having a Bloody Mary, waiting for Fabian to appear.

By that time another complication had arisen. Just at noon I noticed a small figure following us at a distance. It was Didi Wales. She never came within fifty yards of us, but wherever we went, there she was, skiing in our tracks, stopping when we stopped, moving when we moved. She skied well, lightly and surely, and even when I put on a real burst of speed, which made Lily and Eunice fly down the hill completely out of control, to keep me in sight, there was that small figure faithfully on our trail as though attached to us by a long, invisible cord.

On the last run down, just before lunch, I purposely waited at the bottom of the lift, allowing Lily and Eunice to go up together, in one of the two-seater chairs. Didi came into the lift building, her long blonde hair now caught in a bow of ribbon at the nape of her neck and falling down her back. She was still wearing the flowered blue jeans and a short, bulky orange parka.

“Let’s take this one up together, Didi,” I said as the chair swung into place and she clumped up in her heavy boots.

“I don’t mind,” she said. She sat quietly as we swung up out into the open sunlight. The chair mounted silently and we got a view of the whole town spread out in the sunlight. The jagged white peaks, stretching everywhere, were like white cathedrals in the distance.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she said, starting to get a package of cigarettes out of a pocket.

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay, Daddy,” she said. Then giggled. “Having a nice day?” she asked.

“Wonderful.”

“You’re not skiing as well as you used to,” she said. “More effort.”

I knew this was true but wasn’t pleased to hear it. “I’m a little rusty,” I said with dignity. “I’ve been busy.”

“It shows,” she said matter-of-factly. “And those ladies with you.” She made a peculiar little noise. “They’ll kill themselves one day.”

“So I’ve told them.”

“I bet when there’s no men with them, if they ever go
anywhere
without a man, they snowplow all the way down. They sure have fancy clothes though. I saw them in the stores the day they came, buying up everything in sight.”

“They’re pretty women,” I said defensively, “and they like to look their best.”

“If their pants were one inch tighter,” she said, “they’d strangle to death.”

“Your pants aren’t so loose either.”

“That’s my age group,” she said. “That’s all.”

“I thought you said you were going to lead me in Gstaad.”

“If you weren’t occupied,” she said. “Well, you sure look occupied.”

“Still, you could have joined us,” I said. “The ladies would have been pleased.”

“
I
wouldn’t,” she said flatly. “I bet you’re all going to have lunch at the Eagle Club.”

“How do you know?”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“It happens, yes.”

“I knew.” There was a note of scornful triumph in her voice. “Women who dress like that always have lunch there.”

“You don’t even know them.”

“This is my second winter in Gstaad. I keep categories.”

“Do you want to join us for lunch?”

“Thank you, no. That’s not for me. I don’t like the conversation. Especially the women. Nibbling away at reputations. Stealing each other’s husbands. I’m a little disappointed in you, Mr. Grimes.”

“You are? Why?”

“Being in a place like this. With ladies like that.”

“They’re perfectly nice ladies,” I said. “Don’t be censorious. They haven’t nibbled a reputation yet.”

“I
have
to be here,” she went on stubbornly. “It’s my mother’s idea of where a well-bred young lady ought to be while she pursues her education. Education. Hah! How to grow up useless in three languages. And expensive.”

The bitterness in her voice was disturbingly adult. It was not the sort of conversation one would expect to have with a pretty, plump, little sixteen-year-old American girl while rising slowly in the sunshine over the fairy-tale landscape of the winter Alps. “Well,” I said, knowing it sounded lame, “I’m sure
you’re
not going to grow up useless. In no matter how many languages.”

“Not if it kills me,” she said.

“Do you have any plans?”

“I’m going to be an archaeologist,” she said. “I’m going to dig in the ruins of old civilizations. The older the better. I want to get as far away as I can from twentieth-century civilization. At least, my mother’s and father’s version of twentieth-century civilization.”

“I think you’re being a little harsh on them,” I said. I was defending myself, I suppose, as well as her parents. After all, they belonged almost to the same generation as I did.

“I’d rather not talk about my parents, if you don’t mind,” she said. “I’d rather talk about you. Are you married yet?”

“No.”

“I don’t plan to get married either.” She looked at me challengingly, as though daring me to comment on this.

“I hear it’s going somewhat out of style,” I said.

“With good reason,” she said. We were approaching the top now and prepared to debark. “If you want to ski with me sometime,
alone
…” She accented the word. “Leave a note for me in your box at the hotel. I’ll pass by.” We got off the chair and took our skis. “Though if I were you,” she said as we walked out of the shed into the sunlight, “I wouldn’t stay here too long. It isn’t your natural habitat.”

“What do you think is my natural habitat?”

“I’d say Vermont.” She bent and started to put on her skis, limber and competent. “A small town in Vermont, where people work for a living.”

I put my skis over my shoulder. The club was just about fifty yards away, on the same level with the top of the lift, and a path was cleared through the snow to the entrance.

“Please don’t resent me,” she said, straightening up. “I made a decision recently to speak my mind on all occasions.”

On an impulse that I didn’t understand, I leaned over and kissed her cheek, cold and rosy. “Well, that’s very nice,” she said. “Thank you. Have a
smashing
lunch.” She had obviously overheard Eunice and Lily talking. Then she was off, skating expertly on her skis, toward the bottom of the T-bar that led higher up the mountain. I shook my head as I watched the bulky, little, brightly colored figure moving swiftly across the slope. Then, carrying my skis, I walked toward the massive stone building that housed the club.

Fabian appeared while Eunice, Lily, and I were having our second Bloody Mary on the terrace of the club. He was not dressed for skiing, but looked very smart in a turtleneck sweater and blue, boiled-wool Tyrolean jacket, sharply pressed fawn-colored corduroy pants, and high suede after-ski boots. I was wearing the pair of ski pants and plain blue parka that I had bought off the rack in St. Moritz because they had been the cheapest things in the store, and I felt dowdy next to him. The pants already bagged pathetically in the seat and at the knees. I was sure that the other elegant people on the terrace were whispering about us, wondering what someone who looked and dressed like me was doing with such a group. Didi Wales’ remark about my natural habitat had had its effect.

High above, in the brilliant blue sky, a large bird soared on motionless wings. It might well have been an eagle. I speculated on what prey it might find to live off in this glossy valley.

“Have a good morning?” I asked Fabian as he kissed the girls and ordered a Bloody Mary for himself.

“Only time will tell,” he said. He enjoyed his little mysteries, Fabian.

I tried not to look worried. “I hope you don’t mind, Douglas,” he said. “I’ve made an appointment in town for us after lunch.”

“If the ladies will excuse me,” I said.

“I’m sure they’ll find some other young man to ski with,” Fabian said.

“I’m sure,” I said.

“There’s a big party tonight,” Lily said. “We have to go to the hairdresser, anyway. …”

“Am I invited?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve let it be known that we’re inseparable.”

“Thoughtful of you,” I said.

She looked at me sharply. “I’m afraid old Gentle Heart is not having as good a time as he should.” Now she was calling me Gentle Heart, too. “Perhaps he prefers the company of younger ladies.” She hadn’t said anything, but my trip up on the chair lift with Didi Wales hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“She’s the young daughter of old friends of mine from back home,” I said with dignity.

“Ripe for havoc,” Lily said. “Let’s go in and have lunch. It’s cold out here.”

The appointment Fabian had arranged was with a real-estate dealer with a small office on the main street of the town. Before we went in he explained that he had been looking that morning at plots of land that were for sale. “It might be an interesting investment for us,” he said. “As you may have caught on by now, my philosophy is simple. We live in a world in which certain primary elements are becoming scarcer and scarcer. Soybeans, gold, sugar, wheat, oil, et cetera. The economy of the planet is suffering from overpopulation, fright, wars, a bad conscience, and … an overabundance of available cash. Put these things together and the moderately sensible, ordinarily pessimistic man knows that the scarcity can only get worse and buys accordingly. Switzerland is a tiny country with a stable government and practically no possibility of getting involved in military adventures. Soon they will be selling land here to frightened money almost by the ounce. Among my own friends and acquaintances I know dozens who would long to own even the smallest bit of it. At the moment, because of Swiss law, they are not permitted to buy. But we have a Swiss company, or a Liechtenstein one, which amounts to the same thing, and there is nothing to stop us from buying an option for six months, say, on a nice chunk of this beautiful country and letting it be known that we are considering building a luxurious nice-sized chalet with a number of fine apartments and renting them in advance for twenty-year leases, say. With the loan that we can swing from a bank, we can be the owners of a highly profitable piece of real estate which will cost us nothing finally and where we might even have a little
pied-à-terre
at no expense to ourselves for our own holidays. Does all this make sense to you?”

“As usual,” I said. Actually, it made more sense than usual. I had seen how dizzily prices had risen for small sections of abandoned farmland in Vermont, when ski lifts were put in.

“Dear partner,” Fabian said, smiling. “Old Gentle Heart.”

By the end of the afternoon we had made an offer for a six-month option on a hilly stretch of ground off the road, about five miles from Gstaad. It would take some time, the agent told us, to arrange the formalities and draw up the contract, but he was sure there would be no important obstacles in our way.

I had never owned anything except the clothes I stood in, but by the time we went back to the hotel for tea I was practically assured, or so Fabian said, of being half-owner of a building that within a year would be worth well over a half-million dollars. The knuckles of my hands showed white with tension as I drove the Jaguar through the town that I now looked at with a new proprietary interest. Fabian merely looked quietly pleased with the day’s work. “We are just beginning, Gentle Heart,” was all he said, as I parked the car in the lot in front of the hotel.

I was getting dressed for the party when the telephone rang. It was Fabian. “Something’s come up,” he said. “I can’t go with you. Do you mind taking the girls?”

“What is it?”

“I met Bill Sloane in the lobby just now.”

“Oh. That’s all I need.” I felt a prickling at the back of my neck. Bill Sloane had not contributed to my finest hours in Europe.

“Someday you must tell me just what went on between you two.”

“Someday,” I said.

“He’s alone. He sent his wife back to America.”

“That’s the smartest thing he’s done all year. Still,” I said, “what’s he got to do with your not coming with us?”

“He wants to play cards this evening. Starting just about now.”

“I thought you said you were off bridge for life?” Now that Fabian had introduced me to the science of high finance, bridge playing seemed unnecessarily risky. A deck of cards was not like gold ingots or soybean futures or an acre of land in Switzerland.

“He doesn’t want to play bridge,” Fabian said. “He’s got the message about bridge, he says.”

“What does he want to play?”

“Head-to-head poker,” Fabian said. “In his room.”

“Oh, Christ, Miles! Can’t you tell him you’re busy?”