And at day’s end, the restatement. The melody learned by heart, the rhythm ingrained, the danger heightened — most ski accidents occur in the waning hours of the afternoon, when weariness and lassitude combine with fading light and over-confidence (the melody learned too well, the rhythm taken for granted) to give the mountain an instant’s edge, which is all it needs to splinter bones and shatter skulls.
Semanee Lodge at 4 P.M. was humming with after-concert conversation, ice in cocktail glasses clinking counterpoint. Beginners and Intermediates excitedly discussed the day’s clarinet glissade (“Did you come down King’s Row? God, it was sheer ice!”), expressed outrage at the oboe obbligato, condemned the ad libitum solo, and generally created a cacophonous clatter, in the midst of which (like a bored Heifetz, Cliburn, and Casals) the three of us sat by the fireplace with our feet up on the screen, socks steaming. Hans Bittner, owner of the lodge, three-time Olympics Gold Medal winner, Austrian expatriate and shmuck extraordinaire, flitted from group to group offering professional solace and advice (“Ah, yes, of course, you caught an edge”) and, spotting us in serene contentment by the blazing fire, naturally decided we were unhappy and hastened to perform his hostly duties. Five-feet eight and a half inches of muscle and sinew topped with an ocean of blond hair, green eyes glittering, white teeth flashing in his suntanned wolf’s face, Bittner skied ski-less to the fireplace, and brought his heels together like a storm trooper on an unannounced visit.
“Well, then,” he said, “How was your day, my friends?”
The trouble with the way Bittner talked was that he sounded exactly like my world-famous imitation of Dr. Krakauer. Which meant that every time he launched into his formal, precise, heavily accented brauhaus number, one or another of us invariably had a coughing fit.
“Yes?” he said. “It was good? It was bad?”
“It was marvelous,” Sandy said.
“A little cold,” I said.
“Ah, yes, a little cold,” Bittner said, and David began coughing. “Maybe it will be warmer tomorrow, though. Also, we will expect some snow.”
“Good,” Sandy said. “There were a lot of bare patches up there.”
“Ah, yes, well, heavy traffic for the holidays, you understand.
“Ah, yes,” Sandy said, and David developed double pneumonia.
“That is a bad cough you have,” Bittner said.
“Ah, yes,” David said, coughing.
“You should wrap the throat. Tomorrow. On the slopes. Put a wrapper on the throat.”
“You hear that, David?” Sandy said. “You should put a wrapper on the throat.”
“Keep it covered up,” Bittner said.
“He’ll do that,” Sandy said. “Thank you.”
“You are meeting enough people?”
“Yes, plenty, thank you,” I said.
“Well, then,” Bittner said, “enjoy your dinner.” He smiled with all his teeth, did an abrupt about-face, and walked across the room to where some enthusiastic beginners were wildly recounting the perils of the baby slope.
“You are meeting enough people?” David asked.
“Ja, ve are meeting all zorts of pipple,” I said in my Dr. Krakauer voice.
The plain truth of the matter was that we didn’t need people. We were sufficient unto ourselves. All we needed was a setting. Semanee Lodge provided that in abundance. It was, as Sandy had promised, the very model of a perfect ski lodge snuggled into the base of a mountain: stone walls, high-beamed ceilings, huge areas of glass opening on the slopes, fireplaces blazing everywhere you looked, big floppy chairs and sofas in reds, oranges, and yellows, fat cushions scattered on rug-covered floors, candles burning in red translucent holders on pegged coffee tables, several noisy bars with excellent bartenders imported from the Costa Smeralda, a sauna downstairs, an indoor swimming pool, spacious rooms (I hate small rooms when I’m clomping around in ski boots), quilts on the beds, and oh those exciting Magic Fingers machines — if you like our brochure, please write c/o Hans Bittner, and he will complete the list for you in greater detail.
Dr. Krakauer feels that I’ve created in the three of us a substitute family unit, with Sandy endlessly playing the mother role, and with David and me alternately playing the father figure. There may be a smidgin of truth in this. I suppose that if one had to select a pater familias at random, David would be a far better choice than my own dear dad, who is hell-bent on drinking himself into that great big liquor store in the sky. The saintly Crackers, however, misses the boat when he supposes this is your ordinary, everyday American tribe, eating its way across the nation at Howard Johnson stops and peeing in Mobil restrooms. Whatever else we had going for us (good looks, intelligence, wit, humor — he said modestly), we also shared an unshakable sense of loyalty one to the other, all for each, and a communication that was almost mystical. I do not ordinarily believe in gypsy ladies or fortune cookies, but there were times when the three of us could sit by a fire (as we were doing now), saying nothing to each other, and yet knowing exactly what each of us was feeling or thinking. I don’t know many family units that can do that. In fact, I don’t know any family units that can do that. In fact, and here is where Krakauer’s crystal ball begins to cloud, the important thing about the relationship the three of us share is not so much that it’s a family, but only that it’s a unit. And I mean exactly that — a unit. Three people acting and reacting as one person.
Before we arrived on the scene, there was zilch. The moment we debuted, bowing and curtsying to the world at large, there was a single, indestructible, forever-united entity. The day we took that fishhook from a gull’s throat (we never did name that stupid bird) many summers back, we stumbled upon a source of energy previously unknown to mankind, scientifically labeled SDP in honor of the trio that had isolated it, a rare mixture of earth, fire, air, and water (plus a pinch of salt), an elixir which when quaffed by its three happy discoverers charged them with the power of Zero Plus Three Equals One, and caused all previously celebrated relationships to dim by comparison. Abelard and Héloïse; Aramis, Porthos, and Athos; Hart, Schaffner, and Marx — all such gangs-in-miniature paled to insignificance before the blazing intensity of this newly formed city, state, nation, galaxy, universe.
We liked each other a lot.
It was Seymour Foderman who launched Operation Machismo. We take no credit for its inception.
We had enjoyed a delicious meal prepared by a chef (Bittner assured us) who had once worked at the Lorünser in Zürs. Wherever he’d worked, he knew his way around Austrian cooking the way a mugger knows his way around Central Park. A pair of honeymooners was sitting at the table adjacent to ours. We did not know their names, but we instantly dubbed them Mr. and Mrs. Penn R. Trate. Mr. Trate was most certainly an IBM’er, wearing a reindeer sweater made by Stein Eriksen’s mother, and après-ski slacks designed for fatassed young executives on the move. He undoubtedly lived in New Canaan, commuted to White Plains, and entertained thoughts of one day displacing Tom Watson as head of the company. He was sporting, I swear to God (the last red-blooded American extant), a crewcut and he kept fumbling across the table for Mrs. Trate’s right hand, which, together with her left, was occupied in slicing the bratwurst. It was our contention that Mr. and Mrs. Trate had not yet consummated their marriage. Mrs. Trate looked terrified. A pert-nosed, brown-haired Wasp with enormous breasts hidden under a Minnie Mouse jumper, she toyed with the bratwurst as though it were the realization incarnate of all her phallic fantasies, while Mr. Trate clutched for her hand reassuringly. At one point, we swore we overheard her murmuring, “Please, not while I’m eating,” but that may have been an extension of our own little fantasy.