So it was by social default that Jonathan and Anna carried the burden of small talk. Anna suddenly stopped midphrase, her eye caught by something at the entrance to the dining room. "Good God," she said softly, laying her hand on Jonathan's arm.
He turned to see the internationally known husband and wife team of film actors who had arrived the day before to join the Eiger Birds. They stood at the entrance, slowly scanning about for a free table in the half-empty room until they were satisfied that no one of importance had missed their presence. A waiter, a-quiver with servility, hastened to their side and conducted them to a table near the climbers. The actor was dressed in a white Nehru jacket and beads that conflicted with his puffy, pock-marked, middle-aged face. His hair was tousled to a precise degree of tonsorial insouciance. The wife was aggressively visible in floppy pants of oriental print with a gathered blouse of bravely clashing color, the looseness of which did much to mute her bread-and-butter dumpiness, the plunging neckline designed to direct the eye to more acceptable amplitudes. Banging about between the breasts was a diamond of vulgar size. Her eyes, however, were still good.
After the woman had been seated with a flurry of small adjustments and sounds, the man stepped to Jonathan's table and leaned over it, one hand on Anderl's shoulder, the other on Ben's.
"I want to wish you fellows the best kind of luck in the whole wide world," he said with ultimate sincerity and careful attention to the music of his vowels. "In many ways, I envy you." His clear blue eyes clouded with unspoken personal grief. "It's the kind of thing I might have done... once." Then a brave smile pressed back the sadness. "Ah, well." He squeezed the shoulders in his hands. "Once again, good luck." He returned to his wife, who had been waving an unlit cigarette in a holder impatiently, and who accepted her husband's tardy light without thanks.
"What happened?" Ben asked the company in a hushed voice.
"Benediction, I believe," Jonathan said.
"At all events," Karl said, "they will keep the reporters' attention away from us for a while."
"Where the devil is that waiter!" Jean-Paul demanded grumpily. "This coffee was cold when it arrived!"
Karl winked broadly to the company. "Anderl. Threaten the waiter with your knife. That will make him come hopping."
Anderl blushed and looked away, and Jonathan recognized that Freytag, in his attempt at humor, had blundered into an awkward subject. Embarrassed at the instant chill his faux pas had brought to the table, Karl pressed on with a German instinct for making things right by making them bigger. "Didn't you know, Herr Doctor? Meyer always carries a knife. I'll bet it's there under his jacket right now. Let us see it, Anderl."
Anderl shook his head and looked away. Jean-Paul attempted to soften Freytag's brutishness by explaining quickly to Jonathan and Ben. "The fact is, Anderl climbs in many parts of the world. Usually alone. And the village folk he uses as porters are not the most reliable men you could want, especially in South America, as your own experience has doubtless taught you. Well, in a word, last year poor Anderl was climbing alone, in the Andes, and something happened with a porter who was stealing food and—anyway—the porter died."
"Self-defense isn't really killing," Ben said, for something to say.
"He wasn't attacking me," Anderl admitted. "He was stealing supplies."
Freytag entered the conversation again. "And you consider the death penalty appropriate for theft?"
Anderl looked at him with innocent confusion. "You don't understand. We were six days into the hills. Without the supplies, I would not have been able to make the climb. It was not pleasant. It made me ill, in fact. But I would have lost my chance at the mountain otherwise." Clearly, he considered this to be a satisfactory justification.
Jonathan found himself wondering about how Anderl, poor as he was, had collected the money for his share in the Eiger climb.
"Well, Jonathan," Jean-Paul said, evidently to change the subject, "did you have a good night?"
"I slept very well, thank you. And you?"
"Not at all well."
"I'm sorry. Perhaps you should get some rest this afternoon. I have sleeping pills, if you want them."
"I never use them," Bidet said curtly.
Karl spoke. "Do you use pills to sleep in bivouac, Herr Doctor?"
"Usually."
"Why? Discomfort? Fear?"
"Both."
Karl laughed. "An interesting tactic! By quietly admitting to fear, you give the impression of being a very wise and brave man. I shall have to remember that one."
"Oh. Are you going to need it?"
"Probably not. I also never sleep well in bivouac. But with me it is not a matter of fear. I am too charged with the excitement of the climb. Now Anderl here! He is amazing. He tacks himself to a sheer face and falls asleep as though he were bundled up in a feather bed at home."
"Why not?" Anderl asked. "Supposing the worst, what is the value in being awake during a fall? A last glimpse at the scenery?"
"Ah!" Jean-Paul ejaculated. "At last our waiter finds a moment for us in his busy schedule!"
But the waiter was coming with a note for Jonathan on a small silver tray.
"It is from the gentleman over there," the waiter said.
Jonathan glanced in the indicated direction, and he experienced a stomach shock. It was Clement Pope. He sat at a nearby table, wearing a checked sport coat and a yellow ascot. He waved sassily at Jonathan, fully realizing that he was blowing Jonathan's cover. The defensive, gentle smile came slowly to Jonathan's eyes as he controlled the flutter in his stomach. He glanced at the other members of the party, trying to read the smallest trace of recognition or apprehension in their faces. He could distinguish none. He opened the note, scanned it, then nodded and thanked the waiter. "You might also bring M. Bidet a fresh pot of coffee."
"No, never mind," Jean-Paul said. "I no longer have a taste for it. I think I shall return to my room and rest, if you will excuse me." With this he left, his stride strong and angry.
"What's wrong with Jean-Paul?" Jonathan asked Anna quietly.
She shrugged, not caring particularly at that moment. "Do you know that man who sent you the note?" she asked.
"I may have met him somewhere. I don't recognize him. Why?"
"If you ever see him again, you really should drop a hint about his clothing. Unless, of course, he wants to be taken for a music hall singer or an American."
"I'll do that. If I ever see him again."
Anderl's attention was snagged by the two young twits of the day before who passed the window and waved at him. With a shrug of fatalistic inevitability, he excused himself and stepped out to join them.
Immediately afterward, Karl invited Anna to join him in a stroll to the village.
And within three minutes of Pope's appearance, the company was reduced to Jonathan and Ben. For a time they sat sipping their cool coffee in silence. When he looked casually around, Jonathan saw that Pope had left.
"Hey, ol' buddy? What's got into John-Paul?" Ben had changed from the mispronunciation based on print to one based on ear.
"Just jumpy, I guess."
"Now, jumpy's a fine quality in a climber. But he's more than jumpy. He's pissed off about something. You been drilling his wife?"
Jonathan had to laugh at the directness of the question. "No, Ben. I haven't."
"You're sure?"
"It's a thing I'd know."
"Yeah, I guess. About the last thing you guys need is bad blood. I can just see you on the face, thumping on each other with ice axes."
The image was not alien to Jonathan's imagination.