Top of the Hill, page 20
“A pity,” Mr. Heggener said.
“I envy you,” Michael said. “You have a fine place here.”
“So they tell me,” Mr. Heggener said. “My accountants, I am happy to say, also reassure me. Hotelkeeping, if one keeps a proper distance from the inevitable daily annoyances, can be a very satisfactory profession. It is a little like being the captain of a ship. One is the master, one charts the course, as it were, one can pick the most pleasant ports of call. One can invite the most interesting of the passengers to one’s table to entertain you, as we have had the good fortune to invite you . . .”
Michael laughed. “I’m afraid it’s the other way around. You’ve been entertaining me.”
“Ah,” Mr. Heggener said, sighing with mock theatricality, “I do like an active listener, I must confess, and I impose myself when I have one captive.” Having satisfied himself with this apology, he went on sonorously, his neat white beard moving rhythmically, “As I was saying, one meets a great variety of people, all of them finally astounding in their various views of life, one hears all the gossip, which is dear to an old Viennese’s heart. . .”
“You haven’t been back to Vienna in two years,” Eva said sullenly, as though the mention of the city had touched some old wound within her.
“True.” Mr. Heggener waved his hand airily. “Which is why I can be sentimental about it after a good dinner. Despite its bustle and the stability of the schilling, if one is in Vienna for any length of time, there is no avoiding the feeling that you are visiting a crumbling museum, making glorious statements about the past and keeping a glum silence about the future. But enough of Vienna. I was speaking of the metier I was lucky enough to inherit. As I was saying, one must keep a proper distance to enjoy it. I am lucky there, too. I live almost half a mile away and I have an excellent manager here, whom, rightly or wrongly, I believe to be honest, to listen to the complaints about mistaken bookings or cold meals or leaky pipes or crying children. And I can contrive to be absent when cooks leave on holiday evenings and when chambermaids discover they are pregnant.”
Rita had come up silently behind him with a tray holding a bottle of cognac and three small glasses and was waiting until Mr. Heggener stopped talking for a moment so that she could put the tray down on the table before him. If she had heard his words about pregnant chambermaids, her face didn’t show it. “Ah, thank you, Rita,” Mr. Heggener said, slightly embarrassed when he realized she was there. “Just put everything down here on the table.” He watched while the girl placed the bottle and the three glasses in front of him. “And Rita,” he said, “you must go off to sleep now. Since there was nobody to talk to in the hospital I am liable to talk all night here and I mustn’t allow my garrulousness to deprive you of the rest your youth demands. Go, go, child, and sleep well.”
“Thank you,” Rita said and slipped off silently.
Heggener poured the cognac carefully, but with relish. He raised his glass. “To the best of all possible winters.”
They drank to the best of all possible winters, although Eva barely touched the glass to her lips.
“Ah,” said Heggener, sniffing the brandy, “my soul was correct, and the doctors, as usual, in error.” He turned his head and looked at the door through which Rita had disappeared into the kitchen. “Eva,” he said to Michael, “has told me about the interesting conversation you had with our charming Rita this morning.”
“She’s a lovely skier,” Michael said. “With some coaching, she might amount to something, even race.”
“And why not?” Heggener said. “In the field of athletics, the blacks of this country—by the way, I am an American citizen, Mr. Storrs, if that is of any importance to you—the blacks are a great natural resource. One has only to look at a game of football or baseball on the television to see how many of them there are, how beautifully they play, with what skill and ferocity and determination, how they excel. Perhaps if we could persuade enough of them to put on skis, we would finally do better than a place or two in the first ten in every other Olympics.”
“Your broad-mindedness does credit to you, Andreas,” Eva said, with a touch of sarcasm in her voice, “but you forget, the blacks have never congregated in the mountains in America.”
“Perhaps we should invite them to altitude,” Mr. Heggener said. “Perhaps in my will I shall leave a fund for that express purpose. One of my disappointments as a young man was that I never could win a race. Maybe after I’m gone my money will win one for me.” He laughed, and white, even young man’s teeth, his own, showed above the trim white beard. “It’s an intriguing idea. Maybe from wherever I am I will be able to lean down and shout, soundlessly, of course, ‘More wax, more wax!’ to one of my dark proteges.”
“You’ve skied, Mr. Heggener?” Michael asked. Somehow, it was hard to imagine the frail figure in the chair opposite him, with the plaid blanket thrown over his shoulders, as ever having been robust enough to cope with snow.
“After all, my dear Mr. Storrs,” Mr. Heggener said, “I was born in Austria. Yes, I skied. And I have a limp to prove it.” He laughed, then looked at Michael seriously. “Skiing, I take it, is not your profession?”
“No,” Michael said, but added nothing more.
“I didn’t think so. I mean nothing disparaging by that, I assure you.”
“He also hang-glides,” Eva said. The disapproval was plain in her voice.
“Oh,” Michael said, “you recognized me.” She had not spoken about it before, nor had he to her.
“I certainly did,” Eva said. “I hope you’ve had your flight for the winter. The ski school is shorthanded enough as it is. At least wait until spring before you kill yourself.”
“It looks more dashing than it is,” Michael said.
“I’ve read the stories,” Eva said. “I saw the picture of one of the champions hanging dead on a high-tension wire in California.”
“He overrated himself.”
“You don’t overrate yourself?” By now she was frankly hostile, baiting him, and Michael wondered what her husband was thinking about this argumentative familiarity.
“I try not to,” Michael said mildly.
“Hang-gliding,” Mr. Heggener said, musingly, as though he had absented himself momentarily from the conversation. “Kin to the birds.” He made a swooping graceful motion with his pale hand. “Every generation finds a new way to risk its neck. A new adventure. To say nothing of that old, permanent adventure. War.” He poured some more cognac in the pause that followed the ominous word. He swished the brandy around in his glass and sniffed it. “Luckily,” he said, “I was too young. And nobody was quite sure what side I was on. Adventure. And you, Mr. Storrs—have you had your war?”
“No, thank you,” Michael said, uneasy with the question and not prepared to answer it honestly. “I was offered Vietnam, but luckily I was deprived of it. Anyway, I don’t consider war an adventure. I don’t mind risking my neck, I suppose, but not if it means killing anybody.”
“An admirable sentiment,” Mr. Heggener said. “Not widespread enough, I’m afraid.” He made a brisk motion of his hands. “We were talking about professions. Mrs. Heggener has told me certain things about you, but she has been vague about that. If you don’t mind my asking, what is yours?”
“I suppose you could call it business,” Michael said uncomfortably.
“A wide field,” Mr. Heggener said. “More explicitly . . . ?” He sounded apologetic. “I don’t like to be inquisitive, but it seems as though we are going to be rather closely . . . ah . . . connected . . . this season. . . . Eva has told me she’s offered you the cottage and I am delighted . . . and it might make it more comfortable if a certain exchange of information takes place. You must realize that you are not the ordinary type of young man one picks out of the ski school. . . .”
“My business?” Michael said. “It used to be dollars and cents. No more. As you said about doctors, my accountants said no, but my soul said otherwise.”
“Ah, well,” Mr. Heggener said, “leave it for another time.”
The manager came into the room, treading softly. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said in a low voice to Eva, “but there’s a call in the office for you.”
“Thank you,” Eva said to the manager and got up and Michael stood, as did Mr. Heggener, although with difficulty.
Mr. Heggener looked after his wife, his eyes sad, as though he never expected her to return. “Another cognac?” He put his hand on the bottle.
“No, thank you.”
Mr. Heggener played idly with the bottle, twisting it on the table. “I suppose,” he said, “you’ve heard that I’m dying?”
“I’ve heard.”
“I’m a medical rarity,” Mr. Heggener said, almost with relish at the distinction. “I have tuberculosis. Nowadays almost instantly curable by antibiotics. But I seem to have the honor of being afflicted by a new, clever, resistant strain. The hazards of progress. No matter. I have had a good life, I am no longer young and I am for the moment in a state of remission, as the doctors call it, that I am enjoying these days, when all things again seem possible to me. If it weren’t for Eva, I’d gladly just turn my head to the wall and go. But she means a great deal to me. More than I show to anyone. Maybe more than I show to her.”
He must have been drinking before he came downstairs, Michael thought, talking to me like that.
“She has her seasonal young men,” Mr. Heggener went on matter-of-factly. “You, I would say, are infinitely more acceptable than the ones who have gone before you . . .”
“Mr. Heggener . . .” Michael began.
“Please don’t protest, Mr. Storrs. I have gone through too much and have worn too thin to indulge in that worst of passions—jealousy. She is more like a beloved daughter to me than a wife, if you, at your age, can understand that. However, let me say . . .” He stopped, then spoke after another pause. “By the way, do you hunt, Mr. Storrs?”
“What has that got to do with it?” Michael asked, bewildered.
“I have hunted a great deal in my life. That stag whose head is over the fireplace in the cottage which Mrs. Heggener has offered you was shot by me. It is one of the passions of my life. I have no patience with the pseudo-humanitarians who eat steak and deplore the killing of game. Which would you rather be—a stag shot down with one shot on a green hillside, or a poor castrated steer dragged squealing into a slaughterhouse? Well, I won’t argue the case. However, as I was saying, I am a hunter and I killed a man. An accident, naturally, such as happens every hunting season. One of my best friends. Unfortunately, he had degraded my wife. We both attended his funeral. This was in Austria, some time ago. The deer are plentiful in Vermont. Perhaps we can hunt together when the season opens. Eva says you are considering staying here permanently. I’m sure you would not regret it if you decide in our favor. The autumns here are magnificent.”
Eva Heggener came back into the dining room, her black gown swishing around her legs, the pearls and the gold brooch shining in the firelight.
“Anything wrong, dear?” Mr. Heggener asked.
“Nothing,” Eva said. “An old friend of mine from Boston. She wanted to know if she could have rooms for her family over the holiday. You know them—the Hortons.”
“Charming family,” Mr. Heggener said. “Charming. And now, dear, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you helped me upstairs and turned on a little Brahms while we prepare for bed. Ah—Eva has told me you play backgammon. Perhaps we can have a game or two tomorrow evening. And now goodnight, and thank you for a most enjoyable evening.”
“I thank you,” Michael said stiffly. “Goodnight, madam. Goodnight, sir.”
“Goodnight, Michael,” Eva said. With her husband leaning on her for support, the blanket floating loosely around his shoulders, she led him slowly out of the dining room.
Michael sat stiffly for a moment. “Whew!” he said to himself.
There were footsteps behind him and he turned. Rita came toward him from the kitchen. “Is there anything more you need, Mr. Storrs?”
“I thought you’d gone to bed.”
“I don’t like to leave while there’s anybody in the dining room. Is there anything . . . ?”
“Nothing, thank you, Rita.”
Rita began to clear the table. “You look disturbed, Mr. Storrs,” she said.
“Me?” he said. “What would I have to be disturbed about?”
“Then goodnight, Mr. Storrs. Sleep well.” Carrying glasses and the bottle of cognac on a tray, she went out, turning out the lights as she went.
Michael didn’t move, then rubbed his eyes wearily. From above he heard the opening strains of the Brahms Variations on a Theme by Haydn. He looked up at the ceiling and smiled wryly, then dropped his head on his chest and sat staring into the fire, listening to the faint music from the room two floors above him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You cost me a good hour’s sleep,” Cully grumbled as Michael came out of the hotel. It was just a little past dawn. The tops of the mountains were rosy, but the valley was still in shadow. The slalom poles were stowed in back of the ski school pickup truck. Michael had prevailed upon Cully to put them up so that they could see how well Rita could handle a descent with gates set close together. Michael had skied again with Rita, a whole morning, and now it was time to find out how she would do on a real course. Skiing, even very good skiing, was one thing, but running gates was another. So Cully had arranged with Harold Jones for the lift to start an hour earlier than usual so that they would have a clear slope for the test.
Michael had gone to bed early, to be fresh for the morning. He had not been disturbed. The Heggeners still were in their rooms on the third floor of the lodge because Mr. Heggener was waiting for an antique chair he had picked out himself to be reupholstered, saying crankily, playing the invalid, “I want everything to be in place so when I walk in I’ll feel completely at home.”
So there had been no nighttime visits from Eva. And the Heggeners had dined in their rooms, so Michael had eaten alone and spent the evenings reading. He had seen Mr. Heggener, at a distance, walking, with his cane, once or twice, but they had not spoken to each other since their dinner together. They had not as yet played backgammon.
Michael had skied twice more with Eva, but she hadn’t said anything about her husband’s conversation over the dinner table and Michael had not brought the matter up, although he thought about it constantly and was both eager and reluctant to know more about the frail Austrian gentleman. In his mind he couldn’t quite accept him as an American. No American had ever confided in him that he had shot a very good friend because he had degraded his wife
Michael had started giving small hints about position on skis and the distribution of weight to Eva, and meticulous and controlled as she was in everything, she had been quick to follow his instructions and after one swift run had said, gaily, “By the end of the season you’ll have made me a skier.”
“You were a skier before you ever saw me.”
“I mean a skier,” she said.
Cully drove over the rough roads, the old pickup bumping on broken springs, his weather-beaten face wrinkled in a scowl. “I don’t know how you talked me into this,” he said, sounding surly. “I’ve never done it for anybody else.”
“Come on, now, Dave,” Michael said, jolting on the broken passenger’s seat, “the kid’s in heaven.”
“I’m not,” Cully said. He was, Michael had found out, unwilling to give the appearance of softness in any way and he always made it seem that any act of generosity on his part surprised him unpleasantly.
When they arrived at the parking lot, Rita was waiting for them, her skis on. She must have walked here in the dark to meet us, Michael thought, as he waved to her.
They pulled out the slalom poles and, with Cully carrying half of them and Michael the other half, started toward the lift, with Rita skating alongside them, her face tense with excitement. Harold Jones saw them approaching and started the lift. “What the hell are you doing here at this hour,” he asked his daughter. Obviously, Rita had kept the morning’s experiment secret from her father.
“They’re going to see how well I do in a slalom, Daddy,” Rita said.
“Love of God,” Jones grumbled. “What the hell next?” But he held the chair for her. As Michael and Cully stepped into their skis, Rita went up alone.
“Racing now.” Harold Jones looked disapprovingly up at his daughter being carried up the mountain. “As though there isn’t enough trouble. Sometimes I wish I’d been bom on the lone prairie
with not a hill within a thousand miles. Now, listen, Dave,” he said to Cully, “don’t give her any wild ideas about how great she is. If she’s lousy I depend upon you to tell her so.”
“Don’t worry, Harold,” Cully said, as he slipped into the chair that Jones held back for him, “the truth will out. And thanks for getting up so early.”
“I don’t know why I did it,” Jones said as he let the chair go. “If I’d known it was for Rita, I’d’ve stayed in bed. Still no broken bones, young fella?” Jones said to Michael as Michael sat down and adjusted the slalom poles.
“Give me time,” Michael said.
“She thinks you’re Godalmighty wonderful,” Jones said. “My kid. Just don’t teach her no somersaults.” He gave Michael’s chair an v extra hard push and the chair swung as it began to climb.
Cully and Rita were already going across the traverse on the top of the hill when Michael arrived at the end of the lift and skied off it. He saw that Cully was heading for the Black Knight. He hurried after them and caught up with Cully. Rita, not encumbered by the slalom poles, was ahead of them. “Dave,” Michael said in a low voice, so that Rita couldn’t hear him, “why don’t you start her on something more mellow?”
“Might as well know the worst right off,” Cully said.
Rita helped them place the gates on the clear slope after the glade with the boulder in the middle of it. At least, Michael saw, as she skied surely on the steep face, she doesn’t suffer from vertigo.
