The Lonely Skier

by Hammond Innes

  I watched the Contessa rise and put on her skis. She did not once glance in my direction. The incident might never have happened. She took the dapper little Valdini out on to the snow for a moment’s conversation. Then, with a flash of her sticks, she swooped out of sight down the slalom run to Tre Croci. As he came back, Valdini darted a quick glance at me.

  We had lunch out on the belvedere and, afterwards, Joe went out with his camera and a pair of borrowed snow-shoes and I retired to my room to start work on the script. But I could not settle down. I could not concentrate. My mind kept wandering to the mystery of Engles’ interest in Col da Varda. First the story of Heinrich Stelben’s arrest. Now the Contessa Forelli, who looked so like Carla. It was stretching coincidence too far to believe that there was no connection. And what was it about the place that drew them here? If only Engles had told me more. But perhaps he hadn’t known much more. The slittovia was beginning to dominate my thoughts as it dominated the rifugio. I could hear it even up in my bedroom, a low, grating drone whenever the sleigh came up or went down. And in the bar, which was right over the concrete machine room, the sound of it was almost deafening.

  At length I gave up any attempt to write. I tapped out a report for Engles and went down to the bar in time to see Joe returning with his camera. The snow-shoes were circular contraptions fixed to his boots. He looked like a great clumsy elephant as he floundered up the slope of the Cortina run. The day visit-ors had all left long ago and it was getting dark and very cold outside. The rifugio seemed shrinking into itself for the night. Aldo stoked up the great tiled stove and we gravitated naturally to the bar and anisetto.

  It was whilst we were standing round the bar that an incident occurred that is worth recording. It was a small thing—or appeared so at the time—yet it was very definitely a part of the pattern of events. There were four of us there at the time—Joe Wesson and myself, Valdini and the new arrival, who had introduced himself as Gilbert Mayne. He was Irish, but by his conversation appeared to have seen a good deal of the world, particularly the States.

  Valdini had been trying to pump me about that photograph. It was difficult to put him off. He was what schoolboys would call ‘bumptious.’ You hit him and he bounced. He had a hide like a brontosaurus. But in the end I managed to convince him that I regarded the matter as being of little importance and that I really felt that I had made a foolish mistake. The talk gradually drifted to strange means of conveyance, such as the slittovia. Mayne, I remember, was talking about riding the tubs on overhead haulage gear, when the cable machinery began to drone under our feet. The steady grinding sound of it made conversation almost impossible. The whole room seemed to shake. ‘Who’d be coming up as late as this?’ Mayne asked.

  Valdini looked up from cleaning his nails with a match-stick. ‘That will be the other visitor here. He is a Greek. His name is Keramikos. Why he stays here I do not know. I think he likes Cortina better.’ He grinned and, transferring the match-stick to his mouth, began to pick his teeth. ‘He is of the Left. He knows all that transpires politically in Greece. And he likes the women. The Contessa, for instance—he cannot take his eyes off her. He gloats, as you would say.’ And he sucked his teeth obscenely.

  The sound of the slittovia slowed and ceased. Valdini kept on talking. ‘He reminds me of a Greek business man I once knew,’ he continued. ‘I was running a boat on the Nile. It was beautiful and very profitable. For tired business men, you know. The gairls were all hand-picked.’ The way he said ‘gairls’ made it sound like a breed of animals. ‘It was a sort of show boat.’

  ‘You mean a floating brothel,’ Joe grunted. ‘Why the hell don’t you call things by their proper names? Anyway, I don’t find the subject a particularly pleasing one. I’m not interested in your brothels.’

  ‘But, Mistair Wesson, it is so sordid the way you talk about it. It was beautiful, you understand. There was the moonlight. The moon is lovely on the Nile. And there was the music. It was a very good business. And this Greek—I forget his name—he was a wealthy business man from Alexandria—always he wanted a different gairl. He was a gold mine. I made a great deal—’ He stopped then because he realised that we were not listening.

  Whilst he had been talking brisk steps had sounded on the boarding of the belvedere. Then the door had opened and the cold dark of the outside world had invaded the warm room. I suppose we had all been watching the door with some interest. One is always interested in getting the first glimpse of a person one is expected to live with in an isolated place. It was mere idle curiosity.

  But the man who entered stopped in the doorway at the sight of the four of us grouped about the bar. He seemed rooted to the spot, his thick-set body framed in the dark gap like a statue in its niche. He was looking at Mayne. And Mayne had stiffened. His tall figure was tensed. It was only for a second. And during that second the atmosphere was electric. Then Mayne turned to the bar and ordered another round of drinks. The Greek closed the door and came over to the bar. Everything was suddenly normal again.

  I was convinced Mayne and the Greek had recognised each other. But there was no indication of this as the Greek came over to us and introduced himself. He was stockily built with a round face and blue eyes that peered short-sightedly through thick-lensed, rimless glasses. His light brown hair was very thin on top and his neck was short, so that his head seemed to be set straight into the wide powerful shoulders.

  He spoke good English in a low, rather thick voice. He had a way of thrusting his head forward when making a point, a mannerism which gave him a somewhat belligerent air.

  Only once throughout the evening did anything occur to support my theory that he and Mayne had met before. We were discussing the revolt of the Greek Brigade in Egypt during the war. Keramikos was extremely well informed on the details of it. So well informed, in fact, that Joe suddenly emerged from a prolonged silence and said quietly, ‘You talk as though you organised the whole damned thing.’ I could have sworn the Greek exchanged a quick glance with Mayne. It was not a friendly glance. It was as though on that point they were on common ground.

  One other thing occurred that night that seemed strange to me. Engles had wanted full information on the people staying at Col da Varda, so I decided to send him a photograph of them. After dinner, I persuaded Joe to get his Leica and take a few shots of the group at the bar. I told him I wanted the shots to prove to Engles that the hut would have more atmosphere than a hotel for the indoor scenes. Little Valdini was delighted when Joe came in with his camera and began posing immediately. But when Mayne and Keramikos saw it, they turned their backs and began talking earnestly. Joe asked them to face the camera and Mayne said over his shoulder, ‘We’re not part of your film company, you know.’

  Joe grunted and took a few pictures. But only Valdini and Aldo were facing the camera. I began to ask him questions about the camera. I knew perfectly well how it worked, but I was determined to get a picture of those two. He let me handle it and I took it over to the bar under the light. The cuckoo suddenly sprang out of the clock. ‘Cuckoo! Cuckoo!’ Mayne and Keramikos looked up, startled, and I snapped them.

  At the click of the camera, Mayne turned to me. ‘Did you take a photograph?’ he asked, and there was a note of anger in his voice.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘Why?’

  He looked at me hard. He had cold, light-coloured eyes.

  ‘He does not like being photographed,’ Valdini said, and there was malice in his tone.

  Mayne’s eyes hardened with anger. But he said nothing to Valdini and turned back with a casual air to continue his conversation with Keramikos.

  These are small things, but they stood out like wrong notes in a smoothly played piece of music. I had a strange feeling that all these people—Valdini, Keramikos and Mayne—were suppressing violent antipathy beneath a casual exterior.

  Shortly after breakfast the next morning I left for Cortina. Mayne came with me. I had mentioned the auction to him the previous night and he h
ad expressed a desire to come. As we were leaving, we passed Joe cursing a pair of skis on to his feet. ‘Feel like a pair of canoes,’ he grumbled. ‘Six years since I did this. Doubt if my blood pressure will stand it. If I break my neck, I’ll sue Engles for it. But I can’t get the pictures I want otherwise.’ He had a small movie camera slung round his neck. ‘If I’m not back by tea-time, Neil, you’d better call out the bloodhounds. Where are you off to?’

  When I told him, he gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘Far be it from me to come between you and what you apparently regard as amusement, old man,’ he said. ‘But Engles is expecting a script out of you. And he detests slow workers.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh, well, you know the man. But maybe he was less exacting in the Army. With a film unit, he just isn’t human. Why do you think I’m putting on these damned things?’

  I thanked him, for he meant it kindly. He wasn’t to know that Engles had already got a script.

  It was a glorious morning. The sky was blue. The sun shone. But the world was deathly still. No birds sang in the dark fir woods. In all that glistening country there was no sign of life. The slittovia was even more terrifying going down. We sat facing the rifugio—or rather we lay on our backs facing it. And we travelled down through the lane between the firs backwards. As though by mutual consent we talked. And the talk developed into a comparison of the merits of various Italian composers. Mayne knew his opera and hummed snatches to illustrate his points. He preferred the gay swiftness of The Barber and the subtle comedy of lesser known operas, like I Quatri Rustici, to the heavier pieces. In this we differed, for Traviata is my favourite. But we were on common ground in our enthusiasm for the spectacle of Aida, played beneath a full moon in the open-air theatre in Rome with the colossal, shadowy bulk of the Baths of Caracalla as its setting. I must confess that, at that moment, I liked his company immensely.

  As we came into Cortina by car, the streets were full of ski-ers moving out to the various runs. They were a gaily coloured throng, their tanned faces glowing with the cold mountain air. The little town, with its gables and high, pencil-sharp church steeple, looked bright and gay in the sunlight. There were tourists wandering the snow-piled pavements, gazing in the shop windows or sitting in steamy-windowed cafés drinking coffee and cognac. The two overhead cable railways—the funivias—stretched out their cables, like antennae, on either side of the town. The one to the left climbed to Mandres in one cable jump and then scaled the heights of Faloria in a single sweep. It was just possible to make out the line of the cable, like a frail thread, and the little red car against the sun-warmed brown of the Faloria cliffs. On the other side of the town, a shorter cable made one bound to the rounded knoll of Pocol, with its hotels and the slittovias leading to the more advanced runs—Col Druscie and the Tofana Olympic run.

  I left Mayne at the Luna and then went on to the officio della posta where I caught the air mail with my second report to Engles and the roll of film. When I arrived at the Splendido, Mancini was drinking in the bar with several fellow hoteliers. He greeted me as though I were the one person he had been waiting for. He had great ability as a host. ‘You must have a drink, Mr Blair,’ he said. ‘The Luna is always so cold.’ And he grinned like a playful lion at a thin, neat little Italian, whom I guessed to be the owner of the Gran’ Albergo Luna. ‘A large Martini—yes? It will prevent ennui. Then we will go and buy the slittovia. Afterwards we will celebrate. Whenever one of us buys something, we all celebrate. It is the excuse. Always there must be the excuse.’

  The lounge of the Luna was warm and cosy when we arrived. There were between twenty and thirty people there—all men and mostly Italian. They had the indifference of spectators. They were not there to buy. They were there because it was a social function and there would be drinks afterwards. They crowded round Mancini, laughing and chattering, congratulating him on his latest acquisition. Mayne was sunk in an easy-chair with a tall glass in front of him. I went across and joined him. He pulled up a chair and ordered me a drink. But he did not seem interested in conversation. He was watching the scene closely. His interest switched suddenly to the door. I followed the direction of his gaze and was surprised to see that Valdini had entered. He moved jauntily with an air of colossal self-importance. This morning it was a darker suiting with a sheen of mauve in it. The shirt was cream-coloured and the tie red, shot with blue flashes of forked lightning. ‘What’s Valdini doing here?’ I asked. ‘Shouldn’t have thought he would have been interested in an auction.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Mayne spoke softly, as though to himself, and there was a puzzled frown on his dark handsome face.

  Then the auctioneer entered. He moved with the self-conscious air of a man about to conjure something out of a hat. You felt there should have been a fanfare of trumpets to herald that entrance. He moved through the room as though it were an audience, bowing to acquaintances, pausing a moment here and there to shake a hand. You felt it was his moment. He had two waiters hovering behind him. He indicated a table. He had it moved. He chose a chair. It was placed ready for him. He tossed his papers on to the table. The maitre d’hotel brought on his hammer and set it carefully on the polished table top. An imaginary fleck of dust was hastily removed. Then finally, the auctioneer settled himself behind the table. He beat upon the top of it dramatically. The room began to settle itself. Mancini moved to a vacant table just near me. The pack followed at his heels. He pulled his chair next to me. ‘He is amusing—yes?’ he said, nodding towards the auctioneer.

  ‘The entrance was nicely handled,’ I said.

  He smiled and nodded. ‘We are a theatrical race,’ he said. ‘That is why, when an Italian is executed, he dies well. He may not like the result, but he enjoys the moment. Now, you will see. We shall be very quiet and he will talk for a long time. We know this slittovia as well as we know our own hotels. But he will describe it to us as though we had never seen it. He will make the lyric of the description. He will become excited. He will make gestures. It will be the grand performance. And then, when he is exhausted, I shall make the bid and it will be sold for what has already been arranged. It is all very un-English,’ he added with a sly twinkle. ‘But I am glad you are amused. If you were not amused, you would be bored, and that would make me sad.’

  The hammer crashed on to the table top again. The room stopped talking. The curtain had been rung up. The performance had begun. The auctioneer began reading the conditions of sale. He slipped through it rapidly. It gave him no scope. But then came the reasons for the sale. He told of its original purchase by the ‘miserable’ Sordini from the collaborator who had once owned the Excelsiore. He told of Sordini’s arrest, of the ‘world-shaking’ news that he was Heinrich Stelben, a German war criminal wanted for the most ‘terrible, fearful and blood-thirsty crimes against the Italian and British peoples.’ He drew a word portrait of this ‘madman.’ He touched briefly on the crimes of the ‘terrible tedesci,’ and barely saved himself from a short history of how the Italian people had been ‘roused by terrible and barbaric acts’ and had forced the ‘hated’ Germans to surrender. Then suddenly, pianissimo, he began to describe the slittovia and the hut on Col da Varda. Gradually he whipped himself into a lyrical frenzy—it was a ‘stupendous’ opportunity for an astute business man with ‘grand’ ideas, an incredibly beautiful property, thoroughly equipped by ‘brilliant German engineers,’ a ‘small hotel with finer panoramic views than the Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden.’

  Then suddenly his voice ceased. The room was silent as though the performance had taken everyone’s breath away. At any moment I expected a wild outburst of applause. Surely they must demand an encore. But the room remained silent. The auctioneer ran his fingers through his long hair, which had fallen in dank strands across his face. His thin features wore a disappointed look. He pushed his glasses farther back on his long nose and offered the property for sale in a cold matter-of-fact voice.

  ‘Due centi cinquanta mille.’ Mancini’s voice was quiet and there w
as a tired air of finality about the offer. A quarter of a million lire. The auctioneer pretended to be aggrieved. That was the low reserve placed on the property by the Government. Mancini had doubtless put in some hard social work to get the figure down as low as that. The auctioneer called for further bids. But he knew it was hopeless. He knew it was all arranged. His brief moment was over. He was no longer interested. He gave a shrug and raised his hammer.

  ‘Tre centi mille.’ The voice was quiet and smooth. A sudden flood of surprised volubility swept the room. Heads were turned, necks craned. I knew the voice before I picked out his neat little figure strategically placed where the sunlight fell on him in a shaft from one of the tall windows. It was Valdini. His chest, gaily coloured like the plumage of some elaborate tropical fowl, was puffed out importantly. His dark rubbery face beamed as he held the limelight.

  Mancini was talking rapidly to the men around him. He was literally quivering with anger. I turned to Mayne to make some comment. But he did not appear to hear me. He was leaning forward, gazing at Valdini with intense interest. He was smiling slightly and there was a glint in his eyes—of amusement or excitement, I could not tell which.

  The auctioneer was clearly astonished. He asked Valdini if he had heard correctly. Valdini repeated his bid—three hundred thousand lire. All eyes were turned to Mancini, to see what the great man would do. He had recovered himself. One of his friends slipped quietly out of the room. Mancini lit a cigarette, settled himself more comfortably in his chair and raised the bidding ten thousand.

  Valdini did not hesitate. He went straight up to four hundred thousand. ‘And ten,’ said Mancini. ‘Fifty,’ came from the window. Mancini raised to sixty. Valdini jumped to five hundred thousand. So it went on, Mancini going up in tens and Valdini in fifties till they hit the million. Word of the duel had spread quickly through the hotel. People were standing thick about the door.