Top of the Hill, page 23
Susan looked demurely at him and held the glass with two hands to her lips, like a small girl innocently drinking her morning milk.
After lunch, Michael took Antoine down to town to outfit him, while Susan went upstairs to take what she called her beauty nap.
“Well, now,” Michael said as Antoine came down the stairs from his room, dressed in his new outfit, with the high plastic boots clumping, “at least you look like a skier.” He took Antoine up a small footpath that ran to a knoll behind the hotel. From the top of the knoll there was a gentle slope, well covered with snow, that could not be seen from the hotel and that ended in a copse of trees about seventy-five yards away. They put on their skis and Michael said, “Okay, start down.”
Antoine started down shakily. Michael could see that he hadn’t been lying—he had been on skis before. But not often. He was completely stiff, as though he had just been taken out of a deep-freeze compartment, his skis were far apart and wobbling, his arms were immobile, like those of a statue. After ten yards he fell. Michael skied down to him and looked pityingly at him, sprawled in the snow.
“Good God, man. Can’t you even stand?”
“These things slide” Antoine said pathetically.
“I’m afraid that’s the whole idea.” He helped Antoine up. Antoine was sweating already.
“Now watch me,” Michael said and skied slowly, making two turns, calling back, “Loose, loose, skis together,” then said, “Oh, Christ,” as Antoine fell again.
“Remember,” Antoine said, struggling once more to his feet, “this is only my first day.”
“In how many years?” Michael said. “Forty?”
“I had a sergeant in the French Army,” Antoine complained, “who was like a mother to me, compared to you.” With a look of concentrated determination on his face he started downwards again. He teetered, his arms made wild circles in the air, one ski got out of control and he nearly split in half and he wound up in the snow again in a kneeling position, just as a little boy, aged perhaps nine, skiing without poles, sped down from the knoll and stopped and looked at Antoine, kneeling as if in church. The little boy grinned widely.
“Get out of here, you,” Michael yelled at him. The boy, grinning even more widely, sped off and into the woods.
“Hopeless,” Michael said, not bothering to help Antoine up this time.
“If I’d had a gun I’d’ve shot that little bastard.”
“Hopeless,” Michael repeated.
“Remember,” Antoine said, “I have two weeks.”
“You won’t make it in two years.”
“You’re undermining my confidence,” Antoine said aggrievedly.
“It’s the least I can do for you.” Michael scratched his head thoughtfully.
“Listen, Mike . . .” Antoine began.
“Keep quiet,” Michael said. “I’m thinking. I’m trying to see if there’s anything I can do for you aside from shipping you back to France. If Cully doesn’t wait two weeks to see how you ski and looks you over tomorrow, as he’s very likely to do, it’s farewell in ten seconds.”
“Don’t sound so pessimistic, Mike.”
“I said, be quiet, I’m thinking.” Michael made a little circle in the snow with the tip of his pole. “I’ve never done anything like this before, Antoine,” he said, “but I am now going to plan to aid and abet a felony or at least a misdemeanor. I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. Now, listen carefully. Tonight, we’re going to go to the most crowded bar in town. Ski teachers, the hotshot kids of the town. I’m going to introduce you as the French bullet. . .”
“There is no need to exaggerate,” Antoine said uneasily.
“Shut up. The bar is on the ground floor, but there’s a kind of balcony on one side and there’s a flight of stairs going up to it and the men’s room is off it. At a certain point, when I give the signal, you’re going to go up the steps. Then, after the men’s room, when you start coming down, you’re going to slip . . .”
“Mike, don’t let your imagination run away with you, I beg you,” Antoine said plaintively.
“Do you want to get a job or don’t you?”
“I am in your hands,” Antoine said, surrendering. “I am going to slip.”
“You fall all the way down the flight of stairs.”
“If I hurt my hands I will never earn a living for the rest of my life.”
“Keep your hands out of the way. When you reach the bottom, you’re going to moan heartrendingly with pain. You’re going to grab your ankle. You’re going to gasp that you think you’ve broken your leg. I’m going to say that I’ll take you to a doctor. Only we don’t go to a doctor. .
“You are enjoying this scenario,” Antoine said reproachfully. “You are devoid of human feeling.”
Implacably, Michael went on. “I’ll take you to the hotel, where I’ll have bandages ready and I’ll tape your ankle. I’ll put so much tape on it it’ll look like a balloon. Susan will have to play along with us. Tell her you’ll strangle her if she laughs. Every night, for two weeks, I’ll take you out and give you lessons. If necessary, finally, I’ll let Cully in on it. In two weeks you should look as though you can at least teach children, although you’ll have to be prepared to unzip their pants when they have to pee and zip them up again when they’re finished.”
“I don’t like the way you’re smiling, Michael,” Antoine said.
“Cully’s a friend and maybe he has a sense of humor,” Michael said, “and he needs instructors. If you perfect your act, he’ll probably go along with you. If you don’t pass inspection after the two weeks, unless you get a job playing the piano, you let it be known that you have a job waiting for you in New York and you get out of town? Compris?”
“You’re a bastard, Mike, you know that?”
“On the contrary, I’m your friend. I’m trying to keep you from being arrested for taking money under false pretenses. Now, climb up this insignificant little pimple of a slope and try to come down in one piece.”
“I’m exhausted.”
“Wait till you see how you feel after an hour more,” Michael said grimly. “Remember, this was your idea.”
Antoine groaned and started laboriously climbing the little hill.
The Chimney Corner was the name of the bar. It was an easygoing place where everybody talked to everybody else. Michael had liked hanging around there when he had spent the winter in the town during his post-college holiday. The wood beams of the ceiling and the paneling on the walls were darker from the smoke of the intervening years and the photographs of famous skiers of the past hanging above the great fireplace now looked like mementos of a much earlier America. The people at the bar and lounging around at the tables all looked terribly young to Michael and he guessed that he was older by at least a decade than anybody else in the room. There was a jukebox in a comer which was blessedly silent and a battered upright paino to one side of the fireplace. As Michael and Antoine and Susan sat down at a table, Antoine stared apprehensively at the flight of stairs leading up to the balcony.
Jimmy Davis, the owner of the bar, with whom Michael had drunk on many a long winter evening, came over and Michael made the introductions. “How’s your skiing?” Michael asked. They had often skied together. Davis was fat but very nimble and even under the worst conditions of snow and weather was unfailingly cheerful.
“My skiing?” Davis said. “It’s just about nonexistent. My wife talked me into opening for lunch and even though I wonder why anybody pays to eat the food I serve, I’m working on my first million. So it keeps me tied down here. But I’ll sneak away an afternoon or two if you can’t find anybody else crazy enough to follow you. What’ll it be, ladies and gentlemen, the first round is on the house.”
They ordered whiskeys and Davis himself brought them over. “That piano in tune?” Michael asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” Davis said. “Nobody’s played on it yet this year. Why? You want to give us a concert?”
“My friend, Antoine here, might play us a tune. He’s a famous pianist from France.”
“Be my guest,” Davis said to Antoine. “A famous French pianist might just be what we need to tone up the joint.”
The room was filling now and Michael said, “Jimmy—have you instituted a new rule here—nobody over the age of twenty allowed in after ten o’clock?”
Davis chuckled, but a little sadly. “It’s true, they get younger and younger. Or at least that’s what it looks like to old cocks like us. Somehow, they fight more than they used to. I have to keep a sawed-off baseball bat under the bar to preserve decorum.” He moved off to go behind the bar and help the boy there serving drinks.
“Those steps look awfully steep, Mike,” Antoine said.
“They’ll look less steep after you’ve had a couple of drinks. Be confident.”
“I don’t even like the taste of whiskey,” Antoine complained.
“Go play something,” Michael said. “It’ll settle your nerves.” He waved to Annabel Fenstock, who was coming through the door with a boy who looked as though he couldn’t have been more than eight-teen years old.
Rita and a boy who, Michael guessed rightly, was her older brother came into the room and Michael gestured to them to come over. Rita introduced her brother, Eliot, and rather shyly greeted Susan and Antoine, whom she had served with Michael at dinner.
“Sit down, sit down,” Michael said and moved his chair a little, so that Rita and her brother could squeeze in. “You’ve come just in time. The famous French pianist is going to give his first performance above sea level.”
“I am not yet in the mood,” Antoine said. He was not enjoying the evening and made a face when he sipped at his whiskey.
A waitress came over to the table and Rita ordered a Coke and her brother ordered a beer. Eliot was a husky boy and his face bore an unmistakable resemblance to that of his sister, with large, clear eyes and a straight nose with flaring nostrils and a wide, determined mouth. His hair, like hers, was close cropped, and he looked, Michael thought, like the youthful pictures of Muhammad Ali, when Muhammad Ali was known as Cassius Clay. He was wearing a leather jacket and it bulged with muscle at his shoulders. Under it he was wearing a sweater with a varsity letter from the town high school on it. Michael guessed that he had won it in football.
“Have you talked to Swanson yet about coaching you?” Michael asked Rita.
“We have a date for tomorrow morning,” Rita said.
Michael turned to Eliot. “Your sister’s quite a skier,” he said. “But she says you’re better than she is.”
“I’m older, that’s all,” Eliot said.
“Why don’t you sign up for the races, too?”
Eliot shook his head. “My legs’re too precious,” he said. “I’ve got a track scholarship to Dartmouth starting in September. You race, you’re bound to get hurt. Anyway, like my father says, the hills won’t be ready for black racers for fifty years and I like to stick to things where the brothers are welcome.” He spoke directly, without embarrassment. “If you want to know the truth, Mr. Storrs, I advised Rita against going in for it.”
“Oh, Eliot. . .” Rita said, “I thought we had it all out.”
“I’ve seen too many old racers around this town,” Eliot went on, ignoring his sister, “men and women, still looking for ways to show that they still have it, still looking for the old speed kick. Like that fella over there.” He pointed to the bar, where Williams, the sole proprietor of the Green Hollow Hang-Gliding School, was drinking a beer. “He had half a good season on the junior circuit in the downhill and he cracked up his back, he was damn near paralyzed, so now he preaches hang-gliding. I heard you’ve done some of that yourself, Mr. Storrs, and I can see there must be some real kicks in floating down over a town, and Williams asked me if I wanted to give it a try, but I told him it’s not for me. Being a black in America is enough of a kick for me, thank you.”
“Eliot,” Rita said, “I thought we were coming here to have a good time.”
“I’m having a fine time,” Eliot said, calmly, finishing his beer and waving to the waitress for another.
“If I drink any more of this stuff, I’ll be sick as a dog,” Antoine said, pushing his glass away. He stood up and went over to the piano and played a few chords. “What do you know,” he said, “it’s actually in tune.” Then he began to play, softly at first, then more loudly as the hubbub in the room began to dwindle and people stopped talking to listen to him.
He played “Stormy Weather” because he knew that Michael liked the song and Michael called the waitress and said, “Give the pianist a lemonade,” to show his appreciation.
Rita began to rock slowly in her chair in rhythm with the music and picked up the song, crooning softly. She had a clear, true voice and Michael and Susan listened with pleasure. “Rita,” Michael said, “get up and sing along with him.”
“Do you think I really . . . ?” Rita said doubtfully. “Won’t your friend object?”
“He’ll love it. Go ahead, go ahead.”
“Well, if you think it’s all right . . M She stood up and went over to the piano and began to sing. Antoine looked up at her dubiously for a moment, then nodded affirmatively and shifted the key to accommodate her contralto. After a few slightly hesitant bars, Rita gained confidence and sang out boldly, with Antoine, in a kind of French Virginian accent, joining her in the last chorus. When they finished, there was loud applause all over the room and Antoine rose from the piano and gravely shook Rita’s hand. She came back to the table with him, her hands shaking, but a big schoolgirlish smile lighting up her face.
“My dear young lady,” Antoine said, “you’re a real singer, do you know that? We’ll have to work together. We’ll astonish the natives with our combined brilliance.”
“Don’t make fun of me, please.”
“I’m dead serious,” Antoine said. “You’ve got a delicious voice. Should we try another one? What would you like to sing?”
Rita looked questioningly over at Eliot. He had not applauded and he was frowning. It was plain that he didn’t approve of his little sister making a show of herself in bars. “Maybe some other night, Antoine,” Rita said. “When we’d have time to practice a little.”
Jimmy Davis came over, beaming. “Say,” he said, “that was something. You do that a couple of more nights and I’m going to have a big poster printed up to put outside saying, Live Entertainment, the Best in Town. The Chimney Corner, The Hot Piano Bar.”
“Ella Fitzgerald isn’t having any sleepless nights yet, worrying about me,” Rita said, giggling. She ducked her head, sipping at her Coke.
Michael nudged Antoine with his knee under the table. “Now,” he whispered.
“Maybe I’ll just play one more . . .” Antoine said uncomfortably.
“Now,” Michael whispered.
“Excuse me for a minute, folks,” Antoine said. He walked toward the staircase, slowly, then climbed up, stopping at every other step.
Michael watched as Antoine disappeared into the men’s room. It was almost five minutes before Antoine reappeared at the top of the stairs and Michael was almost ready to go up and rout him out. He saw Antoine take a long, deep breath, then start down. Antoine gripped the banister, then twisted and let himself go. He made a surprising amount of noise as he tumbled all the way down and a sudden hush came over the room.
Antoine came to a halt on the last step, crumpled and screaming, with what Michael thought was admirable artistry. “My leg,” Antoine screamed. “I’ve broken my leg.”
Michael jumped up, along with Susan, and knelt beside the writhing Antoine. “Great,” he whispered, as he put his hand on Antoine’s calf, pretending to search for the break. “Congratulations. That was what I call a real authentic fall, kid.”
“Authentic!” Antoine said, writhing. “It’s broken, you bastard.” Michael ran his hand down Antoine’s leg. Just above the ankle, he could feel the break.
“Holy man,” Michael said, “you did! Idiot! Rita,” he said to the girl, who had run over to the staircase behind him. “Call an ambulance. Antoine, now just lie still and . . .”
But Antoine didn’t hear him. He had fainted dead away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Antoine was in bed, half-lying, half-sitting, his leg in a cast, propped up on pillows, when Michael went into his room to see how he was doing. After the doctor had put the cast on his leg, he had refused to stay overnight in the hospital. “People die in hospitals,” he said and Michael and Eliot, who had driven with Susan in her car to the hospital, had had to carry him to the car and up the stairs of the hotel at three o’clock in the morning, with Antoine being Gallically brave and not making a sound, although the unavoidable jostling must have been excruciating, even with the injection the doctor had given him.
Now he was being fed his breakfast spoonful by spoonful by Susan, who was sitting on the bed, looking dewy and fresh, despite not having slept more than four hours that night. Antoine did not look fresh. His face was greenish and his eyes were dull and glazed over, but he greeted Michael with a cheery wave. “This is the closest I’ve ever managed to get Susan into bed. Maybe in the long run it was worth it.”
“Well,” Michael said, “finally you look like a skier.”
“Anyway,” Antoine said, “I’ve got to give you credit. The idea worked. Now Mr. Cully will never find out what kind of skier I am. If any other problems develop, it’s good to know I have you to depend on.”
“Ready and willing,” Michael said. “Count on me at all times.”
“I did one intelligent thing, though,” Antoine said. “Yesterday when I went into the ski school and talked to the charming girl there
I took out accident insurance for the whole season. I’m not French for nothing. I may not be able to walk, but I am a man of means now. Susan, in your long and varied experience, have you ever made love to a man in a cast?”
“Eat your eggs,” Susan said.
“I see you’re dressed for skiing, Mike,” Antoine said. “Don’t you think that’s a bit callous, with me lying here just barely snatched from the jaws of death?”
