“Does it bother you that I will be gone so long?” Nicole asked Genevieve as they entered the hotel lobby. A dozen people were sitting around a roaring fire in the middle of the room. An inconspicuous but efficient Swiss waiter was serving hot drinks to the apres-ski crew. There would be no robots in a Morosani hotel, not even for room service.
“I don’t think of it that way,” her cheerful daughter responded. “After all, I’ll be able to talk with you almost every night on the videophone. The delay time will even make it fun. And challenging.” They walked past the old-fashioned registration desk. “Besides,” Genevieve added, “I’ll be the center of attention at school for the whole mission. My class project is already set; I’m going to draw a psychological portrait of the Ramans based on my conversations with you.”
Nicole smiled again and shook her head. Genevieve’s optimism was always infectious. It was a shame —
“Oh, Madame des Jardins.” The voice interrupted her thought. The hotel manager was beckoning to her from the desk. Nicole turned around. “There’s a message for you,” the manager continued. “I was told to deliver it to you personally.”
He handed her a small plain envelope. Nicole opened it and saw just the tiniest portion of a crest on the note card. Her heart raced into overdrive as she closed the envelope again. “What is it, Mother?” Genevieve inquired. “It must be special to be hand delivered. Nobody does things like that these days.”
Nicole tried to hide her feelings from her daughter. “It’s a secret memo about my work,” she lied. “The deliveryman made a terrible mistake. He should never have given it even to Herr Graf. He should have put it in my hands only.”
“More confidential medical data about the crew?” Genevieve asked. She and her mother had often discussed the delicate role of the life science officer on a major space mission.
Nicole nodded. “Darling,” she said to her daughter, “why don’t you run upstairs and tell your grandfather that I’ll be along in a few minutes. We’ll still plan dinner for seven-thirty. I’ll read this message now and see if any urgent response is required.”
Nicole kissed Genevieve and waited until her daughter was on the elevator before walking back outside into the light snow. It was dark now. She stood under the streetlight and opened the envelope with her cold hands. She had difficulty controlling her trembling fingers. You fool, she thought, you careless fool. After all this time. What if the girl had seen…
The crest was the same as it had been on that afternoon, fifteen and a half years ago, when Darren Higgins had handed her the dinner invitation outside the Olympic press area. Nicole was surprised by the strength of her emotions, She steeled herself and finally looked at the rest of the note below the crest.
“Sorry for the last-minute notice. Must see you tomorrow. Noon exactly. Warming hut #8 on the Weissfluhjoch. Come alone. Henry.”
The next morning Nicole was one of the first in line for the cable car that carried skiers to the top of the Weissfluhjoch. She climbed into the polished glass car with about twenty others and leaned against the window while the door automatically shut. ! have seen him only once in these fifteen years, she thought to herself, and yet…
As the cable car ascended, Nicole pulled her snow glasses down over her eyes. It was a dazzling morning, not unlike the January morning seven years earlier when her father had called for her from the villa. They had had a rare snowfall at Beauvois the night before and, after much pleading, she had let Genevieve stay home from school to play in the snow. Nicole was working at the hospital in Tours at the time and was waiting to hear about her application to the Space Academy.
She had been showing her seven-year-old daughter how to make a snow angel when Pierre had called a second time from the house. “Nicole, Genevieve, there’s something special in our mail,” he had said. “It must have come during the night.” Nicole and Genevieve had run to the villa in their snowsuits while Pierre posted the full text of the message on the wall video-screen.
“Most extraordinary,” Pierre had said. “It seems we’ve all been invited to the English coronation, including the private reception afterward. This is extremely unusual.”
“Oh, Grandpapa!” Genevieve said excitedly, “I want to go. Can we go? Do I get to meet a real king and queen?”
“There is no queen, darling,” her grandfather replied, “unless you mean the queen mother. This king has not yet married.”
Nicole read the invitation several times without saying anything. After Genevieve had calmed down and left the room, her father had put his arms around Nicole.
“I want to go,” she had said quietly.
“Are you certain?” he had asked, pulling away and regarding her with an inquisitive stare.
“Yes,” she had answered 6rmly.
Henry had never seen her until that evening, Nicole was thinking as she checked first her watch and then her equipment in preparation for her ski run down from the summit. Father had been wonderful. He had let me disappear at Beauvois and almost nobody knew I had a baby until Genevieve was almost a year old. Henry never even suspected. Not until that night at Buckingham Palace.
Nicole could still see herself waiting in the reception line. The king had been late. Genevieve had been fidgety. At last Henry had been standing opposite her. “The honorable Pierre des Jardins of Beauvois, France, with his daughter, Nicole, and granddaughter, Genevieve.” Nicole had bowed very properly and Genevieve had curtsied.
“So this is Genevieve,” the king had said. He had bent down for only a moment and put a hand under the child’s chin. When the girl had lifted up her face he had seen something that he recognized. He had turned to look at Nicole, a trace of questioning in his glance. Nicole had revealed nothing with her smile. The crier was calling out the names of the next guests in the line. The king had moved on.
So you sent Darren to the hotel, Nicole thought as she schussed a short slope, aimed for a small jump, and was airborne for a second or two. And he hemmed and hawed and finally asked me if I would come have tea. Nicole dug her edges into the snow and came to an abrupt stop. “Tell Henry I can’t,” she remembered saying to Darren in London seven years earlier.
She looked again at her watch. It was only eleven o’clock, too early to ski to the hut. She eased over to one of the lifts and took another ride to the summit.
It was two minutes past noon when Nicole arrived at the small chalet on the edge of the woods. She took off her skis, stuck them in the snow, and walked toward the front door. She ignored the conspicuous signs all around her that said eintritt verboten. From out of nowhere came two burly men, one of whom actually jumped between Nicole and the door to the hut. “It’s all right,” she heard a familiar voice say, “we’re expecting her.” The two guards vanished as quickly as they had appeared and Nicole saw Darren, smiling as always, occupying the doorway to the chalet.
“Hi there, Nicole,” he said in his normal friendly fashion. Darren had aged. There were a few flecks of gray around his temples and some salt with the pepper in his short beard. “How are you?” he asked.
“I’m fine, Darren,” she answered, aware that despite all her lectures to herself, she was already starting to feel nervous. She reminded herself that she was now a professional, as accomplished in her own way as this king she was about to see. Nicole then strode forcefully into the chalet.
It was warm inside. Henry was standing with his back to a small fireplace. Darren closed the door behind her and left the two of them alone. Nicole self-consciously removed her scarf and opened her parka. She took off her snow glasses. They stared at each other for twenty, maybe thirty seconds, neither saying a word, neither wanting to interrupt the powerful flow of emotions that was carrying each of them back to two magnificent days fifteen years before.