He was seated, like a great tragic bear, his head bent into his hands, sobbing, as I left the room on my crutches.

11

The next morning, early, I was on the train to Davos. Davos is a ski resort some two hours away from St Moritz, famous for long runs that I had no intention of exploring. I had begun to hate winter and the sight of ruddy, happy faces, the sound of boots on snow, the tinkle of sleigh bells, the bright colors of ski caps. I yearned for the comfort of soft Southern weather, a climate where decisions could be put off until tomorrow. Before I bought my ticket at the railroad station, itself a loathsomely picturesque structure on the valley floor, I had played with the idea of surrender, of heading for Italy, Tunisia, the Mediterranean coast of Spain, in one last destructive splurge. But the first train into the station was going in the direction of Davos. I had taken it as an omen and, helped by a porter, had clambered aboard. I was doomed for the winter to cold country.

The train wound its way through some of the most magnificent mountain scenery in the world, soaring peaks, dramatic gorges, high spidery bridges across foaming streams. The sun shone brightly over it all in a clear blue sky. I appreciated none of it.

When I reached Davos I got into a taxi and went directly to the hospital and had the cast taken off my leg, resisting all attempts by two doctors to have me X-rayed. 'Just when and where, sir,' one of the doctors asked, as he saw me hop jauntily off the table, 'was this cast put on?' 'Yesterday,' I said. 'In St Moritz.'

'Ah,' he said, 'St Moritz.' He and the other doctor exchanged significant looks. Obviously they would never choose St Moritz for medical attention.

The younger of the two doctors accompanied me to the cashier's desk at the door to make sure I paid for the operation. One hundred Swiss francs. A bargain. The doctor watched me puzzled as I opened the big bag that I had left at the entrance and took out a sock and a shoe and put them on. As I went out the door, carrying my bags, I was sure I heard him say, 'Amerikanish,' to the cashier, as though that explained all eccentricities.

There was a taxi at the door, discharging a child in a cast. I was in the zone of broken bones. It suited the mood I was in. I got into the taxi and, after a short struggle with the German language, managed to make the driver understand that I wanted to be taken to a reasonably priced hotel. Driving through the town, we passed one hotel after another, with large individual balconies for each room, which at other times had been used to air the invalids who had made prewar Davos the tuberculosis capital of the world. Now. the institutions had all been renamed sport hotels, but in my present circumstances all I could think of as we drove past these endless empty balconies was the vanished thousands of bundled figures, lying in rows in the cold sunlight, coughing blood.

The chauffeur of the taxi drove me to a small place, owned by his brother-in-law, with a good view of the railroad tracks. The brother-in-law spoke English and our negotiations were amiable. The price of a single room with a bath down the hall was not exactly amiable, but after the ravages of the Palace it was friendly.

The narrow bed was not covered in silk and the room was so small that there was no place in it for my big bag. The owner explained that, after I unpacked. I could leave it out in the hall, with whatever clothes would not fit into the tiny closet and the minute dresser. It would be safe, he said, there were no thieves in Switzerland. I did not laugh.

I unpacked haphazardly, cramming the stranger's suits into the closet. I left the tuxedo in the bag. I had worn it several times in St Moritz, when necessary, and the memories associated with it were not of a nature to induce nostalgia. If a thief finally showed up in Switzerland and happened to take a liking to it, he would be welcome to it.

I took a hot bath, scrubbing the shaved leg that had been in the cast. The leg had begun to itch. Back in my room, I put on a pair of the shorts I had found in the bag. They were made of silk and were pale blue and I had to fold them over at the top to keep them on me, but I had refused to send any laundry out at the Palace, and the few pieces of clothing I had had in my small bag all needed washing. The jacket I had worn across the ocean and in Zurich and St Moritz, when I hadn't worn the tuxedo, was crumpled. I hesitated for a moment, then picked the houndstooth jacket off the hanger and put it on, hoping nobody I knew would chance to be in Davos to see it on me. I put my wallet, containing all that was left of my fortune, into the inside breast pocket. There was a small crinkling sound as I did so. I reached down and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. It was rose colored and perfumed and was covered with a woman's handwriting.

My hands began to shake and I sat down heavily on the bed and began to read.

There was no address or date on the luxuriously tinted sheet of paper.

'Love,' the letter began, 'Oh, dear! I hope you won't be too frantically disappointed. I can't make it to St Moritz this year....' I felt a tremor go through my body as I read this, as though an avalanche had dropped down the side of one of the surrounding peaks and shaken the foundations of the city. 'Poor old Jock tell off his trusty steed hacking home from a hunt three days ago and broke his hip and has been in agony ever since. The local witch doctor, whose practice dates back to the Crimean War, just made pitiful little cries when asked for a diagnosis, so we've moved Jock down to London. The surgeons here are debating whether or not to operate and don't seem to be able to make up their minds and meanwhile the poor old darling just lies there groaning on his bed of pain. Naturally, dear little wife can't go swinging off to the Alps while the drama is so hideously fresh. So I'm back and forth to the hospital, carrying flowers and gin and 139

soothing the fevered brow and telling him he'll be able to hunt again next year, which, as you know, is his chief and practically single occupation in life.

'However, all is not lost. I have promised to visit my sweet old Aunt Amy in Florence, arriving on Feb Quatorze. The situation should have subsided by then and I'm sure dear old Jock will insist I go. Aunt Amy has a house full of guests, so I'll be staying at the Excelsior. Which is just as well. Or even better. I'll look for your beaming, welcoming face in the bar. Longingly, L.'

I read the letter again, getting a clear and not very flattering impression of the lady who had written it. I considered it an affectation on her part not to put an address or a date on her letter, writing Quatorze instead of the honest English fourteen and signing it only with her initial. I tried to picture what she probably looked like. A cold, fashionable English beauty between thirty and forty, with lofty airs, and a manner that owed a great deal to the works of Sir Noel Coward and Michael Arlen. But whatever she looked like and however she behaved, I would be at the Hotel Excelsior in Florence to greet her, along with her paramour, on February fourteenth. St Valentine's Day, I remembered, anniversary for lovers and massacre.

I tortured myself briefly with the thought that I might have brushed shoulders with the adulterer in the dining room of the Palace Hotel or on the slopes of St Moritz and even thought for a moment of returning there. The idea of Madam L's friend squandering my money undisturbed in St Moritz for another full week was harrowing. But if I hadn't found him there before, there was no reason to suppose that I could find him now. The only clue to his identity in the letter was that he was probably not married or at least was not accompanied by a wife on this trip to Europe, that he could count in French, at least up to fourteen, and that in the presence of his partner in sin he would be expected to have a beaming and welcoming face. It was information that was of no practical value at the moment. I would have to be patient and wait seven days.