Placid is actually very placid.
I read some more and then look at Gil. Could we stay there tonight?
They’ll have plenty of motels, anyway, he says, and pulls off the road to look at the map. Over his shoulder I see a picture of the ski jump built for the old Olympics.
Christ, it’s terrifying, he says, following the direction of my gaze. It’s hard to imagine anyone actually skiing down that thing.
I close my eyes for a few seconds and think what it would feel like to drop onto that near-vertical slope, fly down in the crouch position, then explode off the lip of the jump at two hundred miles an hour. I would land on the ice with a splat like a bag of baked beans.
Half an hour later, we pass the real thing. We pull over and get out to look at it. Gil stares. Never in a million years, he says, and sounds like he means it. But at least it has a lift to the top. Not like a mountain. What about you?
Me? I shake my head. No way. Do you miss those days? I ask, thinking of mountain climbing.
Gil shakes his head. No.
Why did you do it?
I don’t know, Mila. I was young. And Matt was so convincing. If he said climbing was the thing, we climbed.
God knows where they’d have ended up if they’d lived in different times. I’m imagining my father and Matt as highwaymen or in the French resistance, taking terrible risks. As Hitler Youth.
Would Matthew ski down that?
Gil smiles. He’d probably try.
Didn’t you like climbing at all?
I don’t know, Gil says. Of course I did. I don’t think I’d have started on my own, but I got addicted to the kick.
Adrenaline, I suggest and he nods.
We climb back into the car, drive into town and park. It’s pretty and well tended, and though I’ve never been to Switzerland, it looks like my idea of Switzerland—quaint little wooden shops and restaurants facing the lake with the mountains beyond. Minus the guys in lederhosen. And the mountains aren’t very big, not like the Alps.
While Gil looks for a real newspaper, I try texting again.
Matthew. It’s Gil’s daughter Mila again. We need to find you. Pls txt me when you get this message.
After some consideration, I take out the line about needing to find him. And the Gil’s daughter bit too. The world is not filled with people called Mila.
Matthew. It’s Mila. Txt me when you get this.
I wait for some time but there’s no reply, so I text Marieka just to say hi and then Catlin. Neither of them answers either.
We shop around town for a while, looking at things in windows. There’s an old wooden sleigh in the antique shop next to some blue-and-white jugs, and a bookshop with a beautiful view of the lake.
And then, in the window of the deli, I find the Easter egg of my dreams. The pattern on it is cowboys—cowboys with lassos, cowboys riding cow ponies and bucking broncos, cowboys herding cows, cowboys with cowgirls. It’s such an incongruous theme for an Easter egg that I burst out laughing. And to top it off, it’s enormous.
Oh my god, it’s perfect! Catlin will die of happiness, I say and Gil rolls his eyes, no doubt thinking of the price.
But when we go in and ask how much it is, the deli man says it’s not for sale.
I can’t sell it in all good faith, he says. It’s left over from two years ago, so it’ll be stale. Lots of people have asked to buy it, but I’m afraid it’s staying right here. Hi-ho, Silver!
I can understand his point but I want this egg so badly I’m running a whole series of silent scenarios that include breaking into his shop in the dead of night and stealing it.
I don’t suppose there’s another one?
He shakes his head.
Does it bring in more business for the other eggs? I ask, determined to blind him with the logic of getting rid of it.
He shakes his head again, mournfully this time. I have no idea. It’s kind of a folly, he says. But it looks good in the window, don’t you think? Lured you in, anyway.
The other salesperson laughs.
See? he says. They all laugh at me.
I read some more and then look at Gil. Could we stay there tonight?
They’ll have plenty of motels, anyway, he says, and pulls off the road to look at the map. Over his shoulder I see a picture of the ski jump built for the old Olympics.
Christ, it’s terrifying, he says, following the direction of my gaze. It’s hard to imagine anyone actually skiing down that thing.
I close my eyes for a few seconds and think what it would feel like to drop onto that near-vertical slope, fly down in the crouch position, then explode off the lip of the jump at two hundred miles an hour. I would land on the ice with a splat like a bag of baked beans.
Half an hour later, we pass the real thing. We pull over and get out to look at it. Gil stares. Never in a million years, he says, and sounds like he means it. But at least it has a lift to the top. Not like a mountain. What about you?
Me? I shake my head. No way. Do you miss those days? I ask, thinking of mountain climbing.
Gil shakes his head. No.
Why did you do it?
I don’t know, Mila. I was young. And Matt was so convincing. If he said climbing was the thing, we climbed.
God knows where they’d have ended up if they’d lived in different times. I’m imagining my father and Matt as highwaymen or in the French resistance, taking terrible risks. As Hitler Youth.
Would Matthew ski down that?
Gil smiles. He’d probably try.
Didn’t you like climbing at all?
I don’t know, Gil says. Of course I did. I don’t think I’d have started on my own, but I got addicted to the kick.
Adrenaline, I suggest and he nods.
We climb back into the car, drive into town and park. It’s pretty and well tended, and though I’ve never been to Switzerland, it looks like my idea of Switzerland—quaint little wooden shops and restaurants facing the lake with the mountains beyond. Minus the guys in lederhosen. And the mountains aren’t very big, not like the Alps.
While Gil looks for a real newspaper, I try texting again.
Matthew. It’s Gil’s daughter Mila again. We need to find you. Pls txt me when you get this message.
After some consideration, I take out the line about needing to find him. And the Gil’s daughter bit too. The world is not filled with people called Mila.
Matthew. It’s Mila. Txt me when you get this.
I wait for some time but there’s no reply, so I text Marieka just to say hi and then Catlin. Neither of them answers either.
We shop around town for a while, looking at things in windows. There’s an old wooden sleigh in the antique shop next to some blue-and-white jugs, and a bookshop with a beautiful view of the lake.
And then, in the window of the deli, I find the Easter egg of my dreams. The pattern on it is cowboys—cowboys with lassos, cowboys riding cow ponies and bucking broncos, cowboys herding cows, cowboys with cowgirls. It’s such an incongruous theme for an Easter egg that I burst out laughing. And to top it off, it’s enormous.
Oh my god, it’s perfect! Catlin will die of happiness, I say and Gil rolls his eyes, no doubt thinking of the price.
But when we go in and ask how much it is, the deli man says it’s not for sale.
I can’t sell it in all good faith, he says. It’s left over from two years ago, so it’ll be stale. Lots of people have asked to buy it, but I’m afraid it’s staying right here. Hi-ho, Silver!
I can understand his point but I want this egg so badly I’m running a whole series of silent scenarios that include breaking into his shop in the dead of night and stealing it.
I don’t suppose there’s another one?
He shakes his head.
Does it bring in more business for the other eggs? I ask, determined to blind him with the logic of getting rid of it.
He shakes his head again, mournfully this time. I have no idea. It’s kind of a folly, he says. But it looks good in the window, don’t you think? Lured you in, anyway.
The other salesperson laughs.
See? he says. They all laugh at me.
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