Robert gets a little lost in his thoughts standing outside the Olden Hotel. Small A-shaped pine trees twinkle, adorned in white Christmas lights. Green wooden shutters display intricate carvings. Three painted garlands of flowers across the white facade lend a hint of spring in the middle of winter. His son, Marcus, might say that it looks like a giant gingerbread house. But for Robert, he can feel the history, a few hundred years of hospitality, of people coming in to escape the cold and meet their friends by the fire.
Inside, nothing disappoints—from the warmth of the fire to the red-cheeked patrons. He makes his way to the Pinte bar. The intricate wood carvings on the ceiling and crown molding are evidence of craftsmanship rarely seen.
Robert sees a crowd of young, beautiful people huddled together at the bar and spots Eugenio in the center, talking to the bartender. The bartender hands Eugenio a wine sack. Eugenio puts the spout to a woman’s mouth and the chant starts. “Eins, zwei, drei, g’suffa!” Robert realizes suddenly that the woman is Ali. Eugenio lifts the sack above his head. Still, every drop goes in Ali’s mouth. “Zicke-zacke-zicke-zacke, hoi hoi hoi!” Eugenio brings the wine sack back to Ali’s mouth and lifts the spout. The crowd cheers. Ali wipes her chin, then waves her hands in triumph.
Eugenio spots Robert, runs over, and throws his arm around his shoulder. “The professor is here!” he yells to his friends as he drags Robert to the bar.
Ali is clearly a bit drunk, still lifting her arms like a prizefighter after a big win. She drops them around Robert’s neck and gives him a big, sloppy, wine-flavored kiss.
“Oh!” Robert says over the thump of the music. “This is the girl I remember from college.”
“Where have you been hiding this beautiful woman?” a drunken Eugenio barks at Robert’s ear.
“He knocked me up!” says Ali. “We were barely out of college. Now we live in the suburbs! Fucking Connecticut! Can you believe that?”
“Connecticut,” says Robert.
“You should move to Gstaad!” Eugenio says. “Everything is better in Gstaad!”
“I see that,” Robert says with a hint of irony.
“Let me introduce you to my friends! This is Gabriella!”
“Ciao!” she says to Robert before kissing him on both cheeks.
“Look at her fucking boots!” drunken Ali says to Robert and points. They are thigh-high, plush, chocolate-colored leather. Gabriella shows a little skin between her short dress and her high boots. “I want those fucking boots,” Ali declares.
“This is Vincenzo,” Eugenio says.
“Ciao!” says Vincenzo and extends his hand with the palm facing down.
Ali grabs Robert’s cheeks and turns his face toward hers. “Vincenzo is wearing a four-piece suit,” she says seriously. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing.”
Robert smiles at Vincenzo. “Nice to meet you.”
“We need to learn from these people,” Ali says, and lifts her glass in their direction.
“Don’t embarrass them, Ali,” says Robert.
“Nonsense!” declares Eugenio. “To the professor! Kanpai!” He downs his drink and slams the glass on the bar. “A drink for my friend. What shall you have?”
“Bourbon.”
“Bourbon!” Eugenio yells at the bartender. “Where did you learn to ski like that?”
“Dartmouth. I was on the ski team with Ali.”
“No wonder you beat me to the bottom! We must ski tomorrow! I demand a rematch!”
“I’ve got to go to Geneva tomorrow.”
Ali frowns. “What? This is supposed to be our vacation!”
“I’m being paid—handsomely. Believe me, you’ll thank me later.”
“I wanted to ski with you.” Ali shrugs her shoulders with an exaggerated frown.
“What is this trip?” Eugenio asks.
“I’ve got to inspect a painting at the Freeport.”
“Who’s the artist?”
“Modigliani.”
“Modigliani! An Italiano!” Eugenio says and raises his glass to his friends. Robert watches Eugenio turn from their smiling faces to look around the room, glancing at a Korean couple by the door. Eugenio’s friends cheer, but his mood drags. “Modigliani, he died young. But he really did live.”
“To Modigliani!” Robert says, then takes a tentative sip of his bourbon.
“For the trip to Geneva you must take my Porsche. It goes two hundred kilometers an hour—IN REVERSE!” Eugenio takes the keys out of his pocket, shows them to everyone, and slaps them into Robert’s hand.
“You are too kind,” Robert says to Eugenio. “I don’t—”
“I demand it!” Eugenio replies.
Ali tries to whisper, but her voice is not quiet. “You’re the only one here that’s sober. You should take the keys.”
“Good thinking, hon.” Robert kisses her on the forehead and slips the keys in his pocket.
Eugenio holds out the wine sack with both hands as if he’s the priest and it’s the communion cup. “Professor? Let’s see if you can do as well as the beautiful woman.”
“No, no, no,” Robert replies, shaking his head and looking down at his brown wingtips. Don’t be boring. You’re in Gstaad, partying with young hip Italians, about to get paid a year’s salary for one day’s work. And the old Ali is back. “BRING ME THE WINE!” he calls out proudly.
Wild, radiant faces surround him. The wine sack is aimed at his open mouth.
“Eins, zwei, drei, g’suffa! Zicke-zacke-zicke-zacke, hoi hoi hoi!”
For Robert, the room goes sideways. The night wears on. He is helped to a banquette, and then to a car, then to his hotel room. He sees Ali with her arms around Eugenio. He sees it all as if in a dream. Some things he is conscious of, some things he thinks he is conscious of…My bicameral mind, my inability to distinguish my consciousness, one half of my mind speaks, the other half listens, but what if the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing…It’s a hallucination. It’s a dream. It’s reality. It’s morning. And they are both gone.
One of Al-Fayed’s bodyguards stares down at Robert. “Professor. It is time to go to Geneva.”
In the bathroom Robert finds a note written in lipstick on the mirror.
“You drank too much! I’ve gone skiing with Eugenio. See you at lunch.”
He wipes it away frantically with a towel.
“Let me call my wife,” Robert tells the bodyguard.
“Put on some pants. Come with me now—we have very little time.”
Robert gets in the back of the Bentley SUV and they start their journey down the mountain pass.