Off the Beaten Track

I open my eyes. It is dawn and a freezing cold breeze blows across my face. The car has stopped on a bridge, and the doors are all open. I sit up. Bruce is outside, leaning against the guardrail, head back, eyes closed. I wait a bit, then get out myself. I have pins and needles in my legs after a whole night of driving. Outside the light is bright, the air is dry, and the transparent sky seems as solid as a dome.
“Breathe,” Bruce says in a low voice. “Breathe now. The mountains. We are here.”
At that moment there is a humming. It echoes back and forth. A cable car appears, gliding slowly along a long metal cable. People are going up the mountain. I wave. Soon I will be one of them. It is cold. We cross the built-up area to go and catch the cable car so we can get to the old chalet before nightfall. I watch Bruce walking ahead of me. He is sure of himself and steady, carrying his skis over one shoulder and his poles in the other hand. I feel awkward, confused. My skis are slippery, and my poles keep twisting and bumping into each other.
The evening before, on the road, I was afraid that Bruce would talk about my parents, his old companions. But he didn’t. He asked me a few questions about my new boarding school, if I’d made friends, and whether I still played soccer. I shook my head no, and we drove on in silence. I must have fallen asleep after we drove through Lyon. Once we are up, we leave the station and the marked-up
areas that are set aside for skiing and go higher among
the trees. We are off the beaten track. It seems to me that everything is suddenly much vaster and much deeper. Now we are alone and the swishing of our skis over the snow plays against the silence. A feeling of speed alternates with the effort and energy we have to use to climb a hill, cross a cliff. I don’t think about anything. I’m nothing but fluid movement. I follow Bruce’s tracks exactly.
The chapel appears as we approach the old chalet. In front there stands a wooden cross, tall and black. It’s to remind you of those who have disappeared-skiers, walkers, climbers, a sign of their presence on the mountain. I look around me, a long while, and hold my breath. I try to find some trace of something deadly hidden in the landscape. I don’t want a tall black cross to grow in me.