The first day of their vacation, in the early morning light, Flaine, France looked like a concrete block tucked into the curve of the mountainside.  No Alpine charm, the brochure had said and it was correct.   For Jane and Ron Brown, however, it was perfect.  They decided that Alpine charm could wait until their next ski vacation.  For here at Flaine, the ski schools were good and the snow could not be better.  Even now, near the end of winter, it lay thick and white.  The tall evergreens stood silent and plentiful near the resort and marched up the mountainside, their numbers becoming thinner and scragglier until they stopped all together and Ron and Jane found themselves seemingly on top of the world.  A far cry from the bustle and civilisation of Manhattan, Jane reflected, where, wrapped up in high-powered jobs and big apartments in the right part of town, it was too easy to believe that humankind was the centre of the universe.  Looking out over the tops of majestic crags, it was an astonishing insignificance that she felt.

The trails they favoured were wide and sweeping.  It was a feeling of sheer freedom, letting the skis go, the sound of them running the only thing breaking the stillness that enveloped them.  As Jane made her long and lazy turns down the mountain, she closely watched the few more experienced skiers as they whizzed by, executing textbook turns,  tight and controlled.  She sighed with envy and glanced briefly at Ron.  When she saw his smile, as brilliant as the sunshine reflecting off the snow, she shook her head.  He could always tell exactly what she was thinking.

He was her treasure, big and blond and often impossible to lose amongst the general populace of New York City.   She would never forget the first time she saw him.  It was a party given by an acquaintance from work at her Upper Eastside apartment.  There he had been, lounging on the sofa as she passed through the livingroom on her way to the garden.  His face had changed as he looked at her and she had idly wondered why this man was staring at her.  The answer to her question came at yet another party when this time, Ron managed to introduce himself.  They established a rapport quickly, easily, much to Jane's astonishment and she often wondered about the remarkable twist of fate that had flung them together.  It reinforced her idea that her life was somehow charmed, that as she lived her life, it was difficult to make an irreparable mistake.  Her luck was how she referred to this personal magic and it had held through the indecision of young adulthood and through the pain that followed both her parents deaths.  It had brought her to Ron. 

 On the third day of the vacation, they awoke to the steady fall of snow.

"I hate these bloody continental breakfasts,"  Ron grumbled as they sat down to croissant, sticky sweet buns, crusty white bread and cafe-au-lait.

The hotel diningroom was bustling, everyone in ski gear, everyone anxious for an early start.

"You Brits,"  Jane smiled.  "You wouldn't be able to ski if you had all that grease  beforehand....  bacon, black pudding, fried egg on toast.  How would you move?"

"Rich, coming from you," he quipped.  "After all, don't you Yanks like your steak and eggs for breakfast?  Anyway, I need something to stick to my ribs if I'm going to do this."

 He  tried to maintain his grumpy mood but Jane only chuckled and the smile lurking behind Ron's feigned disgruntlement finally broke free.

Jane looked around the diningroom.  "The weather's not putting anyone off...."

"Naw!  Perfect for skiing!  All that new snow...."

"Just makes things more difficult for novices like me," Jane muttered.  "Well, if I get in one run, I can sit in a bar somewhere, near a window and think about how beautiful it looks outside while I'm warm and toasty inside!"

 "Com'on you.  Finish up.  We're not going to let a little snow deter us."

Finally, the last of their breakfast disappeared and Ron and Jane found themselves outside in the snow.  It fell swiftly and silently, closing in around them.  Even others close by seemed sealed in their own reality, the sounds of their voices, the crunch of snow beneath their ski boots reached Jane as if over a great distance. 

Many were headed in the direction of the drag lifts that would deposit them halfway up the mountain.  Ron also started towards them.  Jane thought of the tremendous jerk as those contraptions started up the slopes and decided it was not the way she wanted to begin this day.

"Oh no, Ron.  I hate those things.  Can't we take the gondola to the top?"

He turned to her, his hesitation obvious.

 "Only one run from the top," Jane continued.  "It'll be fun."

"Okay.  We'll go up and have a look."

Jane smiled with relief.

The gondola moved slowly through its station, allowing prospective passengers plenty of time to shove skis and ski poles into the pockets on the cars' exterior.  Once inside a car, as the station fell away, Jane lost herself in the beauty of the scene expanding below her.  Fragmented memories of childhood toys, those little glass balls filled with water, "snow" and a forest scene, teased her and Ron's voice reached her across the years.

 "Who do you think these guys going up with us are?"  he murmured discretely.

Jane stole a look.  The other three men in the car were ignoring them completely and assiduously watching the snow.  She suddenly remembered that she had seen others at the station, dressed this way in slightly off white ski suits and it came to her that these men could be soldiers.   Their comrades had taken the cars behind them.  Jane peered through the glass and could barely make them out, spaced back evenly until they were swallowed by the weather and the distance.

"Army?  Would the French army do mountain things here?"

Ron laughed,  "Who knows?  They could do 'mountain things' anywhere in the French Alps they want I suppose."

Jane chuckled appreciatively and turned again to the scene below her.  As the last trees fell behind them, a curtain of white descended.  It was interrupted only by the thin line they rode, the cars like glass beads hanging from a black chain.  This chain had no beginning and no end, existed only immediately; their car, the one right before them and the one right behind.

Soft French was being spoken and Jane cursed her scant knowledge of the language.  She glanced hopefully at Ron, but he had turned from her and was watching the snow fall thick and fast and nearly straight down.  No wind, she realised. 

The station at the top of the mountain leapt out of the white.  Their car gave a little lurch as it slowed to discharge its human cargo.  Ron and Jane and two or three of the soldiers headed towards the exit and the start of the trail down.  The soldiers paused at the doorway then turned back to their companions.  As Jane stepped into the snow, she was vaguely aware of all the soldiers turning back towards the cars that were making a long, slow turn inside the station to head down the mountain again.

Ron followed her outside.

As they knocked the snow off their boots with their ski poles and fitted boots to bindings, a solitary figure passed them, executing quick, neat turns.  The lank figure was soon swallowed by the weather.  Jane felt the vague unease leave her as she witnessed the confidence with which that lone skier set off down the piste.  A second later she was following him.

Snow was magical. When it snowed, no matter where in the world she happened to be,  Jane was always once again the young girl, peering out of the wide bay window of her parents' house which had been built in the middle of two acres of woodland.  The floodlights would be on, illuminating the falling snow and lending emphasis to the blackness of night beyond their reach.  Indoors, in that warmth and safety, it was easy for Jane to pretend that the sturdy brick house was actually located in some wilderness and as the snow drifted up to the window ledges, that this was the blizzard that would seal in the family, Father, Mother, Luke and Jane, for the rest of the winter.

Snow made her think of mornings after blizzards, the surrounding fields and forests transformed into a land she knew only from dreams.  Icicles, like diamond stakes, hung off the roof of the house.  With the family dog at their side, Jane and Luke would strike out into the white, sparkling expanse, investigating each print left in the snow until they could not feel fingers or toes.

Snow meant no school for the children, no work for their parents and a log fire as big as her father could make it in the deep, brick fireplace.

That night, a lifetime ago, when Luke turned five, it was because of  snow that all of them were trapped at their grandmother's house.  Home was only fifteen miles away but her mother hated to drive in such bad weather and would not have thought of braving the conditions for even that short distance.   The storm had moved in swiftly and snow had fallen relentlessly.  But this time, the snow had not been able to work its magic.  What bit of civilisation the town possessed had kept the wild spell at bay.

Her father had been ill for some time by then, indeed at that young age, it had been difficult to remember a time when he was not sick.  He had been in and out of  hospital with a regularity Jane and Luke had come to accept with little concern.  Leaving the two of them warm and cosy and excited about sleeping  at their grandmother's house, their mother did braved the snow to make the journey to the small town's nearby hospital.  Jane and Luke had slept the untroubled sleep of the young and had dreamt of the games they would play in the snow in the morning.  How could they have know that they would never see their father again?

Years later, her mother spoke to her of that night for the first time, having never breathed a word about it in the years Jane and Luke struggled to adulthood.  Jane had an image of her mother not even acknowledging the memory or the emotions, until her mother mentioned the snow.   It had brought Jane up short, had started her wondering who was remembering what for she had forgotten the blizzard completely.  It had startled her, her mother's expression somehow incongruous with the words she spoke.  That snowstorm all those years ago had ensured that they remained in town that night.   Because of the speed with which it had closed in, her father hadn't died alone and Jane and Luke had not been alone when they learned their world had changed forever.

This snow consumed the world.  There was no sign of that lone graceful skier who had gone before her.  There was no sign anywhere that anything existed besides the eternal whiteness.  Jane tightened her turns, finding it difficult to believe that this was the same piste she and  Ron had skied a few times since arriving.  As she moved down the mountain at a speed that seemed so painfully slow to her, the falling snow beat against her goggles, reducing the near non-existent visibility even more.  Jane thought that if she were to fall over now, it would be impossible to tell which direction would put her on her feet again.  Was it possible, in this snow, to unintentionally ski off piste?

To be lost, in these mountains in this weather....  Surely, Jane thought, if I just keep heading down we'll eventually reach some sort of landmark.

But would they find themselves in a place they recognised?  Jane came to a halt and leaned on her ski poles.  Ron was beside her in seconds and she knew he'd been skiing very closely behind.

"I can't go further."

Jane could not see the expression on Ron's face because of snow splattered goggles and she was too distressed to read his body language. 

"I'll go in front.  Just follow me.  Stay close."

How will he be able to find his way?  She wondered and began to fight the panic rising in her chest.  Jane suddenly did not know how it was that her legs continued the fluid motions required to ski down the mountain.  She did not know how it was that she made each turn when every nerve in her body screamed that she should stop.  Danger surely lurked ahead, hidden by these small flakes that fell continuously.  Only at the last possible moment would she and Ron know as the tips of their skis ran out onto nothingness....  To go on was to die:  to stop now, paralysed with fear was also to die.  Ron continued down, never glancing over his shoulder once.  Jane would lose him in a second if she allowed the fear to conquer her and freeze her on this slope.  She began to wonder how long it would take rescue parties to find them  --  if indeed anyone would think to look for them.  Spring thaw, the answer crept into her brain and it was only with difficulty that Jane pulled her thoughts away from this scenario.

We have no respect for this power, she thought.  We think we are in control that we can bend any situation to our wants and our needs.  We think we are above this arbitrary dance of life and death, so civilised, so clever in the way we manipulate our environment.  We might die out here.

But she was not dead yet.  Just one more breath, one more heartbeat, one more turn.  Ron showed no signs of stopping and Jane wondered just what he was thinking.  Perhaps he knew that if he stopped, even for a second, even for something as innocent as wiping the wet from his goggles, he would never start again.  What would she do should Ron declare that he could not go on?  Could she go back in front knowing for certain, in some secret place deep inside herself, that she would not lead them to safety?  She squashed the thought almost immediately and began to wonder if it were possible to cheat death.

Death had come quickly for her mother.  Unlike her father, there was no lingering illness, no battle whose outcome had already been predicted.  One day Jane had a mother and the next her mother simply ceased to exist.  It had been too much to process at the time.  Jane could only think of the flipping of a switch as the doctors pronounced her mother's heart to be the culprit.  It had been, they assured Luke and her, quick and painless.

Like freezing to death.  Just close my eyes, she thought, no discomfort, no panic only the familiarity of falling asleep. 

Something was rising out of the snow, indistinct at first, alien and threatening.  Ron picked up speed.  Jane thought her heart would burst from her chest as she pointed her skis straight down to keep her husband in sight.  Suddenly, she knew the shape for what it was:  the first of the evergreens that signalled the start of the treeline.  She was beyond tears of relief, beyond the offering of thanksgiving to whatever gods or spirits there might be.  Ron skied into the sparse grouping of evergreens and neatly halted.  He turned to Jane.

"Not far now," was all he said.

She resisted the nearly overwhelming urge to ask if he recognised where they were.  She looked about closely, but the snow fell still, working its magic around them and Jane could not really be certain that she had passed this spot before.  But Ron was off again and though the trees gave a little comfort, rising high above her, it would be all too easy, even now, to lose sight of him.

The trail came out of the trees, opening wide before them.  Perhaps the snow was abating somewhat for Jane could just make out more trees on the far side of the piste and as she and Ron continued down, a faint glow became visible to one side of the trail.  It slowly came to Jane that this glow was the lodge that stood near the end of this particular piste.  Ron did not hesitate.  He led them straight to it coming to a tidy stop right beside one of the big wooden ski racks.  Without a word he released his bindings and arranged both pairs of skis and ski poles carefully.  Then, folding Jane against him, he made way for them through the throng of slightly inebriated skiers packed into the sizeable establishment.

She looked at Ron and no words would come.  There was nothing she could say to him to convey how certain she had been of the mortal danger, nothing she could say to express the relief that hit her now like the warmth from the open fires and the heat of the many bodies.  She could only press herself closer to him and reassured by his solid presence, the pounding of her heart eased.

Wordlessly they procured coffee and brandy.  Miraculously they found seats facing each other not too far from a roaring fire.  Each had stripped off the outer layers needed for this weather:  very wet hats, gloves and goggles lay beside them.  Ski suits were unzipped to navels revealing colourful turtleneck shirts beneath and Ron had pulled his arms out of his suit.  Hands reached for brandy.  Ron's free hand sought Jane's, telling her all she needed to know.  Their smiles, when they met one another's eyes, were just a little shy and they clinked their glasses together softly before sipping the fine, amber liquid that fired each nerve ending.

Her luck had held once again.
************

January-March 1998

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