Garçon

1

I remember the eyes of the foxes burning in the headlights of the postmaster's car the day we drove south. They paused in the predawn darkness, transfixed by the hypnotic intensity of the high beams, flickering with terror or a fierce disregard—perhaps they were momentarily blinded—and only in the very last second leaped aside and dropped like falling stars into the ebb of the summer night.

We were on our way to Italy, the postmaster to meet up with his family whom he'd sent on ahead, and I on my first solo jaunt, sans famille, with no purpose other than to be on the move.

The postmaster gripped the wheel with mixed tension and relief, and I held to the side of the car, trying in the loop of each hairpin curve to control my mounting nausea. Under the circumstances I would have preferred silence, but the postmaster wanted to talk. I had never seen him out of uniform, and the absence of his official cap and jacket engendered an unsettling laxness and a slouch in the man to which he himself was visibly not accustomed. A life modulated ten and a half months out of twelve by the sorting of letters and the monotonous downward thump of a rubber stamp striking paper, was free on furlough to follow alternate moves, to dwell on matters other than postage and destination. But freedom can be frightening.

"Where to, young man?" the postmaster asked, as if I myself were a package awaiting delivery.

"South," I said, sucking in the chilly mountain air from a crack in the window I'd left open.

"You'll have to be a little more precise than that," he replied, "I can take you as far as Turin."

"Turin's fine," I said.

"What will you do then?" he wanted to know.

"Travel," I replied, on the verge of vomiting.

But here I am, putting the end before the beginning, not to speak of the middle, which is when everything happened.

________

Dear Mom and Dad,

The steep and treacherous mountain peaks in this corner of the Swiss Alps are called Les Diablerets, The Little Devils, a name inspired by the sudden, unpredictable avalanches of snow in winter and the occasional fatal spills of daredevils lost in the deep ravines—to which, I am told, the mountains respond with a thunderous laughter that echoes through the valley below. With no snow except for a pointed foolscap in summer and no skiers to lure into their traps, The Little Devils are forced to resort to other tricks to keep themselves amused. I hope to stay out of their clutches.

Your letter, Dad, landed me the job as waiter in training, for which I'm very grateful. I'll try to learn all I can, as you advise, and make the most of my time.

Love,

Peter

________

"Welcome to the Grand Hotel!" said the director, Monsieur Gérard, the first and last words he ever addressed to me directly, eyeing me up and down, no doubt to gauge my strength. "He's not very big for an American," the director observed to his wife.

"Nor very sturdy looking," Madame Gérard remarked, noticeably disappointed. "How old do you suppose he is?"

"The letter said seventeen."

"Well, in any case, considering the personnel shortage, we're stuck with him for the summer season," she concluded.

Standing there with suitcase in hand, not daring to set it down, I listened quietly to the discussion; and though I wanted to put in a word on my behalf, something to the effect of a firm resolve making up for muscle, I was far too intimidated by my future employers and did, in fact, if truth be told, agree with their assessment.

"Take him down to the kitchen," Madame Gérard commanded her fourteen-year-old niece, Annette, "and see that he is fed."

Annette too eyed me up and down in the hotel corridor and stopped me at the head of the service stairs. "Am I pretty?" she asked.

I nodded. With jet black hair and...