Page 68 of In A Faraway Land

Klosters

Flicka von Hannover

Klosters.

That one word told me so much

about Dieter’s childhood.

Flicka cowered on her side of the bed. “I’m sorry.”

Around them, the room was dark but for a wedge of light from the bathroom that illuminated the chest of drawers holding their few clothes.

Dieter was reaching his open hand across the sheets. “It’s all right. You knowit’s all right. I’ve been saying you need counseling.”

“But yesterday, I was fine!” Flicka wanted to pound the bed in frustration. “How can I be fine one minute, and then break out in a cold sweat and shake like that? It doesn’t make sense!”

“It’s an emotional reaction. It doesn’t have to make sense. Come on, take my hand. You know how this goes.”

Flicka forced her hand to slither across thewhite bed sheet toward him. She finally managed to rest her fingers in his.

He asked, “Did I ever tell you about the time I rescued a dog that had fallen through the ice on a lake?”

“No,” she said, scrunching her head down on the pillow. “When was this?”

“I was fourteen.”

Fourteen?

Flicka almost didn’t breathe. “Yeah?”

“The dog had fallen through the ice on the lake near the ski chalet myfamily owns in Klosters.”

Klosters.

Flicka knew better than to repeat the name of the Swiss town, so she asked, “A dog?”

“Yes, it had broken through the thin ice and fallen in during a freak thaw in February. I was fourteen, and I had grown almost a foot in a year. Anyone else would have fallen through the ice, too, but I had grown so fast that I was a collection of dry sticks held togetherby rubber bands. I tied a rope around my foot just in case I broke through the ice. I laid flat to distribute my weight as widely as I could, and I shimmied over the thin ice to get the dog. I grabbed her collar and hauled her out. We named her Blondie because she was sort of yellow.”

“That’s lovely,” Flicka said. “Even then, you had a thing for blondes in trouble.”

He laughed. “She was a greatdog.”

Klosters.

That one word, the name of the ski resort townKlosters,told Flicka more information about Dieter’s childhood than she had ever known about him.

Every year, the very upper-class Swiss boarding school where Flicka had grown up decamped to its second campus in Gstaad for winter sports. Gstaad was a very exclusive ski resort town. She often saw celebrities and millionaires inthe chalets and on the slopes, if you could recognize them under the mufflers, ski goggles, and hats.

Even small ski chalets in Gstaad cost millions in any currency.

Klosterswas far more exclusive than Gstaad.

The Swiss ski resort area of Klosters is near Davos, where the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting is held every year. The world’s most powerful people attend the Davos meeting, andthen they go to Klosters for a ski vacation, afterward.

Gstaad was the ski destination for movie stars and the idle rich.

Klosters was the playground for modern-day emperors.