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IF THE SWISS WEREN’T so busy counting their money and had a navy, they might just rule the world. Such a supposition stroked Alexandra’s thoughts along her arresting train ride over the snow-laden valleys and scenic chasms of the Alps. The surrounding hamlets looked charming; the railway tunnels and bridges veritable monuments of architectural brilliance. Everything in Switzerland seemed first-rate and aesthetically pleasing, from its multilingual people to its high-altitude living.
The Alpine resort town of St. Moritz was among this wonderland’s shrines, and for the coming week, the setting for the first-ever stand-alone Winter Olympic Games. The American Olympic Association was fostering thoughts of marketing Lake Placid, New York, to host the event in 1932, hence eager for a pictorial account of the international splendor and frivolity these newfangled games had to offer.
Alexandra arrived for this assignment ahead of a blizzard, with just enough time to check into the ritzy Kulm Hotel, conduct some over-priced shopping, and get hit by a snowball along a horse-drawn sleigh ride. The storm regulated her first night indoors.
As fortune had it, the hotel was a hub for the games: housing the athletes and hosting venues for the opening ceremonies, skating competitions, and a tobogganing piste known as the Cresta Run. Alexandra met a smorgasbord of interesting people over dinner, including the twenty-four-member American team.
Her evening flew by in cozy warm fun.
The following morning, not so much.
The long black wool coat with a gray mink collar and matching sable-brimmed Cossack hat had looked warmer in the posh storefront window. She stood in zero-degree weather with a snow-driven wind pummeling away. Her mindset was less on the aim of her camera than the discomfort pulsing from her chest. Though raised in Montana, Alexandra tolerated tropical climates far better than frigid, and it was mostly the fault of her breasts.
As members of the Muthaiga Club and Kavirondo tribe surely had heard by now, they existed.
Since departing Africa, a dream about Jean-Luc De Pauw pestered her. In it, he sat tied in a chair. Beryl paced nearby, cracking a riding crop until he blurted, “They’re small, upturned, and perky!”
Yet, it was not truly her breasts at the root of Alexandra’s grief, but more precisely, her nipples. They were too pert when stimulated. This cruelty of nature had caused her vast humiliation, particularly in college, as the girls of Hamilton Hall had often teased her in the washroom. They had also quipped that when cold, men reacted opposite: their testicles rising inwardly to insulated pockets just behind the kidneys. This was the reason sex lasted longer in winter, since it took time for their return trip to the scrotum, which then allowed the man to jism.
Alexandra held no plans to test this theory over the coming week, though the heated friction of some heavy petting would feel ideal right about now.
The 464 athletes representing twenty-six countries were preparing to enter the Eispavillion for the opening parade of nations. Alexandra had secured a prime location to photograph the procession in the unceremonious conditions. The storm had swept away the hung flags, banners, and other decorative grandeurs. Most of the arena’s seats were empty. She was determined to attain photos that would not emphasize the event’s problematic commencement.
“Are your nipples as frozenly erect as mine, Skendra?”
“Yes, but for reasons other than being attired like a Muscovite runway model.”
Alexandra followed her colleague’s gaze at the line of athletes entering the arena. Many were handsome Nordic types. None of them appeared the least bit discomforted by their vacated testicles.
Skendra Lilleth was dressed warmer, yet as fashionable, as her American counterpart. Alexandra had met the Le Matin newspaper reporter over cocktails, and they had sprung up a bond. The raven-haired beauty lived in Marseilles, spoke fluid English with a sultry French accent, and was proving fun and flashy company.
The pulsating was growing intolerable, with the procession mere minutes away. Alexandra hugged herself and started jumping up and down, using her gloves to cross pat her shoulders as if a flagellating arctic ballerina. It surely looked ridiculous, and yet she didn’t care.
Skendra shook her head. “Come here, Alexandra, and hug me.”
Alexandra stopped jumping, stared into Skendra’s imperious blue eyes, and complied.
—‡—
FROM THE GROUNDS OF the Kulm Hotel, the lights of the bleached town below sparkled against the frozen shoreline of Lake St. Moritz. Silver-glazed massifs served as sentries around the Engadine Valley, barring for ages the sordid entanglements of the outside world. With the mountain passes again open and fewer flurries to the wind, the games proceeded in fine fashion. Alexandra settled into a routine of taking in a fireside breakfast, covering the events, and dining and dancing in the Kulm’s Grand Restaurant to close out each day.
In this mecca for the winter holiday set, the rich unapologetically acted rich, and the beautiful engaged in the indulgences of the beautiful. The Olympics added an eclectic twist to the standard social pudding, and a spurring sentiment of experiencing life to its fullest filled the air.
Alexandra looked at the glistening ice of the Cresta Run. She commented to her date, “Before I leave, I want to make a pitch for it. I want to feel the same thrill you feel.”
“If I win the gold,” he said, hopingly, “I’ll let you wear the medal on the way down.”
Only twenty-six Olympians were women. Because of this hormonal imbalance, Alexandra being whisked onto the dancefloor was at most a quick sip of a cocktail away. Many male athletes seemed less consumed in chaste focus on earning a medal than in unleashing their inner horndog. A call for reinforcements was in order. Alexandra’s hotel suite held an adjoining room. After the opening ceremonies, she had recruited Skendra and a Swedish skier turned journalist, Inga Nilsson, to abandon their lodgings and settle in.
There was no shortage of athletic or social dramas for the three to cover professionally each day or gossip over at dinnertime. Winter games had been held four years prior in Chamonix, France, as a mere addendum to the perennial Summer Olympics. Unfinished storylines from that competition abounded. The Norwegians had medaled highest, understandably, as skating, skiing, and sledding were practiced in their daily commutes. The imposing Canadian hockey team had humiliated all competitors, outscoring them 132–3 to hoist gold. It had caused such a stink that officials eliminated their need to qualify this go around and placed them in the medal rounds to avoid stirring animosities. Sonja Henie, the Norwegian wunderkind, was now age fifteen, and favored to dominate in figure skating. For the first time since the Great War, German athletes were being allowed to compete internationally.
Alexandra focused on the American team and capturing the overall spirit of the games. Skendra’s journalistic efforts were attuned to the personal narratives of the athletes. Inga fixated on the Scandinavian teams and on claiming unofficial gold in the “sleeping with the most foreign men” categories. Yet, as events unfolded, scuttlebutt shifted toward an ever-growing mystery—who were the snowball assailants and how were they getting away with it?
The attacks came after nightfall—pedestrians randomly pummeled by a well-aimed clump of packed powder. Those using the electric Strassenbahn trams seemed most primed for picking. Despite a strong police presence, the snowballs continued to rain down with inexplicable accuracy. No sighting of the miscreants, or even a trace of their footprints in the snow, could be found. Some believed it the handiwork of local youth, while others professed mountain spirits were at play. Suspicion soon swung toward any English-speaking people, as many witnesses reported that after each ambush, they heard the culprits yell, “Bullseye!” Alpine troops were called in to capture the perpetrators.
Despite being a victim, Alexandra found the entire affair hilarious and advantageous. It served as a perfect diversion from her unlawful transgressions. The nipulent weather had forced her to become an unsolicited hugger. She’d taken to introducing herself to any arbitrary passerby and embracing them for a socially inappropriate duration to siphon their body heat. She was unfettered by these antics despite concerns of molesting someone who might file a police complaint, which would set off sketched portraits of her being posted throughout town, holding in many languages the caption: Wanted for frotteurism.
Since being hit by a snowball her first eve, Alexandra had taken strolls without being targeted. Tonight, she found a man draping her arm for added insulation. She’d met Jennison Heaton during trial runs for the skeleton competition: a suicidal sport of headfirst sleigh riding. The speed of the competitors racing brakeless down the vaunted Cresta Run thrilled her: how they shifted their prone bodies to manage the turns and curves of the half-pipes, the slightest miscalculation away from brutal disaster. Heaton had served as the American flag-bearer during the opening ceremonies and was in a position to medal. He was among Alexandra’s few dance partners who understood her waistline was not three inches lower than many foreign dabblers believed it to be.
They departed the bottom of the piste.
“The town voted to ban women from using it to toboggan,” Heaton said. “Too brittle a sex, they say.”
Alexandra frowned, firm in her belief that females should have an equal opportunity to break their bones on the icy track. “Have you ever incurred serious injury?”
Heaton placed a hand over his heart. “Only if you’re not there to cheer me on tomorrow.”
“No need to get sappy.”
They shared a laugh over their contrived melodramatics and continued for the hotel. Alexandra had told him she would not tarnish her professionalism in any amorous affairs. It had not deterred him from seeking her out for innocent American banter.
She asked, “Have you met the Japanese delegation? They seem lost in the ways of the West.”
“Just in passing,” Heaton said. “They’re cross-country skiers. Their training methods are curious. On their first day, they cut down a pine tree, shaved off the branches, and ever since have been lugging it with ropes up a hill. It must weigh several tons.”
“Weird.” Alexandra had noticed how polite the eight men were when they sat at their remote table each evening. They would offer gracious smiles and crisp head bows to anyone that passed, even the waiters. No one went out of their way to speak with them, likely because nobody spoke Japanese.
“Tell me more about your roommates.”
Alexandra chuckled. “I hardly know them.”
She’d introduced Heaton and other Americans to Skendra and Inga, and good international relations were in the offing. She deemed the French journalist too mature, cold, and sophisticated for him; the type no man would dare cop a feel of on the dancefloor. The redheaded Swede was fairer in figure than face, hypersexual, and one who became consumed in self-doubt if a man didn’t cop a feel.
Alexandra judged neither right for such an All-American lad as Heaton. He would be a perfect match with a young woman who landed in-between the two, such as herself. The query made her jealous. She was a foolhardy girl whose opinions changed quicker than the weather. It was her belief that a guy like Heaton should have better sense than to take her vow of chastity so literally.
Gentlemen can be so infuriating at times. She sighed. “If you must, try for Inga. There might be a line.”
“After my races, why don’t we go ice skating?”
Alexandra approved the idea. She faced him, reached under the flaps of his wool coat, and adjusted his tie. “Would you mind if we just stood and cuddled awhile?”
Before Heaton could answer, she latched onto him with the adhesiveness of a suckerfish.
Five minutes passed. He asked, “Good?”
“A little longer.” Alexandra rubbed her face against his shoulder and then kissed his neck. When he looked across at her, she placed a hand on his frigid cheek and planted a heated kiss.
Splat!
The precision snowball struck mid-necking right at the juncture of their merged lips. They shook off the shock, wiped clean their faces, and shared a determined look in knowing what must come. Without sharing a word, they scooped up snow and sprinted toward their assailants, packing firm their weaponry along the way. Upon reaching the only hiding spot the culprits could have thrown from, no one was there, not even any tracks to betray their route of retreat.
It was perplexing.
The shellacking cooled off Alexandra’s libido.
As they ascended the steps to the hotel, a distant disturbance ruffled the air. It sounded like a high-pitched holler of “Bullseye!”