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'A pole-vaulter?' she said, in her cautious German. 'Sie springen mit einem Pol?'
'I used to, yes,' I told her. 'But not now, of course.'
Of course? you could see her thinking. But all she said was, 'Wait. You used to be a pole-vaulter, but not any more, right?'
'Of course,' I said, to which she shook her head and went right on.
'... and you're here in the mountains because you used to be a pole-vaulter?'
She was admirable; I did love her perseverance. In such casual circumstances, most people would have given up trying to understand.
'Why?' she said insistently. 'I mean, what does having been a pole-vaulter have to do with coming here to the mountains?'
'I don't know,' I said innocently, as if she had proposed such a notion all by herself. She looked utterly confused. 'What possible relationship could there be between mountains and pole-vaulting?' I asked her then. She was lost; she must have thought it was a problem with her German.
'You like heights?' she tried.
'Oh yes, the higher the better.' And I smiled.
She must have sensed the nonsense in this talk, because she smiled too and said, 'You bring your poles with you?'
'My pole-vaulting poles?'
'Of course.'
'Of course I bring them with me.'
'To the mountains ...'
'Of course.'
'You just sort of lug them around, huh?' She was having fun now.
'Just one at a time.'
'Oh, of course.'
'It beats waiting in lift lines,' I said.
'You just vault right up?'
'It's harder coming down.'
'What do you do?' she asked. 'I mean, really.'
'I'm still making up my mind,' I said. 'Really.' I was being serious.
'So am I,' she said. She was serious too, so I dropped the German and went straight into English.
'But there's no one thing I can do,' I told her, 'as well as you can ski.'
Her two friends looked up surprised. 'He's American,' said one.
'He's a pole-vaulter,' Biggie told them, smiling.
'I used to be,' I said.
'He's been putting us on,' one of the uglies said, with a hurtful look at Biggie.
