The Day After Tomorrow

40

AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 38 from Chicago to Zurich touched down at Kloten Airport at 8:35 A.M., twenty minutes ahead of schedule. The airline had provided a wheelchair, but Elton Lybarger wanted to walk off the plane. He was going to see the family he hadn’t seen in the year since he’d had his stroke and he wanted them to see a man rehabilitated, not a cripple who would be a burden to them.

Joanna collected their carry-on luggage and stood up behind Lybarger as the last of the passengers left the aircraft. Then, handing him his cane, she warned him to be careful of his footing and abruptly he stepped off.

Reaching the jetway, he ignored the flight attendant’s smile and well-wish and firmly planted his cane on the far side of the aircraft door. Taking a determined breath, he stepped through it, entered the jetway and disappeared into it.

“He’s a little anxious, but thank you anyway,” Joanna said apologetically in passing as she moved to catch up with him.

Once inside the terminal, they waited in line to pass through Swiss Customs. When they had, Joanna found a cart and retrieved their luggage and they went down a corridor toward Immigration. Suddenly she wondered what they would do if there was no one there to meet them. She had no idea where Elton Lybarger lived or whom to call. Then they were out of Immigration and pushing through a glass door into the main terminal area. Abruptly a six-piece oompah band struck up a Swiss version of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and twenty or more exceptionally well-dressed men and women applauded. Behind them, four men in chauffeur livery joined in the applause.

Lybarger stopped and stared. Joanna had no idea if he recognized them or not. Then a large woman in a fur coat and veil, carrying a huge bouquet of yellow roses, rushed forward and threw her arms around Lybarger, smothering him in kisses and saying, “Uncle. Oh, Uncle! How we’ve missed you! Welcome home.”

As quickly the others moved in, surrounding Lybarger and leaving Joanna all but forgotten. The whole thing puzzled her. In five months of intensive physical therapy, Elton Lybarger had never once given her any indication of the wealth or position he seemed to have. Where had this entourage been the entire time? It didn’t make sense. But then, it was none of her business.

“Miss Marsh?” An extremely good-looking man had left the crowd to approach her.

“My name is Von Holden. I am an employee of Mr. Lybarger’s company. May I escort you to your hotel?”

Von Holden was in his thirties, trim and nearly six feet tall, with shoulders that looked like a swimmer’s. He had light brown, close-cropped hair and wore an impeccably tailored, double-breasted navy pin-striped suit with a white shirt and dark crested tie.

Joanna smiled. “Thank you very much.” Looking toward the crowd, she saw that someone had brought up a wheelchair and two of the chauffeurs were helping Lybarger into it. “I should say something to Mr. Lybarger.”

“He’ll understand, I’m sure,” Von Holden said pleasantly. “Besides, you’ll be joining him for dinner. Now, if you will—this way, please.”

Taking Joanna’s luggage, Von Holden led the way through a side door to a waiting elevator. Five minutes later they were in the backseat of a Mercedes limousine driving along highway N1B heading toward Zurich.

Joanna had never seen such green before. Trees and meadows everywhere were rich emerald. And beyond them, like ghosts on the horizon, were the Alps, even this early in the season capped with snow. Her New Mexico was a desert land that, despite high-rise cities and shopping malls, was still new and raw, and boiling with the restlessness of the frontier. Coyote, mountain lion and rattlesnake owned the land, and its deserts and canyons still housed men who chose to live alone. Its mountains and high meadows, lush with wildflowers at spring runoff, were, at this time of year, brown and dusty and dry as tinder.

Switzerland was entirely different. Joanna had seen it out the window as they’d flown in and could feel it all the more now as the limousine brought them into Zurich through the Old Town. Here was a place rich with the history of the Romans and Hapsburgs. A world of medieval alleys towered over by gray stone buildings of pre-Gothic architecture that had existed centuries before a single coal oil lamp shone in a New Mexico shanty.

In her mind Joanna had projected what it would be like When she got here. A small but compassionate and loving family waiting to greet Elton Lybarger. A hug goodbye from him, maybe even a kiss on the cheek. Then a pleasant room in a Holiday Inn-like place. And maybe a sight seeing tour of the city before her return trip the following day. The time would be short, but she’d do the best with it she could. And mustn’t forget souvenirs! For her friends in Taos and for David, the speech therapist from Santa Fe she’d been seeing for two years but with whom she had never slept.

“You’ve never been to our country.” Von Holden was looking at her, smiling.

“No, never.”

“After you are checked into your hotel room, if you will permit me, I will show you some little of our country before dinner,” Von Holden said, graciously. “Unless of course, you prefer not.”

“No. Please. That would be terrific. I mean, I’d love to.”

“Good.”

The limousine turned left, down Bahnhofstrasse, and they passed block after block of elegant shops and exclusive cafés that increasingly broadcast an atmosphere of great and understated wealth. At the far end of Bahnhofstrasse glimmered a vast turquoise waterway—”The Zurichsee,” Von Holden said—churning with lake steamers that left long ribbons of sunlit white foam in their wake.

Magic settled over Joanna like pixie dust. Switzerland, she could tell everyone, was lush and genteel and permanent. Everything about it felt warm and hospitable and very, very safe. Besides, it reeked of money.

Abruptly she turned to Von Holden. “Do you have a first name?”

“Pascal.”

“Pascal?” She’d never heard the name. “Is it Spanish or Italian?”

Shrugging, Von Holden grinned. “Both, either, neither,” he said. “I was born in Argentina.”