The Dead Man at the Ski Lift [1]
Jürg Schubiger [2]
Translated by xia23
What I reported here is an event which happened eleven years ago, between February 6 and 12 in Davos in the canton of Graubünden [3]. I was there as a medical corporal in a refresher course. In the morning, noon and evening I had to be in a sport team, in between I had lots of free time. Once I put a bandage on a sprained foot, another time I gave pills to those who smoked and drank too much. That was all. I went with skis into the mountain or sat in a small restaurant and listened to the jokes and the stories from the village which were told here.
One afternoon there was suddenly a fantastic sounding report that was immediately discussed in the meeting.
There was something wrong with the one of the ski lifts up at Jakobshorn [4]: yesterday and the day before yesterday it had started moving by itself. Both at the exact time, at 4:45 in the morning. And two days ago they found a man who was lying in the snow and dead at the same ski lift. He was a guest from Zürich, who had his room here in the house.
It was clear: there was a connection between the dead man and the ski lift.
I had great desire to investigate the case.
After the dinner I went back to the inn. I knew the landlord very well and asked him to have a glass of wine with me. We sat in a quiet corner.
“The dead man is gone”, said the landlord. “He will be buried in Zürich. Thank God. When he arrived here, he asked if he could buy a room. I said: ‘To rent. Yes.’ He was not satisfied with the answer, he was quite mad but in the end he took the room anyway.”
The landlord had curiously gathered all the miniature facts about the dead man and now he unpacked piece by piece in front of me.
“Yesterday there was someone there,” he continued, “a German, who took dead man’s skis instead of his own skis. He brought back the foreign skis and wanted his own back. We searched for them, but we could not find them.”
“How did the German know whom these skis belong to?” I asked. The landlord took papers of different sizes from his pocket and then put a small piece of paper in front of me.
“These skis belong to Alois Zellweger at the ‘Landwasser’ inn in Davos-Platz” which stood on it.
“The dead man attached such pieces of paper on everything, the clothes, the toothbrush, the skis, the luggage of course, even the ball point pen, everything. – By the way they have found the other skis today. They were still where the German had place them three days ago: against the wall of a kiosk on the Ischalp [5]. – Yes, on the Ischalp”, said the landlord.
“I want to go there tonight”, I explained “I would like to experience the night ride of the ski lift up with my own eyes.”
The landlord laughed: “That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
We agreed to make a trip together and drank to our well-being.
“Do you have any more belongings from the dead man?” I asked.
“His luggage is still here”, the landlord apologized, “I couldn’t do anything else. – This is a Swedish-German dictionary that he carried with him. And this is a ticket for 10 rides on our ski lift.”
The ticket had 5 holes. In the middle there was written by hand: “This ticket belongs to Alois Zellweger in the inn ‘Landwasser’ in Davos-Platz.” I also looked closely at the dictionary. Some words were underlined in red, for example, “skidliften” [6], “skidan” [6] und “biljetten” [6].
At 3 o’clock in the morning we met again, the landlord and me. We hiked up through the forest on foot. The sky was cloudy. But there was some brightness from the snow.
After about an hour and a half the Ischalp was in front of us.
From here the ski lift went up. There was the small wooden house, where someone sat during the day to check the tickets. We sat ourselves on a bench on the side of the house and waited. Exactly on 4:45 am the ski lift started moving. We saw the ski lift hangers disappearing one after another in semi-darkness that lasted for 18 minutes, that was exactly the time for the ski lift hangers to reach the top. I knew that.
On the way back we did not talk much. We were tired and somewhat disappointed.
“You don’t understand that any more than me, do you?” Asked the landlord, as we saw each other again the next day. It was after lunch. We drank coffee and moved Zellweger’s papers which lay here and there in front of us on the table, suddenly I discovered that the ski lift ticket of the dead man had changed. Yesterday I had seen five holes in it, now there were six: five in a row and one opposite.
The landlord laughed very loudly, as I showed him the new hole: “It’s clear to me now. The dead man just rides the ski lift, that is all. There are still 4 squares left on the ticket. So it will take 4 more nights, and then we will have peace. And so does he.”
In fact every morning we found one more hole on the ticket. And when there was no square left on the ticket there was also no more night rides on the Ischalp.
But things for me was not settled yet. Many questions now became clear: how was Zellweger dead? Had he followed the German, who had his skis, on foot on the ski lift on the Ischalp?
Had he lost his way up while searching?
And when was he dead? At 4:45 in the morning?
How was even possible that the ski lift was running at night? Did it simply have to run, because the dead man still was entitled to a few rides and because possession meant everything to him?
After lang refresher course, employees still asked me these questions. Much remained in the dark.
What, for example, did the underlined words in red “skidliften”, skidan” and “biljetten” have something to do with the whole thing? I have never found out.
[1]. p. 39. Der Tote am Schilift. Kontakt mit der Zeit. Dieter Stöpfgeshoff. Max Hueber Verlag. Germany, 1995.
[2]. Jürg Schubiger. 10/14/1936 - . A Swiss writer and psychotherapist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrg_Schubiger
[3]. Graubünden. Graubünden, a canton in eastern Switzerland, is known for its dramatic Alpine scenery and winter sports. St. Moritz, an upscale resort town and Winter Olympics host in 1928 and 1948, offers ski runs, an outdoor ice rink and ski jumping. Davos, home to the annual World Economic Forum, is also popular for skiing and hiking. The Engadin Valley has traditional whitewashed houses decorated with sgraffito plasterwork. ― Google
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisons
[4]. Jakobshorn. The Jakobshorn is a mountain of the Albula Alps, overlooking Davos in the Swiss canton of Graubünden. It is also one of the five skiing regions of the Davos Klosters Mountains, offering 14 pistes. Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakobshorn
[5]. Ischalp. A small village located in Davos, Switzerland.
https://www.alltrails.com/trail/switzerland/grisons/ischalp-davos
[6]. “skidliften”, “skidan” and “biljetten”. These words are Swedish, meaning ski lifts, skiing and ticket in English. – Gemini.
