A Tour of Bones - Facing Fear and Looking for Life by Denise Inge

Author:Denise Inge [Inge, Denise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biographies & Memoirs, Memoirs, Travelers & Explorers, Religion & Spirituality, Travel, Specialty Travel, Literary & Religious
ISBN: 9781472913081
Google: PWHGBAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00OHH0L8I
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum
Published: 2014-11-05T18:30:00+00:00

5

Naters

As the night train rumbled towards Zürich, a sudden staccato rap on the cabin door interrupted my weary sleep; it was an abrupt wake-up call. The half-Hungarian in the bunk above, who had been tossing and turning all night, descended promptly and dressed but, despite the shaft of bright sunlight admitted to our cabin by her departure, I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Fumbling about in half-light I pulled on black socks and black trousers in grey-blackness, pulled a crumpled smile from my pleasant bag and tried it on for size. It didn’t fit. The official in the corridor was yelling some instruction in four languages about passports. I groaned. Zuzana told me mine was in my bag, that she had given it to me first thing. I would have sworn in a court of law that I had never seen it. But I stumbled, finally, in some semblance of order, out of the cabin into a gangway streaked with beautiful, blindingly bright sunlight. Like a mole emerging from subterranean refuge, upright and amazed, I blinked. Walensee and Zürichsee. There was sunlight on the water like sequins, and there were white paper cut-out sails.

The first things we found in Zürich station, spacious and welcoming, were the spanking-clean loos and showers – restorers of equanimity and composure. The next thing we found was our tall friend Franz, lean and familiar, who met us exactly on time in exactly the appointed place. It was Franz who had told us about Naters, a small alpine village with its charnel house where, he said, schoolchildren pass in hand-holding crocodiles to contemplate mortality. We followed, grateful, as he stowed our cumbersome bags with ease and sought out the best seats on the train which were, of course, to be found in the dining car.

Franz knew this line. He had been travelling to Brig for holidays since he was a little boy. He knew that if we sat at that very table facing in just that direction, the Swiss breakfast coming to our linen-covered table would arrive warm and welcome with an unparalleled view. And so it came, with cappuccinos and croissants, honey and ham, butter and bread and berry jam. Across the aisle I sensed the cat on a plaid cushion and her tweedy mistress mewing disapproval at this extravagance. We did not care. Like honeymooners who knew each day could never be repeated, we drank the sun, the milk, the linen and the view in satisfied and grateful gulps with greed appropriate to the perishable nature of the gift.

Outside our window, hillsides dotted with brown wooden alpine lodges glided by in swift succession. They appeared, randomly and apparently without roads leading to them, as if they had landed in the middle of grass like tossed stones. Meadows of wildflowers rose up between them, occasionally dotted with sheep. Inside, at our table, conversation turned with happy ease from travel plans to local lore. I watched, beneath my knife, the melting butter turn from creamy to clear and drip, unctuous and luxuriant, onto broken rolls.

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