So, let’s say you’re driving up the Col de l’Iseran in the French Alps, near the Italian border, on your way to Val d’Isère. The French word col translates as pass, but what it means is, if you don’t have your rosary in hand and, eyes squeezed shut, aren’t fervently praying Hail Marys like your life depending on it, you aren’t exactly in touch with how much you love your life. Oh, you could be up front in a good-enough rental Fiat, popping Werther’s like they’re Xanax – prescribed for panic disorders – and cracking cans of Coke Zero with one hand with only the other on the wheel, like no big deal. Or, you could have said first thing in the morning, it’s okay, you go ahead; I’ll stay home with the kitten. But then, you wouldn’t be me, childproof-locked in the Fiat’s backseat while driver-Camille careened around curves, climbed up steep steeps, and otherwise set our GPS to the resort we absolutely had to see. At least there was no ice. At least the precipices didn’t feature makeshift memorials to those who had gone (over) before. Still, the col was everything I had hoped for my sister when she said, I want to do Chamonix. There was danger; there was thrill; there were tests of nerve and skill. Fortunately, Camille is an excellent, excellent driver – law-abiding, safety-first, and easy on the passengers. But the road that climbed out of peaceful, placid Bourg Saint Maurice – green, with cows – was, as the Val d’Isère tourist bureau warned, “arduous.”
“Oh, they never know anything,” Camille said when at breakfast I brought this to her attention. “We need to see for ourselves.”
So, we were seeing. And careening and climbing and crossing through vistas of heart-stopping awe.
“OMG, look!” At least Camille did not, both hands now gripping the wheel, her attention dead ahead on the skinny, twisty road – the highest paved pass in the Alps at 9,068 feet, which is so truthfully arduous it is closed in winter. She had stopped talking some Werther’s ago. A good sign: this meant she was tense – fiercely focused, in the moment, kinda frightened. Having Fun. The Alps cliffs and crags jutted up and up all around us, and here, in the land of glaciers – Pissaillas, Grande Motte – it all felt trés Tour de France, for the very col we (with trembling) now climbed was the site of several dramatic Tour stages. The 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville brought Val d’Isère (along with nearby Tignes, pronounced teen) international renown, and these days, world-class ski competitions keep the glam up to date in the region the earliest Celtic tribes and later Euro royals (House of Savoy) found especially nice. At last: Val d’Isère village.
“I could use a coffee.” Camille ached for a latte, but certainly a St. Bernard with a small collar barrel of brandy – as mythologized in Edwin Landseer’s 1820 painting, Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler – seemed more in order. We had conquered the col, so Jacqueline wanted tea and all of us, the toilette, so we cruised the streets seeking distressed-traveler comforts. Little hamlets of chic chalets in the traditional Savoyard wood-and-stone style looked romantic and inviting; the pretty city center, with the rare 1664 church the French revolutionaries spared – Saint Bernard de Menthon, named for the patron saint of mountain dwellers – added soul to the streets; and charming shops plus lots of restaurants made me think, gee, here’s some Chamonix fun without the bungee jump. Elegant inns, to wit, the five-star Hôtel Le Blizzard and equally starred Airelles Val d’Isère, told us that here, like Megève, resort life thrived.
“What is that?” Jacqueline pointed left.
It was a “closed” sign. What’s more, it was fermé here, fermé there; fermé left, fermé right: the entire town was roped, signed, barriered, blocked, and otherwise busy with…construction. Workmen in overalls, work-crews with machinery, working cranes clangi
ng and grinding and smoking and sparking – Val d’Isère was readying, apparently, for winter, and nary a single toilette would welcome us.
“Let’s go,” said Camille. “We can pee on the side of the col.”
Perhaps in Tignes we could tea-‘n-toilette. It wasn’t far, being part of the sprawling Espace Killy resort area named in honor of legendary ski-great Jean-Claude Killy, a Val d’Isère native son. So, with a 15-minute descent down the pass that again tested Camille’s levels of derring-do, we arrived in a parking lot where a gondola would whoosh us up a steep Alp to arrive at three of the five villages that comprise Tignes. Quel surprise: Fermé announced a giant sign.
“Oh, I get it,” I said and really, I finally did: the hairy, scary all-day drive up and down the Col de l’Iseran was the entire point of Val d’Isère. It was the “journey” and not the “destination” that allowed Camille to “do” Chamonix, including its environs, in a way that spoke to her thrill-seeker’s soul. In the end, I wouldn’t have to paraglide, or ice-climb, or mountain-bike ride off a cliff. I could simply pee by the side of the road – what the hell! – and expose my bare bottom to passing traffic, and at the same time, my sister could live on the edge; she could test her nerve and her courage and her skill in a frightening pursuit that, when it was over, saw her glowing. Her achievement was real: it was a very proud moment.
Once safely back at the Chamonix flat we were ready to celebrate. Where’s my kitty? At my call Camino appeared, sleepy and disheveled. I, per our habit, flipped him up to hold him to my face, breathe him in, and envelop him in kisses, but he wanted none of it. Put me down now! Fighting his way free he followed his true north – Camille – as she headed to the sofa. After some spirited roughhousing, the two settled in, Camille with a bag of nacho-cheese Doritos and kitty in her lap on a Camino-colored throw.
“Camino, you should have seen your Auntie Mille today. She was amazing.” I spoke, but was invisible: the kitten had eyes only for my sister. He gazed at her fascinated, obviously secretly telling her all about his day. “She got us up and down the most dangerous col you can possibly imagine! She was calm. She was brave. She didn’t get honked at once for going slow.” The kitty’s eyes widened in wonderment. His idol then asked for a can of Coke Zero and I delivered it.
“Next time, my baby Camino, when you’re a little older.” Camille made a promise in response to whatever hopes, dreams, desires, fantasies, plans the kitten held in his heart and was sharing with her in their private moment. I could only hope he wasn’t confiding to her he would never go live with Gina in the forever home that awaited him. What would I tell her? That Camino wanted a life of risk; he wanted adventure? That after meeting Camille he would never, ever be content as a protected, pampered housecat? I couldn’t!
“What did he say to you?” I had to know.
“I’m sorry, but that’s between us,” said my sister and offered the kitten a Dorito.
“Sister, please: nacho-cheese chips can’t be good for….” I stopped myself. Try to be fun, Colette, just try – for kitty’s sake.
“Can’t be good for what?”
“Never mind.” It would pain me to say it, much less know I’d age ten or twenty years with all the disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, and yellow dye number five that would defile my temple, but better to live than say Camino and I never actually did Chamonix with Camille. “Pass me the sack of Doritos, please. I’d like to enjoy a pile before they’re all gone.”
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