We had seen the candy-apple red “train to the clouds” from the gondola, and the ski day done, were giddy at last to board the historic cogwheel railway – called the Gornergrat Bahn – that would cogwheel us up to a summit where views of peaks, lakes, glaciers, and the mighty Matterhorn were the reward. A mountaintop restaurant, hotel, and rocky observation lookout were promised and, like most train adventures in Switzerland, the 33-minute ride would make us pine.
“Why do I have to spend my entire life sitting in my car, stuck in traffic?” Luxuriously settled in our nearly private rail-car, with its impeccably upholstered seats and shiny-clean, graffiti-free everything else, Candy flipped a Heidi braid behind her shoulder – to the manner born – and bemoaned the fact we weren’t fairytale orphans who at five years old were sent to live with our grandfather in the Swiss Alps, like the children’s book Heidi who in her mountain idyll knew only fresh air, vast skies, and feelings of joy. Right here, right now: this, my sister felt, was the life.
As the cogwheels cogged us up and up across snowy slopes, the looming presence of the Matterhorn reminded us, however, that no, you can’t have a Heidi life, because even Heidi herself – bursting with mountain freedom and mountain happiness – eventually had to return to the city and her reality made bleak by homesickness. “I know! This is all just so…so…” I hardly had words for the spectacle that met us when we arrived at 10,134 feet: a breathtaking view of 29 icy peaks and the feeling that the slightest puff of wind would blow us off our feet to fall down down down into an unfathomably forbidding – yet impressive – glacier.
“Don’t let go of the rope!!” After exiting the train an icy stone staircase with a thick rope handrail guided us even higher into the Everest-feeling atmosphere, and Candy’s plea to me to please not fall was definitely heeded as we minced our slippery way up to “the new selfie and panoramic picture spot” of particular interest to those made woozy by Alp-heights. This picture-pretty “Golden Spot” is one of the Gornergrat Railway’s first locomotives – newly restored and gilded in blinding gold; as our selfie’s solid backdrop, it helped a lot to assure us that we were okay: we may have felt unsteadily balanced on the top of the world, but if a train could chug us up past the clouds with ease, that meant it also could chug us down…to town, and the après-ski scene waiting at any one of Zermatt’s lively bars fashioned from a former livestock barn, perhaps, or horse stable. This rustic alpine flourish found everywhere – whether in chic chalet or inn from the 1800s – told us over and over that Zermatt is no Disney resort where the first climbers to conquer the Matterhorn were just show. The first ascent by Britain’s Edward Whymper and his team in 1865 ended in four fatalities on the descent: the mountain, together with the town that respects, venerates, and celebrates its status as a majestic symbol of natural grandeur, forbidding challenge, and, of course, iconic beauty, are the real deal.
High up in the icy air and again clinging to the rope, we were slip-sliding our way downslope to the train headed for après-ski when my phone dinged with a video call. Fatma! Daring to de-clutch I held her up so Candy, too, could see. Camino’s cat-sitter panned to show kitty neck-deep in a bubble bath where, it seems, he had jumped. The tub edge was ringed with Turkish-looking things: a Nazar Boncugu (Evil Eye) amulet tacked to the wall, a colorful Iznik tile propped beside it; Camino was dressed native-style in a colorful collar of traditional Turkish weaving.
“Your naughty Kedicik, he loves the water!” Fatma laughed. “You did not say he is so misbehaved!” She displayed a forearm slashed with fine scratches – the mark of his Zorro claws as sharp as a sword. I was struck by a sudden horror that she was calling to demand we come pick him up, that as professional as she was, she found Camino beyond her skills.
“Is…is everything all right?” Camino in the suds let out a sound that wasn’t a wail exactly, but something that hinted either I could take this Turkish sleepaway camp and shove it, or maybe, just maybe, he was loving it. “Is Camino being a good boy?”
“Yes, of course,” said Fatma. In the background her slight seven-year-old son plunged his hands into the tub to boost kitty out, threw a towel over him to keep him from running, and squeezed the struggling bundle to his chest in a big (for him) bear hug. “Eren and Camino are new best friends.” Kitty fought his head free of the towel and gave the camera a look that said help! “They are inseparable.” I guessed that Eren, being seven, was throwing Camino around as per Candy’s play-ways – with take-no-prisoners aggression – so trusted that things at sleepaway camp were going well. Help! My kitten’s wide-eyed face made another plea from the towel.
“Here, let me see that.” My sister wanted the phone. “Camino!” she commanded and Fatma zoomed him into the frame. “What’s this about you being in the bathtub?” At her authoritative voice he grew still, considering. “Listen to me,” she continued, “cats do not like baths! Do you understand?” He blinked like he was listening. “Your wild ancestors hated water. It made their fur heavy and cold and hindered their agility. Do you want that?” I had no idea how Candy knew this interesting cat-fact, but her words hit their mark. Camino in Eren’s bear-hug gave a big, slow yawn and a long, calm stretch of what looked like acceptance, and when released from the towel padded off with the air of one who had remembered himself: as much as he may have loved it – the steam, the suds, the scent, the silky water warm and relaxing – there would be no further tub jumps. He was past such kittenish hijinks.
“I cannot get over how you get him,” I said to my sister after hanging up with Fatma and re-clutching the rope-rail. “He minds you!” I mean, with me Camino was a feline of mysteries as unfathomable as the depths of the glacier crevasses we were hoping not to fall into. There were the secret Spanish traits he had yet to fully reveal, the untold dreams and desires hidden in his heart that, as a cat of the Camino de Santiago, surely would be of great spiritual significance once he expressed them: my kitty’s enigmas kept me unsure, even tentative with him – ever guessing how best to prepare the wild little guy for his forever home with Gina. But my sister, with a mother-tone that meant business, acted like he was a headstrong teen ruled by some serious Spanish cojones; si, Señor, her firm tone said, there will be consequences for any more misbehavior.
“He minds me because he knows I know him.” Candy’s confidence killed me. We at last again were seated comfortably in the warm, clean cogwheel train-car, choo-chooing back down to town. A hot toddy sounded about right. “That Camino, he’s all cat. He knows who he is.”
“And who is that, exactly?”
“He’s a cat who knows what he is doing. All of his antics…well, he expects us to be impressed.”
“He does? So, you’re saying his jump into the bubble bath, that’s just showing off? And Fatma’s scratches, we’re supposed to admire them?”
“We are.” I didn’t quite get the lesson my sister was alluding to, but no matter: the view outside the window at once changed the subject and we both leapt up to video the scene outside the train: the sun was setting behind the Matterhorn – the surrounding sky a blaze of swoony hues of violet, rose, gold, and ochre and the peak itself a dazzling play of light.
“It’s kind of like Camino’s the Matterhorn,” said Candy, not that I yet could follow her. “I mean, look! The mountain is just so magnificent.”
“Yes, it’s definitely wonderful, for sure.” I beheld with holy awe the snowy peak in its setting of pink and mauve, so majestic and beautiful and fearsome, too.
“We don’t have to bow down, but…you know.” No, I really didn’t.
“Kitty just wants to feel himself a real cat – the fine, fierce, smart, savvy feline he is, or will be, when he’s all grown up. I already know he’s that cat; I speak to that Camino.”
“And he likes it.” I at last understood that my syringe-fed foundling plucked from the dirt shortly after his birth did not deserve the disrespect I showed him by consistently insisting he was my innocent, helpless kitten. At four months old – mature enough for Air France to allow him to fly – he could decide for himself whether or not he was a bath-enjoying cat or a sleepaway camp kind of guy; he could Zorro-slash Turkish cat-sitters all he liked and I – I needed to afford him the same reverence that many reserve for the Matterhorn. Both the peak and Camino, after all, were natural wonders, with kitty the wonder I loved more.
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