4.

This short story, not yet finished, is a sequel to "Zermatt". It takes up that evening of November 19th, 1981, after Jim has checked out of the youth hostel and gone back down the cable train to Brig, Switzerland, where he plans to take a night train to Milan, Italy.

Max

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Simplon Pass"

by

Maxwell G. Truethteller

[Copyright Maxwell G. Truethteller, 2025, all rights reserved]

                                    That evening, Nov. 19th, 1981, Jim was sitting in the train station of Brig, Switzerland, writing in his trip log book. Brig was a small city not far from Zermatt, and was an important rail link in that area. Jim planned to catch a night train across the Alps to northern Italy.

                     The train would cut across one of the major passes which connected Italy to central Europe--there was the famous St. Bernard, the Simplon, and one or two others. These passes were strategic in history, used by Napoleon, the Romans, etc.

                      Jim sat at a table in a small cafe in the station. He thought over the events of the day. His left foot was still smarting. He had slipped on ice, on the way down from the Matterhorn, and tumbled some distance down a 45-degree slope. When he landed the toe of his left boot struck something. If his ankle had been injured it was questionable whether he ever would have made it back--alive, that is.

                      It had been an excellent hike, but the dangers were many. Really it was stupid what he had done, foolhardy. He didn't realize this, though--that since he had no provisions (except a liter of water), and no winter hiking equipment, he had been wandering into a potential deathtrap. Conditions conspire against you, and intensify, the further you get from civilization. You may think things are going great but then all of a sudden...

                      It had been excellent weather that day, sunny and calm. That morning the temperature must have been about 20 degrees F. By afternoon, about 3 PM, there was still no sign of snow or ice melting so it must still have been below freezing. Jim should have been better prepared, though. All kinds of things could have gone wrong. Weather could change suddenly and unpredictably in mountainous regions like that. Jim's first mistake was, cotton clothing, which is a serious hypothermia risk--if it gets wet, you're in trouble, because it loses about 75% of its insulating capacity, even if it's been wrung out. All garments should be wool, nylon, polyester, silk, or some other cold weather-rated material. So, to be prepared for every eventuality, he should have been outfitted with wool socks and other good cold weather gear. Also, at very least, he should have had:

                      --a compass, on a colored lanyard (so it's easy to find)

                      --outdoorsman's matches (waterproof)

                      --sunglasses, to protect eyes from glare

                      --a wide brimmed hat of some kind, to protect from sunburn

                      --spikes on boots (to facillitate walking on ice or snow)

                      --hiking pole--similar to a ski pole--important for walking on difficult terrain

                      --gloves of some kind, to protect hands (if you fall you need to be able to catch yourself with your hands)

                      --as much water and food as possible

                      It would also have been wise to have a map of the area. It was amazing he was able to get back to the town without making a wrong turn on one of the many trails, or getting lost some other way. If he'd been delayed even 10 minutes he probably would have collapsed from dehydration before ever getting back to Zermatt. Undoubtedly, death would have soon followed. All four factors--thirst, fatigue, hunger, cold--would have converged, in a short time, and that would have been the end of him, surely. That  was how easy it was to die in the wilderness.   

Jim sat back in his chair in the station cafe. He liked writing in his trip log book. It was as if he was speaking to someone--posterity, maybe. The book was the only "person" to talk to, to whom to recount the events of each day. Most of the time, every now and then, he took some time to write a bit.

   He sat thinking for a while, and then, suddenly, there was an announcement for the train departing for Northern Italy. Jim realized he'd better grab his things and get ready, lest he miss the train.

    Jim put the book and his pen in the duffel bag, closed it, then shouldered it as he started toward where the trains arrived, a platform. You'd just stand on the platform, and wait as the train slowed and halted. Then somebody would open a door and you could board the train.

     Jim looked around the cafe. "Guten abend," he said to the attendant. Then he walked toward the platform. Sure enough, he could see the train about 100 yards down the track.

  In a short time the massive vehicle lurched to a stop, brakes hissing and screeching. "Cachung"--then a door opened, and Jim climbed the steps. He looked for a non-smoking car. You'd see the ubiquitous signs, on the walls of the cars, in three or four languages:

                              Defense de Fumer

                               Nicht Rauchen

• 
  

                                   No Smoking

• 
  

  After walking down the central aisles a while Jim sat down on a bench--it was a car with pairs of benches facing each other, but not separate, enclosed compartments, as some of the cars had. Jim stowed the heavy duffel bag overhead and then sat down.

          It was nice and cozy, the train car. There were a number of other people, you didn't have too many choices of where to sit. No unoccupied bench pairs in sight, Jim had sat down on a bench where there was one other person, sitting across from it.

          The passengers sat quietly, as others boarded and the train crew got everything ready to debark. Once they were sure there were no other people boarding, they didn't waste time in getting going. The crews were efficient and worked fast, like clockwork.

          In a short time, the train lurched, and the ride had begun, destination, Milan, Italy, due to arrive about midnight, crossing the mountains via the Simplon Pass. 

  
  

          It was dark out already, it was about 8:00 o'clock. Jim sat resting, glad to be on the train, and back in civilization. After a few minutes, as the train got clear of the station, and the town of Brig, nestled in mountains at 2,267 feet elevation, and began its slow progress through the Simplon Tunnel, which would emerge after 19 kilometers at Iselle, Italy, Jim noticed, and his attention turned to the other person sitting across from him. He nodded a polite, friendly nod of greeting toward her and she responded with a friendly smile and nod. It was a woman, sort of middle-aged--maybe late 40's--who had black hair in a "page boy" hair cut, a fair, alabaster complexion, black eyes, and appeared to be relatively short of stature, maybe 5'5", and was sort of plump. She had on a dark brown dress of some kind of heavy material (for winter) and calf high boots of some kind, dark grey leather, with a fur lining. On the bench next to her was a large bag of some kind with handle straps, some kind of canvas, black in color.

          Jim looked away after the friendly greeting, pleased at the woman's typical Italian warmness and friendliness. The Italians, he would soon discover in his travels in Italy, were highly gregarious, social, and "warm"--they were demonstrative and expressive of emotion, rather than reserved, the women especially. Jim would be amazed by this, as he journeyed through Italy, over the next three weeks. It would be something he'd never seen before. He'd go to Bologna, then Florence, then Sienna, then Rome and Pompeii, and on the return trip stay with a family he knew in a small town near Ravenna, for eight days. He would be thrilled by the beauty of many of the Italian women, and all the while, of those three weeks, amazed by the sociability and just humanness of the Italian people. It'd be something he'd never forget, those three weeks.

          Jim got the sense that the woman sitting across from him was curious about him and probably wanted to know where he was from, whether he was a "straniero", foreigner, or not. After another minute Jim said, "Buona sera, Signora, andate Lei a Milano [are you going to Milan]?".

          "Si, a Milano," the woman said.

          "Ahh, va bene," Jim said, "anch' io, a Milano [me too, to Milan]".

          Jim sat quietly another minute or two, then said, "Allow me to introduce myself, Signora, my name is 'Jim', I am from America. I'm a student and am travelling in Europe this fall."

  
  

           "Ahhh," the lady said, smiling and with a nod.

           Jim sat quietly another minute and then the lady said, "Are you a student in Italy?"

           "No," Jim said, "only in America, at the university in my home town. But I would like to study in Italy some time, probably in Rome."

           The lady nodded understandingly and continued sitting quietly.

           "What subject are you studying?" she said after another minute.

           "General education," Jim said, "including literature, history, philosophy and political science. I plan to be a writer, a novelist, like Ernest Hemingway, the American novelist. I want to travel much in Europe in the next few years, and I probably will write about it--I love Europe, so I wish to live here for a few years and write about it."

           The lady smiled and nodded appreciatively, apparently impressed by Jim's intelligence and certainty about his career plans and ambitions. She was probably working class, Jim thought, and thus was not college educated and didn't know about that world, so, to her it probably seemed quite impressive.                                                        The conversation continued for a while and Jim found out that the woman's name was Mantini, Signora Mantini, and she was from a small town not far from Milan, 40 miles or so, in "Lombardia", the region surrounding Milan. Italy had many regions like this and each one had its special character. This probably was because for centuries Italy wasn't one nation but many "city states". She was a cook for a well-to-do family in German speaking Switzerland, not far from Zermatt, went there a few days every now and then, particularly if there was some kind of special occasion, dinner party. In youth she had worked as an "au pair" in Switzerland and that was how she learned German, the only language she spoke besides Italian. 

                 The train continued on slowly, at a slight upward gradient, nothing but dark outside because they were in the tunnel, continued in basically a straight line. Jim continued to sit quietly. Signora Mantini still seemed kind of curious about him--probably she had never met an American before. She had the look of a child who sees something new and strange, and wants to know what it is.

                 Jim tried to think of something to re-start the conversation.

                 "Will you be home until after the Christmas holidays, Signora?" he finally asked.

                 "Si," she said.

                 "I am going to travel in Italy from now til mid December, then I will return to England and take a plane back to America. Then in January I will return to college. I will probably study chemistry, psychology and literature. To be a writer you should know many different things, you need to learn about the world, other countries, their history and such. You need to study politics, things like that, so you understand everything."

                  "Will you write about Italy?" she asked.

                  "Yes, certamento,"Jim said. "And all of Europe. I am learning so much, now, in my travels. I began October first, went to Belgium, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and now Italia. I am now returning from two days in Zermatt, where I went hiking to the base of the Matterhorn. Before that I stayed a week with people I know in Lyon, Switzerland. In October I stayed with friends in Antwerp, Belgium, then two weeks ago with friends in La Chaux de Fonds, Switzerland."

                    "Lo conosco [I'm familiar with it], La Chaux de Fonds," Signora Mantini said.

                    "You must know much of Svizzera, because you have spent much time there," Jim said. 

                    "Si, molto tempo [much time]."

                    There were a fair number of people in the train car. On the bench behind Signora Mantini there was an elderly Italian man who occasionally turned and said something to la Signora, in Italian. At one point he must have asked about Jim because Jim heard the Signora say to him,"Si, e un Americano". Jim noticed the sort of natural national "comaraderie", you could say, among the Italians, even those who didn't know each other personally--there was a common social bond. Most of the passengers in the car were European, Italian or Swiss, far as Jim could tell. He was the only true "straniero", meaning non-European.

                     The train had been going gently upwards, about five degrees, in basically a straight line, at a comfortable, slow pace, for the first 30 minutes or so, then down, about 10 degrees, another 30 minutes. It must have been nearing Iselle, where it would break into the mountains again, out of the Simplon Tunnel's South Portal.

                      In a few minutes Jim decided to go out the end of the train car onto the small porch, to see what was outside. He went to the end of the car and out its door, stepping onto the small metal porch into the fresh, cold air. He was surprised to see spectacular mountains, so close you could just about reach out and touch them, which were completely covered with snow and ice, and lit up with the moonlight--it must have been a full moon that night--as if with strobe lights. The pristine snow and ice shined, sparkled, spectacularly, in the amazingly bright light of that evening. The train was moving, still slowly, as it had been, it must have just passed Iselle, in northern Italy. Jim stood on the porch, enjoying the invigorating, bracing cold air outside the train, leaning against the porch's right-side railing. He wished he could have gone down into that thrilling alpine wonderworld he saw all around, so fresh and beautiful and mesmerizing was it. He couldn't believe the sight of those mountains, they were so close! There was no sign of any civilization around (that he could see), for all appearances they might have been in the highest and remotest part of the Alps. What if avalanches struck the trains from those peaks, he wondered, they were in a valley, it appeared, with those towering giants on either side, what would stop them, that snow and ice.

                       But in reality they weren't far from Domodossola, Italy, which would be the end of the crossing of the major part of the mountains, and of most of the Simplon Pass. The Pass was an ancient road route, that wound circuitously through the Swiss-Italian Alps. The Tunnel, of course, was a modern addition, which cut a straight line through those peaks. From Domodossola it would be another two or three hours to Milan, where Jim would have to find lodging for the rest of the night. He'd need luck for that, because it was already after nine.  

                        It was so refreshing, the scene was so spectacular, beautiful, out on that porch, that Jim hated to go back into the train car again. But it was starting to get a bit cold...

                        Jim opened the door, finally, the cold air rushing in, and went back to his seat. His left foot was still smarting, from his tumble on the way down from Matterhorn, and he was pretty well banged up from many falls on ice. Those bruises were starting to bother him, now, after he'd had a few hours' rest. He carefully eased back into his seat, or onto the bench, and Signora Mantini seemed to notice his condition.

                        "Ferrito [wounded]," Jim said. "Mia 'expedizione', oggi, nelle montane [my 'expedition', today, in the mountains]."

                        "Ohh..." The Signora clasped hand to face dreadfully.

                         Jim waved it off gallantly, as if to say, "It's no big deal...". 

                         "So, let me tell you about my plans for Italy, Signora," Jim said. "From Milano I plan to go to Bologna first, mostly because I heard that it is a true 'capital' of la cucina Italiana [Italian cuisine], which is my favorite in the world, then to Sienna, then Firenze, then to Rome and Pompeii. After several days in Rome I will go to Pompeii and Ercolano, to see the ruins, the antiquities. On the way back to France and England I will stay with a family near Ravenna, about one week. I know their daughter from high school, in America, an exchange student."

                          Signora Mantini seemed impressed with this and asked about Jim's friends in Emilia Romagna province (which is just south of Venice).

                          "They are a very nice family, Signora. Two daughters, their father runs a furniture business. They live in a suburb of Ravenna, not far from it. The daughter I know, Allessandra, is a good student, smart--she helped me learn Italian in high school. The teacher at my school has friends in Italy and he and they helped arrange the exchange student program. Allessandra taught me all kinds of things about Italy and Italian language--for two years, she was there, so I learned alot. Otherwise, I wouldn't speak Italian very well!"

                          Signora Mantini laughed. "Tu lo parli tanta bene [you speak Italian well enough]!"

                          "So, to continue," Jim said," the teacher in my class, Mr. Santi, was very good. Each day, in that class, I sat in great interest. It was fascinating to me, because it was something I'd always wanted to learn--la Latina...what language is more important in history? It is the language of the Romans, and I have always been very interested in le antiquita' [antiquities]. 

                          So Mr. Santi told us many interesting things, about Italia, its history, culture, customs, cucina, everything. He is Italian himself, son of an immigrant to America." 

                          Signora seemed very pleased with Jim's connection to and interest in her native land. And to appreciate how well he spoke its language. There was something about that native land that seemed to be drawing Jim to it. For a while it had been the place he'd most wanted to see. There was just some intuition that there was something important about it, some purpose. And it was as if something was setting the whole thing up--perfectly.

                                When he started in tenth grade, at Andrew Jackson High School (in his home town in the United States), which was a special school for top students--you had to take a test to get in--he knew he wanted to study Latin, for some reason. Because that was sort of the key to Western civilization, and its word roots were important and fundamental to most Western languages. Jim looked at Andrew Jackson's foreign language program--it had French, Spanish and Russian--but not Latin. His heart sank, at first. But then he found out the school offered Italian. "What is that but a modern version of the ancient language?" Jim thought.

                                 At first uncertain, eventually Jim decided that it would be close enough, and he signed up for it for junior and senior year.

                                Next interesting bit of luck was the teacher, Mr. Santi. He had a way of keeping his students in rapt attention. You could always hear a pin drop in that class. Mr. Santi, who had gone to an Ivy League college after getting home from World War II, would tell the most interesting anecdotes and stories--anything that related to Italy and its culture.

                                  Then, first week of school, junior year, Mr. Santi told them about the exchange student program he'd arranged with some language teachers he knew in Italy. Several Italian high school students would be enrolled at Andrew Jackson for junior and senior year (going home in the summer). At one stroke, Jim now had his own personal tutor. That would be Allessandra. She would teach Jim "the ropes" of Italian society, and finer points of that mysterious language of her ancestors...

                                   So now, finally, Jim was here. He could scarcely believe he'd soon walk where Julius Caesar walked. Step across the weed-strewn, crumbling tiles of the floor of Augustus' pallace, that pallace now just windswept and desolate in a part of modern Rome, lonely, forelorn. Go inside the moldering Pantheon, once the sacrosanct temple of ancient Rome's major gods and goddesses, the mighty words 

                                            M AGRIPPA L F COS TERTI VM FECIT

inscribed above the entrance in giant Roman letters. It would be like going back in time. 

                                  When he got there Jim would be amazed at how many remains of the ancient city were there, just strewn here and there. The Italians paid these little attention. Jim saw large pieces of marble columns or porticos just lying around, such as at a bus stop, being used as a bench. There were large areas of ruins that were cordoned off, but otherwise neglected, not valued, particularly. No one dwelled in these places but modern Rome's substantial population of feral cats--you'd see the cats in most "waste places" in the city.    

                                  So Jim would traipse around "The Eternal City", trusty Let's Go Europe guidebook in hand, trying out some of the excellent eating places the book recommended, which were often little neighborhood restaurants called "trattorias" which were frequented by the local people, not tourists. You could get a delicious, wholesome meal for just a few American dollars (because of the strong exchange rate against European currencies). Jim certainly felt like an "alien" there, being usually the only "straniero", but he braved it. He didn't want to end up in the "tourist mill", like most other foreigners. It was difficult to "break the ice", though. If you didn't know anybody there (in Rome), you were definitely on the outside.

                                 Jim had been sitting quietly, giving the Signora a chance to say something. Let me describe her a bit more: she was kind of a cute person, sort of childlike, with a childlike grin. A typical working class housewife and "nonna", grandmother--a young grandmother. She'd undoubtedly been quite good-looking in youth, with typical Italic black hair and alabaster complexion. Perfect, regular features. She was working class but not really "common". The type of person born into modest circumstances who could nonetheless have been, in a previous age, part of an aristocracy. A spirit of high degree.

                                 Jim was quite glad he had friends in Italy (Allessandra and her family), because it was a vital "entree" in getting to know the local people, getting past that barrier of being an "outsider", which caused an awful feeling. The difference was like night and day, if you knew someone, compared to if you didn't, were a total stranger. Even then, in his conversation with Mrs. Mantini (after he'd told her about Allessandra), it made a great difference--he could sense that he was suddenly "on the inside track", with her and the other Italians in the train car, including the gentleman sitting behind Mrs. Mantini, who seemed now far more interested in the conversation. He now turned around and questioned her more forcefully, asking her about herself, a few details about her town. Among themselves the Italians would ordinarily be less hesitant to question each other, meaning, even if they didn't know each other personally and were from different parts of Italy--it was just ordinary tribal affiliation, I guess one could say... 

                                 So suddenly the atmosphere in this particular train car was noticeably more sociable. People were far less guarded. Jim leaned forward and tried to follow the conversing between Signora Mantini and the gentleman on the bench behind her, every now and then taking a quick look at his phrase book or pocket dictionary. It wasn't easy to follow what they were saying, just typical current events/issues in Italy. Politics, the economic situation, recent news events.

                                 Back and forth the discussions would go, now including other passengers in the car, who were taking the opportunity to start their own: often heated, particularly if on politics.

                                 Jim sat back, listening respectfully and with great interest, sometimes folding his arms, often looking into his language books. Increasingly he was aware that even if he wasn't totally on the outside, he still wasn't in any way an Italian! He had a long way to go before he could truly understand their world--which he admired. He envied them that, that world. It was cozy, you could say. Convivial, familial. Time and again on his sojourn in Italy over the next three weeks he would see that conviviality and sociability. Gregariousness. The Italians were gregarious, he saw, seldom missed a chance to socialize, "gab", argue, dispute, whether about politics, mother's or wife's cooking, the latest film or other cultural event, the latest sports match-up (Italians were especially fanatical about soccer --"calcio"--every year's soccer season, soccer mania gripped Italy), or anything else. Were demonstrative, expressed things, verbally and with a repertoire of hand gestures, rather than keeping them "bottled up".

                              Needless to say, Jim had never seen anything like it, and he was impressed and approving. 

                              The car was now quite lively, relaxed--when one lively conversation begins, others probably think, "Might as well do the same".    

                              Jim listened to Signora Mantini and the man on the next bench, jabbering away in Italian, at rapid pace. He was starting to see that la Signora was actually an unusual person--there was something about her... An attractiveness, a beauty--of appearance and of spirit, personality. That she was somebody he would have a particular interest in talking to, getting to know. "What an amazing bit of luck!" he said to himself.

                              Jim smiled, and his morale picked up, realizing he was likely in excellent company. Just the thing, to dispel the loneliness and alienation of the traveller. Which could get to you. The whole trip, from the first day, October 2nd, when he arrived in London, he'd been assailed by that awful feeling. Except, of course, when he'd stayed with friends. The Europeans, that he'd met so far, were the nicest, most extraordinary people he'd ever met. And, honestly, he'd never been any place more extraordinary, to him, that he liked better, than Europe.

                              Needless to say, Jim longed to be part of that world. "It's a great life we have here in Belgium, Jim," one of his friends there, Max DeVoor, told him. "Honestly, Mr. DeVoor, I wish I could stay here forever, "Jim had said.     

                              All throughout his travels that fall, especially in central Europe, Jim had had the distinct and mysterious sense that he was returning home. It occurred to him that maybe he, being of central European ancestry, could one day marry a European girl--and thus stay there "forever".

                               Jim looked out the window of the train he was on, to Milano. It was about 10:00 PM, and lights from occasional towns the train, now in the flatlands of "Lombardia", passed were visible.             

 [to be continued...]