The American College of Switzerland Zoo. James E. Henderson
was taking a large bite and passing it on. Everyone laughed, smiled, and went back to talking. A man across from me leaned forward with a bottle of wine. Along with him came the intense odor of sweat and garlic that almost knocked me down. However, several swigs later with more sausage, bread, cheese, and who knows what else, I joined the party! The air was still thick, but it no longer mattered. My end of the conversation was limited; my questions were met with polite nods. Their accent was so thick and they talked so rapidly that I could make out only a couple of words here and there.
As I got up to leave, I was hugged and kissed and sent away like a son going on vacation. As I stood outside the train I shouted “adios” back through the window as the train pulled out of the station. This was met with a chorus of “ciao” and “arrivederche.” Only then did I realize that the swirl of language around me had been Italian. The words were similar, and the wine had become a universal translator. I was in Lausanne, Switzerland, and my next train would take me to Aigle. Aigle would be my last transfer station where I would catch the train to Leysin and the American College of Switzerland.
I sat quietly on the next train, drained from the party and the wine. I listened to the people speaking around me. I heard French and German with the soft Swiss accent I would later come to like. It was not that I understood a word they were saying, but by watching the people’s expressions and body language, I could imagine that I knew what they were talking about. I was so fascinated by my fellow travelers that I sat quietly as I missed the Aigle station. Shortly after I must also have fallen asleep because the conductor rudely awakened me when he checked my ticket, started shouting in German, and pointing back the other way. He put me off in the dark at San Moritz. I knew San Moritz from my James Bond novellas. I had read them all and seen each movie several times. I bought a T-shirt from a local stand to prove that I had been there and sat in the dark waiting for the train back.
I discovered why I hadn’t recognized Aigle as my transfer point when the train stopped in a small station that didn’t have connections to other trains. When I tried to ask about the train to Leysin, the conductor just pushed me off his train and pointed down a dark street into the town where most of my fellow travelers seemed to be walking. I followed them for several blocks because they seemed to know where they were going and watched them get into a trolley with three or four cars.
Approaching an older man as he started to get into one car, I asked in German, “Wo ist der Zug für Leysin?” He looked at me confused so I tried French, “Ah… le train pour Leysin?” This time I pointed to a small card where I had written the city name since I wasn’t sure how it was pronounced.
“Oui,” he said. Actually it sounded more like ‘Wa.’ Then he let me get in the car ahead of him, but he didn’t follow me in. Instead he turned and walked forward to another car.
The interior of my car was dimly lit. My fellow passengers included a group of older teens who may have been my age, but they were engaged in a private conversation. I sat in quiet desperation. I was so tired that I couldn’t keep my eyes open, yet I would soon be arriving in a town that I didn’t know, and I had no plans for finding a place to stay. I had an early meeting the next morning at the American College of Switzerland. Fatigue and worry seemed to overwhelm me. I briefly nodded off; and when I woke, I felt worse. It felt like my body was being pressed back into the wooden bench; my head kept bumping against the hard wooden surface. It was almost like my seat had reclined and I was lying on my back. In desperation, I began listening closely to the conversation of the group of teens. From my distorted perspective, they seemed to be perched high over me on their seats. Between the heads of two boys with their backs to me sat an attractive blonde girl, eighteen or nineteen years old, who was talking nonstop. Her three companions could only grunt and nod politely in response. She spoke so quickly that I couldn’t make out separations between her words. Her language was nasal and melodic but unlike anything I had heard in the past couple of days. I was certain that it wasn’t Spanish, German, French, or even Italian. Desperate for help, I forced myself up toward the group. My head seemed to weigh a ton.
“Do any of you speak English?” I asked.
“Wha’the’elldoya’thinkah’mspeakin’?” came the reply in a deep southern drawl.
That was my introduction to Nonni, a wealthy southern princess who was a sophomore at the Swiss college. I later discovered that she could fluently butcher French, as well as English, “Co-mo-sa-va, y’all?”
A few minutes of talking with the other students and I had a guide to and a recommendation for a local hotel that was just across the street from the college. When we came to the station, the guy who was to take me to the hotel had to help me out of my seat. It was only then that I realized that the trolley was sitting at the station at almost a forty-five-degree angle. Sometime during my trip, the trolley had changed into some kind of cog train on the side of the hill. Realizing that and standing fully upright, I felt reinvigorated as I was escorted toward the hotel. We walked down from the station along a dark street to a stairway that led down to the front of a dark building. He pointed toward the door and told me to knock, then turned and pointed to the front of a building with the sign “The American College of Switzerland,” and I could just barely make out the word “ZOO” scratched in the paint on the bottom of the sign. I wasn’t to understand the truth of that graffiti until much later. As my escort walked swiftly into the darkness to rejoin his friends, I went down the stairs.
The small light by the front door illuminated the sign “Hotel Primevère.” That and a few lights visible on the upper levels were the only signs of life. I pushed a doorbell and quickly roused the owner. She didn’t speak any English but let me know that she had a room for me and that the petit déjeuner (breakfast) was included. I suddenly realized that I was hungry. I hadn’t eaten since leaving the party with my Italian family. I asked about food. Actually, I pointed with the cupped fingers of one hand toward my mouth and patted the other hand on my stomach. She shook her head and pointed to a sign on the wall that showed the hours of the various meals. The free petit déjeuner was next from 7:30 to 9:30 the following morning. She led me up a flight of stairs inside the building and showed me my room. There was a little sink in the room, but the toilet and baths were down the hall. There was no TV, not even a clock radio. The bed was too soft, the sheets too rough and stiff, and the blanket was a huge, heavy feather pillow. I wondered momentarily about my allergy to chicken feathers and fell asleep as if drugged.
I awoke to a bright light streaming through my curtains; I stared blearily at my watch resting on the side table. Both of the watch hands were together and straight up: twelve noon! My appointment was at 9 a.m., and, worse, I had missed the free breakfast!! I jumped into my clothes and stormed down the stairs. The owner was cleaning the floor in the lobby. I tried desperately to find out if I could still get breakfast, a roll or anything. She kept pointing to the sign that had the hours of the meals and to her wrist. I knew that I was late, but I pleaded! She finally pointed to my watch. I looked down and saw it read 6:40 a.m.
In a daze, I walked back to my room and sat on a stiff wooden chair by the bed for a few minutes collecting my thoughts, only then realizing that earlier, when my watch said 6:30, I had read it upside down. Having some time to wait and thinking it awfully bright for that early in the morning, I walked over to look through the wall of curtains that covered one side of my room. They hid a set of glass doors that led to a balcony.
The edges of my balcony were framed with gingerbread and flowers, but what they framed was what I was focused on. Hanging like a portrait inside the frame were the Swiss Alps! Shear, jagged peaks, some capped with white snow, some blackened as the sun rose behind them. Once I tore my eyes from the mountains, I walked onto the balcony and looked down on a small gingerbread village perched on the side of this mountain. Yes, I said “this mountain.” During that trolley ride last night, I may have been tired, but the force pressing me into my seat was not so much fatigue as it was the effect of gravity as the cog train climbed the steep slopes from the valley below. The slopes were so steep that I could not see more than a glint of light, perhaps reflected off a river in the valley. The train had carried me to this beautiful little village of gingerbread houses and flowers perched on the side of a mountain. Nothing else mattered at this point but the thought that I had to go to college here!
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