The Glacier Express – Part 1: Window Table

"That is the Rhine," said Felix. "Or rather, where it begins."

"That little stream?" said Imani.

"It becomes very large."

She leaned to the window. The scenic train had been rolling out of the station for twenty minutes, climbing steadily into a white world, and already the Swiss Alps filled the glass: snowy slopes dotted with dark pines, wooden chalets with deep eaves, a frozen river curling through a valley like a ribbon of silver. A great viaduct curved ahead, its stone arches soaring over a gorge.

She was thirty-two, a surgeon from Nairobi, on a rare two-week holiday, in a thick red jumper, with a camera in her lap and a thermos she had been told she was not allowed. The man across the table was thirty-five, lean and fair, with spectacles, a woollen scarf and a small leather notebook in which he had been sketching since Chur. Felix. A mapmaker, he had told her, from Zurich.

"I make maps of mountains," he said. "I have walked most of these."

"Show me."

He turned the notebook. The pages were full of tiny exquisite sketches: ridgelines, passes, a glacier with its crevasses marked in blue. "That's the pass we cross in an hour. The highest on the line."

"It's beautiful."

"It's a very awkward pass."

She laughed. The train rocked softly. A waiter brought coffee and a plate of small pastries. Outside, the snow thickened, and the peaks vanished in cloud, then reappeared glittering against a pale blue sky. Imani had her camera up half the time, snapping at the window. Felix named each peak, each valley, each tiny village.

"How do you know them all?"

"I walked them. Twice."

"It's a lot of mountains."

"It's a good life." He smiled, a little wistful. "This is my last trip. I am retiring. I wanted to see them all once more from a window."

"That's the loveliest thing I've heard in a month."

"Can I ask you something?" said Felix.

"Yes."

"Would you like to hear what is behind the next tunnel?"

"Green?" she said, a signal, a light.

"Green," said Felix. "Very green. I will not spoil it."

Continue the story: Part 2 – The Summit Pass.