by Justin Go
yours – Everlastingly –
Ashley
THE BROKEN CITY
I put the letters back in the plastic folder, looking out the tall windows of the café. I don’t want to read them again.
Crossing Rosenthaler Platz, I go into a convenience store and study a pair of glass-front refrigerators displaying dozens of German beers sold by the bottle. I choose a squat brown one with an illustration of Saint Augustine. The sky outside hangs purple in the west. I set off into the street, climbing the gentle grade of Weinbergsweg toward Prenzlauer Berg.
Ashley didn’t know a thing about her, I think. Just like me.
I guide myself with a battered tourist map and a vague desire to go eastward. At Zionskirchplatz I find a church with a towering steeple, the door unlocked, the inside deserted and in disrepair. I sit in a pew for half an hour, staring at the faded paint on the walls and pillars of the choir: borders and patterns of byzantine complexity, brushed on meticulously by long-dead artisans and now faded to almost nothing.
On Karl-Marx-Allee, grand boulevard of the former East Berlin, I walk on a sidewalk fifty feet broad, the Stalinist apartment blocks running east to the horizon. I buy a bottle of herbal bitters from an outdoor fast-food counter and follow the boulevard to the old city gate of Frankfurter Tor.
It’s no good writing letters to people who never read them, I think. And a stranger reading them eighty years later doesn’t make it any better.
I follow Warschauer Straβe south to the Spree, where I snap photos along the last long stretch of the Berlin Wall, twelve-foot-high concrete blanketed with flaking graffiti. The huge mural above me reads TOTALDEMOKRATIE. Gaps in the wall reveal entrances to vast riverside nightclubs, the patrons spilling onto the sidewalk. Young people on foot and on bicycle throng past me, drinks in hand, and I wonder where they could be going at this hour. I check my watch. A little past three in the morning.
Keeping some distance back, I follow a group around a vast train station, then among side streets in a deserted industrial district. The road ends in a turnaround where a line of cream-colored Mercedes taxis wait for fares. Between a pair of chain-link fences, a dirt path leads to a huge building of crumbling gray stone. Light and music pulse from its tall windows. I file into the long line.
An hour passes before I reach the doormen. A pair of girls ahead of me is turned away, then a large group of well-dressed students is refused. The head bouncer sits on a stool beside the entrance, eyeing me with dim curiosity. He has a dark beard and one side of his face is covered in barbed-wire tattoos. I raise one finger to show I’ve come alone. He waves me in.
I pay the entrance fee and check my jacket and camera, passing through rooms of indistinct size and shape, vast caverns terminating in blackness or colored only by spinning electric lights. Everywhere is packed with sweaty dancers. The bass is driving. Thumping air pushes at my lungs and shakes my stomach. I climb staircases and find other rooms, secret crevices with embracing bodies barely distinguishable from the walls or ceiling. I buy a beer from one of the bars and gulp it down. No one else is drinking.
Soon I need to use the toilet. On the second story I find a bathroom line that is much shorter than the others, but there are only two toilets at the end. The line barely moves. I wait in agony, counting the people ahead of me. Nine. Seven. Six. The walls begin to turn. I fix my eyes on a green exit light at the end of the corridor to slow the spinning. A fashionably dressed girl trots up along the side of the line. Voices behind me heckle the girl for cutting. The girl notices I’m alone and stops beside me. She takes my hand, speaking to me in English.
—Let me stay. I really have to go.
I let the girl wait beside me. For a moment she keeps my hand in hers. She wears an oversize black sweater over electric blue tights. Her reddish bangs hang down to her eyes.
—Thank you so much, she whispers.
The girl asks where I’m from. I try to steady my gaze and concentrate on her words. She has an accent I can’t place. I notice a silver brooch pinned to her sweater.
—That’s Celtic, isn’t it?
The girl looks at me, cupping the brooch in her fingers. It is a weaving of silver strands depicting a dragon and a pair of snakes, their bodies locked in struggle. I lean in to look closer.
—Christ. I’ve seen that before.
—Were you in Iceland?
I stare at the brooch. There was something similar in my grandmother’s jewelry box in the garage, but I can’t remember exactly what it looked like.
—It’s a Viking style from Iceland, the girls says. It’s some kind of battle. The dragon is good and the snakes are evil—
The girl frowns. She puts a cigarette in her mouth and lifts the brooch toward her eyes, reappraising the warring creatures.
—Or is it, she wonders, the other way around?
One of the restroom doors opens. The girl thanks me and dashes inside. Soon the other bathroom is free and I go in. As I lock the door and walk by the mirror, a shudder pulses through me and I turn away instinctively. I look back into the mirror. Something looks unfamiliar, some part of my face doesn’t seem right. I lean on the sink and breathe in slowly, staring at my reflection. Are my eyes shaped differently now? Or is it the corners of my mouth, or the crown of my forehead? The fear begins to overwhelm me. I turn away.
—It must be the drinking, I whisper.
A few minutes later I come out of the bathroom, but the Icelandic girl is gone. I walk through all the dance floors looking for her. A few times I think I catch her silhouette under a strobe light, but when I come closer it’s always someone else.
An hour later I leave the club, staggering out into the painful light of dawn. A long line of people is still waiting to go inside. I scan the crowd’s faces for the girl, but she isn’t here, so I ride the U-Bahn back to the hostel, rocked to sleep by the swaying train. A man shakes me awake holding an ID card before my eyes. A ticket inspector. I flash my ticket, skipping off the train at Rosenthaler Platz as the doors close.
The desk clerk at the hostel is asleep on the counter. I set a euro coin before his slumped head and sit at one of the lobby computers. I write an e-mail to my stepbrother.
Hi Adam—
Europe is impressive. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be gone. Tell Dad I’ve been industriously researching UK grad schools. He’ll be disappointed. If you told him it’s 7 AM in Berlin and I’ve been out all night, he’d probably be happier.
I have a favor to ask. It’s a little strange, but trust me, it’s important. I need you to find a brooch in my grandmother’s jewelry box. It’s in the garage, in one of those cardboard boxes on the top shelf. I don’t know which box, but it’s labeled and should be near the top of the stack, since I looked through it last month. The jewelry box is green. Look for a silver brooch—it’s supposed to be a dragon and snakes, but it basically looks like a bunch of woven strands.
Can you mail the brooch to me as soon as you can? I’ll be eternally grateful. Send it to this address, the fastest delivery you can get, I’ll pay you back:
Circus Hostel
Weinbergsweg 1A
10119 Berlin
Germany
Thanks a million. When I’m back I’ll have some stories to tell.
Tristan
P.S. Don’t tell anyone about the brooch.
30 April 1924
Mount Everest Base Camp, 18,190 feet
Rongbuk Valley, Tibet
He stands in a maze of wooden crates scattered among the stones. The expedition arrived at the base camp yesterday. Along the valley the wind blows viciously, flurries of snow churning the darkening sky. The crates surround Ashley, their lids breached, their contents open to the snow. He gives instructions to a pair of porters in bad Hindustani, his hoarse voice barely above a whisper. The porters nod in incomprehension. Ashley lifts his head to the swirling sky and tightens the muffler around his neck.
The steep valley walls crumble to a floor of colorless pe
bbles and dirt. The expedition’s tents lie huddled beside a frozen lake, a moraine heap above lending meager shelter from the wind. On clearer days the mountain’s pyramid might loom in the sky, but for now the blizzard obscures all.
Ashley runs along a column of yaks, a screwdriver in his mittened palm, scanning the cases roped onto the animals. He calls at a Tibetan handler to halt a yak. The handler pats the animal and unropes the case onto the rocks. Ashley unscrews the lid and lifts a tin up to the dusk light. HARRIS’S SAUSAGES ARE THE BEST. He sorts the tins into other labeled crates, each of varied size so that they all hold forty pounds when correctly packed. Camp I, Camp II, Camp III, Camp IV. Ginger nut biscuits. Beef tongue. He screws the finished crates shut and paces among the emptied cases, squinting in the fading light. He ought to get his electric torch.
—Walsingham. Time for dinner.
Price approaches, a candle lantern swinging in his mitten. Ashley clears his throat and barks a reply.
—Something celebratory? Cheese omelette à la Rongbuk?
—No, Price says, Kami is under strict instructions. It’s the menu the general planned. Four courses and the champagne.
Ashley and Price cross the valley toward the mess tent, its four oil lamps glowing in the distance. They pass Mills, the young climber pounding a wooden stake with a huge stone. A porter holds the stake upright in the gale, his eyes fixed on his vulnerable fingers as he grips the wood. Mills waves at the two men.
—Come along, Price calls.
—Be right there.
They walk on. Beyond the curtain of blowing snow the army of hired local peasants prepares for the night. There are no tents for them. Some stack rocks to build shelters; others lie blanketless amid the snow, their thick woolen coats drawn tight over their chests. A few peasants struggle to relight a pile of yak dung in the wind. The dung is smoking, but no flame will come.
Price pauses to give instruction to a Gurkha corporal erecting a Whymper tent. Ashley waits beside them, stamping his feet to keep warm. They are only at the base camp and they are already wearing every stitch of their climbing kit.
A few minutes later they reach the mess tent. It is little warmer inside, but at least there is no wind. Most of the nine men are already seated at the table, each in his own camp chair. The folding table is without a cloth, the condiment bottles arranged neatly at the center. The colonel sits at the head of the table; Price and Ashley take their seats nearby. Price spreads his napkin over his lap and looks at the colonel.
—We need to have another powwow about the stores.
—After dinner, the colonel says. Let’s keep our appetites while we can.
Price nods. His camp chair is so low that only his head is above the level of the table. The brim of his hat hangs down over his face, save for where it is held up by a large safety pin covered in candlewax.
—What’s the first course?
—The quails, in pâté de fois gras. Also sardines and hard-boiled egg.
—The deployment of the quails at last, Ashley wheezes.
—Dear Lord, Somervell says. You sound like death himself.
—Air here isn’t quite up to Switzerland, Ashley remarks. Might be the dryness. Or the dust. Or the cold. Hard to say, really.
Price looks at his bare plate.
—I don’t suppose we’ve had menus printed?
—They’re coming by yak train from Lhasa, Somervell says. They’ll be here in forty days.
Mills clatters in, shaking the snow from his broad shoulders as he takes the last camp chair. A pair of Sherpas serving as mess waiters bring in the sardines, lifting portions onto each plate with a large spoon.
—I doubt a menu has ever been printed here, Noel remarks. They’ve only two printing presses in the entire country. With each page carved by hand out of wooden blocks.
—Two presses, Ashley says, and all those holy books in the monasteries? They must be busy.
—Those books are all they print, Noel says. It’s said they have no written history for the last thousand years.
The colonel waves at one of the Sherpas and says something in Nepali, then addresses the table in English.
—I say, let’s start with the fizz. You fellows have all earned it.
The Sherpa gives each man an aluminum mug painstakingly deiced over a spirit lamp. He fetches a green magnum bottle of champagne and uncorks it and wraps it in a dusty napkin. The Sherpa circles the table, rationing the wine carefully among the mugs. Ashley spears a sardine with his fork.
—No history at all?
—None has been found, Noel says. Those libraries have nothing but lamastic texts. One set of scriptures is a hundred volumes, a thousand pages per volume. Goes on the back of a dozen yaks. They’ve no time for anything else.
—Historyless, Ashley murmurs. That strikes me as jolly.
The colonel shakes his head.
—Jolly? I don’t see that living in ignorance of the past is jolly. Surely it condemns one to repeat mistakes.
—Strikes me as jolly, Price says.
—You two are only trying to get my blood up, the colonel says. For God’s sake, Price, you’re a teacher. Who has the quail?
—They’ve got two presses, Ashley says. So they can print only so much. They take religion over history. Seems sound to me.
—You’re an atheist, Price remarks.
There is much laugher.
—Soon to be a lamaist, Ashley says. I mean only that between wisdom and knowledge, one must choose wisdom.
Somervell lifts a piece of egg dubiously on the end of his fork.
—You’re presuming those books have wisdom. I presumed this egg was hard-boiled. It isn’t.
—We must send Kami to the Cordon Bleu, Ashley says. Let us start a subscription now.
—It’s the roarer cooker, Mills says. It takes about a case of paraffin to get a boil. And up here it’s a ten-minute egg.
The Sherpas circle with the third course. Tibetan mutton cutlets and tinned green peas warmed over a Primus burner. The colonel begins to prod Noel for anecdotes of his famous travels.
—That business about you in Tibet before the war, the colonel says. Let’s have the whole story.
Noel sips his champagne with practiced relish.
—It was back in ’13. I was in disguise.
He grins, putting a cube of cutlet into his mouth. He speaks in clipped sentences, directing his fork for emphasis.
—As a Mohammedan Indian, he continues. No Europeans being allowed in at the time, of course. Got within forty miles of Everest. Tibetan patrol caught up with us. Some chap fired a matchlock at me. Imagine, a matchlock. Frightful noise. Don’t know where the shot went, but it sounded like bloody armageddon. Must have been plenty of powder in there.
—You were the first foreigner to get near Everest? Mills asks.
Noel shakes his head. —The pundits got here first.
Noel smiles and leans back into his camp chair. He explains that fifty years ago the government of British India wished to survey the Tibetan territory to the north, but the country was hostile and Europeans were strictly forbidden from entering the kingdom. So the government trained Indians to survey Tibet disguised as pilgrims. The surveyors were called pundits, a Hindi word for a learned man, and they were schooled in special surveying techniques so that no observer would recognize their labors. They entered Tibet at great peril, crossing remote and snow-blown passes at high altitude. The pundits counted distances in paces and recorded them by turning prayer wheels or spinning rosary beads; they learned to walk a mile in precisely two thousand paces, and on some journeys they walked two thousand miles.
—How many steps would that be? Noel wonders.
Price does not look up from his food. —Four million.
—With every step counted, Noel says. They hid compasses in amulets. Put boiling-point thermometers in walking sticks. Surveyed by evening stars, by sextant. At night they wrote all the figures down and rolled the paper inside those prayer wh
eels. Some were captured and tortured or killed, poor devils. Who’s pinched the sauce bottle?
The bottle is passed down the table and Noel douses his cutlet in brown sauce.
—There was one chap called Kinthup, he continues. Very game fellow. Sent to find out if the Tsanpo in Tibet was in fact the same river as the Brahmaputra. Damned big river, but no one knew where it started in the Himalaya. Kinthup was meant to get deep into the forest and cut blocks of wood in certain shapes, then send them sailing down the Tsanpo. Fifty logs a day. Survey captain in India had another chap watching downriver for the blocks for years.
—Exciting work, Ashley remarks, if one can get it.
Noel grins. —But the blocks never appeared. This fellow Kinthup had been taken prisoner in Tibet and sold a slave. Took him four years to get free. As soon as he escaped he went straight into the forest, cut the blocks and sent them downriver.
—Bravo, the colonel says. That’s the Indian soldier for you. Faithful to the core.
Noel swallows a bite. —Trouble was that no one was watching by then. Survey captain had gone back to England.
At the far end of the table, someone delivers the punch line to a bawdy joke and there is gleeful laughter. Ashley bends over his plate toward Noel.
—Was it the same river?
—Of course. Of course it was.
Noel takes a sip of champagne and shakes his head.
—It’s a strange country. Have you heard of Everest’s white lion? The Tibetans believe that a white lion lives on the summit of the mountain. The lion’s milk is supposed to be a panacea. Cures all problems physical and spiritual. No one’s ever gotten the milk. Except the Dalai Lama, of course. With his supernatural powers.
Price looks up from his plate. —The lion. When we first came in ’21, they thought we were climbing the mountain for her milk—