The Ascent

by Jeff Long

  attempt six years ago, theirs was the fourth expedition to make camp on top of the

  rubble.

  Low-slung and mean, the camp had the lean, breathless look of a battlefield

  headquarters. In effect, ABC robbed Base Camp of its function. From here on most of

  the assault would be supplied and coordinated from ABC. Earlier expeditions had piled

  rocks into semicircular walls to cut the wind, and the faster moving Sherpas had

  erected tents in steps among the rubble, one above the other. Someone – probably

  Nima, trying to make them feel comfortable – had attached one of their twelve-inch

  American flags for the summit to a bamboo wand and wedged it among the rock.

  Bright blue and yellow tarps covered a small stockpile of food and equipment, and

  yaks and herders were wandering around.

  The closer Abe got, the uglier the camp appeared. It seemed to squat in the

  shadows beneath the rearing prow of white and black stone. Above ABC the mountain

  didn't get just steep, it got vertical. This close, Abe couldn't see the top of the stone

  wall and all of the mountain's other features vanished. He knew the wall was just one

  more piece of the puzzle, though from here the Kore Wall seemed to stretch all the

  way to the sky. Had he been the first to arrive here – had he been Daniel ten years

  ago – he would have pronounced the route inconceivable and turned around.

  Nima and Sonam were laboring among the rock, heaving chunks atop new walls,

  building new spaces for more tents. Sonam nudged his sirdar, or boss, and pointed at

  Abe, and Nima descended goatlike from the rubble to greet him.

  'Oh, hello, sir.' Except for his bright Gore-Tex climbing uniform, Nima might have

  been one of the yakherders. His cheekbones stood like fists, and his short city-cut had

  grown wild and the black hair was below his ears.

  'You are coming onto the mountain now,' Nima said. He was smiling.

  'Yes, here I am,' Abe acknowledged. He was feeling nauseous and hitched his pack

  higher on his shoulders, mostly for effect. He wanted to sit down. No, that wasn't true,

  he wanted to lie down.

  Nima wanted to talk. 'The mountain is very strong.'

  'Yes, very impressive.'

  Nima finally got around to his question. 'This yakherder in Base is all better now?'

  Abe had forgotten all about the Tibetan boy. For a brief few days, he'd even

  forgotten he was the team's archangel and had thought of himself as simply one of the

  climbers. To an extent that Abe could not help but appreciate – for it let him be

  something other than a doctor – they had begun replacing science with superstition.

  Some had taken to refusing all medicine, relying instead on their crystals and vitamins

  and herbs. Others had become alchemists, mixing cocktails of Halcion for sleep with

  Diamox for respiration with codeine for coughing and aspirin for thinning their blood.

  And J.J., of course, had his steroids. There was no thwarting them, so Abe didn't try.

  There was no escaping duty, though.

  'Nothing's changed, Nima. I checked him before I left Base Camp.' He didn't want to

  raise any false hopes by explaining the subtle improvements. And besides, his nausea

  was crawling up.

  'But medicine, sir.'

  Abe belched and swallowed. He wanted to be irritated, but that required too much

  vigor. He had mounted to almost 22,000 feet on the mountain of his dreams, and his

  only welcome was to be pestered about an epileptic yakkie in a coma? 'I did what I

  could,' he said.

  'Yes, sir,' Nima said.

  Next to one of the empty tents, Abe backed against a rock and nestled down his

  pack with a bovine groan. He unharnessed himself from the shoulder straps and

  waistband and slumped forward, breathing deeply. One of the other Sherpas brought

  over a cup of tea and just the fumes helped restore him. He drank and felt better. ABC

  was a bleak place made all the bleaker because it lay in the very palm of the

  mountain. Night was coming on and alpenglow had turned Everest into a vast crimson

  spike. Its plume of red snow reached out for the plunging sun. Abe noticed that

  everyone else seemed to be ignoring the mountain with a business-as-usual

  nonchalance. He was alone in relishing the spectacle.

  Everest didn't just overshadow ABC, it towered above. It utterly dominated the

  land. Time and space had frozen tight here. The earth had stopped. As in Ptolemy's

  scheme, the sun seemed to orbit this point. Here was the center.

  From the outset Abe had imagined that this expedition was going to be a great

  collective memory, one that he and his comrades would each harken back to in their

  old age. Forever after, it would warm them on cold days, strengthen them, give them

  an epic poetry to tell their grandchildren. Back in Boulder, Abe had lain awake beside

  Jamie at night and stared up through the skylight, telling himself stories about how he

  was going to climb a great mountain. But now, faced with actually ascending into this

  pure light, his only thought was 'how absurd.'

  'Doc?' Kelly was standing beside him, hunched beneath her big blue pack. For the

  first time, Abe noticed a monarch butterfly she had embroidered onto the side pocket,

  an iridescent creature that would have died within minutes up here. He wondered

  what the yakherders thought of it, if they even associated it with reality.

  'Is that your tent, Doc?'

  Abe looked around at the other tents, already filling with people. 'Yeah, I guess,' he

  said.

  'You got a bunkie?'

  Was this the beginning of what Thomas had warned him against? Abe hesitated, less

  out of loyalty to Jamie than disappointment. Kelly obviously thought him safe to share

  quarters with, and part of him didn't want to seem too safe to her. Even with her hair

  greasy and eyes bloodshot from the sunscreen and sweat and her lips blistered, the

  sight of Kelly took his breath away. It invaded what was left of his dwindling

  memories of Jamie. It was difficult enough to remember what Jamie looked like

  without waking to this other woman, this strange, harrowed beauty. But the truth

  was, he did want to wake to her.

  'It's just me,' he said.

  'What would you think if we hooked up?' she asked. 'I think we're the last two not

  paired off. And this is the last of the tents.' She seemed to think he might say no.

  'I'd like that,' Abe said.

  He reined it all in – the libido, the fantasies, the disbelief at his good fortune. In

  itself, the prospect of a tentmate cheered him. He had grown tired of being alone at

  Base, even with the traffic of visitors in and out of his tent. Kelly would be good

  company, he sensed, and she could teach him things about the mountain. If things

  worked out, they might even team up for some climbing and carrying. Abe had

  noticed most of the climbers already matched up, and it was starting to look like he

  and Kelly were the ugly ducklings. Thomas was looking at them from an uphill tent,

  but when Abe stared back, he ducked away.

  Quickly, because it was turning cold now, they set up house together. Kelly crawled

  inside first. One at a time, Abe handed her the basics, staying outside while she laid

  out their pads and sleeping bags, then hung a small propane cookstove by wires from

  the ceiling.
Elsewhere, other climbers were going through the same ritual, bracing for

  night. One by one, they climbed into their tents and zipped up.

  While Kelly worked in the tent, Abe watched Sonam, a Sherpa with gap teeth and

  the slow gait of a sumo wrestler, chop pieces of ice from the bare glacier with his ice

  axe. Like some burly Yankee peddler, he loaded the pieces into a burlap sack and

  carried the ice around from tent to tent, leaving a pile of chips for each to use.

  As Sonam approached, Abe could hear him mumbling prayers under his breath. He

  dumped some chips by Abe and Kelly's door and looked up and said, 'Docta sob, docta

  sob.'

  'Thank you,' the doctor sahib said.

  'Oh ho,' Sonam droned on, and returned to his prayers and ice delivery.

  Abe was the last to get out of the wind. He took one last look at the mountain

  overhead, then scooted into the doorway, feet last. He removed his shoes and clapped

  off the limestone gravel and zipped the door shut. He was alone with one of the most

  beautiful women on earth, but suddenly it didn't matter. There were more important

  things than desire. Warmth and food and plain company easily outweighed other

  inspirations.

  Kelly had already fired up their little hanging cookstove and started a potful of ice

  melting for hot chocolate. Until the team's second mess tent arrived with the next yak

  train, the only communal meals the group was likely to share would be outside on

  sunny days. For the time being, each pair of climbers cooked for itself. Over the next

  two hours, Abe and Kelly took turns melting ice chips and cooking noodle soup or hot

  drinks and melting more ice. It was vital that they drink two gallons or more per day.

  Abe had quickly learned to read his urine, a literacy peculiar to high altitude

  mountaineering. The darker the urine, the worse your dehydration, and at these

  heights dehydration was a homicidal maniac. One's bodily fluids vanished into thin air,

  expired and sweated away at dangerous rates.

  It grew dark and cold, but they kept the flame at work under pot after pot of ice

  melt. It gave them something to do while they talked. Abe learned a little about

  Kelly's life in Spokane, that she was a biology teacher at a rural high school, that her

  sisters all had babies, that she had been the youngest, and that her mother had long

  ago despaired of her climbing adventures.

  'It surprised me that you teach,' Abe said. 'They told me you were a model.' He was

  thinking specifically of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in endorsement money

  she'd brought in to the expedition.

  'No way.' Kelly laughed self-consciously. 'It's one thing to hang clothes on a beat-up

  blonde in the outdoors. As long as you keep the camera at a distance, I'm okay. But for

  studio work, you have to be gorgeous. No wrinkles. No scars. No way. Not me.'

  'But you must get a percentage of the endorsement money,' Abe said.

  'Of course not,' Kelly said. 'I'm a climber, not a model.' She wasn't just shocked. She

  was angry.

  Abe saw he'd touched a nerve. 'I didn't mean to pry,' he said, and made himself busy

  with the stove.

  Kelly was frowning, figuring something out. 'It's okay,' she said. 'I just can't fight

  everybody all of the time.'

  'I don't know what that means.'

  'This Barbie-doll crap. People act like I don't have any credentials. Like I'm here for

  the photo ops but not for the climb.'

  Abe didn't deny it. It was true. He'd heard the others talking. Until now it hadn't

  occurred to him that Kelly might object to her role. 'Actually that sounds familiar,' he

  said. 'They brought me along to doctor. But I came to climb, too. And I'm having my

  doubts whether they'll ever let me.'

  Kelly weighed his sincerity and was satisfied. 'That's what I mean,' she said. 'I know

  I'm not the greatest climber in the world. I'm not a Daniel, say. But then no one else is

  Daniel either. We all brought our weaknesses here.'

  Now seemed the time for Abe to sketch some of his own past, and as an act of faith –

  to whom he couldn't say – he mentioned Jamie.

  'I didn't know her name,' Kelly said. 'But I knew you were married. Jorgens told me.'

  Abe was quick to deny it. He had indeed said that to Jorgens, but only to gain some

  sort of advantage that was lost to him just now. 'But I'm not,' he told Kelly. 'Not really.'

  Kelly looked at him. 'Right,' she said. She'd heard that one before.

  Abe started to elaborate. Kelly cut him off.

  'I've been here before, you know. At the foot of the Hill with three months to go. A

  woman in a tent with a man I've never met. And every time before I've thought, this

  time it's going to happen. But every time it's been a bust.'

  She was talking about Thomas, Abe realized. Thomas or others. Or perhaps she

  meant only the summit.

  Abe decided he was better off talking about her dreams of the summit than of

  Thomas. 'How high have you gotten?' he asked.

  'To the South Col,' she answered. Besides designating the easy route on Everest

  Nepal-side, the South Col was also a feature, a broad dip in the ridge between Everest

  and another of its satellite peaks, Lhotse. Situated at over 26,000 feet, the col

  provided a virtual meadow for climbers to camp in before making their final leap

  upward.

  'So close,' Abe said. 'Was there a storm?' That was mountaineering diplomacy

  talking. One put questions about failure delicately, and storms were a favorite

  scapegoat.

  'No,' Kelly said. 'I don't know what you've been told. But there was no storm.'

  Abe didn't press.

  'This might sound bizarre,' she said, 'but I once thought love might have something

  to do with it.' And still she didn't say Thomas's name. 'I was wrong. Wrong up here

  anyway. Up here it only breeds distraction. It gets in the way.' She glanced at Abe,

  and he saw the plea in her eyes. 'That's not what love should be,' she finished softly.

  Abe studied the callouses on his open palms. There was little left to add. As

  unsettling as he found her candor, he was also grateful for it. Everything was in the

  open now. At least they wouldn't be wasting their time or their dignity or their hearts

  on a distraction.

  'I didn't mean to go on,' she apologized. But of course she'd meant to. She was

  hunting for a partner, not a sackmate. This was a test.

  Abe tried to think of the right reply, trusting her confusion more than Thomas's

  bitterness. And he wanted to climb with her.

  'You're right,' he said. 'That does sound bizarre. Love. It's not a word I ever thought

  to hear at twenty-one thousand feet on Everest. Not with so much mountain ahead of

  us.'

  He let it go at that, and so did she. In their silence, Abe could hear snatches of

  conversation as climbers familiarized themselves with one another.

  'You know, I've looked at the photo a hundred times,' Kelly said. On to a new topic.

  'But now we're here and I still can't figure out the line.' No one else had admitted as

  much, though Abe had suspected he wasn't alone in feeling intimidated by this great

  unknown. It was good to hear that underneath the cocky self-assurance they all

  affected, at least one other climber had some fears, too.

  'I thought it was me,' Abe said. 'I thought I
was getting stupid.' He said it by way of

  trade, his anxiety for hers.

  'Then we're all getting stupid together,' Kelly said. 'I mean, you tell me...' and she

  suddenly flipped onto her stomach and rummaged through a stuff sack. She extracted

  a stubby pencil, a spiral notebook, and one of their Ultimate Summit postcards with a

  color picture of the North Face. 'Look at this,' she said, and stabbed her pencil at the

  photo. 'What's up here? And how do you get past this?'

  For the next two hours they lay side by side like newlyweds talking about the future

  and making plans. Zipped chastely into their separate sleeping bags, they kept their

  hips and shoulders pressed together, hungry for the extra warmth. They talked on

  and on, Abe with his headlamp lit, Kelly pumping out pictures and maps with her

  pencil. To an extent it worked. Even between the two of them, they couldn't decide

  how Daniel had deciphered this route. But at least they managed to reduce the

  monster towering above them to a paper cartoon, something both could manage in

  their minds.

  'What are our chances then?' Abe asked her.

  'Are you kidding?' Kelly nudged him with her hip and her teeth flashed in their ball

  of light. 'You don't have that one figured out yet, Doc?'

  Abe snapped off the headlamp and closed his eyes. Kelly's bravado comforted him

  more than he cared to admit. Maybe the Hill wasn't such an alien place after all. It had

  been conquered before. It could be conquered again.

  But around midnight, the moon burned a hole in Abe's sleep and his eyes came wide

  open. He lay still and listened to the night.

  He heard a woman breathing softly beside him, her warm back against his, and he

  liked that it was Kelly there. In a nearby tent someone was hacking away with a dry

  cough. A stiff breeze was beating their camp, but, oddly, he could even hear people

  rustling in their sleeping bags fifty feet away. It still amazed Abe how acoustically

  transparent tents could be, like tonight with every tent a bubble of sound connected

  to all its neighbors. Even in a high wind, Abe had discovered he could hear his

  neighbors whispering. They may as well have been a tribe of Neanderthals piled one

  against another in a cave.

  But what Abe was really listening for was not human at all. And now he heard it