by Jeff Long
junkies was not one of them. She'd been through Asia too many times to get
snookered by the smoke and mirrors of local religions. Ascent was her dogma. 'These
tulkus can think their body temperature up or down. They can quit breathing and
fake death,' she lectured facetiously. 'They can even pick a precise moment to die and
then just check out, snuff themselves with a prayer, and catch the next cycle on the
merry-go-round.'
The Tibetan boy limped closer. His affliction became more graphic and they quit
talking about him. Chances were he couldn't understand a word of English, but he was
a thin frail reed among these sturdy climbers and he was their guest. Above all his
smile was the real McCoy. He looked positively overjoyed to have them down off the
mountain safe and sound. Despite themselves, the climbers seemed to warm to him.
To everyone's surprise, since it was presumably Abe he'd come to see, the boy
walked directly to Daniel.
Nima was embarrassed for the boy and stepped up beside him and laughed off the
mistake. 'This man is thinking you save him.'
'Me?' Daniel was startled. 'No. Him.' He clapped Abe's shoulder. 'Here's your
archangel. Not me.'
Switching to Tibetan, Nima corrected the record. The boy's smile didn't falter,
though a slight confusion clouded his brow. It was apparent he thought Nima was
wrong. He continued studying Daniel's blue eyes with some cryptic recognition, and
Daniel looked strangely off-balance. Then the boy twisted to face Abe. His smile
broadened, if that was possible, and Abe beamed back.
'Ask him how he feels,' Abe told Nima.
Nima didn't bother to ask. 'All better, sir. You see.'
'I don't think so, Nima. He looks very weak. He should be at Base Camp eating lots
of food and sleeping. This altitude is very bad for him. You should tell him that.'
But Nima was a Sherpa. High altitude was a fact of life and this Tibetan holy man
was here, so how could it be bad. 'This man is coming now to see you, Doctor. Coming
now eight days.'
From the back of the gathering, out of nowhere, Jorgen's voice crashed their little
party. 'The boy thinks he's going to stay here for another week? Not a chance.'
Nima didn't understand and his expression said so. But he seemed to realize Jorgens
wasn't addressing the issue of hospitality. This was gringo politics, Abe saw it clearly.
Still reeling from the shift in leadership, Jorgens was out to score some points. The
beauty of this issue was that he had logistics on his side.
'Tell him he can't stay, Nima,' Jorgens said. 'We don't have the food for an extra
mouth, and he doesn't have a permit to be up here. You know the rules. The yakkies
come up. The yakkies go down. One night here, that's it. More than that, he needs a
Chinese permit, understand?'
Somebody said, 'Chill out, man.'
Jorgen flushed. In the old days, before the mutiny, he would have cut the offender
down. Now he was reduced to trying to build a coalition. 'We can't afford trouble with
the liaison officer,' he clarified, straining for a civil tone. 'That's the bottom line.'
'That's not what Nima meant, though,' Abe said. He turned to the Sherpa. 'Eight
days. Are you saying it took this boy eight days to walk here from Base Camp?'
'Yes sir. Eight days maybe, maybe more. Many days, walking, saying the prayers,
slowly, slowly.'
One of the climbers whistled. 'Eights days from Base. He must have been crawling.'
'The dude must like you, Doc,' J.J. said.
'He had a debt,' Daniel stated. To him, anyway, it made perfect sense.
'Tell him I'm glad to see him,' Abe said to Nima.
Like a minister of the court, Nima didn't bother his prince with the small talk.
Speaking for the boy, Nima replied, 'He is very glad to see you, sir.'
'But Nima, ask him. Why did he come so far?'
'To give the puja, sir. We need the puja.' Nima's delivery was emphatic. Obviously
he thought they needed the puja, too. That was some kind of ritual. Abe had never
seen one.
'He's right,' Carlos said. 'We've been running on empty ever since we got here. We
should never have left Base without a puja.'
Immediately Jorgens went on the attack. His exasperation was tinged with the
weariness of a schoolmaster at the end of a very long semester. 'There are sensitive
issues here, people. I keep telling you, when in Rome we have to do as the...'
'This is Tibet,' Carlos overrode him. 'And this is Everest. And we need a puja. You go
climbing in these hills without a puja, you're asking for trouble. We're damn lucky to
have a monk who can do one.'
'A tulku,' J.J. added.
Jorgens weighed the vote with a quick scan. 'Fine, have your ritual,' he said. 'But
keep it up here at ABC. I don't want word one of this getting down to Li. It's one thing
for Li to think we're hosting a dumb, hurt yakherder. I don't want to test him on a
monk. Li's got his rules. Got it? Silence on the monk. Silence on the puja.'
Abe found it touching and a little childlike that hardcore mountaineers could be in
such a state over a good luck ceremony. He figured they couldn't really take this puja
business seriously. But when he looked around, there was satisfaction on people's
faces, a quiet relief that had been missing since their arrival. Even Gus seemed more
at ease.
The climbers disbanded and crunched off through the limestone rubble to their
tents, leaving Abe behind with Nima and the boy. Overhead the North Face burned
with a tea rose alpenglow.
'One more thing, Nima. Tell him I want to examine him before he leaves. Let's just
make sure he's good and healed.' In truth it was in the role of a skeptic that Abe
wanted to look the boy over. He couldn't fathom a recovery so complete, especially at
these heights. Maybe tulkus really did have magical powers.
'Okay,' Nima said. 'When, sir? Now?'
Abe hesitated. He was tired. 'Yes, okay,' he decided, 'now.'
On their way to an empty tent, they passed Daniel peeling off his super-gaiters. The
monk slowed his jerky pace for another look and came to a halt. Daniel glanced up,
startled by the boy's quizzical gawk.
'You sure you two haven't met?' Abe asked. 'Maybe on your last expedition.'
'Doubtful. He would have been ten or eleven years old.' Once again Daniel seemed
nonplussed.
'Maybe he saw you on your trek out.' Abe didn't say 'Lepers' Parade.' He'd never
mentioned it before, uncertain how Daniel preferred his history. But what a sight that
must have been to the Himalayan villagers, five monstrously ravaged human beings
straggling down from the outlands, feet and hands frozen black. A sight no young boy
would have easily forgotten.
'Doubtful.' Now, behind Daniel's bemusement, Abe saw the look of a hunted animal.
Daniel was afraid of this boy and his eerie recognition. He was afraid of the past. Abe
shifted the topic.
'I still can't believe he came just to say thanks.' The thought of a boy with nothing
more to do on this desolate plateau than set off into the deep wilds to randomly bless a
bunch of strangers made Abe feel lonely for him.
'I like him,' Daniel said. The boy had lifted Daniel's ice axe and was testing the
point's edge o
n his thumb. 'He's got real sand. We ought to make him a climber.' With
a sudden sweep of his arm, Daniel seated his black and orange Baltimore Orioles
baseball cap on the monk's head. It was sweat-stained and much too big, but the gift
could have been gold. The boy's eyes widened and he grunted, 'wah.'
'What's his name?'
Abe blinked. He'd never thought to ask. Unconscious, the boy hadn't needed one.
'His name is Wangdu,' Nima said.
Daniel tried it out. 'Wangdu.' Then he asked, 'Where are you guys off to?'
'Final exam,' Abe said. 'I want to give a last look over. You can tag along if you want.'
Daniel pushed against his knees and stood up. His joints crackled and Abe could see
the electric painkiller box bulging on his hip. What a bunch we are, Abe thought, lame
and halt. Mortals beneath our immortal grasping.
The four of them crowded into the empty dome tent. The smell of unwashed
humanity was a given, but another odor was harder to ignore. Abe hadn't noticed it in
the open air.
'Nima, ask him to take off that skin jacket and his shirt.'
When the boy shed his final layer, the tent filled with a terrible stench of rotting
flesh. Abe sat back, stunned.
'He's dead,' Daniel murmured. 'He looks dead.'
He was half right. Under the skins and T-shirt the monk was only half alive. His
various wounds had grown worse, much worse. In the light of day – what light was
left – his bruises had taken on the vile yellow and gangrenous hues of rotten fruit. The
animal bites were leaking a foul sap, and the strange erasertip markings around his
nipples had putrefied.
'It wasn't like this,' Abe said. He placed a bare palm against the boy's suppurating
chest and, through the callouses on his hand and fingers, he could feel the infection hot
and animate. The monk was being consumed alive.
Abe struck back at his own repulsion. He searched for another emotion and found
his anger and started to lash out at Nima. 'I thought Krishna was going to care for him.
I gave instructions, damn it. I told him...'
Nima wasn't even listening, too shocked by what they were all seeing and the foul
odor they were breathing. Abe bit the scolding off. He was the doctor, not Krishna,
and this wasn't Main Street, USA, where modern medicine was a God-given right and
a second language. It was Tibet, on the edge of time. The world was rough and
primordial out here. People died of things like wood splinters and chickenpox and
broken bones and insect bites.
'Tell him to lie down, Nima. Keep him here. I'll be back with some things. Pills and
salve and bandages. I have to clean him. I have to start all over again.'
He turned to exit, but Daniel was blocking the doorway, sullen with disgust and
curiosity. 'Abe, I don't understand this.'
'I don't either. But if we can't handle this infection, you're right, he's dead.'
Abe returned to find Daniel forcing a dialogue that Nima clearly did not want to be
part of. The Sherpa's face was dark and outraged, but so was Daniel's. Everyone
seemed angry but the monk, who had lain back in a nest of soft down bedding.
Daniel turned on Abe. 'You told me he got hurt in a camp accident.'
'I guessed,' Abe said. 'He was unconscious, and no one knew for sure.'
'Oh, they knew.' Daniel bitterly spat, but it wasn't a bitterness aimed at Nima. 'They
just weren't talking.'
'But why?'
'They were scared.'
Abe persisted. 'I don't see why.'
'See those holes on his chest?'
'Parasites? Maybe some kind of disease.' Abe shrugged. He knew Daniel was setting
him up to expose his naïveté or simpleness, and that didn't improve his mood. He had
done the best he could in that smoky hut at three in the morning.
'Tell him about those holes,' Daniel said to Nima.
Nima frowned at Abe. The mistrust stood heavy and black in his face. Finally Daniel
gave the answer. 'Red Pagoda Mountain,' he said.
'Pardon me?'
'It's a Chinese cigarette. The army officers like to smoke them.'
Abe gaped stupidly. What was being said here?
'These didn't happen on the trail. They're cigarette burns.'
'Come on.' Abe shut it out.
'And these bruises? And the dog bites?'
Dog bites, Abe thought. That's what the punctures and lacerations were. He kept it
simple and organized and manageable.
'Abe, listen to me. These aren't camp wounds. Think about it.'
He knew what Daniel was going to say. Daniel said it.
'These are torture wounds, Abe. He got these in a Chinese prison.'
'Impossible.'
'Why?'
Abe glared at him. 'Impossible.'
'You hear stories over here. What the Hans are doing to the Tibetans. But it always
sounds too much. Like, you know, a million dead? And the torture stories, what they
do to these people. Raping nuns with cattle prods, flogging monks to death with iron
bars...'
Abe had no idea what Daniel was telling him. He had no idea what to think. He had
come to climb a mountain. That was all he knew.
'Nima,' Daniel demanded. 'Tell what you know.'
The Sherpa spoke haltingly, with reluctance. 'This man, you know, they put him in
the prison. They making very bad things happen to him. He run from there. Now he is
going to Nepal side.'
'He's escaping?' Abe asked.
'He's trying to,' Daniel said. 'But the passes are high. He's trapped. He wouldn't stand
a chance in his condition. Look at him. No wonder he had to crawl to get this far.'
Through his paramedic work, Abe had seen terrible things, things worse than this,
bodies torn in two, skinned by windshields, ruptured like soft grapes, ripped and
shredded. But in all of that the suffering had never had a purpose, a reasoned cause,
never anything like this. What made this unthinkable was that another human being
had written the suffering into the boy's flesh, one wound at a time. It was beyond
belief. Abe's teeth were gritted and he felt tears of frustration forming in his eyes.
This wasn't supposed to be part of the deal. He'd come to see beauty and strength and
Utopia. He blinked his tears away.
'The yakkies got him as far as Base,' Daniel went on, and Abe could tell that Daniel
was extrapolating much of this even as he spoke. 'And the Sherpas, they don't know
what to do with the poor kid except keep it quiet. If the Chinese get wind of this...'
'What did he do to them?' Abe asked. He was fighting to accept what lay before him,
the proof of evil. He needed more time. Or a good reason. One or the other.
Nima asked the monk, and the monk crossed his wrists, made two fists, thrust them
down and lowered his head. Abe needed no help translating. Defiance. Resistance.
'He maked this at the Jokhang,' Nima explained.
'The big temple in Lhasa,' Daniel added for Abe's benefit.
'Now what?' Abe asked.
'Keep it quiet,' Daniel counselled, inventing by the moment. 'We've got to keep the
L.O. in the dark. As far as he knows, this is just one more yakherder. I think the rest
of the members should know what's going on. But Li can't find out.'
'Everyone?'
'Everyone. Informed consent. If they don't know, they might say something by
accident. And besides,
we're all part of it now, and the others have a right to know.'
'Even Jorgens?' Abe asked. 'He'll kick if he knows we're part of some underground
railroad.'
'He doesn't have to like it,' Daniel decided. 'He's part of us, though. We owe him the
truth.'
'Okay then,' Abe said. 'Tell them.'
'And all you have to do is fix him. He's got to get his strength up or he'll never make
it over the pass. If he can't make it over the pass, things will go badly. In these parts,
Tibetan families have to buy the bodies back from the Chinese. Going rate is five
yuan, the price of a bullet. And I don't think this poor guy's got a family to bury him.'
'I'll do what I can.'
Daniel placed one hand on Abe's shoulder. 'Do your best, Abe. Save the ones you can
save. I learned that from you.'
But before Abe could add to it, Daniel had lurched out through the dome entrance to
go and instruct the others.
Abe suddenly found himself wishing that the boy were unconscious again.
Unconscious he had been mute, and mute he had been merely the canvas on which
these bruises and cuts and burns had been painted. But the boy was conscious now
and his story was no longer a fiction. Abe set himself to changing what dressings had
not fallen off and to cleaning the monk's sores and lacerations.
Next morning they had their puja.
The Sherpas made little towers of flour paste and put Oreo cookies and hard candy
on a platter and brought out a few precious bottles of Star beer packed in from
Kathmandu. They started a fire with cedar branches and pine needles that had come
from nowhere within a hundred miles. The sweet white smoke lay over ABC as a
center post was erected. From this post, four fifty-foot-long streamers of prayer flags
were stretched out and anchored in four different directions.
The flags were thin cotton, each dyed a different color and printed with prayers in
square Tibetan script. Despite her irreverence about tulkas yesterday, even Gus
looked pleased and comforted to see the prayer flags get unfurled. While Abe
watched, Kelly stood beside him and explained things. She held one of the cotton
squares still and showed him a crude horse block-printed among the fresh script.
'They call that a lung ta. A wind horse. Every time the wind flaps a flag, the horse
carries a prayer to heaven,' she told Abe. 'They'll keep us safe and sound. All of us.'