The Ascent

by Jeff Long

  hiding the ray of hope lighting her face. Nor, a moment later, hiding the suspicion that

  darkened it.

  'I get it,' she said to herself.

  'Gus?'

  Her green eyes glittered in the afternoon sunlight. She was angry now, once again

  with Abe. 'See here,' she said. 'I don't know what's with you two. But if this is how

  Daniel wants to break his damn curse, great. It's worth the summit to have him done

  with Diana. So don't play noble with me.'

  'Nobility has nothing to do with it.'

  'Daniel needs this, Abe. Go bury your ghost. Together. Whatever it takes.'

  'Gus, you don't understand. I didn't come for an exorcism. I'm not ditching Kelly.

  And I can tell you, Daniel's not ditching you. He was being dramatic, that's all.'

  'Fuck off,' she said. 'If you want to patronize Kelly, be my guest. But not me, guy. I

  don't need your help. I don't need your permission. Got it?'

  Suddenly Abe was tired of trying to soothe this woman. He had no desire to be her

  foil, but it was hard to turn his back on her. She was heartbroken. Something Kelly

  had said came back to him.

  'Love has nothing to do with it, Gus.' He kept it simple. Gus was speechless, just as

  he'd hoped. Now they could both pretend ascent was built on colder realities. He

  started to walk off.

  'By the way.' Her voice caught him.

  Abe heard the change in her tone. She had an ailment.

  'Yes, Gus.' He took a breath and made himself the healer once again.

  'While I'm here, did you bring any of those home pregnancy tests?' The way she said

  it, the timing she used, even the fact that she said it at all, was meant to sandbag him.

  Of course they hadn't brought such a thing.

  Abe groped for a reply. 'You're late?' he finally asked.

  'Three, four weeks.' She was right to shrug. Everyone's rhythms were out of sync up

  here.

  'What about other symptoms?'

  'Besides nausea and loss of appetite and exhaustion? Last time I looked, everyone

  had those.' Right again.

  And yet there was the possibility. Abe pursued it. 'Gus, if it's true, and if you want

  this baby...'

  She held up a hand. 'One, if it's true, I don't know if I want it. And two, either way, I

  don't need a lecture. You've already said your mouthful.'

  'But, Gus.' He had a duty to warn her about the solar radiation, the bad food, the

  raised blood pressures, and all the myriad dangers of high altitude. He stopped

  himself. She'd had weeks to think it all through.

  'Does Daniel know?'

  'Nope. And it's not yours to say.'

  'Of course not.' Another secret to hold. 'But don't you think...'

  'Tell him? Tell him what, Abe? There's a chance I might be carrying his child? You

  know what he'd do? He'd sack the climb, just on the very chance. And then what if it

  weren't true?'

  'But what if it is?'

  Now she handed it back to him. 'I thought you said love has nothing to do with it.'

  'I didn't mean that.'

  She quit bantering. 'We'll never be this close again,' she said. 'We can make it.'

  But on the eve of launching their final assault – on the very afternoon before they

  were going to trek back to ABC and inhabit the mountain all over again – a Land

  Cruiser arrived to kill the Ultimate Summit. It came roaring toward them like a small

  dinosaur, smoking out plumes of white dust, and at first Abe had trouble integrating

  the return of the twentieth century.

  For nearly a hundred days now they had lived like the native denizens of this

  strange, lost nation called Tibet. They had lapsed into a pack of trolls, mountain beings

  who were ugly and twisted and hunchbacked beneath the sun. All their great works of

  music and literature had been shucked as incomprehensible. These days, instead of

  Proust and Milton, they applied themselves to Conan the Barbarian comic books,

  scrupulously reading and rereading key balloons. It could take a full evening to

  complete one issue.

  The climbers gathered as if the white Land Cruiser were a spaceship landing and

  watched three PLA soldiers dismount. The soldiers were marvelously clean, their hair

  cut, cheeks shaved, their pea-green uniforms unscathed by the weather or rockfall.

  None of them limped. The flesh on their faces was unblemished by the sun. Their

  rifles glinted in the light.

  The oldest of the three, an officer, was perhaps Abe's age. The other two appeared

  to be in their late teens, and they couldn't pry their eyes away from the climbers. Abe

  wanted to believe their shock held some measure of homage or at least mutual

  respect, but all he saw in their look was a curious disdain.

  Li came crisply dressed from his tent as if this visit were no surprise and their

  timing was precise. The homesickness was gone from his face. He had spring in his

  step. Still he was not prepared for what the officer told him in Mandarin, even less so

  for what he next read in a dispatch that was handed to him. He was visibly shaken

  and took another minute to read the dispatch again and ask the officer many

  questions.

  The climbers kept their distance, even after Li spoke to them. 'Mister Jorgens,' he

  called.

  'Hey, Lee,' J.J. bellowed. 'Those guys bring any mail for us?'

  'Not bloody likely,' Carlos muttered.

  'Mister Jorgens,' Li somberly repeated.

  Jorgens detached himself from the climbers and walked over to Li and the soldiers.

  The conversation was one-sided, with Li doing all the talking. The climbers couldn't

  hear a word, but instinct told them something was off and wrong.

  Jorgens leaned in to glean the softly spoken words. Li repeated himself. Jorgens

  swayed back.

  'Not good, not good,' Stump muttered.

  Li turned his back on Jorgens then and led off toward the mess tent with the

  soldiers in tow. Jorgens didn't move. As a group, the climbers surrounded him by the

  Land Cruiser.

  'Five days,' Jorgens said. He looked pasty and ill. 'We have five days.'

  The climbers glanced at each other, mystified. Finally Robby spoke. ' No comprendo,

  Captain.'

  'They pulled the plug on us. In five days a convoy of trucks will arrive. We have to

  leave.'

  'Five days?' J.J. wailed. 'We can't finish in five days. We can't even occupy our high

  camps in five days.'

  Jorgens was squinting. 'No more climbing,' he breathed. 'We have to pack up and be

  ready to go. We're done.'

  The news stupefied them.

  'But we have permission. We paid. It's ours.' Carlos tripped out his argument.

  'They pulled the plug on us,' Jorgens said.

  'I've never heard of such a thing...' Stump started. But they were too stunned to be

  angry. They were scrambling just to understand the implications.

  'Five days?' Thomas said. 'Even with yaks here right now, we couldn't start to strip

  the mountain. We'll lose everything. From ABC to Five, we'll lose it all.'

  Jorgens nodded slowly. 'Yes.'

  'But they can't do that.'

  'We have five days,' Jorgens said. 'They want us to load the trucks and leave the

  same day. These soldiers will escort us to the Nepal border.'

  'What the fuck happened?' It was Gus, quiet, furious. Now they started finding their

  anger, too.
/>   'What did I say,' J.J. railed. 'You can't trust gooks.'

  'There's been trouble in Lhasa,' Jorgens said. 'A Tibetan riot. A Chinese police

  station was burned. Several Chinese stores were destroyed. The army opened fire.

  That means bloodshed. They've declared martial law.'

  'These fucking Tibetans, man,' J.J. shouted. 'Now we're fucked.'

  'Say we stay. We climb,' Gus said. 'We make our way across the border when we're

  done. Li can go home right now.' It was farfetched.

  'The country's under martial law,' Jorgens said. 'They want all tourists out.'

  'But we're climbers.' J.J. beat at his chest. 'We're climbers.'

  Robby took care of that one. 'We're tourists, J.J. That's exactly what we are. And

  keep your voice down.'

  'Li said he'll recommend us for a permit. For the very next season, whenever

  martial law gets lifted, whenever the mountain opens up again,' Jorgens said. 'He said

  this is unfortunate.'

  'So, carrot and stick.' Gus spat. Her disgust washed over them, more than enough

  for them all. 'Go along, get along. Shit.'

  But Stump considered the proposition. 'It just could work, though. Next season, if it

  really was next season? The minute we leave the yakkies will plunder our stores here

  and at ABC. But they won't go onto the mountain itself. And at least some of our

  camps will survive the monsoon. We'd have a leg up, stock in place. It might just

  work.'

  'Yeah,' said Robby. 'A definite advantage.'

  'Two, three months,' Carlos thought out aloud. 'Not so bad.'

  'Like a sequel climb,' Robby added. 'I like it.'

  It was Abe who popped their bubble. 'Count me out,' he said. 'I can't come back next

  season. Med school starts in September.' He wasn't sure why he shared this nugget of

  information. It presumed that he'd even be invited to return, and he'd barely been

  invited along on this one.

  Nevertheless, it reminded the rest of them of the realities. They had girlfriends and

  wives, children and jobs. There were mortgages to pay, commitments that couldn't be

  broken. From many dinners and small moments and shared days and nights together,

  they remembered that Thomas was getting married in October and J.J.'s little girl

  was starting first grade, Gus was lined up for an all-woman's expedition to the

  Caucasus and Kelly was moving to Boise for a new teaching job.

  The fantasy of a return to this climb – with these climbers in this perfect weather

  upon this route – fell to pieces. The instant they left Everest they were going to

  disperse into tales that would have nothing to do with their comrades'. Their joined

  dream, such as it was, could never be recaptured.

  They spent another half hour trying out other solutions to this sudden collapse of

  their expedition, but the facts only weighed heavier. The Hill had won.

  Then Kelly raised one final bittersweet thought. 'If only Daniel had gone the little bit

  further,' she said. It was true. When even one climber reached the top, the entire

  expedition did. But none had and time was out. In the end, Daniel's noble gesture of

  waiting for them had disserved them all.

  'So close,' Thomas said.

  'And the radios,' Stump said. 'Just when I finally fixed the bastards.'

  Abe had his back turned to Everest. When he turned to look at their lost prize, the

  mountain attacked with a wave of raw white light. Unprepared, Abe gasped and

  bowed his head, clawing for the sunglasses in his pocket. Ordinarily the sight would

  have provoked a nod of admiration, but not this morning.

  Even with the glasses covering his eyes, the mountain was too bright to look at for

  more than a few seconds. All definition was gone, washed away by the pure

  illumination. No lines or shadows, no stone or ice, no ridges or cols. Even the summit

  pyramid was illegible in the midst of all that radiance. The mountain simply fused into

  sunlight and sky, hiding itself in infinity. It made their ambitions seem fruitless and

  tiny.

  Gus asked Jorgens to talk with Li again. It was hard for her to ask, because she

  didn't like or trust Jorgens. But the mountain was a higher priority worth more than

  her pride and she spoke the words. 'One more try, Jorgens, please.'

  Jorgens didn't make her grovel. 'It won't work,' he said, 'but if that's what you want,

  okay. I'll try.'

  He was back from the mess tent within ten minutes. 'It's written in stone. Li said his

  orders come directly from the Public Security Bureau in Lhasa. The army is out of its

  cage. He wishes to ensure our safety.'

  'You can't get any safer than our dead end,' Carlos pointed out, but of course that

  wasn't Li's consideration anyway.

  'One other thing, people,' Jorgens said. 'I want you to steer clear of our military

  guests. No contact whatsoever. Is that understood?'

  'Screw,' said J.J.

  'I'm not asking, J.J. I'm ordering. Things are already bad enough without hard

  words or more tension. Got it?'

  J.J. didn't answer.

  Jorgens put it bluntly. 'They've got guns.'

  They spent the rest of the day cursing the Chinese and Tibet and the mountain,

  finally dropping into an exhausted silence as alpenglow lit Everest orange. As

  everywhere else in the world, bad news traveled quickly through the Rongbuk Valley.

  Before nightfall, a tiny contingent of herders showed up driving seven yaks. They

  were eager for work, and also eager to get a preview of the booty getting left behind.

  At dinner that night, Carlos got the climbers drunk. He had stocked the expedition

  pantry with enough Star beer for one big blow, and this was it. 'With victory in clear

  sight,' he raised his toast, 'here's to blind defeat.'

  It was not a happy drunk, but neither was it an ugly one. Someone pointed out that

  at least they hadn't lost anyone on the climb. They hadn't lost so much as a toe or

  finger. They were quitting the mountain in one piece, and that was always something

  to be grateful for.

  Finally Jorgens spoke. 'Somebody needs to go tell Daniel and bring him down.'

  'I'll go,' J.J. volunteered. He had pulled out pictures of his daughter and had tears in

  his eyes.

  'Damned if I'm staying down here,' Stump said. 'I don't think I could put in five days

  without hitting one of Li's soldier boys.'

  'I've got cameras and film up there,' Robby remembered. 'And all my ice gear and

  double boots. I can make two, three round-trips down with full loads in the time we've

  got.'

  In that way, the whole group decided to go up to ABC. Their spirits lifted by ounces.

  En masse they would break the bad news to Daniel and strip the camp of their most

  valuable gear. Above all they would get to pay their respects to the enemy. Stump

  wanted to finish a water-color of the North Face. Thomas declared a great urge to piss

  on the mountain once and for all. Carlos said he'd be happy just to sleep with the

  Mother Goddess one final night. Few if any of them were ever going to return to the

  Kore Wall. Abe could hear it in their voices.

  Abe slept poorly that night. At daybreak he walked down to the water skull and sat

  there to clear his mind. Overhead, Everest was floating in a scoop of soft dawn light.

  With her manelike summit massif and outstretched ridges, the Hill had the aspec
t of a

  sphinx splashed with rainbows this morning.

  They had come close to cracking her riddle, Daniel closest of all. Abe felt the

  closeness of it as a weight in his skull. He felt the frustration of having a perfect

  summarizing word on the tip of his tongue and knowing it was forever beyond his

  articulation. For the rest of his life he would have to carry around this freighted

  silence.

  He was thinking these thoughts and generally feeling sorry for himself when the

  sound of a dislodged pebble interrupted him. An image – half man, half animal – took

  shape in the glacier pond. Abe glanced up at the rim. Standing there, if a sideways

  stoop upon ancient ski poles could be called standing, was the monk in old yak skins

  and Daniel's black and orange baseball cap.

  Abe's mouth came open. The two of them observed each other until Abe began to

  wonder if this wasn't another one of his hallucinations. Then the monk teetered

  between the ski poles as if he were fixed atop stilts and more pebbles pattered down

  off the rim.

  Abe didn't need Nima's translation to know he'd come to say good-bye. It was going

  to be a two-way adios, Abe realized. Good-bye to the expedition. Good-bye to the

  monk. The boy needed full-scale hospitalization. Yet four days from now he wouldn't

  have even Abe's quackery for a stopgap. Abe let his breath out slowly. That was the

  cold fact. This holy man was going to die.

  The boy was in such bad condition that Abe wondered if he might have been hiding

  near Base Camp the whole time. That or one of the yakherders had brought him in

  overnight. One thing was certain, even if tulkus could fly, this one was anchored to the

  few inches of soil he currently occupied. As if to confirm Abe's pessimism, the boy

  sank his rump down upon a stone and stiffly lowered himself backward to rest. He

  was too weak to take his hands from the ski pole straps, so the poles lay attached to

  him, pitched askew.

  'Tashi-dili,' Abe said, approaching. Nima had taught him that much. The monk

  didn't return his greeting except to smile crookedly. He was wan and his eyes had a

  dull luster. Closer up, Abe saw saliva stringing loose from his mouth. Abe didn't need

  to open the boy's clothing to know the infection was back. He could smell the yellow

  and orange fluid staining what had once been a clean white expedition T-shirt.

  Abe squatted and palmed the boy's forehead. There was fever, though not so bad as