Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance

by Linda LeBlanc

  When she announced she was doing a story about Sherpas, the volunteer doctor from New Zealand proudly showed her the facility and said that during the smallpox epidemic of 1963, Hillary had donated medicine to eradicate the feared scarring disease. He explained that yak caravans had made the yearly arduous journey to Tibetan salt fields until the Chinese closed the border in 1959. Landlocked and many miles from the sea, both lands contained iodine-barren soil. “So for generations, thyroid conditions such as goiters and cretinism infected the entire Khumbu. Hillary gave iodine injections, but some of the villagers refuse to take them.”

  A curious wrinkle crawled across Beth’s face. “Why on earth not?”

  His voice slid to a murmur out of Dorje’s hearing. “Because they still don’t trust our medicine. Some believe needle holes create openings for an evil being, a pem, to enter.”

  “But surely you’ve explained everything to them.”

  “Of course, many times over but to no avail. My sole success has been adding cretin to their vocabulary. A large percentage of the population in the isolated village of Phortse suffers from both conditions.” Frustration settled in his eyes. “I guess I can’t blame them. Tuberculosis is rampant here. I treat them but as soon as they feel better, they stop taking the medication, get sick again, and frequently die. My explaining they have to continue the full course falls on ears as deaf as those of a cretin.”

  Aware of Dorje’s eyes on her while she took notes, Beth wondered what he was thinking. Was her hair a mess? An old habit, she toyed with the ends, curling them around her finger. When he stretched after leaning against a table, she decided he was tired of dealing with tourists and impatient to leave. She quickly thanked the doctor for the interview and the pills to help Helen adjust to the altitude.

  “If it means so much to her and she’s feeling better after two day’s rest in Namche,” he added, “she could probably be transported to Tengboche.”

  Dorje was standing outside with one foot on the rock wall leading to the hospital, his arm resting on his knee, the Levis tight across his rear. “If you are finished, Memsahib, we will go back now a different way.”

  Hands deep in his pockets and staring straight ahead, he didn’t appear open to conversation. And for once in her adult life, Beth restrained her tendency to strip someone bare of all his secrets. Notepad out again, she described Khumjung’s chorten at the village entrance as Dorje explained it contained sacred items or the ashes of lamas. The square base was the earth, the bell-shaped dome was water, and the spire at the top with thirteen pieces was the thirteen steps leading to Buddhahood. Biting her lips to suppress a smile, she realized he didn’t know the word enlightenment and she didn’t want to humiliate him with a correction. Instead, she recorded images of the sacred Mount Khumbila that formed a dramatic backdrop to the village and the ice-chiseled mountain, Thanserku.

  “Can we see Everest from here?”

  “No, but I will show you.” Knees bent, his head and shoulders always level, Dorje seemed to glide down the rocky slope without touching the ground. When they arrived at the crest of a hill overlooking a valley, he announced, “This is where mikarus come to take pictures of Everest.”

  “Mikarus?”

  “White eyes. That’s what we call foreigners.”

  “But mine are blue,” she murmured, hoping for a reaction.

  As if he hadn’t heard, he jumped onto a low, flat rock. “They stand here with Everest behind them.”

  She stepped there too, facing him so close she heard him breathing. “Which mountain is it?” she asked casually.

  He turned towards the distant mountains and held his hands in the shape of a triangle. “The one that looks like this behind the wall of Nupste. That is Lhotse on the right and over there Ama Dablam. It means mother’s jewel box because the ridges look like a mother’s arms reaching out. Tomorrow Eric will come and take pictures of you and the ladies.”

  “And you? Will you stand here beside me for a picture?”

  “Many mikarus want pictures of Sherpas.”

  But you’re not just any Sherpa, almost escaped but she snatched the words as they raced towards her lips and said simply, “Because you are all so kind to us.” Like Eric, she had gone too far too fast and must turn down a different path now or risk scaring him away. As the sun crept below the ridge of the western mountains, Beth sat down and hugged her knees to her chest. “For years I’ve dreamed of being here and seeing Everest. This is a very special moment for me.” From below the horizon, the sun glowed in distant clouds, infusing them with a flaming orange tinged with purple along the frayed edges. As the color slowly faded to copper, the peaks took on a golden hue.

  Seeming a little more relaxed, Dorje sat beside Beth maintaining as much distance as possible on the narrow rock. “I like to watch Everest too. I came here with my father when I was very young.”

  A hint of his past? She couldn’t let that sneak by unnoticed. Knowing full well that he had left Namche for ten years, she still asked, “Didn’t you come often while growing up?”

  “I left when I was six.”

  “Where did you go?” she asked, finding it impossible to stay out once his door was ajar.

  “To the Solu.” Another curt reply with his foot pressed firmly against it.

  She’d seen the area on maps: the southern region of the Solu-Khumbu. Namche was in the north. “How many days walking . . . Sherpa time, not mine,” she asked with a smile.

  “Four days adult steps. Seven for small, tired children of three and six.”

  She waited for more but the air was silent. Even the birds had stopped singing. Years of gleaning information from people had taught her the most effective way to get someone to open up was to reveal herself showing she wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and was willing to talk of the dark places she’d been. Sensing a nonjudgmental ear, most people bared their souls willingly. An expert at body language, Beth had recognized an uneasiness when Dorje spoke of his father. So she headed in that direction, uncertain of the cultural boundaries she would have to cross.

  “It’s hard when life turns your childhood upside down,” she said quietly and then paused to gauge his reaction. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he stared ahead, hands clasped in front. Had she touched something or was this a Sherpa’s way of politely telling a mikaru enough conversation? As the glow on the mountain dimmed to silver in the dying sun, the sky darkened and she knew she might not have this chance again.

  “My father left when I was seven,” she continued. His face a mixture of doubt and surprise, he looked back at her. “And he never returned. I used to sit at the window every day waiting for him to lift me into the air saying I was his sweet lovebird and we would fly to all the places we dreamed of. But it never happened.”

  “So now you fly with Eric,” he answered with an insight that caught her completely off guard. This job, all the men in her life. What a revelation and coming from someone she was trying to penetrate. How could she have not realized she was still waiting and searching for her father? Perhaps she was too close to see.

  Suddenly a high-pitched, piercing yell ripped through the air. Beth jumped a foot, leaving her stomach still in her throat when she landed. “What was that?”

  “Yeti!” he exclaimed with terrifying urgency.

  The Himalayan abominable snowman? “Really?” A second unearthly yell sent her flying off the rock without waiting for an answer. “What do we do?”

  “Run to Namche.”

  On a moonless night, bone-shattering darkness lay in ambush at her feet. “But I can’t see a thing.”

  He took her hand. “Come. I know the way.”

  Following him was like riding the middle of a current down a rock-strewn stream, passing smoothly around and between the boulders. “What if it catches us?”

  “The yeti carries men into the high mountains and they never come back.”

  “Have you ever seen one?"

  “No but I . . . A shri
ll whistle cut him off. His hand at her waist, he quickly turned her to the right. “This way. It is waiting on the path.” The gravity of his voice broke her rhythm and a second later she was heading face first for the ground. Catching her, he yanked Beth from the grasp of phantoms lurking in the darkness.

  “But you what?” she asked with an indigestible lump of fear in her stomach.

  “I saw a yak’s neck broken by something that took its horns and twisted the head. Only a yeti is strong enough to do that.”

  Balance completely deserted Beth as she imagined a Yeti ripping her apart. The current that only minutes ago flowed smoothly around boulders was now crashing her into them. Struggling to keep her upright, he said, “We must hide.”

  Shit, I can’t believe I’m doing this, Beth grumbled to herself as she climbed over a stone wall after him. Hearing another yell, she hurried and snagged her butt on a sharp rock. Damn. Hitting the ground, she reached behind and discovered that not only did it hurt like hell but her most expensive trekking pants were ripped. Explain that one in camp. Eric wouldn’t believe her anymore than she believed the grunting yak now charging her. In their haste, they had dropped into a farmer’s yard and his attack yak was on a rampage.

  “Run,” Dorje yelled.

  Hopping awkwardly to avoid putting weight on the sore hip, Beth raced across the yard with the animal’s hot, moist breath close behind as Dorje grabbed her arm and hauled her onto the wall out of horn’s reach. Hah! Add scraped elbow and one enraged yak to the evening’s journal entry. The darkness offered no reprieve from terror; every sound grew more ominous as it became apparent something was shuffling towards them, but what? A true yeti, boys chasing a large yak, or some mischievous porters playing a prank on Dorje? Beth couldn’t make out a thing, but he seemed convinced that a yeti was dangerously near and they must scale yet another wall and hide behind it. He went first to help her but she was getting good at this. A regular rock climber. As soon as she was over, he grabbed her arm, pulled her down, and placed his fingers to her lips. Crouched only inches apart, his hand still firmly on her arm, she hoped he couldn’t hear the loud stirrings inside her. But how could he not? He had awakened every nerve and cell in her body. In the dim light of the stars, he entranced her with his eyes and all thoughts of yaks and yetis vanished. It was as if they were suspended in a different time and space. His hand gently stroked her arm only once before letting go, but it was enough to arouse her more than Eric’s most competent foreplay.

  “We are safe now,” he whispered and helped her rise.

  Face to face, hands still touching in an awkward silence, the confident, articulate writer who had a word or phrase for everything went suddenly speechless. If only he’d say something, do something, but he merely studied her face a while longer before whispering, “We must go now.”

  The moment had passed but the sensation of his hand on her arm lingered. With eyes now accustomed to the dark and without a howling yeti in pursuit, she felt more sure-footed as they made their way down the rocky path.

  As if he knew her thoughts, Dorje said, “I have never heard a yeti this low before.”

  “So other people in Namche haven’t seen one either.”

  “Usually much higher. Climbers see them and many big footprints, very wide with a large toe. You know Tenzing Norgay who went up with Hillary? He saw a yeti and there is the skin and hair of a yeti’s head at the gompa in Khumjung.”

  When they reached camp, Dorje left her at the dining tent where Eric was reading by flashlight. “Where have you been?” he said, shining it on her. “And what in the hell have you been doing, Babe? You’re a mess.”

  Beth pulled a chair out and collapsed on it. “You’d never believe me,” she said, letting both arms drop to the table and resting her forehead on them.

  “Try me.” Closing the book, he sat back against the chair, arms folded over his chest, staring at her. “Was it just you and the Sherpa out there?”

  From the table, she peered up at him. “Yes, just the Sherpa and me.”

  He leaned forward again and wagged a finger at her. “You’re gone for hours and come back looking like shit. What were you two doing out there?”

  “I asked him to take me to a doctor because I’m worried about Helen and it’s a long climb to 12,600 feet. I was dragging after today.” With exaggerated movements, she swung her body out of the chair, lumbered towards the tent door, and turned. “And by the way, coming down, I was set upon by a screaming yeti and enraged yak.”

  “Please,” he said, flopping back against the seat. “Give me a little more credit than that.”

  Pushing her hip towards him, she displayed the torn-pants. “I did this scrambling over a rock wall trying to save my ass. Now I’m going to bed.” Having said that, she limped outside. Of course he didn’t believe her. She hardly did herself. The whole scene on the mountain had been surreal, but what a fantastic story for her publisher. She grumbled to the moon now above a snow-clad peak, “Where were you when we needed your light. It would have been nice to see what was out there. Now I’ll never know.”

  CHAPTER 9

  From outside the dining tent, Dorje heard Eric ask, “Was it just you and the Sherpa out there?” And her response, “Yes, just the Sherpa and me,” said it all. What a fool for thinking her sidelong glances and subtle smiles meant anything. A shudder started at his head and shook him all the way to the ground. He had to get her out of his system. To save the few rupees earned that day, the porters and kitchen boys would sleep huddled together on the cold floor of the dining tent, but Dorje had a warm retreat. Remembering their last argument, he stared at Mingma’s house on the highest terrace. His father’s words, “Nor have you to know me,” had echoed in his head a hundred times since then. If he returned home tonight, what would he say to Mingma or he to him? His emotions already in an upheaval over Beth, Dorje couldn’t deal with that too.

  Instead, he went to Pemba's house because they understood each other. His father’s old friend had converted the second-story living area into a place for tourist dining, reading, chatting, and playing cards plus added a third story dormitory and two private rooms. “Business is good,” Dorje commented in reference to the six empty bottles of beer at the guest table.

  With a crooked smile, Pemba spoke freely in Nepali. “These mikarus have too much money and don’t value it. They are willing to pay whatever I ask, so why not take it?” He sliced a piece from a compressed block of Tibetan tea, dropped it in hot water, and set the pot on the hearth to finish boiling. “From my window,” he said in a deliberate voice that meant a fatherly lecture was on the way, “I saw you walking towards Khunde with a woman whose hair is the color of sun shining on wheat.”

  “Just another tourist.”

  “One you walk alone with and who makes you uncomfortable on your seat even now.”

  ”She wanted to see the hospital.”

  After pouring the tea into a slim, wooden cylinder, he added butter and salt and then used a wooden piston to churn the mixture. “You’re an ignorant cretin if you get involved with this woman. I’ve seen it before and nothing good ever comes of it. These foreigners meet a young, handsome Sherpa like you and decide to have a little fun while they’re here, but it means nothing to them.”

  “Many Sherpas sleep with tourists just to keep them happy. Foreigners think we are always smiling and desire to please, so we keep that image if we want to make good tips.”

  Pemba poured the brew now served only on special occasions because Tibetan tea was difficult to obtain after the border closing. “Sleeping with the tourists is not your job.”

  Slowly turning the cup in both hands, Dorje trusted this large-eared man barely five feet tall but with the wisdom of a god. “You don’t have to worry.”

  “Stay away from her because these women fall in love with the idea of being with a Sherpa more than the Sherpa himself. You’ll only get hurt.”

  To shove Beth out of his mind, Dorje changed the subject by re
lating stories of the old women and their courage. When he finished the tea, Pemba started to pour another. As was the custom, Dorje politely refused, shaking his hand that he couldn’t possibly; then with seeming reluctance, he gave in to a second. A guest must never leave without allowing his host to serve at least three.

  When the trekkers went upstairs, Dorje lay on the window bench with a blanket wrapped tightly around him. Exhausted from the day, he tried to sleep but it was impossible with images of Beth invading his thoughts. Beth tasting tsampa and pretending to like it, Beth hiking to Khunde with such vigor after having just climbed the Namche hill, Beth hopping onto the rock so close he could smell her hair, Beth asking him to pose with her the next day. But Pemba was right. She merely wanted a picture to show off to her friends at home; she didn’t care about the Sherpa. Rolling onto his side, he pulled the blanket over his head to block out the visions swarming over him like ants over a piece of fruit. Finally surrendering, he dreamed of her nestled among blue gentian and purple bellflower with her golden hair splayed beneath her head. Lying propped on an elbow beside her, he lightly traced the contours of her cheek and lips. When she rose to meet him, her kisses lulled him into a deep sleep.