* * * * * * * * *
Mingma sat in his place nearest the hearth, a place he would never relinquish to strangers for any amount of money as Pemba had done, but his son cared nothing about such traditions. Dorje’s ways angered the gods and would only bring disaster. Having lost him once, Mingma couldn’t suffer that again. This time he would fight for his son. Marrying a beautiful woman like Shanti might clear the boy’s head and bring him back to the family traditions. In the dim light of the butter lamp, Mingma finished reciting a page of the sutra and turned it over. His eyes were tired and his mind, distracted. For two days, he’d been waiting for Dorje to return from Lukla and had seen him walking into the trekker’s camp that afternoon carrying a woman on his back like a lowly pack animal. But it was late now and his footsteps had not sounded on the stairs. Gazing at the dark camp below with only embers remaining of the cook fires, Mingma decided his son would rather sleep on the cold, hard ground than come home. He looked at Nima dozing on the floor mat and remembered how entwined the brothers had been as young boys, always running and hopping together, claiming they were two legs of the same frog. Such a bond they shared. But Mingma also recalled the wrenching pain of his separation and could still hear their cries. If only he had gone to them as promised. Having made a lot of wrong decisions, he couldn’t change the sins of the past now but would atone for them through prayer and hope the gods would forgive him even if Dorje couldn’t.
The next morning, Mingma went to the Saturday market for grain to brew chang for the sodene proposal. Namche teemed with excitement in the bright hustle and bustle, full of color, noise, and smells as hundreds of buyers and sellers jostled each other for space and haggled over prices. Round, bamboo trays overflowing with rice, vegetables, and fruits impossible to grow in the Khumbu carpeted the upper terraces at the entrance. The aroma of fresh herbs and spices filled the air as Mingma wound his way past squawking chickens in reed enclosures and bleating goats straining at their tethers.
Meandering wide-eyed through the crowd, foreigners examined colorful bolts of cloth from India, yak wool rugs, yak bells and tails, brass pots, jewelry, and fruit. Seated on the ground with a foot-powered sewing machine, a Tamang tailor from Kathmandu was making pants to order for two tourists who would pay ten times what anything was worth and push prices beyond Mingma’s reach like smoke spiraling into the sky. How things had changed. He remembered the flourishing salt trade with yak caravans bringing the precious commodity over the Nangpa La from Tibet while he traveled north with his crossbreeds. Life was good until the Chinese shattered his world.
Knowing he could never afford rice brought all the way from the southern Terai, Mingma found a Rai farmer with a flat bamboo basket heaped with millet. Since neither understood the other tribe’s tongue, Mingma asked in the national language, Nepali. “How much for two pathi?”3
“Twelve rupees.”
At first Mingma was stunned; then he decided the man couldn’t be serious. Surely he was getting back at him for all the times fun-loving Sherpas had convinced Rais that rupees flowed from the Everest ice field. The numerous accounts of shivering Rais going to the mountain in search of the legendary cash had provided many nights of humorous gossip. So 12 rupees was a fine joke. Throwing his head back laughing, Mingma asked, “But truly, how much?”
“Twelve,” the Rai repeated, his voice unyielding. Arms folded, Mingma rocked back on his heels waiting for the farmer’s lips to quiver suppressing a smile or even a tiny tuck in the cheek. But the man never flinched. “Do you want it or not?” the farmer asked impatiently.
No longer amused, Mingma could feel himself tightening up. He needed grain and this man was robbing him. “Not at that price. I’ll give you one fourth the amount.”
“I came all the way from Jubing because you pay more in Namche.” Flicking his hand towards something behind Mingma, he added, “I heard the man with the big ears will pay much for his tourists, so why would I sell to you for less?”
Mingma spun around and saw Pemba strolling through the market attended by three heavily laden porters. Blood pounding in his ears, he started to turn away before he lost face in front of other villagers. But seeing his oldest son assist the enemy in bargaining for rice that he, the father, could not afford enraged Mingma. So that’s where Dorje had spent the night. Suddenly all the anger from past months hurled itself from his lips. “You pestilence-ridden, mangy cur rolling in dung to mask your own foul odor,” he yelled striding towards Pemba with both arms in the air, the large sleeves of his robe flaring out like bat wings. “Your greed pollutes you and everything around you. You’re not even worthy of wiping the soles of my feet.”
Pemba’s eyes narrowed. “And your soles will never be clean as long as they wade in yak shit and you’re either too ignorant or too stubborn to give up your old ways.”
Trembling with anger, Mingma tapped the side of his head, the spiritual center of his body. “I will not corrupt my soul with money that destroys our ways and brings death to our people. You were once my friend but some things cannot be forgiven. Never enter my home again. You are not welcome at my hearth.” Glancing at his son, Mingma saw such resentment in his eyes that he had to turn away before saying something he would regret. Striding defiantly through the crowd of onlookers, he knocked down a damn mikaru trying to take his picture.
* * * * * * * * *
Dorje gawked in amazement at Pemba who had not only rebuffed his father’s overpowering presence but called Mingma ignorant and stubborn. Maybe wealth bought courage and power. But what can’t be forgiven? As he started to ask, Beth and Eric intervened questioning what the scene was all about.
“Nothing. Just two old friends having an argument.”
“The hell it was,” Eric said brushing dirt off his shirt and pants from the fall. “The Tibetan had real hatred in his eyes.”
“He’s not Tibetan,” Dorje snapped. “You should not take pictures without permission. Now go spend your rupees. The market will be over by noon and Sherpas will pass the day drinking chang and talking about everyone in the village.” Especially my father, he thought, turning away from them. What had provoked Mingma’s outrage? Something to do with the Rai selling millet. Standing over the farmer, Dorje demanded, “What did you say to the man in the robe?”
“He wanted two pathi but refused to pay.”
“Pay how much?”
“Twelve rupees.”
“You’re a thief. That’s two days of porter wages.”
“And I walked three days to get here.”
“With many pathi to sell, not just two.”
Shoving the brass container towards Dorje, the farmer added, “I say the same to you. The man with big ears will buy it all at that price and I won’t take less.”
So that’s how it is, Dorje reminded himself. Since the Saturday market began three years ago, he had watched prices rising as more Sherpas earned money from tourists, but he hadn’t understood the impact until now. Men who didn’t profit from them were being left behind. Frustrated as he was with his father, he couldn’t let him be humiliated like that.
“Give me four.” He hefted the bag over his shoulder and hauled it all the way up the steep terraces and narrow, winding stairway.
As usual, Mingma was reciting the sutra when Dorje entered. He glanced up and frowned. “What is this?”
Dorje dumped the large bag at his feet. “Millet.”
His father stiffened and squared his shoulders in a defensive posture. “From who?”
“Me.”
“And why would you do this?”
“Because you wanted it.”
Heaving himself off the bench, Mingma pushed the bag aside. “Take it away.”
“I was there and know what happened,” Dorje said in a carefully measured voice, trying to remain calm and repair the damage of their last meeting. “Accept it as a gift from me.”
His robe sweeping the floor, Mingma strode to the end of the room and turned with fiery eyes. “I don
’t need your charity and want no part of their death money.”
“Then starve because that’s what will happen if you don’t quit being so damn stubborn.” Waving his arm around the room, he shouted, “Build a teahouse like Pemba or . . . or r . . . ” Searching for the cruelest barb to provoke his father to action, he added, “Hire on as a porter. You’re strong. Then maybe you can take care of your family.”
As Mingma stormed back towards Dorje, his eyes bore right through him impaling him to the wall. “I’m an educated man, not one of your pack animals.”
“Educated?”
“Eight years I studied in Tibetan monasteries while my father traded there.”
“But you learned nothing. You can’t speak English, can’t read or write Nepali like young children in the Khumjung School. You read Tibetan but can’t even write that.”
“I don’t need to compose scriptures, only read them.”
“And you do that all the damn time,” Dorje dragged out imitating the monotonous droning that went on day after day. “You must have a thousand sins to atone for.”
“Don’t talk to me of sin,” Mingma muttered and swung his hand across Dorje’s face. “You know nothing of these matters.”
Paralyzed by the blow, Dorje said nothing but simply watched his father exit the room. But what matters did he not know? There were no words to make up for his dishonor toward his father. Never meaning to go that far, he’d been caught in a word avalanche tumbling out of control.
“He’ll come back when his pride heals,” said a quiet voice behind him. Dorje whipped around and saw Droma Sunjo. He hadn’t noticed her when he came in and rarely spoke to her when he did because he was jealous of the attention and sustenance his aunt and her son took from Mingma—things his father had denied him and Nima for ten years. As far as he was concerned, they merely existed in the house, nothing more.
She lowered her head as if trying to conceal the goiter. “Why do you always fight him?”
Who was she to ask? He owed her no explanation but the question demanded an answer in his own heart. “I don’t know,” he heard himself saying aloud. “I don’t mean to, but when I open my mouth, harsh, ugly words rush out and I can’t stop them.”
“They hurt him.”
All of a sudden, Dorje needed this woman who understood his father better than he did. “How do you know that? What does he say?”
“Nothing. Your father doesn’t speak to me of such things, but I see it in his eyes as he watches for you at the window every day.”
No. Impossible. The man who had just hit him didn’t care. “He watches for me?” Exasperated and confused, Dorje sank onto the bench and kicked the bag of millet. “So what do I do with this thing?”
“Leave it. He will bury his pride because he needs the grain to brew chang for a sodene.”
“Sodene? Whose?”
“Yours.”
His emotions in complete shambles now, Dorje fell against the seat and closed his eyes to make the room stop spinning. So what other surprises did Mingma have? Was he planning to marry him off to some cretin from Phortse? The village was full of them. Or maybe a girl with a twenty-kilo butt, the daughter of someone who could benefit Mingma economically so he wouldn’t have to change his old ways. Whoever she was, Dorje didn’t want any part of it. He leaned forward again with his elbows on his knees, his fingers plucking at each other. Now what? Confront him again so soon?
Looking back at Droma Sunjo, he really saw her for the first time—a woman whose disfigurement isolated her from the eyes of strangers and most likely kept her from his father’s bed. Dorje had never witnessed any sign of affection between them. “I’m sorry,” he said as if she could read his mind. She blushed and little pleats formed in her cheeks, the first smile he’d seen on her face. It was then that he realized she was pretty in her own way. He would bring a gift and tell her so the next time he returned, but for now he was too preoccupied with thoughts of Mingma.
The hive of market activity had already diminished. After chang and the exchange of weekly gossip, sellers would begin the long journey home with their empty baskets. Where was Mingma? Dorje knew he should wait until his father cooled down, but his anger was quick and hot like flames roaring through dry grass. He ran to Chotari’s home where Mingma often played cards. After taking several deep breaths to still the rioting inside, he stepped through the door having no idea what to expect. Then his father’s cold, hard stare removed all earlier thoughts of forgiveness.
Deciding he had nothing more to lose, Dorje released his mouth in a rampage of words. “If you think marrying me off to some twenty-kilo butt is going to turn me into an ignorant, shit-gathering fool like you, you’re dead wrong. Things are changing here and you can’t control me like one of your belligerent yaks. So forget about the sodene. I won’t do it!”
Mingma bolted from the seat and began that annoying pacing again. “Never did I show my father such disrespect.”
“Because he was a better father,” Dorje shot back then winced, anticipating another blow.
Only inches from Dorje’s face, Mingma’s eyes blazed and the dark blue veins in his forehead pulsed like worms inching along his scalp. In a bitter, commanding voice that forbid a response even in Dorje’s agitated state, Mingma announced slowly and clearly, “You will do exactly as I tell you. If Shanti’s father accepts my offer, you will be wed before the summer monsoon. Now get out of my sight.”
Once again, Mingma had taken Dorje’s emotions and twisted them inside out and upside down. Not a cretin or twenty-kilo rear but Shanti whom he had lusted after and loved all summer long, Shanti with the large brown eyes and strong back who giggled and teased him in the meadow. Did his father know of this? Struck as mute as Droma Sunjo’s son and possessed by the same vacant stare, Dorje envied Dawa because he could exit a room with his awkward ambling gait and no one would blame him.
CHAPTER 10
By noon the baskets lining the terraces at the entrance to Namche had been cleared away. Only scattered grain remained, strewn by the wind. Gone too were the squawking chickens and bleating goats, the loud haggling and arm waving. Donkeys eager to return home trotted down the hill relieved of their loads. Beth had recorded all the sights, sounds, and smells and Eric had shot four rolls of film. Now she wanted to document everyday village life. Passing them coming up the hill was a Sherpa lumber truck: a porter with nine two-by-eight boards ten feet long strapped to his back. His face deeply furrowed, his short, wiry legs all muscle and sinew, his feet, bare, the man navigated a sharp corner by pulling on a rope attached to the top end of the boards and turning them. Racing ahead to photograph, Eric followed him to the delivery area at the north end of the village where two men were sitting on the ground with crude hammers splitting and shaping rocks by hand with machine-like precision. The corners of the new house they were building were perfectly square and wood for the trusses and windows had just arrived.
Heading back, Eric said, “Slap me across the side of the head if I ever complain about bringing groceries up from my garage again.”
“No such thing as free delivery here. He probably made a whole $1.00 or $1.50 a day to transport it and has never even seen a truck.” Hearing children’s laughter, Beth jumped out of the way as two young boys raced past rolling a large tire with a stick on either side to control the shorter axle through the center. “But I could be wrong,” she laughed. “Look at that.”
Giving her shoulder a quick hug, Eric said, “No, Babe. I’m sure that’s off a plane. They must have retrieved it from the wreckage at Lukla. Very industrious boys though, future CEO’s if they were born in America. It’s all in the luck of the draw. Thank God, I was a winner. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have met you and that would leave a huge hole in my life.”
“Mine too,” slipped out, taking her by surprise, but it was true. Eric was a known entity, comfortable, and secure.
Interrupting her thoughts, he asked, “What do you think she’s doing?”
; “Huh?”
Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance Page 9