Proud of what? Dorje felt like asking but didn’t want to open the way for words that might temper his indignation. Instead he focused on Droma Sunjo, pitying her isolation and loneliness. Remembering the red scarf from the bundle of clothes the old ladies had given him, Dorje carefully removed it from his pocket and draped it around her neck. “This is for you.”
She closed her eyes, fingers trembling as she touched it.
“It’s beautiful on you.” A tiny smile stole across her face. He liked the way her mouth turned up, creating little tucks in her cheeks, and the way her eyes wrinkled at the corners. “You look pretty when you smile.”
Giggling, she covered her mouth and peered at him over her hand. He figured no one had said that to her in a long while, if ever. Indeed, she did look pretty.
Droma Sunjo quietly slid a steaming cup of tea across the floor to him. Holding it, he warmed his fingers as he walked to the window. His resentment still simmering from the day he and Nima were forced to leave Namche 14 years ago, Dorje understood conflict with Mingma but not with his brother. They had never suffered a rift. Dorje had always taken care of Nima and his brother looked up to him. Making him cry yesterday was unforgivable and must be resolved.
Climbing to the meadow and finding the animals scattered over the hillside again disappointed him. “Nima,” he yelled. No answer. Dorje scrambled over rocks to bring those on the fringe closer to the herd before leaving to search for his errant brother.
Taking the stairs two at a time at Pemba’s, he asked out of breath, “Have you seen Nima?”
“He was here, looking for her and angry at you. I’ve never seen your brother so upset.” Pemba cleared the tourist table and set the cups behind a counter displaying beer and candy for sale. “Never thought anything could come between the two of you until she arrived.”
“I don’t need a lecture. Just tell me where he went.”
“Don’t know, but I suggest you find him soon.”
If not on the mountain, where would he go? Surely, his brother wasn’t foolish enough to return to the Solu or go to Kathmandu. Roaming through the village, Dorje finally ran into Nima coming out of the shop that sold used expedition gear with a sleeping bag draped over his shoulders and a thick pad under his arm. “What are you doing?” Dorje asked.
“Helping Beth get ready for her trip to Gokyo. I want to go too.”
Having come to mend their hurt, Dorje wasn’t prepared for this and knew he was reacting too quickly but couldn’t stop the words. “Don’t even think about it. You’re staying here to help father.”
“Not this time. You do it.”
When Beth exited the shop, Dorje shouted, “What have you been telling him?”
“Only that I’m going to Gokyo. He wouldn’t understand much more.”
“Does he know you’re going with me?”
“No.”
“And why does he think he can accompany you?”
Agitation creeping into her voice, Beth answered, “I have no idea. Don’t blame me for everything. Nima found me and I let him come along like a little brother.”
Dorje was still mad at her for teasing him with her eyes and smiles but would not tolerate her toying with his brother’s heart. “Can’t you see he doesn’t feel like your little brother? I told you to stay away from him.”
“I’ve done nothing but make friends with a young Sherpa. Why don’t you look at what your anger’s doing to him.”
The sweet, freckled face that had always adored and depended on Dorje now stared at him through glacier-cold eyes. Afraid of losing the one constant in his life, Dorje tried putting his arm around his brother’s shoulder the way he did when walking together, but Nima recoiled. With the same icy stare, he asked, “What are you arguing about?”
With Nima in such an emotional state, Dorje didn’t want to admit he was accompanying Beth so he lied knowing it was a sin he must atone for later. “I told her you want to go too, but she said it wouldn’t work. She’s traveling with three Norwegians. After Gokyo, they’re going over the Cho La to the Everest Base Camp and will be gone too long. Father needs you here.”
“So why can you walk away any time you please and I have to stay?”
Closing his eyes, Dorje let out a long, quavering breath and admitted a painful truth. “Because he already resents me, and I don’t want him to turn against you too.”
“You lie,” Nima yelled, wrestling the sleeping bag off his shoulder and throwing it to the ground. His eyes brimming with tears, he glanced at Beth once more before running away.
“Don’t, Nima,” Dorje cried after him, feeling as though his insides had just been ripped out, but his brother never looked back. Dorje was bleeding and needed someone to blame. He turned on Beth ready to accuse her of being the most vile witch.
Her compassionate eyes and gentle voice diffused his anger once again. “I’m sorry if I’m the cause of all this. I really didn’t understand but can see now how selfish I’ve been. I didn’t have much fun growing up, and with Nima I felt like a child again. We were just two kids playing.”
Remembering Pemba’s warnings, Dorje didn’t trust her words or the uneasiness he was experiencing standing this close to her. Needing to untangle the bits and pieces of emotion tied up inside so he could understand what he was feeling, he said, simply, “We leave after breakfast tomorrow. I will send a porter for your things.”
Not having the courage to go home that night and face the brother who had twice run away in tears, Dorje hoped time would take care of things. With Pemba’s lodge out of the question because of Beth, he threw his sleeping bag on the floor of the dining tent next to snoring porters. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t have slept anyway, thinking about how he and Nima had always lain shoulder to shoulder and rump to rump, feeling the connection all the way down their bodies and keeping each other warm. Through everything, they had been inseparable, jumping and laughing, running barefoot along dirt paths. When their mother and her new husband, Kushang, took them to the Solu, three year-old Nima was scared and crying. From that moment, Dorje vowed he would always care for his younger brother. He gave him piggyback rides, played in the stream, and made up stories about a yak and mouse that were friends. And in the afternoon, he gathered leaves to make a soft place for Nima to nap while he squatted, elbows on his knees, chin in hands, watching and waiting for their father to come.
Dorje flipped to his other side and pulled the bag over his head to drown out what had mushroomed into a cacophony of lip-smacking snorts and wheezes. Maybe he never should have brought Nima home to the Khumbu. He was too innocent to resist the temptations of the outside world. Dorje laughed at himself. Maybe he shouldn’t have come either, but there had been no other choice. It was here or Kathmandu and he’d heard too many stories of villagers moving to the capital with visions of great opulence and fortune only to end up starving on the streets. As a small boy, he had sensed there was something special inside him that couldn’t thrive in the Solu. Lying on the tent floor, Dorje remembered what had finally driven him away.
After an oppressive heat that had hung over the village for months, his mother and stepfather had rejoiced when the first big of drops of rain struck the ground and flattened into thin sheets of water pouring into every crack of the dry crust. Within a few days, the brown earth was transformed into softly waving fields of green. Later that week, the sky which had been a rich blue softly streaked by veins of mist all morning grew heavy with an ominous feel. Thick clouds scudded along the horizon, and suddenly lighting flicked its jagged tongue turning the backsides a pale gray. Then the torrent unleashed itself. Dorje, Nima, their mother, and her husband watched the land on which they had toiled all summer quickly turn to a quagmire of crops drowning in a sea of mud. Since their only hope was to save precious topsoil, they frantically created damns. But water cascaded over a hundred murky waterfalls causing the village terraces to lose their topsoil to the Hongu Khola that would ultimately carry it to India. Helplessly, Dorje sto
od watching months of backbreaking labor roll over his feet, ankle deep. There would be no fall harvest.
His mother picked up a tender rice shoot that hung lifeless across her finger. A rain swell struck her hand and washed the shoot away. “Must you take that too?” Dorje watched her trying to swallow the tears in her throat, but she couldn’t contain the exhaustion and despair any longer. She began to sob, her shoulders heaving and falling with each gasp. Realizing he hadn’t seen Nima for a while, Dorje found his little brother collapsed below a terrace with mud pouring over his face and his thin body shivering with cold. He lifted his brother in his arms and slowly slogged back to the house.
When the monsoon ended, they’d have to start over again this year and the year after that for the rest of their lives. He couldn’t do it again and nor could Nima. They would leave in the fall when trails were passable again and the downed bridges had been repaired. Dorje begged his mother to come, but she claimed at thirty-five to be too old to start over. Ten years of struggling to survive on that pitiful plot of land had aged her. Once youthful and strong, she now walked bent forward under the weight of her doko, her gait slow and heavy and with her hands gripping the straps to ease the load. Even her feet revealed the toil. Her heels had grown thick and cracked from walking barefoot on the parched earth in the dry season and through ankle-deep mud during the monsoon.
Her image followed Dorje everywhere as Marty’s father went with him. He would never forgive himself for leaving her and now wondered if he’d made a horrible mistake in bringing Nima here. Worse yet, maybe he should not have come himself. The air had the same ominous feel it did then.
CHAPTER 15
Unable to sleep with so many thoughts racing through her head, Beth tried everything, even visualizing them stuffed in a box with the lid shut. Unfortunately within minutes, a corner rose and guilt about Nima slipped out and crawled down the side. Had she subconsciously flirted with him for some unknown reason? A boy six years younger? Surely not. She was simply experiencing the childhood she’d never had. Kick that one out of the way. From under another corner slid the anxiety specter about keeping up with those strong, healthy Norwegians. Get rid of that too. Coming from Colorado, she’d probably walk them into the ground. Beth beat her parka into a pillow, buried her face, and tried again. Then Eric demanded his time. Was he all right? Did he really understand her need to stay? When and where would they get married? Then there was the big question not so easily disposed of: did she really love him? That was a permanent poison-ivy-type itch under the skin. Beth pounded the parka again, pulled the sleeping bag over her head, and tried clearing her brain by picturing nothing but a wall of flat, blue ice. It worked intellectually. What kept her awake the next two hours was an unsettling sensation that had begun when she stood close to Dorje that afternoon.
The next morning when Dorje appeared instead of the expected porter, she momentarily forgot how to breathe. Pemba met him with an angry exchange, most likely a diatribe against this woman who destroyed lives. Please don’t listen to him, Beth whispered to herself as her eyes traced the lean, muscular body of this twenty-year-old Sherpa genius.
“My bag is there,” she said when he stood before her with a slight flush to his brown skin. She rose and took a long, deep breath before heading out behind him. “Where are the others?” she asked when he took the trail north instead of returning to the Norwegian camp.
“I sent them ahead to take pictures with Everest behind them.”
“Where we sat together that night,” escaped unexpectedly, but she didn’t care if he knew the memory lingered.
His mouth turned up in a roguish smile. “And were chased by a screaming yeti.”
“Was there really a yeti or were you just teasing me?”
“You heard the yells and footsteps.”
Yes, but they could have been anything. Rather than impose western skepticism on his beliefs, Beth changed the subject. “The Norwegians look strong and eager.”
“But they are more trouble than the old ladies, especially the big one, Hamar.”
Dorje unloaded her gear onto a Sherpani porter who was already carrying a huge duffle. Beth felt pathetic next to this hardy girl with a square face and dark almond eyes, an equal to any of the men whom Beth already considered super heroes.
“Here, take a group picture,” Royd said handing the camera to Dorje before pulling Beth to the photo rock. Standing beside the Norwegians, she felt more allied with the Sherpas after being here this long. Then Royd told her to stand still as he insisted on a picture with the Sherpani and sirdar. Her insides a bit quivery, Beth stood beside Dorje and took another deep breath. “Closer,” Royd ordered, waving his hand. “And now, Dorje, put your arm around both girls,” he added with no concept of cultural impropriety. Dorje obliged. The warmth of his hand sent a flush all the way through her. Another photo in blazing color.
Before departing, Dorje lectured the Norwegians about not straying from the trail, going bistarai, and drinking plenty of fluids. Beth wondered how many times he’d said the same thing and how many times foreigners who thought they knew it all had failed to listen. Hamar’s seemingly disjointed body left first with arms and legs out of sync. The other two followed. Beth watched Dorje herding them to the uphill side of the path when a yak train approached. As he pointed out a pair of wild Asian goats and an Impeyen pheasant with its iridescent plumage, she became so immersed in Dorje’s world that she momentarily forgot about Eric and home.
Intrigued by the Sherpani, Beth dropped back to walk with her and learned that Lhamu lived in Khumjung. Although that was extent of their verbal conversation, Lhamu’s expressions suggested a young woman full of life. At the first rest stop, she leaned back with her basket resting on a rock shelf designed to take the weight off porters’ backs without forcing them to remove the doko. When Hamar shambled over and offered her a bottle of water, the Sherpani giggled with a smile flirtatious enough to drop the strongest man to his knees. Tipping her head back, she drank by pouring rather than touching the bottle to her lips. Then she offered some to Beth who gladly accepted, having been too caught up in thoughts of Dorje to bring enough that morning. When Hamar’s companions yelled at him to come, he reluctantly departed. Even more fascinated now, Beth pointed to Lhamu and Hamar with a questioning look of attraction. The young woman rolled her eyes in a yes and astounded Beth by indicating the same about her and Dorje. How could she know? Caught completely off guard, Beth smiled and rocked her head slowly from side to side forming a bond between two women who shared a secret.
When they reached Sanasa where Tibetan refugees were selling jewelry and wool, Royd insisted on shopping. Waiting for them, Beth unconsciously ran her thumb over the empty ring finger. Eric’s purchase here a week ago was too tight and uncomfortable, or maybe it was just the idea of marriage that was a little too snug. She should be missing him more right now. Observing how Lhamu’s eyes followed Hamar, Beth realized she rarely looked at Eric that way. He was comfortable and supportive but didn’t elicit the same response as this hulking, lumbering man who offered to carry part of the Sherpani’s load. Smiling, Lhamu wiggled her hands side to side, palms down.
“It means no,” Beth explained. “She’s probably afraid of not getting paid.”
“Now look who wants to get laid,” Royd said nudging Kirk in the ribs.
After an angry look at his companions, Hamar started out with Lhamu, both of them chatting and neither understanding a word. Suddenly realizing their departure, Dorje ran after the pair to turn them back because they had missed the left-hand trail out of Sanasa. Instead of dropping to Phunki Tenga and crossing the Dudh Kosi to Tengboche, he intended to remain on the west side of the river all the way to Gokyo and visit the monastery on the way down.
Curiosity about Hamar and Lhamu gave Beth an excuse to walk with Dorje and ask about Sherpa marriage customs in order to continue her research.
While climbing a steep ridge, he explained in a limited vocabulary what she par
aphrased in her notes. Parents arranged most marriages and the first step was a sodene, or asking, where the boy’s father presented chang to the girl’s family. Acceptance meant the couple was engaged and could sleep together, but both were still free to have other relations. Children born to them were illegitimate, but no one considered it a disgrace. The second step, the dem-chang or beer tying, put the relationship on firmer footing even though the couple continued to live with their parents. Since it required a great outlay of cash, the ceremony generally didn’t occur until several years later. Although the partners still had no exclusive rights, children were considered legitimate. The third step, the zendi or final wedding rite, might not occur for another several more years because it required an even greater expenditure. After the zendi, if either partner strayed, the other was entitled to collect a fine from the person known to have slept with his or her spouse.
Hearing about the sexual freedom and long periods between rites, Beth wondered how anyone reached the third step and if they stayed married. She explained divorce and asked if such a thing existed in his culture. After having rambled on so fast she could barely take notes while walking, he grew silent. His fluid gait turned awkward as if his mind and body were no longer communicating. She had touched something deep inside and for once had enough sense to leave it alone.
Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance Page 14