“I’ll come too,” Nima added in a gray voice that made the journey seem even more ominous.
Leaving at dawn the next morning, they reached Base Camp four days later a few hours after it had begun to snow. Having had no reason to come here previously, Mingma didn’t know what to expect. The debris left by earlier expeditions appalled him and confirmed his belief that foreigners polluting the mountain had angered the gods.
“Follow me,” said Pemba. “I’ve been here many times in the past buying what’s left from expeditions to sell in my teahouse. I got chocolate from the Swiss, caviar from the Russians, tea from the British, cheese from the Dutch, and made a huge profit from American goods in 1963.” He led Mingma and Nima to the supply tent where the cook and kitchen boys were selecting items for dinner. “We’re looking for Mingma’s son Dorje.”
“He’s on the mountain with the others,” said the cook.
“But what do you know of him? Is he well?” asked Mingma.
“He was strong and healthy when he left here about a week ago, but you can ask his woman. She stands every day at the bottom of the icefall waiting for him.”
“Shanti here?” Nima exclaimed. “How could Dorje let her come? It’s not good for the baby. Father, you must make her go back to her family.”
When Mingma hesitated, Pemba said, “Go to your future daughter-in-law. She needs you. Nima and I will put up the tents and prepare our beds.”
The cook pointed the way and Mingma left walking blindly in the heavy snow, the uneven surface of the glacier cold and threatening under his soft leather boots. He finally spotted a dark figure standing at the base of a frozen waterfall. When she heard his approach and turned, Mingma met not the square face and long black hair of the Sherpani bearing his grandchild but the woman who had made his son’s heart cry with longing through all of winter and spring. Part of him was angry at her for intruding in Dorje’s life, but the other part was grateful his son had experienced the passion he might not ever feel with Shanti. This blue-eyed woman was Mingma’s Nimputi, and a man finds that kind of love only once in his lifetime. So when she looked at him, her eyes brimming with tears, he couldn’t turn away. Opening the wings of his robe, he enfolded her in his arms for she was also his lost daughter. Her body shivered as he laid her head against his chest. He quietly stroked her snow-matted hair and whispered all was well. Tomorrow Dorje would come bounding through the icefall. Knowing she didn’t understand his words, Mingma hoped she recognized the tenderness and love in his voice.
With his protective arms around her, they walked in silence toward a glow emanating from the kitchen tent. When they reached the dining tent where two mikarus were waiting, she surprised him with a large hug that reminded him how soft a woman feels and how sweet the aroma of her hair. Tonight he would weep for Dorje, Nimputi, his two daughters, and also this woman whose eyes were plucked from the sky on a spring morn.
“Where’s Shanti?” Nima asked when Mingma returned to the dining tent. “You didn’t leave her?”
“I’m sure she’s fine and with her family.”
“Then who?”
Knowing the American had also entranced his younger son, Mingma waited for him to make the conclusion. It seemed easier than trying to explain.
Nima searched everyone’s face, his eyes begging for an explanation. Then it hit him. “When did the American woman get here?” he asked the cook.
“She arrived in Lukla with the other mikarus. I first saw her there. She and Dorje have been making sauce and offended the goddess. That is why we have bad weather.”
“She’s possessed my brother just like she did me,” Nima said, starting for the door. “And turned him from his baby and the beautiful woman he’s to marry.”
Mingma’s outstretched arm barred him. “I will not have this family torn apart by anger and jealousy any longer. Your brother’s only sin is falling in love. And you will not rob him of that as I was robbed. So leave her be and go to bed.” Nima faltered. “Do as I say,” his father ordered. “And treat her as a sister.”
Mingma followed his son to their tent and then sat wrapped in yak wool blankets praying to the goddess to forgive Dorje’s actions. “The boy is young and meant no dishonor,” he whispered to himself. Throughout the night, he chanted the Tibetan scriptures memorized over many years of recitation and prayed the sun would shine again on the morrow.
CHAPTER 36
Fear a permanent resident now, nights were the hardest for Beth as she struggled with not knowing where Dorje was or if he was dead or alive. The comforting intonations from Mingma’s tent gave her some strength against the creaks and groans that made sleep sporadic. When she woke in the morning, sunlight was dancing on the roof, an auspicious sign. She dressed quickly and went outside, confident that Dorje would ski through the icefall today. Hearing Nima's voice, she walked toward two tents pitched 100 feet from camp. “Namaste,” she said bowing.
“Namaste,” replied Mingma with a warm smile, but his younger son wouldn’t acknowledge her.
“Namaste, Nima,” she repeated.
When he looked up with those freckles and sweet, boyish eyes, she said, “Please be my friend,” and hoped he remembered some of the English lessons. “You and I wait for Dorje together.”
His rigid lips softened at the corners and turned up in a subtle smile. “No clouds,” he said pointing to the sky.
She grinned. “Yes, no clouds for us to play with, my brother.” Buoyed by his smile and the clear sky, she asked the cook to prepare enough breakfast for Dorje’s family and invited them to the dining tent.
Pemba spent the rest of the morning bargaining for goods while Beth, Mingma, and Nima took turns waiting at the base of the icefall. First to spot Jarvis and Paul in the sérac forest, Nima ran to camp, screaming and waving his arms. Beth’s spirit soared thinking Dorje had finally returned but quickly plummeted as she watched two mikarus struggling down the glacier, their bodies stooped, barely able to lift one foot after the other. After ordering hot tea and soup, she set a place for them in the dining tent.
“What happened? Where are the others?” she pleaded once they were settled. As their story unfolded, Beth tried to explain to Mingma and Nima using gestures and the few words Nima had learned from her. Jarvis and Paul had made it to the top and stopped briefly at High Camp on their way down where they visited with Dorje and Marty who were preparing to summit the following morning.
“How were they?” Beth asked anxiously.
“The American was sick but the Sherpa appeared strong and eager,” said Paul. “We stayed only a short while because we were done in and wanted to reach the South Col before dark.” He explained they were headed back toward Camp II the next morning when it began to snow. They met the Darjeeling Sherpas and the Americans trying to find the fixed ropes on the Lhotse Face, but all was obscured in the flat, white light.
Jarvis continued. “Agreeing it was ill advised to climb in such weather, the four of us turned back toward the Cwm while the Sherpas went ahead to search for Dorje and Marty.”
Told you so, fear whispered in her ear.
Shut up. It doesn’t mean he’s hurt, she yelled back in her head. But watching Paul’s gaunt face and his eyes sunken in deep, gray hollows, she couldn’t hush fear’s incessant voice.
“We watched them with binoculars,” the Frenchman continued. “Both made the summit with Dorje dragging the American up, but it was snowing on their way down and we lost sight of them just below the Balcony.”
“But you saw them again right away,” Beth said, giving fear a shove.
“Sorry,” Jarvis answered, turning the teacup in his hands. “The snow was too thick to see.”
“Why aren’t all of you searching for them?” she shouted.
“Zopa and Namkha insisted on going on alone. We would get lost too and only make things worse,” answered Paul. “The Americans and sirdar spent the night in Camp II with us. Jarvis and I came down because we’re too sick, but the others are w
aiting in the Cwm. Don’t worry. Zopa and Namkha are strong and will find them.”
Beth curled in on herself like a wilted flower that had shriveled and lost its bloom. “Dorje up there,” she told Mingma and Nima trying to mask her tears. “We wait for him.”
While she and Nima stood shivering at the base of the icefall until after dark, Mingma and Pemba burned juniper incense and made rice offerings to the goddess Miyolangsangma. They chanted prayers in a low monotonous intonation that droned through the silence of the camp until dawn. Alone in her tent, Beth refused to listen to fear’s mockery and convinced herself that last night’s prayers had ended the storm and brought sunlight. Tonight’s would bring Dorje back to her.
As the sun rose, color flooded the earth’s highest peaks with pink and gold pouring down the fluted walls and spilling over the glacier. Beth stretched her arms with her face to the sun bathing in its warmth. Surely such a resplendent beginning could only herald good news. For the first time in two days, she was able to converse dry eyed. To pass the time until Dorje arrived, she played cards with the cook, kitchen boys, and Nima, drank hot tea, and savored Dorje’s favorite dish of rigi kur: crispy potato pancakes served with a big lump of yak butter. The world felt good this morning.
Pemba was the first to see them. Hearing his shouts, Beth and Nima dropped their cards and raced each other giggling to the end of the glacier. They teased and played as they had last fall while pointing to shapes in the clouds, but now, they were tried to make out individuals in an icefall. Too far away yet, the climbers appeared only as dark specks against glistening white, but she was certain Dorje would emerge triumphant. When the roped figures traversed the rim of a crevasse to detour around it, she counted only five. Had Zopa and Namkha remained behind or had the Americans gone for an assault in clear weather? Awaiting Dorje’s arms, she quashed all other possibilities.
Standing beside her in his blood-red robe and bold features, Mingma’s presence had struck her the first day in the market place. There was an undeniable pride that set him apart. Dorje had told her of Nimputi and his daughters and why his father didn’t come for them in the Solu. She was glad they’d made peace and Dorje could return to him with a forgiving heart. On her other side, was Nima. How different from his father and brother, a gentle, intuitive soul who couldn’t hold onto anger.
Beth held her breath as the figures drew near enough to identify. First came Mark followed by Sean and the sirdar. Her confidence eroding, Beth clutched Mingma’s sleeve to steady herself. When the last two climbers disappeared in the shadow of a sérac, fear cried out that he’d won, but she refused to listen. Stooped over their axes as if consumed by fatigue, the Sherpas emerged each dragging something over the ice. She grabbed Nima as her legs buckled. Mingma caught her other arm and held her as they desperately searched for two more figures. Perhaps Dorje and Marty were waiting for the others to pass so they could ski down with bravura yelling Geronimo.
Forty-five minutes later, Mark, Sean, and the sirdar exited the icefall and approached Beth. She was so apprehensive she could barely comprehend what Mark was saying. In limited English, the sirdar had recounted the experience of the Darjeeling Sherpas to him. After losing sight of Dorje and Marty just below the Balcony, Zopa and Namkha had gone up immediately looking for them and searched all night using headlamps and repeatedly calling Dorje’s name. But it was impossible to see anything.
Beth started shivering uncontrollably as if her blood had turned to ice. Teeth chattering and feeling faint, she clung to Mingma while the sirdar talked to him in Nepali.
“Beth,” Mark whispered. “Do you want to hear more?”
“Nooo,” she cried, shaking her head with tears streaming down her face and then, “Yes, I have to know.”
Gazing at her with much tenderness in his eyes, he continued. “In sunlight the next morning, they probed everywhere below the Balcony, looking for footprints, but all had been buried or blown away. They had almost given up when Zopa spotted something on a steep slope 100 feet below them. Namkha belayed him while he rappelled down to Dorje and then to Marty 40 feet further below.”
Beth inhaled so quickly the cold burned her throat. “Nooo, nooo,” she sobbed. “He’s not dead. Don’t tell me that.”
“I’m so sorry. No one could have survived the night with his head injury. They’re bringing him and Marty down now. The American has severe frostbite but will survive.” His eyes moist, Mark withdrew a paper from his pocket. “He loved you very much and wrote this weeks ago in case he didn’t return. He also instructed me that his earnings were to go to a Sherpa girl named Shanti and their baby.”
Gratefully taking it, she was much too absorbed in the Sherpas bringing down the one being who had taught her that she could love. Dorje was wrapped completely in a sleeping bag. Needing to see him once more, she dropped to her knees and tried untying it with trembling fingers.
The sirdar wiggled his hand side to side. “No. Lama must come first.”
Sobbing convulsively, Beth lay beside Dorje with her head over his heart, wishing her love could make it start beating again.
“He saved my life,” said a familiar voice. Marty was sitting on a makeshift stretcher with his hands and feet wrapped a bluish cast to his face. “I may lose a few fingers and perhaps even toes, but I’m here and only because of him.”
“What happened?”
“You couldn’t see anything and your mind plays cruel tricks on you up there.” His voice thick with emotion, Marty said, “It was an accident. Nobody’s fault. We fell.”
The doctor had joined them and instructed the Sherpas to take Dorje and Marty on down to camp. “I swear it was an accident,” Marty called back to her.
Mingma lifted Beth to her feet with a protective arm around her. She buried her face in his robe, sobbing, as pain and desolation wrapped their tendrils around her heart leaving her so heavy with them she thought she would drown. Nima was crying too. As Mingma gripped them both, Beth couldn’t imagine the depth of his sorrow after finding his oldest son only to lose him again.
Despite Beth’s pleading, Mingma, Nima, and Pemba wouldn’t join the expedition members for dinner that night, preferring to build a dung fire outside their tents and mourn in private. Knowing Mingma blamed foreigners for the many deaths among his people, she couldn’t argue because he was right. None of them would have gone on the mountain otherwise. Her eyes still swollen with tears, she looked around the table at the gaunt, sun-baked faces and wondered why they did it. To prove something to themselves and the world? Power? Glory? Were any of those worth the loss of life? Opposite her, sat a different Marty from the presumptuous, wild-talking man who had left camp many days earlier.
“You were smart to choose Dorje over me,” he said in a thin, dry voice when the others seemed engrossed in their conversations. “He was a much better man than I am or ever will be.”
Tears started welling up again at the mere mention of Dorje’s name, but Beth wanted to know everything that happened the last hours of his life to help her feel closer to him. Marty explained how Dorje saved him on the Lhotse Wall. “I’m not certain I would have done the same.”
“Surely you would have.”
Shaking his head, he said, “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. We were both still so angry then.”
Seeing the pain in Marty’s face, Beth knew such doubts would haunt him forever. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “Tell me more.”
“Dorje wanted to reach the summit so bad and knew I was too sick to go on.” Pausing, Marty wiped his hands across his eyes and sucked tears back inside as he continued. “I was delirious and hallucinating so he wrapped me in two bags and left plenty of oxygen before setting out.”
“By himself?”
“Yes. And he would have made it easily, up and back, if it weren’t for me. Like an idiot, I left the tent and followed his tracks until I couldn’t walk. He was already on the South Summit before he discovered me crawling up behind him.”
&
nbsp; “So what did he do?”
“Probably yelled every expletive in the world before turning back for me and greatly jeopardizing his chances of getting to the top and his very life.” His bandaged hands trembling, Marty said, “By the time we reached the Hillary Step, I was so wasted I couldn’t move and sincerely wanted him to go on alone. He was within 30 minutes of the summit and didn’t deserve to fail because of me.”
“But Jarvis and Paul said you both made it.”
“He did,” Marty answered, his words now heavy and wet with emotion. “I only made it because he hauled my ass up there. I don’t know where he found the strength to do it, but I’m convinced it took too much out of him and contributed to all that occurred later. At least I have photos to prove we stood on top of the world.”
Tears rushed into her throat. “I want copies,” she said trying to swallow them.
“Of course. When we get back to Colorado if you’re still speaking to me. I know now that you never had an interest in me. I’m sorry for how I acted.”
Beyond the summit: An Everest adventure and Romance Page 35