Summit: A Novel

by Harry Farthing

  These “freaks,” as they preferred to be called, were young and had little money but saw neither as limitations to seeking a different world. In army surplus Bedford trucks, battered Volkswagen Kombis, even old London double-decker buses, they turned their backs on the postwar America and Europe of their parents and headed east in a self-perpetuating spiral of spiritual interrogation and narcotic experimentation. The journey quickly became a mythical search for the perfect source of both, and the word was that it could be found in Kathmandu.

  It was true at first. The myriad of gods and temples, the distant, all-seeing, all-knowing snow-covered mountains, the shops that sold charas, the sweetest and strongest hand-rolled hashish of all—“I mean, can you imagine that, man?”—all magnified the ancient, smoky city into a continual and wonderful kaleidoscope of the senses. There was no need for any onward destination from there, and the word quickly spread.

  What began as a trickle became a river, a river that flooded and left a swamp, a human swamp. By 1969, five thousand freaks were crossing into Nepal every week—each day more embittered about the Vietnam War, more reckless in their pursuit of the biggest high, more impoverished, if that was possible, by the army of con artists and rip-off merchants that now lined the magic way east. They shopped at the Eden Hashish Center, joined the herd on Jochne’s “Freak Street,” then, to the electric sounds of Janis and Jimi, let it all go. And, for some of them, it did exactly that, leaving them in the city’s squalid hospitals or jails or just catatonic on a hippie skid row. No way out, no way home. Sooner or later their respective embassies had to come and clear up the mess.

  From the minute she arrived, Henrietta’s days and nights were filled getting her countrymen freed, getting them better, getting them home. She threw herself into the task, enjoying its many challenges after the torpor of Lisbon. The only thing she didn’t like was the fact that, in their stoned ramblings, her charges lied to her continually. There was little that she could do about it—most of them were so addled they could barely remember their names—so she resigned herself to seeking the truth in her second task at the embassy, which was to monitor the inflow of the Tibetan refugees and report to London every snippet she learned about the Chinese occupation. This time, the people in Whitehall did read her reports. The Chinese were missile testing; they had “gone nuclear.” The Himalayas were a frontier of interest once again, just as they had been in the heady days of Younghusband and the Great Game.

  The job was not what Henrietta had imagined, but she was busy, very busy, and time flew until, in the ’70s, the hippie tide started to turn. President Nixon, increasingly cognizant of the fact that he was losing the war in Vietnam, decided to start another—that he had even less chance of winning—on something much closer to home: drugs. He formed the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs and sent Henry Kissinger off to meddle with the rest of the world all over again. Nepal was an easy, early stop for him, drugs quickly banned in exchange for greenbacks—seventy million of them, some alleged, that never left the deep pockets of the royal family, who, others said, already controlled their country’s now-illegal and therefore more valuable drug trade. Nice.

  By the time the next generation of proto-hippies in Woking or Waco had read Billy Hayes’ Midnight Express, rather than The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the ayatollahs had taken Iran, the Russians had invaded Afghanistan, and the “hippie trail” east had become a no-through road. A few stragglers stayed on in Kathmandu, but most went home to get haircuts and mortgages, resigning themselves to changing the world by endlessly reinventing the computer or the coffee bar, their future revolutions confined to new washing machines.

  Henrietta didn’t miss any of them. She had always sought her company elsewhere. She loved the Nepalese who adopted her as someone altogether more honest and serious than her bombed compatriots. She was respected by the diplomatic corps of the city for her incredible powers of insight and analysis—even if she’d already realized the many spooks and spies that inhabited its fabric were even bigger liars than the hippies. She also increasingly enjoyed the company of another group that now continually passed through the city: the climbers and mountaineers. Her deep knowledge of the bureaucracy and intricacies of getting things done in Nepal made her a much-sought-after fount of information whenever they got into town.

  Intrigued by their stories and still a history student at heart, Henrietta in return became fascinated with their quests to climb the world’s highest mountains. She read the little she could find on the subject and began to keep records of everything she heard. The simple black-and-white truth of whether someone made it to a mountain’s summit or not seemed to fill a need within her. She quickly learned that climbing had its liars too, and for some reason she found that to be particularly unacceptable. There were brief romances with a few of them, and then there was love with one. He was a blond, curly-haired American at the forefront of a new breed of climber who, rejecting the huge siege-style expeditions and obvious routes of the first Himalayan summiteers, instead sought to go lighter, faster, and more elegantly up the hardest faces to reach the top.

  Henrietta’s relationship with him became as intense and severe as the climbs he made. When he wasn’t in the mountains, he stayed with her in Kathmandu. They would sit together analyzing maps and photographs, studying her growing collection of expedition notes and books, designing the most perfect routes up the fiercest mountains. He would then leave her to climb them with a ragtag group of climbing gypsies who all followed the same creed. She had no desire to go with him. Her only desire was for him to return, but always she knew that, one day, he wouldn’t. It was statistically probable that he would be killed. She couldn’t even lie to herself about that—after all, they were her statistics—so she just chose not to think about it until that inevitable day arrived in 1981 and she was left with no choice. When her American was hit by a falling rock during a desperate, freezing descent of the West Face of Makalu, something in her also froze, so hard she knew there would be no thaw. Henrietta Richards should have gone home, left that place the next day, but she didn’t. He would be there for eternity, and so would she.

  She quietly continued her work at the embassy. She studied the Nepali and Tibetan languages and many of the dialects in between, becoming fluent in them all. She watched as the tiny, antique city she loved grew into a brown-brick sprawl that scabbed the once-green Kathmandu Valley. The old city’s infrastructures crumbled around her, unable to cope with one million people. Legions of small motorcycles and cars replaced the cohorts of bicycles. Their pollution unchecked, Kathmandu’s once-blue skies receded behind a metallic smog that Henrietta could taste on her tongue by midafternoon. The country’s royal family corroded further from within, finally self-destructing when Prince Dipendra, heir to the throne, murdered nine of its members, including the king, before turning the gun on himself. The king’s brother Gyanendra took over, but, unpopular and mistrusted, he only accelerated the final fall of his house. Narrowly avoiding a revolution, he stepped aside at the very last minute, just as the Maoists prepared to come down from the hills and take power by force.

  Kathmandu should have collapsed under it all, but surprisingly it didn’t. Nor did Henrietta. Her dark hair greyed, her back bowed a little, but her piercing blue eyes stayed focused on the truth as she observed mountaineering change once again, this time into a multimillion-dollar industry that offered every type of trek or climb to every level of climber. Summits were packaged and priced, and public perceptions, conditioned by those dark, dangerous first climbs, lionized anyone who reached them. Everest became the biggest, most sought-after prize of all. Henrietta eyed it all with a caustic acceptance. She knew it was a rare source of income for the impoverished country she loved, and that much of it was a sham. However, she insisted that its participants at least be honest in what they claimed. Night after night, she applied her now huge knowledge to every climb that claimed a summit, to every climber who published a
summit photo. Her records grew to fill twenty filing cabinets crowded with details of over fifty thousand ascents. They said she had every Himalayan expedition report ever written, some going back to the nineteenth century. It wasn’t true, but she did know more about every route, every lofty summit pyramid than most of the people who actually visited them.

  When she finally retired from the embassy in 2006, there was still neither tennis nor golf in her plans. The only change Henrietta made to her life was to move her recordkeeping into the daytime, juggling it with the freelance consultancy she continued to provide the city’s diplomatic corps. Her free evenings she now used to channel her encyclopedic, obsessive knowledge into writing books about Everest, particularly George Leigh Mallory and Sandy Irvine’s ill-fated attempt in 1924. After forty years in Kathmandu, Henrietta Richards was still no hippie.

  16

  For Henrietta, that morning in May was much like the rest at that time of year. She got up at 6:30 a.m. precisely and turned on her aging, vinyl-covered radio to listen to the BBC World Service, its languid eloquence one of the last reminders of her youth as she prepared herself for another busy day. She then made a cup of tea with milk, some toast and marmalade, and ate her breakfast, reading, as always, the previous day’s copy of the Daily Telegraph and that day’s Kathmandu Times.

  Sanjeev Gupta, her assistant, would arrive promptly at nine o’clock, and that was her signal to start work. Until then she enjoyed the slow solitude of her morning ritual, calling it her “calm before the storm,” a particularly apt choice of words during the premonsoon season between late May and early June. It was always her busiest time of the year and she knew when it was coming.

  From the window of her apartment, she would watch the monsoon’s arriving rainclouds be momentarily halted by the barrier of the world’s highest mountains. They would stack so high into the sky above Kathmandu that they themselves formed another barrier to block the fearsome jet-stream winds that pummeled the heights of those same mountains for the rest of the year. The resulting “window” of calmer conditions on high was when the expeditions made their summit attempts and, as soon as they did, Henrietta would vet every single expedition that claimed success.

  Given the season, it was no surprise that her first call of the day came in on the dot of nine. Just as Sanjeev was letting himself in through the front door of Henrietta’s apartment, she picked up the phone on its second ring and said simply yet imperiously, “Richards.”

  The speed and brevity with which she answered seemed to fluster her caller for a moment, much as intended. After a pause, a voice said, “Henrietta? Jack Graham speaking.”

  “Hello, Jack,” she replied, tone warming to the familiar sound of the longtime British ambassador to Nepal, a colleague and close friend of many years. “Bit early for you, isn’t it? To what do I owe this honor?”

  “Yes, I know. Sorry to disturb, but I have top brass from the Department for International Development here with me all morning so I needed to speak to you first.”

  “Not a problem. How can I help?”

  “Edward Shay, the new US ambassador, invited me to dinner last night, wanting to pick my brain about something. As I am sure you know, he’s only been here for a few weeks, first ambassadorship for him and all that. Solid chap, actually, I think he’ll do well. Anyway, yesterday he was being absolutely hammered by DC because a sixteen-year-old American has been killed on Everest. The boy is or, should I say, was the son of a Mr. Nelson Tate, billionaire, big political donor, you know the type, and evidently the man has been raising merry hell at the highest levels ever since. Have you heard anything about this?”

  “Yes, I did hear some early chat yesterday about a death on the north side of the mountain but no details as to who it was.” She wearily sighed to herself before continuing. “I really wish they would stop this ridiculous record-breaking to be the youngest or the fastest or whatever it is going to be next. I mean sixteen is just too young to be up there. The death of such a young climber is going to be a major tragedy for the mountain. It’ll be a big story.”

  “Well, that’s the point actually, Henrietta. We need the full story. Shay has told Washington he is going to compile a detailed report on precisely what happened to the almost inevitably named Nelson Tate Junior. It won’t bring the boy back, of course, but it may bring some closure to Tate Senior—and we both know that the preparation of a bloody good report always buys some time. He was asking me who I thought was the leading expert on Everest in Kathmandu and, naturally, I said you. They’ll pay you for it, of course.”

  “But if it was a Tibet climb, isn’t this something for the US authorities in China to pursue?”

  “You know as well as I that the Chinese have long denied the US request for a consulate in Lhasa. They have no one officially on the ground there and whilst the US Embassy in Beijing is evidently kicking up a fuss, the Chinese will undoubtedly respond to it by just hiding the facts of the matter behind some simple statement until it all goes away. I told him that the only hope they had of really getting to the truth would be through you from Nepal.”

  “I can’t disagree with that. The truth is definitely my game. Do you know who the younger Tate was climbing with, Jack?”

  “Yes, it appears that Nelson Tate Junior was with No Horizons. Sarron.”

  Henrietta shook her head at the news. The mere mention of the name made her skin crawl. The Frenchman’s narrow, hateful face, with its taut, permanently tanned skin and silvering, curly hair pulled back into that irritating ponytail instantly appeared in her mind’s eye.

  “Really? Most definitely not my favorite person—or anyone’s, in fact. Did you say anything about Sarron to Shay?”

  “No, I thought better not to at this stage. He’s picked up that Sarron is difficult, ‘an Everest maverick’ he’d been told. However, I don’t think he’s fully aware of what a complete piece of work that damn Frenchie really is. Surprisingly our links with the Indian Intelligence Bureau are currently better than the Yanks’, who, I guess, are slightly more focused on the Muslim than the Maoist these days.”

  Henrietta nodded to herself. “Yes, probably for the best,” she said pensively. “We don’t yet know the details of Tate Junior’s death. I don’t want to sound callous, but if it was the result of just a fall or an avalanche then why stir up a lot of trouble involving Sarron? It will only make his parents’ suffering worse.” She paused. “However, Jack, if it proves to be not as simple as that, make no mistake, it will all come out about Sarron, and then the Tates will have some very serious regrets as to what their son got into.”

  “I know,” Graham replied.

  “Tate Senior can’t have done much due diligence before the climb. What a fool!” Henrietta continued waspishly. “It so annoys me when people don’t look further than an expedition company’s success rate. Sarron’s always been smart at selling his expeditions on his summit stats and leaving the nasty surprise of his absolutely loathsome personality for when everyone gets to the foot of the hill. I bet he really laid on the charm at the thought of Tate’s billions. Did Shay give you the names of any others involved?”

  “Yes, an English guide called Neil Quinn.”

  “Mr. Quinn, indeed,” Henrietta said, stopping to think about what Jack Graham had just told her.

  “What’s he like?”

  “Nice enough chap, good Everest man. Big guy, strong, must have been on the top eight or nine times now. He’s no idiot either, told me once that he gave up a possible career as a London lawyer to become a professional climber. I have always thought he could have been one of the best in the world, but he’s a bit of a journeyman these days. It’s pretty common really. They start out young and hungry but over time find themselves compelled to pay their bills doing the same old hills time and time again. In Quinn’s case it’s just that the hill happens to be Mount Everest. I am surprised, though, to hear that he was working for S
arron. I would have put him above that. Did Shay say who the sirdar was?”

  “I wrote it down actually. Let me look … Dawa Sherpa, could it be?”

  “Yes, that would make sense as he often works with Quinn, although I must say he’s another I wouldn’t have foreseen in Sarron’s Base Camp. Dawa’s a legend on Everest and even I would approve the use of such hyperbole in his case. Ho hum, Quinn and Dawa, more bees around the Tate honeypot perhaps? Well, how do we proceed?”

  “Shay would like to meet you for lunch to brief you on what he needs and by when. He said he’d send a car to collect you at midday if you were up for it.”

  “You can tell him I’ll be waiting.”

  “Good. I’ll leave you to agree the rest with him. Don’t forget it’s the Americans. Think of a number for the report and double it. Oh and, Henrietta, one more thing. I have just finished your last book, the one you sent over at Christmas, and I must say, I thought it was excellent. If I read it right, it seemed to suggest that you believed George Leigh Mallory did reach the summit of Everest before he died, an unusually romantic conclusion for someone as scientific in their approach as you.”

  “I have my reasons, Jack. I’ll let you know how I get on with Shay and the report.”

  Putting down the phone, Henrietta turned to Sanjeev, who had already switched on the computer and quietly started to work. “Sanjeev, as a priority please let me have anything you can find on the 2009 No Horizons Everest North Expedition and, particularly, Jean-Philippe Sarron, Neil Quinn, and Dawa Sherpa. Print it all up as I’ll need to take it with me for a meeting at twelve. I’m also going to put the answering machine on now as I suspect we might be getting more than a few calls from the newspapers today and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”