Right of Thirst

by Frank Huyler

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was the most expensive restaurant in town, along the main street, an easy walk from the lecture hall. It was the kind of place visiting parents took their newly grown children, and the negotiations of adult roles began. Sons and daughters, boyfriends and girlfriends and introductions. We’d taken Eric there a lifetime ago, for his high school graduation, and toasted him.

  We stood outside in the warm evening.

  “This is fine,” Scott Coles said, glancing at his watch. It was a little after eight. Though the restaurant was only half full, it took nearly fifteen minutes to be seated, and five more before the waiter appeared.

  As I ordered a salad, I expected him to choose something similarly modest. But without hesitation he ordered the fillet medium rare, a full bottle of merlot, and an appetizer.

  “You’re not eating dinner?” he asked.

  “I ate earlier,” I admitted.

  He let his gaze drift out across the dining room, with its white tablecloths and blue china plates, and the glitter of silverware. Low conversations washed around us. A young blonde waitress walked past, her dark slacks clinging to her body, her white dress shirt tight against her breasts, and he watched her for a long moment before turning away. I wondered if he slept with the college girls he met along the way, easing them into bed with his stories of saving the world.

  “Well,” he said, as we waited for the meal. “What would you like to know?”

  “How many camps you have, I suppose. The kind of help you need. How you got started.”

  “I thought I covered most of that in my talk,” he said. “We have two camps at the moment, but they’re in the lowlands, and they’re already staffed. We’re starting a third in a few months up in the mountains. That’s where they’re most needed, but logistically it’s much more difficult. Everything has to be flown in. It’s incredibly expensive. There are tensions along the border, also. Whenever they flare up everything stops for weeks, and no one moves. It’s almost impossible to get things done sometimes. It took me months to get the army to agree to a new camp. I had to meet with a high-ranking general at least a dozen times, and even then he insisted on a liaison officer to oversee things. We have to pay for him, too, of course, even though he’ll do nothing useful. We have to pay for everything. That’s why I’m always on the road.”

  He closed his eyes for an instant, as if overcome by weariness. Just then the waiter appeared with the bottle of wine and the appetizer—tiny chicken kebobs, roasted in garlic. He set the dish on the table between us, poured each of us a glass of the expensive merlot, and asked us if there was anything else we needed.

  Scott Coles shook his head, waved him off without speaking, and took a sip.

  “Not bad,” he said, twirling the wine around in the glass in a practiced way. He took another sip, and I looked at him. He put a skewer between his teeth, and pulled a piece of chicken into his mouth. The muscles of his jaw stood out in his cheeks as he chewed.

  “Right now we have openings for a few volunteers to get things started. Later we’ll bring more people in. We haven’t done this before, so we’re learning as we go.”

  “Is it really that different from the other camps?”

  He nodded, impatiently.

  “It’s completely different. Like I said, this one is in the high country. It’s in the middle of nowhere. It’s a way station. The whole purpose is to give them a few days of food and rest so they’ll be able to continue. No one will stay for long. We’ll need to keep the numbers low so we can feed them. We can’t afford a bottleneck up there.”

  “How many people are you talking about?”

  “We have enough tents for two thousand people at full capacity. But no more.”

  “So you’re going to tell them to leave?”

  “Yes,” he said. “They’ll have to keep moving. They’ll have to keep going down.”

  “What if they don’t want to?”

  “I doubt that will happen,” he said. “But there will be a military presence, just in case. I hope it doesn’t come to that. If they’re sick, they’ll need to stay longer, of course. In the lowlands, we can usually get them to a local hospital. But in this case we’ll be the hospital. That’s why we need a doctor.”

  I studied him, and took a sip of wine.

  “Who else will be there?”

  “At the moment there will be the liaison officer from the army, and a friend of mine. She’s doing a research project on genetics, but she’s also taken classes in nursing, so she’ll be useful. I’m recruiting some other people with practical experience, but they’ll mostly be needed when the camp is up and running. I’m planning to go also, but I can’t be there in the beginning.”

  “That’s all?”

  “For the moment, yes. But like I said, once the camp gets going we’ll increase the staff. At this stage it’s really a pilot program. That’s why, if you’re serious, someone like you would be so valuable. You could tell us what we’ll need for the other camps. I’m hoping this will be the first of many.”

  “How old is your organization?” I asked. “Did you start it after the earthquake?”

  “Yes,” he said. “It was something I wanted to do for a long time. But the earthquake made it a necessity.”

  “A necessity?”

  He smiled, thinly.

  “Yes,” he said. “A necessity. If you’d seen what I have you’d understand what I mean.”

  I nodded.

  “So,” I said. “What did you do before this? You must have had another career.”

  “For a long time I was a mountaineer,” he said. “A climber. I’ve given that up now.”

  “Why?”

  “I had an experience in the mountains that made me realize I was on the wrong path.”

  I took a bite of salad.

  “Are you going to tell me what it was?” I asked, after a moment.

  I knew it was the question he’d been waiting for. But he took his time nonetheless, finishing his glass of wine, pouring himself another.

  “Do you know what it means for a climber to climb an eight-thousand-meter peak?” he asked.

  “I think so,” I said.

  “It means you’re among the best in the world. Only a few thousand people have done it.”

  I waited.

  “We were a small expedition,” he continued. “We were climbing alpine style. That means fast and light, with minimal equipment. But my partner couldn’t go on summit day. He’d twisted his knee. It was so swollen he could hardly bend it.”

  He took a swallow of wine.

  “So I went for the summit on my own. I was stupid back then. We weren’t the only expedition on the mountain. There were other climbers going for the summit that morning, and I thought they could help if anything happened. I convinced myself it was safe to go, even though it wasn’t. I’d sold almost everything I had to get there.”

  As he spoke, I realized that the pace of his speech had increased, and again I got a glimpse of how he’d been in the lecture hall—a glint in his eye, incantation in his voice.

  “The weather was good,” he said. “It wasn’t that cold. But there was a lot of fresh snow. So I waited for the other group to leave, and then I followed their tracks. They were an hour or so ahead of me. They broke the trail. I followed their route. They put in protection, and I used it. I couldn’t have done it otherwise.”

  He shook his head, as if marveling at his younger self.

  “I made good time because they’d done the work. It was a perfectly clear day, and there was very little wind. I could see for hundreds of miles. There aren’t any other peaks around that mountain. I could see fields, I could see valleys. I felt as if I could see the entire world. I was alone. It was beautiful. All I could hear was my own breathing and my own footsteps in the snow. I was scared, also. I felt as though death was all around me.”

  He smiled.

  “I was at almost eight thousand meters by myself. Not many people can say t
hat.”

  “What mountain was it?” I asked.

  “That doesn’t matter,” he replied. “It’s not important.”

  I looked at him, puzzled.

  “Did you catch up to the other group?”

  “That’s the point of the story,” he said. “I was on a ridge just below the final snowfield to the summit. I was about four hundred meters below them. There were three of them, roped up. I could see them. They were Polish, and really strong. They were at the top of the game.”

  He paused again.

  “The snowfield scared me,” he said. “It was loaded with fresh snow. It was obviously unstable. But the summit was right there, and they couldn’t resist it. They went for it. I didn’t know what to do. So I stopped and watched them. They knew the risk they were taking. They moved as slowly and as carefully as they could, and they almost made it.”

  He shook his head a final time.

  “It was a huge slide. It took all three of them down the face. They fell at least three thousand meters. One moment they were there, and the next they were gone. I was safe on the rock band. It just went by me, and there was nothing I could do.”

  “Didn’t you go get help?”

  He laughed.

  “They fell almost ten thousand feet. They didn’t need any help.” He paused. “Do you know what my first thought was?”

  I shook my head.

  “I thought, there’s no avalanche danger now.”

  He closed his eyes again, then opened them.

  “My first thought was that the summit was wide open. Three hours away at most. Perfect weather. Early in the day. No problem.”

  “Then why didn’t you do it?” I asked.

  “Because my second thought was that I’d just seen three men die, and I realized it was for nothing. If I hadn’t stopped to watch them, and had started up the snowfield, I would have been dead as well. My death also would have been for nothing. I’d been lucky as a climber up to that point. I hadn’t seen anyone get killed. But suddenly I learned what it really is, what kind of risk I was taking. And I realized that I’d become someone I didn’t want to be. Someone who would think of the summit first, and human life second. Someone who defined everything in terms of his own personal ambition and accomplishment. The only person in the world who would care if I climbed that mountain was me. No one else. And climbing it wouldn’t have mattered any more than dying in the avalanche. I saw all of that on the ridge that day. I sat there, and looked down at the view for a while, and then I turned around, and went back to the high camp, and helped my partner down like I should have from the beginning. I gave up high-altitude climbing after that.”

  “And you started to do relief work.”

  “Not right away. It took me a long time to understand what I wanted to do. But I realized I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted it to have significance. I didn’t want to be just another dead mountaineer. Or even just another famous one. There are lots of those.

  “It’s terrible to say this, I know,” he continued. “But in many ways the earthquake was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  I didn’t know how to reply. If he noticed my unease, however, he gave no sign. He ate the rest of the appetizers quickly, washed them down with the wine, and refilled his glass from the bottle on the table. He tapped his fingers on the table.

  “They’re slow here,” he said. “I hate bad service.”

  If anything, my confusion about him deepened.

  “So,” he said, finally. “Tell me why you’re buying me dinner.”

  “As I said, I’m curious about your organization and what you’re trying to do.”

  “It’s quite simple. We’re trying to save a population at risk. You can do two things to help us. Give us money or volunteer your time. Or both. Or, of course, you can do neither.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I understand that.”

  For the first time since we’d sat down, he looked at me directly. He smiled, wearily and quickly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I appreciate your interest, I really do. I’m just tired.”

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t you tell me about yourself,” he said.

  “What would you like to know?”

  “What kind of doctor you are, for one. And why you’re interested in this.”

  “I’ve been practicing cardiology for almost thirty years. I’m on the faculty here at the medical school. I’m taking a few months off. I’d like to do something useful.”

  “How much time do you have?”

  “At least three months, possibly more.”

  “Good,” he said. “A week or two is pointless. It’s tourism.”

  He looked at me.

  “There won’t be much cardiology up there,” he said. “You’d be dealing with problems like diarrhea and malnutrition and skin infections. Nothing fancy like cardiology.”

  “I realize that.”

  He nodded.

  “So why don’t you tell me,” I said, “why I should volunteer with you and not a more established organization?”

  “A good question,” he said. “The best answer is that while we are small, we are much more efficient than some other groups, and you would have a lot of autonomy. We keep things simple and pure. We keep staffing to a minimum. We don’t waste anything. We empower our employees and volunteers to make decisions as they see fit. Individual initiative matters and we value it. That’s why we need to screen people so carefully.”

  He took another sip of wine.

  “It’s an astonishing place, it really is,” he continued. “It’s beautiful and wild. It’s like going to another world. It’s about as far away from this”—he swept his hand across the room—“as it’s possible to get.”

  The meal arrived. He curtly thanked the waiter, lifted his knife and fork, and started in on the fillet. We were quiet for a while as he ate. I picked at my salad.

  “It’s nothing personal,” he said, finally. “But we need people who are serious and come to work. We’ve already had one or two bad experiences.”

  “Such as?”

  He swallowed.

  “People who like the idea of relief work more than actually doing it. People who think it’s a vacation. It’s not a vacation. It’s a reduction to the essentials. You see exactly what is important and what isn’t. It’s deeply satisfying to dig a well for a village that hasn’t ever had one before. Or build a school. It really is like nothing else.”

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin, took another swallow of wine. He jerked his chin toward the other tables.

  “These people here,” he said. “They have no idea. They have no idea how big the world really is. They’re thinking only about themselves—their own lives and careers. Maybe they’re thinking about their children’s lives and careers. They’re telling their kids to become lawyers and bankers and stockbrokers. They’re telling them to compete and win and get rich, that’s it. They’re oblivious, they really are. They don’t know what’s important. They think you get a prize at the end, and you don’t. But saving people from hunger and disease, that’s important. That actually matters.”

  He had a look in his eye again, and hadn’t finished chewing, and I could see the red meat and wine in his mouth. The profusion of individual gray hairs on his head stood out in the dim lighting against the youthful black of the rest.

  “How old are you?” he asked, bluntly.

  “I’m fifty-eight.”

  “Do you have any health problems?”

  “Nothing significant.”

  “Conditions are rough. You should understand that. You’d be living out of a tent. There won’t be any modern conveniences.”

  I took another sip of wine.

  “Do you have a family? Even three months is a long time up there.”

  “I’ve had some personal issues recently. I’m alone now. My son lives in New York.”

  “Ah,” he said, as if something had become clear to him. I felt my c
heeks flush.

  “It’s not a bad way to start again,” he said, thoughtfully, and not unkindly, after a moment. “It worked for me.”

  I did not reply.

  He finished off the last of the meat, eating with evident pleasure, drank the rest of the wine, and then, as he wiped his mouth for the last time, he thanked me for dinner.

  “I hope you’ll join us,” he said, after I paid the bill, and we stood outside the restaurant in the warm night. “I’ve talked to a few others, but they’re much younger, and have very little experience. We need someone like you. We need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  With that, he shook my hand, firmly.

  “You have my card,” he said, looking me in the eye, bringing the evening to an end. “I hope to hear from you.”

  “Do you need a ride to your hotel?” I asked.

  “No, thanks,” he said. “It’s not far. I’m used to walking.”

  I said good night, and watched him for a moment as he strode off purposefully toward the center of campus, head up, as if he had an appointment to keep.

  As I stood on the street, I felt as though I was on the cusp of an untraceable disappearance, that I was very close to being swept under entirely. I’d lived in that town for nearly thirty years, and right then it meant nothing to me, no more than the Atlanta of my youth. It was just another place, another stop along the way, full of strange young faces, ten thousand at a time, in four-year cycles, passing through.

  I suppose another world was what I wanted most.

  PART TWO

  THE VALLEY

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The days were blinding and bright and deep. Silent, also, except for the wind and the river in the background. When it was still, at night, the air was like a pane of ice. Sound carried a great distance—footsteps on the gravel, voices from the cook tent. There were birds—a kind of small brown gull, sweeping in for the garbage. Apart from them, and the villagers below us, the place was empty. When I first stepped out of the helicopter, I felt as though I’d landed on the surface of the moon.