Nima

by Adam Popescu

  “Five thousand,” he yells again. “Now!”

  My mikarus scramble to pull out more rupees. The dog is out of the hut now, barking and slobbering. Ethan flinches and drops some of the rupees. He bends to pick them up. The dog is in his face, canines snapping, he grabs the fallen notes and staggers back up. The boy soldiers collect the extra rupees from him, then Daniel. “Now you,” he says to Val, who hands it over. Then back to me. The other soldier points his rifle. “All your money. Hurry up.”

  All my money? Val gave me twelve thousand, five hundred yesterday morning, a quarter of my wages, but he probably assumes I have a lot less.

  “Give now!” he yells again.

  I nod. “Okay, brother, okay. I’m getting it. I’m bending to get it in my boot.”

  I kneel to unlace my boot and the mutt advances on me. I raise a hand—I don’t even realize what I’m doing, he’s coming and I try to protect myself—and I feel the teeth sink into flesh, right between my thumb and pointing finger. I think of Fifth and how she must have felt all those years ago. The dog tears at the skin like he’s tearing paper, and I grab my hand with my other arm and pull back and I feel his jaws tighten their grip—then the baby-faced soldier kicks the beast in the snout and he lets go, whimpering.

  There are two small holes in my hand, throbbing and starting to bleed, as I dig the rupees out from one sock, bleeding all over the blood pheasants and rhinos. I had put half of my money in this boot, half in the other. The boy kicks me and snatches the money, wiping the rupees clean on his pants leg. The other soldier lowers his rifle, and suddenly the two squabble over the rupees, just like dogs.

  I struggle to my feet, touch the hilt of my kikuri, and a wave flows over me, my whole body a deep drum—and when I stop, I hear Val’s voice, still calm. “We want our passports back,” she says in Nepali.

  I take a cautious step, my hand still fingering the blade. The boy soldiers don’t seem to hear Val, and I motion to the mikarus to get moving.

  “Passports,” Val repeats, facing them again.

  “Val, what are you doing?” I ask her.

  “We can’t leave without those passports.”

  The one who kicked me still holds the passports in one hand, the rupees in the other. Val takes another step—she’s the same size as these boys, and there’s a glint in her eye I haven’t seen before.

  “Val,” Ethan hisses in warning, but she puts a hand up, takes another step closer, keeping her eyes on the soldiers. “You have the money, now give us the passports,” she commands again in Nepali.

  They’re listening now, stunned, unable to believe this mikaru woman speaks their language.

  Val takes another step, leans in, reaches, and takes the passports from his hand. And the boy soldier lets her, enraptured as if under a lepcha’s spell—then it seems to break and he raises the rifle again. The other soldier does the same. I’m sure they’re going to shoot, kill her, then us. My hand is right above the kikuri, but what can I do? I’m no killer. And if I pulled out the blade, I’d die.

  Guns still pointed, Val takes a step back, then takes the shiny watch from around her wrist and places it on the ground. “A gift,” she says, backing up another step. “A gift. A golden watch. For you.”

  The boys hold their aim, come closer, then drop their rifles and dash for the watch, diving in the dirt. One has the watch, then the other—they’re fighting over it. I look at the two rifles on the ground, consider grabbing one, handing the other to Val. No, now Val is motioning to follow, and we all reverse, one step, then another, and dash down the trail—if they pick up the weapons and fire now, they could still hit us. We’re circling a switchback, jetting up a small hill, and I hear a loud crack—a rock, a boulder dropping, an aimed shot?—which is when we really start running.

  I run so hard I forget everything else. When I finally stop and turn around, I’ve lost them, but I’ve lost my mikarus, too. I’m scared to turn back down the trail, and I’m ashamed of my fear.

  A tall pine juts out by the trail, and I crouch in a patch of ferns, my body and my dark thoughts hidden in the thick undergrowth. There’s a deep throbbing in my hand, and it’s still bleeding. I tear my sleeve and wrap a piece of cloth tight. The blood soaks through. A few minutes pass, a few more, the cloth has gone from red to black. Then the sound of footsteps. I duck lower and take out the kikuri as the steps come closer. Loud steps, I think with relief.

  Nepalis don’t walk that way, like a plodding yak.

  Through the ferns, I spot Val and the others, and I exhale as I sheathe the blade and emerge from the bushes. Val rushes towards me and envelops me in a hug. I don’t know what to do—I’m relieved and embarrassed—no woman outside of my family has ever embraced me like this. I laugh nervously, and so does Val.

  We are catching our breath, packs off, when Daniel starts yelling. “What happened back there, Ang?”

  Val’s own voice snaps in translation: “Is that normal, Ang? I thought this was a safe country.”

  Tired and scared, I snap back: “Something like that has never happened to me. They’re bored, they’re hungry. I’m so sorry, Val.”

  Val doesn’t say anything, our hug now a distant memory.

  “That’s not the Nepali way,” I plead. “It’s not the Sherpa way. Tell them. I want you to explain to them.”

  Val still doesn’t respond.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I mutter. “No one got hurt.”

  “Ang is right, nothing happened,” Val says shakily. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Daniel blurts. “Where was the other Sherpa?”

  “Val just saved us back there, Daniel,” Ethan shouts. “We should be thanking her. And moving on.”

  Val turns to me. “Are you okay?” she asks, switching to Nepali, at which Daniel starts shouting again and I guess what he’s saying: There she goes, going native again.

  “Daniel,” Ethan says, pointing a finger. “Enough.”

  Daniel sits under a tree, his head in his hands. From yelling to nearly crying—what a reaction for a man. Then Ethan points at me, indicating my wounded hand. “Let me see.”

  “Let him,” Val says.

  He unwraps the cloth, now hardened and scabbed, and examines the two holes for a moment. Then he digs through his gear. He douses my hand with a clear liquid and it stings as fresh blood oozes from the holes. “To clean it, to protect from disease.” He wipes it dry, then takes a white bandage and wraps it tightly.

  Daniel takes the camera from around his neck. I take a step closer and look down at the camera’s screen—he did get a photo—that soldier with the acne, the rifle pointed right at him. He holds up his camera, looks me in the eye and lets out a whoop of joy.

  16

  WE DON’T STOP FOR LUNCH. VAL LEADS, NOT SAYING A WORD. THERE’S no talk at all, just the sound of our boots scraping the trail. Marching up the mountain, a Sherpa girl led by three mikarus.

  We pass through Jorsale, a cluster of huts wedged along the river. We pass Monju, an even shabbier cluster. My stomach grumbles. Daniel clutches his as he walks. Ethan sucks at that water tube attached to his pack—nothing left. I try a few times to call out to Val, but the words die on my tongue. She won’t listen, she won’t speak, she just keeps going. So I keep quiet, too, mad at myself for losing so much money.

  It’s a steep ascent to Namche, straight uphill with no water or tea houses. The sun moves farther over our shoulders, another hour passes, and I muster the strength to call out to Val. No response. I try to touch her arm.

  “What?” she almost yells, in English, but I understand her. Her green eyes look almost red. How quickly these mikarus seem to switch from smiles to shouts. Their language, the way it sounds and the way they speak, I can’t understand, but I don’t need to. There’s something about it, even when they’re mad, that reminds me of Sherpa, but something softer than Sherpa.

  My heart’s still beating rapidly and I should still be scared from what happened with the
soldiers, but I’m not. I’m distracted by these mikarus, they’re all like characters in a film. Being around them feels like I’m in a film. Ethan comes close, Val pushes him off, but he takes her in his arms and she finally buries her face into his chest. Just like Deepika Padukone or Priyanka Karki, one moment strong, one moment feminine, and then a hero’s curled up around her finger.

  That’s power.

  Ethan strokes Val’s hair, hair the color of wheat ready for harvest. Val starts laughing, looking up at him with a wet smile. Ethan soothes her with words I both don’t understand and do. Val wipes her nose, loosens from Ethan’s grip and takes off her pack, digs, pulls out a water bottle. She takes a sip, then passes it to Daniel, then Ethan. Half left. Ethan hands me the bottle. “Drink.”

  Onward. A winding path of broken rocks littered with cigarette butts, plastic, aluminum cans, the mix of mountain and man-made filth. Val keeps pushing us up. Part of me thinks it’s foolish to move so quickly, they’re all so inexperienced, the surest way to court danger on the mountain is to force the pace. But the frightened girl in me agrees—the soldiers could still catch up with us. I begin thinking crazy thoughts. That soldier touched my chest—he knows. He’s probably thinking about me right now, wishing he was ripping my shirt off, him over me, crouched in that small hut, the dog barking the whole time, the other one holding his gun, waiting for his turn.

  I push the pace.

  We pass a pile of construction equipment strewn across the trail. A broken door, pieces of a tin roof, frayed rope—someone’s home never made it. The trail is layered with empty packs of tobacco, yellowed tossed wrappers. The pack’s logo, a man with a bindi on his forehead, gets torn at every side, corner, or angle, by the impatient fingers of overworked men. My father used to chew this brand. He would always take a new pack when he left for a trek, always bring one back.

  The mikarus must be thinking that the hills are never ending. They are. Winding around another ridge, another leg, another switchback. And another. And another. And another. It feels that way to me, too, even though I know what comes next. Two bridges, one after the other, suspension bridges just like the one yesterday. The first sways lightly as we all step on, this time more carefully. The next bridge, we dash across it more swiftly, the wind blowing a sharp whistle like a message from the gods on Mount Kailash. After that, the path becomes more narrow, more crowded. The air is a thick green from the droves of animals that climb over stinking pools of dung. We all cover our faces, even Ethan. The sun pokes in through the clouds and the trees, and we dance in and out, from dry trail to ice, and from ice back to pebbled, frittered trail. Moments ago it was packed, now the traffic has thinned and the rush of the Dudh Kosi echoes louder.

  The mikarus are starting to show fatigue from the heights. Val’s sinuses drip, even with a rag covering her face. And Ethan has such a fit of sneezing—one, two, three, four, five, six times—we all stop and gawk at him. He sneezes so hard he trips on a rock. “It’s okay, I’m okay, it’s over.” But then he’s hit again—one, two, three, four. The rest of us can’t help but smile, the spirits of the mountain seem to be playing with him.

  “Where’s the next tea house?” Ethan asks, trying to hold back a sneeze. I’m sure I grasped the words tea house.

  Val turns to me, in Nepali: “How much farther?”

  I’m not sure exactly. I look up at the sun, it’s moved again. Should I tell her? “Two, maybe three hours.”

  Val says something in English, and I’m sure she gave them a more optimistic time frame because of the relief on their faces. Ethan stops, digs through his pack. He pulls out something in plastic, tosses it to Val, then Daniel. He hands one to me, too. “Eat.”

  I tear open the plastic, it looks like oats and fruit dried and mixed together.

  “Eat it, Ang,” Val tells me, softening to me again. “It’s good.”

  I take a bite, I am hungry—and Ethan and Daniel laugh at my reaction. I’ve never had anything like this. There are grains, oats, but it’s too sweet. I eat it anyway.

  Ethan and Daniel keep mouthing a word whose meaning I’ve heard before. Diamox. Diamox.

  They’re exhausted. I am, too. My back has been wet with sweat since this morning, and I adjust the straps on my heavy load and eat the treat—whatever it is—in a few bites. I’ve walked these heights my whole life, but never loaded like this, like a pack animal. Maybe it’s the mikarus slowing me down? A slower pace means more hours carrying these kilos. That sirdar devil has one thing right—he knows it’s not worth climbing at the same pace as the white people. A man on a dark-maned horse rides by, kicking up dust, bells on his saddle chiming. So fast and beautiful—a daikini in the flesh.

  “Nepali mountain bike,” I say to Val.

  She laughs. I’ve never been on a horse before. I’ve always wanted to ride. I will one day, I promise myself, as I watch man and beast disappear down the mountain. I wonder if Norbu would let me ride, if he took me as his bride. It’s the first time I’ve thought of him today. The clouds build and then break above us, light shining through, and we march, silently, heads down, sliding over the scree.

  The lotus only opens when touched by the sun.

  After one abrupt incline, we catch up with a group of Sherpas, a group that had passed us long ago. Now they’re walking slowly, like us, the hill is so steep. I adjust my kerchief back over my face, but my countrymen are too busy catching their breath to pay attention to me. There is one female porter, with short hair like mine, she must be in her forties. As I pass her, I try to look at her face, but she turns away. I’m gazing at my future, perhaps.

  At the top of the hill there’s a rest stop where the light washes over trekkers and Sherpas. They both sit huddled together, warming themselves. A young couple—Chinese, maybe—share a boxed lunch, eating rice with chopsticks. Westerners with bright red faces pose for photos at the edge of the hill. No sign of Lasha anywhere. But the peaks are in full view, they circle us on all sides like wolves. My mikarus are so spent, they barely look at the peaks. This is such a sacred place, our first real view of the glory of Jomolangma. They’re too tired to appreciate it.

  Ahead, a woman sells bright oranges from a tiny stand. She rests in the sun, leaning back against the load of fruit. Her long fingernails stroke mugju prayer beads. In her other hand, she holds an orange, a bright splash in this gray world.

  “Tashi delek,” she murmurs from an empty mouth. Her hair is deep black, but her face droops, showing her years. There’s a frailness to her, a frailness defying logic, because it seems impossible that she could ever make it up this far. Up and down the mountain—like all Sherpas hauling their lives on their backs, she is no different.

  The old woman holds up a perfectly round and ripe fruit to my mikarus. Then she uses a clawlike finger to pierce the skin, effortlessly, and offers it to Ethan and Daniel. She laughs when they peel and eat the fruit, juices dripping down their lips, and when she laughs, a single tooth pokes from her mouth.

  “Water?” Ethan asks her, pointing to his mouth. “Water?”

  She keeps smiling. Ethan doesn’t wait for an answer, walking off, looking for anyone who might sell him water.

  “Stay close,” Val calls after him. Then she turns to the woman. “Namaste. Can I take your picture?”

  The old woman doesn’t speak Nepali. I pull down my kerchief and explain Val’s request. I no longer have my own grandparents, they had their sky funerals long ago. But they taught me the dialect this woman speaks.

  She puts down the beads, motions for me to come closer. “Why would I learn Nepali? I am a Sherpa. Strange that she knows Nepali, though,” gesturing at Val.

  “Will you let them take your photograph?” I repeat. “Give them your image? It’s safe.”

  She nods. “I used to believe that to give an image would lose one’s threnpa inside that picture machine, they’d become a ghost—trapped forever inside the machine. That was what my mother said to me when I was just a young girl. She heard it from
the mediums. In those times, everyone believed their words. Now you can’t find a real medium and everyone your age knows you can’t lose your soul from taking a photo. Not on this side of the mountain, at least. But I’ve learned about the world, much more than she ever did. You, too?”

  I nod. She rocks her head, that clawlike thumb stroking her beads. “May we…?”

  “To all things a purpose, child. When the mikaru takes my image, I only ask that you include my stand, too. This is a business, you know. And this image will go on internet, yes? Perhaps many foreigners will see my stand and they will want to taste the fruit, and then it will help my business, yes?”

  Daniel folds four fingers and sticks up his thumb. “Are we good?”

  I mimic Daniel’s hand sign. Val smiles and does the same.

  “Very auspicious meeting, yes? I should say so.” The old woman smiles. “Yes, indeed. And how is the fruit? Sweet, yes?”

  Now holding a notebook and pen, Val nods to Daniel, who begins taking photographs. Then she asks questions that I translate.

  How long have you lived here?

  How old are you?

  What’s it like working on the mountain?

  How has it changed? How has tourism changed it?

  The woman’s name is Dechen. She says her family came over the mountain after Mao’s invasion in 1951. Some went to Ladakh, in India. Some came here to Nepal. Just like my family and so many others, thousands fled the plateau and resettled in the south. The most enterprising of our people made the switch to hospitality, setting up tea houses. Today, more of us do that than climb the peaks. Dechen never was able to make the switch to hospitality and the easier life. Life is a maze, some can make it all work, others never do.