Abe knew that wasn't so. He could feel his lips splitting, literally, in a smile. He
tasted blood and knew his face was blistered and skinned and hairy and smeared with
old glacier cream. Worse than the ugliness, he stank. There had been no chance to
wash in the weeks at ABC and higher, and now he smelled the feces caking his
underwear. He was ashamed and yet strangely exhilarated. He had become a child of
the Kore Wall, a foul yeti himself. Even so, this golden woman held him.
It struck him. He had survived the mountain. And not just in the minute-to-minute
sense of dodging its missiles or making it through another night. He had turned his
back on the Hill, and however temporary this respite, it was now only an image
against the sky. He was alive.
Abe wanted to tell Kelly some of this, but when he opened his mouth all that came
out was his bronchial croak. 'Kelly,' he said again.
Kelly held him out from her and looked into his eyes. She seemed to have some
notion what his wild gleam was all about. Maybe she had suffered this same ecstasy.
'Come on, Abe,' she said, and led him by the arm. They went directly to her tent, not
to his cold, empty hospital dome. She stripped the pack off his back and made him sit.
He felt drunk and couldn't quit grinning. After the mountain's murderous violence,
this peace seemed surreal. He could actually sit here without ducking or listening for
the crack of avalanches or shivering or sucking at the air for breath. He could just sit.
Kelly disappeared, then returned with a steaming mug of tea and bright boxes of
crackers and a slab of cheese, and the crackers weren't a ball of mangled wet crumbs
and the cheese wasn't frozen to stone. 'I told the others you're down,' she said.
'Jorgens wants to debrief you right away. But I told everyone to stay away.'
The sun was warm and not a breeze was stirring. She helped him from his sweater,
which was stiff with old blood. 'Christ, Abe,' she said when the gash in his arm came in
view. 'Was there some kind of massacre up there?'
'It was...' Abe stopped, trying to recall the ordeal.
'I asked Krishna to heat some water,' Kelly said. 'I'll wash you. Then we'll clean that
arm. And there's time to sleep before dinner. Here. I want you to sleep in my tent.'
Abe felt tears running down his face.
'Thank you,' he creaked.
She reached for his hand and squeezed it. 'You're down,' Kelly assured him, knowing
his disbelief. 'It's time to rest.'
At dinner that night, Abe related the latest news on their progress to Four. He
described Daniel's fall and the bad night at the cave and Daniel and Gus's continuing
effort to establish Camp Five. Freshly washed and shaven, wearing a clean white
T-shirt with a tequila advertisement on the chest, he sat at the table and felt profound
contentment. His arm was throbbing under a bandage that stood brilliant against his
bronzed flesh. Kelly had cleaned and stitched it for him, and Abe was getting drowsy
from a Percodan he'd taken for the pain. He would sleep well tonight.
With grave courtesy, Krishna served the climbers plates piled high with steaming
rice and lentils and Tibetan dumplings. Krishna surveyed the general vicinity to make
sure people had the necessary amenities – a spoon, a bottle of ketchup, some Tabasco
sauce – then hustled back to stir his pots and start supper for the Sherpas who sat in
the corner by Krishna's stoves, warming themselves, waiting politely for the members
to finish. Their happy chattering blended into the background noise of the stove roar
and the wind whipping a loose cord against the tent.
People reacted to Abe's news as if Daniel had just subdued a dragon and made their
valley safe. They were excited and grateful and eager to have him return to their
ranks. Even Jorgens and Thomas were pleased. The summit was within striking
distance now. Their long shot was suddenly much shorter. It would be difficult to fail.
'It will be different this time,' Stump said. 'I've found the bug in our radios. This time
we have communications.'
'This time we're rested,' Robby added.
'Then we're agreed,' said Jorgens. 'We go for it. Three days,' Jorgens said. 'Then we
go back up. We finish our business.'
They had been down for several days already, some for more than a week, and the
hiatus showed in their faces. Their concentration camp visage had fattened. The
faraway stares, the bony grimaces, even their raggedy, emaciated beards had filled
out. The mineral blueness of their flesh had softened and receded, leaving them with
the color of life.
'Three days,' Thomas seconded.
'And then,' someone pronounced, 'home.'
'Meanwhile,' another voice piped up. 'I have for you a surprise.' It was Li. Bundled to
the skull in expedition gear, he stood from his chair at the end of the wicker table. He
threw back the cherry-red parka hood and smiled at them, though the kerosene light
pulled out the struck hollows and bony edges of his face and it was hard to tell if he
was happy or in pain. His parka and Gore-Tex overpants had the crisp spotlessness of
a dress uniform and appeared to have suffered little exposure to the elements for
which they were intended.
'Good night,' he greeted them with a lecturer's formality. He had a starved man's
gleam in his eye, and his look of loneliness was almost obscene. Abe had forgotten him
completely.
'Tomorrow, for you, my friends and guests, is the viewing of Shangri-La,' he said.
Abe was shocked by how much Li's accent had thickened over the last nine weeks. His
syntax had slipped radically. It was the altitude and the forced hermitage, Abe knew.
They were lapsing, all of them.
Li continued with a showman's pitch. 'The real Shangri-La, you see.'
'The Rongbuk monastery,' Carlos blurted aloud.
'Yes, Mr. Crowell.' Li beamed. 'Sixty years ago, Mr. James Hilton wrote his book. He
based it on reports from early British expeditions to Qomolangma.' Qomolangma –
the Pinyin bastardization of the Tibetan Chomolungma. Mount Everest. 'He has a
pass, Shangri-La. We have a pass, Chengri La. He puts Utopia in a very high Chinese
monastery. We have this place. Rongbuk Monastery. Only now, not so Utopia.'
At the mention of a monastery, Abe remembered his epileptic monk and wondered
where the poor boy had disappeared to. He made a mental note to ask Nima. He
couldn't remember the boy's name, and that gave him a start. But then he couldn't
remember Jamie's face either, and for some reason that evened out his losses.
'We can actually go there?' Carlos asked. It was easy to see that one did not visit the
monastery with ease.
'It is my pleasure,' Li said, 'I am authorizing this for you.'
'Can we bring cameras?' Stump asked.
'Of course,' Li said. 'Cameras. Video cameras. Everything. You will see archaeology
of old Tibet. And something else. I have learned that tomorrow Tibetan nationals will
perform an archaic ceremony. Very special. Very dark. Very educational.'
P. T. Barnum could not have done a better job. The climbers were hooked. Down at
his end of the table, Carlos whispered the word
about to get another blessing. Li smiled broadly at their enthusiasm.
