“But it was a good route, Phil.”
“Eh, it was.” He threw another pebble with more force.
“What shall we call it?”
“El Caballo de Diablo.” Slow, deliberate and well pronounced. A little girl we knew called Columba, Pepe the horsepacker’s daughter, had shown us a Devil’s coach horse one day and told us what it was called here in Chile.
“Sounds good.” I meant it but perhaps, in my exhausted state, didn’t show it. We both understood.
To our ears the familiar wind metamorphosed into the throb-throb of the little insect chopper and down it settled on the shingle beach, blowing on our faces. I got a lump in my throat. We all held Mario’s hand before they slotted him into the black bubble to fly him off to Punta Arenas, eighty miles away. The insect lifted off and the trees leaned to let it through. They swayed back in to prevent a long goodbye and the sound was soon stolen back by the wind. We were left to mill around. It was late February and, for us, the end of the climbing season.
The Italians returned home to their jobs and tight families. Philip and I went to Argentina for more adventures before I went my own way on my nine-month wander of South America. Mario got an infection in his break but recovered within a year, so he could continue his work as a Dolomite ranger.
CHAPTER NINE
JUST PASSING
THROUGH
The maté gourd was passed my way again. I sucked it dry, the bitter taste convulsing the opening to my gullet. I was told it was good for me and, as I knew, the taste of anything good had to be acquired. The candle had a double in the black glass of the hut window. I shivered. It was a freezing night. Los Chicos played chequers and planned new routes for tomorrow. After three months in Chile I could hardly recognise their tongue as Castilian. The sound of Metallica came from the kitchen. They played their heavy metal all the time and they grew their hair long and wore leathers and beads. Here, somewhere in Argentina, a small pocket of teenagers mirrored other pockets of climbing subculture in the UK or America. They were living for the day and for the rock. And on the rock they were already experts, tutored by their, at twenty-one, elder statesman Sebastian de la Cruz. Sebas, spindly, nervous yet driven to the point of obsession, of Swiss descent, had climbed the giants of Patagonia at sixteen and los Chicos had followed, climbing Cerro Torre, FitzRoy and Torre Centrale sometimes by new routes. I was impressed by their ability and drive. It’s more difficult to give it all up for climbing in this country. There is no welfare state and, with the Catholic church, religious values are stronger than in Britain. Las Chicas are stretching on the wooden floor in the candle light. They’re into metal and rock too but seem a little less inclined to give up their career options totally. Gaby and Marcella study in nearby Bariloche and Fera works in the ski area in winter, teaching and guiding. Las Chicas and los Chicos seem to do everything together; climb together, eat together, party together and sleep together. They chatter incessantly and make plans for their next day.
I was dizzy. I needed air. “Buenas Noches, Chicos y Chicas”. I stumbled out of the refugio door into a night which was a long way from home. Frost pinpricked the exposed and unexpecting flesh of my face. It pinpricked the skin of the sky too and stark light shone in through the holes. This night was strangely two-dimensional. Scores of spires were silhouetted against starlight and crowded around like Klu Klux hoods. I liked maté. To look down on the lake was as to look up at the sky, creating the illusion of being suspended in the centre of a giant ball, dark, matt, but with millions of tiny holes. I buried my head in my pit and began to dream on the shore of the lake.
An almighty explosion.
I jumped bolt upright in shock. So did Phil.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know. A meteorite perhaps.”
“Yeah, right. G’night.”
“G’night.”
We awoke with the sun. The Klu Klux hoods were now bright shadowless spires. Five condors wheeled above the highest one, el Torre Principale. Over breakfast we pondered the mysteries of the night and decided that the next evening we would take more maté.
We shouldered our packs and went exploring. The mountains were further away than they appeared. We gazed at the panorama from above the forest canopy for these dwarf beech grew only to our nipples. Bluey chinchillas ran up and down the vertical walls. We arrived at the base of the Pyramidal and touched the rock. It was warm and rough to the touch. Unclimbed cracks were lined up side by side.
“Wow! This must be what it was like in Yosemite in the fifties.”
The vias normales had perfect lines but new rock was the essence of climbing for us; throwing loose holds over the shoulder, feeling the exposed grains crush like sugar on footholds, no chalk ahead to show the way and no idea, apart from a contract which the eye has with the body, of whether you are capable of getting up a thing or not. I uncoiled the rope at the bottom of a hand crack which snaked up the wall and flared through a roof. The rock was deep red liver. The crack went, just, but intolerant. It meted out its punishment like Wackford Squeers, so that’s what we named it. I had the bloody hands to prove it. From the summit we looked across to the Chilean Lake District and its volcanos; Osorno and Villarica, floating on a plate of cloud. On the Argentine side was Tronador, the Thunderer, that later claimed Teo’s life in an unfair avalanche. Out east shimmered the brown Pampa and, nearer, the resort of San Carlos de Bariloche fitted snugly between the Andes and Lago Nahuel Huapi like some South American Interlaken. The tourists down there would be buying their ski passes and eating famous chocolate. Nazi war criminals who had escaped Europe after the war used to live there. Perhaps some still do. Nearer again los Chicos and las Chicas could be seen and heard laughing and ascending other spires. I felt then that Frey was another special place. A place where climbers lived who cared for it, and knew it well enough to say that the yellow rock was more brittle than the red, or that there are hidden holds inside that crack, or that the number of condors is on the up, that the boulder in the next valley gives good shelter, or at what time exactly does the sun shine on that face of the mountain. Simple shared knowledge. That which we have of our home rocks. And, for all their magnificence, this particular specialness is lacking in the more remote mountains of the Himalaya or amongst the Patagonian giants. Very few climbers live through all four seasons in those places.
“Las Malvinas son Argentinas. Las Malvinas son Argentinas.”
That night the army arrived, a hundred of them with horses. They made a lot of noise and crapped a lot. I became the butt of all their Malvinas jokes and agreed, we shouldn’t have sunk the Belgrano. But I came out on top after selling most of my gear to them. With that cash I could head on to Brazil and Bolivia. They had come to lay their yearly siege on Torre Principale and for days a khaki ant line was lashed to the tower which buckled under their enthusiasm and jollity. With the maté the nights became more feverish and the dreams more intense.
It was getting late in the season and a cold wind blew in from the icecap. Climbers were migrating. Phil, my transient South African friend, to the Atacama Desert and los Chicos, after evading national service, to Peru. Ramiro was the only one who had to have his dreads cut off and join up. They sat around the radio and listened to the lottery of numbers, each with their own army number, which they had been recently posted, clenched in their fists. “Siete, dos, cinco, tres” the officer’s voice had said over the air waves and Ram’s head dropped with his friends’ hands on his shoulder. He wouldn’t get to Alpamayo and Huascaran now. I took to soloing for a while.
In the shade it was cold but, if I turned to the sun, I felt its warm hand on my cheek. The 180-metre Torre Principale stood stark white above me. I was the only climber in the whole of Frey that day. I took my clothes off, it felt like the right thing to do, and put my boots on. Goose flesh prickled up on my body and I started to climb fast to keep warm. The first couple of pitches were easy but on the exposed off width of the third pitch the wind picked up. Though
my genitals had shrunk dramatically, I couldn’t help scraping them on the edge of the crack. Higher, a more sheltered steep corner began with a boulder problem which was luckily above a ledge. This led more easily up to the notch between the twin summits. I huddled up and shivered in the shade of that notch until I could linger no more. I tiptoed onto the summit block which leaned over a dark void and I crimped and edged, pecking at holds like a chaffinch toward where there was no more rock. The condors were near. This was their country. Now they were below me as they spiralled the tower. Their giant wings against the wind made the sound of an aircraft or sometimes, and not without surprise, the whoosh of a falling rock. As I climbed higher the rock fell away before me and I broke into a sort of vertical sprint. I manteled onto the top feeling like a chimpanzee, stooped, with my arms swinging low. I surveyed the now familiar world below and sensed something had come to an end. I opened the heavy summit tin and, after signing my name in the book and reading the soldiers’ comments, I began to wonder how I was going to get down.
CHAPTER TEN
THE DOCTOR
AND THE WITCH
The dimensions of the room grow alternately larger then smaller. I can still remember my name, though I don’t care to. Faces I think I know, faces I don’t, come and peer over the edge of some invisible rim every minute or every age, I don’t know. The bed is wet under my backside. I’m so hot I’m burning up. I itch. I want to sit up and ask these people what is going on.
“Se parece peor, no.”
“Si. Vamos a buscar un doctor.”
“Es un buen idea pero hay unas brujas afuera en la calle.”
What are these people talking about? Where am I? Hold on. I remember. It’s becoming clearer.
I’m fighting through dense undergrowth. It’s very hot and sticky. The wall isn’t getting any nearer. Rat and Iñaki are up ahead and I am following with Kiko. Early morning and so hot already. This jungle climbing freaks me out, since getting stung by giant black bees in Rio. Every insect makes me flinch. They say there’re hundreds of kinds of poisonous insects in the Amazon. There must be spiders all over these trees just waiting to drop on us. Big hairy tarantulas and black widows.
“Hola, Paul. Hemos traido una Bruja. Te va a mejorarse.”
What are they saying. Translate. They’ve brought … a witch … who will make me better. They have set a paraffin stove up by the bed and are boiling water. The old woman pulls some dead plants from her colourful bag and stuffs them into the pan.
“Aqui, bebe.”
A witch! I’ve seen them out in the street, lined up selling llama foetuses and coca leaves. What’s she giving me. No. I don’t want it.
“Bebe, bebe!”
She’s making me drink from the cup. Ahhh, it’s revolting. GET THAT STUFF AWAY FROM ME. I nearly puke again but I’ve nothing left to give. The big woman with the bowler hat on disappears and I’m …
At the base of the wall now. We think we’ve found the start of the route. Salinas has a big North Face, twenty pitches they say. There’s no cracks anywhere to be seen, all face, dead run-out apparently. Kiko and I go first. I lead in a still heat. It’s easy to start with, just scrambling. Then it gets steeper and I have to think. I’ve brought some nuts but there’s no place to slot them. The cloud forest opens out below us as we climb above the canopy. Kiko begins singing and I join in. We whoop and whistle at our friends below.
I’m on my hands and knees in a corridor. I think I wanted the bathroom, or have I already been? It was that dog, I know it. I was camping below Condoriri and that dreadlocked dog came and licked my pans in the night. For days previously I had shat by the same rock and every morning I would find my shit had been eaten. It was that dog, I know it. That dog gave it me. If I see it again I’ll shove its balls down its throat, the dirty hound. I’ve got to get myself cleaned up. Got to get myself back to bed. I stagger into my room. My bed has a large brown stain on it. Outside the window I can hear the witches touting their wares and there’s a brass band approaching. I pull off the sheet, throw it under the bed and climb back in. I want to go …
“Mum, I was just attacked by a group of boys. They shot at me with air rifles and chased me.” I lied to her again and she took me out driving, looking for the yobs who would dare to threaten me. We drove up and down the lanes in our blue Datsun, scouring the countryside. It made me feel happier. Did you know that I lied to get attention? You were good to us, but with the family breaking up you had to work hard to build a new life for us. At the time I thought that you just had no time for us. She looks at me kindly and says I know.
But it’s so hot here, and my head is pounding. Sweat is stinging my eyes.
The rock is steeper now and hot to the touch. There’s never any gear, just a rusty old bolt every half rope-length that the local Brazilians had drilled. The pockets in the granite slope and my hands are sweaty. Watch me, Kiko, watch me. There are evil cactus and giant yucca growing out of the rock. If I fall I’ll be impaled on these evil things. My fingers begin to slip. I don’t want it to end like this. I want to …
Get better. To carry on with my South American adventure.
Who’s this?
“Soy el doctor, Paul. Tu amigos mi dicen que no te sientes bien.”
Damn right I don’t feel well. He’s asking me question after question and it’s all blending into one. I wish someone would speak sweet English to me. He is going in and out of focus and talking with others. NO I DON’T WANT TO GO TO HOSPITAL. No mi voy al hospital. Get me in there and I’ll never come out. He’s pulled out a big syringe and is squirting liquid from the end of it. So cold. It’s so cold. He’s putting the needle in my arm now. I don’t feel anything. Just the cold. I need to get to …
The top of the wall is a long way above and the clouds have come swirling all around us. This mist is wet and freezing cold. Should have brought more clothes than just this shirt. We are forced into a long leftwards traverse now by an overhang above our heads. There is no protection in sight. Our friend Sergiño, the capsicum farmer, who pointed us at this mountain, said this was the most difficult passage, 5.12b. That’s a hard grade for these conditions. I cast a worried glance toward Kiko, my Argentinian friend. He’s happy seconding the whole wall. He hasn’t done anything like this before and I told him it would be una riesa, a laugh. I’m twelve metres away from him now and I can only just see him through this cloud. I have to fingertip mantelshelf these tiny edges. These Brazilians are psychos. I try once, pushing down with my fingertips, my back arched, wanting to put my right foot where my hand is. I waver. On the fence. My fingers begin to buckle and my feet skate back down to their little refuge. I stare into the rock and flex my knuckles. This time. I dig my nails behind the tiny edges, as if to prise them from the rock, and bounce my torso up and to the right, using only the rock’s friction for my feet. Again I start to totter, metronoming back and forth, but now I push harder, stabbing the wall with my toes, arse out, sniffing the rock. I don’t think I can …
He’s still here, the doctor. Or has he come again? His syringe is out again and it is gigantic, towering above me. He shakes his head and says that all us gringos take too much of the white powder.
“Demasiado polvo blanco, senor.”
I just stare and … Aaaw! And then I can’t …
Make the move. It’s my first VS. My skinny arms are tired and I’m holding my hex 9, the drilled-out one which I bought off PK. Trog is belaying me and he’s stood miles away from the bottom of the crag. Why is this called the John Henry quarry? Who was he anyway? I make one last lunge, aiming for nothing in particular, and then I am falling. I clutch my new hex to my chest and I wonder if my original Moac will hold. Trog runs even further away from the wall to take in the slack and I land, bent kneed on the taut rope. I slide toward him, upside down, then I flip off and hit the heather. Behind the knee of my hairless leg there is a large wound. I can see the tendons like white strings and I begin to blubber, just like when I would run to my mum as a kid
. Trog starts laughing. Guess I’m still a kid.
Shaking. I can’t control the shaking.
Get your foot on. Stand up.
Rayo and Unai have left me some boiled rice before they went to do Llimani. I can’t face it. Why have they left me? Such a long way from home. Home. Is that the derelict industrial wastes to the north of Manchester, where my blood is, or a sofa in Llanberis, where my friends and my rocks are? The dereliction is home. Can’t get away from that. That’s where I would go crying to my mother. But you’re too old for that. The walls of the dark room have moved away and it’s light and exhilarating and …
I push with my leg and push with my hand on my knee. I rise in shudders and jabs, shaking in the updraft and then I am stood straight, on the tiny edge. I know I’ve done it. It looks easier ahead. I continue shuffling and still no gear. “You’ll love this, Kiko.” He comes across with a backrope from the others, laughing at me. It’s getting late, the sun is low. If we move it we can top out before it gets dark. We need to top out if we want to …
Get better. I just want to be better so I can carry on to Peru. If I can sell the rest of my climbing gear there, I can buy a ticket out of this place and hang out with my old friends again, see my family (this time I will visit them more often, let them know how I feel). I can hear Unai and his girlfriend having sex on the other side of this flimsy wall. It goes on and on and I stare at the flakes of paint on the ceiling, making shadows in the white light of the street lamp. I hear my Basque room-mates groan, “If he drank less maybe he would be able to come and give us all some peace.” I curl up with more stomach cramps, my ten second warning …
The witch. It’s the witch again. I don’t want her in here. No more of your potions. You tried to poison me.
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