by Various Orca
“Sarah, I was thinking that if you needed a little help I could—”
“I do not need any help!” she snapped, cutting me off.
“It’s just that you look like you’re really—”
“Would you offer to carry some of the load of another porter?” she demanded.
“I would if they looked tired and started to stumble.”
“You need not worry about anybody except yourself. You need to just walk. By the end of the day I might have to carry you!”
“No need to take offence,” I said. “You are just such a sensitive little melon. Are you feeling a bit overripe, Mambiri?”
Sarah turned and scowled at me. I smiled back, and she seemed to be working hard to keep the scowl in place. Finally the scowl broke into a smile.
“Could we take a short break?” Doris asked.
I knew Doris was tired, but I think she was trying to help Sarah not lose face.
“We should rest,” Sarah agreed. “And eat. It is almost time for lunch break, so we can eat now.”
We each put down our loads and took seats on the rocks that littered the route. Sarah went into one of the packs she was carrying and pulled out something wrapped in aluminum foil and then a large thermos and three cups.
“It is chicken and tea,” she said.
She unfolded the foil, revealing three pieces of chicken, and then handed us each one. It was the same chicken we’d had yesterday for lunch. It had been dried in a way that it didn’t need refrigeration. At the same time, Doris poured out three cups of tea—the sugar and milk already added.
“I know the other porters are not pleased with you being here, but I find it such a pleasure to have another female along,” Doris said.
“It is good to be here…although not a pleasure. Much work. It is very hard.”
“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” I said.
“It is hard, but I will succeed.”
“I wish I had that confidence,” Doris said.
“Confidence is good, but I have seen many, many fat people who have made the top.”
“Fat people climb this mountain?” I asked.
“Yes, some who are even fatter than you.”
“Me? I’m not fat!”
“How much do you weigh?”
“I weigh around one hundred kilograms,” I said.
“That is even fatter than I thought! You are fatter than me and my brother and baby sister all put together.”
“That’s because I’m taller and bigger than the three of you put together. This isn’t fat, this is muscle,” I protested, holding up my arm.
“I do not think so. If you had muscle, you could carry more on your back.”
“I offered to take some more of the load.”
“It is no good making an offer you cannot fulfill. You are having enough trouble moving yourself, so we cannot talk about extra weight. Now eat your chicken.”
I looked at the piece of chicken. It had absolutely no appeal for me. “I don’t think so. I’m too fat to eat any more.”
“You are fat, but you need to eat,” she said. “I am only your guide. Do not make me act like your mother or your wife. I pity the first and question whether you will ever have the second.”
Doris chuckled.
“He is like a little baby who needs to be cared for,” Sarah said to Doris. Then she turned back to me. “You did not eat much breakfast either. Do you not have an appetite?”
“Not for this.”
“If you wish to summit tomorrow you need to eat today. It does not matter if you have an appetite; you must eat.”
“If I eat, will you leave me alone?”
“Start eating and I will decide.”
I picked at the chicken and used my other hand to rub the back of my neck. The stiffness was spreading right up into the base of my head.
“Are you all right?” Doris asked. “You look like you’re in pain.”
“I’ve got a bit of a headache. It feels like my head is a bit swollen.”
As soon as I said it, I realized that it could mean more than just sleeping funny.
“A swollen head?” Sarah asked. “That could be because of the altitude or because you always have a swollen head.”
“Or it could just mean I have a headache. I get those occasionally, even at home.”
Doris began to laugh and then stopped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t find your headache funny. But you two act like an old married couple.”
“Us?” I gasped.
“Yes. It’s as if you both enjoy these little spats, but neither of you means what you say.”
“I do not wish to fight with him, but somebody has to tell him what to do,” Sarah said. “He is practically helpless.”
“My Samuel always said a good husband needs to listen to his wife,” Doris said.
“Could we just finish eating so we can get to the base camp?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.
“For once he is right,” Sarah said. “We need to get to the camp as early as possible so that you both can rest. Sleep will be short before you attack the summit.”
I tried to force down the rest of my chicken. I didn’t have an appetite, my head was hurting and my stomach was feeling uneasy. I had to convince myself that none of these things meant anything, but I didn’t have much success.
By the time we reached camp, the tents were already up and supper was waiting for us. The three Finns had eaten and gone to bed. I wanted to go to bed, but I had to eat. I tried to force down the meal. It was different than the others. There was a big plate of fried potatoes mixed with eggs. This was the meal that was supposed to power me to the top. Instead it just turned my stomach. I had to walk a fine line: eat enough to give me power but not so much that my stomach would throw it all back up.
I was tired. My muscles were sore. And then there was the headache. It had grown and spread until it was the whole back of my head and was starting to migrate along both sides and toward the front. Add in the poor appetite and feeling nauseous, and I was the poster child for mountain sickness. But still, it was only one more day—really only one more night of climbing. I’d written my final exams last year when I was under the weather. I’d played a football game when I had a high fever. I could play through sickness. Of course this wasn’t just playing a game, this was climbing a mountain. The best thing to do was to get to sleep and recharge my batteries. When I woke up, I’d feel better.
I pushed away the food, half eaten, got up and headed toward my tent. If I went straight to sleep, I’d get almost four hours before they woke me. Before we started for the summit. I knew the start was certain. I just wasn’t feeling very positive about the ending. Could I really do this?
TWENTY-ONE
I was startled out of my restless sleep by the sounds of people outside my tent. It must be time to leave. Time to get to the summit. At least this time I was woken up by something outside of my own faulty, leaking bodily functions. I’d been up three times already—once to vomit, another time to pee, and a third as my bowels ran. If my body was going to betray me, why couldn’t all three systems have exploded at once? It would have been more efficient.
I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag. Even that process of shifting a few feet caused my heart to race and my breath to strain. That was partly the altitude and partly my fear—not fear of the mountain but fear I was going to fail. Fail. Did I really think I could make it up to the top feeling the way I felt?
I switched on the headlamp and the tent became brightly illuminated. I glanced at my watch. It was just after eleven. We weren’t going to be leaving until midnight. I could sleep for another hour. I thought about turning off the light and lying back down, but the voices were getting louder and more frantic. Something was happening, and it wasn’t like I was actually going to go back to sleep anyway.
I was already fully dressed to protect myself from the cold—three layers top and bottom, including thermal underwear and fleece.
All I had to do was pull on my hat, mitts and hiking boots. I struggled with the laces—my fingers felt a little numb—and then unzipped the tent. A rush of wind and cold air flooded in.
The campsite was alive with porters frantically racing around. I guess they were as excited about the summit as I was. No, wait…there was Tomas, one of the Finns, sitting on the ground, Mr. Odogo standing over him. As I watched, he started to vomit violently—projectile puking, really—strangely illuminated by his headlamp. His body heaved again and he puked a second time. Mountain sickness; he was suffering from mountain sickness too.
I saw Sarah and went over to stand at her side. “Mountain sickness?” I asked quietly.
“Yes, him and both of the others. One very bad too.” She gestured to the other two Finns, one lying flat on his back and the other doubled over beside him.
“They’re really sick, aren’t they?” I asked.
“I think they are very bad, but I have never seen mountain sickness.”
“But they were doing so well,” I said.
“It means nothing until you reach four thousand meters,” she said. “Let’s get closer.”
I followed her over, but neither of us spoke. Mr. Odogo was too busy and things seemed too serious to interrupt him. He was barking out orders to the porters. They were using poles and canvas to construct what looked like stretchers. Were they going to carry them down the mountain?
As we stood and watched, we were joined by Doris.
“Mountain sickness,” I explained.
“Oh, dear,” she said. “They were looking well, but I guess there’s no telling who it affects.”
“Everybody but you,” I commented.
“I’ve had my moments, but you have to understand, I’m a woman. I’ve given birth to three children, so I’m more than used to living through a little pain.”
Mr. Odogo looked up and saw us watching him. He gestured for us to come closer.
“You have seen that there are problems,” he said.
“How bad do they have it?” I asked.
“Very, very bad.”
“So they’re not going to summit?”
“No, no. They must be taken down the mountain immediately. Two of them need to be carried down.”
“Carried…by who?” I asked.
“The porters.”
“But they’re both huge.”
“It will take all the porters, plus the cook and me, to bring them down.”
“And the rest of us?” Doris asked.
“You must wait here.”
“For how long?” I asked.
“We shall come back as soon as possible. By this coming afternoon at the latest. Sarah will stay with you to watch and cook. I will come back to bring you down the mountain as soon as possible.”
“You mean down the mountain after we’ve reached the summit?” Sarah asked.
He shook his head. “I do not think so.”
“But why couldn’t we just summit when you come back?” she demanded.
“There will not be enough food or porters to support your climb. I cannot put you and the others at risk. Perhaps another time.”
I should have felt bitter disappointment; instead, I only felt the bitter cold and a sense of relief. I didn’t have to go up the mountain and it wasn’t my fault. I had a way out. I was saved and—
“But we have to go!” Sarah snapped. She turned to me, I guess looking for support. I didn’t answer.
“We have to go up, right?” she said, even more emphatically.
I slowly shook my head. “I think we have to listen to your father.”
Sarah did a double take, and even in the dim light I could see her eyes firing daggers into me.
“But your grandfather, the promise you made to him.” She turned to her father. “The promise you made to your father that you would get DJ to the top? What of that promise?”
“Life and death are more important. I must get these men to the bottom or they might die. Will their death lessen the death of this boy’s grandfather?”
Doris slipped an arm around Sarah. “He’s right, dear. There’s no choice. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. There’ll be other times for you.”
But not for Doris, and probably not for me. What if somebody else brought up the ashes, wouldn’t that be almost as good? It was the delivery and not the messenger that mattered. Besides he’d written in that last letter that it was the trying that mattered. When had I ever believed that? Not until now.
Sarah looked like she agreed and understood, which I’d learned didn’t mean anything. “I need to get to the summit,” she said.
“You will have to put your needs aside,” her father said.
“It is not just my needs, but all of the women and girls who—”
“Enough!” he snapped, cutting her off. “This is not about you, and there will be no further discussion. There is more than your wounded pride at stake. There are lives in the balance, and I do not have the time to debate this now.”
That was enough to shut her up—the first time I had seen that happen.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes, Father.”
“You will stay with these two and care for them. Understood?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Do I have your word of honor?”
“I will not leave their sides until you return,” she said.
“Good, because—”
One of the porters yelled something, and Mr. Odogo turned toward him and then back to us. “It is time. I will return by late in the afternoon.”
“Do you want me to bring them partway down the—”
“I want you to be right here when I return. No higher, no lower.”
“Yes, Father.”
He turned to leave, then stopped, turned around and gave his daughter a hug. “You are a good girl, Mambiri, like your mother in so many ways, which is why I love you both so much.”
With her still in his arms he looked at me. “And you. You are a good boy…a good young man. Your grandfather must have been proud of you. Must still be proud of you.”
I didn’t know what to say, and before I could even choke out an answer, he was gone. He joined the others, and they started away. Each stretcher was carried by four men while Mr. Odogo supported the third climber. How strange they looked, each wearing a headlamp, the little beams of light leading the way. Within a few dozen steps the men beneath the lights vanished, leaving only the beams visible, bobbing down the slope in two little clusters.
I turned off my headlamp, and we were temporarily thrown into darkness before our eyes adjusted to the light of the stars and full moon. Everything was brightly lit. I could see the whole campsite, not just our tents, but those of the other parties, all waiting to start the summit. The tents were blowing in the wind, bobbing about as if they were either trying to escape down the mountain or rise up to meet the cliffs above us, wanting to reach the top. It looked like the fingers of snow at the top were almost glowing, reflecting the bright light of the full moon. Now that I didn’t have to climb it, it seemed beautiful.
“Thanks a lot for supporting me,” Sarah said.
“I’m not here to support you,” I said. “The porters are here to support us.”
“Let’s not fight,” Doris said. “I know this is a disappointment for everybody.”
Everybody but me, I thought. This was the answer to my prayers. This was a way out without going up, without being a failure for not being able to make it.
“We’ll just stick together and wait it out,” Doris said.
Sarah mumbled something under her breath in her own language, but I understood how angry and disappointed she was. I turned away and walked to the edge of the camp. All around us at the other camps I could hear people being woken up, coming to life, getting ready for the climb. I wondered how many of them would make it, how many of them would have liked an honorable way not to have to climb.
I pulled out my phone. I
t had a signal. I could contact my mother…let her know…I better let her know. No, I thought, not my mother, I’d contact my brother. I scrolled through to his name and started typing in my message.
It’s over. I couldn’t do it. Things happened.
I should have said more, but I didn’t really know what more to say. I pushed Send and it was gone. I needed to get back to sleep, or at least lie down. He’d probably get it tomorrow and—my phone pinged.
W@ u mean couldn’t do it? Break your neck?
I needed to give him more.
Three of the people in our party got acute mountain sickness and had to be taken down the mountain. All the guides and porters except one had to go down.
I sent the message. I wondered how he’d reply. Another ping.
How close r u 2 top?
Did that mean distance or time or effort? They were all so different.
Thirteen hundred meters. Six hours. I can see it, but I was told by the guide not to go, that I couldn’t go up.
Within seconds I received his reply.
If u can c it, u can do it. Just go to the top.
That was so much like Steve. Flaunting the rules, just doing what he wanted to do, not listening.
My phone pinged once more.
Just because someone says you can’t do something doesn’t mean you can’t. Grandfather was exhausted and terrified. His friends were being killed all around him, but he kept going because he believed in something. It was a long time ago and that something failed, but he kept going as long as he could.
I choked back a sob. He didn’t understand. It wasn’t just that I was being told what to do… I couldn’t do it. Why didn’t he understand that? Maybe because I hadn’t told him.
I’m tired. I’m sick. I don’t think I can do it. I’m so sorry.
My finger hesitated over the Send button. Could I really tell him that? I’d always had to be the strong one. I didn’t feel so strong. I pushed Send. Almost instantly I felt better and worse, relieved and worried.
