I felt awkward standing with them. Their shared grief was an intensely private moment.
Kami placed a dried flower on the cairn, then said a series of prayers with the shrine bell cradled in his hands. Alex lit a candle and put it next to the flower.
Kami finished with a line of English.
‘Compassion and prayer will help us to bring Sasha to a new life,’ he said. ‘Through the intervention of the gods she will be reincarnated and reborn into a life of happiness and joy.’
He rang the shrine bell, and I could see he was savouring the sound as it rang out across the hillside.
When I turned I found that a group of mountaineers had gathered behind us to watch the little ceremony. They were as moved by it as I was.
‘Talking about reincarnation would feel unreal back in England,’ I told Tashi. ‘Isn’t it strange that here it feels totally natural?’
‘It’s the spirit of the place,’ Tashi said, gesturing to the breathtaking peaks that surrounded us. ‘The mountains inspire spirituality, that’s why people feel good when they climb. Nobody could be cynical with this view before them.’
Shreeya was definitely the weakest member of our team. She had been feeling sick since the start of the trek and frequently needed to rest on the trail.
At Namche Bazaar she felt worse, hardly eating and spending long hours sleeping in the lodge. We thought it was the thin air taking effect until Shreeya made an announcement at breakfast one day.
‘We’re going to have a baby,’ she said proudly. ‘If the gods allow.’
Kami patted Shreeya’s belly and she beamed with excitement.
‘Way to go, Shreeya!’ Alex cried. We clustered round the happy couple for a group hug.
‘I thought it was the altitude,’ Shreeya laughed. ‘But it turned out it was something much nicer.’
‘It is the second miracle of my life,’ Kami exclaimed, his expression radiant. ‘Something I could only dream of.’ ‘Will you stay with us for the rest of the trek?’ Tashi asked.
‘I’ll keep going,’ Shreeya said. ‘I asked a doctor if it’s OK and she said yes. There’s no reason why not so long as I am acclimatised.’
‘I’ve sent a message to my family,’ Kami added. ‘After Base Camp we will return to my village and wait for the baby to arrive.’
Later, as the evening light became soft, Tashi and I saw Kami and Shreeya go to the small shrine next to the lodge. It was garlanded with fresh marigolds and we watched as Kami scattered some handfuls of rice about the rock that made up the centrepiece.
‘We are blessed,’ Kami said. ‘The shrine bell has protected us and we are thanking the gods.’
‘New life is coming,’ Shreeya said. ‘New life is growing inside me. We are praying that our child will know love and peace.’
‘So many good things happening,’ Tashi said later. ‘And so many bad. On the one hand Kami and Shreeya’s beautiful news. On the other, the riots, the famine. It can mess with your mind if you think about it too much.’
‘I know what you mean,’ I said, staring into space.
We tried to sleep but a series of small earth tremors rocked the lodge. They were tiny earthquakes, the sort that happen hundreds of times a year across the Himalaya. The beams above our head creaked. The glass in the windows flexed. A trekking book fell off the top of my rucksack.
Nothing dramatic, but unsettling nevertheless.
The local dogs started howling in the fields outside.
One week to Base Camp. The journey had already been a richer experience than we could have imagined.
– CHAPTER 4 –
The following day started in the most unexpected way. A young boy came to the lodge as we ate breakfast and asked a question.
‘Do you want to see a yeti skull?’
‘A real yeti skull?’ Alex smiled.
‘Yes, sir. One hundred per cent guaranteed yeti, sir, you will see! I take you to the monastery at Khumjung. You will love the yeti, sir!’
The boy had made a good pitch and he was only asking for a handful of coins to take us to the mysterious relic. We finished our breakfast and followed him out into the town. He led us past local shacks where porters were eating smoked meat and dumplings, past stone corrals where yaks had been haltered overnight.
The smells were rich in the crisp early morning air.
Then we climbed. Up a precipitous heather-covered hill, which pushed our lungs to the limit. We were still only partly acclimatised and an attempt to follow the boy’s dizzying pace left me gasping for breath with stars floating in front of my eyes.
The views became even more inspiring; the vast sentinel peak of Kongde Ri revealed itself as a cloud moved aside.
We crossed a pass and found the monastery, built into the shadow of a nearby cliff.
Zhanna was there as well, waiting in the courtyard for the temple to open up. She had her friend Dawa with her.
‘Are you here for the yeti?’ she asked excitedly.
The stooped old lama was summoned from his rest. He fussed his saffron and purple robes into position, greeted us with a dignified speech in Nepali, then explained in English that he would conduct the morning prayers before we could see the yeti skull.
‘Photos are permitted,’ he said. ‘But video is forbidden.’
He opened a book of parchment and began to chant, pausing occasionally as his broken spectacles slipped down.
We sat cross-legged on cushions, enjoying the heady atmosphere of the monastery and the sweet smell of incense wafting from a burner. The walls were decorated with intricate scenes depicting Buddhist sutras. Devils and demons raced in and out of the shadows.
The old man seemed to appreciate the audience, looking up frequently to make sure we were paying attention.
After the ceremony the old lama cut to the chase.
‘Now! The relic!’ he exclaimed.
We gathered round a box covered with a yellow and red silk cloth, which he pulled back with a flourish.
Behind a glass screen we saw a hairy cone, similar in size and appearance to a big coconut.
Alex’s eyebrows shot skywards. Zhanna snorted with laughter, turning it into a strangled cough.
I was close to cracking up myself. It really didn’t look very yeti-like at all, more like cowhide that had been stretched into an elongated football.
‘The mystery of this artefact goes back 100 years,’ the lama said. ‘Tests have proved that it does not belong to any living …’
The door suddenly crashed open.
A group of soldiers burst in.
‘Good morning,’ one of them said. His speech was slurred.
I noticed that Zhanna’s Nepali friend Dawa pulled her quickly back into the shadows, standing in front of her in a protective stance.
I could smell the alcohol on the soldier’s breath. His men were swaying on their feet, their eyes red.
‘Give me the key!’ the soldier said to the lama. He nodded to the corner of the temple.
I guessed what he was referring to – a donation box for visitors, a metal cash box mounted on a solid concrete plinth. It was protected by a hefty-looking padlock.
‘You have no right to be here,’ the lama said, his voice trembling. ‘This is a place of peace.’
The soldier yanked at the holy man’s robe, pulling a chain up around his neck. A silver key glinted in the temple candlelight.
A vicious tug saw the key in the man’s hand.
‘That money belongs to the monastery,’ the lama said.
At that moment, a dozen men came through the door. Word of the army raid had spread like lightning through the town and a group of monks had arrived, strong-looking young men who moved in quickly to stand by the side of the lama.
The soldier took out a pistol and brandished the gun at the youths.
One of the young monks stepped forward.
‘Go now,’ he said. ‘Or we’ll throw you out.’
The soldiers looked to their leader. He swayed drunkenly for
a few moments, obviously unsure what to do. He kicked out at one of the monks.
‘We’re not leaving without the money,’ he said.
Two or three of the monks moved in front of the cash box.
The stand-off looked like it was about to get extremely ugly.
‘Excuse me!’ came a voice from behind us.
We turned in surprise.
It was Zhanna.
She stepped towards the confrontation, smiling pleasantly. Her friend Dawa held her back for a moment but she shrugged him away.
‘It’s OK,’ I heard her mutter. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
Her protector looked uncertain, hesitating for a critical second as Zhanna moved confidently towards the soldier.
‘If I can make that key disappear by magic,’ Zhanna said, ‘will you take your men away?’
The soldier blinked. ‘What are you talking about?’
Tashi gave me a quizzical look.
‘Give me the key,’ Zhanna said. She smiled reassuringly.
The man paused. The mood in the temple had already shifted. Zhanna was such an imposing personality, everyone was curious to know what on earth she was up to.
‘Give me the key, please,’ she repeated.
One of the soldiers laughed and urged the boss to do it.
He handed over the key.
Zhanna put the tiny silver key in her hand. She slowly closed her fist.
‘Alakazam!’ she cried suddenly, making everyone start.
She blew on it with a theatrical flourish, then opened her hand once again.
The key was gone.
The soldiers’ eyes widened.
‘Watch!’ Zhanna said. She reached forward and plucked the key from behind the holy man’s left ear.
The old lama chuckled in amazement. A ripple of nervous laughter ran around the temple.
Zhanna flexed her fingers, moving her hand upwards in an abrupt movement.
‘Alakazam!’ she cried once more.
The key vanished again. This time she seemed to pull it from the old lama’s nose. It was done so well that a small round of applause broke out.
‘One last time!’ she cried.
Once again the key disappeared. Zhanna bowed and walked back to join her friend, who seemed mightily relieved the impromptu show had ended.
The lama clapped his hands.
‘Enough! Now, go!’ he ordered the soldiers.
Zhanna’s display had taken all the aggression out of the confrontation. The soldiers turned and left, still talking animatedly about the tricks.
The rest of us clustered around Zhanna.
‘You turned that around brilliantly!’ Alex said.
‘No problem,’ she replied. ‘It was a good chance to practise my magic.’
The lama approached. ‘I must thank you,’ he said. ‘And also kindly request that you return my key.’
‘Key?’ Zhanna said, totally deadpan. ‘Do you mean the one in Tashi’s pocket?’
Tashi found the key. We burst into laughter and a spontaneous round of applause.
Zhanna and her friend left the temple. The show was over.
We chatted about the incident on the trek back to Namche, all of us struck by the bizarre but courageous way Zhanna had dealt with the situation.
‘What a character,’ Tashi said. ‘She’s something else.’
‘She was certainly icy calm,’ Alex said with a laugh. ‘She won’t get fazed by the trek to Base Camp, that’s for sure.’
We talked about the soldiers, wondering how they could stoop so low as to try and rob a monastery.
‘It’s shocking,’ Tashi said. ‘Such a thing would never happen in Tibet.’
‘The people are losing their respect for religion,’ Kami agreed. ‘Everything is falling apart in Nepal.’
We had one more acclimatisation day in Namche. Long hours spent drinking gallons of tea and eating apple pie. There was a palpable sense of impatience amongst our little team.
‘I want to get back on the trail,’ Kami said as we played our umpteenth game of chess together in the lodge. ‘The higher we go, the more I feel a sense of peace.’
His words felt natural at the time. Only later would I see the irony loaded within them.
Porridge and chapattis were served at dawn.
We grabbed our trekking poles and hit the trail.
The first part of the trail was a breathtaking traverse. The path hugged the side of a mountain spur, passing beneath the glowering scrutiny of the ferocious Hindu gods painted on to the cliffs.
We approached the big hill that leads up to the monastery of Tengboche, a three-hour ascent with a fearsome reputation.
The climb began down by the river, crossing a suspension bridge, low enough to leave us soaked with spray.
‘My first shower in a week!’ Kami laughed.
We stopped at a small shack for lunch, and a discussion kicked off. Alex had been brooding for a few days but I was still surprised when he said:
‘I’m beginning to think this might not be the right time to be here. How about we talk about heading back down?’
There was a stunned silence, then Kami spoke.
‘We cannot go back,’ he said passionately. ‘It would be a betrayal of everything this trek is about. This journey is about the shrine bell, to make a prayer at Base Camp. A prayer that will bring the monsoon back to Nepal. If we give up, we will be giving up on millions of people.’
Tashi and I agreed. It didn’t make sense to try and return to Kathmandu. Even with incidents like the bandits we had heard about and the drunken soldiers we had encountered, it still felt safer to be up here in the mountain valleys than down in the chaos of Kathmandu.
‘We’ll never know if Kami’s prayer is going to work unless we keep going to Base Camp,’ Tashi said. ‘Everyone OK with that?’
Alex shrugged. ‘I guess.’
So it was resolved. Base Camp it was, but I could see that Alex was still troubled by the situation.
Gorak Shep was our next overnight stop. Three windswept lodges built along the banks of an ancient dried-out lake. The cosy rooms of lower altitudes were now little more than a fond memory. Tashi and I were shown into a bare concrete cell that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Siberian Gulag.
The heater in the lodge restaurant was fired up at 7 p.m. A massive steel drum into which combustible waste of all descriptions was loaded, along with the occasional wooden log.
After a couple of false starts when it belched out noxious fumes, the stove cranked up to a volcanic level of warmth which won it a fan club of grateful heat seekers intent on drying off newly washed socks or just holding chilly fingers towards the glow.
We ordered dumplings and fried eggs, daubing them in oceans of tomato sauce to disguise the earthy farmyard taste of the yak fat in which they’d been cooked.
‘Kami? Kami!’
A cry went up from one of the lodge workers. We turned in surprise.
Kami stood, staring uncertainly at the worker for a beat or two.
‘Nima?’
Then a big smile washed over both of them and they embraced.
It was Nima, a Sherpa friend of Kami’s who had been alongside him on Alex’s expedition. I had stumbled across him a couple of years earlier on my solo journey to find Kami, a troubling encounter which left me worrying about his future.
‘Boss?’ Nima stepped towards Alex, hugging him less warmly.
The time I had met him, this young man – Nima – had been in a very dark place. Seriously injured by frostbite, his wounds had become infected and he was struggling to find work. He had become one of the many Sherpas whose lives are effectively destroyed by the mountain, hanging around in sleazy bars, begging drinks from passers-by in return for recounting an Everest tale or two.
‘Let me see your hands?’ Kami asked.
The fingers were gone but the stumps were healed.
‘You helped me,’ Nima said, gesturing my way with a smile. I was pleased he
remembered the medical attention I’d given him.
Nima sat with us to share the food. Kami explained the story of his injuries, how the two of them had been stranded in a crevasse in the Icefall after a filming session; the dropped climbing gear that had condemned Nima to hours in the frozen tomb.
‘It was my mistake,’ Kami said.
‘Yes, and for a long time I blamed you,’ Nima said. ‘Then I went to a monastery for six months and the anger left me.’
‘It was my fault,’ Alex said. He gave Nima a steady look. ‘I should have made sure you guys got out of the crevasse without any problems. I’m sorry, Nima.’
Nima nodded graciously. It was encouraging to see how well he was doing. He couldn’t rebuild his fingers, but he could rebuild his life.
From Gorak Shep the trail kept to the side of the glacier, a switchback path that climbed and descended with each twist and turn of the terrain. It was dangerous ground, the track often crossing fragile slopes that were liable to slide away beneath the weight of a trekker.
A wary eye was necessary for tumbling boulders from above. The mountain shed stones in a continuous process of erosion. Small streams of meltwater ran across the track.
We passed a dead yak. Vultures had picked the flesh from the bones.
One mile from Base Camp the path took an abrupt right fork, moving out on to the glacier itself. The trail was still far from flat, weaving a route across fractured terrain.
‘Slow down, Ryan!’ Tashi called, laughing. ‘You’re like a kid on the way to a party!’
It was true – I was in a hurry to arrive. Coming to Base Camp here on the Nepali side had been a dream for as long as I could remember.
As I waited for her to catch up, I saw that Zhanna Kuzkin and her friend were trekking just behind us. Zhanna was in front, powering up the ice slopes with a determined look on her face, her trekking poles almost a blur.
‘She’s strong,’ Tashi said. ‘No doubt about that.’
‘The power of youth,’ I agreed. ‘I reckon she could summit if she wanted.’
We had reached the viewpoint from which the whole of Base Camp could be seen. It was a sight to stir the blood. Hundreds of tents spread out, flags fluttering proudly in the wind, satellite dishes and radio masts being erected even as we watched.
Killer Storm Page 5
