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| The Terraces as seen from the trail This late after the monsoon, a deep, luxuriant green had washed over the land and trails of delicate white mist floated along distant valley walls. For the first forty-five minutes, the groups descended a gently sloping path. Too steep to cultivate, the contoured hillside rose in flat terraces 20 to 30 feet deep with rock retaining walls that looked like dark wrinkles ascending the mountain. With most of the land cleared for farming, occasional groves of deep-blue pines still dotted the velvet-green slopes imbuing them with a density of light and shadows. Scattered here and there, dry-mortar stone houses perched like birds nesting on the branches of a large leafy tree with heavy rocks weighting down their roofs made of thin wood slats or bamboo. In the yards stood elevated platforms piled high with maize and on the ground, stacks of wood for the hearth Tengboche Monastery After a fitful night, Beth woke to a crisp, cloudless sky and watched the sun rise over the mountain bathing the monastery in amber light. From the main gompa came the penetrating, unearthly tones of a pair of ten-foot, telescopic horns, dung-chens, calling the monks to Morning Prayer. The presiding lama showed them into a dimly lit room permeated with the aroma of butter lamps and juniper incense. The ceiling and walls were decorated with brilliantly colored images of Buddha, various gods, lamas, and mythological scenes. From intricately painted rafters hung rectangular, cloth thangkas of intense colors and incredibly fine detail depicting deities and other elements of the Buddhist cosmology. Creating a visual safe place, a large square mandala illustrated a cosmic fortress filled with gods and goddesses. Sixteen monks sat cross-legged in two rows facing a center aisle as they recited from the single sheets of scriptural narrative lying on low tables in front of them. Under the soft light of butter lamps, they chanted prayers in a sustained monotone. The close-throated and deep-pitched sounds appeared to emerge from the depths of the soul rather than mere vocal chords. An ensemble of wind and percussion instruments accompanied the intonations with the moaning of a pair of dung-chen and the quiet insistent beating of a drum acting as an undercurrent. Hearing the monks at dusk the previous night, Beth had learned from Dorje the importance of chanting aloud so that the gods living in the trees, rocks, houses, streams, and mountains can benefit from Buddha’s teachings. At the small airstrip in Lukla, Dorje first sees Beth Turning, Dorje saw a nerve-tingling vision—long, honey-golden hair and eyes like wild blue poppies. Surely he was hallucinating, but could his mind really conjure up such an extraordinary goddess? While porters packed the duffels, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She was like the sweet mist rising from leaves after a warm rain. When she noticed him watching her, the corner of her mouth turned up in a self-conscious smile and he felt himself soaring above the hills like a giant Himalayan griffon gliding endlessly. Beth, an American journalist in Nepal to do a story He was so unlike the other porters in clean clothing and hiking boots and not dangling a cigarette between his fingers; he did high fives and spoke English. Surely he was the sirdar the ladies spoke of—the best in the Everest region. Approaching the ladies, Beth asked, “Have you met your guide?” Ruth shook her head. “Not yet.” About to state her suspicion, she saw him run his fingers through thick, black, freshly-washed hair and saunter towards them. “I am Dorje, your sirdar,” he said to the ladies. His dark eyes gazed at Beth before quickly darting back to the other women. Noticing sweat seeping down the sides of his hair on a cool autumn morning, she wondered if she had stirred him too. The influx of tourism creates conflcit between father and son. Clad in western clothing, Dorje burst into the room and cast a pile of rupees at Mingma as if to say, “Here, old man, see how much better I am than you.” “What’s this?” “Money for you. Like it or not, status is measured in rupees now, not the number of yaks. So you’d better get used to it.” Only then did Mingma realize just how much the white eyes had seduced him with their grand ideas and fancy words. What good were these to a Sherpa boy? Nothing. They would only bring unhappiness and tragedy. Of that Mingma was certain, but he would keep his thoughts to himself because his son no longer saw or listened with a Sherpa heart. Like a festering wound that refused to heal, anger had arrived with Dorje four years ago. Perhaps his son still blamed him for not buying shoes that first winter, but it had been impossible then. Abruptly ending generations of trading to the north, the 1959 Chinese closure of the Tibetan border had reduced Mingma to a yak herder selling butter, milk, wool, and dung. When Mingma accused his son of only wanting to make money for himself, Dorje yelled in a sharp, biting voice, “You have no idea what I want…or who I am. You have made no attempt to know me.” As always, the son’s anger and hurt stood between them. So Mingma simply replied, “Nor have you to know me.” After a deafening silence, Dorje turned and walked out the door with nothing having changed these four years. Mingma had lost the little boy who rode on his shoulders and had fallen asleep nestled in his lap. Someday they would talk of the past but for now the words remained unspoken. Watching Dorje's rage leap over a rock wall and almost collide with a yak on his way down to the village, Mingma feared losing the man too. He knew that each year as soon as the monsoon ended, the foreigners’ tents sprouted like wild orange poppies in the open space near the village spring and intoxicated Dorje more surely than even the strongest chang. Dorje and Everest For fifteen years, the mountain had been silently trying to seduce him with its mysterious folds of rock and ice. And now his long, love affair with Everest was about to be consummated. With a deep breath, he arched his back to rid the tension and took his first steps toward his dream of reaching the summit. The icefall was a maze of enormous ice blocks resting on a ground riddled with innumerable crevasses. As the porters wound through a forest of séracs tilting in all directions, the blue-ice pinnacles loomed forebodingly in their cold silence. The Sherpas walked without speaking, not wanting to disturb the spirits inhabiting the towers. Suddenly, as if the mountain had decided to stretch, the ground moved slightly, and a narrow tongue peeled off one of the séracs plunging downward in a mass of shattering ice. After crawling on an aluminum ladder spanning a deep crevasse on the first day. He had seen dead bodies brought down from the mountain, how rigid and pale they were. But never had he imagined himself that way until today when he peered into the depths. It could end so quickly and without warning: a sag in the ladder, a misplaced step, loose crampon, or a frayed rope. Listening to the crack of a sérac breaking free, he felt adrift on a river of ice that was moving, crumbling, and toppling all around. And it terrified him. Tomorrow he would start back through the icefall for three more carries from Base Camp. Having promised Beth to turn around if things looked bad, how could he determine that moment when things were constantly in flux? He listened to the groan of glaciers settling for the night and the occasional rattle of falling stone. The crack of ice and snow breaking loose sounded not far away followed by the roar of an avalanche tumbling down the mountain ready to engulf their camp. Shuddering, he pulled the bag over his head and pretended not to hear. Flat, thin clouds with ragged edges were drifting up from the valley and the sky was ablaze with purple and crimson, both possible signs of unstable weather and moisture coming from India. He must hurry. After scattering chaane and praying to the goddess Miyolangsangma to protect him, Dorje put on his crampons and headlamp, adjusted the regulator to a climbing flow, and started up the Southeast Ridge. Thirty minutes later, he stopped to give his quivering legs a rest and watched the sun rise behind Kangchenjunga, its ice crystals shimmering in a dazzling array. Thousands of feet below him, the Western Cwm looked like a calm, milky river with granite banks. And perched atop a spur in the distant Imja Valley, stood the eloquent silhouette of the Tengboche monastery. |
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