Adam's Peak (40 page)

“Adam ...” he groans.

The boy's expression, when he looks up, is one of surprise—a wide-eyed innocence suggesting he has no idea how this came to happen
.

Rudy turns to the house and hollers. “Aunty! Adam needs another pair of shorts!” Then he snatches his book from the patio chair and goes inside.

Upstairs, he flops on his bed. He tries to read, but stupid, sissy tears blur his vision. He wipes them furiously with one hand, holding the book open with the other. But it's no use. He gets up and goes to the bedroom window, sniffing. Across the street, Clare Fraser is skipping in her driveway. Not fast, but she keeps going as if she'll never stop. She's wearing cut-offs, and Rudy feels a new pang of irritation that his aunt still refuses to let him wear jeans, never mind cut-offs. The irritation doesn't last, though. Mesmerized by the rhythm of Clare Fraser's skipping, he stares out the window and his breathing calms.

In time his thoughts drift back to the talk with his father, the stuff about Uncle Ernie, and he remembers, like a lightning flash in his brain, the subject of his grandfather's story. Adam's Peak. Of course. The mountain Grandpa climbed with Uncle Ernie was called Adam's Peak. The place where people go to conquer their weaknesses.
Rudy closes his eyes and concentrates, until he can just about see the magnificent landscape in his mind—acres of untamed jungle, treacherous rivers and cliffs. He sees himself, all alone at the top of the mountain. He's the only one who's made it; everyone else has turned back or died. And now flood waters have risen almost to the summit, stranding him. But he doesn't care. He's built himself a fantastic shelter, and he has everything he needs.

“Y
OU'RE SURE YOU'RE UP FOR THIS
, Rudy?” Uncle Ernie tapped clots of red dirt from his shoes with the end of his walking stick.

Rudy wasn't sure. For the first time in months he was cold. It was July, long past the season of pilgrimages, and Adam's Peak, a deserted ghost-world, was blanketed in thick layers of dark cloud and mist. Shops at the base of the peak, a kilometre or so behind them, were abandoned; an enormous reclining Buddha with painted orange robes and sultry curves stared past them vacantly.

He massaged his hip. It didn't hurt, though it was stiff. “I'm up for it,” he said. “Let's push on.”

The red dirt path of the initial approach cut across tea hills, glossy from a recent rain. Uncle Ernie, carrying a plastic shopping bag of necessities—a water bottle, a package of biscuits, tobacco—took the lead. Though they were utterly alone at the moment, they'd been passed earlier on by a pair of teenagers, a brother and sister, from Scarborough of all places, out visiting their relatives. The two kids, proverbially bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, had slowed down to chat for a minute or so before dashing off again, the girl's Toronto Blue Jays T-shirt quickly disappearing into the mist. It was mid-afternoon already
—too late for a recent invalid and an old man to be setting out, really. They'd planned to begin much earlier, but finding a room for the night, in a shabby guest house ten kilometres from the peak, had taken longer than they'd anticipated, and Uncle Ernie's car had slouched asthmatically through the hill country, less fit than its passengers. An intelligent person would turn back, Rudy suspected—go for dinner, and try again in the morning. But he walked on stubbornly, conscious that he'd have only himself to blame if they ran into trouble.

Ahead of them, the clouds masked any sign of the pathway or the summit. Across the valley to his right, Rudy caught a glimpse of narrow waterfalls rushing down a hillside, but minutes later those too disappeared, and his world was reduced to the immediate surroundings: beads of water on tea leaves; pebbles lodged in the cakey dirt; scuff marks on Uncle Ernie's loafers, ridiculously unsuited to climbing.

“Do you know the significance of this peak, Rudy?” Uncle Ernie said, breaking the awkward silence in which they'd been walking.

“I know my grandfather's version.”

“Ah, yes. Well, there are other versions. The Sinhalese, for example, believe that Lord Buddha came here during his lifetime and left an imprint of his foot before leaving. Hence the name
Sri Pada
—holy footprint. In the case of Hindus, the footprint belongs to Lord Shiva. Mind your step here.” He paused to navigate a patch of smooth, wet rocks. “The Muslims believe that Adam spent a few years in exile up here—not such a terrible place for it, if you ask me—and I suppose the Christians claim something of that sort.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead. “So there you are. Something for everyone.”

“Too bad the same doesn't apply to the whole country,” Rudy grumbled, though his complaint wasn't altogether heartfelt. In the eerie solitude, with the path gradually steepening and his hip beginning quietly to complain, the conflicts of Sri Lanka seemed to him, as in the old days, distant and unreal. But Uncle Ernie snatched at the remark.

“The country's a different story, Rudy. It's not so simple. Things would be fine and dandy if we'd gotten off on the right foot after independence, but the government has been botching up from the start.” He spoke slowly but deliberately, the measured planting of his
walking stick complementing the rhythm of his words. “And they're realizing too late what sort of seeds they've been sowing in the Tamil people. These people have been exploited and excluded, and they've had enough. Just like your Frenchies, no?”

Rudy frowned then shrugged. “I suppose.”

Again he searched the sky for a hint of the summit. Uncle Ernie had assured him that those pilgrims who took the whole night to ascend were either unfit or drunk, or slowed down by the majority who were. But the summit of the peak, unknown to him outside of his uncle's painting, remained concealed behind the mass of thickening forest and threatening cloud. It was strange weather—humid enough that beads of moisture collected on the outside of his sweatshirt, but penetratingly cold. He lowered his eyes to the dirt path and conjured up memories of outdoor jazz and women in short dresses, until Uncle Ernie, his own passions mounting, dispelled the images.

“I'm telling you, Rudy,” he exclaimed, “I'm not a supporter of violence—never have been—but I sympathize with these Tamils. Just as I sympathized with the Sinhalese when the British were here. There comes a time when self-government becomes necessary, and if those with the power to do something about it refuse to take action, well, we end up with calamities like the one you had the misfortune to be caught in.”

They passed a small plaster Buddha on a stone pedestal, and Rudy wondered absently if he should start a tally.

“But just how small a group should be able to govern itself, Uncle?” he said, his tone deliberately musing, as if this were the first time he'd considered the matter. “And what's supposed to happen to all the non-Tamils in a so-called Tamil homeland? Or all the Van Twests—or the Frasers—in an independent Quebec?” Fleetingly he saw Clare at the top of Mount Royal on a summer day, looking out at her city with beatific calm, and he sighed quietly. “People move around and mix themselves up so much these days. I don't think it makes any sense to define your country by language or ethnic background or ...” His voice trailed off into uncertainty.

The argument was the same one he had wanted to make to Kanda but never did. Never would, probably. Though he'd been back at work several weeks, seeing Kanda most days, he'd avoided the boy. It was
easier that way. His first day back, he'd caught sight of him chumming around with a group of other students, none of them Tamil, and the idea that Kanda could have been involved in the events on President Street seemed once again, conveniently, impossible. He still had the boy's letter but hadn't bothered acknowledging it.

Uncle Ernie stopped. Leaning on his walking stick, he raised one palm skyward. “Rain,” he announced then resumed his slow, steady gait. In the general dripping of the vegetation and dampness of the air, Rudy hadn't noticed, but it was indeed beginning to rain. He slid his knapsack from his shoulders and pulled out a black nylon jacket. Uncle Ernie, well-protected in a heavy pullover of army-green wool, lifted his plastic shopping bag and wagged his index finger in the air.

“You mustn't misunderstand me, Rudy, when I speak of home-lands. I'm not saying we should allow all the green-eyed, English-speaking Burghers with Dutch ancestors to declare a homeland on the outskirts of Colombo. As you say, it makes no sense. All those things—language, race, religion, and whatnot—those are the least interesting aspects of who we are. They're just meaningless circumstances. But I'm telling you, it's precisely those sorts of circumstances that have been used against the Tamil people. It's a bloody mess, and the government should give the buggers whatever autonomy they want. Or expect to keep having their country bombed to bits.”

Rudy kicked a stone off the path. He expected Kanda would have something to say to Uncle Ernie about the meaninglessness of language and whatnot.

“Let's take a rest up ahead, Uncle,” he said.

The path had widened, and they'd reached a broad stairway bisected by a row of lampposts, the lamps unlit. The clouded sky was so close, so low, it seemed they would climb straight into it. Heavy raindrops dotted Rudy's khaki trousers and streamed down the sleeves of his jacket. A menacing ache gripped his right buttock and hip. As he took hold of a post and hauled himself forward, he thought of Adam, hovering in some transitional world not unlike this one. Yet close somehow, capable of spurring him on.

At the top of the stairway the ground flattened to a red earth terrace housing an enormous, bulbous stupa, its white surface barely distinguishable from the clouds behind it. Around its base, a few feet from the ground, were alcoves, each one sheltering a seated Buddha—a dozen of them at least. The top of the structure slimmed to a gold pin that pierced the sky. Rudy stared briefly at the lonely stupa then took off his pack and went to lean between two of the alcoves. An overhang sheltered him from the rain; his uncle remained out on the packed earth terrace, getting wet.

Rummaging for his water bottle, he recalled Aunty Mary's attempts to talk him out of the climb. The subjects of her warnings, issued over the phone, had been impressive: snakes, bandits, wild animals. Even worse, she'd seemed to think, was the solitude, the idea that they'd be completely alone on their pilgrimage. Rudy, for his part, had imagined with a wave of horror the kind of target that Adam's Peak would offer at the height of the pilgrimage season, but he'd stifled the thought immediately and listened dutifully to his aunt. “You must wait until the next season,” she'd said, and when he insisted that that was out of the question, she pleaded with him to take a guide. “Ernie is an old man,” she'd said. “He doesn't know the peak as well as he says he does.”

Rudy had dismissed her suggestions, even laughed at her fears, but now he wasn't so sure. Adam's Peak, out of season, was indeed an inhospitable place, and the cold sea of mist most certainly held dangers of one kind or another. Impatient to be done with the whole thing, he called across the terrace.

“How much longer would you say, Uncle?”

Uncle Ernie, gazing about in a manner that suggested Aunty's judgments of him were quite correct, crossed the terrace to the shelter of the stupa. His silver hair was plastered to his forehead. He wiped it to one side then checked his watch.

“We've been at it approximately one hour. I estimate we'll be getting up top in another two.” He kicked a stone at a scrawny dog that had appeared from nowhere, sniffing hungrily. “Poor bugger,” he said. “Probably hasn't had a decent meal since the season ended. He'd get fat then, I'm telling you.” Again he surveyed the surroundings. “You
should see it, Rudy. January, February, this path is chock-a-block with pilgrims. You're held back by the mob. Not like today. The only thing slowing us down now is our own aches and pains.” He looked up. “Perhaps this weather, if it persists.”

Listening to the slap of the rain against the earthen terrace, the rustle of it through the trees, Rudy made rough calculations in his head. At the rate they were going, there was little chance they'd make it back down before dark. They didn't have a flashlight; they needed to turn around. But he couldn't make himself do it—could only lean back and contemplate the situation abstractly, as if there were nothing to be done. As if he were back on President Street, held there by forces beyond his control. He took a gulp of water and offered the bottle to his uncle.

“We could do with something stronger,” Uncle Ernie muttered, but he took a long swig nonetheless. “You do these sorts of excursions often in Canada?” he then said, handing the bottle back. “Braving the elements, like the explorers?”

“Hardly,” Rudy laughed. “I work out in a swanky gym with TVs and a coffee bar. The only emergency supply I've got is a Visa card.”