Authors: Linda Leblanc
“I will be like a child in your world.”
Thinking she had surely convinced him to return to Namche, Beth was shocked and upset when he prepared to head back up the icefall with Marty after breakfast. “What are you doing? I thought we were going down.”
“We will and soon, but first I must finish my porter job to earn enough rupees for Shanti and the baby.”
“But I have much more than you can make and will gladly give it.”
“I must do this myself. Not take money from you.”
Anguish enveloped her as Beth said, “I understand. Of course you must go.”
Striding twenty feet ahead, Marty entered the icefall without looking back as Beth and Dorje held each other in a long embrace. “Please hurry back to me.”
“I will. Don’t worry, but now I must go with Marty. He’s angry but knows that it’s not safe to travel alone.”
Feeling as though a piece of ice had lodged in her stomach, Beth waited until they disappeared in the turquoise sérac forest. Then she returned to camp trying to ignore the distant boom of an avalanche.
Catching up to Marty, Dorje roped together for safety without speaking or making eye contact. Knowing tempers were as thin as the air and could last as long as ice on the mountain, he murmured, “
Om mani padme hum
,” through the icefall to appease the goddess Miyolangsangma who resided in the mountain. When men polluted it with any conduct that generated emotions such as anger or jealousy, engaged in sexual activity, or created offensive smells such as roasting meat or burning garbage, the goddess became ill And when she was ill, all those near her became infected too. He’d heard many stories of people around Everest suffering because they failed to give her the proper attention she required. None of this did he communicate to Marty because he knew westerners didn’t share his beliefs, and he was in no mood for a debate.
Without the burden of a heavy load, they reached Camp II in the Western Cwm by mid afternoon. Not a word had passed between them, but Marty’s scathing remark in Base Camp repeated itself 100 times in Dorje’s head.
Not you, an ignorant, ungrateful Sherpa.
Any kinship Dorje had felt for the man now lay buried in a pile of steaming shit. He was glad to be rid of him when the expedition members and climbing Sherpas left to explore, mark, and prepare the route to Camps III and IV. Meanwhile with continuous movement in both directions through the Cwm, the camps constantly expanded and contracted as porters carried provisions in from lower ones and then out to higher ones.
Soon the Khumbu porters would be sent back home while the climbing Sherpas finished setting the route and moving provisions to Camp IV on the South Col. The morning Dorje was due to return, he overheard two of them telling the sirdar they were quitting. They were worn out and sick after spending more than a week on the Lhotse Wall cutting ice steps and setting fixed ropes to transform the technical route into one a heavily laden porter could follow. More importantly, they were scared of the poison gases on high passes that dulled one’s mind. Rinji’s carelessness in the tent was a bad omen. Insisting there were no poison gases and the climbers couldn’t go on without supplies, the sirdar still failed to alter their decision. “
Toi ye
!” he yelled with a large spit as they started down the Cwm. The window for making the ascent before the monsoon was rapidly closing. With only three climbing Sherpas left to haul loads and fix the route to the South Col, it would be impossible to be ready in time.
Dorje stepped forward. “I will carry but only if I’m paid the same as the Darjeeling Sherpas.”
The three remaining Sherpas argued against him for over an hour saying he lacked experience, had never worked at such high altitude, and had already spent his strength and energy carrying from Base Camp. He would never make it. Dorje wanted this too much: extra rupees for Shanti and the baby plus an outside chance of going to the top. So he fought fervently and eventually gained Paul’s assent only because the man was desperate to proceed as quickly as possible and had no other alternative. He and Henri, the other Frenchman, plus a Brit named Roger were going to acclimate at Camp III while Jarvis stayed in the Cwm with a debilitating headache and the Americans moved down to Camp I to rest a few days at a lower altitude. Claiming it was too dangerous to sleep on the Lhotse wall, the Sherpas would remain here in the Cwm and move supplies straight through to Camp IV the following day. Dorje had never been higher than where he stood now at 21,300 feet and wasn’t sure how well he’d perform higher. But Paul had tossed out a challenge and he had to accept. To prove himself, he would carry the two tents for the South Col.
“I’m going up too,” Marty announced out of nowhere. “I want to acclimate and be ready for the first or second assault team.”
“The three of us and Jarvis are making up those teams,” said Paul whose black stubble had grown into a rough beard.
“Then I’ll go third.”
His beaky nose rising and falling with each word, Jarvis said, “No one is crazy enough to climb with you. I sure as hell won’t.”
Listening to them, Dorje saw his outside chance of going to the top topple like a broken sérac. Everyone was paired up except Marty and going with him was unthinkable.
The party of five roped together and plodded through knee-deep snow for two hours to the base of the 5,000-foot Lhotse wall. As Dorje stared at the near-vertical rise, a sickening dread coursed through him, but he shrugged it off because fear caused mistakes. As a precaution, he silently chanted his mantra during the four-hour climb using fixed ropes set earlier by the climbing Sherpas. Seeing Camp III perched precariously on a narrow ledge and exposed to the whims of nature and avalanches, he understood why they refused to sleep here. With no level ground to stand on, they had notched two tent-size terraces into a wall of blue ice at 23,600 feet.
The two Frenchmen and Roger took the larger tent leaving Marty and Dorje in the smaller one. Neither of them spoke as they prepared their sleeping areas. Finally breaking the long silence, Marty asked, “What are you doing up here?”
“Earning extra rupees,” Dorje answered defiantly, unwilling to give details about Shanti.
“Why bother?” Marty grumbled as he beat extra clothing into a pillow. “Beth will take you home like a souvenir.”
Souvenir
was not in Dorje’s vocabulary, but he got the negative implication. “I’ll go to the top and make her proud of me.”
“You’ll never get on a team and even if you do manage somehow, she’ll have fun at first showing off a real live Sherpa from Nepal but will soon become bored and wonder how to get rid of you.”
“We are going to travel many places and write together.”
“Hah!” Marty tossed his head back and howled. “You can’t even read or write your own name. How are you going to keep a woman like Beth interested?” He was digging up all the doubts Dorje had buried under a rock and hurling them like wet dung.
Dorje wanted to hurt him back. “She loves me. We will stay together forever.”
“Don’t kid yourself,” Marty said, crawling into his bag. “She’s in lust, not love.” He zipped it over his chin. “I may end up with her yet.”
“She will never love you,” Dorje muttered.
Before extinguishing the lantern, he checked the inside thermometer—ten degrees below zero. Due to the constant threat of avalanches sweeping down Lhotse, their tent was securely anchored to the ice wall. Dorje rolled over with his back to Marty and tried to sleep, knowing tomorrow he faced the long and laborious task of cutting the final steps and setting fixed ropes to Camp IV. All night the wind roared and shook the tent in violent gusts, forcing its icy breath through the fabric and into his bones. The wind buffeting the walls next to his head and Marty’s incessant coughing spells allowed only fitful moments of sleep. He had finally drifted into a sweet dream of Beth when hurried movement in the tent yanked him back.
“What are you doing?” he asked Marty who was trying to pull on his cold, stiff boots.
“Going outside to take a piss.”
“It is too dangerous. Just lean out the door.”
“Why don’t you just worry about yourself,” Marty grumbled.
“You stupid
mikaru
. Put on your crampons. One wrong step and you’ll slide 2000 feet off the mountain.”
“Leave me alone. I know what I’m doing.”
“You make a problem for everybody. That is why no man wants to climb with you.”
“I’ll get to the top even if I have to go by myself.”
In the bright moonlight reflecting off the snow, Marty roped himself to the wall and sought a place to stand on the narrow platform. He unzipped his pants and then without warning doubled over with his hands on his knees and vomited. His body rose and fell in waves with each gasp until the last heave threw him off balance and he started sliding. Dorje held his breath hoping the piton and rope would hold when Marty bounced at the end. After being sick in the Cwm, why had this idiotic man even come up here? It was a Sherpa’s job to take care of
mikarus
and Marty’s carelessness would make Dorje look bad, jeopardizing his already-slim chances of going to the top. Scrambling onto the shelf above Marty, Dorje planted his axe to secure the rope and anchored himself to the wall. His hands so cold he could barely grip the rope, Dorje pulled the American up inch by inch, unhooked him, and dragged him back into the tent.
“Why did you do it?” Marty asked. “You had a perfect opportunity to get rid of me.”
“It’s my job.”
“Well, I probably wouldn’t have saved you,” he muttered and crawled back into his bag. “Remember that.” When daylight filled the tent, Marty asked him not to speak of last night. “It will keep me from making an assault team.”
“I saw you throw up in the Cwm. You will get sick like you did on Kangchenjunga.”
With the dry, hacking cough Dorje heard all through the night, Marty answered, “I already told you I’m not turning back this time.”
“Then you will die here.”
Stuffing clothes in his pack, Marty answered, “Perhaps, but at least he’ll know I wasn’t a coward.”
“That father of yours who is not here? I don’t understand you
mikarus
.”
“You don’t have to,” Marty answered as he fastened the clasp. “Just get us up there.” That said, he exited the tent and joined the others.
Paul suggested they all use oxygen above Camp III. Dorje wanted to prove he could climb without it but decided he’d better get used to wearing a mask. It was big, covering everything from his nose down over his mouth, and made of thick, heavy rubber that smelled. He quickly discovered that goggles and a mask were incompatible with straps competing for the back of his head. Also if he pressed down on the goggles to make them fit, the mask pushed off his face. If he pushed up on the mask, the goggles rode too high and created a gap that fogged up when he exhaled. Plus the continual hissing sound as he breathed made it impossible to hear anything outside himself. He was as deaf as Droma Sunjo’s son Dawa.
Roped together, the party continued up the Lhotse face. More conscious of the dangers now, Dorje focused on each movement. After knocking his hands together to get the circulation going, he grabbed the fixed rope, kicked the crampon toe spike into the ice, and shifted his weight onto the step. Then he moved the ascender up the rope and let the teeth lock into place. Slowly repeating the process, he climbed the wall with Paul in the lead followed by Henri and Marty, with himself and Roger last. Having never been part of a group setting new ropes, Dorje didn’t realize how tedious it was. As he stood waiting for Paul to hammer the next anchor, Marty's comment that Beth would quickly lose interest gnawed at him again. It was even more imperative now that he reach the summit while he imagined her beaming face as he paraded triumphantly into Base Camp, waving his ice axe over his head like the old ladies with their walking sticks. Lost in his reverie and isolated from outside sounds, Dorje didn’t know what made him look up at the very instant an ice block came tumbling towards him. Yelling at Roger immediately below, he clung to the wall as it flew past and struck the Brit who fell backwards, losing his grip on the fixed rope. Jamming his axe into the wall, Dorje braced for the inevitable jolt and held tight. Then quickly removing his goggles for a clearer view, he saw Roger hanging limp and blood-splattered. Dorje tugged on the harness rope to alert those above him because he didn’t know what to do next. The Darjeeling Sherpas were right about his inexperience being a hindrance. The harness rope slackened as the Frenchmen and Marty descended. Moving lower in advance of them, Dorje reached Roger who was dazed but conscious. After securing him to the wall, Paul checked for injuries and elicited a shrill cry when he probed the Brit’s ribs. Roger would have to return to Base Camp and relinquish all plans for making the summit.