The Edge (11 page)

JR and Jack were grinning at me too. I didn't want the compliment to feel good, but it did. They wandered off to interview someone else. I continued across the scree, thinking about Zopa, the climb, and the twins. I wondered how the two Peas were doing without Mom, which stopped me in my tracks. If I was missing the twins, Mom had to be going crazy. This was the first time she'd been away from them for more than a night. I turned around. We were spread out across the scree for at least a half a mile. Rafe was the closest to me. Mom was a hundred yards behind him. She was walking with Alessia. Behind them were Phillip and the film crew, heading toward Aki, Choma, Ebadullah, and Elham. If I waited for Mom, Rafe would catch up with me, and I might have to walk with him, which I didn't want to do. I turned back to the cliff. I knew it wasn't a race, but I really wanted to get there before Rafe.

I set a brutal pace, and by the time I got there, I was panting like a dog. A tree was being fed by a spring about ten yards across. The water was deep. If Ethan had been there, he'd have been swimming. If I could swim, I'd have been swimming. I got down on my knees.

“Don't drink the water.”

I nearly fell in. Zopa was sitting on the far side in plain sight, but he had been so still when I walked up, I hadn't seen him.

He laughed. “Where was your mind?”

“And where were you this morning?” I snapped back, a little ticked off at being startled.

“Here waiting for you,” Zopa answered calmly. “How is Ethan?”

“He won't be climbing for a few days. Cindy is staying in camp with him. Don't you sleep?”

“Not in the way you do.”

Big surprise. I didn't recall seeing him sleep on Everest, either. But a lot of people don't sleep on Everest. Not enough oxygen.

“We're spending the night here. Did you bring your gear?”

Zopa shrugged.

“Did you bring the camel and donkey?”

Zopa nodded.

“How did you know that this was where we would be?”

This elicited another shrug. In other words, he wasn't going to tell me, or else he didn't know why he had come here.

“We're using our portaledges to make a mountain on the cliff face,” I told him. “It will look like a Christmas tree lit up at night.”

I was pretty sure Buddhists didn't celebrate Christmas and wondered if Zopa even knew what a Christmas tree was.

“Come around here,” he said. “You are shouting.”

I wasn't shouting, but it probably sounded like it to Zopa, who rarely raised his voice above a whisper that you could somehow hear twenty feet away. I walked around the spring and sat down next to him.

“Is the water really bad?”

“I drank a little a few hours ago, and I'm waiting to find out. I think it is probably good, but I would give it more time.”

“So if you start puking, we shouldn't drink the water.”

“Correct. But you can take your boots off and soak your feet. You will need your feet the next few days.”

My feet were in pretty good shape from walking around New York with the twins, and I had brought my best hiking boots and climbing shoes. I took my boots off, stripped off my socks, and put my feet in the pool. It was shockingly cold.

“Snowmelt from higher up,” Zopa said. He pointed to the pockmarked cliff face. “The caves are all shallow. They go nowhere. No escape.”

“Escape from what?”

Zopa shrugged.

“How do you know they're shallow?” The caves started two hundred feet up from the base. It was impossible to see into them from the ground.

Zopa pointed. “Look.”

It took me a while, but I finally spotted the silver anchors glinting in the sun. There must have been thirty or forty—the cliff face was peppered with them.

“You set all those anchors?” Which was kind of a stupid question, because who else would have set them? I was amazed that one person could explore the caves and set that many anchors by himself in a single day, or a half a day.

“I assumed that Ethan is a good climber,” Zopa said, ignoring the question. “I was worried after his report about the condition of the rock. I found some good rock. Solid. Good anchors.”

“You should have waited. It wasn't safe.”

“It's not safe to climb skyscrapers in New York on your own either.”

My former pastime. I didn't know that Zopa even knew about this. Sun-jo must have told him.

“I don't do that anymore.”

“I am happy to hear this. Who wants to die falling onto a busy street? I set the anchors because it was faster to do it myself. And doing it myself assures that it was done correctly. You and Alessia are the only good climbers. I didn't want anyone to get hurt.”

“How do you know this is where Phillip wants to film the portaledges?”

“He will film here now because the anchors are set.”

FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER,
the others began arriving in twos and threes. Alessia and Rafe were first, which meant that Rafe waited for her or that Alessia caught up with him.

“Zopa!” Alessia ran over and plopped down next to him. “We were worried about you.”

Rafe acknowledged Zopa with a frown. Apparently he was jealous of anyone sitting next to Alessia, even old missing Buddhist monks. He looked up at the cliff. “Easy climb. As soon as I get a drink of water, I'll show you how to put up your portaledge, Alessia. I've done it dozens of times.”

“No need,” Zopa said. “We won't be using them.”

“Not according to Phillip, mate.”

“He will change his mind.”

“In your dreams. Phillip's calling the shots. It's his show. He's the director.”

The
director
arrived at the spring next with Aki and Choma, with the film crew and Mom right behind them.

“Nice of you to join us, Zopa,” Phillip said.

The truth was that we were joining Zopa, but I didn't say anything. Zopa was more than capable of defending himself or, in this case, not defending himself, because he didn't respond to Phillip's jab.

Phillip looked up at the cliff face, then back at the group. “We'll take a fifteen-minute breather here, then hike along the base until we find the right spot. We're going to have to pick up our pace if we expect to have everyone in place by nightfall. You've no doubt heard what I'm going for by now. Five portaledges in an inverted
V.
Two climbers on the right, two on the left.”

“In other words, a mountain,” Rafe said.

Duh, Rafe.

“I guess,” Phillip said.

“Who's going to be on top of the mountain?” Rafe asked, nullifying the whole idiotic inverted
V
thing, which I'm sure Phillip had insisted the film crew use if they had to describe the shot to us. I was kind of glad Rafe had outed Phillip on this dumb description.

“It's no big deal who's on top,” Phillip said.

“Cool,” Rafe said. “In that case, I volunteer.”

Phillip shot him a smile, which we had all learned was probably not a good sign. “It isn't as simple as that. I've got to think about the whole segment and how everything will flow. I've already decided the positions.”

“Okay. Who's in the top spot?” Rafe was not going to let this go, and it wasn't going to go his way, or Phillip would have told him that he was on top. I wondered if he would stick to Alessia like glue when Phillip announced that she was on top.

Phillip gave him a resigned sigh. “All right. Bottom right, Choma. Bottom left, Aki. Second right, Alessia. Second left, Rafe.”

And that left Peak on the Peak, which I couldn't have cared less about. “I'm fine with Rafe taking the top.”

“That's not up to you,” Phillip said. “Red is on top.”

Red? Then I remembered that my portaledge was red. So was my tent and pack and almost everything else inside the pack. Plank, or maybe Phillip, had color-coded us. Alessia was the green climber. Rafe, yellow. Aki, blue. Choma, orange.

“Seems to me you would want the best climber of the bunch on top,” Rafe said.

Mom rolled her eyes. “It's just a set shot. No one is going to be up for an Academy Award.”

Here we go. But Zopa put a stop to it.

“We will not need the portaledges.”

“Of course we're using the portaledges,” Phillip insisted. “That's why I had Plank provide them. I have the letters
P-E-A-C-E
to attach to them.”

Zopa pointed up at the cliff. Everyone looked up, but like I had at first, no one appeared to see the anchors.

“We're not climbing here,” Phillip says. “We'll scout the cliff for the perfect spot. I knew it would take a while. That's why I wanted to leave base camp early.”

“Anchors,” Zopa said.

Everyone looked again.

Mom spotted them first. She started pointing. “There. And there. And there.”

Everyone looked at Zopa.

“You set anchors in the darkness?” Alessia asked.

Zopa shrugged.

He couldn't have possibly set that many anchors on a rotten cliff face after sunrise. Even Rafe looked impressed. But not Phillip; he was frowning. He wasn't a climber. He had no idea how difficult and dangerous this had been.

“Waste of anchors and time,” he said.

“If you find a better place, I will retrieve the anchors and meet you there,” Zopa said. “But this is the best place, as you will discover.”

I hadn't noticed, but Alessia had taken off her boots and was soaking her feet. Rafe was staring at her feet.

Phillip shaded his eyes and stared up at the cliff in silence for a few moments, then looked at JR. “What do you think?”

“It's close to where we tried to climb yesterday and nearly killed ourselves. I'd hang on any anchor Zopa set. And to be honest, the entire cliff face looks pretty much the same to me. I don't think it matters where we climb. If we use his anchors, it will save a ton of time, and it'll be safe.”

Phillip turned back to Zopa. “What do you mean we don't need portaledges?”

“You can use the tents inside the caves. Your peace letters will fit on the tents?”

“I suppose.”

Zopa pointed at the wall. The angle of the sun caused the anchors to shine like little mirrors. “Find the middle anchors. Above them is an eagle's nest. See the sticks in the opening of the cave?”

Phillip shook his head.

“Wait.”

Ten seconds later, maybe twelve, a huge eagle swooped in and landed on the edge of one of the caves.

“Twenty-five feet down from the eagle cave is another cave,” Zopa continued without giving anyone an opportunity to ask him how he knew the eagle was going to return to its nest at that exact moment.

“So?” Phillip said.

“That is the top of your mountain. There are two more caves below on either side. A perfect
A,
or mountain.” Zopa looked at me and smiled. “Or Christmas tree. Set your tents in them. Plenty of room. It is more interesting if your climbers are camped in caves than hanging on a wall. More natural.”

I think Plank missed the boat with the Peace Climb. A better topic for a documentary would be Zopa. Phillip stared back up at the cliff as if he was considering Zopa's brilliant plan. Alessia's bare foot touched my bare foot. I was surprised I could feel it, because my feet were numbed by the cold water.

“Okay,” Phillip finally announced. “We'll use the caves.”

Alessia's bare foot was still touching my bare foot. Phillip and the film crew headed out to scout the shots. Rafe lumbered over to us and sat down on the other side of Alessia. He took off his size-thirteen hiking boots, then peeled off white socks as big as grocery sacks and put his feet into the water.

“Tepid,” he said. “I thought it would be cold.”

I'm not drinking the water.

Alessia's bare foot is still touching my bare foot.

“Test your radios,” Phillip says.

He's just given us the frequency we are to use. It's early afternoon. The sun is well above the cliff.

“I want a synchronized climb up the wall. Zopa and Teri will be spotting from down here. Peak will be in the middle, so everyone needs to pace themselves to him.” He looks at me. “Don't go too fast. If you see someone lagging, slow down. I'm shooting for a straight line with blue and orange reaching their caves first, green and yellow next, and red last. There will be a lot of pauses on the way up to allow the cinematographers to get in and out of the frame for tight shots and sound.”

In other words, the climb is going to take about a thousand times longer than it would if we weren't filming it . . .

“
OKAY. ON THREE
. . . two . . . one . . . roll film!”

I started up. Just like the rappel the day before, we were all climbing the same wall but along different routes, each with its own challenges. The climbers to my left were looking up and to their right. The climbers to my right were looking up and to their left. I was looking up, left, and right. If I had been on a gym climbing wall, this would have been relatively easy. On a rotten wall in Afghanistan, it was nearly impossible. The other problem was my hands. My legs and feet were in pretty good shape, but my hands were soft. Within fifteen feet, I had several cuts.

“Okay,” Phillip barked over the radio. “Drop down; we'll do it again.”

We did it again five more times, and each time it got a little easier, because each of us knew the route.

“That's a wrap! Good job, people! Just hang where you are for some tight shots with the film crew.”

It wasn't a
wrap
as in
we are done filming.
The tight shots took longer than our synchronized start. A lot longer. At our present pace, I figured we'd reach the caves in three days. JR was filming me, Alessia, and Rafe. Rafe always smiled and struck a climbing muscle pose when the camera was pointed at him. Alessia used a more neutral expression and never posed for the camera. When the camera was on me, I was certain I looked irritated. A climb that should have taken twenty minutes took nearly four hours, or in my case, five hours, because after everyone else got to their perch, I was attacked by an enraged eagle.