Beyond the Summit (21 page)

To go with her would challenge his composure; to not go was impossible. He wished Pemba were here to get him through moments like this. Taking a long, shaky breath, he tried to send the field mice scurrying back to their burrows and answered, “Yes.” Hands in his pockets, he casually walked to the hut furthest from camp, removed the block wedged behind the door handle, and opened it. Entering first to check things out, he tapped the low header reminding her to duck. The room was chilly and dark with only the light of two small, shuttered windows.

With her arms folded over her chest, Beth walked further inside. “It’s just a much smaller version of Pemba’s.”

“With the same soot on the ceiling,” Dorje said, coming up behind her. “From the smoke,” he whispered, inhaling the aroma of her hair.

She went to the window bench covered with yak-wool rugs. “Where do you sleep?”

“Where you are sitting or on bamboo mats on the floor.”

Arm resting on the sill, Beth twined a finger in her hair and gazed at him with her lips parted slightly in a smile. A slow tingling sensation crawled up his neck and spread across his face
. Don’t go there
, he told himself as he took a step forward.

Suddenly a noise came from outside and Royd entered, banging his head on the doorjamb. “Jesus,” he said rubbing it. “You guys are all too short.”

“Or maybe you’re too tall and don’t know how to duck,” Beth said and winked at Dorje. He smiled back and the field mice rejoiced.

Later as the sun lowered casting a pale haze on the mountains, the temperature dropped precipitously at 14,500 feet. Immediately after dinner, the Norwegians sought the warmth of their bags and the porters and cook staff piled into their tents. “I’m not used to going to bed at 4:30 p.m.,” Beth said, her teeth chattering. “But I guess above timberline we don’t have wood for a fire.”

“We have to save what little we carried for cooking,” Dorje explained. “We will use kerosene going over the Cho La.”

“Guess I’d better crawl into my tent, but I was hoping we could talk more like last night.”

The field mice sat up, their ears perked and tails twitching. Dorje didn’t want her to leave but wasn’t bold enough to suggest joining her. “We could bring both bags out here and try to stay warm.”

“Uhhh, huhh,” she said, her teeth hitting so hard he could hear them.

“Wait here. I will get yours.” He raced to her tent
to retrieve the bag, unzipped it, draped it tightly around her shoulders, and then ran for his.

They sat on a rock inches apart, wrapped in their bags. “Have you been this high before?” he asked

“Yyyesss,” she answered, shivering. “We have 54 peaks above 14,000 feet in Colorado but I’ve only hiked to the top during the day, stayed an hour at most, and come down. Nothing like this.”

“Sleeping high is what makes foreigners sick, and the Norwegians don’t listen to me.”

Moving a little closer, Beth observed, “Kirk’s already coughing and Royd’s chugging aspirin like candy.”

When she gently leaned against him, the mice raced in circles and bounced off walls. Trying to ignore them, Dorje said, “And that fool Hamar drank stream water. Tomorrow will not be a good day.”

“Did you come here to graze animals in the summer?”

He could simply say
yes
and let it pass or relate the worst moment of his life. By continuing to talk, he was less likely to respond to her touching his side. He sent the field mice scampering to their holes and with a tremulous breath began the rest of the story, confident she would understand the emotions of a six-year-old.

“While Father and snake-eyes, Kushang, drank
chang
, my mother packed her clothes in a
doko.
I was afraid she would leave with this awful man. Then she put my clothes and Nima's clothes in another
doko
. ‘No!’ I screamed and pulled them out of the basket. Holding them tight to my chest and swinging side to side, I would not let loose. But Mother said the clothes had to go, that we had to go. ‘Not without
baabu.
’ I cried. Every day for six months I had waited by the trail for my father to come back from Tibet and I was not going to lose him again. He was the most important thing in my life. I dropped to the floor, face down, and curled in tight ball. When mother tried to lift me, I yelled and swung at her. That made Nima start crying.”

“We’re so helpless when we’re young,” Beth said as she slid her hand inside the bag and took his. “It’s the most terrifying feeling in the world.”

Not nearly as terrifying as the feel of her soft, white skin. Disturbed, his words stumbled over themselves on the way out. “Mother, no I mean Father, no Mother yelled at him to come get me. I tried digging myself into the floor so he couldn’t pull me out, but Father was too strong. He picked up a screaming, kicking boy and carried him to the bench where he held me in his arms saying, ‘It will be all right, Dorje.’ But it was not all right. I grabbed his robe and buried my face in it. ‘Promise me that you will always be brave,’ he whispered. ‘And promise you will always take care of Nima. He is not strong like you.’ I was trembling and clinging to him. When Mother touched my back and said it was time to go, I wrapped my legs around Father and held on. When she touched me again, I swatted her hand away.”

“Didn’t you like your mother?” Beth asked holding his hand tighter.

“Yes, yes. I loved her but I could not leave him. He was everything. Father reached for Nima crying beside him and held us both in his arms. ‘You are going to live with your mother and Kushang,’ he said. Then his voice caught like a piece of cloth snagging on a branch, and I knew he was sad too. ‘She loves you both very much and will take good care of you,’ Father said. I shouted that I was not going. I would stay here with him. He could take care of me. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘but this is how it has to be.’ I yelled that was not how it had to be. Father lifted me higher and held my face to his. His cheek was hot and wet; his arms were trembling. He whispered, ‘Don’t ever forget how much I love you. I will come see you as often as I can. I promise.’”

Beth was gently rubbing the back of his hand causing Dorje to break out in a sweat. “A promise never kept, I think.”

“Never,” Dorje uttered from the darkest part of his heart. “Father put me down and stared at me through wet eyes. ‘You must go now.’ I dug my bare heels into the floor while Kushang dragged me out the door. Father told me to be brave and offer prayers every day. And then I was gone.”

Beth was shuddering uncontrollably now and it scared him. Remembering the
mikaru
who almost died two years ago from what they call hypothermia, Dorje’s
sirdar
instincts overrode all else. This was business. Knowing she would never get warm enough with just her bag, he rose and said, “Stand up. You must get warm before you go to your tent alone.” Facing her, Dorje extended her bag around him and told her to hold it closed behind his back. He did the same with his, creating a double layer to trap body heat. “Is that better?”

“Much. You feel good.”

You feel good
summoned every tail-twitching, whiskered creature in Nepal to run amok inside. When she nestled against him with their bodies flush, he was lost and gave up all hope of saving himself. His mouth next to her ear, such things he wanted to whisper but didn’t dare.

She spoke first. “When was the next time you saw your father?”

“Not until ten years later when I came back to Namche,” he murmured with the aroma of her hair permeating his entire being.

When she ran her free hand through the back of his hair, he leaned into it like a cat longing to be rubbed. “I waited at the window every night for years,” she whispered so close he felt her the warmth of her breath on his cheek. “But my father never came back as he promised.”

Not wanting to let go of her, Dorje had to keep talking. “I know about waiting. Every evening in the Solu at age six, seven, and eight, I ran to the end of village looking for a man in a Tibetan robe with long, black hair tied back in a ribbon.”

“Then that was your father in the market place,” Beth said pulling back to look at him.

“Yes.” In the moonlight, his eyes traced her nose and lips. How he yearned to kiss them. When he continued, Beth buried herself in his warmth again. “At nine, I watched for him every afternoon while I hauled firewood from the forest two miles away. So certain that he would come, I glanced at the road every time I raised a stick over my head to beat the grain. At ten, eleven, and twelve, I looked for him while I threshed millet in the winter, barley in the spring, wheat in summer, and collected rice and maize in the fall. But by thirteen, I was angry and used to stand in the middle of the field yelling at him. ‘You lied. You never came. You do not care if we are sick or hungry . . . or dead! You do not love us!’”

Her fingers toyed with the hair along his neck. “Are you still angry?”

“I don’t want to be, but it always gets in the way when I am with him. Before leaving Mother I promised I would try to look past my anger, but I fail every time.”

“I watched your father with Pemba at the market. He’s not like other Sherpas. He has what we call a presence that is intimidating.”

“What does this word mean?” he whispered into her hair.

“A bit frightening.”

Still shivering but not as violently, she seemed content so he didn’t want to risk doing or saying anything to alter that. After a long silence, Beth murmured, “I thought about my mother while hiking today. The night my father left, a noise woke me. It was a holiday we celebrate where children believe a man called Santa will bring presents. Thinking it was the puppy I had asked for and he was scared in a strange place, I slid my legs over the side of the bed and dropped to the cold floor. I was so eager to see him, that I forgot to put slippers on. The living room was dark except for twinkling Christmas lights. ‘Here, Puppy,’ I whispered, tiptoeing toward the tree. When something wet squeezed between my toes, I giggled thinking my puppy had peed on the floor. When I knelt to check on the mess, I saw my mother lying only a foot away, her arm stretched out. I shook her but she didn’t move. Now I saw it wasn’t pee but blood oozing from her wrist. I was all alone and scared so I ran to the next house and banged on the door until the old man answered. ‘Mommy’s hurt,’ I cried. Fifteen minutes later, a loud siren screamed in the night and a red light kept flashing through the curtains onto the wall. I watched through the window as men hurriedly pushed my mother down the walk on a cart. I was certain she was dead. When they loaded her into the ambulance, closed the door, and drove away, I started sobbing thinking both parents had left me that day.”

Feeling her tremble and her breathing change, Dorje knew she was crying. He leaned back and gazed at her. “Did she die?”

Beth sniffed her tears back inside. “No. But she had tried to kill herself and everyone kept saying how lucky it was I found her. I became my mother’s keeper that night and was always afraid I wouldn’t find her soon enough the next time.”

Dorje held her. The woman he had feared wasn’t a witch but a lonely little girl who had related her worst night too. Sharing such emotional intimacy gave him courage. An orange gibbous moon had risen over the 20,000-foot peaks surrounding Machhermo. Gazing at her skin that glowed like white silk in the light, he gently wiped a tear away. Sensing no resistance, he took a chance and gently brushed his lips against her cheek. When he felt her breath catch and she melted into him, he slowly kissed the nape of her neck, her ear lobe, her eyes. Feeling her heart beating rapidly against his chest, he lightly ran his finger along her lips and held her for their first embrace. Her lips parted easily, inviting him to explore, and her tongue was warm, sensual, and full. She tasted sweeter than the precious Himalayan honey gathered from the highest cliffs.

Untended, both bags had fallen to the ground. Beth noticed first. Teeth chattering again, she threw her head back and laughed. “At least our feet are warm.”

He gathered the bags and wrapped his cherished butterfly back in her cocoon with him. For another hour in the moonlight, they stood nestled in each other’s arms, kissing, laughing, hugging, kissing, laughing again until Royd shouted to be quiet and let everybody else get some sleep around here.

“He is jealous,” Dorje whispered in her ear.

A temperature drop of another ten degrees persuaded Dorje and Beth to go to bed. After making sure she was zipped up to her chin, he closed her tent door and headed to the porters. Tomorrow they would reach the Gokyo
yersa
with five huts spread fairly far apart and a supply of dried dung left from summer. He would suggest everyone move inside and build small fires. And he would offer to light Beth’s.

The next morning, it seemed everyone in camp was aware of the sleeping-bag tryst. Beth only wished she’d given them more to gossip about. If Dorje had asked to stay when he took her to the tent, she might have been tempted. Of all the men she had dated, no one kissed her the way he did. Certainly not Eric. With all his fine qualities and creative talents, economic potential, and undying love for her, Eric simply didn’t stir things up inside and make her feel totally alive. She’d been clothed in a shroud of sadness since childhood with only momentary glimpses of light, and now suddenly the sun was blinding. Maybe it was the altitude or exotic setting and foreign culture. Whatever the cause, when she looked at Dorje this morning, nothing mattered except being with him. Her ever rational self whispered,
You’re crazy. It can’t possibly work
, but she didn’t care. It was the happiest she’d ever been and that was good enough for now.