The Ascent Read online

  “Probably because I’m a fucking idiot,” I groaned and pulled my socks back on.

  Chad, Hollinger, and Curtis were playing cards beside a couple of lanterns when I walked past them twenty minutes later. Petras wastaking care of personal business in the nearby woods. The Sherpas had cautioned him to carry a knife in case a bear or wild cat came sniffing around. Petras only nodded. I noticed his pearl-handled hunting knife jutting from his belt.

  The Sherpas huddled together in one tent, inking long swaths of parchment and murmuring to themselves. Their tent smelled of incense and burning grape leaves and exuded an intense heat, as if the under-the-breath praying generated physical energy.

  Andrew was off in the distance by himself, secluded in shadows, meditating. As I approached, my boots crunched the stones to dust beneath my weight, but Andrew did not turn around. I stood there for several minutes, staring at the back of his head, watching the slow, dilatory rise and fall of his respiration, before I felt like a fool.

  “Is this something new?” I said.

  “What’s that?” he said, not turning to face me.

  “This meditation thing. This praying. I thought you were agnostic.”

  He dropped his head. After a moment, he stood and rolled his sleeves up his arms. His face looked almost see-through in the moonlight. The square cut of his jaw was dressed in three days’ beard growth.

  “Did you pay Shotsky twenty thousand dollars to come on this trip?”

  “Yes.” There was no hesitation, no emotion.

  “Why?”

  “Because he wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

  “And why was it so important that he come?”

  “Because,” he said casually, “that’s the point of this whole thing, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not necessary that you understand.”

  “Did you pay anyone else?”

  “No.”

  “No one?”

  “No one else. Just Donald.”

  “So why is everyone else here?”

  “The same reason you are.”

  The thing was, I could no longer remember what my reason had been.

  “Do you think this is a game, Tim?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Andrew smiled. “Neither do I.”

  “Shotsky shouldn’t be here. He’s a fucking novice. He’s scared of heights for Christ’s sake.”

  “Donald Shotsky nearly died on a crabbing boat in the Bering Sea,” Andrew said, his voice turned up a notch. “Since then he’s been living in a one-bedroom shithole apartment in Reno. Last I spoke with him, there were men looking for him because he owed them money. Bad men. So I offered him this job. He comes out here; he gets twenty thousand dollars. Enough to keep those bad men at bay for a bit longer.”

  “And what do you get out of it?”

  “Why are you suddenly so accusatory?”

  “Because something doesn’t feel right. Something doesn’t make sense.”

  “I think maybe you hit your head hard on that fall from the bridge.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit, Andrew. I asked you a question. Shotsky gets the money; what do you get?”

  “I,” he said, “get Shotsky.”

  I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

  Andrew sighed. He bent and gathered up the mat on which he’d been meditating and rolled it into a tube. “I didn’t save that man’s life on that boat so he could have it taken from him by a bunch of Vegas thugs. After that accident on the boat, if he was too much of a coward to go back to work, to work like a man, then I’m going to help him overcome that fear.” He grinned, and it was the old devilish Trumbauer grin. “I’m going to save his life again.” He tucked the mat under one

  arm and stepped around me, heading back toward camp. “Then why am I here?” I called after him.

  Andrew paused. I expected him to face me, but he didn’t. I didn’t need to look at his face to know he was still sporting that horrible grin. “Same reason,” he said and walked away.

  2

  IN MY DREAMS. I SHUTTLE THE MOTORCAR OVER

  the sloping lawns of the Italian countryside. Hannah laughs from the passenger seat. She is not the Hannah from real life—not the woman I was married to a million years ago—but rather she is the Hannah from my dreams, my nightmares. Her hair is short, and she wears a lambskin jacket and pantsuit. I grip the steering wheel, a silk scarf flapping in the wind. I am David, the man Hannah fell in love with after she left me. Or perhaps the man she fell in love with while she was still with me, still my wife. None of that was ever clear.

  I’m not going to mess things up, I shout over the engine, the wind. Yes, you are, she says, and she doesn’t need to shout. I’ve got a second chance, I say. I’m going to make things right. I’m going to fix things for us. You can’t, she tells me. Why not?

  Because I’m dead, she says. And because we are flying. I imagine cliff diving with Andrew and how I soared naked through the air, suspended for a million eternities, before crashing down through the black, icy waters. Flying, flying … What do you mean we’re flying? I say.

  Hannah—the Hannah from my dreams, the dakini, not the real Hannah—faces forward and says, Look.

  I look and find the ground has vanished from beneath the motorcar. We are careening over a precipice, suspended in air, a pair of cliff divers,the engine groaning and the wheels spinning without traction, and the chrome headlamps glinting in the sun.

  3

  IN THE MORNING. THE PROXIMITY OF THE GODESH

  Ridge was overwhelming. The Valley of Walls lay at the base of the range, the earthen path that was once a river carved straight through a pass where it disappeared. The Sherpas said the drop had once been a beautiful waterfall, something witnessed by generations long gone. It was dry as bone now.

  The mountain itself was tremendous, twisting and bulging at its foothills like slaps of clay stacked atop one another to dry in the sun, its peak obscured by cloud cover. With the waning darkness still toward the west, two of the Sherpas led us through the arid pass, their sandal-clad feet kicking up tufts of white dust. They spoke perfect English when they wanted to, but mostly they kept to themselves.

  Half a mile through the pass, I could see where the rutted, dried riverbed ended at a sharp drop. Far below stood the jagged pincers of exposed, sun-bleached rocks. I could easily imagine this as a waterfall, and the quarry below still held the shape of a basin, although filled with boulders and lush with plant life. While I watched, a flock of giant black birds took flight, calling shrilly to one another.

  Our group continued along the base of the foothills, winding farther and farther away from the Valley of Walls, which was now situated directly below us. From this vantage, I could see all the stone walls and how the valley itself curled slightly like a monkey’s tail. From this distance, the arrangement of the walls seemed nearly prophetic, something akin to crop circles or the looming statue heads on Easter Island. I tried to derive sense from the pattern, but it meant nothing to me. And perhaps that was how it was supposed to be.

  We trekked through a series of stone portals wreathed with lichen,constantly ascending at a gradual incline. There was very little to grab onto here for support, and as the incline grew steeper, my back strained and I leaned closer toward my knees. A few of us skidded in the dirt, launching cascades of tiny stones down the face of the mountain.

  I couldn’t help but look up as I climbed. The clouds were wispy but in copious amount, and I still could not see beyond the first summit. It was impossible to judge the distance. Yet each time we wound around the passageways (once, even entering a cave which smelled of kerosene that emptied out on the opposite side of the foothill), a new plateau would appear closer and closer above us.

  “You hear that?” Curtis said, appearing at my side. He started climbing slightly faster than me. “What’s that sound?”

  I listened. “S
ounds like … running water …”

  We reached the first of many plateaus to see a waterfall clear across the valley spilling into a forested gorge. Through its mist a rainbow projected, and I could see more of those great black birds swooping down toward the water for food. If this were a movie, it would be the part where the orchestrated music would kick in while the director of photography panned the camera for the breathtaking panoramic. For us, we were content to pause in our ascent just to watch and take it all in. Even Andrew, who’d seemed to be in a bad mood all morning, leaned against the crags, arms folded, and observed the spectacle in absolute silence.

  By lunch, we had crested a ridge of fir-lined rocks that overlooked the entire valley. No longer could I make out the Valley of Walls nor the tiny huts and pagodas of the villages through which we’d passed. Here, we were utterly alone. There could have been a thousand of us, and each one of us would have been alone.

  The Sherpas distributed cuts of burlap on which they piled steamed rice, boiled leaves, and cubes of grayish meat. Andrew wolfed his food down, then vanished through the trees, either to take a leak or continue with his meditation. The Sherpas read books and

  ate very little, though they continued to stoke the small fire.

  I set my food down and trotted off toward the trees. After I’d urinated, I crept deeper through the firs until I made out Andrew’s shape on the other side of the brambles.

  “Not much farther,” he commented as I approached. He was staring at the face of the mountain, running one palm along its surface. “We’ll set base camp on the next plateau and bed down for the night.”

  “How far up is it?”

  “Depends. If we keep spiraling along the path, it’ll take till nightfall. If we go straight up, we’d save some time.”

  “It’s steep.”

  “It’s doable. And there’ll be steeper along the way.”

  “Are we in some kind of hurry? To save time, I mean.”

  Andrew rubbed his forehead, then turned to me. I felt him scrutinize my entire body. “How’s your leg, the one you broke?”

  “It’s holding up.”

  “And your head?”

  “Fine. Just a little ringing in the ears.”

  “Listen,” he said, looking hard at my eyes, “I’m glad you came. Means a lot. I’m sorry I’ve been distant out here, but … well, there’s been a lot on my mind.”

  “Anything you want to talk about?”

  “Not really. Not now, anyway. Maybe later.” He cast another glance toward the invisible mountaintop. “Let’s worry about setting up base camp first.”

  After lunch, it was decided we would continue winding our way to the top by sticking to the path. Whether or not my brief conversation with Andrew had anything to do with his decision, I didn’t know. Only Chad suggested we climb straight up, but the Sherpas had no interest in scaling the vertical face of a mountain.

  It took four hours to reach the summit. We were all exhausted. The air was much thinner and colder, searing my lungs as my inhalations grewdeeper and deeper. I dropped my gear in the fronds and pulled my shirt over my head. The cool air against my sweaty flesh felt exhilarating.

  “We’ll set up base camp here,” Andrew said. There was a smear of dirt across his right cheek. “We’ve got twenty-four hours before we start the ascent of the south face.”

  “I can’t see the top,” Chad marveled, looking up with one hand shielding the sun from his eyes despite the fact he was wearing sunglasses. “There’s a mist hanging low on the next ridge. Cloud cover’s heavy over the first buttress, too. Looks like rain.”

  I poured a splash of water from one of the plastic water bottles into a cupped hand, then lathered my bare skin—arms, chest, stomach, shoulders.

  “You still jonesing?” Chad asked me.

  “You starting up again with this?”

  “Don’t be so quick to jump down my throat, Shakes. I’m offering to share with you.”

  “Share what? You got a bottle of bourbon in that pack?”

  “Not quite.” He withdrew a cigar vial from his belt and unscrewed the cap. A joint the width of a thumb slid partway out into the palm of his hand.

  “I take it that’s not a Swisher Sweet,” I commented.

  Chad grinned. “One toke and it’ll feel like someone put your head on backward.”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “You sure? I’m lighting this fat fucker up as soon as the sun’s down and the fire’s going.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Chad shook the joint back into the vial and replaced the cap. “Anyway, you’re welcome, Overleigh,” he muttered and strode away, his heavy boots crunching the gravel.

  The Sherpas coaxed a sizable bonfire from a nest of branches at the center of camp, while the rest of us set up the large canvas tentthat would serve as our communal shelter. It was approximately the size of a carport with reinforced plastic sheathing for windows and a floor of double-ply tarpaulin. It was hardly tall enough to permit any of us to stand without stooping over, and we quickly ran out of corners to stash our personal gear.

  By nightfall the Sherpas had prepared a fine meal of hot vegetable broth, freshly baked bread, and boiling green tea, which we all devoured in silent reverie. With the darkness came the cold; while the tent kept the wind at bay, the most heat was generated outside by the large bonfire. I took a seat on the ground, sipping my third cup of hot tea, to warm my feet at the base of the fire. Petras’s looming shadow fell across me, followed by Curtis’s, and they both sat on either side of me.

  “Cheers, boys,” I said, raising my cup and taking a sip.

  “Not to tell tales out of school,” Curtis said, “but you guys catch the way old Shotsky was huffin’ and puffin’ coming up the ridge today? I thought the poor bastard was going to keel over at one point.”

  “He won’t make it,” Hollinger opined, coming up behind us. “There’s no way.”

  Curtis slid a slender black finger beneath his nose and turned his gaze toward the fire. “What’s he doing here, anyway? He’s not a climber. He’s a goddamn greenhorn. Should be hoisting crab pots onto a boat in the Arctic.”

  “Let him be,” Petras said. “He’s here for his own reasons. Just like we are.”

  I thought about telling the guys that Andrew had paid Shotsky to be here. In fact, I opened my mouth but decided against it at the last minute.

  No one except Petras noticed; his eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. After a moment, he turned and looked at the fire.

  Curtis’s face soured. “You can be as polite as you want to, Petras, but fact is fact. And fact just might be someone’ll have to hike backdown to base camp when the poor bastard cramps up or suffers a heart attack or stroke or something.”

  “Men will surprise you,” Petras said.

  “Shit,” said Curtis. “I know that’s true.”

  As if summoned by the sheer mention of his name, Donald Shotsky materialized on the other side of the bonfire. His face glowing in the flames and shadows dancing across his features, he grinned a big, stupid grin and raised a hand at us. “Hey, guys.”

  We mumbled and nodded at him.

  He came over, followed by Chad. God knew how long he’d been lingering close by in the shadows.

  Chad slid his cigar vial off his belt and unscrewed the cap. “I feel—,” he began but was interrupted by a growl of thunder.

  We all looked up, mouths agape. In the distance, above the cover of low-hanging clouds, bleached blue light flared and resonated in the filaments of our retinas.

  Chad summoned an even wider grin and proffered the fat joint. “As I was saying, I feel the need to perform an age-old unifying ritual with you boys, passed down from generation to generation, going back all the way to the first huddle of stinking cavemen who sat in mud up to their balls, pissing on their feet.”

  “Look at the size of that thing.” Hollinger laughed.

  “It’s primo, all right.” Chad produced a Zippo and ran
the flame around the twisted tip. Then he popped the other end into his mouth, lit the joint, and inhaled with gusto. The bonfire was not strong enough to mask the smell of the marijuana.

  “Didn’t Trumbauer say something about keeping us pure?” Curtis said, accepting the joint from Chad. “No liquor, no cigarettes, no fatty foods.”

  “Technically,” Chad offered, “this is none of the above.”

  Curtis exposed his very white teeth. “Technically.” He pulled a long drag, holding the smoke between his forefinger and thumb like an old pro.

  “Where is Andrew?” I asked.

  “On the other side of the far hill,” Shotsky said. “He’s mediating or something. Wanted to be alone. I didn’t realize he was such a religious son of a bitch.”

  “Had a dream last night,” Hollinger said. The joint was pinched between two of his fingers now. “I was alone and stumbling around in the dark. We’d gotten separated in a system of caves halfway through the mountain. I could hear the lot of you talking through the walls, but your voices echoed all over, and I couldn’t pin you down. And every time I went in the direction where I thought one of you blokes might be, I walked smack into a wall of stone. So I kept feeling around the walls, thinking that if I ran my hands along the wall, I’d eventually follow it out into the open. But I realized I was in a tiny enclosed chamber made of icy cold stone, and there was no way in and no way out. As if I’d just appeared in a bubble of rock.”

  “It’s a Freudian sex dream,” Chad chimed in. “Means you’re shooting blanks.”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I’m serious, mate,” Chad insisted, executing a fairly decent Australian accent. “Means the old skin boat ain’t shuttling passengers to Tuna Town.”

  The joint made its way to me. I considered it, then declined. I was expecting grief from the others, but no one said anything. Petras took the joint from me and examined it with the scrutiny of a Philatelist holding an old postage stamp up to the light. Then he leaned forward and handed the joint to Chad.

  “Well,” Curtis said, “my daughter told me not to come.”

  “Oh yeah?” Shotsky said. “How old is she?”