The Everest Files Page 3

  Three hours of tramping brought me to a high bluff which formed the watershed with the next valley system. It almost looked like a scene from a Scottish glen, with fir trees scratching the skyline and ground cover of tough, wiry heathers.

  I trekked on through the afternoon and as the sun started to set I began to look for a place to camp. There wasn’t much flat ground, but I eventually found a little scoop of land which could just about take my tent.

  Food was basic; just a few of the lentil and rice balls that Shreeya had given me for the journey and a cup of sweet tea. By the time I was done it was only half past six and the night was looking like it was going to be a long one.

  Luckily I still had half a book to read, but it wasn’t easy to concentrate.

  The problem was this: with my headtorch blazing inside, the tent shone like a lighthouse. For insects this strange glow was irresistible. They zoomed out of the darkness, beating themselves against the tent in a frenzy, humming and buzzing as they fought to get inside.

  A few of them actually did get in through the tiny ventilation holes, looping the loop around my head like drunken aviators and crackling against my cheeks.

  Squashing them was really nasty. It left a teaspoon of squidgy green gunk on the tent floor.

  I didn’t read for long.

  Next day was drizzly and grey. The trees dripped with snotty dew and the moss was squelchy underfoot. I heated water and made myself a fast coffee, following it down with some crackers and dried apricots.

  I met two people that morning: a hunter with the carcass of a young deer nestling on his shoulders and a woman with a woven basket filled with dark blue berries. She offered me a handful of the fruit, but it looked like deadly nightshade and I didn’t have the nerve to try it. But we parted as friends after I gave her some sugar tied up in a wrap of paper.

  There was less running water about so I began to take more care with my supplies. I rationed myself to a cupful every hour or so, and filled the canteens whenever I could.

  Pretty soon things began to change. The track had a sinister vibe to it, narrowing and twisting in a most annoying way through swampy land, endless thorny brushwood and tangled knots of vines.

  Next time I stopped I saw the leeches.

  Leeches.

  Vampire worms.

  Five or six of them were fixed to my bare legs and I could feel one feeding behind my ear. Each was as long and thick as my index finger; their slick pulpy bodies pulsating as they sucked.

  I felt a bit sick just looking at them.

  I was desperate to rip the bloodsuckers off by sheer force but I knew it would only make matters worse. The mouth parts would be left to fester in the wound, risking infection.

  Finally, I cracked open my little medical kit and found a bottle of medical iodine. I squirted a few drops onto the business end of one of the bigger leeches and after a few seconds I was able to pull it off. In this way I removed more than eight of the creatures. The bite wounds bled like mad, but I cleaned them and stuck a waterproof plaster on each. That was the best I could do.

  The march continued with me taking much more care now not to brush my body against the overhanging branches. I was pretty knackered that afternoon, so I pitched camp early, falling asleep at about 7 p.m. and sleeping like a log right through the dark hours.

  Next morning I hit the trail early. It had been a thirsty night and I really needed to find fresh water. I trekked for a few hours before finally finding a small spring where I could fill up. The wait for the chlorine tablets to kick in seemed endless.

  Fifteen minutes is a long time when your mouth is dry as dust.

  As I drank my fill I noticed a huge collection of boulders lying at the valley side. I scrambled up onto the rocks. It was a rare opportunity to see across the landscape. I rubbed sweat out of my eyes and realised with a sense of weary satisfaction that my search was almost over.

  Across the valley I could see the outline of a building, set tight against the cliffs on the far side.

  That had to be the place that Nima had mentioned. A number of trees were planted about it but I could still see enough to pick out the outline of a small bungalow with a corrugated tin roof.

  I followed the trail down to the valley floor and plodded for an hour or more through thickets of wild bamboo. The track began to rise again. I was getting really close to the building now and I began to notice a faint mechanical hum.

  I gradually realised that there was a generator up there, buzzing away. When I thought about it, it seemed a bit odd; where would they get the fuel from in a place like this? And who would pay for such a high cost item here in one of the poorest countries in the world?

  Another little mystery to add to the list.

  Twenty minutes later I hauled myself round a final switch-back and arrived at a wall which marked the boundary of the compound.

  I followed the wall around and reached a rough tin door. Then – with a warning call of ‘Hello!’ – I pushed it open and entered, hoping there would be no guard dog to welcome me.

  The compound was neat and tidy, the bungalow showing signs of a recent paint job. The windows facing me were partly open, their dark green shutters swung wide to profit from the late afternoon sun.

  I repeated my call, adding ‘anybody around?’

  Still no reply.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught movement to the side of the bungalow, fifty metres away at the foot of the cliff.

  It seemed that someone was there, deep in the forest canopy, but that they had ducked out of sight upon seeing me. I stared long into the dark shadows but nothing further moved.

  Maybe I had been mistaken.

  I was about to walk right up to the front door when I heard noise coming from the far end of the building.

  I walked around and found an old man working in the garden. He was a fit-looking character with a full head of silver hair, a neatly trimmed silver beard and a stained pair of gardening dungarees.

  ‘Hi! Erm, Namaste.’

  My greeting caught the man by surprise. He stopped his weeding, jerked his head up and stared at me with his mouth open.

  ‘Oh!’ He looked me up and down with astonishment.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ I told him, feeling guilty to have given him such a shock.

  He continued to stand there, clutching the hoe, frozen to the spot, struck dumb by this unexpected arrival.

  ‘I’m looking for someone called Kami,’ I said.

  ‘Are you a journalist?’ he asked me suspiciously. ‘I have been warned that journalists may one day come.’

  ‘Actually I’m working with a charity,’ I told him. ‘I’ve been helping out at the clinic at Tanche village.’

  At the mention of the village name his eyes narrowed a bit. I decided I had to establish some basics.

  ‘He was a climbing Sherpa,’ I explained. ‘Have I come to the right place?’

  The man didn’t try to answer this and his stern gaze was starting to get to me. Old doubts about the nature of this mad trip flooded back and I felt foolish and a bit lost.

  Then he smiled. It was as if he had, in that moment, decided that I was OK.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ He asked.

  Breakthrough.

  I nodded and thanked him.

  ‘This way.’

  The old man led me towards a bamboo hut which had been built as a lean-to at the back of the building. A little fire was smouldering in the middle of the dirt floor and he snapped some twigs to feed it.

  I introduced myself.

  ‘Dawa,’ he told me by return.

  He stoked up some coals and prepared the tea with calm movements, selecting the tea leaves and sugar from ancient tins which had long ago lost their labels.

  ‘Is that a generator I can hear?’ I asked him. Dawa
nodded. ‘How do you keep it going?’

  ‘There are porters,’ the old man said. ‘They come at the beginning of each month, bringing food and fuel for myself, for Kami and for the … carer … ’

  ‘Carer?’ I asked him. Dawa did not reply to that question. Instead, after a long pause he fired back with: ‘Who told you about this place?’

  ‘A climbing Sherpa called Nima. He was once on an expedition with Kami.’

  Dawa poured the amber-coloured liquid from on high. It splashed into the tiny glasses and the pleasing smell of the tea filled the little hut.

  ‘What did they tell you about him?’

  ‘Not much. But there seems to be this legend that he is neither dead nor alive.’

  ‘Ha!’ Dawa laughed, ‘There are many superstitious people out there. He is most certainly alive but I can tell you nothing else. I have been sworn to say no more.’

  We sipped the tea, my body craving the sugars after the long trek. I decided to go for the jugular.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  Dawa thought for a while.

  ‘That will depend,’ he replied cryptically. ‘If you are prepared to wait, then maybe.’

  These words plunged me into an instant depression. I would have to wait? For how long would I have to wait?

  And why?

  In any case I would have to be back in Kathmandu sometime before the week was out, so it wasn’t as if I had a load of slack in my diary.

  ‘Can you give me an idea of how long?’ I pleaded.

  ‘I cannot say,’ he told me, finally. ‘It is not for me to decide.’

  I was confused about this iffy welcome and more than a little bit fed up by it. This guy Dawa seemed to be hinting that it might be days before I was allowed to see Kami, or that I might not be able to see him at all.

  But what would it depend on? My behaviour? On the word of the gods? On Kami himself? Or on the carer that Dawa had mentioned?

  Come to that, where was the carer? Perhaps that fleeting figure I had seen near the foot of the cliff had been him? Or her?

  The whole thing was unsettling, in fact, downright weird.

  I put up my tent on the only flat ground available, a mean scrap of swampy grass next to the spring.

  Out in the musty forest a nightjar was celebrating all through the dark hours, liquid notes mingling with dreams which were surprisingly pleasant.

  The next morning passed quickly enough. I hung the sleeping bag up to air and borrowed a plastic tub and some soap from Dawa. A clean-up session was overdue. It was time to wash my sweat-encrusted clothes – and my body too.

  As I began to wash, everything seemed to go quiet.

  Once again, I got the strangest feeling.

  The sensation of being watched.

  I spun around quickly, fixing my gaze on the nearest patch of dense forest, feeling sure I would see someone, eyes staring out at me from that green refuge. But there was no-one.

  At least no-one I could see.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I called softly, getting no reply apart from the drone of the cicadas.

  I walked slowly in amongst the trees, the birds trilling alarm calls at the invasion. I went on, deeper, pushing through clinging vegetation. The birds fell suddenly silent, all I could hear was the drip, drip of soapy water falling from the T-shirt I was carrying.

  Still I felt it.

  Someone is here.

  I stared into the forest depth where every shadow seemed to have human form.

  ‘Hello?’

  Nothing. Now I felt foolish and I went back to the glade and finished the washing.

  Focus on practical stuff. You’re just tired and a bit messed up from the trek.

  Dawa called me in for lunch, a tasty curry of chickpeas and spinach served with gritty brown rice. We ate it from aluminium dishes, cross-legged on the dirt floor of his shack while he told me about the time he served with the Ghurka regiment.

  ‘Twenty-five years serving Her Majesty the Queen,’ he said with pride. ‘Oman, Belize, Borneo. All over the world.’

  I worked in the garden all through the afternoon, partly to repay Dawa for the lunch but also because there was little else to do. I pulled and washed two baskets of plump carrots and cleaned a sackful of weeds from a derelict patch at the side of the house.

  The shutters were closed and I could see nothing of the interior. I placed my ear to one of them, but all I could hear was the whirr of machines from inside.

  The second day passed in much the same way: two back-breaking sessions in the garden followed by an evening spent in Dawa’s shack, listening to the BBC World Service on his vintage transistor radio.

  ‘Wars everywhere!’ Dawa exclaimed in disgust. ‘One war stops. Another one starts.’

  On the morning of the third day I could sense that something was different. Dawa disappeared into the bungalow and left me to my own devices. I wrote up my diary and sunbathed for a bit, then scraped the stubble off my chin with a blunt disposable razor I found in the bottom of my washbag.

  I was just thinking of going for a walk in the forest when Dawa came back looking pleased with himself.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said with a smile. ‘You do not have to wait any more.’

  We walked together to the front door of the bungalow. From there we passed down a short corridor, then entered a room which was part bedroom, part hospital ward. I was in a bit of a daze at this point, and I blinked in amazement at the white-painted room which was stuffed with gently humming medical machines.

  In the corner of the room, lit by soft sunlight filtering through wooden shutters, I saw Kami for the first time. He was dressed in a striking pair of red and white striped pyjamas and lying in a high-tech bed which seemed to be rocking in gentle waves. A second or two later – with a disturbing shock – I recognised it as the type of device used to stop paralysed patients from getting bed sores. I’d seen similar beds when I’d done my work experience at the local hospital back home.

  ‘Welcome!’ Kami’s voice was eager and strong. He was obviously very excited to have a visitor.

  I approached the bed and we stared at each other for a while, both grinning like idiots at the pleasure of the encounter. For me it was the sense of accomplishing a task; I had taken on this quest for Shreeya and had not failed her. For him, I guessed, it was the opportunity to talk to someone new. I reached out to clutch his hand, holding it tight for a few seconds in the universal way of greeting.

  He did not grip my hand back. In fact, his entire body seemed strangely motionless from the neck down, his muscles evidently atrophied.

  That’s when I got it.

  Kami was paralysed from the neck down.

  A boy who is neither dead nor alive.

  Suddenly those rumours were making a terrible sort of sense.

  Probably, I reckoned, he had broken his spine: an injury that would leave him paralysed for life even though he could obviously move his head a bit and breathe without a machine.

  I was gutted to see the situation he was in and I immediately wondered how on earth Shreeya would react to the news.

  A whole load of questions zapped through my mind. What accident had he had? Who had paid for this place to be built? Where was the mystery carer that Dawa had mentioned?

  But I didn’t have a chance to dwell on any of these things because Kami’s face broke out into the most brilliant smile as I sat in the chair next to him. He was every bit as handsome as the photograph that Shreeya still cherished – and definitely still filled with a zest for life. He turned his head a little and regarded me as if I was a visiting angel.

  We really did have an amazing and instant connection between us. I have never liked someone so fast in my life. I was intensely curious to find out more about him.

  ‘You cut yourself,’ Kami told me with a smile. His eyes
were locked on my chin.

  ‘Oh … I just shaved.’ I took out a tissue and dabbed at the bloodspot.

  ‘Have you got news from Shreeya?’

  ‘Yes. It was Shreeya that sent me to try and find you.’

  This provoked a sort of gasp from Kami and he turned his face away. A single tear ran down his cheek and he breathed deeply for a minute or two as he recovered his composure.

  ‘I will leave you both,’ Dawa said tactfully.

  He softly closed the door.

  And that was when Kami began to talk.

  Chapter 3

  Kami’s Story

  It was a crisp November morning, a rare day of calm punctuating the turbulence of the Himalayan winter. Kami and his father were high above the snowline, cutting trees by hand. A small billycan of tea was boiling up on an open fire nearby. A handful of potatoes were baking in the ashes, their deliciously earthy scent mingling with the wounded, resiny smell of freshly cut wood.

  Back and forth swung the two-man saw, the sixteen-year-old Sherpa lad hardened to the labour by years of practice. There was a hypnotic quality to the work, he had come to realise, and he found he could lose himself in elaborate daydreams to dull the pain.

  Most of his fantasies were about the big mountains.

  Everest above all.

  Then a voice called out nearby; a young boy from the village had run up with a message for Kami; ‘There’s a man come to see you from Namche Bazaar.’ He said breathlessly. ‘Says his name is Jamling.’

  The tree gave up its fight with a rendering crack of splintering wood. Kami and his father had to jump for their lives as it fell.

  The work was over for the day; the two of them washed in a nearby stream and followed the young boy down to the village where they found the smiling figure of Jamling waiting for them by the village shrine.

  ‘Namaste.’ He greeted them warmly.

  ‘Namaste.’

  Kami bowed deeply as a mark of respect.

  The elderly Sherpa was well known in the village, his ever smiling face always a welcome presence in Kami’s home. Kami and his father had met him some years before, on one of their trading trips to sell timber in Namche Bazaar and since that time he had become a firm family friend.