Dead Lucky Page 5

  Before Dylan and Dorje reached school age Barbara and I had spent a lot of time at “Happy Daze,” a magnificent secluded property where Richard Neville and Julie Clarke lived with their two young daughters. Julie had invited us to participate in a private play group at their spacious home. Among the other children were the son and daughter of Julie’s brother Roley and his wife, Robbie. Barbara and Julie shared another parallel path—both were married to writers, so they needed that extra degree of tolerance while Richard and I were locked away with our manuscripts for months at a time.

  As our children grew up and went to high school, they drew us down different paths, and then, of course, we went to Singapore. But in March 2006, Richard and Julie heard the call before we made it. Our friends invited us to dinner during those last weeks, but in the final days all that Barbara and I could manage was coffee and cake at Happy Daze on the Saturday morning before I left for Kathmandu. As can only be felt among friends, there was an unvoiced acceptance that we were in this together—a nebulous sense of a destiny yet to be realized. But on the surface it was all fun and witticisms as I battled Richard’s eloquence with nonsensical interpretations of his words.

  He photographed all of us constantly with his new digital camera.

  “Don’t delete any of those photos, Richard,” I joked. “They could be the last ever to be taken of me in Australia.”

  Four

  KATHMANDU

  HIS HOLINESS THE DALAILAMA told me once that Tibet has the purest air in the world. “As you have seen,” he added, knowing that I had been there in 1981 and 1984.

  I was not about to dispute it. Certainly in 1984 I had thought Tibet to be the wildest place I had encountered. The years I had spent traveling from one mountainous place to the next gave me some yardsticks to judge it by. We sat in the meeting room of the great man’s residence at Dharamsala, perched on a forested ridge-top in the foothills of the Indian Himalaya. To the distant south was the haze of heat and dust that hovered above the vast plains of India.

  Two decades had passed since that meeting, and during that time I became domesticated, like a wild dog which stumbles into a backyard, finds someone who loves him, discovers the joys of loving, and decides never to leave. But from time to time I did get restless, as does a dog under a full moon, and at those times my wife left the gate open.

  When I flew to Kathmandu in 2006, the gate was opened wider than it had ever been. An expedition to Mount Everest is no ordinary leave of absence. One of my close friends, Narayan Shresta, had been taken by an avalanche on Everest eighteen years ago, and I had nearly died there myself a few years before that. I was older and wiser now—or at least more cautious—and committed to coming home from every mountain that called me away.

  As cameraman, my role was to record our climb of Everest, a far safer motivation than an obsession with the summit. My own dream of summiting remained a shadow in the wings, but if Christopher Harris succeeded in his attempt to be the youngest person to climb to the peak, I hoped to be beside him, filming history.

  On the day we were to leave Australia, and in case history was in the making, the media showed up at Sydney Airport to interview Christopher and film him with his family. This interlude gave me the opportunity to discuss with Barbara a problem that I had created. I had forgotten to wear my favorite Scarpa ZG10 walking boots to the airport, despite placing them squarely in the front doorway so that I had to step over them to get out of the house. I loved those boots almost as much as I loved Barbara. I would be in Kathmandu for a few days, so we talked about the possibility of using World Expeditions to deliver the boots to Kathmandu, as I had worked with the company for twenty years. However, it was a Saturday and their office was closed. My good friend Sue Fear had the home number of the general manager, but Sue had already left for Kathmandu with the goal of climbing Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest peak.

  “If all else fails, I’ll buy a second-hand pair from a trekking shop in Kathmandu.” I pondered the option. “In fact, let’s just do that.”

  But Barbara knew that because one of my feet had been shortened by frostbite, it was hard for me to find comfortable footwear.

  “I’ll find a way,” she said. “Leave it to me.”

  Conversations such as these followed one after another and left no time for private moments of intimacy, especially with our families and friends forming one large amorphous group. My sister Julia’s three young sons circulated actively, with my father and their father keeping watch. We had our customary coffee. Because it was the last possible opportunity before I left, I called Dick Smith and thanked him personally for believing in Christopher and making the expedition possible. It was a call I had been intending to make from the time my position on the team was confirmed.

  Although everything I wanted to say to Barbara and the boys I had already said at home, I needed to say it again before I boarded the plane. But the opportunities were taken up by simple things, such as Dylan and Dorje joking with their young cousins, too many camera flashes, and Mike on the job, filming us. Our last words were to the camera, not to our loved ones.

  And while I was filled with an unexpected sense of dissatisfaction, I felt that Barbara was already prepared for it. She had told me that she did not want to know when I was on the summit—only when I was safely back down. For her there loomed the two-month void of my absence, which meant no dirty socks discarded on the floor, no whiskers in the sink, but also no watching the sunset together at the end of the day, no magic glances across the room, and only her in our bed.

  AS WITH ALL EXPEDITIONS, there was a mental switch that took place when the plane left the ground. The all-important last-minute tasks no longer mattered because they were out of our hands. Mike and I had spent years of our lives in the Himalaya, but it was the first trip to Nepal for Christopher and Richard. However, there were new horizons for all of us because rather than the small private group that we had planned to be, we were about to enter the arena of large commercial expeditions.

  When we landed in Kathmandu, the sky was thinly overcast, creating a drab and silent ambience. We were met by Harry Kikstra of 7Summits and two filmmakers, Kevin Augello and Milan Collin, who immediately began filming us. Harry quickly explained that he was also making a documentary, but of a German climber, Thomas Weber, who became visually impaired at high altitudes.

  Harry had brought with him a sizable minibus, but its back door did not open, so our big bags and barrels had to be squeezed over the backseat. As we drove off, we introduced ourselves and chatted to one another. The streets were empty except for truckloads of soldiers. Harry told us that an all-day curfew had been declared by King Gyanendra in a desperate attempt to balance his authority against the growing power of the Maoist guerrillas. On some days the strikes were imposed by the Maoists and enforced with bomb threats—as we had learned from Ang Karma in 2004 when we came here for our Everest Base Camp trek. On other days the king called for curfews. Only tourist vehicles were allowed on the road. I fell silent, stunned and depressed by the troops at every corner and the roads barricaded by sandbags. All the shops had their shutters drawn and locked. We arrived at the Vaishali Hotel in the Thamel district of Kathmandu, where I had stayed seven years ago during the Australian-American Makalu Expedition. It had been a much cheerier place then.

  I decided to call Ang Karma. While I waited for the receptionist, I glanced at the Nepali language newspaper on the counter with its stark photos of bloody rioting. Two of the staff hovered around the television at the end of the lobby, watching for updates. It was the worst day I had ever spent in Kathmandu.

  Ang Karma was unavailable, but the receptionist kept trying. At last he picked up the phone.

  “Karma Daai, it is Lincoln. I am in Kathmandu.”

  The news was a complete surprise because he had not received my e-mail. It was great to hear his voice, calm as always despite the horrible battles taking place in the streets.

  “I will call you tomorrow after we
know whether the king is to call another curfew. Probably the evening will be safe, and I can bring your friends to my house for dinner. So, Lincoln Daai, I will talk to you then.”

  THAT FIRST EVENING there were drinks at the lobby bar of the Vaishali Hotel, and the space was full of men, generally serious-looking, wearing 7Summits-Club.com T-shirts or similarly branded Windstopper jackets. I was at the edge of a conversation when someone mentioned that the expedition doctor was Russian. I had worked with Russian sailors on Greg Mortimer’s Antarctic climbing cruises. The Russians were good fun when they let their hair down, but the rest of the time they seemed set upon establishing a national characteristic of being noncommunicative. And so when I heard the distinctive accent and idiom of Russian from the man beside me, I took the initiative.

  I turned with a beer in my hand and said, “So you are the doctor?”

  He smiled at me, a tall, balding man with glasses, the kind of person who looked like a doctor.

  “No. I am the expedition leader.”

  Every e-mail, every discussion to this point, had implied that Harry Kikstra was the leader. He had debriefed us on the journey from the airport. He had answered our every question.

  “But I have heard that the doctor is Russian.”

  “Yes. He also.”

  I could think of no other comment.

  “I am Lincoln,” I said, and I extended my hand.

  He shook it with a strong, warm grasp.

  “I am Alex.” With a sweep of his arm, he gestured to the woman beside him, whom I had already noticed. “And this is my wife, Ludmila.”

  Ludmila smiled at me, tall and confident of herself and her appearance. I excused myself and made a beeline for Richard, who was standing by the bar.

  “Yeah, mate,” he said. “Harry and Alex have got some kind of arrangement. Harry is looking after us, though.”

  The next morning we learned that there would be a curfew enforced from eleven A.M., which gave us two hours of shopping time. The four of us set out with me leading the way, Richard and Christopher following, and Mike filming. We extracted Nepalese rupees from an ATM, bought snack food for the trip from a supermarket, picked up a few items from different trekking shops, and tracked down some medicines needed to supplement our medical kits. Suddenly all the shopkeepers started clanking down their roller-shutters, and soldiers appeared on the streets to make sure everyone was obeying the king’s decree.

  While we were shopping, there were riots elsewhere in Kathmandu. This became a pattern that repeated itself over the next few days, a mere frustration for us but a nightmare for the people of the city.

  That evening at Ang Karma’s house we enjoyed a dinner cooked by Kunga with “one dish by Karma.” We sipped on Tibetan millet beer called thongba, except for Chris, who drank Coke. Karma’s mountaineering business was going well. He had a Korean team on the north side of Everest—the climbers and Sherpas already in Tibet—and other teams on other peaks. Karma was optimistic about Nepal’s future, believing that the current crisis would erupt in greater violence but that the ultimate result would be the return of democracy, with the Maoists a part of the government. As Karma drove us back to the Vaishali, we were stopped a half dozen times at checkpoints, with soldiers carefully shining flashlights on us before waving us on.

  SEVERAL SURPRISES awaited me during the official expedition meeting, which began at seven o’clock on the evening of April 10. Alex was indeed the leader of the expedition. With him were other Russians—guides, camp managers, a doctor, and a communications expert. The biggest surprise was that thirty of us were waiting to be briefed—climbers from the USA, Ireland, England, Italy, Holland, Norway, Denmark, South Africa, Russia, and Australia—a huge mountaineering team by any standards. The climbing Sherpas, kitchen staff, and Tibetans, plus the Russian crew, more than doubled our number. Years ago I had decided that my ideal expedition size was four to six people, so what on earth was I doing here? The answer, of course, was that we had accepted the commercial expedition because it suited our purposes. If I admitted to any of these climbers that I had no idea I was joining such a huge team, I would be thought an idiot.

  The mystery of the two leaders was also revealed. Harry and Alex were partners in a cooperative sense. Harry’s business was 7Summits .com, while Alex’s was 7Summits-Club.com. Harry’s primary role was marketing, and for this expedition he had elected to be Thomas Weber’s guide and the director of the film about his climb. In these circumstances, Alex had taken on the leadership role and management of the logistics for the expedition as a whole. He outlined the structure of the expedition, explaining that there would be an A-Team and a B-Team, and that each team would have twenty members. I was greatly relieved to hear that not all thirty were climbers—some were Russian guides, some were trekkers or filmmakers heading for either Advance Base Camp (known familiarly as ABC) or the North Col, and the remainder were summit climbers.

  Alex outlined the trip. As soon as the curfews permitted, we would drive from Kathmandu to Zhangmu, the town on the Tibetan side of the Nepalese border. Because there were grave dangers in heading to high altitude too quickly, acclimatization stops were built into our itinerary. Acclimatization would continue after we arrived at Base Camp, the approach being to head up toward Everest, retreat to Base Camp to recover, then repeat the process, increasing the height and distance every time. In this way, we would ready ourselves for our summit attempts.

  After the meeting, we walked a short distance down the street to the Rum Doodle Restaurant, which courts customers by offering free meals to climbers who have reached Everest’s summit. All of us ate for free that night because it was the expedition’s Welcome Dinner, courtesy of 7Summits-Club. I sat between two Americans, Slate Stern, an attorney from Santa Fe, and Vince Bousselaire, a preacher from Colorado who had mortgaged his house to fund his climb. I relaxed as I began to enjoy their company. Everyone seemed to be happy and excited, judging by the volume and volubility of the conversation.

  When the food had been eaten and all the plates had been removed, and as coffee was served to those who wanted it, Alex stood up to make his welcome speech. His words were received well by all and forgotten moments later by many—such are the effects of alcohol. I was among those who were sober, and so his final remarks lodged in my brain.

  “Tomorrow morning,” Alex said, “we run to the Monkey Temple. This will be for seeing the fitness of you for climbing the Mount Everest. We want to see you have the fitness. We will run at seven o’clock before the breakfast.”

  I did not like the sound of this. Going for a run was okay, but I was worried by the concept of testing us and the military mind-set behind that. If Alex was going to operate a boot camp program, I wanted no part of it.

  Nevertheless, at five minutes to seven the next morning, Mike and I went downstairs and waited outside. Christopher came down a few minutes later, but there was no one else in sight. In the dining room, set up at a table opposite each other, we found the two Americans I had sat between at dinner the night before, Slate and Vince.

  “Slate’s your man!” said Vince, when I mentioned the run. “I’ve still got a sore hip from running with him yesterday, so I’m going to take it easy.”

  “But I’ve already started breakfast,” Slate protested, “and I wasn’t planning to run today.”

  I looked at my watch. It was already seven fifteen.

  “Alex said we should run to the Monkey Temple and back before breakfast. So where is Alex? Where are the rest of them?”

  “Too much vodka,” suggested Vince.

  I looked through the window of the restaurant, but there was nobody waiting outside.

  “I’m going anyway,” I said.

  Slate pushed his plate away and said, “Okay, I’ll come. I ran there yesterday. It’s a good route.”

  He washed down his coffee with some water, then we set off, with Slate leading the way out of the hotel compound and north along the narrow potholed street. Rather than an expedi
tion jogging team of thirty, it was only Slate and I determined to reach the temple. We soon hit a major road and turned downhill toward the river. The road had a footpath, but there were too many pedestrians, even though it was only seven thirty in the morning, so we ran on the road. We crossed a bridge and ran along beside the river, which smelled and looked like a sewer. Slate started to draw ahead, so I increased my pace to catch up with him. Within minutes he had gained a two-hundred-yard lead. There was a bridge ahead, which meant a choice of paths, so I had to speed up if I was not to lose him. Luckily, he stopped at the bridge to adjust his iPod, and from there we ran together up a flight of steps to a Hindu temple. While Slate paused and looked around, I tried to get my breath back. Next was a road with high brick walls creating blind corners, which meant traffic was a danger. Finally, we ran along the tree-lined path that led into the grounds of the temple. The huge Buddhist stupa of Swayambhunath—our destination, the Monkey Temple—was on the top of the hill. Vince had mentioned that Slate had run up the stairs three times, so before Slate suggested the same discipline, I recommended that we walk.

  It was many years since I had been to this place, as my favorite of Kathmandu’s two big stupas was Boudhanath, which was more peaceful because it was not overrun by hungry monkeys. Both stupas were very similar—gigantic white masonry domes, each topped by a square gilded block. On each of those square gilded faces was painted a pair of all-seeing, all-knowing eyes. The blocks on each stupa were oriented so that every pair of eyes pointed to one of the four cardinal points. On top of each block was a thin conical tower, with shapes symbolic of the earth, the sun, and the moon at its zenith.

  Because it was on the outskirts of town, one advantage the Monkey Temple did offer was a broad view across the city—but not now, at the end of Kathmandu’s dry winter, when the dust was heavy in the valley and the precocious first rains of the monsoon had not yet fallen.