Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain (54 page)

As for Junk’s plea for her to visit, River Leaf made it clear that it was not going to happen. She would never set foot on American soil again. However, she proposed an alternative. “She demanded Junk come back to Asia,” McGee recalls. “’There are people here who can help you,’ she argued. They can’t save your life, but they can bring you peace in your last sliver of days.” Junk became flustered as the thought of travel around the world was, to say the least, rather distasteful at the moment. He apparently shot back into the phone that there were people who could help him in the United States as well and that he was to begin radiation treatment the following day. River Leaf laughed. Junk was going to take comfort in radiation? He was looking for peace in the same force that had scorched a dark, smoking exclamation mark into the final page of World War II? Turn away from ‘The Great Father’s’ arms, she implored. Come back and find true peace.

When Junk’s plane landed in Kathmandu two days later, McGee was with him. The old Irishman, again rotund and strong after more than a decade away from Fumu, must have stood in stark contrast to his now frail and gaunt friend as they proceeded down the stairs to the tarmac, arm in arm.

Waiting for them was a sight to behold. A veritable city of
men in nappies
- some white, some brown, some yellow, some red – smiled and cheered. They threw sweets, toys, crafts, and game pieces into the air. Mano himself was present, and according to most of the accounts from that day, he was wearing only what God had given him upon the moment of his birth. Mano would later explain his nudity by saying he had been “promoted.” He was now ordained a “full infant.” The Great Parent loved him completely and unequivocally. The people were closer to Fumu’s approval. “If I and the others continue with our good ways, the lava will soon stop and milk will flow.”

A giant pram was rolled forward and Junk was gently placed into it. The pram was then turned and wheeled at an unrushed pace away from the airfield surrounded on all sides by throngs of man-children. The long journey to the monasteries had begun and would last for several days. Along the way, Aaron was swaddled and showered in dried figs, chokecherries, and Turkish delight. Men poured drops of water from small cups onto Aaron’s tongue when he thirsted. Then the monsoon rains came and the pram was covered up; Junk rested in the dry, peaceful dark. When he winced from the pain of his sores, the man-children could do little for him but open the pram, break his swaddle and hold his hand. McGee was placed in charge of the hand-holding; not an easy task for the man seeing as he was now in his sixties and having trouble keeping up.

They arrived at the monastery on an unseasonably warm day in August. Chhiri Tendi recalls, “What strange weather. It was beautiful! Shrubs bloomed around the nearby farmed fields and along the base of Qila’s distant arêtes. The air was ridiculous with the smell of rhododendron and – I know this sounds naughty - the cries of babblers and tits.” Actual children, not their full-grown simulacra, ran about engrossed in their mirth. No man-children were to be seen frolicking in the sunlight, for they were all on hand for the journey from Kathmandu. Junk’s pram was carried up the mammoth stairs leading to Mano’s monastery and ultimately to Mano’s room in the back. As the reader may recall, one wall of the space was utterly absent so as to permit a sweeping view of the saddle ridge between Asha and Lata, and beyond the ridge, still clouded and unnerving, the summit of Fumu. Junk was placed on a soft bed of hay and cloth, a warm fire crackling nearby to counter the chill coming through the open wall. A large child’s mobile hung above the bed, bedecked in poker chips, postcards of Boston, a bottle opener, a woman’s brassiere, and photographs of his mother, his father, McGee, and Hoyt. The mobile was spinning gently in the warm and cool winds of the room.

Junk was mostly unconscious once situated at the monastery. He rejected food and water. He occasionally growled from the pain. In his delirium he asked for Hoyt. He asked for his mother. He even asked for his father. But most of all, he asked for River Leaf. McGee recalls, “He said her name all night. Not like I’m a fairy or nothing, but I have to admit I felt a little jealous about how much he called for her when I was right there to comfort him, and I’d known him much longer.” As if the angels had heard him, River Leaf arrived from Calcutta no more than two days after the pilgrimage had delivered Junk to the monastery. “She looked grand,” Chhiri Tendi recalled. “She was in her traditional Sioux finery; a dress of buffalo skin, moccasins, hair in braids. Exquisite.”

When she entered the room where Junk lay, his eyes opened before she even made a noise, as if he sensed her presence preternaturally. She held his hand and leaned in close to him. She was silent and smiling. He looked back at her, teeth clenched against the pain. Their eyes apparently never left each other after that.

Our friend McGee probably should have made his exeunt at such a juncture in order to allow Aaron and River Leaf a private moment, but he could not. McGee recounted his feelings to me: “I had a sense like I might never see my pal again once I left that room. I wasn’t goin’ nowhere.” And it is a good thing for us he did not, because he remembers everything that happened next as if it transpired yesterday. River Leaf spoke firmly to Junk:

“
The very first thing a Sioux child is taught is never to cry. A child’s cry can attract enemy tribes. From the moment we are born, every time we let out a wail, our mothers gently pinch our noses and put their palms over our mouths, making it hard to breathe. After a few times, we stop crying and almost never turn to tears for comfort again. Then as we grow up, from childhood to adulthood, we quietly bare our miseries as they arrive. Men of the tribe who we call ‘contraries’ have the job of making us laugh when things get hard. When storms come the contraries walk around on their hands outside among the lightning strikes. They wear moccasins on their hands. When we are scared before battle, the contraries sit atop horses but seated backwards and holding a gun aimed at themselves. If floods took our fields or if drought killed our horses, the contraries would do all in their power to make us smile and ignore our pain.

“
I no longer believe in that way, Aaron. There is no need to hold back. Why aren’t we dissuaded from laughter while tears are forbidden? Both make a sound. The enemy can hear either. We cannot be silent our whole lives. We must cry. We must cry because the world begs us to. It demands it of us. It pulls our hair and burns our skin and steals our most beloved things. And we are filled with salt water and have small holes near our eyes where the water wishes to escape. There are no enemies here, Aaron. You are among those who love you. Cry, Aaron. Cry for everything bad that has happened to you. Cry for everything joyful. Cry for the pain in your blood. Cry for the joy of having faced the world with a courageous heart.

“
I love you, Aaron. I am here with you. It is okay. Cry.”

River Leaf did not need to ask it of him those last few times. He had begun. His gaze affixed on River Leaf, his eyebrows rose like a drawbridge and the tears rolled underneath. His mouth opened wide and let out a low sound, a keening, that went on and on without a breath of interruption. It became louder and then the waves of sound broke into a storm. He wailed and screamed and perhaps even laughed at one point. He was in the throes of a Primordial Emotion underlying all other emotions - neither good nor bad but simply overwhelming. Smiles appeared on occasion and then the corners of his mouth would fall back again to a pained scowl. The tears were all over his sunken cheeks and pillow.

Only a few words came out of Aaron during this time. “The view!” he cried, looking at River Leaf. “The view! It is so lovely!” His crying continued a little longer as his eyes trained up to the mobile. Then his crying stopped, the eyes ceased to blink, and he was gone. River Leaf rested her head on his still chest and wept.

When Chhiri Tendi awoke very late the following morning, he was the only person left in the monastery who was not a man-child. River Leaf had already scurried off during the night and no one saw her go. To this day her whereabouts are unknown. A very rattled McGee had left for Kathmandu even earlier, only an hour after Junk had died. He did not want to attend the funeral pyre that was part of the man-child’s religion (Actually, Mano said they were improvising because they had not actually had anyone in their group die yet) and a pair of man-children guided him back to the capital. McGee would return to Boston and stay himself; attending to Junk’s business, shooting dice, and on occasion, when no one was around, stealing away to New Hampshire for a quiet weekend hike in the mountains.

Chhiri Tendi’s first blurry visions of the day must have confused him terribly. Mano and all of the other man-children were dressed in (rather dated and dusty) adult clothing. “The nature of the clothing varied with the person”, Chhiri Tendi recalls. “Some wore kilts, others lederhosen, bowler hats, World War I American infantry uniforms, loincloths, you name it. Was I ever baffled.” Chhiri Tendi described Mano’s garb and I knew it to be
the uniform of a young Brazilian tenente from the days of the revolts
. Mano had grown since last time he had donned the uniform; skinny wrists and yellowed socks poked out and the shirt would only remain tucked for moments at a time. He and the others were packing pieces of luggage that also looked quite out of fashion and weathered. When Chhiri Tendi came in, utterly perplexed, Mano was placing several weeks’ worth of clothing, as well as dried meats and fruits, into a steamer trunk.

Chhiri Tendi remembers the discussion that followed in Mano’s room quite well:

“
Some religions have expiry dates,” Mano said. “Take Christianity for example. When Jesus returns, the pope will be out of a job. And our little nameless religion is no different. We have fulfilled our hopes and we are ready to return to the world.”

Chhiri Tendi recalls asking a very stupid but understandable question at that point. “Nursing Junk during his death was your goal?”

Mano laughed. “What?! No. No, we have been good children. We have appeased the mountain.”

“
How do you know?”

Mano put his arm around Chhiri Tendi’s shoulder and walked him to the open wall. The day before them was gorgeous. The warmth was overpowering, as if the entire Himalayan range had let down its guard and was willing to discuss any topic. The air was so dry, the blue sky so cloudless overhead that looking at the view without squinting was nearly impossible. Through those squinted eyes, Chhiri Tendi took in two images that seemed impossible but were indisputable. For one, Fumu’s summit was temporarily devoid of smoke. One could make out every detail of its ugly, tragic peak; a charred, misshapen lump abused by millennia of its own rage. The second vision was closer, and in some ways more spectacular; Chhiri Tendi found it even terrifying. He was looking now at the base of the ridge between Asha and Lata that crossed his line of vision only about one mile away. Rivers of high-pressured water shot out of dead lava tubes and spilled forth over every inch of terrain. It washed over rocks, trees, barley fields, the legs of grazing
zopkyoks,
and the even the supports of the monastery in which they stood. The sound of the flooding was not overpowering, but instead rather soothing; a calm river flowing beneath accompanied the low rumble of distant waterfalls.

The water flowing all around them was runoff from melting glaciers at the bottom of Fumu. Heavy with sediment, the liquid did not look like water at all, but instead had a bright white caste.

Mano turned to Chhiri Tendi, pointed outside and smiled.

“
Milk.”

###

About the Author
:

Lord Kenneth Tersely is a figment of Jonathan Bloom’s poorly-digested lobster roll dreams.

Jonathan
Bloom got his Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology in 1999. His dissertation focused on the Psychology of Language.  Since then, Jon has spent the past ten years writing the kind of dialogue no writer would ever wish to compose: The dialogue between you and one of those automated systems that answers the phone when you call a company.  That's right: He designs phone menus for a living.  "Hell Is Above Us" is Jon's escape plan.  He also dabbles in stand-up comedy, sketch comedy podcasting, and Karate.  Most importantly, Jon is a husband and father of two.  He lives in Maplewood, New Jersey.

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