Rising Abruptly (11 page)

I grab his wrist: Please, stop harassing me with your kindness.

You're delirious. Sue was too. Don't crack a mental. I'm here. The Natives believe durian makes you sweat.

Sweat! Sweat! The last thing on this planet I want is to sweat.

You're right. There's no scientific basis for this belief other than empirical knowledge. Are you experiencing some of it? Empirical knowledge?

The reputed stink's real enough.

Too right, ratbag! Too right!

I enter fitful sleep. Wind and rain lashing at my brain trigger a roller coaster of dreams. Losing Sab between hotel and airport, Sab reappearing, Sab extracting toxins from the forbidden durian, Jillanto handcuffed to Mr. Australia dousing himself with eau de durian, Jillanto and monsieur Hulot, for better or for worse, in health and in sickness, mates forever.

Feeling better, mate?

Belly cramps are subsiding. Put feet on the floor. Stumble to my Spartan toilet. Without much ado, wearing only his shorts, a towel thrown over his shoulder, monsieur Hulot barges in.

I'll be done in a minute, Hugh.

No need to bail out, mate.

He strips, soaps himself
thoroughly
and, using the ubiquitous hose, sluices himself. I'm no prude, but certain bodily functions are best performed in private. With ostentation, before turning off the tap, he drinks from the hose.

No need to boil the water here. Not like in the low-lying areas. You know why?

Too slow to answer, I must submit to a detailed lecture on the matter of drinking water in Asia. One has to be on the constant alert for water-borne nasty diseases, cholera and dysentery being the most common, until he reveals the great secret of the purity of water above treeline, as if my Rockies hadn't educated me on the subject.

After splashing pristine water over my face and neck, I feel somewhat better. Hungry even. Five P.M. Time for dinner.

In the sparingly furnished restoran, I order karbau steak and chips. Would enjoy a beer, which is on the menu, brought up like every other morsel by porters and guides. Decide against. Less garbage for them to carry back down. Besides, best not to push my luck and risk getting sick on booze. Among the modest selection on display, I choose a poskad showing the mountain in its full sunshine regalia. On the back of the card, I write: Très chère Sab, wish you were here. Gillo.

Using his knowledge of Malay, monsieur Hulot gets access to the kitchen. He explains to me that he will prepare himself a dinkum meal, to honour dear departed Sue who, long ago, convinced him to do away with the unhealthy Aussie barbie (he shakes his head at my karbau steak and chips), in favour of simple oriental fare. He is making himself a mess of vegetables, noodles and rice, followed by a dessert of tiny bananas, which he brought with him. He admits, not as original as carrying a durian up a mountain.

Through the server window, I watch him, as one would an actor on stage. He peels and jabbers, chops and chatters, dices and blabbers. As the vegetables pile up on the chopping board, so do his words; quite mesmerizing. Cooking rice, stir-frying vegetables, the heat, the lack of sanitary installations, cotton pants, anything is a trigger for him to expose at length on his knowledge of Asia. Amazing, to talk so much to say so little. It must be a condition brought on by recent widowhood.

He bangs cupboard doors in search of peanut oil. Finds only palm oil: Oh, no no no no no. Palm oil is absolute chunder. The worst, the very worst.

One tablespoon, monsieur Hulot. Not a whole tankard. One tablespoon won't kill you.

You're young, mate. You can afford to do a perish once in a while. Not me. Oh no no no no no. Now, in these circumstances, the missus, she'd call me a wowser, and would break her own health rule.

Steam the rice for fucksake. I keep grim silence to allow him the pleasure of working the problem for himself. I'm starting to sweat again. The durian effect? It's Ebin's secret, the secret of the two Orang Ulu teksi passengers I want to crack. Dusun and Orang Ulu people, the sweatless ones. Eh, Hugh! Do you sweat? The question never leaves my lips. To ask would be to submit to une réponse interminable. And yet, I must know. The first chance I get, I'll ask Ebin. For now, I'm content to watch monsieur Hulot buzz about, busy busy, a dishtowel rakishly tucked into the waistband of his khaki pants, monsieur Hulot, kitchen boy of the high camp.

While stir-frying his veggies in a wok, he talks about fried rice as breakfast food, which Europeans in hotels all over the island shun in favour of toast and marmalade. To his credit, he did steam the rice. Now, he stirs it with a flourish, leaping to reach for the salt shaker, sprinkling salt from a great height.

In this spectacle, comical on the surface, I am beginning to detect pathos. Although, slapping the man into silence is a more primitive impulse, I can't help but feel pity, une réelle pitié, for his acute loneliness, which is not sweating out of every pore, but borne on the tongue, the way a dog pants to stay cool. Hugh Low's loquacity extraordinaire, a great wail of pain for lost Sue Low.

And I feel a little heartache of my own thinking about Sab and me, separated by heat and jungle, cold rain and high altitude. Could we, like Sue and Hugh, never see each other again? And to think we have acquired the habit of believing that the current of friendship between two people can never run as powerfully as the current of love.

He carries his plateful to the long table where I've been sitting alone, eating karbau and watching him and feeling sorry for myself and my disastrous holiday in these “tristes tropiques.” Produces his personal chopsticks. Tucks in. We eat, I in silence and retreat, he talking and chewing without choking. With each bite, he moves himself and his plate closer and closer to me.

Once the food has been dispatched, I sip tea and lime juice, while back in the kitchen, he fusses with the kettle to make himself instant coffee, which he does not usually drink, but there is no tea to his liking in the rest house, the best tea being grown on the slope of… Another endless explanation.

Back in my bare monk cell, I try to sleep under wool blankets. Now that the cold cure is in full swing and that my body experiences deep in the bone the effect of lack of heat and that memory has all but forgotten the heat of the jungle, I summon the spirits of the mountain to summon Sab… The mind stays suspended on her face in the video, on her face etched in light and shadow on rock, and I tumble into the blessed sleep cure.

I wake up. One
A.M.
The wind is still howling, shaking the shelter in the best chinook tradition, but it has stopped raining. In the next bed, monsieur Hulot is sawing logs. I glance out the window. The sky is as clear as in outer space, stars shining blindingly. I follow the progress of a satellite. On the horizon are visible the lights of Kota Kinabalu. Far below, the lights of villages dot the jungle. At this hour, are the Dayak revellers, high on tuak, giggling and paddling across the molasses river toward their two-light-bulb village? Where is Sab at this hour? Returning safely and triumphantly to her jungle bungalow with a bag full of miraculous plants? Learning from the housekeeper where I have gone, without pause or refreshment, jumping back into her jeep, driving on the hairpin highway, headlamp lighting her way up the mountain trail, setting up at a trot toward the top, passing me by at Laban Rata, Sab, besting her best climbing time? I doze off.

Doors are banging.

Two
A.M.
Still no rain, wind still gusting. And bunk mate still snoring like a babi boar. Sleep for me will no longer be an option. And when he wakes up from his slumber, fresh as a daisy, he will vomit words all over me. My loose bowels have settled and, although it is cold, I'm no longer shivering.

In the restoran, the half-asleep young servers are wearing bulky sweaters over their sarongs and the trekkers are brimming with excitement. I force myself to eat something. Remembering our hunger when Sab and I trekked to Chinatown in the wee hours, a fine conclusion to nos folles nuits de Montréal. I drink sweet tea and nibble on French toast. In the back, his head right into the kitchen sink, the cook is hawking with such abandon, it sounds like terminal retching. His dreams must have been ferocious, for his need to expel much evil spirit is strong. I too must hawk. Losing Hugh, that lump in my throat, has become an urgent necessity. As urgent as my need for a cold snap. And so, to escape one and find the other, I must finish the climb. And so, I am allowing the call of the cold to lure me where I may encounter hypothermia.

At three
A.M.
, wearing all my layers of clothing, I join Ebin outside. He is lightly dressed in fleece pants and a windbreaker over his hoodie. He still carries no pack. Most likely, he keeps extra clothing at the rest house, guarded by the spirits of the mountain. I wonder if they do laundry. Divested of his propane tank, he seems so light, the fierce wind could transport him to the summit. No wonder his climbing time is so good. I turn on my headlamp, he his small torch, and he leads the way. Leaving the shelter of the balcony, the wind seizes us. I'm surprised by its warmth.

We begin the climb via a series of rough wooden steps and scaffoldings anchored to the cliffs, keeping footing and balance over granite slabs by means of ropes fixed to bolts drilled into the rock. An easy and mysterious climb in the middle of the night, une nuit extraordinaire dotted with the flickering lights of the climbers and their guides following us.

Ebin waits for me: Jillanto, down there, Tamparuli. Village and river with same name. My home.

Tamparuli. The home of a man. I so wish Sab were here. Once back down at headquarters, I'll mail her the poskad. Add that I had a marvellous time in her absence. I do feel her presence against my shoulder. Spending this night out with Sab in the high mountains of Borneo, the thick jungle below, lush with secret plants, above, the stars of the southern hemisphere sharing the sky with the equatorial half moon lying on its back.

Sab, the scientist. I do admire the true scientific mind. Not the operators of the world. Not the prima donnas. Not those who seek an advantage through position of power and through honours only to advance their career. But the true scientific mind that investigates tirelessly. Is curious for the sake of discovering the hidden functions and the minute mechanics of the physical world. And on this steep incline, a new thought forms in my mind. The effect of high altitude? Perhaps, but it seems to me, and without going gaga sentimental about it, that scientists, the true ones, are the only gods. If we must have gods at all.

A little after four, we reach tin shacks fitted with bunk beds and no mattresses, a primitive refuge for a dozen people. At 3,810 metres, Sayat Sayat is nestled next to the 3,932-metre Kinabalu South Peak. We take a fifteen-minute rest in the empty shack. In the other shelter, the group of Malays who spent the night here are sitting on the floor in a circle of candlelight. They are singing, I presume, ancestral incantations to the akis who inhabit Nabalu.

Ebin educates me: These Malays are Christians. They sing hymns to their god. For success on climb and to appease ancestors' spirits.

Wouldn't the dead protect them from mishaps on the mountain?

Ebin doesn't say. I drink from my water bottle, while he energizes himself by chewing betel nuts. I offer him the bottle. He declines: Thank you, no, Jillanto. I don't get thirsty when I climb. I don't sweat.

I say nothing, but I'm damn confounded. Nobody sweats in this land dissolving in humidity!

Not at all, Ebin?

That is so, Jillanto.

I don't buy that, but keep quiet. Despite my empirical knowledge of observing Ebin and the Orang Ulu men, even mate man, everybody sweats. Granted. Sab doesn't sweat much. And granted, I'm the grand champion of the overactive glandes sudoripares. Can't stop rehydrating. I perspire faster than I can replenish fluid, aware of the danger of severe dehydration. Thinking back, I haven't had a decent piddle in days. Seem to piss gold buckshot. Will leave this Borneo paradise a shrunken head.

So, tell me, Ebin, is it adaptation? A genetic trait acquired over the millennia to keep jungle people from swimming in perpetual sweat? Nevertheless, living in a steamy jungle, if you don't perspire, how do you cool off?

Ebin gets up. Time to go. Four thirty and the night is not so dark anymore. Another two hundred and ninety metres to the summit. We leave Sayat Sayat. The Malays are still chanting, but the elucidation of the source of their music has dulled the enchantment, whereas the mystery of the no-sweat people is kept intact by the betel-nut-chewing guide.

In the greyness of pre-dawn, we are ascending a steep gully leading to the immense summit plateau, composed of gently sloping slabs several hundred metres wide. We pass shadowy outcrops, the higher lesser peaks that form this mighty multi-summit mountain. I tick them off as Ebin names them. Tunku Abdul Rahman at 3,948 metres. The Ugly Sisters at 4,032 metres. Donkey's Ears at 4,054 metres. And the ridge to the mist-shrouded peak called St. Johns at 4,096 metres. The naming coupled with the incremental accumulation of elevation gain in muscle effort and lung capacity give me courage. We are still using our night lights and so are the other climbers, fireflies ascending. We are still in the lead and I am feeling strong.

At five thirty, a glow appears in the eastern sky. Ebin points north to Low's Peak, our destination. For the last couple of hundred metres, we scramble over scree made of large boulders, a terrain I know well, as if the Rockies had answered my call for the cold and transported their distinctive geology to this island to make my feet, twisting in the rubble, feel at home.

At five fifty
A.M.
, we can't climb any higher. We've reached Low's Peak, the highest point on Aki Nabalu. Ebin and Jillanto standing at 4,101 metres above the exotic South China Sea. New satellite imaging will trigger fierce debates challenging or cancelling the claim of the revered place of the dead as the highest peak in the region. Trifles from valley-bound folks. Carry a mountain in your body, regardless of its ranking on some list, and it bears heft and height fully enough. We have summited. I shake hands with my gentle and considerate guide. For such a massive mountain, the summit is tiny. However, it offers a formidable drop on the opposite side from our arrival, the drop guarding the jungle far below.