Authors: Linda Leblanc
When they reached the glacier again and easier footing, Marty asked if Dorje had climbed Everest. “No. But I must someday because Hillary carried me on his shoulders and they called me the Tenzing of the future.”
Eyeing him suspiciously, Marty crimped the corner of his mouth. “You met them, Hillary and Tenzing, the first two to reach the top?”
“When I was five.” He hoped that would be enough because telling more would stir up memories of how things used to be with his father, but Marty insisted and Dorje’s responsibility to keep
mikarus
happy overshadowed all else. So he would relate only the facts of the meeting and not reveal of the emotions of a young boy. Those would remain hidden in his heart.
He began by talking about the day he met Hillary. Dorje’s father had been gone many months taking 100 crossbreed
zopkios
and
zhums
over the Nangpa La into Tibet to trade for horses, which he would then drive south to India to barter for goods and grain. As Dorje had done every morning, he ran to the head of the trail and positioned himself to wait for his father. Porters continually arrived carrying loads of grain, handmade paper, and incense from southern Nepal to be bartered for Tibetan goods with the Sherpas of Namche acting as middlemen. Rushing to meet them, he searched for his father’s sweeping dark robe and braided hair tied in a red ribbon, but as each group passed, his heart sank and the lonely place inside grew larger.
Late one afternoon, he heard shouting coming from the upper end of the village as men and women poured from their houses onto the narrow dirt paths. Dorje joined them lining the trail as strange men passed, taller than Sherpas with light skin and hair, speaking an unknown language, their heavy shoes leaving peculiar imprints in the dirt.
Tugging on the skirt of an old grandmother, he asked, “Bajai, what is it? What?”
“Men returning from Chomolunga, the mountain they call Everest.”
When porters arrived carrying a Sherpa on their shoulders, everyone shouted, “Long live Tenzing!”
“Bajai, who is Tenzing?”
“Tenzing Norgay. He and a white eyes named Hillary are the first to reach the top of the Mother Goddess of the World.”
Intoxicated by the fervor and excitement of the crowd, Dorje jumped up and down waving his arms and yelling, “Tenzing, Tenzing.”
He froze and stared at a man they called Sahib Hillary arriving amid cheers and clapping: a giant among the Sherpas with a narrow face and long, thin nose unlike the broad Mongoloid features of the villagers. A shock of brown hair hung over his forehead; his skin and eyes were fair. Determined to touch him, Dorje followed the white eyes to a tent camp in the south end of the village and hung by his elbows on a stone wall, toes climbing the rocks. Soon other children gathered to watch too, their arms entangled in a mass for security, faces peeking out from behind each other.
Noticing their eager, gawking faces, one of the men smiled and pressed his palms together, bowing slightly. “
Namaste
.”
Ready to bolt like scared rabbits if he took a step nearer, the children giggled and twitched nervously. He was too new, too unfamiliar, too frightening—but not for Dorje. At five, he already sensed he was different from other children and wanted Hillary and Tenzing to recognize it. To get their attention, he climbed onto the wall and then leapt off with his arms thrown over his head, yelling, “
Namaste
!”
Preoccupied with getting settled, no one paid attention. Dorje fired an angry look at the children giggling and ridiculing him. More resolute than ever, he marched straight into camp. He could play one game better than anyone else in the village. After nervously rubbing his calf with the instep of his bare foot, Dorje began hopping on one leg. Arms gracefully out to the side lent him incredible balance enabling him to jump forever. Hop, hop, hop. Hop, hop, hop.
His back turned to Dorje, Hillary started towards his tent. “No, don’t go. Not until you see,” Dorje yelled in Nepali. When Hillary glanced over his shoulder, Dorje’s insides scattered like corn popping but he kept his balance and hopped even faster. Then he flashed the smile his father called the most infectious in the village and it spread all the way across his face. Laughing, Hillary scooped Dorje into his long arms and placed him on his shoulders.
“Sahib has the Tenzing of the future,” a porter yelled in Nepali and everyone laughed. Perched up there, Dorje was taller than anyone. He bounced up and down and touched Hillary’s hair and face. The most auspicious day of his life, Dorje ached to tell his father about it.
Not until a month later during the monsoon did Mingma arrive. Recognizing his stride, Dorje spotted him from afar and raced downhill, yelling, “
Baabu
!
Baabu
!” He sprang off a rock into his father’s arms and wrapped his bare legs and feet around him.
Mingma rocked him gently from side to side. “Have you been good?”
“Yes! Yes! See what I have!” Dorje rummaged in his pocket for the piece of gum he’d saved for his father.
“Hmmm. Even better than sweet yak curds. And where did my young son get this?”
“From the men who climbed to the top of the Mother Goddess of World. I want to see it,
Baabu
. Take me to see where Tenzing climbed.”
“Shall we go there now?”
“Yes,” Dorje howled and threw his head back, letting sheer rapture flow through him.
With Dorje on his shoulders, Mingma carried him fifteen minutes to the crest of the hill north of Namche. Arms tight around his father’s neck and peering over his shoulder, Dorje stared at the triangular peak twenty miles in the distance with its graceful plume of wind-driven vapor arriving from India.
“Is it far to the top?”
“They say that when you stand on Chomolunga, you are higher than anything, higher than birds can fly.”
“I will stand there someday because I am the Tenzing of the future.”
Marty interrupted Dorje’s boyhood story, “So why haven’t you climbed it?”
Relieved that he didn’t have to dig up memories of what had happened next, Dorje answered, “Because I was gone from the Khumbu for ten years until the winter of 1964. Since then, my government has not allowed anyone to climb because of trouble during what they call the Chinese Cultural Revolution.” Seeing the disappointment in Marty’s face, he added, “But I hear talk that climbers will return before the next monsoon.”
“Huh,” Marty said without the usual levity in his voice or expression. “It’s October now and your monsoon starts in June. That should be enough time.”
“Time for what?”
“For me to join an expedition. Colorado has a lot of serious climbers. I’ll find a way to get back here and get you hired too.” He hooked his elbow around Dorje’s neck and dragged him stumbling along. “We’re going to attack life together. You and I to the top.”
A riot of emotions fought inside Dorje: to finally climb Everest, to do so with a man who both disturbed and fascinated him, to face his father who abhorred
mikarus
for trespassing on the abode of the gods. Dorje tried gathering all these thoughts up to inspect them, but they were much too unruly and kept slipping away before he could corner them. So he squashed them by telling himself spring was months away and anything could happen between now and then.
When they returned to Namche two days later, Marty wriggled the blue shirt over his head and thrust it at him before he plopped the green hat down on Dorje’s head and flicked the bill. “It says SKI VAIL and I want you to keep it until I get back.”
“But what if—”
“No buts. I’ll be here so get ready to climb. You’d better keep these too,” he said, hooking sunglasses over Dorje’s ears. Leaning back, Marty said, “Yep. You’re cool.”
“Cool means cold.”
“It also means you’re the remarkable little kid who hopped on one foot to get Hillary’s attention.”
Bolstered by Marty’s words and the vision of climbing Everest, Dorje raced up the steep terraces towards home with his body always ahead of his feet. He stood outside panting and summoning the courage to go inside. He and Mingma had quarreled bitterly before he left, the usual argument about him not wanting to tend yaks during tourist season. With his heart lodged in his throat, he climbed the thirteen steps representing Buddha’s stages to enlightenment and lunged into the room. Mingma sat with a wad of yak wool around his wrist, spinning it as he gazed out the window where he must have seen Dorje coming up from the village and heard him on the stairs. Determined to make his father acknowledge him even if in anger, Dorje pulled a fistful of rupees from his pocket and cast them onto the bench.
“What’s this?” his father asked.
“Money for you. Like it or not, status is measured in rupees now, not the number of yaks. So you’d better get used to it.”
Mingma pushed off the bench. “Is that why you leave when I need you the most? Two weeks ago, I lost my most valuable
nak
when it fell trying to reach a tuft of grass on a high ledge. And a wolf attacked the
zhums
.”
“Nobody told me,” Dorje said with a sinking feeling. He was losing this battle.
“Because everyone, including your brother, knows that Mingma’s son cares only about making money for himself.”
Mingma had struck him a low blow. “My brother doesn’t think this. You have no idea what I want . . . or who I am. You have made no attempt to know me.”
“Nor have you to know me.”
His father was right. No matter how hard Dorje tried to resurrect the feelings of a six year old who adored his father, the anger and hurt of broken promises stood in the way like a stubborn old yak refusing to budge on the trail. Since nothing was going to move either of them, all he could do now was turn and walk out the door.
Mingma knew his son would soon be bringing the trekkers back down through Namche on the way to Lukla. Waiting at the window every afternoon, he finally saw Dorje racing up the steep terraces from the village after a fourteen-day absence. Every spring and fall his son abandoned all obligations to him and the family when the
mikarus
arrived. Mingma bristled at the sound of Dorje’s footsteps on the stairs as his son returned from working for the despised foreigners who were destroying centuries of tradition.
Clad in western clothing, Dorje burst into the room and cast a pile of rupees at Mingma as if to say,
Here, old man, see how much better I am than you
.
“What’s this?”
“Money for you. Like it or not, status is measured in rupees now, not the number of yaks. So you’d better get used to it.”
Only then did Mingma realize just how much the
mikarus
had seduced him with their grand ideas and fancy words. What good were these to a Sherpa boy? Nothing. They would only bring unhappiness and tragedy. Of that Mingma was certain, but he would keep his thoughts to himself because his son no longer saw or listened with a Sherpa heart. Like a festering wound that refused to heal, anger had arrived with Dorje four years ago. Perhaps his son still blamed him for not buying shoes that first winter, but it had been impossible then. Abruptly ending generations of trading to the north, the 1959 Chinese closure of the Tibetan border had reduced Mingma to a yak herder selling butter, milk, wool, and dung.
When Mingma accused his son of only wanting to make money for himself, Dorje yelled in a sharp, biting voice, “You have no idea what I want . . . or who I am. You have made no attempt to know me.”
As always, the son’s anger and hurt stood between them. So Mingma simply replied, “Nor have you to know me.” After a deafening silence, Dorje turned and walked out the door with nothing having changed in these four years. Mingma had lost the little boy who rode on his shoulders and had fallen asleep nestled in his lap. Someday they would talk of the past but for now the words remained unspoken. Watching Dorje’s rage leap over a rock wall and almost collide with a yak on his way down to the village, Mingma feared losing the man too. He knew that each year as soon as the monsoon ended
, mikaru
tents sprouted like wild orange poppies in the open space near the village spring and intoxicated Dorje more surely than even the strongest
chang
.
Perhaps the love of a beautiful woman would bring him back. Having heard rumors of Dorje and Sungdare’s daughter Shanti at summer pasture, Mingma decided to arrange a marriage that would provided a good alliance for both families since Sungdare owned a large potato farm in Khumjung. Surely selecting a girl for whom Dorje had some affection would please his son. Was this not the way of his
mikarus
whose young people married for love? Mingma had not met Dorje’s mother until months after their betrothal. His father an animal trader and hers a farmer, it made a good economic partnership and Mingma had grown to care for her over time. Staring at the bedding they once shared, he regretted not feeling more. Perhaps with Shanti, Dorje would discover the passion that had eluded his father in marriage.