32

KHUMBU CLIMBERS

Khumbu Hotel, Thamel, Kathmandu, Nepal

Looking out between the peeling expedition stickers that covered the side window of the hotel lobby, Beth watched a group of climbers step down from a dusty minivan as two Sherpa began unloading their rucksacks from the rear doors. Soon after, the ramshackle band entered the hotel; just as hairy, hollow-eyed, and sunburned as the climbers in the photograph Beth had taken at Temba Chering’s but with none of the elation in their eyes. This bunch just looked worn out and miserable.

A tall bearded man appeared to be leading them and spoke in an English accent to another with a badly bruised face equal to her own from the attack in Dharamsala. “Look, Rasmussen, we’re back,” he said with obvious exasperation. “You may not have your bloody photographs but tonight you will have a comfortable hotel room rather than a Chinese prison cell so you should count yourself lucky. Take your key and go.”

“Bloody bad, Neil Quinn. You know? Just bloody, bloody bad,” the man grumbled as he walked away to the elevator, dragging his half empty rucksack along the floor behind him like a dead dog.

The Englishman quickly distributed the other keys, spoke briefly to the two Sherpa who had come in with them, then detoured to the small hotel bar alone.

Beth took her chance and immediately approached the Sherpa. Getting out her camera, she asked, “Can you help me?”

The older Sherpa, seeing the camera, immediately turned away from Beth to engage in a conversation with the hotel receptionist who, as they spoke, began to produce copies of the days’ newspapers from beneath the reception desk, her finger pointing to the horrific photographs on the front covers. Seeing the images, the Sherpa began to quickly question the receptionist in his own language then, taking one of the newspapers, also went into the bar.

Beth pushed herself in front of the younger Sherpa. The sight of her bulky camera also seemed to set off a look of panic in his eyes. “No photo, please, miss,” he said raising a bandaged arm before his face to block any attempt at a picture. Hoping to reassure him, Beth let the camera hang heavily on its strap, held up her own hands to show they were empty, and tried a different tack. “No. No. I don’t want your photo. Just your help.” She pointed into the bar. “Who is that man?”

“That is Mr. Neil Quinn. Our expedition leader,” Nima replied.

“Does he know a lot about climbing?” Beth made a show of twisting the high-definition screen on the back of the body of her Nikon toward Nima to show the image it displayed. “Would he know who the people in this photograph are?”

Nima peered close then seemed to swallow. Giving Beth a quick sideways look he began to speak to his colleague in Sherpali as he saw him exiting the bar. The older Sherpa shook his head and they both left the hotel to join a bigger group of their countrymen standing next to the minivan and to enter into their seemingly agitated conversation.

Left alone in the lobby, Beth entered the hotel bar to approach the Englishman instead. Perched on a barstool, he was drinking a neat double whiskey and looking at the front page of the Kathmandu Times in silence. Even though it was partially hidden by his long hair, Beth noticed that the man’s left ear was covered with medical dressing. In his left hand he was squeezing some form of grubby stress toy as he read intently. When she neared, the man let go of whatever it was and raised his glass to suddenly gulp down half of the drink. He visibly shuddered.

“Terrible images, aren’t they?” Beth said gently, starting a conversation.

“Yes,” Quinn replied, more to himself, lost in the newsprint.

“It happened last night at a festival,” she continued.

“Yes, they just told me. The Kumari Jatra.”

“The man—well, I assume it was a man—was supporting Tibet and the Dalai Lama. You can make out his sign amidst the flames.”

Beth’s finger stretched forward to the main photograph of the broadsheet, the tip resting just above the sign’s moth symbol to draw Quinn’s eyes once again to one of things in the image that had shocked him most: that same symbol he had seen on the empty kitbag in the destroyed camp.

“Bad day on Mount Everest?” Beth continued with her best smile. “Painful?” she said, pointing to his ear and pulling him from his thoughts.

The gentle question thawed Quinn a little. He looked back at Beth to notice that her own face was also scratched and bruised but said only, “Shaving cut.”

Distracted again by the newspaper’s horrific photograph, he added almost involuntarily, “And no, actually—not Everest this time—just a hellish journey back from another mountain But really . . . compared to . . .” He stopped, the sentence uncompleted, the Englishman lost in contemplation of such a horrible death.

“Which one was it? Mount Gassan?”

Quinn looked up at the attractive woman quizzically. “Sorry, you’ve lost me there. Mount what?”

“Oh, just another mountain I was reading about. Which one were you just on?”

“Shishapangma in Tibet. It’s a big mountain, over eight thousand meters, but it’s not Everest.”

“How was it?”

“The climbing was the easy part,” Quinn said, draining the rest of the whiskey in memory of its difficult aftermath.

“Can I offer you another? It looks like you might need it.”

“I do. Thanks.”

Beth signaled to the barkeep to refill Quinn’s glass.

“Do you know much about the history of Himalayan climbing?”

“A little, it’s said.”

“Would you be able to tell me who the people are in this old photograph?”

Beth showed Quinn the screen of her camera. He looked at the group picture and instantly recognized the veteran Sherpa Temba Chering with a group of mountaineers. As he looked at it she expanded the picture so that he could see each one of them in detail. The sight of one of them was just too much of a coincidence.

Quinn looked back at her a moment too long just to say, “No, sorry.”

Beth saw the same look in his eyes that she had seen in those of the younger Sherpa; a mixture of recognition and shock.

“Oh well, no problem. It was worth a try,” she continued as breezily as she could. “My taxi-driver told me that there is an English lady here in Kathmandu called Henrietta Richards who knows everything about the mountains and the famous climbers. He said that I should speak to her. Do you know her?”

“Vaguely,” Quinn obfuscated further.

“Do you think she would help me?”

“Possibly,” he muttered in reply, telling himself that if anyone needed to see Henrietta it was him. Downing the second whiskey, he got up to leave. “Look, thanks for the drink and I’m sorry I can’t help you any more, Miss . . . ?”

“Waterman. My name is Beth Waterman. I’m a journalist.”

Of course you are, Quinn thought, quite a pushy one judging by the bruises and the questions, but, telling himself to be cool, asked instead, “American?”

“Yes.”

“Great. I’ve climbed a bit in Alaska. Rode a motorcycle around Colorado once. Are you here to report on what happened last night?”

“No,” Beth said, looking carefully at the Englishman. “I’m not really sure why I’m here actually.”

The Englishman smiled back at her.

“Well, I’m sure you’ll work it out. I must go now. Good luck with your inquiries.”

Gelu reappeared at the bar door just as Quinn was leaving. With an outstretched hand he beckoned Quinn urgently back into the lobby where, under his breath, he said, “Mr. Neil, big problem.”

“What is it now, Gelu?”

“Your film of the helicopter is being shown on KTV news.”

“What?”

“Yes, and they are saying that Henrietta Richards released it.”

“Jesus.”

Abandoned at the bar, Beth looked down and saw at her feet the little mascot Quinn had been squeezing in his hand as he read the newspaper. It must have fallen as he hastily pocketed it and left. She quickly picked up the small white dog or horse—or whatever it was—and went out to the lobby to give it to him, but he and the Sherpa were already gone.

At the hotel desk she tried to get the attention of one of the two receptionists, but they were glued to a computer screen. One just said, “Yes,” without looking up while the other leaned in to better hear the computer’s small speakers as they buzzed with rapid-fire Nepali commentary.

“Excuse me, but have either of you heard of a lady in Kathmandu called Henrietta Richards?” Beth asked loudly.

Both faces instantly looked up in unison to say simultaneously and emphatically, “Yes,” before they looked at each other in surprise.

“What is it?” Beth asked.

“Miss Richards is just now in the news,” one observed tapping the screen with her finger.

“What do you mean?”

“Look at this.”

The receptionist turned the computer screen toward Beth to show what they were watching. As the film played again, Beth asked, “Where is this?”

They double-teamed the reply.

“They are saying in Tibet.”

“Near a famous mountain called Shishapangma.”

Just as Beth recalled the same name from her conversation with the Englishman, there was a loud click and the power in the hotel went out. The image on the screen vanished. Outside, the city fell into darkness to a distant chorus of barking dogs.