Rongbuk Monastery, Rongbuk, Tibet
April 25, 1939
2:30 p.m.
To Josef’s tired eyes, the Rongbuk Monastery was little more than a ramshackle cluster of dusty buildings sliding down onto the wide valley floor as if part of the immense slip of rocks and rubble that curved down from the towering hills above. Flat-roofed and meager, the place spoke only of supplication before the great mountain that punctured the bright blue sky ahead. Bursting from the two sides of the valley, Everest rose up before Josef, utterly massive.
With each step nearer, Josef felt his spirit weaken under the mountain’s unfriendly gaze. A comment Ang Noru made during one of their long, cold nights huddled around a small fire returned to him: “Sahib Josef, to you, I think, all mountains are friends. You must understand that Chomolungma is not your friend. She is a goddess with no need for human friends. You are as important and interesting to her as the fly is to you. She will kill you just as readily if you annoy her.”
Josef told himself to stop looking, that this view of the mountain, separated from the rest of the Himalayas, entire for the first time, was too much to contemplate when he was so tired and hungry. Instead he turned to look at Ang Noru to escape the magnetic pull the mountain had on his eyes. The Sherpa smiled grimly back at him, flicking his head up at the mountain, pulling Josef’s eyes back to it, saying, “Only here in the Rongbuk do you feel her truly. This is the place where all sahibs begin to really understand her great height. Not good to do on an empty stomach, I think. Better to look at monastery instead and use slow walking time to ask your god to make kind words to the Mother Goddess for you. I will find place to stay and equipment supply.”
Josef nodded, too exhausted to even talk, setting his gaze on the large chorten that stood before the main entrance to the monastery’s cluster of buildings. The swollen, dirty white cupola thrust a golden mast, with emblems of the sun and moon, high into the air before them. Four strings of wind-torn, faded prayer flags arced down from the apex to be secured to the ground by small stacks of carved stones. His fatigued brain registered the sight as a big radio transmitter beaming messages to the pinnacle of the mountain, communicating directly between the monastery and the goddess on the summit. The surreal, rippling thought told him how much he needed to rest.
Arriving alongside the monastery, Josef let his heavy pack fall to the ground and slumped down onto the dirt, leaning back against the whitewashed stonework plinth that supported the chorten. Ang Noru walked on to tie their remaining pony to a loop set in the side of the main entrance. With a final, “Sahib Josef, rest here. Better when you have food, sleep,” he disappeared into the dusty compound.
Josef could move no more. His only surprise, concern really, was that Ang Noru was not similarly exhausted. How does he do it? His energy, his endurance seemed limitless. The Sherpa made a mockery of Waibel’s rambling discourses on Aryan racial superiority in the library at Wewelsburg. It was Ang Noru who was the superman, not Josef.
The Sherpa was also now his friend. He had changed toward Josef immensely since the rescue. He was considerate and talkative, at times humorous, even if he still used the title “Sahib,” he applied it to Josef not Becker. It was only when Ang Noru spoke about the mountain, reluctantly, when pushed into necessary response by Josef’s endless questions or another distant sighting of it, that he became dour again. The Sherpa’s chopped, broken observations and warnings about how Josef should try to climb the mountain had become his mantra as he walked, particularly the one in which he saw his only possibility for redemption.
“Sahib Josef, your only chance is to pass unobserved. The British are noisy. They come with large expeditions like loud armies determined to conquer her. They are soldiers first and mountain people second. The Mother Goddess is not a castle to be stormed by a great force of men. You must be a mountain person first and a soldier second. Seek to live quietly on her sides, not fight her, and she will ignore you, allowing you to creep higher. The quieter you are, the higher you will get. You did it for me at Kampa Dzong; you will have to do it again for her, ten times over.”