Beyond the Summit (12 page)

“Twelve rupees.”

At first Mingma was stunned; then he decided the man couldn’t be serious. Surely he was getting back at him for all the times fun-loving Sherpas had convinced Rais that rupees flowed from the Everest ice field. The numerous accounts of shivering Rais going to the mountain in search of the legendary cash had provided many nights of humorous gossip. So 12 rupees was a fine joke. Throwing his head back laughing, Mingma asked, “But truly, how much?”

“Twelve,” the Rai repeated, his voice unyielding. Arms folded, Mingma rocked back on his heels waiting for the farmer’s lips to quiver suppressing a smile or even a tiny tuck in the cheek. But the man never flinched. “Do you want it or not?” the farmer asked impatiently.

No longer amused, Mingma could feel himself tightening up. He needed grain and this man was robbing him. “Not at that price. I’ll give you one fourth the amount.”

“I came all the way from Jubing because you pay more in Namche.” Flicking his hand towards something behind Mingma, he added, “I heard the man with the big ears will pay much for his tourists, so why would I sell to you for less?”

Mingma spun around and saw Pemba strolling through the market attended by three heavily laden porters. Blood pounding in his ears, he started to turn away before he lost face in front of other villagers. But seeing his oldest son assist the enemy in bargaining for rice that he, the father, could not afford enraged Mingma. So that’s where Dorje had spent the night. Suddenly all the anger from past months hurled itself from his lips. “You pestilence-ridden, mangy cur rolling in dung to mask your own foul odor,” he yelled striding towards Pemba with both arms in the air, the large sleeves of his robe flaring out like bat wings. “Your greed pollutes you and everything around you. You’re not even worthy of wiping the soles of my feet.”

Pemba’s eyes narrowed. “And your soles will never be clean as long as they wade in yak shit and you’re either too ignorant or too stubborn to give up your old ways.”

Trembling with anger, Mingma tapped the side of his head, the spiritual center of his body. “I will not corrupt my soul with money that destroys our ways and brings death to our people. You were once my friend but some things cannot be forgiven. Never enter my home again. You are not welcome at my hearth.” Glancing at his son, Mingma saw such resentment in his eyes that he had to turn away before saying something he would regret. Striding defiantly through the crowd of onlookers, he knocked down a damn
mikaru
trying to take his picture.

Dorje gawked in amazement at Pemba who had not only rebuffed his father’s overpowering presence but called Mingma ignorant and stubborn. Maybe wealth bought courage and power. But w
hat can’t be forgiven?
As he started to ask, Beth and Eric intervened questioning what the scene was all about.

“Nothing. Just two old friends having an argument.”

“The hell it was,” Eric said brushing dirt off his shirt and pants from the fall. “The Tibetan had real hatred in his eyes.”

“He’s not Tibetan,” Dorje snapped. “You should not take pictures without permission. Now go spend your rupees. The market will be over by noon and Sherpas will pass the day drinking
chang
and talking about everyone in the village.”
Especially my father,
he thought, turning away from them. What had provoked Mingma’s outrage? Something to do with the Rai selling millet. Standing over the farmer, Dorje demanded, “What did you say to the man in the robe?”

“He wanted two
pathi
but refused to pay.”

“With many
pathi
to sell, not just two.”

Shoving the brass container
towards Dorje, the farmer added, “I say the same to you. The man with big ears will buy it all at that price and I won’t take less.”

So that’s how it is
, Dorje reminded himself. Since the Saturday market began three years ago, he had watched prices rising as more Sherpas earned money from tourists, but he hadn’t understood the impact until now. Men who didn’t profit from them were being left behind. Frustrated as he was with his father, he couldn’t let him be humiliated like that.

“I was there and know what happened,” Dorje said in a carefully measured voice, trying to remain calm and repair the damage of their last meeting. “Accept it as a gift from me.”

His robe sweeping the floor, Mingma strode to the end of the room and turned with fiery eyes. “I don’t need your charity and want no part of their death money.”

“Then starve because that’s what will happen if you don’t quit being so damn stubborn.” Waving his arm around the room, he shouted, “Build a teahouse like Pemba or . . . or r . . . ” Searching for the cruelest barb to provoke his father to action, he added, “Hire on as a porter. You’re strong. Then maybe you can take care of your family.”

As Mingma stormed back towards Dorje, his eyes bore right through him impaling him to the wall. “I’m an educated man, not one of your pack animals.”

“Educated?”

“Eight years I studied in Tibetan monasteries while my father traded there.”

“But you learned nothing. You can’t speak English, can’t read or write Nepali like young children in the Khumjung School. You read Tibetan but can’t even write that.”

“I don’t need to compose scriptures, only read them.”

“And you do that all the damn time,” Dorje dragged out imitating the monotonous droning that went on day after day. “You must have a thousand sins to atone for.”

“Don’t talk to me of sin,” Mingma muttered and swung his hand across Dorje’s face. “You know nothing of these matters.”

Paralyzed by the blow, Dorje said nothing but simply watched his father exit the room. But what matters did he not know? There were no words to make up for his dishonor toward his father. Never meaning to go that far, he’d been caught in a word avalanche tumbling out of control.

“He’ll come back when his pride heals,” said a quiet voice behind him. Dorje whipped around and saw Droma Sunjo. He hadn’t noticed her when he came in and rarely spoke to her when he did because he was jealous of the attention and sustenance his aunt and her son took from Mingma—things his father had denied him and Nima for ten years. As far as he was concerned, they merely existed in the house, nothing more.

She lowered her head as if trying to conceal the goiter. “Why do you always fight him?”

Who was she to ask? He owed her no explanation but the question demanded an answer in his own heart. “I don’t know,” he heard himself saying aloud. “I don’t mean to, but when I open my mouth, harsh, ugly words rush out and I can’t stop them.”

“They hurt him.”

All of a sudden, Dorje needed this woman who understood his father better than he did. “How do you know that? What does he say?”

“Nothing. Your father doesn’t speak to me of such things, but I see it in his eyes as he watches for you at the window every day.”

No. Impossible. The man who had just hit him didn’t care. “He watches for me?” Exasperated and confused, Dorje sank onto the bench and kicked the bag of millet. “So what do I do with this thing?”

“Leave it. He will bury his pride because he needs the grain to brew
chang
for a
sodene
.”

“
Sodene
? Whose?”

“Yours.”

His emotions in complete shambles now, Dorje fell against the seat and closed his eyes to make the room stop spinning. So what other surprises did Mingma have? Was he planning to marry him off to some cretin from Phortse? The village was full of them. Or maybe a girl with a twenty-kilo butt, the daughter of someone who could benefit Mingma economically so he wouldn’t have to change his old ways. Whoever she was, Dorje didn’t want any part of it. He leaned forward again with his elbows on his knees, his fingers plucking at each other. Now what? Confront him again so soon?

Looking back at Droma Sunjo, he really saw her for the first time—a woman whose disfigurement isolated her from the eyes of strangers and most likely kept her from his father’s bed. Dorje had never witnessed any sign of affection between them. “I’m sorry,” he said as if she could read his mind. She blushed and little pleats formed in her cheeks, the first smile he’d seen on her face. It was then that he realized she was pretty in her own way. He would bring a gift and tell her so the next time he returned, but for now he was too preoccupied with thoughts of Mingma.

The hive of market activity had already diminished. After
chang
and the exchange of weekly gossip, sellers would begin the long journey home with their empty baskets. Where was Mingma? Dorje knew he should wait until his father cooled down, but his anger was quick and hot like flames roaring through dry grass. He ran to Chotari’s home where Mingma often played cards. After taking several deep breaths to still the rioting inside, he stepped through the door having no idea what to expect. Then his father’s cold, hard stare removed all earlier thoughts of forgiveness.

Deciding he had nothing more to lose, Dorje released his mouth in a rampage of words. “If you think marrying me off to some twenty-kilo butt is going to turn me into an ignorant, shit-gathering fool like you, you’re dead wrong. Things are changing here and you can’t control me like one of your belligerent yaks. So forget about the
sodene
. I won’t do it!”

Mingma bolted from the seat and began that annoying pacing again. “Never did I show my father such disrespect.”

“Because he was a better father,” Dorje shot back then winced, anticipating another blow.

Only inches from Dorje’s face, Mingma’s eyes blazed and the dark blue veins in his forehead pulsed like worms inching along his scalp. In a bitter, commanding voice that forbid a response even in Dorje’s agitated state, Mingma announced slowly and clearly, “You will do exactly as I tell you. If Shanti’s father accepts my offer, you will be wed before the summer monsoon. Now get out of my sight.”

Once again, Mingma had taken Dorje’s emotions and twisted them inside out and upside down. Not a cretin or twenty-kilo rear but Shanti whom he had lusted after and loved all summer long, Shanti with the large brown eyes and strong back who giggled and teased him in the meadow. Did his father know of this? Struck as mute as Droma Sunjo’s son and possessed by the same vacant stare, Dorje envied Dawa because he could exit a room with his awkward ambling gait and no one would blame him.

By noon the baskets lining the terraces at the entrance to Namche had been cleared away. Only scattered grain remained, strewn by the wind. Gone too were the squawking chickens and bleating goats, the loud haggling and arm waving. Donkeys eager to return home trotted down the hill relieved of their loads. Beth had recorded all the sights, sounds, and smells and Eric had shot four rolls of film. Now she wanted to document everyday village life. Passing them coming up the hill was a Sherpa lumber truck: a porter with nine two-by-eight boards ten feet long strapped to his back. His face deeply furrowed, his short, wiry legs all muscle and sinew, his feet, bare, the man navigated a sharp corner by pulling on a rope attached to the top end of the boards and turning them. Racing ahead to photograph, Eric followed him to the delivery area at the north end of the village where two men were sitting on the ground with crude hammers splitting and shaping rocks by hand with machine-like precision. The corners of the new house they were building were perfectly square and wood for the trusses and windows had just arrived.

Heading back, Eric said, “Slap me across the side of the head if I ever complain about bringing groceries up from my garage again.”

“No such thing as free delivery here. He probably made a whole $1.00 or $1.50 a day to transport it and has never even seen a truck.” Hearing children’s laughter, Beth jumped out of the way as two young boys raced past rolling a large tire with a stick on either side to control the shorter axle through the center. “But I could be wrong,” she laughed. “Look at that.”