Ascent

It took a monumental amount of organising but he is almost here. His home, his village, is the gateway to the highest and most difficult peaks. Generations of his family have guided climbers, including me, but this is his first trip to anywhere that isn’t up a mountain. Fortunately our mutual friend, who is taking the opportunity to travel home in between climbs, is with him. 

I am trying to wait patiently for them but standing still is not my strong point, especially when half the country has come through the arrival doors without any sign of them. I nudge forward to where I can be seen and wave, like a small child asking permission to leave the room, when they finally emerge. He is a small man so he doesn’t see me, but our friend does. He points me out to him and together they head in my direction. As they close on me I am struck by the clear, thousand mile stare in their eyes. I haven’t seen that look for some time. 

The three of us hug, laughs are plentiful and for a moment I fleetingly reminisce about how it feels to come home after a climb. Momentarily my mouth dries and just as my stomach threatens to rebel the pang begins to ease. They both fly back together next week and I envy them that their stay away from the mountains is only short. 

While our friend gathers their bags I take a long, deliberate look at him. I try to divine how he is coping with the strangeness of things but I see only amazement and joy in his face as he stands beside me. He is not worried; I am the one who is that, fearful that I have done something that I should not have, that I should not have bought him here, that I have risked changing the understanding between us somehow by displacing him.

This is still going through my head while, with bags firmly in our possession, we head for the escalator to the airport car park. He stops. Oh no I think, does this mean we will be taking the stairs? He tightens his grip on his bag, walks past me grinning and fairly leaps onto the bottom escalator step. When we all get to the top he tells me excitedly that he has never had such an easy climb. Our friend, thinking that our gibbered conversation is hysterical, unceremoniously grabs hold of him and together they ride the escalator several more times. I stand there like mum, minding the bags and fending off amused stares.

Eventually we all pile into the car and head out of the airport. I drop our friend off with promises of speaking tomorrow, and then the next stop is my place. I had convinced my husband to buy our city apartment because there was no garden to look after, but the real reason I wanted this space was that it is high up with an incredibly generous balcony and view. My husband insists that I alone tend our masses of pot plants as penance for my duplicity.

When we get to the city proper he cannot possibly contain himself any longer. With his head out of the car window, we proceed rather indecently down the city blocks with me holding on to his leg just to make sure he doesn’t actually fall out. He involuntarily ducks when we descend into our basement carpark but he takes the lift up to our floor as casually as if he has done it all his life. My husband greets us with sweet, milky, warm cups of tea and we sit down together to hear about his trip so far.

His stories are warm and amusing. He imparts them slowly, he talks about what he has experienced rather than what he has seen, and he compares it all to his home. The city buildings and skyline he perceives as he does the mountains. 

With his tales and anecdotes finished he takes my hand and walks me out on to our balcony. He breathes deeply, shakes his head, closes his eyes and squeezes my hand. 

‘You live here because you can be high here and see the mountains if you look hard enough.’ He says, it is not a question. I hesitate, gathering my courage, and then I whisper to him.

‘Why did you come?’

‘I climb mountains.’ He whispers back. I nod but, as usual, I will need some time to distill his words properly. 

‘It will be interesting days’, he says, ‘and each night we must spend long times together on your balcony, not speaking, breathing slowly.’ I agree. He talks more about the week ahead, the interviews he will do and the people he will meet. Then without any change in tempo he talks about his plans for next seasons’ ascent, a peak yet to be climbed successfully and one I know well.

Throughout the week we are constantly in front of people; interviews, lectures, politicians, school groups. He prefers not to go out at night because ‘that is when you fall off the mountain’ he warns. So each night we sit on our balcony with cups of sweet, milky tea placed between us. The week is too short and my husband prepares himself for what he knows is inevitable, even it I don’t yet.

It is our last evening and he sits with me silently. Our thoughts our own, the tea ever present. Once he saved my life on one of his mountains. We were roped together when I fell. I had already accepted the calm of the abyss when he halted my fall. He should have cut me loose but he didn’t. I truly know his courage, the depth of his spiritual core - and he knows I saw god. 

He understands that I am still somewhere else when he turns to me. He gives me time to return to him and then gently asks, as he did when I met him all those years ago, ‘why did you come?’

‘Because I climb mountains.’ I say as I look to my husband who has been watching and listening. My husband walks over to us carrying something I should but don’t immediately recognise. When he is beside me he carefully places my climbing bag, half packed, at my feet.

So, change of plan for tomorrow. Instead of me taking the two of them back to the airport my husband will take all three of us, I am going back with them for the next climb. I am surprised though that I seem to be the only one surprised about it. 

While I am away my husband intends to trade our apartment for a house with a garden. He appreciates that I don’t need the balcony anymore.