The Ascent

shifted the topic.

'I still can't believe he came just to say thanks.' The thought of a boy with nothing

more to do on this desolate plateau than set off into the deep wilds to randomly bless a

bunch of strangers made Abe feel lonely for him.

'I like him,' Daniel said. The boy had lifted Daniel's ice axe and was testing the

point's edge on his thumb. 'He's got real sand. We ought to make him a climber.' With

a sudden sweep of his arm, Daniel seated his black and orange Baltimore Orioles

baseball cap on the monk's head. It was sweat-stained and much too big, but the gift

could have been gold. The boy's eyes widened and he grunted, 'wah.'

'What's his name?'

Abe blinked. He'd never thought to ask. Unconscious, the boy hadn't needed one.

'His name is Wangdu,' Nima said.

Daniel tried it out. 'Wangdu.' Then he asked, 'Where are you guys off to?'

'Final exam,' Abe said. 'I want to give a last look over. You can tag along if you want.'

Daniel pushed against his knees and stood up. His joints crackled and Abe could see

the electric painkiller box bulging on his hip. What a bunch we are, Abe thought, lame

and halt. Mortals beneath our immortal grasping.

The four of them crowded into the empty dome tent. The smell of unwashed

humanity was a given, but another odor was harder to ignore. Abe hadn't noticed it in

the open air.

'Nima, ask him to take off that skin jacket and his shirt.'

When the boy shed his final layer, the tent filled with a terrible stench of rotting

flesh. Abe sat back, stunned.

'He's dead,' Daniel murmured. 'He looks dead.'

He was half right. Under the skins and T-shirt the monk was only half alive. His

various wounds had grown worse, much worse. In the light of day – what light was

left – his bruises had taken on the vile yellow and gangrenous hues of rotten fruit. The

animal bites were leaking a foul sap, and the strange erasertip markings around his

nipples had putrefied.

'It wasn't like this,' Abe said. He placed a bare palm against the boy's suppurating

chest and, through the callouses on his hand and fingers, he could feel the infection hot

and animate. The monk was being consumed alive.

Abe struck back at his own repulsion. He searched for another emotion and found

his anger and started to lash out at Nima. 'I thought Krishna was going to care for him.

I gave instructions, damn it. I told him...'

Nima wasn't even listening, too shocked by what they were all seeing and the foul

odor they were breathing. Abe bit the scolding off. He was the doctor, not Krishna,

and this wasn't Main Street, USA, where modern medicine was a God-given right and

a second language. It was Tibet, on the edge of time. The world was rough and

primordial out here. People died of things like wood splinters and chickenpox and

broken bones and insect bites.

'Tell him to lie down, Nima. Keep him here. I'll be back with some things. Pills and

salve and bandages. I have to clean him. I have to start all over again.'

He turned to exit, but Daniel was blocking the doorway, sullen with disgust and

curiosity. 'Abe, I don't understand this.'

'I don't either. But if we can't handle this infection, you're right, he's dead.'

Abe returned to find Daniel forcing a dialogue that Nima clearly did not want to be

part of. The Sherpa's face was dark and outraged, but so was Daniel's. Everyone

seemed angry but the monk, who had lain back in a nest of soft down bedding.

Daniel turned on Abe. 'You told me he got hurt in a camp accident.'

'I guessed,' Abe said. 'He was unconscious, and no one knew for sure.'

'Oh, they knew.' Daniel bitterly spat, but it wasn't a bitterness aimed at Nima. 'They

just weren't talking.'

'But why?'

'They were scared.'

Abe persisted. 'I don't see why.'

'See those holes on his chest?'

'Parasites? Maybe some kind of disease.' Abe shrugged. He knew Daniel was setting

him up to expose his naïveté or simpleness, and that didn't improve his mood. He had

done the best he could in that smoky hut at three in the morning.

'Tell him about those holes,' Daniel said to Nima.

Nima frowned at Abe. The mistrust stood heavy and black in his face. Finally Daniel

gave the answer. 'Red Pagoda Mountain,' he said.

'Pardon me?'

'It's a Chinese cigarette. The army officers like to smoke them.'

Abe gaped stupidly. What was being said here?

'These didn't happen on the trail. They're cigarette burns.'

'Come on.' Abe shut it out.

'And these bruises? And the dog bites?'

Dog bites, Abe thought. That's what the punctures and lacerations were. He kept it

simple and organized and manageable.

'Abe, listen to me. These aren't camp wounds. Think about it.'

He knew what Daniel was going to say. Daniel said it.

'These are torture wounds, Abe. He got these in a Chinese prison.'

'Impossible.'

'Why?'

Abe glared at him. 'Impossible.'

'You hear stories over here. What the Hans are doing to the Tibetans. But it always

sounds too much. Like, you know, a million dead? And the torture stories, what they

do to these people. Raping nuns with cattle prods, flogging monks to death with iron

bars...'

Abe had no idea what Daniel was telling him. He had no idea what to think. He had

come to climb a mountain. That was all he knew.

'Nima,' Daniel demanded. 'Tell what you know.'

The Sherpa spoke haltingly, with reluctance. 'This man, you know, they put him in

the prison. They making very bad things happen to him. He run from there. Now he is

going to Nepal side.'

'He's escaping?' Abe asked.

'He's trying to,' Daniel said. 'But the passes are high. He's trapped. He wouldn't stand

a chance in his condition. Look at him. No wonder he had to crawl to get this far.'

Through his paramedic work, Abe had seen terrible things, things worse than this,

bodies torn in two, skinned by windshields, ruptured like soft grapes, ripped and

shredded. But in all of that the suffering had never had a purpose, a reasoned cause,

never anything like this. What made this unthinkable was that another human being

had written the suffering into the boy's flesh, one wound at a time. It was beyond

belief. Abe's teeth were gritted and he felt tears of frustration forming in his eyes.

This wasn't supposed to be part of the deal. He'd come to see beauty and strength and

Utopia. He blinked his tears away.

'The yakkies got him as far as Base,' Daniel went on, and Abe could tell that Daniel

was extrapolating much of this even as he spoke. 'And the Sherpas, they don't know

what to do with the poor kid except keep it quiet. If the Chinese get wind of this...'

'What did he do to them?' Abe asked. He was fighting to accept what lay before him,

the proof of evil. He needed more time. Or a good reason. One or the other.

Nima asked the monk, and the monk crossed his wrists, made two fists, thrust them

down and lowered his head. Abe needed no help translating. Defiance. Resistance.

'He maked this at the Jokhang,' Nima explained.

'The big temple in Lhasa,' Daniel added for Abe's benefit.

'Now what?' Abe asked.

'Keep it quiet,' Daniel counselled, inventing by the moment. 'We've got to keep the

L.O. in the dark. As far as he knows, this is just one more yakherder. I think the rest