Page 40 of The Sky Beneath Us
We’ve had a party and now she’s finishing clearing everything away whilst I sit and write this, reflecting on the life we’ve made here. There’s no doubt, things have changed a lot since my arrival all those years ago.
These days, the money the men earn from guiding expeditions to Everest and the other high peaks has had the power to change lives. It means the people of Phortse can afford to buy the materials to put proper roofs on their houses, instead of making do with slates and stones clawed from the mountainsides around them, and to purchase cast-iron stoves to heat their homes and cook their food. We can pay porters to bring food to the village too now – eggs and fruit and vegetables to nourish our children and prevent the malnutrition that used to bend their bones, crippling them, and made them susceptible to diseases.
Sir Edmund Hillary has expressed his gratitude to the Sherpas who helped him to the top of Everest. He’s provided funding so that a school can be built in the village here, and the communityis going to club together to employ a teacher so our children can have a proper education.
Standing on the heads of the mountain deities, though, has brought badkarma, just as the women foresaw. Climbing those peaks is never something the Sherpas would have done, were it not for the opportunity to try to improve life for their children. And so, whilst the Sherpa men take the risks, leading the climbers and going on ahead to find routes, fix ropes and set ladders across the gaping crevasses in the glaciers tumbling down the mountainsides, the women remain at home and send prayers to the gods to try to make amends for the dishonour the men are bringing upon their communities.
Sometimes the prayers seem to work. The men return home with cash in their pockets, lighting incense and making offerings to the gods to apologise for their transgressions. But other times the gods cannot be appeased. Men have been killed as avalanches thunder down on them, or as those hungry crevasses swallow them whole. Sometimes they lose their lives in accidents whilst trying to help and protect the less experienced climbers who now come to Nepal thinking they can conquer the mountains, only to find that the mountains have little regard for the ambitions of puny humans.
I’ve been doing my bit as well. I quickly realised that, for the community of Phortse, the most valuable thing I had to offer was my language. And so I run English classes in the newly built school, teaching the children and their mothers during the day, and in the evenings giving the men the vocabulary they need to be able to communicate, to lead climbs and instruct westerners how to keep themselves safe as they attempt to survive in the high-altitude death zone. I’m paid in cash from the guides as well as in foodstuffs, and Themi and I get by quite well.
I still spend my spare time in the Valley of Flowers. For now, it remains safely hidden from the groups of trekkers, who mostlystick to the main route to Everest Base Camp and bypass this forgotten corner. But past history has taught us how progress comes at a cost – a price paid all too often by the natural world around us. And so it seems all the more important to continue cataloguing what we have here. It may not be much, but I think of it as my legacy, and Callum’s as well. He’s still my constant companion as I uncover and document the valley’s riches. Some days I imagine I can hear the long-ago echoes of a whistled tune, carried on the wind as it swirls down from the mountain peaks.
From indoors, I hear my daughter laugh and it sounds as melodious as the chiming of yak bells on the hill. Tshering is there with her. He stayed behind when the others left and is wielding a tea towel as she passes him the dripping plates. It’s been more and more noticeable that he spends every minute he can spare, paying her visits or going for walks with her to collect juniper twigs and bamboo when he’s not away guiding. His face lights up at the sight of her, the way Callum’s would light up when the two of us were together. Although Themi and I are still outsiders, it seems the rules could be bent a little to allow them to marry despite the fact she’s not a Sherpa. It would mean foregoing the three-day celebrations of a traditional marriage ceremony, but Tshering’s mother has already intimated to me that they wouldn’t mind that. Everyone loves Themi. The villagers consider her one of their own.
They’ve finished the chores now and Themi has just popped her head through the window to say she and Tshering are going to walk up the hill a little way to watch the sunset. I smile and nod, and remember a lily her father once showed me, back in the Herbarium in Edinburgh all those lifetimes ago. I painted its portrait, tinting the petals coral pink and gold, the colours of the clouds crowning Khumbila this evening.
It feels as though Callum is bestowing his blessing on them as they walk hand in hand along the path above me, dreaming, perhaps, of a legacy of their own.
Daisy – May 2020
Themi shows me a faded photograph of her wedding to Tshering. ‘One of the mountaineers took it and sent it to us,’ she explains. ‘Tshering had just returned from his first ascent of Everest and his pockets were full of money. And he’d bought me that armlet as my wedding present.’ She points with a crooked forefinger.
Then she brings a locked tin box out from beneath her sleeping platform and shows me the bracelet, ornately wrought in silver set with coral and turquoise.
Themi lowers her eyes, blinking in an attempt to stop the tears from falling. Her voice is low, choked with emotion as she continues, ‘Look how young we were. We had such hopes and dreams that day. The whole world seemed to be changing for us, filled with the promise of a better future for all the Sherpa people. If we’d known what lay ahead, would we ever have dared set out on that path?’
I reach over and pick up the silver armlet, easing it gently on to her wrist. Then I take her hand in mine, stroking the gnarled, unyielding stiffness of her fingers. ‘Of course you would,’ I say. ‘All that love you’ve known, for Tshering and Poppy and Pema – it’s what underpins life, isn’t it?’ I point through the window to the snow-capped mountains across the valley. ‘I think love is like Khumbila over there. It may be weathered and scoured, it may experience terrible avalanches and devastating rockfalls. But it onlydoes so because it dares to be there in the first place. Our lives would be like trudging across a flat, featureless plain if we didn’t have the courage to climb the mountains.’
She brushes away her tears with the back of her free hand and then wraps it around mine. ‘You’re right, Daisy. And I think that’s what life has been like for you for a while, hasn’t it? But now you’ve found the courage to climb again. I hope you will remember that when you leave us. Take home with you this knowledge the mountains have given you. You still have so much love to give and you should never forget how much your family loves you. Not just your Scottish family. Your Sherpa family, too.’
A flood of conflicting emotions washes over me. I feel warmed by her words. But at the same time I’m gripped by a deep-seated, visceral longing to be back at Ardtuath with my mum and my girls. To walk together along the path up the hill behind the house. To hug them and be hugged back. To cry together for Davy. To comfort one another with our love that’s as solid as a mountain.
Up until now, I’ve felt I’ve probably made the right decision, staying put in Phortse. But then the tides of the pandemic shift again around the world. Here in Nepal, the restrictions are still in place. There are no domestic or international flights, and the official recommendation is still to remain where you are. But the news from Britain is a little more optimistic. By the end of May, there’s talk of the first, cautious lifting of the lockdown, of schools reopening and a return to the workplace for those who can’t work from home. Non-essential shops remain closed, though, and the advice is to avoid using public transport. Mum writes that, like most people, she and the girls are staying at home. I read and reread the official advice, trying to work out what it means for me. In theory now, Icould get back to Scotland if I weren’t in Nepal. But the situation here remains unchanged as the country keeps its borders closed, to hold the virus at bay and protect its people. I try to make my mind like water, going with the flow, so the pendulum swing of my thoughts won’t hook me and drag my emotions back and forth. It’s not something I’ve perfected yet, but I’m working on it.
Then, out of the blue, an email arrives from the British Embassy in Kathmandu. With the cautious relaxing of restrictions in the United Kingdom, it says, an evacuation flight is being arranged for citizens still in Nepal who wish to go home. If I want to take it, I should register immediately and be in Kathmandu in three days’ time. My heart gives a lurch. I want to be on that plane and get back to see Mum and my girls. But even if I could get myself to Lukla – a two-day trek I could maybe just about do if I set off at once – there are still no internal flights from there to get me back to Kathmandu in time.
I show the email to Tashi and Dipa. ‘I think you want go home now?’ he asks. ‘Time to leave your Sherpa family and go back to Scottish one?’
‘I do,’ I say. ‘But is there any way I can make that flight?’
He beams. ‘No worry, Mrs Daisy. I speak to cousin-brother in Lukla. He helicopter pilot. Number one, best in Nepal. We make plan for you. Time to get you home.’
True to his word, as ever, by late afternoon the plan has been hatched. A helicopter is due to bring more essential supplies to Phortse the day after tomorrow. Once the food and medicines have been offloaded, I will get the return flight to Lukla and from there Tashi’s cousin-brother will fly me back to Kathmandu, since he has a supply run scheduled too.
‘What’s the cost of two helicopter flights going to be?’ I ask.
‘No cost, Mrs Daisy. You family. And these flights essential anyway, funded by government, so pilots already get paid.’
I breathe a huge sigh of relief. I’ve not spent any of my remaining rupees, but I’m very much aware that I owe Tashi and Dipa for all these weeks of food and lodging. That’ll take all the cash I have on me and more. I’m counting on the fact that once I get back to Kathmandu, I should be able to use a cash machine and take out whatever is left in my bank account, then find a way to get it to them.
The next day – my final one in Phortse – I spend with Pema and Themi, wanting to make the most of every moment I have with them. Who knows when we’ll meet again?
The early-summer rain falls steadily as I climb the hill to Themi’s little stone shack. The white rhododendron at the end of the house has lost all its flowers now and just a few bruised blooms lie scattered on the ground beneath it. But Themi has planted bright orange marigolds in a row of empty powdered milk cans beside her front door and they lift their faces to the clouds overhead, like defiant little suns. Her small vegetable patch is neatly tended, its edges overflowing with burgeoning herbs, pak choi, and the green spikes of garlic.
‘Hello?’ I call out. ‘It’s me, Daisy.’ I push aside the curtain and step into the black-walled room, where Pema comes to greet me with a smile before returning to the fire, where the pan of tea is coming to the boil.
Themi is sitting at the table and pats the bench beside her, gesturing to me to come and sit down.
