A Change in Altitude Read online

  Patrick was tight-lipped.

  “It wasn’t like that. It was what you’d do with a child who was scared.”

  “Can you honestly say you haven’t noticed his interest in you?”

  At first Margaret was silent. “That doesn’t mean I have a thing for him,” she said finally.

  “Margaret, where’s your head? You let him hold your hand. How do you think Diana felt when she woke and saw your hands clasped together?”

  Margaret tossed the dregs of the coffee onto the ground.

  “You should have woken me up,” Patrick said. “I’m your fucking husband.”

  “You’re not my fucking husband,” Margaret said. “You’re my beloved husband.”

  “Christ.” Patrick shook his head as if there were nothing to discuss.

  Margaret might have pursued the matter, but the guide called them to gather round. She wondered who else had seen her hand in Arthur’s, and if that explained the angry voices outside the banda when she’d woken.

  The porters gave them flashlights so that they could make their way. Diana appeared beside Margaret.

  “Do try to keep up today,” Diana said icily. “Make an effort, will you?”

  Negotiating the scree was a case of three slow steps up, followed by an inevitable two-step slide backward. While the body did the work to accomplish three, the reward was only one. The trek was Sisyphean.

  If Margaret looked up, she could see small blots of light dotting the steep scree, but the bodies themselves were in darkness. The going was torturous. Her legs screamed; her throat screamed. She thought of Diana’s admonition and knew that keeping up was out of the question. Margaret would have to endure Diana’s condescension once again. But Diana was the least of her problems. Margaret wanted to stop. She had the porters behind her, and from time to time one or another would come up and ask her if she was all right. One gave her a cup of purified water, for which she nearly wept. She could barely speak to thank him.

  She wondered why she had signed on for the expedition at all. Theirs was meant to be the fastest and steepest and yet the easiest path to Point Lenana, but that fact was relative, she realized, and directed at experienced climbers. At the very least she should have been in better physical condition. She remembered the nearly criminal nonchalance she’d felt at the thought of climbing the mountain. She recalled the moment Patrick had come into the guest room and said, We’re climbing Mount Kenya. Margaret might so easily have said, Not me.

  There was a short period of rest at the top of the scree. The other climbers accommodated Margaret by allowing her to catch her breath, always in short supply. She was given water, and they were permitted another small meal: two oatmeal biscuits.

  “The worst is over,” Patrick said. “I’m afraid we have to keep going, though. The guide wants to get us to the glacier before the sun comes up.”

  “Why does it matter?” Margaret asked. “There won’t be any sunshine.”

  “I assume they have their reasons. They’ve done this a hundred times.”

  “Can you imagine?”

  “Frankly? No.”

  In the dark, Margaret couldn’t make out the faces of the others, which was a blessing. They’d been asked to turn off the flashlights during the rest period in order to conserve batteries. Patrick put his arm around Margaret and gave her a squeeze, which she accepted as a peace offering. Had she had the energy, she would have hugged him back.

  They were asked to turn the flashlights on and to line up. The route ahead was fairly flat; they’d reached a kind of plateau. Margaret began to yearn for the sun to come up, even if all they were to see was cloud. The dark was eerie. On the scree, she hadn’t worried about animals. What animal, no matter how wild, would go near the scree? But now, in the open, they might smell the humans. Or had the party reached the point at which the larger animals no longer roamed?

  When the sun rose, the immediate past erased itself. As soon as it was daybreak, they knew that the cloud cover had broken. Though they couldn’t actually see the rising sun, Margaret’s spirits lifted. Here and there, the light hit the flat planes of the rocks above them. What they’d done, she soon realized, was to climb above the clouds. There wasn’t much view, but the landscape ahead grew clearer and clearer, and for the first time, they could make out the smaller peaks that would lead to the summit. The light, rosy and soft, was a photographer’s dream. Margaret stopped Patrick and took her camera from his backpack. She snapped a dozen pictures in all directions. She held her face to the sun. She wanted every ray to penetrate whatever skin was showing. She now believed they would make it to the top. Willem and Saartje began chatting. Arthur popped his head round from time to time to say something to Willem. Only Diana remained silent, seemingly unmoved by the sight of the land come alive. The grim grays and browns were gone, replaced with the saturated blue of the sky, the sparkling gray of the rocks, and, in the distance, the menacing white of the glacier.

  At the beginning of the glacier, the guide addressed the climbers. The glacier was a serious matter, he said. First, he demanded that everyone who had not already done so put on sunglasses, explaining that snow blindness was real and crippling and dangerous. Second, he wanted them to take a good look at the slope of the ice. Margaret’s legs began to tremble, and she guessed she was not alone. The guide continued to explain that they would, in fact, all be safe if they followed his lead. He would cut footholds into the ice; the climbers would be clamped into a guide rope, with the guide at the front and porters with pickaxes interspersed among them; all they had to do was put one foot in front of the other and pay attention. They would be able to hear him, the guide reassured the group, even those at the back. They would be across the glacier in no time.

  The guide came along then and put them in order. He would be first, then Diana. Clearly, he had recognized Diana’s restlessness and knew she would want to be first among the trekkers. Arthur was next, then a porter. He put Margaret after that, followed by Patrick and another porter. Saartje and Willem, the last of the trekkers, led the rest of the porters. The guide gave Willem a pickax and told him he would alert him if and when it was needed.

  Margaret felt reassured by her position. Arthur and a porter ahead of her, Patrick behind. She was no longer last. For the first time on the climb, Margaret felt confident, despite the continued trembling in her legs. The only requirement was nerve, and she believed she could manage that. All she had to do was think about the scree to realize how easy the glacier might be if she just followed instructions.

  The guide carefully clipped them to the rope at appropriate intervals. Once he had fastened himself in, he raised his hand high to signal one step forward. They were to practice this for the twenty feet or so to the beginning of the ice to get the rhythm of walking in tandem. Once they reached the glacier, Margaret could hear the guide digging in with his pickax. The climbers were following prior footsteps, but they had to be sharpened up, cleared of any ice that may have melted in the interim. Except for the wind, the only sound was that of the guide with his ax. They moved a step forward. This procedure continued until five footholds had been carved, and Margaret moved out onto the ice for the first time. The steps sloped slightly into the ice—not enough to make one tilt toward the upper glacier, yet enough so that a minor slip wouldn’t topple the entire group.

  Margaret took a peek down the glacier and realized she couldn’t even see its end. She snapped her head up. She didn’t want to view the slope above her either. Margaret stared straight at the feet of the porter in front of her, watching his every move. When he moved forward, so did she. When he halted, so did she. She assumed Patrick was watching her feet in a similar manner.

  The going was slow. The footholds had to be carved or recarved. Each step was a sculpture dependent upon the skills of the guide. Margaret hadn’t before realized how very much they would need to trust the man. One false move on his part, and the entire party might slip off its footholds and wind up clinging to the glacier
by a rope with a hold at either end. Margaret found these thoughts nonproductive and began to count instead. She did this often when bored on a walk. It helped to pass the time. One, two, three, four—a kind of military beat. Her arms were extended for balance, a clear prerequisite. In a vivid way, each of them held the others’ safety.

  It took maybe twenty minutes for the guide to reach the center of the glacier. Margaret knew what lay below her. She took heart from the loose posture of the porter ahead of her. He had done this dozens of times, if not more. If it wasn’t safe, would he have come along?

  For him, the traverse was only tedious. She longed to be on the other side, which was becoming more and more desirable with each step.

  “What the hell is she doing?” Patrick called out.

  Margaret looked up. She saw a flurry of red. The guide raised his voice. Diana seemed to be on a different path just above the rest of them. Her posture, bent forward, showed an impatience with the guide’s slow progress. Margaret realized that Diana had unclipped herself from the guide rope.

  “Diana, stop!” Arthur cried. “Get back here!”

  The guide shouted. Above them, Diana was carving her own footsteps into the glacier without benefit of ax or rope.

  “Diana!” Arthur yelled again.

  Margaret watched as Diana dug into the ice with either her instep or the side of her boot, depending on which foot she was trying to secure. Margaret could see that Diana was now above and just forward of the guide, who was trying to keep step with her. The group moved as well. The ice had softened some, so that Diana was able to make a rudimentary shelf with each step.

  “Stop her!” Patrick cried. “Someone! Anyone!”

  Diana had been impatient to get going. Possibly, the altitude had finally gotten to her and had impaired her judgment. She had her arms out, but Margaret could see that the force of kicking in new steps was producing a counterforce that was pushing her body outward, requiring more balance than had been needed before. As if the sheer volume of his voice alone would make her obey, Arthur pleaded with her.

  But, as they all knew, Diana obeyed no one.

  Suddenly, Diana was on the ground, knees up, and sliding past the guide. Margaret couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The guide reached forward to catch the white fur of Diana’s hood. She turned and tried to grab hold of his hand. She missed it and tore off a mitten to get at the ice with her fingernails. She hit a bump, which she tried to cling to, but gravity and velocity defeated her. The last Margaret saw of Diana, as she plummeted into the deep ravine, was a patch of red, spiraling out of control toward the bottom.

  It was a horror such as Margaret had never imagined.

  Arthur fell to his knees, howling Diana’s name. He reached out toward her as if, even as she was sliding fifty, a hundred, two hundred feet away from him, he might still snag her jacket with his hand. When Arthur went down, they all went down—crouching or on their knees. Saartje was the first, after Arthur, to cry out, but her cries quickly became sobs. Margaret said nothing, frozen in place. She couldn’t see Patrick behind her, but the porter in front of her was on high alert. Arthur was losing it, bent toward the ravine, reaching out toward his wife. The guide scooted backward and took hold of him. He had one hand on the collar of Arthur’s jacket, the other on his own pickax, which he sank deep into the ice. Arthur’s cries became guttural, awful to listen to. Margaret bent her head to her knees.

  It had happened in the space of an instant. In a few minutes they would have been across the glacier, Diana exulting, no longer impatient, celebrating like the rest of them. They wouldn’t have reached the summit yet, but they’d have conquered the worst the mountain had to offer. Margaret wanted to step in and undo the moment of Diana unclipping herself from the guide rope. Over and over and over, she tried this. Arthur was bellowing and beating the ice. He swayed from side to side in his keening, and their bodies swayed with him. The last porter in the line was dispatched down the mountain to assemble a rescue team. They could hear the guide speaking into his radio. There was a squawk of a reply. The guide summoned the rangers from Top Hut. Then he covered Arthur with his own body, speaking to him in an intimate and calm voice. The guide had but one task—to get Arthur and the rest of them across the ice to safety.

  They stayed as they were for what seemed a long time. A minute felt like twenty. Margaret thought of Diana with her dogs and with her children. Of her sudden, dazzling smile. Of the way she had helped Margaret on the Ngong Hills. It was essential now to get Arthur to the other side in one piece. His children needed him. Margaret could not imagine the man’s grief, what lay ahead of him.

  She wanted to crawl across the glacier, but they were told to stand. Each of them had to figure out how to rise simultaneously with their feet in awkward positions, all the while maintaining perfect balance. Each of them had to take steps away from the site of the accident. Each of them, including Arthur, had to leave Diana in the ravine. Arthur was crazed with shock and grief, but everybody else understood that safety now was paramount. Though the guide was outwardly calm, Margaret could see his concern. Any rash movement, and they would all be dead. The greatest danger was a deranged Arthur, an Arthur who, in a frenzy to find his wife, might at any minute jump off the ledge made by the footprints. The pickaxes could not withstand the sudden torque of a lurch like that.

  The group became eerily quiet. They walked as slowly and as carefully as possible. Though Margaret was not an especially religious woman, she repeated the Lord’s Prayer over and over as a kind of ritualistic chant. If she kept saying it without mistakes, she thought, they would make it to the other side.

  It wasn’t until they were ten steps away from solid ground that Patrick, behind her, in a voice that was meant to reach the top of the mountain itself, cried out an unintelligible sound—a summons that echoed off the rocks there and there and there, a sound that scuttled her bones. The cry was meant for Diana and Arthur. Later, Margaret would learn that the rest was meant for Patrick and her.

  At the far side of the glacier, Arthur unclipped himself. He took off down the mountain, as if he might get ahead of Diana and break her fall. Willem realized the folly of this—one couldn’t get down the mountain on that side of the glacier—and started racing after him, surprising Margaret with his agility and speed. The guide stayed close to both men. Saartje lay prostrate on the ground, and Margaret knelt beside her.

  Patrick sat, maybe twenty feet away, knees raised, head in his hands. Margaret knew better than to go to him. Saartje, momentarily coming up for air, turned her head to find Margaret’s face. “Get off me,” she blurted.

  Margaret wasn’t on her, but she stood anyway. Willem yelled, “Arthur!” Margaret could hear distant shouting while Willem sought to subdue the grief-deranged husband. When the scuffle was over, the two men sat. Together they stared into the place where Diana had gone. In deference, the guide stood fifteen feet away. Ready for whatever might happen next.

  “Could she still be alive?” Margaret asked Patrick.

  He didn’t answer. He wouldn’t look at her. He wouldn’t come to where she stood.

  Saartje got up and brushed her pants and jacket off.

  “You know what Diana and Arthur were arguing about this morning?” she asked Margaret.

  Margaret’s skin went hot inside her jacket. She shook her head. (Though she knew, didn’t she?)

  “God, why did you even come?” Saartje asked, and walked away.

  Margaret had her hands in her pockets as she stared at her feet. She couldn’t look down the mountain. She didn’t want to glance at Patrick, who wouldn’t return her gaze. She avoided the glacier, which they would soon have to recross, an almost unthinkable endeavor. How would Arthur be able to handle that? How would any of them manage? Was there another way around the glacier? The guide would know. Maybe if they went up and over? Over what? Margaret wondered, as she surveyed the peaks above them. Would Arthur have the strength to climb farther?

  It was as thou
gh Diana had disappeared into the earth, to reappear in a hundred years or maybe never. She had gone somewhere none of them could follow. Margaret prayed that Diana had died early in her slide, perhaps whacking her head on the ice, the spiraling Margaret had seen indicating unconsciousness. What Margaret couldn’t bear was the thought of Diana alive and knowing her fate, even for an instant. But, then again, wouldn’t Diana have believed in hope, in rescue, right up until the last minute? Or would she have seen the bottom of the ravine coming at her and panicked, as Margaret imagined people who jumped off buildings did as they saw the earth rushing to meet them? No, Margaret decided then and there. Diana had been struck unconscious early on. Margaret tried to imagine Arthur’s frustration as Diana had slid past him and out of his reach. To want to save her and to have to remain still would have been an excruciating torment.

  The cook came around with hot soup. Each of them accepted the broth, but none of them could drink it. After a time, Patrick rose to his feet and walked to where Margaret stood. Neither of them spoke. The words they had in their heads could not be said aloud. Not there. Not in front of others.

  Arthur and Willem began the climb back up. Margaret hoped Willem had prepared Arthur for the need to recross the glacier.

  As the two drew closer, Arthur’s face stunned Margaret. It wasn’t Arthur. Though the man wore Arthur’s Barbour jacket, he was no one she recognized. He gasped for breath like a fish, and his eyes were so swollen they were nearly shut. Despair, Margaret saw firsthand, rearranged the features.

  Saartje went to Arthur and held on to him. He laid his head on her shoulder and scrunched his eyes, but he didn’t sob or cry out. The grief was already beginning to go beyond the tears to a place that had no outlet except to worm its ugly way into the center of his body.

  Margaret wished to evaporate. She didn’t want Arthur to have to look up and see her face. Did he blame her, as the others clearly did? Was she responsible for worrying Diana about her husband’s small attentions to her? Had that caused Diana’s anger and her impatience? Or had Margaret caused it by being impossibly slow and making everyone in the climbing party wait? How many hours had been lost to Margaret’s tardiness? Or was it simply the glimpse of the clasped hands when Diana woke that had filled her head with fury?