A Change in Altitude Read online

  Perhaps the others had conversations. Margaret guessed they didn’t. They all had sticks for balance, and in some sense they propelled the group upward, though Margaret thought it was more a case of holding steady so that no one fell backward. Her windpipe hurt as with the sorest of throats, simply from the effort to breathe. Mouths were wide open to capture whatever air could be found. She was sweating within ten feet of the beginning of the bog. Instead of taking off her jacket and tying it around her waist by the arms, as she should have done, she felt she couldn’t spare a minute as she watched the others move farther and farther ahead. She hated the mud, hated the climb, hated everyone ahead of her, even her husband. Each effort to extract a boot from the muck dragged at her knees.

  When she reached the top of the bog two hours later, the others lay on the ground as if slaughtered. Margaret began to shiver inside her wet clothes and knew she wouldn’t be able to rid herself of the chill until they got to camp and she changed into clean ones. She discovered that always being last had serious drawbacks, apart from embarrassment. When she reached the point at which the others had stopped, they’d already had their rest and thus were eager to get going, ensuring no rest for the slacker. Always being last suggested the pip-squeak in gym class, as well as the one who wasn’t really trying. There was a kind of good-natured understanding at first. But Margaret felt a subtle resentment gathering. Why had she been asked along anyway? Why was she holding them up so? Did they dare leave her behind with the porters? How exasperating Margaret was in keeping them from a meal and, even more important, from a hut with a bed. Patrick began to show a touch of impatience as well at having to wait or climb down to check on his wife. “That’s it, Margaret!” he would say when she accomplished a big step, as if he were encouraging a child to learn to walk. There was an enormous irony in their impatience, which Arthur had mentioned the day before. Margaret, of all of them, was thoroughly acclimatizing herself.

  Her companions, from having fallen where they stood at the top of the bog, were covered with muck from behind. Because they’d had their rest, Margaret was given a short drink of water and asked to keep up (with no pause for her). As they trudged along a ridge with what might have been the glorious Teleki view, Margaret felt as though she were following a family of troglodytes. Heads down, with little appetite for the dismal and almost nonexistent view, they seemed to be headed back to a cave. Even Diana, in her bright-red parka, was smeared from hood to boot.

  Margaret wondered how they would manage when they reached the hut. They would have to find a stream in order to wash the backs of their jackets. But could any of them withstand the cold when a parka was taken off? Were they to climb into their sleeping bags in dirty outerwear? The dilemma preoccupied her for quite a time, even though, since she had never had the opportunity to lie down, her own jacket was relatively clean. Later that day, she would discover just how much mud she’d kicked up onto her jeans.

  And they were all cold. Due to Margaret’s stupidity, she was shivering, but nobody was comfortable. Well, perhaps Willem was, in his total ski outfit. Generally, though, the jackets were inferior to the task. It felt to Margaret as if they were children, inadequately dressed, sent out to play.

  The camp they reached was a shack made with vertical boards and covered with a tar-paper roof. Sleeping accommodations, Margaret discovered when she went inside to change her clothes, were rudimentary. The mattresses on the ground were filthy, and Margaret blanched to think how many unwashed bodies had lain on them. With some gymnastics, she managed the feat of changing her clothes without touching the putrid pillow ticking. Patrick would have to set out the ground cloths. She was puzzled by Arthur’s pronouncement that the huts held thirty. Margaret couldn’t imagine thirty bodies on the mattresses. Ten, maybe, and even that would be cozy. She wondered if they would be joined again by the Germans.

  She felt better once she was dry and had had her turn by the fire. The others looked haggard, if not worse, and everyone seemed grateful that the climb was over for the day. Margaret took a stool next to Patrick.

  “How are you doing?” he asked.

  “Better now. You been inside yet?”

  “No.”

  “It’s hideous. I am not exaggerating.”

  “It’s a bed,” Patrick said. “It’s shelter. I can’t remember being so reduced to basics and appreciating them. When I saw the hut, I thought I’d cry.”

  “Rough on you, too.”

  “God, yes.”

  “But you kept up.”

  “Did my best.”

  “And I didn’t?”

  He was surprised by the question. “Of course you did.”

  “I feel like an idiot,” she said as she poked at the dirt with a stick.

  “No one minded. Everyone understood.”

  “You’re a liar. Diana hasn’t spoken to me since we got here.”

  Patrick shrugged.

  “How were the others?” Margaret asked.

  “Willem wanted to chat. Can you imagine?”

  “No.”

  “He and Diana seemed to be jockeying for head position behind the guide. It was weird and silly.”

  “And Arthur?” she asked.

  “He was quiet. Trying to conserve his energy, I think. We pretty much kept pace with each other.”

  “Saartje?”

  “Right up front with her husband. She seemed the least taxed of all of us.”

  “Really?” Margaret said, having new respect for the woman. “Patrick, I’m not sure I can make it.”

  He was silent a moment. “You have to, Margaret. We can’t leave you here. You wouldn’t be safe, even locked inside the hut.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “Get a good rest. I’m sorry to say, the hardest part is yet to come.”

  Margaret groaned.

  She accepted a cup of sugared tea from the cook. He passed around a tin of cookies.

  “Glad we didn’t run into anything bigger than a sunbird today,” Willem said. “Thought we were done for yesterday.”

  “I’m still amazed it didn’t charge,” Arthur said.

  “You’re ponces, the lot of you,” Diana announced. It was meant to be a somewhat good-natured tease, but it came out as a scold.

  “We’re all doing our best,” Arthur insisted as he moved his stool closer to the fire.

  The cook made a flurried motion, indicating that Arthur might burn his boots.

  Arthur nodded. “I’ll take my chances. Can’t get my bloody feet warm.”

  “Change your socks,” Diana suggested practically.

  “Don’t dare take my boots off.”

  Diana sighed. “My point exactly. You’re a ponce.”

  “I, for one, am starved,” Patrick said. He kept sniffing the air, trying to determine which stew the cook had on the boil.

  “My legs are twitching,” Margaret said as sparks ignited the muscles along her thighs.

  “You really haven’t done any climbing, have you?” Saartje asked.

  Margaret didn’t think this was the moment to mention Monadnock. “Not really. And I’d just like to say to all of you that I’m sorry for being so slow. I shouldn’t have come. I’m slowing you all down.”

  Diana looked away, a brief turn of red hood and white fur.

  “Nonsense,” Willem said. “We’ll make a climber out of you yet. You’ll do better tomorrow.”

  “But I thought tomorrow was the worst part. The scree and the glacier and all that.”

  “The glacier requires no strength, just nerve.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Patrick said. “Just do as the guide says.”

  Diana was having none of it, and she sighed pointedly. So loud in fact that Patrick looked sharply over at her. Diana was undoubtedly sorry that she and Arthur had asked Patrick and Margaret to come along, but even she wouldn’t suggest leaving Margaret at the hut.

  “Bloody long time to get here,” Diana said, in case anyone had missed the point.

  T
he cook ladled out in tin cups what looked to be a beef stew. A hunk of bread went with it. Margaret asked for water.

  Her legs continued to twitch all through the evening as if tiny electrodes had been implanted in the muscles. When the meal was over, people shifted and changed positions as various needs were seen to. Margaret had already been to the latrine, a ditch dug far enough away from the camp so as not to be troublesome. Managing the latrine required deft moves, a shovel, and courage. Who knew what was out there?

  They had had precise instructions from Willem. “When there’s no toilet, bury your feces in a fifteen-centimeter hole.” Margaret tried quickly to convert to inches. “At higher altitudes, soil lacks the organisms to break down the feces, so leave them in the open where UV rays from the sun can break them down. Spreading it facilitates the process. Always carry your own toilet paper.”

  Margaret sat next to Arthur.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a stiff drink right now,” he said.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a clean toilet.”

  Arthur glanced at the porters. “Can’t imagine doing this every day.”

  “Their lungs must be as big as inner tubes.”

  Arthur had a candy bar in his pocket and offered Margaret half.

  “Diana is a good climber,” Margaret said.

  “Has to be first. At everything. She’d be leading the guide if she thought she could get away with it.”

  Margaret let the chocolate melt and sink into all the spaces in her mouth. It felt like a rare and exotic treat.

  “Sun’s going to set in fifteen minutes,” he said. “You’d better get all your gear together, claim a cot.”

  “There aren’t any cots. It’s all mattresses.”

  “We’re going to the mattresses?”

  An exhausted Arthur making a joke. Margaret smiled in appreciation.

  Patrick, who had a wonderful voice, began to sing, partly to entertain himself and partly for the rest of them. Margaret had heard him sing a hundred times, and she’d never tired of it. He had a clarion tenor and might have sung professionally had he not gone into medicine. Margaret watched the expressions on the faces of the rest of the climbers. Each was surprised and then pleased. One didn’t expect a serenade on a cold and grim mountain. Margaret could scarcely believe that fewer than two days before, she’d been standing in the hot sun.

  Patrick sang “If You Leave Me Now” and “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover” and “Imagine,” because everyone else wanted to join in. When even Patrick’s Irish repertoire started to wear thin, the guide and the porters started up with their African songs. Margaret could understand none of the words, but they must have been humorous in nature. Periodically, the Africans would be overcome with laughter midsong and fall apart from one another, infecting even her with the giggles, though no one had any idea why the Africans were laughing. Margaret imagined the songs being about stupid wazungu trying to climb a tall mountain in Africa.

  One by one, they made their way into the banda. Another party, not the Germans, was supposed to have joined them, but the guide said they would be a day behind. Margaret laid her gear on a mattress that was at the outside of a string of three. At her head was another group of three mattresses, those set perpendicular to the first three. The two to Margaret’s left had towels on them, which suggested occupancy, so Patrick took the mattress at her head. But because Saartje and Willem had already laid out their bedding with their heads at the other end, Patrick did as well. Margaret thought he must have assumed that she wouldn’t mind his feet as much as someone else.

  Earlier in the evening, one of the porters had washed the backs of their jackets as they had sat in them. The jackets had dried off as they’d huddled by the fire. None of the party was entirely clean, but they weren’t covered with muck. Margaret had already changed clothes and so slept in what she had on, but several of the others changed outside or awkwardly inside their sleeping bags. Patrick sat at the foot of his bag as Margaret slithered into hers. She propped herself on her elbows as she and Patrick chatted. Then he gave her a kiss, as he had done every night they had been married. Even if he was angry with Margaret, he never failed to kiss her. Eventually he turned and slid into his bag.

  Arthur and Diana were still outside.

  Margaret didn’t know if they were changing clothes or if Arthur was leading Diana to the latrine. A porter stood by the lantern just inside the door, eager to turn it out. He and the other Africans would sleep by the fire. It seemed wrong when they had extra beds, but Margaret had already learned that there was no talking a porter out of his routine. She’d tried convincing the guide to take the extra mattresses, but he’d made it clear it was his job to stay outside and guard the fire and the banda. She knew that as long as they tipped well at the end of the climb, he would be fine.

  Margaret heard voices at the entrance to the hut. The porter turned off the lantern and shut the door just after Diana and Arthur entered the banda. Margaret couldn’t make out their faces or even their bodies. There was a rustle of movement as they sought their beds, an exchange of murmurs back and forth, and the distinct sound of them sliding into separate sleeping bags. Margaret thought Willem might already be asleep because she could hear male snoring, and it didn’t have the rhythm or pitch of Patrick’s. She imagined Saartje on her back, staring at the ceiling. As the wind buffeted the hut, Margaret could hear the African voices from outside.

  She didn’t know if she had Diana or Arthur next to her. She turned onto her side away from them, facing the wall. The smell of the smoke from the fire had permeated the hut and was helping to make her sleepy. There were slight rustlings, which she took to be restless climbers trying to find a good position. She drifted off.

  Margaret yelped and snatched her hand from where it dangled off the mattress’s edge. She rolled over and faced away from the wall. Too afraid even to bring the sleeping bag over her head, she wanted to wake Patrick. If only she could find the courage to reach out a hand and wiggle his feet.

  Instead, a hand reached out and found hers.

  “They’re rats,” Arthur whispered.

  “They’re rats?” she whispered back.

  “Yes.”

  “I felt it run over my other hand.”

  “I can feel them running over my feet from time to time. Of course, my feet are in the bag.”

  “Oh God,” Margaret said.

  “They’re a special feature of the huts at altitude.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. We seem to have gotten lucky.”

  “Oh God.”

  Her body was sweaty. “I have to get out of here,” she said.

  “And go where?”

  The answer was obvious.

  “Will all the huts be like this?” she asked.

  “Who knows?”

  “Will they bite?”

  “The rats? Probably not.”

  Arthur’s grasp was not so hard it hurt but firm enough that she couldn’t easily slip her hand from his. He held it the way you might catch the hand of a child who was stumbling forward.

  Arthur’s hand was warm and solid, a man’s hand. Not calloused but firm. It was a human gesture, one creature trying to calm another. Or it was not. Either way, Margaret wouldn’t be the one to let go. She lay awake, her face turned toward Arthur, whom she couldn’t see. She felt only his hand, which was all she needed or wanted. She inched her face closer to their clasped hands. It seemed that she was safe within a certain radius of that grip.

  Margaret knew nothing about what was in Arthur’s mind, though she might have guessed. When she brought her face closer to their hands, the movement felt similar to crawling toward the warmth of a fire. Not toward the fire itself but simply toward the warmth. She wondered what Patrick would have done in similar circumstances. Would he have taken Saartje’s hand, tried to calm her down, thought nothing of it? As Margaret would discover in the morning, Patrick was not next to Saartje but rathe
r Willem. Poor man.

  It was possible that Arthur moved his face closer to his hand as well. Margaret didn’t know. Nor did she know the moment when Arthur fell asleep.

  Having been told to get up by Patrick, Margaret woke to the sound of muffled and angry voices. She hustled to pack up her belongings in the meager light of the lantern. She identified the voices as belonging to Diana and Arthur. Margaret had brought Dentyne gum along with her in case the cleaning of teeth wasn’t on the agenda. It was three a.m. on the day of the scree and the glacier.

  The cook presented the climbers with hot coffee and cookies. A proper breakfast would be had at Top Hut once they’d managed the glacier. People blew on their fists to keep warm, or held their mugs with both hands. Lanterns had been lit, since it was still dark and would be until sunrise at six thirty. Margaret saw Arthur sitting on a stool near the blaze. Diana, at the opposite end of the circle of warmth and safety made by the fire, was in conversation with the guide. Margaret searched for Patrick and found him ten feet behind her, just at the edge of the circle, sipping his coffee.

  His jacket was unzipped.

  “Aren’t you freezing?” she asked.

  “Margaret, what’s going on?”

  “What?”

  “With Arthur?” Patrick’s breath was rank.

  “With Arthur what?”

  “When I woke up this morning and leaned over to wake you, you and he were holding hands.”

  Margaret was surprised. Arthur and she had held hands all night?

  “There were rats,” she said quickly.

  “What about the rats?”

  “A rat ran over my hand. I woke up and must have cried out. Arthur explained that there were rats in the hut. I was terrified, Patrick. He clasped my hand to calm me.”