The Lion of Khum Jung

Chapter 2-3

Thirty minutes later, Frank gathered his team of climbers and Sangye around two large tables in the courtyard. As they sat by the babbling fountain, sipping tea and mango juice, the sounds of car horns, motorbikes, street people, and shopkeepers hawking their goods beyond the hotel walls trickled in around them. Over a low brick wall beside them, children could be heard playing a lively game of cricket. A rooster crowed in the distance.

Frank leaned forward in his chair and gave his clients the typical opening spiel regarding their responsibilities of looking after their own gear and letting them know what their assigned Sherpa guides would and would not do during the next two and a half months. As he ticked off the list, his glance fell on the Widow and her son more than once.

When he finished, he sat back. “All right, let’s get to know each other a little better. Why don’t we start with you, Toby? Anything you’d like to share with the rest of us?”

Toby set his bottle of water down, ran a large hand through his light blond hair, and cleared his throat. “Not much to tell really. I work as mechanical engineer for large firm in Vienna for ten years now.” He paused and looked around him then awkwardly went on in his thick Germanic accent. “I enjoy travel, and of course climbing. My brother, Jakob, here beside me, got me into it when I was eighteen and in university, and I do it ever since.”

Frank nodded as the big man shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “So, tell us, Toby, what made you decide on Everest?”

Toby took a moment with the question before he said, “When I was young teen, fifteen years old, I was very, very big. People used to make joke about me. One day, I get on train with father and brother to go to Graz for soccer game. As I walk down aisle to find seat, people stare at me. That was okay. I was used to it. Then I see little boy turn to his father and say, ‘Wow, look da, the circus fat man is here!’ I never forget it.”

Glancing at Frank, Toby paused and went on. “The following year I lose one hundred fifty pounds. Start working out; get in shape. Now I eat to build muscle, not because I feel bad about myself. Anyway, I push myself now to be best I can. This is ultimate way to find out what I can do.”

He reached down and took up his water bottle and as he did so, Frank found himself reassessing the thirty-something Austrian. It was a hell of a thing to lose that much weight. Well, it was clear the man had the focus to get up the mountain, but his six-foot-four, two hundred and sixty-five pound frame was a strike against him. Next, Frank turned to Toby’s brother, Jakob.

Jakob was tall like Toby, and perhaps thirty pounds lighter. The two men shared much in appearances: fair skin, strong Roman noses, sky-blue eyes, and square jaws. But that was where it ended. Where Toby was introspective and quiet, Jakob was gregarious and outgoing. Having never faced a weight problem, Jakob had played soccer and was an avid skier growing up. “Mountaineering was just a natural extension of my love affair with the slopes,” he said, and so it had led him to his present occupation as owner of a small alpine gear and clothing shop called Carabineer’s just outside of Vienna.

Again, Frank asked him why he wanted to tackle Mount Everest, and Jakob answered that it was the challenge of testing himself, and of reaping the reward of knowing he could do anything if he achieved the summit.

Next, Frank turned to Aldan, who was sitting beside Jakob. Aldan was a soft-spoken man with bristly short white hair, but he didn’t appear to be anywhere near his age of fifty-five years. Intelligent and discerning hazel eyes looked out from a thin, chiseled wind-burnt face while he told the team about his time guiding people in the outback.

“I came to climb the beast ’cause I like adventure and this here mountain provides it,” Aldan said with a lilting voice.

Frank nodded, but inside, a flag went up. While the Aussie might be a skilled guide in the Australian outback, this was Chomolungma, not the bush. Experience told Frank that folks who were skilled outdoorsmen often didn’t understand things were different on the mountain than what they were used to. The last thing Frank needed was someone who believed he knew more than his guides.

Sullivan, or Sully as he preferred to be called, had the body of a mountaineer: sleek and sinewy and not too tall. Like Jakob, Sully was an experienced climber, having summited the technically challenging Ama Dablam and K2. But there was more to the thirty-one-year-old Sully than just being an alpinist. He was a theoretical physicist who held a prestigious position at the atomic super collider CERN. That, and he had a young wife and baby daughter waiting for him at home, which was where Frank thought the Widow should be right now. When the question of why Sully wanted to climb Everest came up, he simply said he wanted to know what it was like to gaze out over the world.

The Frenchmen, Rene and Vicq, came from affluent families just outside of Nice, and were partners in their families vintners operation. Rene said they had taken up climbing several years ago after being introduced to it by a friend and that they both found it a welcome diversion from running the winery. Since then, it had turned into a passion.

Rene was a tall, sinewy man in his early thirties with curly black hair and large chocolate brown eyes. A colorful tattoo of a flowering grape vine peeked out from under his shirtsleeve. Vicq was quite the opposite: late thirties, blond-haired, ice blue eyes, short and angular, with a constant stoic attitude and expression. They made quite the odd couple, Frank thought. But their zest for climbing was evident, as were their reasons for climbing.

The two Italians were watchful throughout the conversation as they sat listening to the Frenchmen tell their stories. Lanzo, who was a ski instructor at Andalo in the north of Italy, was the younger of the two. Late thirties, Frank guessed. At six-three with flowing black hair, doe brown eyes, and a sleek, almost cat-like build, the soft-spoken man was undoubtedly popular with the young ladies.

Next to him was Carlo, a mid-forties restaurateur. The chunky, dark-haired Italian was staring ahead with a faraway look. At last, he turned his attention to the group, leaned forward, and said, “My family lost everything when my papa died of a heart attack at his ristorante. He was a good man and devoted to my momma. I was eighteen when it happened, and I can still remember my momma slouched over him.

“My older brother, Marco, and I struggled to keep the ristorante running, but not knowing how to run a business, we almost ended up losing it. The years that followed my papa’s death were hard, many times we were near bankruptcy, but eventually we learned and we made it. Now we are the best ristorante in all of Milan.”

He paused, and Frank heard him cough. At last, Carlo cleared his throat and went on. “The one thing I remember most about my papa was his wanting to climb the mountains. I asked him why he wanted to do it one time, and he told me, up there, it’s only you, the mountain, and God. He wanted to know what that felt like to be that close to God. So, I climb for him.”

There was silence around the circle, and when Frank saw the Widow’s stricken face, he knew the Italian’s story had affected her. He wondered what she was thinking and turned to Greg.

“So, Greg, what about you?” Frank said, having a good idea what the young man would say.

Greg shifted in his chair and furtively glanced at his mother. “I’ve been climbing for the last ten years. Started out facing some of the cliffs in the Grand Canyon before moving onto alpine climbing. My father was into it in a big way before he died. In fact, he was here back in ’85,” he said. “Anyway, I like challenging myself, and I love the feeling I get when I reach the top. There’s nothing like it.”

“Did your father summit?” Jakob said.

“No, he didn’t,” Greg answered quietly while fixing his gaze straight ahead. The Widow’s face stiffened and she looked away. At last, Greg shrugged. “Anyway, hopefully, I can finish what he started.”

“A very admirable thing,” Toby said.

The Widow pushed her chair back abruptly, scraping metal on the courtyard’s brick pavers, and got up. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to find the ladies’ room,” she said through tight lips, and walked away.

Greg’s gaze remained forward and his face darkened as he took up his water bottle and gulped a swig. Frank shot a fleeting glance at the Widow’s retreating back, then looked over at her son. Red flags were waving all over the place. There was definitely more to this young man’s simplified reason for climbing than he was letting on.