Hell Is Above Us: The Epic Race to the Top of Fumu, the World's Tallest Mountain by Jonathan Bloom (bookreader TXT) 📗

Junk was going to take comfort in radiation? He was looking for peace in the same force that had scorched a dark, smoking exclamation mark into the final page of World War II? Turn away from ‘The Great Father’s’ arms, she implored. Come back and find true peace.

When Junk’s plane landed in Kathmandu two days later, McGee was with him. The old Irishman, again rotund and strong after more than a decade away from Fumu, must have stood in stark contrast to his now frail and gaunt friend as they proceeded down the stairs to the tarmac, arm in arm.

Waiting for them was a sight to behold. A veritable city of men in nappies - some white, some brown, some yellow, some red – smiled and cheered. They threw sweets, toys, crafts, and game pieces into the air. Mano himself was present, and according to most of the accounts from that day, he was wearing only what God had given him upon the moment of his birth. Mano would later explain his nudity by saying he had been “promoted.” He was now ordained a “full infant.” The Great Parent loved him completely and unequivocally. The people were closer to Fumu’s approval. “If I and the others continue with our good ways, the lava will soon stop and milk will flow.”

A giant pram was rolled forward and Junk was gently placed into it. The pram was then turned and wheeled at an unrushed pace away from the airfield surrounded on all sides by throngs of man-children. The long journey to the monasteries had begun and would last for several days. Along the way, Aaron was swaddled and showered in dried figs, chokecherries, and Turkish delight. Men poured drops of water from small cups onto Aaron’s tongue when he thirsted. Then the monsoon rains came and the pram was covered up; Junk rested in the dry, peaceful dark. When he winced from the pain of his sores, the man-children could do little for him but open the pram, break his swaddle and hold his hand. McGee was placed in charge of the hand-holding; not an easy task for the man seeing as he was now in his sixties and having trouble keeping up.

They arrived at the monastery on an unseasonably warm day in August. Chhiri Tendi recalls, “What strange weather. It was beautiful! Shrubs bloomed around the nearby farmed fields and along the base of Qila’s distant arêtes. The air was ridiculous with the smell of rhododendron and – I know this sounds naughty - the cries of babblers and tits.” Actual children, not their full-grown simulacra, ran about engrossed in their mirth. No man-children were to be seen frolicking in the sunlight, for they were all on hand for the journey from Kathmandu. Junk’s pram was carried up the mammoth stairs leading to Mano’s monastery and ultimately to Mano’s room in the back. As the reader may recall, one wall of the space was utterly absent so as to permit a sweeping view of the saddle ridge between Asha and Lata, and beyond the ridge, still clouded and unnerving, the summit of Fumu. Junk was placed on a soft bed of hay and cloth, a warm fire crackling nearby to counter the chill coming through the open wall. A large child’s mobile hung above the bed, bedecked in poker chips, postcards of Boston, a bottle opener, a woman’s brassiere, and photographs of his mother, his father, McGee, and Hoyt. The mobile was spinning gently in the warm and cool winds of the room.

Junk was mostly unconscious once situated at the monastery. He rejected food and water. He occasionally growled from the pain. In his delirium he asked for Hoyt. He asked for his mother. He even asked for his father. But most of all, he asked for River Leaf. McGee recalls, “He said her name all night. Not like I’m a fairy or nothing, but I have to admit I felt a little jealous about how much he called for her when I was right there to comfort him, and I’d known him much longer.” As if the angels had heard him, River Leaf arrived from Calcutta no more than two days after the pilgrimage had delivered Junk to the monastery. “She looked grand,” Chhiri Tendi recalled. “She was in her traditional Sioux finery; a dress of buffalo skin, moccasins, hair in braids. Exquisite.”

When she entered the room where Junk lay, his eyes opened before she even made a noise, as if he sensed her presence preternaturally. She held his hand and leaned in close to him. She was silent and smiling. He looked back at her, teeth clenched against the pain. Their eyes apparently never left each other after that.

Our friend McGee probably should have made his exeunt at such a juncture in order to allow Aaron and River Leaf a private moment, but he could not. McGee recounted his feelings to me: “I had a sense like I might never see my pal again once I left that room. I wasn’t goin’ nowhere.” And it is a good thing for us he did not, because he remembers everything that happened next as if it transpired yesterday. River Leaf spoke firmly to Junk:

“The very first thing a Sioux child is taught is never to cry. A child’s cry can attract enemy tribes. From the moment we are born, every time we let out a wail, our mothers gently pinch our noses and put their palms over our mouths, making it hard to breathe. After a few times, we stop crying and almost never turn to tears for comfort again. Then as we grow up, from childhood to adulthood, we quietly bare our miseries as they arrive. Men of the tribe who we call ‘contraries’ have the job of making us laugh when things get hard. When storms come the contraries walk around on their hands outside among the lightning strikes. They wear moccasins on their hands. When