— The old woman, I say. She lived here when you were young?
The librarian shrugs. — I was in grammar school then. It must have been ’77 or ’78. But she was no Englishwoman, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was a Swede, she’d come here before the war—
— Can you turn the heater down?
The librarian ratchets the climate control from red to blue. I ask him when the old woman died, but he says that he isn’t certain, because she sold her farm and moved not long after the accident. The librarian repeats that she was Swedish and spoke Icelandic with a Swedish accent. Her husband had died long ago, he says, and she lived here with a caretaker from her own country.
— Can I put down the window for a minute?
— Of course.
I lower the window halfway, feeling the cold wind against my face. We crest the pass and I see the ocean in the distance, the water dark and glassy between the narrow fingers of the fjord. We go around the bend and the sea disappears again.
The librarian looks at me.
— Are you carsick? Should I pull over?
— I’m fine. I’m just needed some air. Listen, did you ever meet this old woman?
— A few times. There were not many people living in this area. I can tell you she wasn’t English. I’m sure of it.
— You visited her house?
— Once. I only went to the doorstep.
The librarian explains that his father was a book collector and had bought a personal library at an estate sale. There were foreign books in this library, among these a few volumes in French. His father knew the old woman read French and sent the books over with his son.
A shiver passes through me. The sky begins to pitch downward.
— Can you pull over for a second?
The librarian nods and steps on the brake, stopping in the middle of the road. He switches the hazard lights on, though we’ve seen no cars since he picked me up. The triangular lamp on the dashboard blinks on and off. I get out and take a few steps off the road, but my foot catches on the lava and I fall, opening a small cut on my hand. I stand up, staring at the bright sliver of blood on my palm.
The librarian approaches cautiously.
— Are you all right?
— Yeah. I just need some air—
I try to calm down, taking slow and deep breaths, looking up at the clouds and trying to fix the position of the sky and ground. I turn back to the librarian.
— What did she look like?
— Sorry?
— The old woman. What did she look like?
— I don’t know. Silver hair. Blue eyes.
— Did she take the books?
The librarian shakes his head. He removes his eyeglasses and rubs the lenses with a tissue from his pocket.
— She sent them all back, except for a few. I was pretty annoyed. They were heavy and I had to carry them back.
— Which did she keep?
He shrugs. — It was a long time ago.
The librarian replaces his eyeglasses, watching me with something between curiosity and concern.
— I just got a little carsick, I say. But I’m fine.
We get back into the car. I pull the lever to recline my seat and the librarian puts the key in the ignition. A noise chimes to warn that I haven’t fastened my seat belt. The librarian frowns.
— I think it was Baudelaire she kept. Or maybe Rimbaud.
The librarian starts the engine and we drive on toward the sea. I lean against the headrest and shut my eyes.
— The poetry, he says.
7 June 1924
7 June 1924
Camp VI, 26,800 feet
Mount Everest, Tibet
The climbers mean to start before dawn, but when the moment comes they do not stir. It would be death to leave the tent. They wait until yellow rays of sunlight strike the canvas, the hunks of frozen condensation melting and dropping on their faces. The wind has all but ceased.
Price sits up in his sleeping bag.
— Sleep at all?
— I dreamt, Ashley rasps. But I didn’t sleep.
Price runs his fingers on the slushy canvas walls.
— Weather seems improved. We may have a go after all.
Ashley does not answer.
They move slowly, weak from their night of agony. It takes them an hour to dress and boil water for a thermos of hot coffee. Ashley’s mouth is chalky. No quantity of melted snow or tea will quench him. He feels cold everywhere. At last they leave the tent, Price with a coil of rope slung over one shoulder, over the other a small bag holding a vest-pocket Kodak.
Price leads. They traverse a slope of ragged scree, moving toward a sunlit pocket of rock in the distance. The golden rays seem a mirage. Above them hovers the summit pyramid, the vaporous plume jetting past.
Ashley has trouble navigating the stones beneath him. The twin circles of his vision are vignetted by his snow goggles, obscuring his lower view. He stumbles on the lip of a rock and catches himself with the steel tip of his ice axe. Price removes his goggles, lifting them onto his hat brim for a better view. There is little snow here.
Cutting across the mountainside, the steep slope is within an arm’s grasp as they walk. Ashley halts and doubles over, coughing in violent fits. Price waits for him, panting all the while. Price motions to move on, but Ashley glances back, as if waiting for someone.
— Something wrong?
Ashley shakes his head. For a moment he thought there was another climber with them. He treks forward with short strides, straining to make twenty steps before pausing. He makes twelve strides. He leans and pants feverishly. Thirteen strides. He gasps at the searing air, shivering in the sunlight. Price wheezes beside him at each halt.
They reach a patch of névé, snow hardened under pressure into a coat of blue glass. Price pulls down his goggles and swings his ice axe from the shoulders, chipping at the packed granules to carve a step. After a few swings he leans on the axe gasping. He steps forward, fitting his boot into the notch. He begins chopping the next step. The pace is pitifully slow.
— My vision’s going double, Price calls. Shouldn’t have taken off my goggles.
Ashley’s mind is slow and simple. He follows Price through the névé, then frets at each boulder in their path, deliberating over which route requires the fewest steps. In his hazy consciousness he is reassured by the presence of the third climber, and though the apparition vanishes upon close scrutiny, it always returns in time. During gasping pauses he looks absently at the spectacle far below, a flattened array of pinnacles piercing through the cloudbank, whitecaps on a distant sea.
They reach the band of yellow sandstone that rings the upper mountain. A gale begins to howl. They are traversing a line a few hundred feet below the northeast ridge of the mountain, following the slant of this arête steadily toward the final pyramid. Price’s pace slows to a crawl. They take a breath for each step, gasping in fits, leaning upon their axes or propping elbows on bent knees. Ashley feels distanced from their predicament, a spectator to his own performance.
Price halts and spikes his ice axe. He waves his hand before his goggles, puffing in exasperation.
— It’s over, he gasps. Weather’s turning. I’m going snowblind.