Tais Teng - Crowned by Lightning.pdf - Tais Teng - widez2

CROWNED BY LIGHTNING

Nepal, 1989:

"We are old men now, sahib," Tenzing murmurs and he smiles. Time has

worked her alchemical magic on Tenzing's teeth, Hillary notices. Twin row of

solid gold gleam, where once only the left molar shone.

He feels a stab of disappointment. Tenzing hasn't refused: it isn't the Sherpa

way to refuse outright, but the implication is there. We're both old men now.

We should squat on the porch, sipping hot buttered tea. Talk about the past,

don't try to relive it.

Perhaps he's right, Hillary thinks. Mountaineering is a young man's sport. And

the high tops are conquered now. All save one.

Tenzing gestures to the houses lower on the slope. They are mud plastered

hovels with roofs of corrugated zinc. "My village, my family, they depend on

me. Trekkers stop here to visit me. I tell them lies, beautiful lies. They won't

insult me by paying me for my time, but they leave things they no longer

need. Boots, teabags, Rolex watches."

"I understand," Hillary says and he really does. Tenzing is their wise old man

now, a source of civic pride.

Well, there are worse ways to spend your last years. Hillary pictures the young

climbers, the Americans, the Germans, their impossibly smooth faces with the

windchapped lips, their eyes shining. Listing to this old man.

"You want tea?" Tenzing snaps his fingers without waiting for an answer. To

refuse is unthinkable.

A granddaughter brings a battered aluminum teapot and fills two dainty

porcelain cups.

Hillary inhales the fragrance. "You have changed, my friend. Lapsang

souchong. I remember the brick of pressed tealeaves, globs of rancid butter."

Tenzing shrugs. "It's what rich men like me drink. But no, that is just a joke. I

drink what the trekkers leave behind. And it's hard to find real yakbutter here.

We're too close to the valleys."

The high mountains lie far to the north, hidden by the swirling clouds. Hillary

remembers his first glimpse of the Himalayas, a flash of sawtoothed ivory,

floating between the clouds like the smile of some savage Hindu god.

"I know nothing about Iraq," Tenzing says. "They tell me it's a hot land, dry as

bones." He gestures with his biddie and the sharp stink of smoldering leaves

assaults Hillary's nostrils. "They call us infidels there." Tenzing fingers his

Tais Teng - Crowned by Lightning.pdf