Three Cups Of Tea Part 5

BEATEN BY THE B BRALDU.

Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.

-hand-lettered sign at the entrance to the Fifth Squadron airbase, Skardu

The first poplar branch smacked Mortenson in the face, before he had time to duck. The second tore the blanket off his head and left it hanging in the Bedford's wake. He flattened himself on the truck's roof and watched Skardu appear down a tunnel of cloth-wrapped tree trunks, girded against hungry goats.

A military green Lama helicopter flew slow and low over the Bedford, on its way from the Baltoro Glacier to Skardu's Fifth Aviation Squadron airbase. Mortenson saw a human figure shrouded in burlap and lashed to a gurney on the landing skid. Etienne had taken this same ride after his rescue, Mortenson thought, but he, at least, had lived.

By the base of the brooding eight-hundred-foot-high Karpocho, or Rock of Skardu, with its ruined fort standing sentinel over the town, the Bedford slowed to let a flock of sheep cross Skardu's bazaar. The busy street, lined with narrow stalls selling soccer b.a.l.l.s, cheap Chinese sweaters, and neatly arranged pyramids of foreign treasure like Ovaltine and Tang, seemed overwhelmingly cosmopolitan after the deafening emptiness of the Indus Gorge.

This vast valley was fertile where the sand didn't drift. It offered relief from the rigors of the gorges and had been a caravan stop on the trade route from Kargil, now in Indian Kashmir, to Central Asia. But since Part.i.tion, and the closing of the border, Skardu had been stranded unprofitably at the wild edge of Pakistan. That is, until its reinvention as outfitter to expeditions trekking toward the ice giants of the Karakoram.

Mohammed pulled to the side of the road, but not far enough to let half a dozen jeeps pa.s.s. He leaned out the window and shouted to ask Mortenson directions over the indignant shrilling of horns. Mortenson climbed down off his rolling throne and wedged himself into the cab.

Where to go? Korphe was an eight-hour jeep ride into the Karakoram, and there was no way to telephone and tell them he'd arrived to fulfill his promise. Changazi, a trekking agent and tour operator who'd organized their attempt at K2, seemed like the person who could arrange to have the school supplies carried up the Braldu Valley. They stopped in front of Changazi's neatly whitewashed compound, and Mortenson knocked on a substantial set of green wooden doors.

Mohammed Ali Changazi himself swung open the doors. He was dressed in an immaculate starched white shalwar shalwar that announced he didn't degrade himself with the dusty business of this world. He was tall for a Balti. And with his precisely trimmed beard, n.o.ble nose, and startling brown eyes rimmed with blue, he cut a mesmerizing figure. In Balti, "Changazi" means "of the family of Genghis Khan," and can be used as a slang word conveying a terrifying type of ruthlessness. "Changazi is an operator, in every sense," Mortenson says. "Of course, I didn't know that then." that announced he didn't degrade himself with the dusty business of this world. He was tall for a Balti. And with his precisely trimmed beard, n.o.ble nose, and startling brown eyes rimmed with blue, he cut a mesmerizing figure. In Balti, "Changazi" means "of the family of Genghis Khan," and can be used as a slang word conveying a terrifying type of ruthlessness. "Changazi is an operator, in every sense," Mortenson says. "Of course, I didn't know that then."

"Dr. Greg," Changazi said, enrobing as much of Mortenson as he was able in a lingering embrace. "What are you doing here? Trekking season is over."

"I brought the school!" Mortenson said slyly, expecting to be congratulated. After K2, he had discussed his plans with Changazi, who had helped him estimate a budget for the building materials. But Changazi seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. "I bought everything to build the school and drove it here from 'Pindi."

Changazi still seemed baffled. "It's too late to build anything now. And why didn't you buy supplies in Skardu?" Mortenson hadn't realized he could. As he was searching for something to say, they were interrupted by a blast from the Bedford's airhorns. Mohammed wanted to unload and start back toward 'Pindi right away. The truck crew unlashed the load and Changazi glanced admiringly at the valuable stacks of supplies towering above them.

"You can store all of this in my office," Changazi said. "Then we'll take tea and discuss what to do with your school." He looked Mortenson up and down, grimacing at the grease-caked shalwar shalwar and Mortenson's grime-blackened face and matted hair. "But why don't you have a wash first, and such like that," he said. and Mortenson's grime-blackened face and matted hair. "But why don't you have a wash first, and such like that," he said.

The bearish a.s.sistant handed Mortenson his plumb line and level, still wrapped neatly in Abdul's cloth. As load after load of cement and sheets of st.u.r.dy four-ply pa.s.sed by an increasingly enthusiastic Changazi, Mortenson unwrapped the fresh bar of Tibet Snow soap his host provided. He set to work scouring away four days of road grit with a pot of water Changazi's servant Yakub heated over an Epigas cylinder that had probably been pilfered, he realized, from an expedition.

Mortenson, suddenly anxious, wanted to take an inventory of all the supplies, but Changazi insisted there would be time later. Accompanied by the call of the muezzin, muezzin, Changazi led Mortenson to his office, where servants had unrolled a plush, scarcely used Marmot sleeping bag on a Changazi led Mortenson to his office, where servants had unrolled a plush, scarcely used Marmot sleeping bag on a charpoy charpoy they'd placed between a desk and a dated wall map of the world. "Rest now," Changazi said, in a way that invited no argument. "I'll see you after evening prayer." they'd placed between a desk and a dated wall map of the world. "Rest now," Changazi said, in a way that invited no argument. "I'll see you after evening prayer."

Mortenson woke to the sound of raised voices in an adjoining room. He stood and saw by the unrelenting mountain light scalpeling through the window that he'd blacked out once again and slept straight through until morning. In the next room, sitting cross-legged on the floor, next to a cold cup of untasted tea, was a small, scowling, solidly muscled Balti Mortenson recognized as Akhmalu, the cook who had accompanied his K2 expedition. Akhmalu stood and made a spitting motion toward Changazi's feet, the ultimate Balti insult, then, in the same instant, saw Mortenson standing in the doorway.

"Doctor Girek!" he said, and his face changed as quickly as a mountain crag fired by a shaft of sun. He ran to Mortenson, beaming, and wrapped him in a Balti bearhug. Over tea, and six slices of toasted white bread that Changazi served proudly with a fresh jar of Austrian lingonberry jam that he had mysteriously procured, Mortenson came to understand that a bout of tug-of-war had begun. News about the arrival of his building supplies had spread throughout Skardu. As the man who had cooked Mortenson's dal dal and and chapatti chapatti for months, Akhmalu had come to stake his claim. for months, Akhmalu had come to stake his claim.

"Dr. Girek, you promise one time to me you come salaam salaam my village," Akhmalu said. And it was true. He had. "I have one jeep waiting go to Khane village," he said. "We go now." my village," Akhmalu said. And it was true. He had. "I have one jeep waiting go to Khane village," he said. "We go now."

"Maybe tomorrow, or the next day," Mortenson said. He scanned Changazi's compound. An entire Bedford-load of building supplies worth more than seven thousand dollars had arrived the evening before, and now he didn't see so much as a hammer, not in this room, or the next, or the courtyard he could see clearly through the window.

"But my whole village will expect you, sir," Akhmalu said. "We have prepare special dinner already." The guilt of wasting a feast that a Balti village could barely afford was too much for Mortenson. Changazi walked with him to Akhmalu's hired jeep and climbed into the backseat before the question of his invitation could be considered.

The pavement ran out just east of Skardu. "How far is Khane?" Mortenson asked, as the rust-red Toyota Land Cruiser began bouncing over rocks scarcely smaller than its tires, up a narrow switchback to a ledge above the Indus River.

"Very far," Changazi said, scowling.

"Very near," Akhmalu countered. "Only three or seven hours."

Mortenson settled back into the seat of honor, next to the driver, laughing. He should have known better than to ask the time a journey took in Baltistan. Behind him, on the cargo seats, he felt the tension between the two men as palpably as the Toyota's unforgiving suspension. But ahead of him, through the winds.h.i.+eld, with its spidery webwork of fissures, he saw the sixteen-thousand-foot-high panorama of the Karakoram's foothills tearing at a blameless blue sky with its fearsome a.s.sortment of brown, broken teeth, and felt unaccountably happy.

They bounced along a branch of the Indus for hours until it turned south toward India, then climbed up the Hushe Valley, alongside the Shyok River, with its chill blue glacial melt thundering over boulders recently departed, in geological time, from eroding cliffs on both sides of the slender valley. As the road worsened, the laminated 3D card depicting the great black-shrouded cube, the Kaaba of Mecca, that hung from the Toyota's rearview mirror, repeatedly smacked the winds.h.i.+eld with the fervency of prayer.

The Al-Hajarul Aswad, a great black rock entombed within the walls of the Kaaba, is thought to be an asteroid. Many Muslims believe that it fell to earth in the time of Adam, as a gift from Allah, and its jet-black color indicates its ability to absorb the sins of the faithful who are fortunate enough to touch its once-white surface. Looking up at the boulder-strewn escarpments overhanging the road, Mortenson hoped that those celestial rocks would choose another moment to come cras.h.i.+ng to earth.

Great brown crenulated walls hemmed in the terraced patchwork of potato and wheat fields as they climbed, like the battlements of castles constructed beyond the scale of human comprehension. By late afternoon, it was misty where the Hushe Valley narrowed to a pa.s.s. But Mortenson, who'd studied relief maps of the Karakoram for months as he waited out storms at K2 base camp, knew that one of the world's most formidable peaks, 25,660-foot Masherbrum, lay dead ahead.

Unlike most of the high peaks of the central Karakoram, Masherbrum was readily visible to the south, from what had once been the crown jewel of British India, Kashmir. That's why, in 1856, T. G. Montgomerie, a British Royal Engineers lieutenant, named the great gray wall rising above the snows "K1," or Karakoram 1, for the first peak in the remote region he was able to accurately survey. Its taller and more elusive neighbor twenty kilometers to the northeast became K2 by default, based on the later date of its "discovery." Mortenson stared at the whiteness, where Americans George Bell, Willi Unsoeld, and Nick Clinch had made the first ascent with their Pakistani partner Captain Jawed Aktar in 1960, willing Masherbrum's summit pyramid to pierce the clouds, but the mountain drew its cloak tight: The snowlight from its great hanging glaciers illuminated the mist from within.

The jeep stopped next to a zamba, zamba, swaying over the Shyok, and Mortenson got out. He'd never been comfortable crossing these yak-hair bridges, since they were engineered to support Balti half his weight. And when Akhmalu and Changazi piled on behind him, shaking the structure violently, he struggled to keep his feet beneath him. Mortenson grasped the twin handrails and shuffled his size-fourteen feet tightrope-walker-style along the single braided strand between him and the rapids fifty feet below. The swaying over the Shyok, and Mortenson got out. He'd never been comfortable crossing these yak-hair bridges, since they were engineered to support Balti half his weight. And when Akhmalu and Changazi piled on behind him, shaking the structure violently, he struggled to keep his feet beneath him. Mortenson grasped the twin handrails and shuffled his size-fourteen feet tightrope-walker-style along the single braided strand between him and the rapids fifty feet below. The zamba zamba was slick with spray, and he concentrated so successfully on his feet that he didn't notice the crowd waiting to greet him on the far bank until he was nearly upon them. was slick with spray, and he concentrated so successfully on his feet that he didn't notice the crowd waiting to greet him on the far bank until he was nearly upon them.

A tiny, bearded Balti, wearing black Gore-Tex mountaineering pants and an orange T-s.h.i.+rt proclaiming "climbers get higher," helped Mortenson onto the firm ground of Khane village. This was Janjungpa, who had been head high alt.i.tude porter for a lavish Dutch-led expedition to K2 during Mortenson's time on the mountain, and who possessed an uncanny ability to stroll over to base camp for a visit at the precise moment his friend Akhmalu was serving lunch. But Mortenson had enjoyed Janjungpa's company and his bravado, and mined him for stories about the dozens of expeditions he had led up the Baltoro. Westernized enough to extend his hand to a foreigner for a shake without invoking Allah, Janjungpa steered Mortenson through the narrow alleys between Khane's mud and stone homes, taking his elbow as they crossed irrigation ditches running ripe with waste.

Janjungpa led his large foreigner at the head of a procession of two dozen men, and two brown goats that followed with imploring yellow eyes. The men turned into a neat whitewashed home and climbed a ladder of carved logs toward the smell of cooking chicken.

Mortenson let himself be seated on cus.h.i.+ons after his host beat the dust halfheartedly from them. The men of Khane crowded into the small room and arranged themselves in a circle on a faded floral carpet. From his seat, Mortenson had a fine view, over the rooftops of neighboring houses, toward the steep stone canyon that brought Khane its drinking water and irrigated its fields.

Janjungpa's sons rolled a pink, plasticized tablecloth onto the floor at the center of the circle, and arranged platters of fried chicken, raw turnip salad, and a stew of sheep liver and brains at Mortenson's feet. The host waited until Mortenson bit into a piece of chicken to begin. "I wish to thank Mr. Girek Mortenson for honoring us and coming to build a school for Khane village," Janjungpa said.

"A school for Khane?" Mortenson croaked, almost choking on the chicken.

"Yes, one school, as you promised," Janjungpa said, gazing intently around the circle of men as he spoke, as if delivering a summation to a jury. "A climbing school."

Mortenson's mind raced and he looked from face to face, scanning them for signs that this was an elaborate joke. But the craggy faces of the men of Khane looked as stolid as the cliffs outside the window, looming impa.s.sively in the setting sunlight. He ran through months of his K2 memories. He and Janjungpa had had discussed the need to provide specialized mountaineering skills to Balti porters, who were often ignorant of the most basic mountain rescue techniques, and Janjungpa had dwelt at length on the Balti porters' high rate of injuries and low salaries. Mortenson could clearly remember him describing Khane and inviting him to visit. But he was quite sure they'd never discussed a school. Or a promise. discussed the need to provide specialized mountaineering skills to Balti porters, who were often ignorant of the most basic mountain rescue techniques, and Janjungpa had dwelt at length on the Balti porters' high rate of injuries and low salaries. Mortenson could clearly remember him describing Khane and inviting him to visit. But he was quite sure they'd never discussed a school. Or a promise.

"Girek Sahib, don't listen to Janjungpa. He is the crazy man," Akhmalu said, and Mortenson felt flooded by relief. "He say the climbing school," Akhmalu continued, shaking his head violently. "Khane need the ordinary school, for Khane children, not for making the rich house for Janjungpa. This you should do." The relief evaporated as swiftly as it had come.

To his left, Mortenson saw Changazi reclining on a plump cus.h.i.+on, delicately stripping a chicken leg of its meat with his fingernails and smiling faintly. Mortenson tried to catch his eye, hoping Changazi would speak up and put an end to the madness, but a heated argument broke out in Balti, as two factions quickly formed behind Akhmalu and Janjungpa. Women climbed onto the adjoining rooftops, clutching their shawls against a bitter wind blowing down from Masherbrum, and trying to eavesdrop on the argument as it grew in volume.

"I never made any promise," Mortenson tried, first in English, and then when no one seemed to be listening, he repeated it in Balti. But it was as if the largest person in the room had become invisible. So he followed the argument, as well as he could. Repeatedly, he heard Akhmalu calling Janjungpa greedy. But Janjungpa parried every charge leveled against him by repeating the promise he claimed Mortenson had made to him.

After more than an hour, Akhmalu rose suddenly and pulled Mortenson up by the arm. As if he could steer the outcome his way by conducting Mortenson to his own home, Akhmalu led a still-shouting procession of men down the log ladder, across a muddy irrigation ditch and upstairs into his own home. Once the group was arranged on cus.h.i.+ons in a smaller sitting room, Akhmalu's teenage son, who had been a kitchen boy on Mortenson's expedition, lay another procession of dishes at Mortenson's feet. A ring of wildflowers decorated the dish of turnip salad, and glistening kidneys floated prominently on the surface of the sheep organ stew, but otherwise the meal was almost identical to the banquet Janjungpa had served.

Akhmalu's son scooped a kidney, the choicest morsel, over a bowl of rice and handed it to Mortenson, smiling shyly, before serving the others. Mortenson pushed the kidney to one side of the bowl and ate only rice swimming in the greasy gravy, but no one seemed to notice. He was invisible again. The men of Khane ate as heartily as they argued, as if the previous argument and meal had never happened and each point of each faction's argument had to be shredded as thoroughly as the chicken and mutton bones they tore apart with their teeth.

Well into the argument's fourth hour, his eyes stinging from the cigarette smoke choking the room, Mortenson climbed up onto Akhmalu's roof and leaned back against a sheaf of newly harvested buckwheat that blocked the wind. The moon, on the rise, smoldered behind the eastern ridgeline. The wind had blown the peak of Masherbrum clear, and Mortenson stared a long time at its knife-edged summit ridges, sharpened eerily by moonlight. Just beyond it, Mortenson knew, could in fact feel, loomed the great pyramid of K2. How simple it had been to come to Baltistan as a climber, Mortenson thought. The path was clear. Focus on a peak, as he was doing now, and organize the men and supplies until you reached it. Or failed trying.

Through the large square hole in the roof, cigarette smoke and burning yak dung furnaced up out of the room below, fouling Mortenson's perch. And the argumentative voices of Khane's men rose with it, fouling Mortenson's mood. He took a thin jacket from his daypack, lay back on the buckwheat, and spread it over his chest like a blanket. The moon, nearly full, climbed clear of the jagged ridgeline. It balanced on top of the escarpment like a great white boulder about to fall and crush the village of Khane.

"Go ahead. Fall," Mortenson thought, and fell asleep.

In the morning, Masherbrum's south face was cloaked, once again, in clouds and Mortenson climbed down from the roof on stiff legs to find Changazi sipping milk tea. He insisted that Changazi get them back to Skardu before another round of meals and arguments could begin. Janjungpa and Akhmalu joined them in the jeep, not willing to abandon their chance of winning the argument by letting Mortenson escape.

All the way back to Skardu, Changazi wore the same thin-lipped smile. Mortenson cursed himself for wasting so much time. As if to emphasize the looming end of weather warm enough to build a school, Skardu was gripped in a wintry chill when they returned. Low clouds blotted out the encircling peaks and a fine rain seemed to hover constantly in the air, rather than having the mercy to fall and be finished.

Despite the plastic flaps folded down over the jeep windows, Mortenson's shalwar kamiz shalwar kamiz was soaked through by the time the jeep parked in front of Changazi's compound. "Please," Changazi said, staring at Mortenson's mud-caked, mud-colored was soaked through by the time the jeep parked in front of Changazi's compound. "Please," Changazi said, staring at Mortenson's mud-caked, mud-colored shalwar. shalwar. "I'll have Yakub heat some water." "I'll have Yakub heat some water."

"Before we do anything else, let's get a few things straightened out," Mortenson said, unable to keep the heat out of his voice. "First thing. Where are all my school supplies? I don't see them anywhere."

Changazi stood as beatifically still as a portrait of a revered prophet. "I had them s.h.i.+fted to my other office."

"s.h.i.+fted?"

"Yes...s.h.i.+fted. To the safer place," he said, with the aggrieved air of a man forced to explain the obvious. "What's wrong with right here?" Mortenson said. "There are many dacoits about," Changazi said. "I want to go see everything right now," Mortenson said, drawing himself up to his full height and stepping close to Changazi. Mohammed Ali Changazi closed his eyes and laced his fingers together, las.h.i.+ng his thumbs over each other. He opened his eyes, as if he hoped Mortenson might have disappeared. "It is late and my a.s.sistant has gone home with the key," Changazi said. "Also I must wash and prepare for evening prayer. But I promise you, tomorrow, you will have 100 percent satisfaction. And together, we will put aside these shouting village men and set to work on your school."

Mortenson woke at first light. Wearing Changazi's sleeping bag like a shawl, he stepped out into the damp street. The crown of eighteen-thousand-foot peaks that garlanded the town was still hidden behind low clouds. And without the mountains, Skardu, with its trash-strewn shuttered bazaar, its squat mud-brick and cinder-block buildings, seemed unaccountably ugly. During his time in California he'd made Skardu the gilded capital of a mythical mountain kingdom. And he'd remembered the Balti who peopled it as pure and fine. But he wondered, standing in the drizzle, if he'd invented the Baltistan he'd believed in. Had he been so happy to simply be alive after K2 that his exuberance had colored this place, and these people, beyond reason?

He shook his head, as if trying to erase his doubts, but they remained. Korphe was only 112 kilometers to the north, but it felt a world away. He'd find his supplies. Then he'd get himself somehow to Korphe. He'd come so far he had to believe in something, and so he chose that blighted place clinging to the Braldu Gorge. He'd get there before he'd give up hope.

Over breakfast, Changazi seemed unusually solicitous. He kept Mortenson's teacup topped up himself, and a.s.sured him they'd set out as soon as the driver arrived with his jeep. By the time the green Land Cruiser arrived, Janjungpa and Akhmalu had walked to Changazi's from the cheap truck driver's rest house where they'd spent the night. The group set out together in silence.

They drove west through sand dunes. Where the sand relented, burlap bags of recently harvested potatoes awaited collection at the edge of fields. They stood as tall as men and Mortenson, at first, mistook them for people waiting mutely in the mist. The wind gained force and blew sc.r.a.ps of cloud cover aside. Glimpses of snowfields flitted high overhead like hope, and Mortenson felt his mood lifting.

An hour and a half from Skardu, they left the main road and fishtailed up a rutted track to a cl.u.s.ter of large, comfortable-looking mud-and-stone homes sheltered by weedy willow trees. This was Kuardu, Changazi's home village. He led the awkward party through a pen, nudging sheep aside with his sandaled foot, and up to the second floor of the village's largest home.

In the sitting room, they reclined, not on the usual dusty flowered cus.h.i.+ons, but on purple and green Thermarest self-inflating camping pads. The walls were decorated with dozens of framed photos of Changazi, distinctive in spotless white, posing with scruffy members of French, j.a.panese, Italian, and American expeditions. Mortenson saw himself, his arm hooked jauntily over Changazi's shoulder, on the way to K2, and he could hardly believe the photo was only a year old. His own face looking back at him from the photograph seemed to belong to someone a decade younger. Through the door, he could see women in the kitchen frying something over a pair of expedition-grade field stoves.

Changazi disappeared into another room and returned wearing a gray Italian cashmere crewneck over his shalwar. shalwar. Five older men with unkempt beards and damp brown woolen Five older men with unkempt beards and damp brown woolen topis topis c.o.c.ked on their heads entered and gripped Mortenson's hand enthusiastically before taking their places on the camping pads. Fifty more Kuardu men filed in and wedged against each other around a plastic tablecloth. c.o.c.ked on their heads entered and gripped Mortenson's hand enthusiastically before taking their places on the camping pads. Fifty more Kuardu men filed in and wedged against each other around a plastic tablecloth.

Changazi directed a parade of servants who placed so many dishes in the s.p.a.ce between the men that Mortenson had to fold his feet sideways to make room, and still more arrived. Half a dozen roast chickens, radishes and turnips carved into floral rosettes, a mound of biryani, studded with nuts and raisins, cauliflower pakhora pakhora fried in herbed batter, and what looked like the better part of a yak, swimming in a stew of chilis and potatoes. Mortenson had never seen so much food in Baltistan, and the dread that he'd been struggling to push down during the jeep ride rose up until he could taste its acidic tang in his throat. fried in herbed batter, and what looked like the better part of a yak, swimming in a stew of chilis and potatoes. Mortenson had never seen so much food in Baltistan, and the dread that he'd been struggling to push down during the jeep ride rose up until he could taste its acidic tang in his throat.

"What are we doing here, Changazi," he said. "Where are my supplies?"

Changazi piled yak meat on a lavish mound of biryani and set it before Mortenson before he answered. "These are the elders of my village," he said, motioning to the five wizened men. "Here in Kuardu, I can promise you no arguments. They have already agreed to see that your school is built in our village before winter."

Mortenson stood up without answering and stepped over the food. He knew how rude it was to refuse this hospitality. And he knew that it was unforgivable to turn his back to the elders in this manner and step over their food with unclean feet, but he had to get outside.

He ran until he'd left Kuardu behind and lunged fiercely up a steep shepherd's path. He felt the alt.i.tude tearing at his chest but he pushed himself harder, running until he felt so light-headed the landscape began to swim. In a clearing overlooking Kuardu, he collapsed, struggling for breath. He hadn't cried since Christa's death. But there, alone in a windblown goat pasture, he buried his face in his hands and swabbed furiously at the tears that wouldn't stop.

When finally he looked up, he saw a dozen young children staring at him from the far side of a mulberry tree. They had brought a herd of goats here to graze. But the sight of a strange Angrezi Angrezi sitting in the sitting in the mud sobbing led them to neglect their animals, which wandered away up the hillside. Mortenson stood, brus.h.i.+ng off his clothes, and walked toward the children. mud sobbing led them to neglect their animals, which wandered away up the hillside. Mortenson stood, brus.h.i.+ng off his clothes, and walked toward the children.

He knelt by the oldest, a boy of about eleven. "What ...are... you?" the boy said shyly, extending his hand for Mortenson to shake. The boy's hand disappeared in Mortenson's grasp. "I am Greg. I am good," he said.

"I am Greg. I am good," all of the children repeated as one.

"No, I am Greg. What is your name?" he tried again.

"No, I am Greg. What is your name," the children repeated, giggling.

Mortenson switched to Balti. "Min takpo Greg. Nga America in." "Min takpo Greg. Nga America in." ("My name is Greg. I come from America.") ("My name is Greg. I come from America.") "Kiri min takpo in?" "Kiri min takpo in?" ("What is your name?") ("What is your name?") The children clapped their hands, gleeful at understanding the Angrezi.

Mortenson shook each of their hands in turn, as the children introduced themselves. The girls wrapped their hands cautiously in their headscarves before touching the infidel. Then he stood, and with his back at the trunk of the mulberry tree, began to teach. Angrezi, Angrezi, he said, pointing to himself. "Foreigner." he said, pointing to himself. "Foreigner."

"Foreigner," the children shouted in unison. Mortenson pointed to his nose, his hair, his ears and eyes and mouth. At the sound of each unfamiliar term the children exploded in unison, repeating it, before dissolving in laughter.

Half an hour later, when Changazi found him, Mortenson was kneeling with the children, drawing multiplication tables in the dirt with a mulberry branch.

"Doctor Greg. Come down. Come inside. Have some tea. We have much to discuss," Changazi pleaded. "We have nothing to discuss until you take me to Korphe," Mortenson said, never letting his eyes leave the children. "Korphe is very far. And very dirty. You like these children. Why don't you build your school right here?

"No," Mortenson, said, rubbing out the work of an earnest nine-year-old girl with his palm and drawing the correct number. "Six times six is thirty-six."

"Greg, Sahib, please."

"Korphe," Mortenson said. "I have nothing to say to you until then."

The river was on their right. It boiled over boulders big as houses. Their Land Cruiser bucked and surged as if it were trying to negotiate the coffee-colored rapids, rather than this "road" skirting the north bank of the Braldu.

Akhmalu and Janjungpa had given up at last. They said hasty, defeated farewells and caught a ride on a jeep heading back to Skardu rather than continue chasing Mortenson up the Braldu River Valley. During the eight hours it took the Land Cruiser to reach Korphe, Mortenson had ample time to think. Changazi sprawled against a sack of basmati rice in the back seat with his white wool topi topi pulled over his eyes and slept through the constant jolting of their progress, or seemed to. pulled over his eyes and slept through the constant jolting of their progress, or seemed to.

Mortenson felt a note of regret toward Akhmalu. He only wanted the children of his village to have the school that the government of Pakistan had failed to provide. But Mortenson's anger at Janjungpa and Changazi, at their scheming and dishonesty, spilled over the grat.i.tude he felt for Akhmalu's months of uncomplaining service at K2 base camp until it became the same disheartening dun color as the surface of this ugliest of rivers.

Perhaps he had been too harsh with these people: The economic disparity between them was simply too great. Could it be that even a partially employed American who lived out of a storage locker could seem like little more than a flas.h.i.+ng neon dollar sign to people in the poorest region of one of the world's poorest countries? He resolved that, should the people of Korphe engage in a tug of war for his wealth, such as it was, he would be more patient. He would hear them all out, eat as many meals as necessary, before insisting that the school should benefit all, rather than enrich the headman Haji Ali, or anyone else.

It had been dark for hours by the time they arrived opposite Korphe. Mortenson jumped out of the jeep and scanned the far riverbank, but he couldn't tell if anyone was there. At Changazi's instruction, the driver honked his horn and flashed his headlights. Mortenson stepped into their beam and waved at the blackness until he heard a shout from the south side of the river. The driver turned the jeep so its lights were trained across the water. They spotlit the progress of a small man sitting in a rickety box suspended on a cable over the gorge, pulling himself toward them.

Mortenson recognized Haji Ali's son Twaha just before he jumped out of the cable car and crashed into him. Twaha wrapped his arms around Mortenson's waist and squeezed, pressing his head against the American's chest. He smelled densely of smoke and sweat. When he finally loosened his grip, Twaha looked up at Mortenson, laughing. "Father mine, Haji Ali, say Allah send you back someday. Haji Ali know everything, sir."

Twaha helped Mortenson fold himself into the cable car. "It was just a box really," Mortenson says. "Like a big fruit crate held together with a few nails. You pulled yourself along this greasy cable and tried not to think about the creaking sounds it made. Tried not to think about the obvious-if it broke, you'd fall. And if you fell, you were dead."

Mortenson wheeled himself slowly along the 350-foot cable, which swayed back and forth in the biting wind. He could feel spray in the air. And a hundred feet below, he could hear, but not see, the brute force of the Braldu scouring boulders smooth. Then on a bluff high above the far riverbank, silhouetted by the jeep's headlights, he saw hundreds of people lined up to greet him. It looked like the entire population of Korphe. And on the far right, at the highest point on the bluff, he saw an unmistakable outline. Standing like he was carved out of granite, his legs planted wide, his broad bearded head balanced like a boulder on his solid shoulders, Haji Ali studied Mortenson's clumsy progress across the river.

Haji Ali's granddaughter Jahan remembers that evening well. "Many climbers make promise to Braldu people and forget them when they find their way home. My grandfather told us many times that Doctor Greg was different. He would come back. But we were surprised to see him again so soon. And I was so surprised to see, once again, his long body. None of the Braldu people look like that. He was very... suprising."

While Jahan and the rest of Korphe looked on, Haji Ali offered loud praise to Allah for bringing his visitor back safely, then hugged his long body. Mortenson was amazed to see that the head of the man who had loomed so large in his imagination for the last year reached only as high as his chest.

By a roaring fire in Haji Ali's balti, balti, there in the same spot where Mortenson had once washed up, lost and exhausted, he felt completely at home. He sat happily surrounded by the people he'd been thinking about all the months he'd wasted writing grant proposals and letters and flailing about for a way to come back here with the news that he could keep his promise. He was bursting to tell Haji Ali, but there were formalities of hospitality to which they had to attend. there in the same spot where Mortenson had once washed up, lost and exhausted, he felt completely at home. He sat happily surrounded by the people he'd been thinking about all the months he'd wasted writing grant proposals and letters and flailing about for a way to come back here with the news that he could keep his promise. He was bursting to tell Haji Ali, but there were formalities of hospitality to which they had to attend.

From some hidden recess in her home, Sakina produced an ancient packet of sugar cookies and presented them to Mortenson on a chipped tray with his b.u.t.ter tea. He broke them into tiny pieces, took one, and pa.s.sed the tray so they could be shared out to the crowd of Korphe men.

Haji Ali waited until Mortenson had sipped the paiyu cha, paiyu cha, then slapped him on the knee, grinning. then slapped him on the knee, grinning. Cheezaley! Cheezaley! He said, exactly as he had the first time Mortenson had come to his home a year earlier, "What the h.e.l.l?" But Mortenson hadn't wandered into Korphe lost and emaciated this time. He'd labored for a year to get back to this spot, with this news, and he ached to deliver it. He said, exactly as he had the first time Mortenson had come to his home a year earlier, "What the h.e.l.l?" But Mortenson hadn't wandered into Korphe lost and emaciated this time. He'd labored for a year to get back to this spot, with this news, and he ached to deliver it.

"I bought everything we need to build a school," he said in Balti, as he'd been rehearsing. "All the wood, and cement and tools. It's all in Skardu right now." He looked at Changazi, who dipped a cookie in his tea, and flush with the moment, he felt affection even for him. He had, after all, after a few detours, brought him here. "I came back to keep my promise," Mortenson said, looking Haji Ali in the eye. "And I hope we can begin building it soon, Inshallah. Inshallah."

Haji Ali thrust his hand into his vest pocket, absently worrying his store of ibex jerky. "Doctor Greg," he said in Balti. "By the most merciful blessings of Allah you have come back to Korphe. I believed you would and said so as often as the wind blows though the Braldu Valley. That's why we have all discussed the school while you were in America. We want very much a school for Korphe," Haji Ali said, fastening his eyes on Mortenson's. "But we have decided. Before the ibex can climb K2, he must learn to cross the river. Before it is possible to build a school, we must build a bridge. This is what Korphe needs now."

"Zamba?" Mortenson repeated, hoping there was some terrible misunderstanding. The fault must be with his Balti. "A bridge?" he said in English, so there could be no mistake. Mortenson repeated, hoping there was some terrible misunderstanding. The fault must be with his Balti. "A bridge?" he said in English, so there could be no mistake.

"Yes, the big bridge, the stone one," Twaha said. "So we can carry the school to the Korphe village." Mortenson took a long sip of tea, thinking, thinking. thinking. He took another. He took another.

CHAPTER 9.