Nima by Adam Popescu

Author:Adam Popescu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Unnamed Press
Published: 2019-06-11T16:00:00+00:00

It’s late afternoon when we finally stop for the night in Phakding.

With food in my stomach, the trail isn’t as difficult as it was in the morning. My blistered feet are getting used to my boots, my shoulders and back to the thirty kilos, my nose to the dust. Val and Daniel are getting more comfortable, too—both have tied kerchiefs over their faces. But stubborn Ethan won’t listen. It still must be silly to him. I cannot catch any of his English, he speaks so quickly and with so many words I don’t understand. But I understand his manner.

Shiny solar panels point skyward along the lodge’s long stone walkway. Solar—cheap to use and expensive to install. More well-to-do Sherpas here. No more than a hundred in this village. Inside, the fading sun shines through the lodge’s dirt-stained glass windows, but even with the sun, it’s empty and cold. I think of my father with his television and solar panels, the prize for my marriage.

Two boys emerge with the jingling of bells on the door, both still chewing lunch. They look barely in their teens, faces small and timid, a touch of down on their upper lips. And beyond them, sitting at a table with cards in his hands, our sirdar, Lasha.

He nods and looks back to his cards, and the boys offer steaming mugs of tea. I’m thirsty, but there’s something about the way he looks at me—as if his eyes see through my jacket, my undershirt. I lead the group to a table, then bow, remove my pack, collect the keys for the rooms, steal a sip from a pot of cold water. I gather the empty water bottles, never stopping a minute. I’m exhausted, but I don’t want to give the sirdar a good look at me.

“Cards?” one of the boys asks. I glance at the table, a pile of dirty rupees in the middle and a half-empty bottle of home brew next to the sirdar. I shake my head and hear the boys chiding me as I step back into the dining area.

I imagine my father here, whole and with both legs strong and healthy. I can see him with those boys, teasing someone like me. I pass by a map pinned to the wall, Phakding circled in bright red, “2,610 meters.” Lower than my home village, much lower. Val says she’s been to Namche Bazaar before, but no further. We’ll be in Namche tomorrow after a thousand meter ascent, and there’s a long way to go after that. A long, long way.

Dinner for my team is fried rice and a pizza made with yak cheese—a Nepali special for Daniel and Val. “Double the C of regular cow milk,” she says. For Ethan, chikken momos, fried dumplings. Val told him not to eat meat, but he doesn’t listen.

“What happens with the empty bottles you took, Ang?” Val questions.

I stare at her a moment, forgetting again that Ang is me. (Not the other Ang, the Ang wandering in the bardo.

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