The Altitude Of Love

A middle-aged Nigerian man finds himself on Mount Everest. It is improbable and he knows. But his presence on the mountain is not ordinary and he soon realises that.

Mount Everest, Nepal.
July, 1978.


This is a story that my black Sherpa is telling me. It is a
story about Yellow. It is also a story about love, about
disfigurement and about wholeness. My black Sherpa is
middle-aged and gaunt. My black Sherpa says he is in
love with life and has no regrets; except a torment from a
certain aspect of Yellow's anatomy. My Sherpa says he is
looking for light and fulfillment. It is cold. My feet and
fingers have no palpable presence; they are now like
reluctant appendages to the rest of my body. We are
climbing Mount Everest and my Sherpa is talking. I keep
listening.


... so, as always, I walked down the dirt road to Yellow’s
house. I saw the glow of lanterns and the allure of distant
fireplaces. Yellow's family house was at the extreme end of
the road. Her father, like his father, had sequestered his
family from the general population because of the
recurrence case of club foot in their lineage. They were not
outcasts. No. They were just half-wanted. Yellow's father
preferred to be on the fringe of the society and he and his
family came into the village at nights only. Or, in the early
mornings when the sun was not yet up. They raid the floor
of the marketplace for morsels and uncooked bits of meat.
They search for grains in clumps of mud already plastered
with the soles of a thousand sandals. That was how they
survived. It was so tough that Yellow wanted to prostitute
herself to the lecherous village-men. But Yellow came up
against a wall of belief which posited that her club foot was
infectious. My Yellow and her family were suffering. I
helped out the much I can…


My Sherpa hooks his pick-ace into a crevice and looks
down at me. He is searching for my face and after a while
he finds it; the torch strapped to his head flashing into my
white, gelid face. I smile clumsily. My Sherpa smiles back.
Maybe he thinks I sense the improbability of his narration.
Maybe he now sees that I am Everest material; that I do not
need to be sustained with moving tales and fiction. In the
white expanse of ice, my Sherpa looks alive and distinct. I
am reminded - though this thought suffers from
impermanence - of how I can die and melt in with the
icescape. My Sherpa smiles again and continues speaking
as we climb, convinced that I am listening.


... that night was a harmattan night and I found Yellow by
their part-mud, part-cement house, wringing clothes and
laying them out on the shriveled grasses. She let the last
cloth fall from her hand, still soapy and wet, unto the
ground as she saw me coming down the scree slope that
cordoned off their view of the village. Yellow hugged me
and for a moment I could only hear the sound of crickets
and that of my heart. I could smell her skin. It smelled of
fear and it harboured, I'm afraid, a whiff of penury. I let
Yellow pull away from me before I asked about her family.
She did not answer at once and so I wondered if my bulk
inquisition had suggested that, from person to person, I
saw no differences and distinctions; that I pigeonholed
lives into the uniform banner of club foot. But Yellow
answered eventually, her hands working the tip of her big
dread-locks.

“Mama and Papa are still at the market picking meat. My
brothers are hunting in the bush. I picked enough soap
from the stores to wash so I got back early. ”

“Mhmm. ” I said casually.

I thought of Yellow’s two younger brothers. They were
young men trying to make it in post-war Nigeria with club
foot. I could see the odds they were facing. In fact, I could
not see it. I just supposed that it must be personal and
harsh. Nigeria was a conundrum of faith and heartlessness,
of infrequent tolerance that paled when compared with the
frequency of marginalization. I also believed that the Civil
War which ended the not a long time ago must have had a
shattering effect on some customs. I wanted Yellow to
have a full life.

“Mhmm, what?” Yellow asked me, “How are you?”

“I’m fine” I replied. I resisted the temptation of staring at
her left leg. It was a visual obsession and has been a topic
of perpetual wonderment for me. Why did the foot chose to
curve inwards? Why? Does it know how much trouble it
causes for me? I grinned and stifled a hiss. Then I asked,
having decided to completely push the thought away.

“Are you still going to sleep at the palace toni __”

“Yes!” she cut in excitedly.

Yellow was always excited despite her leg condition.
Yellow was so fulsome with jocundity; so sweet that the
excitement should be mine. I was lucky to have her. Yet
she was always glowing; always appreciating my princely
association…


My Sherpa stops briefly to better discern the sounds of
disportment escaping from what should be CAMP II on
Everest. He looks down at me again and I am the first to
smile; my grinning teeth acknowledging his guide and our
perfect ascent. My Sherpa then starts to concentrate on his
story as we climb further. He is clearly an excellent auteur.
My black Sherpa has been telling me his story for about an
hour now, segueing from his love of a certain slightly
deformed, fair and very beautiful girl to how he was
hopelessly addicted to cigarette; up to a point when
smoking it conventionally felt a bit passé, and he started to
crack open the sticks and lick the white substance instead,
draining out the menthol with his tongue. My black Sherpa
has painted a lot of pictures with words - sometimes so
powerfully that I lag behind while trying to decode their
meanings. A brainy man, that my black Sherpa. And now
he is talking about misery. Or, perhaps, it’s just that I
sense misery - a feeling aided by the mounds of
putrefaction and occasional human bones that dot the two
trails on Everest. My Sherpa continues with a more
assertive voice, as if the story has suddenly revealed itself
to him with all the details he had otherwise forgotten.


… me and Yellow slept in the palace that night with my
father, the King, snoring in the next room, getting well-
rested to enforce all our stupid traditions including the one
that encouraged disabled people to partake less in the
affairs of able humans. And I, the heir, cuddled up to Yellow
all through the night. I remember lifting up her club foot
while she slept and talking it to it, telling it to go ahead
and straighten. I don’t know if that was proof of my
desperation or proof of my undying love. But I remember
clearly that I urged the foot to straighten and I remember
that it did not. I put the foot back and held Yellow, prying
into her and getting reassured of her innate cleanliness and
sweetness. Yellow should be my Queen. Later, she slept
but I was so starry-eyed that I lay awake. I kissed Yellow
in her sleep until she woke up and kissed me back. Yellow
even said that she was kissing me in her dream so it was a
continuous romance that transcended the plane of ordinary
consciousness. My Yellow is that sweet-tongued and
thoughtful; full of idealistic quirks that just gum up a pure
experience of sex, or like Yellow prefers to say, love-
making. In the morning, before anyone in the palace awoke,
I walked with Yellow back to her house. Her parents must
have known where Yellow was because they appreciated
that she was nubile and I was, of course, welcome to damn
traditions and in-law my princely self to their lot. Surely,
that would be a portent validation of their humanness. That
might still happen. But meantime, I gave Yellow a chaste
peck and wended my way back to the palace…


As we approach Camp II, I try to keep apace of my black
Sherpa. His name is John by the way; though I am more
inclined to just call him Sherpa because it is what he
almost is, barring the fact that he definitely isn’t
Himalayan, and because I am not actually calling him
Sherpa to his face but only doing so for the purposes of re-
narration. I am enjoying my black Sherpa’s story because
it is offering me an emotional and visual detour from the
sameness of ice and the clanging of mountaineering
equipments behind us. I imagine that this story must have
been foisted on many other ears but I nevertheless choose
to believe that it is a virgin story. Of course, now, it is
being told with either more or less vivacity and with an
assuredly different cadence, even as the Nepalese air,
having bowed to the Jack Daniels in my nostrils, now
smells like stale liquor. I must listen to this story
attentively, I tell myself. I must listen. If I fail to, I will
unwittingly start recalling that I am a doctor from Florida
and that I just lost my wife to bowel cancer and that I have
a useless, alcoholic son who is diabetic anyway and that I
am here on Everest to wish away the tedium of my recent
tragedies. I wonder why my black Sherpa is escorting
people up and down Everest. He has not told me yet. My
Sherpa continues to tell his story, but meanwhile asks me
a question which I readily answer.

“Disabled people are not discriminated against where you
come from, eh?”

“Hell, No!” I answer, wiping sweat [or is it whiskey?] from
the top of my lips. “I come from America”.


… the next day, I pledged Two Hundred Naira to anyone
who knew of any herb that would cure club foot. I did not,
of course, announce that the beneficiary of this crowd-
sourced medical experiment was Yellow. The villagers
raided the bushes in the village and the news of my pledge
seeped into the surrounding villages. Yellow heard it and
Yellow was not happy. I told her that I loved her the way
she was but just wanted her to be more whole. Yellow’s
eyes started to pour out tears. I am hurt and embarrassed
and so I withdrew my pledge. Never again, I swore, will I
allow something as inconsequential as a club foot to make
Yellow question my love for her. On the night that I
withdrew my pledge, overheard the murmuring of
disgruntled villagers as I idled around the village, thinking
of Yellow and how much dust my carpenter jeans was
raising from the dusty footpath. In three or four days’ time,
I would go back to Lagos; to the bustle and to the
unstructured life. I looked forward to seeing my two-bit
status swallowed by a profusion of greater wealth and
greater personalities. It was, in a way, the best time to go
back to Lagos. The war had just ended and Igbos, roundly
defeated in that war, were welcome to return to Lagos and
embrace the idea of one Nigeria. As I neared the palace, I
thought more of Lagos. I feared that my re-inception into
Lagos would be layered: I would, first of all, come to
believe that we had indeed lost the war, then I would learn
to walk the streets of Lagos feeling like a loser before
finally living and dying in Lagos like a vanquished Biafran.
But again, remaining in the village was not really an option.
The villagers shook their heads whenever they sighted me.
I was to them an unreliable heir; a future king that was
unworthy of subjects. I was - this moment - manically
searching for herbs. I was - the next moment - not
manically searching for herbs. The villagers certainly hated
me [it does not help that I was a city-slicker before the
war] and the draw of Lagos was somewhat irresistible. It
was on a Monday and I hoped to take Yellow with me to
Lagos on Thursday. I could return much later to pay her
bride price. It was all too simple to me and Yellow, all too
uncomplicated. In Lagos, I hoped, there would be a
discordant medley of cultures which would in actuality
create a huge void through which Yellow could slip
through, unshackled from the usual limits that her club foot
placed on her. It was that simple…


A butterfly buzz around my black Sherpa’s face and he
slaps the air in vain. I wonder what a butterfly is doing at
this altitude. It probably hitched a ride on our stuff and now
he must want to go home. Home, however, was thousands
of feet below. The ice will have his corpse- and
occasionally, a human’s. I have this mortal awareness as I
trudge on, my back-pack feeling more or less like a hunch-
back. My Sherpa’s torch is still lighting the trail and my
own torch more or less just falls on the thick clothing on
his back. I see the inscription made in rich green colour
against a sable patch of cotton: “TOUR GUIDE NO 18”. At
this point, I think more of “TOUR GUIDE NO 18”. I think of
the first time I shook his rough hands and the first time I
heard him say something about his love-interest. He said
that they were married and had a fair son. That was at the
beginning of our Everest climb; long before I started to feel
the first signs of numbness, long before my teeth started
cratering, long before I saw ice so frozen that it looked like
glass, long before I saw a human skull conducting an
excursion into the frozen ground - the dreams of summiting
Everest long abandoned. My Sherpa’s story has started
like a discussion before it snowballed into an interesting
recollection. Back then, I lent my ear only sparsely to my
black Sherpa. But at around 4,000ft, he had almost broken
down in tears as he narrated. Since then, I have tried to
listen raptly. My Sherpa is still speaking.


… a few hours before I was to leave for Lagos with Yellow,
some men stormed the palace and they carted the king, my
father, away. The men accused him of having sympathized
with Nigerian forces during the Civil War. Then those men
killed my father, the king, in the village square like a stray
dog. The execution had no ceremony. There were no last
words or final prayers or the hugging of loved ones. Just
“Tah! Tah!”. Two bullets straight on the jugular and my
father, the king, collapsed in death. I was peeping with
Yellow through a clutch of wooden stalls. I saw my mother
rolling in the ground, shedding tears and raining abuses on
the men that just killed my father, the king. One of the men
neared her, kicked her on the tummy and shot her once on
her ankle. I could hear my mother groaning. The men then
headed to the palace and burnt it down, even the ancestral
stool. I was unabashedly progressive but even I identified
this sacrilege and I was sure that every single one of them
would pay. I was sure. So that is how I remember 1971:
gunshots, a burnt palace, my bleeding mother and the most
incongruous aftermath of all. It happened that as those
men searched for me [I hid in a big basket in Yellow’s
room most of the time], eager to purge the land of my
father’s treasonable stench, my mother went to her father
who was a famed medicine man. My grand-father saw my
mother limping into his compound, not with the usual
retinue of attendants but with flies attending to her
wounds. My grandfather listened to my mother’s story and
then repaired to his shrine. Now, all the men who killed my
father, the king, and shot my mother are complaining that
they can’t sleep; that there is a masked man [my grand-
father, I presume] who keeps flogging them in their dreams
the moment they close their eyes. Those men are now
begging to be forgiven. It’s pathetic…


My Sherpa spits and we continue or ascent. After every
hundred or so steps, we drink some whiskey, carefully
avoiding not to get sozzled and he asks if I’m O.K and I
say that I am. He is almost doting on me. I suppose he
thinks that since I am white and sixty, that I must be more
susceptible to pain; more likely to suddenly call off this
leisurely climb. And I suppose he is doing it whole-
heartedly and not just because of the remuneration. I paid
him just $25. Traditional Sherpas sometimes demand
thousands of dollars. My association with this my black
Sherpa sometimes feels like a joke. I don’t know. It’s even
surreal at times. My Sherpa is still plodding forward and
telling me his story. I am still attentive though after a
while, I can only grunt to indicate that I am following.


… during the days that followed the death of my father, the
king, we buried him in what was left of the palace. My
mother’s injured leg eventually became a smattering
wound and she no longer felt any pains. I plucked a cane
stick for my mother with which she supported herself while
walking. Then later that night I sat on the grass near
Yellow’s house and watched her silhouette cook and
pound and go about her business with accustomed haste. I
also thought of my mother. It was then that I realized that
the two women in my life had bad legs and while mother
will forever limp, I harboured a faint hope that Yellow’s
foot can somehow be bent back into shape...


I sense that my Sherpa is getting a bit inebriated and so I
ask him, with a great deal of reverence.

“John, don’t you think that you are a bit too focused on
things that can get you all worked up? I mean, Yellow’s
foot can’t be all that important. She is a great girl all round
from what you’ve said.”

“She is.” my black Sherpa agrees hurriedly.

“So?” I ask, side-stepping a block of ice that was rolling
down the trail, it’s inside showing what looked like a shard
of green plastic.

“I just want Yellow to be more whole. I want her foot to be
OK. I want to marry Yellow. My people won’t tolerate a
limping Queen.”

I am puzzled by all these; all these obsession with a foot.
As I think, I take in everything in more general terms and as
such am struck by more incongruity. I sip a little Whiskey,
let it burn inside me for a while before I add, without
sarcasm.

“You know John, your presence here on Everest is
incredible. How does a guy from Nigeria become a Sherpa
on Everest?”

My black Sherpa snickers. Then he turns, bares his teeth
which cuts into the darkness. He does not contest the
incongruity of his job. No. In fact, he seems to enjoy the
strangeness of it all and from the excited narration that he
further embarks on, he expects to be regarded as bold,
tough, venturesome and even mysterious; the perfect
picture of a well-adventured life. My Sherpa carries on with
his story-telling. I am still listening.


… well, after that episode, I chose a moonlit night to snake
through foot-paths and out of the village with Yellow in
tow. We tarried at the intersection until a shabby bus
groaned its way into view, covered with dust and shooting
thick smoke into the Harmattan air. The driver, a personal
friend, ferried me and Yellow to Onitsha where we cramped
into a bus headed to Lagos. Yellow was quiet and her face
was passionless and the tears escaped from her eyes in a
tiny stream that emptied into my white shirt. I consoled
Yellow. I told her that her people will be OK in the village
and that she was entitled to branch out and see the sun
and brush shoulders with people on busy streets. I told her
that she was beautiful and couth - the very sort of thing
that Lagos loves. I did not mention her foot. Why would I?
That issue had botched our romance many times so I just
ignored it as it lay there, removed from Yellow’s sandals. I
kissed Yellow…


Now, my Sherpa starts to tear up again, his voice
descending into unregulated self-loathing. I can clearly
sense, of course, the profusion of disgust and desperation,
of pettiness, helplessness and the lust for perfection. But I
do not console my Sherpa. I just, every now and then,
present myself with a thought which I find mili-seconds to
dwell on. It can be a thought about my late wife or my
alcoholic son. Either way, there is something about Mount
Everest which, even as I labour upwards, gives me a sense
of being. It is the feeling, I suppose, of being embroiled in a
pastime that is both unnecessary and brave. Maybe it’s the
clear option of instantly stopping whenever you like; the
sensation of not being beholden to any tide or order. One
can stop and head home at any feet and it will still be a
personal feat. Thusly, my Sherpa’s tale begins to sound
like a whisper from heaven; like a select choice of words
floating around the near-infinite vastness of Everest and
melting into the clouds. Those words seemed fit for this
occasion and milieu. For what occasion and milieu? For
this chill and monotony, of course; for the tons of ice which
passively observe the endless stream of heavily clothed
climbers; for this fine stretch of trail on which mankind
conducts endeavors that are both foolish and heroic. My
Sherpa knows that I find his story necessary so he persists
in telling it. He says that he and Yellow finally made it to
Lagos after three days of travelling. They then sheltered in
the remotest part of the city and despite the odds, manage
to make a family. My Sherpa says that it was, for him, an
exciting experience and he gradually started to get really
happy with life. Lagos in the seventies was booming. There
were trains and telephones and Europe seemed to be just a
minute away. Yellow, my Sherpa says, had joined a local
church that preached, every single day, that the Christian
God was a specialist in impossibilities. My Sherpa is still
talking.


… so one day, I walked up to the Pastor after a feisty
church service. I told him that I needed to speak to him
privately, man-to-man. He walked with me to his office
and the quietude was alluring. I loved the privacy very
much even though I presumed that the Trinity was airily
present.

“Pastor,” I said, looking him dead in the eyes. “Is God
really all-powerful? Is He, as you preach, eager to make
miracles happen in our lives?”

The Pastor smiled and grabbed my hand. He said “Every
single thing I preach is true. There is nothing too big for
God. Listen brother, our God is a big God. He divides
oceans. Certainly I know, I really know, that He is a God of
impossibilities.”

I recoiled at all these assertions. The Pastor, after all, wore
medicated glasses. Why has God not blessed him with
perfect eyesight? And he had a partial stroke last year.
Surely, his God must have lapsed occasionally. The Pastor
smiled again and as if he just read my mind, he added
confidently.

“Our God is good. He loves us. Just trust and obey.”

So I headed back home with those enjoinments. I discarded
my packets of Benson & Hedges and I removed my wine
rack. I got on my knees to pray. I could hear the sirens and
horns coming from the adjoining streets. I could hear cops
and w****s exchanging harsh words. Those s***s are old
and they have stretch marks. They never run from the
Police. I could hear my neighbor, a bachelor, f*****g his
boss’s daughter. I was trying to focus. I was trying to pray.
I could also hear the laughter of another neighbor, this time
a spinster, as she watched local soaps. Her English would
remain poor, I feared, her mentality warped and held
hostage by uber-local producers and their banal,
uninspiring plotlines. Garbage in, garbage out. I tried
harder to concentrate and speak to God. I tried to rise
above the palpable sins and misjudgments and
worldliness. I asked God to help make Yellow whole. It was
my only prayer point. Within minutes, I heard a shrill voice.
It said that I should go to Mount Everest. I am astounded
yet I pack and book a flight to Mumbai. That is why I’m
here. It’s magical…


The sounds coming from Camp II is now much louder and I
can hear what sounds like a French song and utensils. I
level up with my Sherpa and we agree to sit for a while on
a flat chunk of snow so that he can finish up his story. And
he did finish up his story. He did come to Everest.
Listening to his resoluteness and piety and claims to divine
direction, I discover my own purpose on this mountain. I’m
a specialist in club foot. I fix legs. It is what I’ve done for
thirty-one years. I now know that it was not for naught that
a Come To Everest flier was found in my wife’s hand after
she passed. Whoever gave it to her. No matter, I decided to
go to Everest because I knew that Martha’s spirit would
climb with me. But it isn’t really about me and my Martha.
It is about my black Sherpa and his Yellow. Ten minutes
later we enter Camp II and spend the night there. Then in
the morning we start going back down. I don’t want to
climb Everest again. The summit be damned. I just want to
fly my Sherpa, Yellow and their son to Florida so I can fix
Yellow’s foot. I could do it. I had the money. Now, when I
tell my Sherpa he thanks me happily and keeps doing a
sign of the cross. He says it is the Lord’s doing. I don’t
know about that. I just want to help.

“So,” I ask my Sherpa on our way down. “when are you
guys ready to come?”

My Sherpa smiles and brings out a picture of his wife and
son. He kisses it and with white mist escaping from his
mouth, says “Yellow have already packed and we have told
relatives that we are going to America. We are that kind of
people. We really believe God. ”

I smile. Wherever she is, Martha will be proud of me.


THE END

Author's Note

Please kindly leave an honest review after reading. I love you guys.