Finding Jim (11 page)

At 2 a.m. Julia's voice bounced around in our vestibule, “Hey, guys, our tent collapsed. Can I come in with you?” She snuggled in between Jim and me. Keith stayed in the battered tent and braced his legs on the roof to keep it standing for the rest of the night. The storm roared like a train through a tunnel.

On day nine I brushed my hair and shuddered at the dead skin collected on the tent floor. Jim was shovelling when the lawnmower whine carried through the clearing skies. I grabbed the radio and confirmed it was Paul. We jumped into action, packed gear, put on warm clothes. In 10 minutes he landed and sauntered over, his face creased.

“Hi, guys. I can take one of you and personal gear. That's it.”

“You look tired,” I said.

“Yup, I've been flying non-stop, trying to get everyone out.”

We decided Julia would go.

Paul looked up at the col. “Maybe I can take two.” My heart flipped. As I ran to get my pack from the tent, Paul received a weather update on his radio and yelled, “Just one! I can take one, let's go. Now!” He ran to the Super Cub.

Keith, Jim and I gaped as the tiny plane took off and climbed. Before reaching the high point at the col, the plane dropped 30 metres.

“Did you see that?” Keith's eyes opened wide.

“Yeah. Oh my God.” I fixed my gaze on the plane.

The plane regained altitude and flew over the pass and out of sight.

It was 9:30 a.m. Paul would take 1.5 hours to return. We packed up the rest of our camp, except for one tent, and hauled it to the landing site. We waited until a buzzing sound broke the silence, and Paul's voice crackled over the radio. The wind picked up. He backed off.

At 3:30 p.m. we were eating peanut butter and jam on crackers when the buzzing returned. We jumped up and grabbed the radio. No good. He would try again that evening. Our shoulders sagged. Keith and Jim worked on the snow walls, and I worked on the stove. We pulled necessities from our packed bags.

By 7:30 p.m. we had given up hope of Paul returning that night and slurped soup while warming our toes in our sleeping bags. When the droning sound of the plane came, we leaped into action, stuffed sleeping bags, rolled sleeping pads and packed away the stove. Our two-way radio had died, so we had no way of contacting Paul with a local wind report. He hovered on the other side of the ridge, then the col and then the pass, for what seemed like hours.

We stamped our feet on the snow to keep warm as Paul circled above at 4572 metres. Maybe he was waiting for us to take down the final tent. With numb fingers, we fumbled to break down the tent poles and shoved the rigid fabric into a garbage bag.

The plane grew smaller.

I stared at the dark sky for several moments and strained my ears. While Jim and Keith set up the tent again, I dragged our gear back to the dugout. We had no control over when we would get out.

Our situation was tedious but not dire. We had food, fuel and shelter. Paul could drop supplies to us even if he couldn't land. Failing that, we could melt snow using body heat. All of us had been tent-bound before, so we knew the score. Stay calm, keep busy, stay positive and make rational decisions. Fear, anxiety, anger and loss of will are normal reactions to high-stress survival situations, but, as Jim had told me on Mount Kilimanjaro, emotion must not interfere with taking appropriate action.

Two days later, Paul flew back in to get us. He raced the weather. With little space in the Super Cub, and even less time, Keith, Jim and I squeezed into the plane, leaving our tents and gear behind. I felt relieved and safe inside the cramped plane. We were not going to starve or be buried by the storm, and soon we would have a hot shower.

As the Super Cub careened faster along the ice, closer and closer to a 300-metre vertical rock wall at the end of the glacier, Paul murmured, “C'mon, baby, c'mon, lift.”

My gaze fixed on the rock while my hands squeezed Jim's waist. Lift, I pleaded silently. Faster and closer until I held my breath.

“Yahoo!” Paul whooped, and I felt my stomach leave the ground. He kept circling until we had gained enough elevation to soar over the rock wall. “Ha, ha!”

Once the adrenaline surge had subsided, we craned our necks to view the snowy peaks lining the glacier. “There it is!” Keith pointed.

“Yup, she's a beauty.” Jim nodded in the direction of the classic-looking University Peak.

“I think I see a route on the…” And the climbing banter was lost in the drone of the engine. But I distinctly heard, “Yeah … next year … great.”

Back in Whistler, Jim continued to diversify his work through writing and photography.

At a slideshow to promote his new book,
Risking Adventure
, a man in the audience asked Jim how his wife felt about him taking such risks. Jim replied, “Why don't you ask her?” and swung his arm my way.

When the laughter subsided, I took a breath and explained, “I would not marry Jim, or raise a family with him, if he continued to climb in the death zone, above 8000 metres. Jim decided that the big mountains are not for him anymore. We share as many outdoor adventures as we can so that I have a better idea of how skilled he is, how much risk is involved, and so that our relationship will be stronger. He works locally as a heli-ski guide so that he can be home at night, and we are only apart two weeks a year. Being in the mountains is a big part of who he is, and I accept that.”

The man nodded his head up and down and took his seat. Jim grinned at me, full of love.

Life is pain…. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

—
WILLIAM GOLDMAN,
THE PRINCESS BRIDE

FRIDAY, APRIL 30, 1999

I jolt awake at the sudden resonating chime of the doorbell. I lie still, listening. The piercing sound hits me again. I am not dreaming. I glance at the alarm clock: 1:30 a.m. Violent pounding on the front door rattles the window glass. I sweep aside the covers. My feet thud onto the carpet, and within seconds I am in the bathroom. My toes curl on the cold slate tiles. I wrestle with the floppy sleeve of my bathrobe.

Maybe the tenant forgot her key.

I grasp the handrail and thump down the first flight of carpeted stairs. My feet slap across the hardwood of the main floor and onto the next set of stairs. I cling tightly to the railing and swing my body around the final corner, flick on the light and freeze on the landing.

I see Jim's younger brother Kevin and Jim's best friend Eric pressed close to the glass. Kevin's blue eyes seem magnified. Eric's broad, strong, Norwegian face is set in worry. It's 1:30 in the morning and they live an hour's drive from Whistler. I search frantically for a less obvious reason why they would be here. I focus on Kevin's childlike face for the truth. Our eyes connect. His are open wide, wet. Mine plead for him to prove me wrong. He holds my gaze for a second and then slowly lowers his head.

“No,” I gasp.

I stumble down the last few stairs before my knees buckle. Fear rushes into my lungs faster than I can breathe, as if I have been kicked in the stomach. I am on my hands and knees, head hung low, fingers braced against the cold slate.

Banging. Door rattling. I turn my head to Eric's worried face, reach up to swipe at the lock. There is a rush of cold air and a battery of panicked footsteps.

Eric crouches to encircle my shoulders with one hard muscular arm, clutches my forearm with his other callused hand, “I'm so sorry, Sue.”

Kevin cups my elbow with one stubby hand, circles my waist with his other arm and coaxes me to my feet. I feel the dampness of my fear under his grip. As I stumble upstairs, I swallow my tears long enough to ask the question: “Is he dead?”

Kevin lowers his gaze and whispers, “Yes.” I lurch forward, my mouth falls open but no sound comes out. Fear snakes around my neck and squeezes my throat. I gag. It slides into my stomach and grips my guts. Slowly it climbs its way into my thoughts.

I search for an escape. Ripped from my anchor, I tumble until I am sick and dizzy. I do not recognize myself.

I slump into the bay window seat and wipe my nose with my sleeve. Eric holds a bunch of toilet paper in front of me. Within minutes, it is a soggy wad in my hand. Kevin pats my arm and rocks back and forth on the edge of the wooden kitchen chair. “Terri and Susan will be here soon,” he says. They are on their way from Vancouver.

My insides churn. I mutter, “I've got to see Jim.” Kevin extends his hand to me as I stumble to the rolltop desk to pull out the wedding album. Yes, I need to see him. Where is he? The book splays open in my lap, and I let out a sigh as Jim's face smiles back at me. Crying, I trace his glossy smooth features with my fingers, the strong turn of his square jaw, the thin line of his lips. I ache to feel the soft warm give of his flesh. Oh, my sweetie.

I wonder if Jim would still have considered himself lucky if he had known he was going to be killed less than two years after our wedding?

I don't feel lucky now. I feel scared.

I hear soft voices downstairs. Someone kneels in front of me, hands on my thighs. “Oh, Susie, I'm so sorry.”

I raise my gaze to Terri's big brown, glistening eyes, pull apart the wet tissue in my hand and wordlessly plead to her for help, like a wild animal caught in a leghold trap.

Kevin paces, “I wonder why I'm not crying…” His eyebrows arch. “Maybe it's because I was the closest to Jim and so have already accepted his death.” I tilt my wet, gaping face to him but say nothing. Stuck. A radio on the wrong frequency.

Should I call family and friends to tell them?

Kevin has broken the news to the Haberl family so thinks I should not wake anyone else up given that it will not change anything. Wide-eyed, he recounts how the news of Jim's death spread. It was 8 p.m. when Graeme called Kevin. Vicki, Kevin's wife, was away so he gathered his two children to break the news without her. Seven-year-old Jaslyn burst into tears. Five-year-old Connor's face went still. Turning his gaze away thoughtfully, grief creasing his brow, he said softly, “Auntie Sue must be so sad.”

When Kevin called his mom to tell her, he first asked whether his dad was there. She replied that he would be home any minute from his meeting. Kevin decided to tell her that Jim had been killed but learned later that his dad had not come home for another hour.

For me, time passes in a void. Finally, at 5 a.m., I call my parents in Vancouver. Eric squeezes my hand as the phone rings.

“Hullo?”

As soon as I hear Dad's deep, sleepy, suspicious voice, my throat constricts.

“Dad, it's Sue.” I dig my nails into Eric's palm.

“Oh, hullo, Sue.”

I take a few gulps of air, hold my breath for a moment, then, “Dad … Jim was killed.” I do not recognize the voice echoing in my ears. I sit up still and straight, shocked at what I have said.

“Oh dear, oh Sue.”

I hear my stepmom, Glenda, say groggily in the background, “What happened?”

“Jim was killed.”

Again I hear those words.

“Oh, no. We'll be right there.”

There are more calls to make.

“Hi, Marla, it's me, Sue.” I rest my forehead on my hand.

“Oh hi, Sue,” she says.

“Um, I have some bad news.” I gnaw at my thumbnail.

“What?” she barks.

“Jim was killed.” I close my eyes.

“What? No! No!” she yells.

“Yes, he was.” I trace her name on the paper in front of me and put a check mark beside it.

Ken's voice in the background: “What happened?”

Marla tells him Jim was killed.

I keep hearing those words, “Jim was killed.” First from Kevin, then from my own mouth, then from family and friends. Jim was killed.

It is like learning to speak a foreign language. I repeat the words but am unclear on their meaning; the conversation is going too quickly. I keep hearing the same words for weeks.

It is light outside. Incredibly, the sun has risen.

Susan leads me upstairs to shower. As I pull the flannel nightgown over my head, the reek of fear stings my nostrils. The hot water pelts my body, but I shiver. I caress my belly and plead, “Please, oh, please let me be pregnant.”

Downstairs, Eric takes phone messages.

“Condolences.” “All my love to Sue.” The news of Jim's death spreads through word of mouth and over
CBC
Radio. One friend calls to say she and her fiancé were driving when the announcement aired: “A well-known Canadian mountaineer has been killed in Alaska.” They pulled over to the side of the road and held their breath. The announcer continued: “Jim Haberl, the first Canadian to summit
K2
, was killed in an avalanche at approximately 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, April 29, in the Wrangell–St. Elias mountain range of Alaska.” They burst into tears.

Where was I at 10:30 a.m.? I was giving a student some extra help in English during recess. I felt relaxed and content. No lightning bolt hit me at 10:30 a.m. I did not collapse into tears. There was no indication that the man I loved, the man around whom I had moulded my future, was dead. No sense that the heart that had beat next to mine for the past seven years as we slept was still. Nothing.