Thinner Than Skin (30 page)

So sang Maryam to the woman whose silence was forever as the talk in the valley grew and grew, alongside the boots and the pom-poms and the tanks and the appetites of those who had taken over their lives.

It was one o’clock in the morning when our driver dropped us off near Baltit Fort, to begin our ascent of Ultar Sar. He would not come with us, though he waited till we walked up the trail that twisted past the house where Farhana had spent yesterday. News of our plan had reached the village and many stood outside their homes in the cold to see us off, including the woman who’d led Farhana to the shaman. The girl and the goat were there too. My flashlight accidentally fell on her face and the face was deeply serious. I mumbled an apology for shining the light in her eyes and she replied by lifting her right hand and waving goodbye.

I tilted the flashlight away, looking for a magenta shirt, a green shalwar. But I’d seen no phantoms since entering this valley and, thankfully, I saw none now.

Before me walked Wes and Farhana. How different they seemed! Beside me, as always, Irfan. Behind us, the escort from Kaghan. I didn’t know why he, a merchant, would want to make this trek with us. But as it seemed to me that thus far I’d been asking all the wrong questions, I decided not to ask this one. If what he desired was to follow us all the way to the glacier, who was I to require an explanation?

I’d seen no armed convoys since entering this valley either. It was peaceful, quietly ceremonious, and freezing.

I was glad for the extra sweater beneath my windbreaker, the same windbreaker as on that night in San Francisco.
Jack-eet, jack-eet
, the man had said. I was glad he’d left me with my jack-eet. My shoes were sturdy, and Irfan had picked up a headlamp for me at the market in Karimabad. That’s where he’d spent his day—being practical, being Irfan. I’d never worn a headlamp on any of my night walks, and this one didn’t fit well. The straps were loose, despite all my adjustments. Nor could I get accustomed to the sensation of carrying a load at the center of my forehead, however illuminating the load might be. Besides, it was a red lens. It cast an oddly devious sheen on the pristine valley. Irfan wore his as easily as a bride wears a bindi. It even looked good on him.

As we reached the base of the mountain, I noticed a glow on each of Wes’s shins. Then I noticed Farhana’s, though hers were smaller. They’d come equipped, down to foothold lighting. “Did you think of that?” I asked Irfan. He shook his head. In silence, I recalled that on the shores of Lake Saiful Maluk, when we needed a tent, Irfan had provided his. Would Wes and Farhana now give up one light each, allowing all four of us more visibility? Perhaps we were both waiting to see if the offer was forthcoming.

When it was clear that it wasn’t, Irfan said, “Let’s keep each other in view. But maybe we should change partners. You stay with Wes.”

He must have thought I’d prefer this, despite how uncomfortable she made him. He didn’t know my plan was to pursue her on the mountain. For now, I agreed.

“You have water?” I asked, and he nodded.

“You have biscuits?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Five hours to the glacier, maximum. The sky’s clear.”

We both looked up at the serrated knives of Ultar rising before us. I couldn’t see too much sky.

“Dark,” he mumbled. Those were his last words to me before he stepped up onto a trail that was scratched through blocks of granite
as large as a table for four. The rock edges were sharp. I put my head down and began the climb.

A few meters up I realized I was climbing on all fours. It was easier that way. I’d slipped my flashlight into my backpack and was relying solely on my headlamp, with peripheral aid from the two dots of yellowish light several feet ahead. The shins of Wes. I didn’t call out to him to slow down. I was alone with my thoughts, the adrenaline in my veins, and the weight on my back. My pack was heavy; inside lay more than water, biscuits, and a flashlight. I had to keep adjusting it, and adjusting the headlamp too, the latter mutating into an odd kind of mental strain. If I had a third eye, it would always give me a headache. The lens washed the wall rising before me in the same devious red hue as it had the road, and the world was like a rusted photo print. For a long time I was distracted by the eeriness of it. Color is location, I thought. And dislocation.

My eye eventually did adjust, and I began to see variations in the tint. Brown from black, burnt sienna from gray. There were rain puddles and the occasional snow melt, but, amazingly, the rocks were not too slippery. We were lucky the rain had stopped. I was glad for the sensation beneath my rubber soles, the way my toes nudged into corners to assess the size and stability of the foothold, the way my fingers scraped the edges of a cliff to assess the height. I knew I was in a rhythm when I stopped checking my watch, when even knowing I’d stopped couldn’t entice me to check. My chest opened wide and the cold rushed in with teeth, leaving me raw, invigorated. I didn’t attempt to catch up with Wes, Irfan, or Farhana, whose mountain legs would no doubt take her higher than us all. I’d catch up with them, with her, eventually. I’d say all that I’d rehearsed. For now, there was plenty else to do without worrying about the nuances of human disclosure.

Over time, the sky moved closer. I could see stars, bright fragments of ice the width of my nail, at times so close I felt I could grasp them
in my nail. Ultar’s silhouette was not etched in stone. It moved when I moved, and with each step, the sky of ice chips slid higher or lower around its pointed shoulders.
Her
pointed shoulders? Why not. All beautiful things are feminine to me, and Ultar, at this height, was suddenly beautiful. She moved when I moved. Below me, the Hunza River curved around her rotating feet, like a jingling anklet.

I could also hear scratching and scraping. Someone lay down on her back then heaved herself up; someone else jumped, or tripped. We were only five but we made enough noise to better keep each other in view by ear than by third eye.

But Ultar did not carry sound to us the way we received it.

It must have been an hour after we’d left when I thought I heard Farhana fall. I was heading up a boulder that shook beneath my weight and I knew I had to leap across quickly or it would give. I let it give. It rolled away from me and I fell. When I stood up and wound around the path where I thought Farhana had lost her footing, I found no one. I’d left my pack where I tumbled. I retraced my steps—holding my headlamp in place with one hand—but couldn’t find the pack. I crawled on my knees and cut my free hand; I felt it ooze. I waited, listening for the river, listening for footsteps. The river now flowed in angles rather than curves, like a child skipping down a flight of stairs. Apart from this, I heard only the occasional stone fall. “Farhana?” I called. But I’d already lost the direction from which I thought I heard her.

“Farhana?” I called again. In the distance I heard a faint, vanishing call, and now I moved faster. From where had it come? To my right. Yes, I was sure of it. I climbed recklessly now, the stones rolling under me and into the river that was perilously near. I knew I could slip if I did not slow down, but I did not slow down. I knew if I slipped no one would hear me, and I knew I did not know where I was heading. I knew it was no longer toward Farhana, for by now she must have moved on, but still I did not slow down. I could still hear something, though I could not say what. Perhaps a footfall. A leopard? I began to feel afraid. Something was
breathing near me, I was sure of it, and from its step, I knew it did not wear shoes. I hurried on, till the river was above me—though, how could it be? How could I hear the sound of running water from high in the sky, a sky that had pulled away from me as surely as I was pulling away from those velvet paws, that ravenous panting? A waterfall? No, there were no waterfalls on this mountain. The soft padding began to fade; the wet wheezing began to slow. In its place was a sound I’d heard earlier, of a river flowing not in curves but in angles, and then I saw a figure skipping up a flight of stairs, a small child receding in a burnt sienna world, in a rusted photo print. Her back was to me but she was tilting her head to the side, as though she knew I was watching. I could hear hooves—
click click click
, the most delicate mincing steps—followed by the joyous ring of a bell.

At last I stopped. It was only when I stopped that I realized I’d been following her, she who did not exist. There was nothing there. I was imagining this. There were no shepherds on this mountain at night. No hungry leopards. And Farhana had probably not fallen at all.

Ultar muted the footsteps that were upon me before I had a chance to move away. It was the escort, and he was carrying my pack.

“You dropped this,” he said.

“Thank you.” I sat down, disappointed and yet strangely relieved. Disappointed it wasn’t Farhana. Relieved it wasn’t a ghost. Disappointed too to find myself missing human company, when I’d believed myself content to make the beauty of the night and the challenge of the climb, for now at least, my only companions.

I leaned against a cliff wall, wondering vaguely if I would have followed the phantom all the way into the chasm ahead.

“This is not a good place to stop,” said the escort.

I couldn’t hear Farhana. How would I carry out my plan to court her on this mountain?

I was about to ask if he knew where the others were when I heard the rumbling. My palms lay flat against the gravel and that is
where it seemed to start, just beneath my skin. I pressed harder, listening with my hands, as though, by bearing down, I could balance myself
and
stop the tremor. Only now did I realize that the wall against which I rested was wet and crumbling and that I sat alarmingly near the edge. The rumbling grew louder.

“Turn around slowly,” he said, “without standing up.”

I did as I was told, keeping my hands on the gravel, leaning forward while turning toward him. At that moment, a bolt of lightning fell over Ultar’s edge, illuminating the mountain across the gorge. It was Ultar’s height, and it even spit into a series of needles and minarets in the same fierce angles. A second bolt: I saw a rock the size of a house charge down the mountain’s side. A third: the rock smashed into three pieces as it bounced on the slope. When the largest piece disappeared into the chasm, the lightning in the sky and the rumbling under my palm ceased.

If I were on that side of the ravine instead of this one, I’d be dead.

I halted, unable to lift my hands off the gravel, unable to move at all. I knew if I leaned back again the wall could break, knocking me over the edge. On the other hand, my position right now was ludicrous. I was leaning forward at about a 40-degree angle and to my left lay emptiness and to my right a dark figure on a dark mountain was still waiting for me to turn. I grew increasingly dizzy. If I did not pull away, I could still fall, without even breaking that wall.

“I felt it clearly,” I said, clinging to the gravel with my fingers. “The rumbling.” I was breathing so loud whoever was climbing
that
mountain would surely feel it. Perhaps it was my own heavy panting I’d heard earlier, just before I saw the girl.

“We sometimes think we feel the other side. I would not worry. At night, Ultar seldom slides.” He paused. “But I would not stop here.”

He disappeared into the night.

It was three-thirty in the morning and it was silent. I was checking my watch compulsively now. I was beginning to feel the altitude. I stopped for water, often; I chewed on biscuits. My lungs no longer felt clean but swollen. So did my feet. They were heavy; my shoes were heavy. The pack on my back, even heavier. Worse, I was beginning to get the same feeling as in Kaghan, and even Gilgit. I was being watched. Perhaps by Ultar’s jinn, or Ultar’s double, rising menacingly behind us like a shadow. I was alone, but I was not. I told myself it was nothing, just the residual panic of nearly falling into the chasm. I had nearly died. That was all.

I pushed on, replaying my moment on the edge. I’d pulled away eventually, though I couldn’t say how long I’d sat there after the escort left. Because I hadn’t wanted to lift my hands, I hadn’t been able to check the time. I’d kept sitting in that 40-degree angle, my body stiffening. It might have been the fear of never being able to move again that caused me to slowly inch away on my buttocks, one push at a time, looking at anything but my shoes. They were on solid ground. Push. They were
still
on solid ground. When I finally stood up, Ultar was silent. No rumbling. The river flowed in curves again. But I did not. A stitch of fear had fallen off onto me from that wavering wall, and now I carried it with me as I moved forward.

Of the route I was unsure, but there was evidently still a long way up. Irfan and Wes had said the glacier was not at the summit. They’d estimated four, maybe five hours. I might only be halfway there. I tried not to feel angry with Irfan. We were meant to keep each other vaguely in sight, even if we were to follow the shin-beams. Why wasn’t he looking out for me?

A new worry seized me. Should I be looking out for him?

And what about the others? Was Farhana safe?

I would have heard a shout. No one was in danger. I did what I’d resisted doing ever since pulling away from the ravine. I shone my headlamp into it, as it plunged thousands of meters to the valley floor. Nothing—though what exactly I was looking for, I didn’t know. Landslides? No, Ultar and her shadow were at peace.

I drank more water. I unloaded my pack from off my back. I’d packed my camera before setting out, and the 300 mm telephoto zoom, which added extra pounds. So much for being a photographer by day and a happy man by night! Before leaving, I’d told myself I wanted to change. If I were a photographer by night, would I be a happy man by day? If I were a happy man by day, would I make Farhana happier? So I’d packed the camera. My plan was to take images of the glacier before courting Farhana beside it, before descending to our hotel with her beside me.

Perhaps it was the camera that made me feel watched. I was aware of it, in my bag, in my company. I’d had it with me that night at the graves, before leaving Kaghan, when I could feel eyes behind me. And as on that night, my legs were not guiding me. It was my mind that guided my legs. Granted, climbing up a mountain that was not so much sloped as scissored was likely a good occasion to use one’s head. But I’d trusted my instincts better in the past—even if they did ocassionally fail me—and I liked how I saw the world differently without my camera at night. Now I felt obliged to do something with it. I took it out. I put it back inside.