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The Climber

Edward Rodosek

Sea waves lifted and lowered him kindly and playfully like a cork. Kicking with his legs in tepid water, he enjoyed the comfort of weightlessness. Just when he decided to turn toward the coast, a vivacious polka blasted him out of his bed. He slammed the button of the radio alarm clock and yawned widely.

Through the small plastic window of the Mobil Home, the climber admired the first dark-red tinge of the morning sky above blue-gray silhouettes of toothed ridges jutting above a valley.

Like so many times before, he was astonished by the endless depth of indigo-colored sky, in the middle of which a few lonely stars still defied the coming dawn. Night silence was disturbed only by the subdued buzzing of a petrol generator set, which supplied the Mobil Home with electricity.

The climber decided not to shave himself. If he'd renounce his sandwich too, he'd be a third of the way up the ascent before the first aircrafts came. So, if everything goes according to his plan, he might perhaps reach the Wright's bivouac before twilight.

He drank instant coffee and put his old, worn-out rucksack on his back. He recalled the suspicious glance of the young manager when he'd arrived at the Mobil Home last evening. He inherited that rucksack from his grandfather, one of the last eager alpinists of this district, and several curators of museums had offered him good money for it.

Then the climber put on old-fashioned knickerbockers–his tailor had certainly considered he needed them for a costume party–and two pairs of thin synthetic socks. His last pair of worn-out woolen socks he'd had to discard some months ago. Yet, the many-times-washed brown pullover made from genuine mohair, inherited from his old uncle, was still okay, although it was a bit tight for him.

The climber tried to walk on the perforated metal steps as quietly as he could. That wasn't easy because of his clumsy boots with rudely cut soles, which he'd bought a long time ago in a shop that sold film props. From his parked off-road car, he took a long rope, a bunch of pitons, a hammer, the crampons, and his pickaxe with a real wooden handle. The pavement of the parking lot was strewn with empty beer cans, little cellophane bags, paper boxes with remainders of jelly and ice cream sticks.

When the climber passed the plastic fence around the Mobil Home campsite, he turned away from concrete path, where various colored lines invited tourists to various interesting places.

Everybody knew the yellow line brings tourists to the hovercrafts pier for water trips, the blue one to VTA–Vertical Takeoff Aircraft, and the alternately green and brown lines to a combination of a lift and air-conditioned ropeway gondola.

The climber breathed deeply in the piercing morning air and sensed a loose smell of wild wormwood, which he remembered from his early childhood and the many trips he took with his grandfather.

Instantaneously, a cleaning machine arrived on the path with a loud buzzing and the driver suspiciously glanced at the climber, probably because of his funny costume.

***

When the first slanting sunbeams shined on the climber, he leaned on a ledge, gasping for breath a bit. He wasn't tired from traversing the steepness, but from countless fences, barriers, walls and hindrances intended for the guidance of numerous herds of tourists. He had to either go round or to climb over the obstacles before he came to the slope.

Lately, this valley has become one the most visited starting points for cozy trips in the Rocky Mountains--which had been nearly inaccessible in times past. Many people began to look for intact exotica here, since the booming tourist progress ousted it from everywhere else.

The climber recalled with bitterness when the peak of Mount Rushmore was leveled so the biggest casino out of Las Vegas could be opened there. ( How is this paragraph relevant? Nowadays everyone with enough money could attend a performance of live sex on the huge rafts that navigated along the Grand Canyon, or watch the final game of the baseball cup in the amphitheater of Yellowstone National Park, or await New Year's Day on the huge concrete platforms of Mount McKinney that, for this special opportunity, has been changed into an enormous firecracker. )

This valley wasn't too remote from most big cities, not too expensive and still fairly wild. Here the usual warnings that would forbid any walking off official paths under the threat of a fine hadn't yet appeared. Probably none of the bureaucrats thought that any tourists might be wish to do such a foolish thing. This lack of limits was one of the reasons why the climber had chosen this place for his vacation. The second reason was his nostalgic recollections of the Wright's bivouac from his childhood.

Some subdued longing flashed through the climber's mind; he'd been waiting half his life for the fulfillment of certain promise. The promise, which he had made to himself in his childhood, was that he'd once again experience those unforgettable feelings: the feelings the mountains had been given him long ago, when he'd climbed on them for the first time.

The climber felt nostalgia for that deep, solemn silence from many years ago, the first time he'd come unbelievablely near the stars. Then the slopes, covered with snow ,had filled him, a nine-year-old boy, with a humble admiration, like he'd sensed in church. After the tiresome, all-day-long climbing, they told him to crawl into his grandfather's sleeping bag. It seemed to him he'd just closed his eyes when they awoke him again.

At the first gray-bluish daybreak, his grandfather pointed to the opposite slope and gave him his binoculars. The boy searched a long time among the indistinct, delusory shadows, before he succeeded in finding a small herd of animals. Four or five females, two cubs and the single, high on the dark ledge, motionless figure of a proud ibex, suspiciously sniffling air and looking somewhere in their direction. The binoculars begun to tremble in the boy's hand and he felt a quiet shiver all over his body. The scene in front of him became vague, and when he returned the binoculars to his grandfather, he felt tears in his eyes from incomprehensible delight.

***

The climber walked along a narrow path that must have been abandoned for decades, because all the signs were faded, and the warnings about mortal danger and about the tourist's own responsibility were already shabby. Only the fluorescent advertising panels were regularly kept. (How is this relevant? The most of them were recommending 'Foam', a new, fashionable drink, which could be ordered in three flavors: peppermint, whiskey and orange; all three sorts contained a gentle stimulant.)

Just when the climber came to the rocky screes, the first of the motor hang-gliders noisily flew above him: about half-dozen of them, the usual youngsters, who have enough physical fitness to fly directly after a rowdy night. They were hanging on crosspieces in couples or singles, dressed in multicolored fluorescent suits, teasing one another. When one from them noticed the climber, he dispensed a colored smoke to drawl attention of the others on him.

When the climber traversed the screes, he'd come near enough to the slope that he could estimate their steepness. It didn't seem too demanding to him; for the present, there wasn't any need for using the ice axe or pitons. Still, he wasn't happy for he had to remain in a groove just under the aerial ropeway.

Somewhere in the middle of the groove, one of those big, two-storied gondolas slowly went by, about twenty yards above him. The climber could see a great number of astonished faces through the windows, and a few passengers worriedly waved their encouragement to him. But most of them hurried to take pictures of that incredible wonder–a person who was climbing! The climber diverted his head to avoid the lights of their many flashes.

Then the climber met the first problem; the rock wall became more and more crumbled and in the next half an hour, he needed to use his ice axe. All that time he heard the annoying buzzing of a helicopter. Inwardly, he cursed the pilot for showing the mountain beauties to the tourists so effectively. When the climber, finally, swung himself on a narrow ledge, he looked in the air and noticed on the bothersome helicopter the marking of the MRS–Mountain Rescue Service.

Through the open gate of the copter, the uniformed legs of the guy were hanging. He shouted something nearly incomprehensible though the megaphone: "... informed. Are you... unded? Do you need help?"

With gestures, the climber tried to make him understand that everything was okay. A violent wind from the copter's rotor was lifting annoying whirls of dust, which penetrated his mouth and nostrils, and at last he had to bend double, because his wind jacket fluttered too strongly.

A bit later, the climber saw a tiny object hanging on a string, swinging to and fro in the wind, slowly lowering to him. Finally the string let off so the climber could pick up a vinyl bag in which a small cell phone had been wrapped up.

The climber pressed the proper button; holding the phone close to his chin, he started to yell into the tiny holes.

"I'm just on a little trip here and everything is okay with me. I don't need any help; I'm an experienced climber."

For some time he heard just a crackling, and then a men's voice asked: "What did you say you are?"

"A climber; a trained climber."

It seemed the man who was speaking with him talked to someone else, for there was no answer for a while.

"Hey you!"

"Yes, I hear you well."

"Try somehow to come to the plateau by the next column. There we could lower the rescue basket from the copter and then we'd try to pull you up. Did you understand that?"

"Yes, I understood you, but you didn't understand me! I repeat–I do not need any help from you. I'm healthy and in a good shape. I'm also not tired at all and I have all the necessary equipment for climbing. Thank you very much for your concern. Please, return to your duty somewhere else. Over and out."

The climber swung his arms and showed an international sign with his thumb and forefinger that everything was shipshape. The copter crew continued to raise dust for a few seconds and then came a warning through the loudspeaker: "All right, pal. This is your funeral."

The helicopter made a roaring semicircle and flew away. The climber wiped the dust from his eyes, sat down on a rock that was covered with lichen, and unscrewed the lid of his cantina containing a fruit tea.

***

For the next half an hour, the climber walked along a narrow zigzag path, which wasn't suitable for dizzy people. Just when he noticed the first patches of dirty snow in shady places, he arrived to an almost vertical chimney, a few hundred yards high. It was narrow but still large enough for his body. Only here would he have the opportunity to test his own abilities. He took a deep breath, widened his legs, leaned his back against one side of the chimney, and began cautiously to climb.

After some dozen yards, the chimney gradually widened so much that the climber had to hammer two pitons into a crevice of the rock. A little later, he decided to pass over on the right slope, which seemed more promising than the left one. Except for a little muddy water from the melting snow drizzling on him from above, he had no other inconveniences.

Just when the climber allowed himself some rest on a ledge, no much broader than his foot, he suddenly felt the slope begin to tremble. At first, the throbbing was so slight he believed that was only his imagination; but later it persistently increased. What on earth was this? Could it be possible that was an earthquake, or–

The climber hadn't time to finish his guessing for the tremors grew swiftly to a thundering like from a huge waterfall. Some gravel fell from above on the climber's shoulders, and now he started to worry, for the bigger stones also begun to crumble, bouncing from the walls of chimney and loudly rattling into the abyss. Suddenly, his rucksack, hanging on a rocky edge, unhinged and elegantly slipped downwards. The climber pressed to the slope and tried to become as thin as possible, his cheek sticking on the cold, wet rock, his eyes closed. Now he felt the origin of the thunder was moving from below upwards, the rumbling became nearly unbearable but then quickly died away somewhere above him.

The pleasant silence was disturbed only by the lessening clatter of rolling stones, far under the climber. Only then could he explain what had happened.

Certainly. How was it possible he didn't grasp it at once? On that spot only a few yards of rock separated him from the enormous shaft for the SFME–Super Fast Mountain Elevator.

This was the newest and the greatest achievement of modern technology, made under the pressure of countless tourists for whom the ropeways and helicopters seemed too dizzying as transport methods. Since the SFME had been built, the traffic to the local peaks was tripled. That magnificent device had two parallel shafts. The slow one was designed for those tourists who enjoyed intermediate stops on the view platforms, where it was possible to order some refreshments. The express one lifted the tourist in a single magnificent tug of twenty-three hundred yards to the peak of the mountain in only six minutes. Every passenger got with his ticket a warning that dissuades the use of the express variant to anyone with heart problems.

The climber, thanks to his own caution, carried his rope across his chest and had not hung it on the rucksack, which was gone now. He had fastened on the loops of his belt his grandfather's crampons and a bunch of pitons earlier. This equipment was indispensable because he couldn't hope such equipment would be for sale anywhere around. Some other things, like a sleeping bag, a flashlight, drink and food he'd try to buy in the shops on the nearest of the platforms. Yet, now that the problem had occurred, he had to diverge from the earlier intended direction of his climbing.

To reach the nearest of them–Platform Four–he had to cross a large glacier. For that he'd need at least two hours, if everything went well, or some more time, if anything went wrong. In that case he'd be too late to reach the Wright's bivouac before night, and he'd be forced to stop overnight in the hotel on the Platform Four. The climber put on his crampons and made the first step on the smooth surface of the glacier

***

The climber was glad, that he had carefully sharpened the points of his crampons, which were gripping faultlessly. After about an hour he had nearly arrived at the base of a gigantic latticed construction that supported a light advertisement for Magic, a miraculous cream against baldness. The climber recollected that he'd read this advertisement was the biggest one on the whole northern hemisphere. Allegedly, its light could be seen at cloudless nights of a hundred miles. Although he knew all these facts, the nearby view on that huge steel monster was something else.

The four concrete foundations were unevenly high because of steepness of the slope. Still, even the lowest one was as high as a multistoried building.

A tubular construction above the foundations formed a three-dimensional lattice, which carried the separate letters of the advertisement. Each was nearly as big as the platform for a space missile. Every letter was composed of many searchlights, to which bundles of thick isolated cables led.

The climber had to bend his neck so that he could see upwards to a silently buzzing transformer, which would be enough to provide a whole residential district with energy. By the foot of the construction, the snow was melted tens of yards around, so the climber could see the bare rock. That was an evidence for the uncommon heat the advertisement emitted at night-time, when it was lit.

After a short hesitation, the climber bent down on the ice-free part of the ground and took off his crampons. It would be senseless to let their peaks become blunt. Without any trouble, he passed over almost the entire rocky part, and now he was able to see, far on the hillside, the utmost left part of the supporting wall of the Platform Four.

Tiny streams of muddy water were trickling in cracks under the climber's feet, and the wind was dashing through the steel construction. Still, in the last few minutes it seemed to him that he heard something else. An indefinably, unevenly rustling, as if someone was tearing paper to pieces. Although he watchfully looked round, he couldn't find the origin of this sound.

When the climber came to the other part of the glacier, he crouched and fastened the crampons on his shoes again. The wind was stronger here, so it drowned all the other sounds. He made a few steps on the ice sheet; he suddenly felt a cramp in his left leg, and a second later in his right one. Puzzled, he lifted his left foot from the ground and when he kneaded the muscles of his calf the cramp disappeared. But as soon as he made another step, the cramp returned, this time much stronger, so he unintentionally moaned. At the same time, that mysterious sound returned with doubled power.

The climber lifted his glance and now he realized what it was.

Barely thirty steps from him a black snake of freely dangling electric cable squirmed in uneven jerks and sharply hissed every time it touched the dirty surface of the ice that was criss-crossed by many rivulets of muddy water.

The climber didn't dare to make another step; he just gazed spellbound at the cable like a rabbit at the nearing rattlesnake. At times the cable stood still, singeing on its end. Then, without any visual cause, it instantaneously rolled and hit a couple of times to the left and to the right, like enraged cat with its tail, which intensified the sparking.

The climber felt an icy sweat, which was trickling downward his spine. He realized that panic might cost him his life. It was absolutely necessary to stay calm and take steps only after serious thought.

The climber knew all the ground around him was under high tension, which wasn't equable, so each part of the ground was under different voltage. The cramp in his legs was the first warning of the current flowing through his body. He had to leave that spot as soon as possible. Yet, he mustn't move in such a way to touch the ground with both his feet at the same time. If he wanted to stay alive, there remained nothing else but leaping only on one leg.

That was the theory, the climber thought. More than two decades had rolled by since he'd played in such a way as a child. Besides, then had they leapt on a leveled, asphalt surface. But here and now, on this icy steepness and with these clumsy crampons on his feet, it was an entirely different matter.

Still, he had to try it. He decided to make only three consecutive jumps with the same leg, and then to stand still, with one foot lifted. After a short concentration he'd repeat the same procedure with the other leg.

For the first and the second series, that tactic proved successful; he swayed a bit, but he didn't fall. But the third series began badly. Probably he was already a bit tired, so he pushed himself off from the ground a bit less; he slid sideways and in a fragment of a second he realized he'd lose his balance.

He fell and rolled downhill, with elbows pressed against his body and with his head down between his shoulders, but then he crashed to the icy ground so hard that his breath was taken away. He spread his arms and legs, instinctively grabbing at anything firm; he got muddy slush in his mouth–and then he felt a brutal thump on his head.

The climber hadn't any idea how much time had passed before he regained his senses again. He became aware his mouth was full of blood and that he was shivering because of severe evening frost. He was soaked to the skin, numb with cold and his left leg was torpid and powerless. It was night but the light from the many searchlights helped him to see his surroundings. He realized he was stuck in a narrow ravine where the glacier poured its icy-cold water. The ravine was narrower than his shoulders in one spot, and only that had saved his life.

***

The climber didn't know how much time he was spent during his painful, exhausting creeping out of the ravine and up the hill. He was only foggily aware of his endless repetition of the same tiresome movements: a smarting strain to rise the upper part of his stiff body with his right foot and both arms, then a spasmodic pull forwards and, finally, a descent–nearly a fall–on the ground. He had repeated that sequence a few hundred times, for he no longer felt his torpid, injured cheeks, lips and chin, although he still tasted the salty flavor of his blood in his mouth.

The climber was surprised when he managed to arrive at the foot of the nearest supporting wall of Platform Four. He burst into a bitter laugh, when he considered the irony of his situation: the same huge advertisement, which had almost killed him, later rescued him--for without its glittering light he couldn't have found the proper way through the darkness.

The climber was dripping with sweat, and he knew he had to reach some help by calling, before he froze in the night's cold. He looked upwards. The main building of Platform Four, which was luxuriously lit up, was encircled by a wide, covered terrace. By day, it was surely crowded with the nature-lovers, who fearfully looked at the magnificent steepnsses they had conquered a little while ago. But now, by night, nobody was there. The climber caught sight of moving shadows behind the glass façade of the main building, and he also heard the noisy sounds of polyphonic music from inside.

Of course, inside was much warmer; it was bright and agreeable, filled with smoke. Waiters served various chosen foods and fine drink, there were tumultuous multimedia shows for everybody. Who would be so stupid to take the risk of catching cold outside on the frosty terrace?

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