I saw Everest on the horizon as I was digging through a side pocket of my pack on top of a bus in the cinnamon wilderness of Tibet. Everest stood above the other peaks like a blue cuspid in a row of teeth. I knew the shape by heart. Even at a distance it chilled me with fear. I found the Imodium and clambered back down into the bus. Allison had buried herself in the back seat under a pile of fleeces. She couldn’t even eat. No one among the dozen passengers spoke English, so I couldn’t tell how much longer till we would cross the Himalayas and arrive in Nepal, but the smile next to me revealed a gold cuspid. Dorje had his hair fastened up in a chignon with a turquoise brooch and wore coral earrings. Sticking out of his backpack and tapping me with every bump in the road was a lifeless black hoof.
When we did begin the ascent, night fell and snow. We passed one outpost of cement shacks where another bus had spun out of control and been abandoned. Ours began to fishtail wildly in the deep drifts on the road—the Friendship Highway from China to India. Then there was nothing. Just sheer white drop on our right, grey rock face to the left. We held hands as the driver lit a cigarette, narrowed his eyes, and careened toward a curve on the ice-covered road with seemingly no traction. I accepted my death.
The bus got stuck half an hour later and a couple freed their baggage from the netting on the roof and took off on foot in the darkness. I asked Dorje frantically, “How long?” with gestures. He flashed ten fingers along with his calm smile. I looked to Allison. “Think he’s saying ten minutes?” I threw our bags off the roof as the bus reversed then lurched away back in the direction we had come, its taillights disappearing and leaving us alone in dark silence.
After our first hour walking, the couple’s tracks disappeared. After two we ran out of water. After three, I noticed dirt under my footsteps and looked up instinctively. At the top of the black sky was an almond-shaped gash of stars. After four, we saw the glow on the horizon that was Zhangmu.
