The Everest Files Read Free

a colour print showing a handsome young Sherpa boy, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. He was pictured wearing mountain gear, standing in a place which looked snowy and wild.
    He was a climber. No doubt about that. But what were the prayers Shreeya was offering for him?
    Prayers for a soul already gone? Or prayers for his safety as he climbed?
    When the chanting had ended Shreeya picked up a small brass hand bell with a carved wooden handle.
    â€˜The shrine bell,’ she told me. ‘The ceremony isn’t over until the bell is rung.’
    The bell rang clear as she shook it, the sound telling everyone that the puja had been successfully performed.
    She pinned the photograph of the young climber back and I couldn’t hold my curiosity any longer.
    â€˜Shreeya, can I ask you something?’
    She nodded.
    â€˜Who is the boy in the picture? You seemed to be praying for him.’
    Shreeya went silent for a while, then said, ‘He is my friend. His name is Kami.’
    â€˜Ah. Well I hope I will meet him.’
    Shreeya thought about this carefully, a strange fleeting confusion clouding her eyes.
    â€˜I don’t know if that is possible. You see I do not know if any of us will see him again … nobody really knows if he is dead or alive.’
    â€˜Oh, I’m sorry.’
    I didn’t want to push it further; Shreeya was clearly reluctant to talk about her friend and I didn’t want to upset her. But what had she meant? Had he left the village? Gone to study in India perhaps? Or had he been lost on a mountain trip?
    It was a mysterious thing to say.
    We spent the rest of the morning getting the medical gear down to the clinic. Dhorjee had dumped his rucksack there the previous evening so, miraculously, everything had arrived in one piece.
    I was shocked by the state of the place. Paint was peeling from every wall, there was abundant mildew, and two of the windows were cracked.
    We spent a couple of hours cleaning dead beetles out of the cupboards before a bunch of local dignitaries turned up to welcome me.
    The speeches began.
    The sun blazed harder.
    It was during this ceremony that I began to feel rough. I shivered as my skin became chilled. The faint desire to vomit began to nag away but I knew I could not interrupt the ceremony and nor could I move out of the sun.
    I kept smiling and gritted my teeth.
    I was asked to say a few words but my tongue was swelling horribly, my spit thickening in that repulsive way it does just before you are sick.
    I stopped the speech and sprinted for the nearest bushes where I retched long and hard.
    â€˜I think I might have picked up a bug in Kathmandu,’ I told the villagers as I stumbled back out into the blazing sun.
    It was a bit of a downer to say the least.
    By nightfall I was back in my room at Shreeya’s house, wrapped up in my sleeping bag and feeling pretty sorry for myself.
    â€˜You are shivering,’ Shreeya said that night. Her aunt’s watchful eyes stared at me without sympathy.
    â€˜Just some virus,’ I told her. ‘I’ll be alright in the morning.’
    I wasn’t alright in the morning. In fact the fever had got worse and I now had deep muscle aches.
    Shreeya watched over me as I lay there sweating in the sleeping bag. I treated myself with paracetamol and decided that it was probably a virulent case of flu. Or perhaps a gastric infection I had picked up during the week in Kathmandu.
    Then, having been feverish for twenty-four hours, it suddenly got much worse and a stabbing pain started up in my chest.
    â€˜Maybe you need to go back to Kathmandu,’ Shreeya suggested. ‘Go to hospital.’
    I knew she was right but there was no way I could trek back out along that path.
    The high point that second day on my thermometer was 39.8 degrees, which felt pretty extreme. Shreeya was getting more and more concerned about the state of me and from that moment on she never left my side, holding cool damp