Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

“Wha—?”

“Quiet,” I told him. Thankfully Petras’s thundering snoring compensated for Shotsky’s.

“Tim, wha—?”

“Listen. I spoke with Andrew. He’s going to give you the money whether you finish this thing or not. He doesn’t want you to know because he wants you to finish, but we need to be honest here, Donald.” I used his first name, hoping to appeal to the soul of the man. “This trip is going to get one hundred times worse than today. You’re going to kill yourself.”

His eyes were large and beseeching. I couldn’t tell if he was fully awake.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Sure.” His voice was calm, relaxed. His breath was warm in my face, smelling of onions and cigarettes. “Thing is, maybe I do need to prove this to myself. Maybe Andrew’s right. Maybe I need this.”

“Andrew’s out of his mind. He’s playing a game with you. You don’t need to prove a goddamn thing.”

“But I do.” His voice was oddly serene; just hearing it caused goose bumps to break out along my arms. “I do.”

“Then you might die proving it,” I whispered and crawled back to my sleeping bag.

Shotsky was snoring again before my eyes closed.

2

IN THE SCANT MOMENTS BEFORE DAWN. I AWOKE

to find Andrew and Shotsky standing above me with their packs on. For a second, I thought I was dreaming. I turned over and saw Curtis’s slumbering form wrapped in a flannel sleeping bag. I could hear Petras’s snores echoing off the stone walls of the valley.

“What’s this?” I muttered, rubbing sleep from my eyes. “I’m taking Shotsky back to base camp,” Andrew said, his voice flat and emotionless.

“That’s a full day’s hike,” I said.

“And another day coming back,” he added. “We can do it quickly.” I stared at Shotsky, but he refused to meet my eyes. “You want me to go with you?” “It’s not necessary.”

But I was already lacing up my boots. “I’ll come.” “Tim—”

“Remember what you said to me when I told you I’d gone caving on my own? That I was a fool and I could have died down there?”

Andrew looked away, rubbing his jaw. He seemed to chew on my words.

“Well, you were right. I’m coming with you.” I gazed at the camp, which was still dark in the predawn. “Besides, what the hell am I gonna do? Sit here and lose all my money playing poker with Chad?”

“Quiet,” Chad groaned a few yards away. “Still sleeping.”

Again my gaze shifted to Shotsky, but he still refused to look at me.

Finally Andrew said, “Hurry up and get dressed.”

While I dressed, Andrew spoke with Petras and told him to wait here until he and I returned which, with luck, would be in less than two days. Petras accepted his duty as next-in-charge in Andrew’s absence without protest; however, when he peered over at me, there was a dubious glimmer in his eyes. I could only roll my shoulders in response.

We set out before the sun had time to rise. Conversation was nonexistent. The only sounds were of our boots crunching in the snow, the top layer having frozen in the night, and the collective sighs of our respiration. The descent was easier than the initial climb, and Shotsky had to stop only a handful of times to catch his breath. Each time, Andrew did not wait for him; he continued descending the passage, tromping through our footprints from the day before, until he was once again a dark speck at the opposite end of the passage.

I remained with Shotsky, but we did not speak to each other. There was nothing to be said, and we both knew it. I could tell he was uncomfortable around me, and I could tell by the distance Andrew created between us that he was upset, too.

“I’ve gotta take a leak,” I told Shotsky during one of his breaks and climbed farther down the passage where I urinated into the snow.

When Shotsky caught up five minutes later, somewhat refreshed and ready to continue, I sighed and said nothing. We continued down the slope until my nagging thoughts got the better of me and I said, “What was all that talk last night about needing to finish? You seemed determined.”

“Guess I had time to think about it,” he said, his voice small. “You’re right. Who am I kidding?”

I said no more about it. We stopped for a late, freeze-dried lunch, and none of us spoke. I found my mind wandering, occupying itself with things other than the descent and the coldness between the three of us. I thought of Hannah and how she—

3

—STUCK HER HEAD UP THROUGH THE FLOOR HATCH

of our loft. Soft, tallow light framed her face. She smiled as I set down my hammer and chisel and wiped my hands on my pants, leaving white smears of powder on them.

“You need to see this,” she said.

“I need to finish this.”

She climbed out of the floor hatch. My studio was actually the attic, accessible only through the small hatch at the center of the floor. Brushing dust off her clothes, she stepped around the sculpture and behind me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I thought you weren’t going to do the memorial.”

“I’m not.” I traced a thumb along the base of the sculpture. It was far from being finished, the bottom half still an unrefined cube of marble. Three faceless soldiers, their rifles drawn and their helmets covering their heads, rose out of the cube of marble, each of them facing in a slightly different direction. “I just couldn’t sleep. I kept seeing this in my head … and I knew this chunk of marble was up here, growing cold and ugly.”

Hannah reached out and stroked the cold, white stone. “It’s beautiful.”

“What’s so important that I need to see?”

“Outside. They’re shooting fireworks over the water from the Naval Academy.”

I examined the blank oval heads of the three soldiers beneath their helmets. “I should finish,” I said, picking up one of my carving tools.

“You should leave their faces blank,” she suggested.

“You think so?”

“Seems to make a bigger statement. Like they could be anyone and everyone. All the young men who died over there.”

“I need to finish,” I told her. “Please, Hannah …”

She kissed my cheek, and I felt her hand slide off my shoulder. The floorboards creaked as she made her way to the floor hatch. “I love you,” she called to me.

“Love you, too,” I said and watched as she descended through the hatch, under-lit by the shaft of yellow light.

I finished the sculpture, but it wasn’t good enough. I sat and stared at it for an undefined time, my stomach cramping with hunger and my bladder swollen with piss. Sometime during the night, I’d decided to submit it to the memorial commission after all. Leaning closer to it on my stool, I scrutinized every detail, every nuance. There was anguish and fear in the soldiers’ blank faces, creases and tears in their uniforms, and I could almost convince myself that I could see the grease on their hands from their weapons.

And it occurred to me like a burst of fire in a darkened cave: there was too much detail. It was too much .

Like they could be anyone and everyone.

One week later, I presented the sculpture to the memorial commission—a donation from an up-and-coming artist who’d done only a meager number of commissioned works. Reviews of the sculpture proclaimed it to be powerful, all-encompassing, otherworldly, yet somehow completely unassuming. It graced the covers of several design and art magazines. I started receiving work from more elite clients.

One man in particular, the publisher of a national newspaper, desired a personalized sculpture for his office, something he could set on the mantel above his fireplace. Upon our first meeting, he pumped my hand vigorously and said, “I fell in love with what you did for the memorial, Tim—can I call you Tim? So simple yet so