Ronald Malfi - The Ascent

The woman seemed to look straight through me.

I pivoted and caught a glimpse of Hannah—this time for sure—talking with a good-looking guy in a black suit and tie. She was stunning in a contoured velvet gown cut just at the knee. She wore black nylons—something that had always driven me wild. She must have sensed my gaze from across the room because she looked in my direction at that moment, our eyes locking.

“Hey.” I kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry, Hannah. I got caught

up.” I nodded at the gentleman in the suit. “Hi.”

“Tim, this is David Moore. David, this is my husband, Tim.”

David grasped my hand and pumped it like a car jack. “Good to meet you, Tim.”

“David bought your sculpture.”

I arched my eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

David smiled. He was dark skinned with silver streaks in his black hair. Firm chin already darkened by tomorrow’s beard stubble. “It’s a beautiful piece. I noticed it right away. It really spoke to me.”

I cocked a grin at him. “What did it say?”

“Uh,” David said and followed it up with a nervous laugh. He looked me up and down. “I should leave,” he said, turning to Hannah. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “It was a fabulous evening.”

“Thanks for coming, David.”

I watched him leave before facing Hannah. “So how did it go?”

Grabbing me by the elbow, she led me away from the center of the room. “Jesus, Tim. You stink of booze.” She, too, eyed me up and down. “There’s … there’s shit all over your tux.”

“I should have covered it with a trash bag. I didn’t think.”

An elderly couple waltzed by, raising their hands to my wife. She offered them a broad smile, shoving me farther behind her as if to hide me from the world. I took a few steps back until I stumbled into a wall. There was a speaker directly above my head through which issued a slow jazz instrumental.

“Who is he?” I asked that night in bed.

“Who is who?”

“The guy who bought my piece.”

“David? He’s a linguistics professor at Georgetown. He’s written a few books, and he’s very well respected in the arts community.”

“He seems to like you a lot.”

“He’s a lover of art.”

“I mean, he seems to like you personally.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “He just seemed really friendly.”

“He’s one of the donors. And he spent a lot of money tonight. Most of it on your sculpture.” She rolled over in bed, her back toward me.

“A handsome guy, too,” I said, staring at the ceiling.

“You’re still drunk,” she muttered.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” I said.

“Just go to sleep, Tim.”

“Can we talk about it?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“All right.”

But we didn’t.

We didn’t.

3

ANDREW’S VOICE FOLLOWED ME DOWN INTO THE

darkness: “Is it too tight? Can you move your arms?”

Except for the shrinking circle of light above my head, my world was black. As they lowered me into the ice shaft, my nose only an inch or so away from the wall of black ice, I couldn’t help but think about the accident in the cave. Had it really been two years ago now? Bumbling through constricted tunnels below the earth, lost and blind yet going deeper and deeper. Everything had that coal mine smell. Then, just as it had happened to Hollinger, the ground had opened up beneath me and I’d dropped. My leg snapped when I crashed to the bottom of the trench, the pain so intense I was rendered instantly unconscious.

I recalled now what Andrew had alluded to over a week ago as we huddled together in the cave after Shotsky had died. What he’d said about my reason for wandering around in those caves by myself in the first place. I hadn’t been afraid of dying. Lying at the bottom ofthat pitch-black stone trench, my ass soaking up ancient water that had somehow found a way in through the cracks in the rock, I had surrendered. I’d closed my eyes and surrendered, welcoming it. I was tired and wanted no more of it. And I would have simply bled out and died there if it hadn’t been for Hannah.

Not now, I scolded myself. You want to lament, do it on your own goddamn time.

Andrew’s voice echoed to me again. “Tim, did you hear me?”

Cramped and restricted, I could hardly hinge my head far enough back on my neck to make out the circle of light above. “I hear you.” My voice was just a notch above a whisper, yet it echoed from every direction. Below, the shaft appeared to widen just enough to permit my arms movement. I brought them up to my face and wiped away the sweat that was stinging my eyes. If the rope snapped, I wondered how far a drop it would be before I hit the ground.

Andrew’s voice floated down to me a third time, but I could no longer understand what he was saying.

“It’s opening up,” I informed him, not knowing if he could hear me or not. “I can move my arms.”

I could crane my neck and peer down the rest of the shaft, too, although the sight only caused my stomach to cramp. Around my groin, the harness was too tight, and I started to feel my feet going numb.

Hollinger was a few feet below me. The platform on which he lay sprawled and unconscious was just a narrow lip jutting from the wall of the shaft—a miracle that it had caught him. My own bulk blocked the daylight from funneling down so I couldn’t make out any specific details concerning the severity of his condition, but I could see that he was no longer wearing his helmet, which was not a good sign.

My feet touched down on the ice shelf, and I reached up and tugged at the secondary line to alert the others. The shelf felt solid beneath my weight. I plastered my face and chest against the frozen wall for fear that if I didn’t I’d lose my balance and fall off the ledge.

My left foot struck Hollinger’s leg.

“Can you hear me, Hollinger?” I whispered into the wall of ice. The warmth of my breath bounced back at me off the ice. “Can you hear me?”

Hollinger groaned but didn’t move.

I looked up. The opening was no bigger than the size of a quarter now. Raising my voice the slightest bit, I said, “He’s alive.”

Undoubtedly fearful their voices would create too much vibration, the others did not respond.

“Okay, Holly,” I said, pulling off my gloves and stuffing them into the pouch of my anorak. “Hang with me, man. Hang with me.”

Sliding one hand along the wall, I was able to grab hold of the secondary line. I ran it through the karabiners at my waist, then pulled at it to test the strength of the pitons the guys had secured in the surface of the glacier far above. It was strong and would hold. It would have to.

My fingers already beginning to tighten up in the cold, I fumbled with the clasps on the harness, unable to get them undone until my third attempt. Around me, the world seemed to sigh. I paused. There sounded a dissonant, sonorous splintering from somewhere below me, and my heart froze in my chest. Something snapped and fell away; I heard the hollow whistle of its descent but did not hear it hit the ground.

The ledge was crumbling under my weight.

I yanked the buckles from the harness and climbed out of it just like stepping out of a pair of pants, my heart slamming against my ribs, and crouched down, while the splintering, popping sounds resonated throughout the ice. Straddling Hollinger, I worked the harness over his legs and around his waist, where I fastened it with increasingly numb fingers. At eye level, I noticed a lightning bolt zigzagging in the ice wall, creeping higher and higher. A second fissure appeared beside it, peeling up the wall from the base of the ice ledge.