"Richard Paul Russo - The Second Descent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russo Richard Paul)

As they started down, Rafael glanced back at what they were leaving
behind: used oxygen bottles, shredded plastic of various colors, broken
tent skeletons, a tattered prayer wheel and other detritus, much of it from
previous summit attempts; two bodies and three crosses. Not the first
bodies to be left behind on this mountain, nor would they be the last.

The morning was uneventful. The sun broke through the mist and they
strapped on their polarized goggles. They roped up to cross the Bernoulli
Ice Field, a smooth and gently curved expanse that steepened and fell
away on either side. A steady and deliberate pace, not technically difficult,
but tedious. They completed the crossing by early afternoon, then stopped
for a meal and rest before starting down the jagged stretch of crumbling
rock and ice that would occupy the rest of their day and eventually bring
them to a sheltered plateau.

Hardly anyone spoke as they ate. Rafael sat next to Iliana, who soon
got up and sat by herself twenty meters from the others. Yusuf took her
place and said, тАЬIt is not personal with her.тАЭ A ragged wound on the lean
EgyptianтАЩs cheek was dark around the edges, and had shown no sign of
healing over the past week.

тАЬI know,тАЭ Rafael answered, although he didnтАЩt. For him, everything
was personal, while for Yusuf nothing ever seemed to be. He looked into
YusufтАЩs shining brown eyes and imagined he saw distances greater than
either of them had ever traveled, and a thousand dead souls still on their
final journeys. Rafael turned away.

****

Rafael isnтАЩt completely certain he reached the summit. He doesnтАЩt
know if his uncertainty and confusion are a result of oxygen deprivation or
of something else. He knows that some did not even make the attempt, and
for those who did make the final push, everyone was on their ownтАФeach
awakened as he or she could, each melted snow and drank and ate or not
as they chose, each left at whatever time they could manage.

Near the top, every step seemed impossibly difficult, and often
minutes passed between each one. While still climbing he saw Yusuf
stumble past him on his way back down, a lopsided grin of success frozen
onto his face.

Rafael stopped climbing at some point, and after a few minutes of
standing and swaying on top of the world, nearly falling toward the distant
curving horizon of stunning white ice and clouds and blue sky and black
rock, he started back down. But he still isnтАЩt certain it was the summit, isnтАЩt
certain that it was anything more than the highest point he was capable of
climbing.

On his own staggering return to high camp he passed Mina, who was
still working her way up around the col, and he remembers thinking there