by Tanis Rideout

On the train journey Mallory seeks out Irvine.

The first day they stumble out of Bombay, away from the weak attempts at colonial order, past thinning roads and buildings into the Indian countryside. The train becomes less and less crowded making conversation easier, more comfortable. The expedition members spread out over a number of cars, staking out and claiming territory, taking advantage of the space and solitude while they can, before they are cramped into tiny tents on carved snow platforms.

Mallory spends most of his time moving between Norton and Irvine.

With Norton he talks of strategy—covering the same ground over and over: the pairing off and order of teams, the ferrying of supplies up and down the icefall, the mountain. They make and remake lists and schedules, laying them out like calendars. Leaning over lap desks or Mallory’s copy of the Inferno they draw lines between and through names. Mallory crumples up sheets of paper and drops them to the floor; Norton spreads them out, flattening them with the heel of his palm to examine the names and numbers again.

They try to impose an order on the attempt, to mark it out on pages and maps as if it all comes down to tactics. They are laying siege. Waging war.

They lean together over maps, drawing routes with ink-smudged fingers from Darjeeling through passes and tiny villages, tapping the map lightly at places they will stop.

They caress the contour lines of the mountain—focusing where the rhythm changes and they become closer together—where the slopes become steeper.

It is as if they are reading love letters.

Tanis Rideout is a writer living in Toronto. Her first book of poetry, Delineation, explored the lives, loves and obsessions of comic book heroines. She has also written poetry for and toured with Sarah Harmer and Gord Downie in support of environmental justice on the Niagara Escarpment and Lake Ontario. Find her online at www.rideoutandearp.vox.com.