THE MOUNTAIN

Anara grew up in a valley beneath a tall

mountain. Flowers carpeted the valley in
spring, when the stream at its heart flowed
hard and fast with melting snow, and the
mountains peak glowed gloriously in the
morning sun. Anara, with her feet in the ice-
cold water, head cradled in soft flowers,
thought of the far distant home of the stream
in the high mountain plateaus and how
wonderful that home must be, for everything
the valley was, all its joy and life, it owed to
the stream. The waters bubbling voice
sounded so eager to tell her its tale, Anara
felt sad she could not understand. Lying
among the flowers, she promised herself that
one day she would follow the stream home.
One day, she would climb the mountain.
The seasons came and went, and the years.
Anara was now a young woman. A
handsome young man from a wealthy family
in a village in the foothills asked to marry
her.
To journey upriver, hasnt that been your
dream? Anaras father advised. Isnt this
your chance?
If I marry Chita I will never get to go on
my journey. I will stay in the foothills
forever.
You will have a wonderful family, and you
will be very happy. Chita is a good man. He
will take care of you and love you as his
wife. That will make your mother and I very
happy.
Anara married Chita, She packed her
possessions and journeyed along the path
beside the stream until she came to Chitas
village in the low foothills. And here she
made her home. It was to be for twenty
years, and she and Chita had three children.
Anara was happy with her family. But in the
evening alone she would stand and gaze up
at the peak of the mountain far above. Her
old dream was still alive. She wanted to
climb so much, yet in the first half of her life
she had travelled a mere few miles of the
journey.
Then one day Chita came to her and said: I
have been watching you, my love. I know
you are not happy. I know your heart is
yearning for the adventure you never had,
that you still long to climb the mountain as
you wished as a child. So, let me release you
of your bond to our family. Our children are
grown. They no longer need their mothers
constant care because you have loved them
and nurtured them so well: they are strong
and can fend for themselves. I too can look
after myself. But I cannot go with you on
your journey. The high mountain is not for
me. The village is my place. This is where I
belong. My wealth is here, and everything I
love. But you must go where your heart
leads.
Anara knew if she did not accept Chitas
offer, she would never realise her dream. So,
after twenty long years in the village, Anara
left her family behind and began once more
following the path by the stream, leading
steadily up the mountain. Once again it was
spring, the spring of a new year, and the
stream was full and bubbling with melt
water. As she climbed the air grew colder.
Every now and again from some vantage
point she would look down on the valleys
below. She saw the village where she had
lived with Chita. Beyond that she caught
glimpses of the valley of her home with its
flowering meadows.
On a stormy night she came across a poor
old woman stumbling along the path. She
took the old woman home.
My husband had died. I am so sick, I can
no longer look after myself, the old woman
said. I dont know what to do.
I will look after you, Anara said. I am not
doing anything in particular, other than
climbing the mountain.
I dont want to keep you from your
journey, the old woman said.
I am happy to stay and care for you, Anara
said. I would not have it any other way.
The time for my journey will come.
And so she stayed and looked after the old
woman, who gradually got better and
became very happy. They got on
wonderfully together and became great
friends. Anara loved the old woman and her
stories. Sometimes she missed her own
family, and thought she should return down
the mountain. But this meant leaving her
friend, and it also meant giving up her
dream. So she stayed, and the years went by.
Anaras hair began to turn grey, the colour
of the ice on the windowsills.
Then one morning Anara made breakfast to
take to her friend and found that the old lady
had died in the night. She had died smiling,
which comforted Anara, who wept at her
friends bedside. She arranged the funeral,
and set off up the mountain.
It was not long before she met a shepherd
bringing his sheep down the mountain to
pasture, for at this time winter was coming.
The shepherd had fallen and hurt his leg.
Can you help me? he asked frantically. If
I cant get my flock to the valley, they will
starve.
Anara agreed immediately. Of course, she
told the shepherd. I have nothing special to
do. I am climbing the mountain because
when I was little the stream spoke to me and
told me of its home, and I had a dream to
visit there. But it is of little consequence
beside the well being of your sheep.
Together they descended the mountain till
they arrived at the next valley down. Here
Anara spent the winter in the shepherds
cottage. He was a lonely man and his leg
would not heal. In fact, Anara helped him
for three years looking after his sheep. Then
she asked if she might resume her journey.
I cannot thank you enough for all you have
done, the shepherd said. I wish you luck
with your quest. But I warn you the
mountain is not the magical place you
imagine it to be. It is cold and desolate and
hard.
I am sure. But the voice of the stream had
stayed in my mind since I was a little girl.
And I must discover what it was it was
trying to tell me. I cannot rest until I do.
Goodbye, my friend.
Once again it was springtime as Anara
resumed her climb. The sky above her head
was bright blue. Anara found herself places
to sleep amongst the rocks. She had with her
bread to eat, which she was careful to make
last. The air became thin and difficult to
breathe. She climbed still higher, yet the top
of the mountain seemed no closer. She left
the trees behind, and now there was but thin
wispy grass and rocks., through which
trickled what remained of the tiny stream.
Higher still she came to the mouth of a cave.
She thought it seemed like a good place to
spend the night and went cautiously inside.
Suddenly she was surprised by an old man
sitting in the darkness.
Who are you? Anara asked.
I am a hermit, the old man said. I have
been living here for more than thirty years,
alone. You are the first person I have seen
since I left my family.
Anara related the story of how she too had
left her family far below in the foothills of
the mountain. She said she was climbing to
find the source of the stream.
You will find nothing, the old man told
her. Beyond here is only grief and misery. I
myself have looked. The air is impossible to
breathe, the cold is too intense to bare. There
is no water to drink. The source of your
precious stream is only lifeless frozen rock.
There is nothing there. I have seen. I could
not go back and tell what I had seen,
because like you I thought I would be the
bearer of great joy. Instead I can tell only
misery.
That night a terrible blizzard blew up, and it
became fearfully cold. The old man was
terribly thin and sickly. In the morning he
said to Anara: I have told you there is
nothing here. Take my advice. Go back
down the mountain before it is too late. Do
not have your dream shattered. Go back
down and tell them what they want to know:
that the source of the stream is something
beautiful beyond imagination. Please go to
my family and tell them. Tell them you have
seen me, that I live in a place of great
wonder and happiness, and that I love them.
Do not tell them the truth. Will you do that
for me?
Anara saw that the old man was close to
death.
I will take you back down the mountain,
she said.
But he forbid her. No. I can never go back.
Promise me you will tell my family. It is all
I ask.
After Ive climbed the mountain, she said.
No, he insisted. Go no further. You must
go down now.
The old man was very weak. Anara built a
sled bed and put him upon it and when the
weather eased she started the long descent
down the mountain. But the weather quickly
grew worse again. She sheltered with her
sick friend, but by next morning she
discovered he had died. Anara went down
the rest of the way to the village where the
old man had once lived. She found his
family and told them what he had asked. She
said there existed a place on top of the
mountain which was so beautiful it was
beyond imagining, and she was going there,
for that was where the old hermit had found
peace, and he wanted them to know.
Then Anara set off up the mountain again.
The villagers thought she was mad, for
winter was coming and the shepherds were
descending with their flocks. They thought
she was a dreamer.
Anara climbed. She followed the course of
the stream. High up it began to snow and the
thin air made her breathless. On she trudged.
She passed the cave where the old hermit
had spent his days, and she remembered his
warning. She was alone now. There was no
one. There was no other living creature. At
this altitude no creature could live. There
was just barren rock and ice and fog.
Anaras hands were blistered and burnt with
cold. Her face too was gnawed at by the
freezing wind. She bent down, and still at
her side was a faint trickle of water barely
inching down the mountainside. She
struggled on.
How could it be, she asked herself, that so
much beauty in the valleys and foothills
below, arose out of such misery and dearth?
Truly, the mountain, a place of such
splendour seen from below, was in truth
nothing but desolation and death. There was
not even any view, for the fog, those
beautiful clouds seen from below, was
impenetrably thick and oppressive. Was this
my dream? Anara asked herself? Was it for
this that I gave up my family, for this icy
inhuman waste?