The craft caught fire. A shell hit our rudder; our boat started to turn and head for the burning oil. Our sailors were falling as the bullets found them.
I dived into the water, taking a deep breath on the way. My voluminous cloak hampered me as I tried to swim. I twisted desperately to get out of it, wasting precious seconds while the flames spread above me along the surface. In a moment, stripped, I stroked for the shore. The only thing I retained was my weapon, the nunchaku.
When I came up, gasping for air, I found myself in the company of a crocodile. I tensed, choking on smoke, the acrid black stuff searing my lungs; vomit filled my throat.
But the big reptile was not after me. It was fleeing the burning oil slick, just as I was. Behind us, my boat was in the midst of that flame.
We struck land almost together. I followed the crock up the bank. A government patrol was there, armed with M3 submachine guns. "Don't shoot, I'm with this crocodile!" I yelled.
They were American, fortunately. They laughed, recognizing my accent. "Which one's the crock?" one asked.
I was home free.
It wasn't until several days later that I learned the rest of the story. One of my sensors had begun broadcasting a day after I left the monastery, signaling a large group of bodies. The planes had gone out and bombed the hell out of what they presumed to be an enemy fortress.
The Shaolin monastery was rubble. There were no survivors. The planes had dropped napalm, just to be sure.
Napalm. Jellied gasoline. I knew what it was like. I had seen its terrible effect many times. That was part of what I didn't like about this war. Carbonized bodies with all trace of sex burned away, impossible to tell whether the victim was man, woman or child. Pull at the body and it might become carbon dust. Somehow the flesh melted away till the bone showed. Once a little girl had come running at me, one of the innocent victims of a blind bombing; I had tried to halt her by seizing her arm, and the whole skin of that limb came off like a glove. In my mind's eye I saw the noble head monk, burning, burning; smelled the stink of incinerated body fat, the peculiar sweetish odor that scorched human meat gives off, the eyes melting in their sockets leaving only a skull, still burning.
I hoped the first strikes had been by B-52s instead of fighter-bombers, and that their big bombs had been accurate. At least the monks would have died rapidly without suffering. But I feared it had not been so, and that they had been caught in the firestorm, in the collapsing ruins, suffocating slowly, the air getting hotter until their lungs burned away.
Someone must have taken my trousers for washing, and either the heat or the vibration had jogged the sensor setting to "ON." The monks had never known what was coming, or why.
My carelessness had wiped out Shangri-La.
I was awarded a Silver Star for bravery in action, and the Purple Heart. I put them away, accursed things. I never told the truth to the authorities; what point would there have been in that? I hung the nunchaku in my trophy case, and let the entire memory of the experience for which that weapon stood become encysted in my brain. It was as though the monastery had never been.
Except for unhappy moments when some stray reference summoned a portion of the experience to consciousness. I always reburied it as fast as possible, a shameful thing.
CHAPTER 7
CHIYAKO
"Until this moment," I concluded.
Kobi Chija shook his head. "Not so, Mr. Striker," he said. "Kung-fu had been with you all the time. Setting the nunchaku aside could not remove that experience from your being."
"I have not been aware of it," I said.
"You held a third degree black belt in judo and second in karate," he said. "What do you hold now?"
"Fifth in judo; third in karate."
"You tried to steer away from karate, but even in your judo you felt the kung-fu influence. Could you have achieved your fifth dan so rapidly otherwise?"
I had never thought of it that way, but now I realized he was right. The experience at the monastery had improved me in many ways, and that had translated into success on the tatami. The signals were all there, in retrospect; I had been willfully blind to them.
"I caused the destruction of the Shaolin monastery," I said. "How can I accept any benefit from that?"
"You are mistaken. They knew when they took you in that it meant death for all of them; their vision had foretold it. The head monk made a deliberate and conscious decision. You cannot overturn that. You cannot call him wrong. You become culpable only if you waste the effort they made. Do not spurn their tremendous sacrifice! You must seek your mission."
"You sound so much like Yee!" I said ruefully. "Did you, did you by chance know him?"
"I knew of him," he said. "I am not a monk, but I know how he thought. I know he never feared destruction. I see his handiwork embodied in you; you were his mission."
"I know my mission, now," I said. "It is to abolish the demon drug Kill-Thirteen from the face of the earth."
"Perhaps so. It has visited much the same devastation on you as the airplanes visited on the monastery. That is omen enough."
"No. Until I saw you, it was only revenge. I never thought of the Shaolin mission."
"Yet it is the drug that brought us together," he pointed out.
I spread my hands. "I can hide nothing from you!"
He smiled. "Why should you wish to?"
"I am afraid you will be hurt, because of me." I was surprised to hear myself say this, but it was true.
"How much better such a hurt," he said, "than the failure to know friendship." He looked at his arm. "Already I am wounded, because of you." He paused. "Instead of dead."
Was that a hint? I stood up. "I forgot how weary you must be. I shall leave, so you can rest. Thank you for your excellent hospitality."
He too stood, and I knew I had done the right thing. He would never have allowed his wound to interfere with politeness.
"My daughter will see you out," he said.
"In a moment," Chiyako said, taking Kobi's arm as he wobbled on his feet. Yes, he was weak, and close to passing out. "Please wait."
"Of course," I said. Naturally I had to take no notice of my host's discomfort. Chiyako would make her father comfortable, and then she would usher me to the door as though nothing were amiss. No face would be lost.
They were gone for several minutes. I stood with my eyes half-closed, trying to analyze the strange exhilaration I felt. I had finally unburdened myself of my darkest secret, and met with people I could really believe in. Was it a major turning point in my life?
"He sleeps," Chiyako said, emerging from her father's room. "There is no infection, I think."
"I'm glad," I said. Then, feeling the awkwardness of being alone with a beautiful girl, an awkwardness I would not have felt, had she not appealed to me so strongly, I turned to go. "I shall phone you tomorrow, to hear how he is doing."
She put her small hand on my arm, and it was as though that contact was charged, positive on negative. I had never felt that before. "Please, Mr. Striker. I know you are tired, and that we hardly know each other, but would you stay a little longer?"
There was nothing I wanted more. "If I can help you in any way—"
"I do not like to impose."
"No, I have imposed on you, with my private history. I'm sorry I talked so much, when your father was too polite to interrupt." That embarrassed me increasingly, that I should have made a severely wounded man listen to something like that.
"He has been long away from China," she said. "When the war with Japan ended, it seemed that Communist victory in China was imminent, so many monks departed, refugees. I was born in exile, not so very far from the monastery you described. My father was a sifu in that region, working with them." Her eyes drifted upward, as though she saw a distant object. "Your words took us back. I was only a child, but I remember these things; I too long for the peace of the monastery, but know there is no peace. My mother died of malaria, while we traveled; my father—"
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Why hadn't I seen that? If I missed the monastery, after only a few months residence there, how much worse was the agony of separation that those trained to it felt! I should have thought of Kobi's feelings.
"I spoke unwittingly," I said. "I'm sorry."
"No, it was wonderful!" she exclaimed. "You are the Chosen, chosen by the vision; that power is in you, and it is an honor to be with you."
"You're way too generous," I said, embarrassed again. "After all the trouble my presence caused—"
"Please," she said. She left the room for a moment, then returned with two weapons. One was a kung-fu practice sword, the other a set of tonfas: oblong boards with handles. "Will you practice with me, as you did at the monastery?"
I was caught completely by surprise. Here she was in her Chinese clothing, as pretty a girl as I had seen in months, who had just tended her father's gruesome wound and served an excellent meal, and now she wanted to practice with weapons.
I humored her, glad for the pretext to remain with her a few moments longer. I would indulge in a token exhibition, then go home. I took the sword.
The sword was wood, cleverly painted to resemble steel. The monks had used similar devices in place of the real weapons, particularly for the novices. After all, the purpose was practice, not mayhem. Still, a wooden sword could pack a nasty clout.
Chiyako assumed a defensive posture with the tonfas, and I made an overhead cut with half my strength, not wanting to risk hurting her. I should not have been so cautious; she caught my blade on the crossed boards, then with a flick of her wrists sent my sword flying. And whacked me across the chest with one tonfa.
Something happens to me when I get hit. I come out fighting, and I do things I may later regret, such as knocking a pretty girl on her butt. I picked up my sword and approached her, but she confused me, whirling the tonfas overhead by their handles and doing figure eights with them. Then she clashed them together with a considerable clatter, and jabbed me with the end of one in the solar plexus, so hard I gasped.
I had practiced against the tonfas before. The reason I was falling for her ploys was because of her, not them. I simply had not anticipated such technique from a girl.
Now I took more competent steps. Despite the pain in my torso, I struck her on the chin with the flat of my sword, shocking her so that she dropped one tonfa. When she bent to recover it, I whacked her hard across the derriere.
She made a little exclamation. I thought it was of pain, but it turned out to be laughter. "So you told the truth!" she cried. "You do know weapons!"
I knew weapons. More than that, I was feeling once more their magic, the exhilaration of weapons in motion. It was a good feeling, and I liked it, and I liked Chiyako too. This little mock battle had been more exciting than a kiss, and not alone because of the sword.
"Take the tonfas," she said, holding them out to me. "You have won them."
"I would rather have won the girl," I said.
She did not quite blush. "Perhaps another time," she said. "Please, I want you to have these; I have a premonition that you will need them."
I did not like such premonitions. They smacked too much of the old head monk's vision, the one that had led him to destruction. But I could not say no to her, so I accepted her gift.
Next day I called on them again, but Kobi was absent. "He has gone to have an acupuncture treatment," Chiyako explained. "I am alone."
This was awkward. I did not want to enter the house in her father's absence, but I did want to see more of Chiyako. "Would you like to take a walk?" I inquired, not certain how Americanized she had become in her decade or so in this country.
It was that easy. We walked in the nearby park, then went to a movie. It was a Bruce Lee picture, and we both laughed at some of the junk that passed for kung-fu. It is a fighting art, not a ballet or trampoline act. Bruce Lee certainly knew that, but had evidently been corrupted by the big money proffered for such distortions. The irony was that kung-fu needed no exaggeration; it is deadly enough without the phony stuff.
Afterwards, we stopped at a Chinese tea house and had tea. And pastry full of cheese. An old Chinese with an ancient camera took our picture. Back on the street we passed a tourist trap, and I bought her a jade Buddha to hang from her neck. We watched them gutting fish expertly at the market and ate mango ice cream, and I found myself holding hands with her as we walked. We smelled burning incense and entered a temple, but it was a fake, a tourist souvenir shop with a Buddha in front as a facade. So we went on to a Chinese museum, and it was another disappointment, with an imitation dragon belching flame.
I had seen these things before, but now they bothered me more. Everything was artificial, except Chiyako.
Next day I talked again with Kobi, telling him the details of my encounters with the demons. Kobi was looking better; evidently the acupuncture treatments were helping him recover. "A black woman," he murmured. "Tomorrow I will investigate."
Sure enough, he was gone again the following day. This time Chiyako invited me inside, and I accepted. Her father knew I was seeing her; he would have said something to one of us if he objected. "I do not know your specialty," she told me as we entered the dojo. "This judo, is it like kung-fu?"
Could she really, be ignorant of judo? Well, I was happy to enlighten her.
"Judo is literally the 'gentle way'," I said. "Designed to subdue your opponent without hurting him, or yourself. That doesn't mean it is non-violent, or that strength is immaterial. Sometimes judo is decidedly ungentle. And the stronger man has the advantage when the skills are equal. Judo consists mainly of throws, locks and holds, but it really is less of a physical arsenal than it is a mental attitude."
"That is true for kung-fu," she said.
"Yes. Kung-fu is a form of karate, an empty-handed striking. But all the major martial arts overlap to some extent. Judo experts know many of the karate blows, and a good karateka will know most of the judo throws. And of course a kung-fu sifu knows them too. I'm sure your father does. So the forms of the martial arts really aren't so different."
"That throw you did in the street, that was judo?"
"Throw?" I had trouble orienting on her question.
"When you stood on one leg and made a sweep with the other." She made a little demonstration, very attractively executed, so that I still couldn't really concentrate on her words.
"That looks like the harai-goshi," I said. "Yes, that's judo."
"Will you show it to me? It certainly was effective on that demon."
"Well, if you really want it," I said. We changed into judogis for practice, then returned to the hall. My uniform was conventional for judo, but hers was a bright scarlet kung-fu outfit, very pretty on her.
I approached her on the tatami, and went into the harai-goshi. Rather, I started it. She resisted with the hara, or "strong stomach thrust out," then grabbed me around the waist and swept my supporting leg so that we both fell to the mat, she on top.
"You gamine, you know judo!" I exclaimed ruefully.
She laughed so hard she fell over.
That nettled me. "I never did the harai-goshi on a demon," I continued. "Why did you ask about it?"
She shrugged, avoiding direct response. "Maybe you did it wrong."
I stood up, grim. "Yes. Let's try it again."
She was still shaking with mirth, but my pride had been hurt. She tried the same defense as before, which was foolish. I let her counter by sweeping my leg and throwing me, as before, but this time I did not let go of her. She was carried down with me, and as we fell I passed one of my legs between hers, levered her to the side, climbed on top and held her down. She was pinned, but also, I realized abruptly, very close.
I let her go again, hastily. My leg rammed between hers, that could be misunderstood.
"But I can get up and attack you again," she said. "With kung-fu I would have knocked you out."
"Not if I put a kesa-gatame on you," I said, smiling. I sat alongside her, my legs braced a
part for balance; my upper torso held hers down. Her head was caught in the crook of my right arm, while my left caught her right arm.
"But I could break that hold!" she said.
She tried, but of course it was impossible. I could have held a three-hundred-pound wrestler firmly with this hold, and she fell far short of that weight.
Her breasts writhed against me as she struggled. I didn't want to hurt her, so I gave her some play, but that only made her motions more voluptuous. Her lovely face was close to mine, and I inhaled the fragrance of her hair.
I kissed her. I hadn't meant to do it, but it seemed natural in the circumstance. She met me with a passion that amazed me, a deep, deep kiss.
It was as though all my repression and guilt about the monastery fueled this quite different emotion I experienced with Chiyako. She was of the kung-fu line, heir to its traditions, yet she was a woman. She embodied both of the worlds I craved: the monastic and the romantic. For years I had been searching, unbeknownst to myself, for just these things, thinking them mutually exclusive. Now here they were—together.
And I realized that this was the reason for her mock queries about judo. It was like an American girl saying "I'm cold" on a warm evening. A Chinese girl, even one half-Americanized, does not simply ask a man to take her in his arms. She had maneuvered me to where she wanted me, in a rather more subtle manner than Amalita had. I had been slow to catch on.
Things proceeded naturally from that point. The loose exercise outfits were no problem, and the mat was comfortable. The culmination was exquisite, without pain, like nothing I had experienced before.
No, perhaps there was pain, for her. When we rose, there was a small bloodstain on the tatami, an embarrassing tattle-tale. She washed it out, but some stain remained. Then she went to clean herself up and change. I was amazed again at her composure, for now I knew that this had been a completely new and significant experience for her.
I changed too, returning to the front room before she reappeared. I had much to think about.
Kiai! & Mistress of Death Page 29
