No Geek Rapture for Me_I'm Old School

by Jonelle Renald

  The pool bouts are four minutes of fencing, or five touches, whichever comes first. The clock stops for a step on a line or out of bounds, other violations, and for any halt the director calls. However in sabre fencing, unlike foil bouts, play does not stop for a touch that lands off target. Even if struck below the waist or on a hand, the bout continues until a touch is scored or the director calls a stop.

  Now that the bout had started, Mia visualized a strategic series of strokes and parries that might lead to her opponent’s saber flying upward in a disarm. So she took the RoW first, attacking fiercely. However, Mia’s opponent was strong and turned aside a parry to riposte with a powerful slash and touch to Mia’s rib cage. No damage done, but it was painful! She struggled to take a deep breath and told herself to mentally re-group. “You’re one point down now. Concentrate. Stop trying for that flashy disarm. Darla’s too good for that!”

  In a quick exchange of touches, Mia and Darla both scored on a pair of point thrusts, an attack which is only rarely used in saber fencing. Darla caught Mia by surprise by bringing the point of her saber under Mia’s blade, then moving directly ahead. Mia then returned the favor the next time off the en guard line after bluffing a flank cut. Score 2–1, Darla.

  For the rest of the bout, Mia and Darla exchanged a series of cuts, parries, and ripostes, attempting to score on offense with the point or the edge of the saber’s blade. Switching to defense, blocking attacks to prevent a touch, Mia repeatedly felt the shock and heard the clang of her blade striking the metal of the other saber. The director, with the input from the four-member jury, called additional points for each of them, making it a 4–3 bout. In the middle of a flurry of cuts, the director called a halt — Mia had stepped on the line. So he sent them back to the en guard line. There was only a minute left in this bout, and Mia was frustrated that she still hadn’t found a way to take advantage of Darla’s too-tight grip on her sword. But then she smiled. She remembered an old school saber move that she had often imagined her many Great-Grandfather Marwitz would have used when dueling. It was called the moulinet, which means little windmill. It was different in character from the swift exchanges that occurred in most modern bouts. The moulinet was a high circular sweeping motion that ends with the saber tip arriving at its target with a lot of force, and what was to Mia’s advantage, it is also a deceptive cut, changing lines of attack as the saber tip sweeps across in a circular motion in front of the sabrist’s body. This was a relatively slow action, a flashy and impressive forward chopping motion that was old school, only rarely used in modern fencing. Net result would be a strain on Darla’s too-tight grip. It also had a built-in advantage for defense as well, since the motion would end up blocking the central space between the two fencers. Darla would never expect a moulinet, and (theoretically) a parry would be her only possible response.

  The director called out, “Fencers ready?” Then, “Allez! Fence!”

  Mia told herself, “Don’t rush. Make this bluff believable.” She left her high and outside line open, hoping Darla would take the bait. They exchanged a series of strikes, then Darla attempted a cut, high and outside. Just the opening Mia needed.

  She parried the cut with her saber blade, point down, turning the stroke aside by contacting with Darla’s saber for a second. Mia then moved her blade tip back and up, followed by a coordinated, circular motion with her saber moving forward while at the same time charging forward with her front foot. Her arm fully extended, pivoting with wrist and elbow, strong force was generated by moving the tip in a sweeping arc while Mia’s hilt acted as a pivot point as the point of her saber moved up and around Darla’s sword. Darla tried to defend against the old school attack, but her saber slipped in her grip as it met the powerful incoming strike, and her parry was unsuccessful. Mia completed the downward chopping motion in an extended position, the saber’s tip contacting Darla’s shoulder. After the judge nodded, the director called “Touché!” That tied the bout 4–4.

  As time ran out, the score remained a 4–4 tie, making a tie-breaker necessary. (The tie breaking touch is known as la belle in fencing terminology.) The director called both Darla and Mia to the center line to be sure both understood and were clear about what would happen next. First he told them he was going to flip a coin. Given their positions on the piste, Darla would have tails, and Mia heads. The toss would determine which fencer had priority. Mia watched as the coin rotated through the air. “Tails!” Darla had the advantage of priority.

  Then the director continued with his instructions. “One minute will be added to the clock. Any touches made in this additional time period will be added to the score, and the person in the lead would be declared the winner. But if the added time ends still in a tie, the fencer who has been given priority — Darla Werner in this instance — will be declared the victor. Both of you will receive credit for touches scored, four each in this bout, no added point for the victor. Any questions? Great. Return to your en garde line.”

  In the minute added to their bout, both fencers tried their best to score a touch, but neither succeeded. And Mia’s first bout ended in a tie that counted as a loss for her.

  Both Darla and Mia removed their masks, then saluted the director, the jury of judges, the audience, and each other. After they shook hands, Mia smiled and said, “Great match, Darla! You caught me flat-footed with that point thrust early on.”

  Darla laughed. “We both pulled some moves out of the fencing museum archive today! And you showed me that I need to work on some bad habits I’ve let creep in. My grip betrayed me during that moulinet. Great match, and good luck going forward.”

  “You’re too kind,” Mia said. “Good luck to you as well.”

  In her next pool bout, Mia’s opponent was a familiar face from the Edgestow College team. The challenging bout with Helen Travers went quickly with rapid exchanges of strokes and parries, and Mia won with a score of 5–4. Unfortunately in her third duel, Mia ran into major turmoil with a volatile opponent — Rosemary Lehmann.

  There had never, ever been a bout like the bout with Rosemary Lehmann. Rosemary, a thirty-something brunette from Illinois, did not want to accept any of the rulings made by the director or the jury of four judges concerning scoring. It didn’t take long until she started quarreling with the director over every call he made. She was particularly upset about a stroke that hit Mia on her thigh, clearly below the target zone that ends at the waist. Rosemary waved away the director’s call of “Off-target” as if it was a mere bother and not a ruling that mattered. She absolutely refused to accept the call that the touch wouldn’t count, stepped out of bounds, and shouted, “This bout is rigged! I’m being denied my touch. I felt it when I landed that stroke. There’s no way I missed!”

  The director made no reply to her protest and called for the match to resume.

  As the bout continued, things didn’t improve for Rosemary. She thought she made another touch forty-five seconds later when she had come in furiously extending her sword arm, making slashing cuts everywhere to grab and keep RoW. Mia worked non-stop to parry all these strokes, trying to riposte and formulate an attack of her own, but Rosemary was relentless, making an attack on a high and inside line, aiming for the side of her mask. Mia was able to react quickly and blocked this stroke with the strongest part of her saber (the bottom third of the blade nearest the hilt). The thinnest part of Rosemary’s saber (the third part nearest the tip) flexed around Mia’s block and contacted her mask with an audible “tick.” The judge on the jury dedicated to evaluating the success of Rosemary’s attacks shook her head no. The director called, “Whip over. No touch.”

  Rosemary ripped off her mask and dropped it on the piste. She stood for a moment, mouth open, hands spread out, sword pointed overhead, then shouted, “Are you kidding me? What kind of call is that?! I’m being robbed!” She looked at the jury in an appeal, but they all shook their heads at her.

  The
director called, “Fencers ready?” and she replied, “Not!” Rather than putting her mask on, she turned to the audience in the stands and shouted, “You are my witnesses — I’m being robbed!”

  The director was not swayed by her temper tantrum, and when she wouldn’t stop arguing about the call, he gave her a yellow penalty card, which boosted her temper into an even higher orbit. Her loss of temper meant that she lost every notion of having a strategy in her fencing. She was only focused on trying to hit Mia as hard as she could, as often as she could. In one exchange, she actually broke her saber striking Mia’s mask so hard, even though she didn’t win a touch with it because she had lost RoW. The force of the blow made Mia’s ears ring, but she wasn’t harmed in any way. Play was delayed while Rosemary got another saber ready.

  This match was the evidence proving the theory that “whackers aren’t winners” because Mia won 5 touches to 1. Rosemary received a black card and was ejected from the tournament for refusing to salute the director and the judges at the end of the match.

  Shaking her head, Mia tried to understand this display of anger. Everything Rosemary had done ensured she would not win. She wasn’t robbed so much as she had sabotaged herself. She wondered, “What was that all about? What hidden hurt has caused all that rage?”

  The remainder of the bouts in the third pool were challenging and enjoyable — no further outbursts or drama! At the end of the pool matches, Mia had two losses. One was the tie with Darla Werner, the other was to Vashti Green, a excellent fencer from a Division I college team.

  With the departure of Rosemary due to penalties, only one additional female sabre fencer would be eliminated based on performance in the pool bouts and not advance to the Direct Eliminations (DEs). As the pool bouts wrapped up just after noon, the tournament committee announced they would spend the next ninety minutes evaluating the field in order to set up the seeding for the afternoon bouts. DEs were different from the pool bouts — if you lose your DE bout, you are out of the tournament. Only the winners advance to meet the next opponent, except for the two playing in the semi-finals, who would compete once more for third place.

  So while the afternoon rounds were being determined, Mia ate her lunch (soy-free power bar and a banana), talking and laughing with Jenny Potter, Helen Travers, and other fencers from visiting teams, fairly confident that she would continue to fence in the afternoon. Her record so far was better than what a couple of the others had earned in her own pool, so it was doubtful that she would be cut and sent home.

  Just before 1:30 with their evaluation complete, the tournament committee posted the seedings for the DEs. Mia was seeded in sixth place, in a tough bracket. As the DE bouts progressed throughout the afternoon, Mia did very well and made it to the semi-finals, where she lost to Vashti again. In the consolation bout, Mia won — ending up in third place. Darla and Vashti played in the final round, with Vashti overall saber winner of the tournament. In an outstanding field including sabre fencers headed for the Olympics, Mia was sky high having won a third-place finish. She joined the rest of the Edgestow College fencing club cheering their coach Grant Hartwig who had made everything possible.

  Many of the people from the college who had attended the tournament came down from the bleachers to congratulate Mia. She thanked them and chatted happily about the day’s action. She especially enjoyed using her saber to demonstrate some of the exciting moments from the tourney. One of her well-wishers was Dr. Harper, her mentor and the head of Edgestow’s English Department. His congratulations were sincere, but after shaking her hand, he sighed heavily and said, “I’m so happy you did well today, Mia. What a great way to end the day. It’s a been a highlight of my time at Edgestow College to be able to attend these fencing matches. A genuine pleasure.”

  As she thanked him for the compliment, she wondered, “Why does it sound like he thinks his time at the college is coming to a close? Something is up. Has he suddenly decided to retire?” Mia hoped that wasn’t the case. He had been such a wonderful mentor to her, helping her discover how to really shine as a college professor. She would miss him if he retired now.

  As often happened to her, Mia unconsciously responded to a mentally sent signal and turned around to find she was looking directly at someone already looking at her. It was Enoch, standing at the far end of the gym, near the exit, so she waved at him. He gave her a thumb’s up, then turned and walked away. Still watching him, Mia turned to go, but instead found herself running into the seven-foot-tall man who had been talking to Enoch about his Geek Rapture before the tournament — the tall, darkly tanned, auburn-haired man with black eyes in the black silk suit. He had been standing too close, as if he had been sniffing her hair in order to evaluate her scent. His head still tipped back and up, plus his facial expression — upper lip curled back, mouth open — it reminded her of that moose thing, what was the name? The Flehmen response. Without thinking, she pulled back, as if she had been approached by a dog with a persistently eager nose. He straightened to his full height, all of a foot taller than Mia’s six feet, then bent down over her hand. He was standing so close she could smell the fish he’d had for lunch on his clothes.

  He pulled her hand toward his mouth and air kissed her hand. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “How clumsy of me. Please accept my apology.” Through the contact with his hand, she was aware of his thoughts and opinions of her, that he saw and disapproved of each and every one of her imperfections — her hair flattened by sweat and her fencing mask, her face pretty only when considered in a small town setting (“Sioux City pretty” was his phrasing), her athletic build that he considered too muscular and solid and not cocaine-chic thin enough, dislike of her plain Midwestern accent, every flaw in her fencing technique and execution.

  She thought, “He thinks I’m deficient in every possible way!” Pulling her hand away from him, she said, “Yes, of course, no problem.” Feeling like a prey animal sitting in the open in front of a hungry wolf, her impulse was to immediately move away from him, but his entourage-slash-bodyguards had surrounded her, and she had no clear path to move in any direction. Ignoring her discomfort, the man in the black suit kept engaging her in conversation. “Ah! You’re the girl that caught Enoch’s attention earlier. You must be a family member, a relation of my longtime friend.”

  Mia shook her head. “No, not family. Never met him before today.”

  “Really. Hmm, is that so. Interesting. How interesting.” After pausing a moment, he said, “In any case, allow me to introduce myself. Chase Amunson, executive vice president of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations at iCon. Pleased to meet you, Maria Marwitz.”

  For some reason, Mia felt he expected a curtsy from her, but that wasn’t going to happen. She said, “Dr. Maria Marwitz. Nice to meet you, Chase Amunson.”

  Nodding, he said, “Congratulations on your success today, Dr. Marwitz. And that moulinet you tried — what a valiant attempt! It is such a difficult move to master.”

  “Thanks!” She rolled her eyes and thought, “Yeah, careless me and my valiant attempt. Did you miss where I got a touch with it on an Olympic level fencer?”

  He continued, “Have you ever considered an intensive study of the Italian fencers from the sixteenth century? They can provide such a wealth of strategy for both offense and defense, and I am well versed in their techniques like the sabre Molinello that have been largely forgotten except for hints given in old texts, cryptically abbreviated instructions that could make it difficult to interpret what is intended. Reading these texts on your own might leave you with assumptions which are not correct, misunderstandings and questions about the proper way to effectively accomplish their ideas. However, I’ve some experience with their techniques, and I would be happy to enlighten you with insight into this hidden wisdom. In fact, I would be willing to instruct you on the proper way the sabre Molinello should be executed. Then hopefully, with my help and guidance, you might
someday learn to implement the Italian Renaissance version of the circular cut. With sufficient practice on your part, of course. And if you’ll pardon my bluntness, you would benefit from another helpful suggestion. Objectively speaking, you are physically more suited to the epee and should not be considered a true sabrist. You should not continue your career using this weapon. Yes, you really should switch weapons. You will soon discover that my guidance can provide —.”

  He stopped, mid-sentence. Mia could see he was looking at something over her shoulder, so she turned to look as well. There was a white-haired man in an acid green turtleneck and black slacks entering the gymnasium. Without saying a word, Amunson made an immediate beeline for him. Without so much as an “Excuse me,” he darted away toward the older man, his bodyguards-slash-entourage in tow.

  Mia thought, “Frack — how rude! And odd. So, you think I’m not a true sabrist? Well, Mr. Chase Amunson, body type isn’t the main indicator for weapon choice. Temperament has more to do with achieving success in a particular sword.” She had done a thorough study of each type of sword (foil, epee, saber) before selecting the saber. All of her coaches had told her she was perfectly suited for her weapon. So someone’s thirty second analysis was not worth listening to. “I don’t understand how some people can be so eager to give their advice! Confident that they know what I should be doing, when they don’t even know what they’re talking about. In the least! So glad this conversation has been cut short!” Unpleasant encounter at an end, she headed to the locker room to shower and change.

  Her cellphone chimed while she was changing out of her white uniform. A text from Dr. Helen Travers (Biochemistry) notifying her about an emergency faculty meeting, first thing in the morning at Edgestow Hall. “Attendance required, 8 a.m. tomorrow.” Mia called her.

  Helen said, “Did you see the email that went out first thing this morning?”