by Alison Ryan
By thirteen, pupil was regularly besting teacher, and in order to continue to improve and hone his skills, Canaan relocated to Italy, where he could immerse himself in his dream by training with the best young swordsmen on the planet.
The world of Italian fencing came as an immediate shock to the pampered Canaan Titan. He was treated as an apprentice, rather than a decorated junior champion. He slept on a mat, cleaned the gym, and was humbled by older, more experienced athletes. Nothing was given, and anything earned came only after gallons of sweat and tears.
By the time he was seventeen, Canaan’s apprenticeship was over. He was beating all but the cream of the crop in world fencing, deft with all three weapons, nimble and quick, an aggressive competitor whose blitz attacks left most opponents helpless.
He was on track for the 2012 Olympics where— despite being just twenty years old—and he’d been a multiple medal favorite.
It was then that disaster, from the perspective of USA Fencing, struck; in the form of a stunning young woman named Aidana.
At an international tournament in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, just months before the London Olympiad, Canaan spotted a girl with spectacular curly dark hair and an infectious smile. A Kazakh girl named Aidana, who knew enough Italian and English to communicate with the dashing young American fencing champion. She was in town visiting cousins, and went to the event on a lark, for lack of anything better to do, not out of any love for fencing, or sports in general. Aidana turned out to be the daughter of a high-ranking member of Kazakhstan’s parliament, and one who leaned more toward the old Soviet-style Kazakhstan and away from Western, “American” sensibilities.
Despite knowing her father wouldn’t be at all amused by it, Aidana and Canaan consummated a whirlwind weekend romance that ended with Canaan sneaking away back to Kazakhstan’s capital city, Astana, with her when the American team returned to the States.
The two young lovers had no plan, short or long-term, just a shared, mutual attraction that overwhelmed them both.
When Aidana was discovered with Canaan, her father flexed his political muscle, and ignoring requests from the American State Department and gobs of Titan money, the old man had Canaan thrown into a Kazakh prison on trumped-up charges, partially to keep him away from Aidana, and partially to avenge her “stolen virtue,” as he saw it.
Emerson Titan had enough cash and political juice to just about throw open the gates of Hell itself, much less the doors to almost any prison on the planet, but Canaan requested that his father let him do his sentence, whatever it may be, in order to prove to Aidana’s father that he loved her.
More than once, Atlas threatened to assemble a team and spring Canaan whether he wanted to be free or not, but Emerson Titan, patriarch of the family, wouldn’t sign off on the plan. He’d been in love, he knew how important it was, and he knew Canaan would never forgive him if he allowed Atlas to embarrass Kazakhstan and Aidana’s father and forever poison him against his daughter’s American suitor.
Having never yet fallen in love in his life at the time, Atlas didn’t understand that a man could crave a woman for more than just her body, and he figured that no matter how beautiful Aidana might be, that there couldn’t be anything so magical about her vagina that it was worth his brother throwing his life away.
Atlas was wrong, as he’d learn once he was thrown together with Piper in close quarters and she turned his heart inside out and took up residence inside it as Aidana had done to Canaan.
Months went by, the London Olympics passed, and Canaan became fluent in both Kazakh and Russian while building his body up as only time in prison can allow.
Canaan endured frequent intimidation tactics and even beatings, but his fencing experience had left him agile and quick enough to handle all but the toughest customers he ran into.
Before long, he had earned the respect of enough people that his time became easier, and he found an ally in a South African inmate called Benjo whose own smuggling charges weren’t in any way fabricated. He’d been caught with a cache of weapons as part of a band of French Foreign Legionnaires and was serving a lengthy sentence.
After six weeks inside, eating alone, as was his custom, a lithe older inmate with scars on his face, neck, and right arm, sat down opposite Canaan. He’d been a subject of Canaan’s curiosity, as the only black man in the prison, but his gruff exterior kept Canaan from approaching him.
The man sat down across from Canaan and wordlessly tore into his food, eating as if lunch were an Olympic sprint.
After washing down his final mouthful, he spoke.
“What the hell is an American doing in here?” He had a gravelly voice and a peculiar accent, several languages, it seemed, battling for control of his tongue.
“Eating lunch,” Canaan responded, between bites of a putrid cold soup.
“I never expected to meet a Titan, especially in Kazakhstan.”
Canaan’s face registered surprise.
“I grew up in South Africa. One of my uncles works at one of your family’s casinos. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have known you by sight, and even if I did, you aren’t standing next to your Bentley, so I might not have recognized you anyway.”
“That would be my brother, Odin,” Canaan explained, looking over both shoulders to make sure the conversation he was involved in wasn’t meant to distract him so he could be attacked.
“Don’t worry, my friend, nobody will come for you if you’re talking to me,” the man explained. He lifted his shirt just high enough to show Canaan several more scars on his torso. “They’ve already tried. And failed. They gave up trying. I’m Benjo. I just figured since we’re both unicorns in here, we ought to get to know each other.”
Canaan and Benjo’s unusual friendship blossomed, and they eventually worked it out to become cellmates, giving them built-in security in case their fellow inmates became brave again.
Emerson constantly appealed to Canaan to allow him to purchase his freedom so that he could rejoin the real world and prep for the Rio Olympics, but via bribes coordinated by Odin, Aidana was sneaking in to visit Canaan regularly enough to keep him desperately craving her. He was as committed as ever that his persistence would win over her father.
Until one day while leaving the exercise yard with Benjo, he was pulled out of line by two guards and escorted to meet with the warden.
Canaan had kept his head down throughout his three-year stay, and was as close to a model prisoner as existed in Warden Abzal Dmitrenko’s facility. He didn’t like to keep Canaan Titan incarcerated, and he’d urged Canaan to sign a pardon he’d negotiated with Aidana’s father, but the terms included promises to never again set foot in Kazakhstan and to never again contact Aidana, conditions to which Canaan would never agree.
Dmitrenko solemnly welcomed Canaan into his office, instructing the guards to remove the customary restraints all prisoners wore in the warden’s presence and urging his guest to be seated in the chair across from his desk.
Speaking in Russian, Dmitrenko rose and walked around his desk, sitting on the edge, close enough to reach out and touch Canaan.
“There’s been…an accident. In Moscow. Aidana, her father Serikzhan, and her sister, Dinara, have all been killed. You have my deepest sympathies for your loss.”
Canaan sat stunned. The color drained from his face and he searched for words that would not come.
Warden Dmitrenko set his hand on Canaan’s shoulder. “You’re a free man. We have no reason to hold you, and there’s no reason for you to stay. Years ago, your brother set up accounts for you with local banks, from which Aidana was able to draw.” Dmitrenko handed Canaan a manila envelope. “The account numbers are in here, as well as your passport, and credit cards. I have clothing for you and I will arrange transportation to a nearby hotel, from which you can contact our family and make your arrangements to return home. Again, I’m sorry.”
Canaan’s head hung between his shoulders, forearms resting on his thighs. The room was silent
for a moment before he looked up. “Prove it.”
“Excuse me?” Dmitrenko replied.
“Prove to me that they’ve died,” Canaan demanded. “That there was an accident. That this wasn’t just a ploy to get rid of me.”
The warden turned and reached back across his desk for a newspaper. “You read Cyrillic, no?”
“I do,” Canaan replied.
Dmitrenko handed Canaan a copy of the Moscow newspaper Izvestia, open to an article with the picture of a serious-looking man with a black mustache that overwhelmed the entire center of his face, identified as Serikzhan Zholchieva, a Kazakh politician from Astana. He’d died in a three-car accident near Moscow, along with his… two daughters. Twenty-one-year-old Aidana and Dinara, seventeen.
Canaan angrily balled up the paper in his fist and wiped his eyes. He was devastated. He’d given up his athletic dreams, his freedom, in many ways his entire young life to pursue a chance, no matter how slim, of being able to love Aidana, and now she was gone.
“I’d like to return to my cell, please,” Canaan said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“You what?” Warden Dmitrenko asked in disbelief.
“There’s nothing for me out there,” Canaan resigned himself.
“Americans,” the warden sighed, shaking his head. He signaled for the guards to comply with Canaan’s request.
Canaan’s despondency consumed him, and he considered suicide, whether by drinking enough homemade vodka some inmates brewed in the toilets in their cells to kill himself, or by challenging the most dangerous gang leader in the prison in such a way that he knew he’d wind up dead.
He told Benjo what happened upon being reunited with his cellmate, but after that Canaan didn’t speak for several days as he weighed his options.
One evening, after dinner, as Canaan lay on his bunk staring at the ceiling, Benjo put down the book he was reading.
“I was in love once, my friend,” Benjo began, speaking even though it wasn’t readily apparent that Canaan was listening.
“Her name was Thembi. I worked on her father’s farm, back home. Outside a small village. Thembi was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Eyes as big as the entire ocean. You’ve never seen such eyes.
“Her father was a firm man, very serious, but he paid a good wage and was fair to his employees. But we all knew Thembi was off-limits. I’d noticed her right away, and I was very surprised to later find that she had noticed me as well. She would leave me notes where she knew I’d find them, and I’d do the same. We had to keep everything very quiet, for we knew that if her father suspected anything at all, that I’d be, at best, out of a job. I didn’t want to think about what the worst might be.”
Canaan listened, but his posture remained unchanged.
“One week, Thembi’s father had to go into town. The harvest was coming, and he needed to do some negotiating and buy some new equipment.
“Thembi and I hoped, with her father and many of his best men gone, that we might find some time alone, that we might sneak away.
“That first afternoon, however, a small boy from the village came and told us he’d followed a snake from near the village toward the farm, a large black mamba.
“Do you know black mambas, Canaan?”
For the first time in days, Benjo heard his friend’s voice. “They’re deadly, from what I know. Very dangerous.”
“They are death incarnate,” Benjo replied. “Sent here by the devil himself.
“Once the boy gave us the news, the entire farm was on high alert. The men were armed with rakes and machetes and we searched for the mamba.
“It was spotted going into an old shed, near the main house. I saw my chance to be a hero, to save everyone, and to impress Thembi’s father with my courage. I took up a machete and went into the shed.”
Canaan sat up on his bed and swung his legs over the side, enraptured by Benjo’s story.
“The shed was filled with tools and barrels and other long-forgotten things. It was dark and hot. The perfect place for a mamba to hide. To ambush.
“So I began taking everything out of that shed, piece by piece, one by one, sweating so much I must have lost ten kilos.
“All through the afternoon, Thembi stood with the crowd outside the shed, offering me water and encouragement. But after hours of searching, no snake.
“I was helped to the porch of the main house, completely exhausted.
“Thembi went inside to get something for me to eat. Her father had servants, all she’d have had to do was give word, and anything she wanted would have been brought to her. But it was me. She wanted to do it herself because it was me.
“She went into the kitchen, which was unheard of, and that’s when we heard it.”
Benjo bit hard into his bottom lip, his eyes glistening. Canaan reached across and put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.
“It was the most awful sound I’ve ever heard,” Benjo explained. “And I have been in battle, in Afghanistan. I have watched men be blown to pieces, seen terrible things. But nothing was as bad as hearing Thembi scream.”
Benjo had a visceral reaction to just recalling the sound, suppressing a shudder.
He continued. “She screamed, and we rushed into the house. I pushed past the rest of them and reached her first. She was on the floor of the kitchen, clutching her shoulder, and pointing to the cabinet above her, to an open door.
“The reason I never found the mamba is that it had snuck into the house and into the kitchen. When she opened the door to get a bowl to bring me stew, she surprised the snake and it struck.
“I shut the cabinet and ran back outside for my machete. One other men used a broom to pull the snake out of the cabinet and I killed it.
“But I’d been too late. I was supposed to protect her, but I was useless. The women tended to her as best they could, but we were far from any real medical care. The clinic in the village nearby hadn’t been open for weeks.
“Thembi passed that evening, before a doctor could arrive. I held her hand as she took her last breath. I no longer cared if my feelings for her were known or not. The women with her understood.
“Her father received word and cut short his trip. He was told that I’d searched for the snake and that I’d killed it, and he thanked me, but he was broken by it. She was his only child. He sold the farm and moved to the city, to Johannesburg.
“I couldn’t face my homeland after that. I couldn’t be in South Africa. I had to get away. An uncle told me about the Legion, and I enlisted. I hoped death would find me as well. I volunteered for dangerous missions. I was cannon fodder. But I survived everything. I can’t die, it seems.”
“I’m so sorry, Benjo,” Canaan responded. “I don’t know what to say…”
“You don’t have to say anything, my friend. Just know that you’re not alone in your loss, your grief. Mine set me on a path here. Let yours set you on a road somewhere else. Let it take you to your dreams. You’re a young man. There’s a life for you, a whole world out there I can’t even dream about.
“Aidana was beautiful. You loved her, and you’ll never forget her. You did all you could for her, more than anyone believed you would. You’re as stubborn as a mule, Canaan Titan, but you aren’t stupid. Get out of this place. Listen to your father. To your brothers.
“Listen to your heart, to what Aidana put there. She wouldn’t want you here. Live a life inspired by her, by what she awakened inside you.”
Canaan rose to his feet and embraced his friend. “Thank you, Benjo.”
9
Years Ago…
The next day, Canaan bid farewell to Benjo and a few other inmates and guards who’d been kind to him.
“Stay safe, brother,” Canaan said to Benjo as he left his side for what he assumed would be the last time.
“Don’t worry about me, my friend. I can’t be killed, remember? Now go and kill a mamba for me.”
Canaan was whisked away to the Ritz-Carlton Astana, and set up in th
e finest suite in the hotel. Emerson and Odin would arrive the next day, and in the meantime Canaan availed himself of a haircut, shave, and scalding hot shower that lasted ninety minutes.
He had internet access for the first time since before he left Uzbekistan with Aidana, and he found that his release was international news, not only for the socio-political aspect, but also on the sports pages and in the entertainment world.
One article he skimmed even mentioned casting a potential movie based on Canaan’s time in prison. Canaan had to look up Nick Jonas to decide whether he should be flattered by the singer playing him in a movie, and he had to admit that it wasn’t a bad choice.
To Canaan’s surprise, the writer of the article even knew about Benjo, although she referred to him as “Banjo,” as if he were nicknamed for the musical instrument. Canaan knew Benjo would be pleased to be played by Idris Elba.
The rest of the casting seemed pretty accurate, and Canaan laughed out loud when he reached the line that “Canaan’s brother, Navy SEAL Atlas Titan, could be played by any number of muscle-bound professional wrestlers.” He knew the last thing Atlas would want would be the attention being cast in a movie would bring, and that he’d be angry to have his muscles, earned by pumping endless tons of iron, replicated on the big screen by an artificially-enhanced steroid freak.
Canaan ate a large dinner on his balcony overlooking the Kazakh capital city of Astana, looking down at the Ishim River and the blue and gold dome of the Ak Orda Presidential Palace. When he set his fork down after the last delicious bite of lamb and leaned back in his chair, he was asleep within moments. Only a cold, blustery, midnight win caused him retreat inside his room and climb into a proper bed for the first time in over three years.
After ten hours of dreamless, near-catatonic sleep, he woke up feeling better than he had in quite some time. He took a walk around downtown Astana, impressed by the modernity of the city. He noticed people staring at him, and schoolgirls giggling as he passed by, and he realized he was possibly the most famous foreigner in the country at the moment.
