Fightback

by Steve Voake

  ‘Better?’

  Kier nodded.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You must breathe deeply, like this.’ Chiang placed a hand on his chest and breathed slowly, in, out, in case Kier had forgotten how. Kier copied the rhythm of his breathing and after a minute or two his mind was clear again.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘You were showing me how to disarm a man with a knife.’

  Kier nodded. ‘How did I do?’

  ‘Not so good. But lucky for you I never kill my students.’ Chiang crossed his legs and rested his hands in his lap. ‘If I kill them, they do not learn.’

  ‘But I don’t get it,’ said Kier. ‘I’ve been doing that move for years and it’s never failed before.’

  ‘Then that is why it fails now.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You look at me and experience tells you I am weak. You think the past is a reliable guide to the future. This is not so.’

  ‘But it worked on the guy with the knife.’

  ‘Of course, just as a knife will cut through butter. But use it to cut through stone and things will be different, I think.’

  ‘So you’re saying my karate is useless?’

  ‘No. But karate is a blunt instrument, carried by many. Far better to have something that is part of you. Something which can change to suit the moment. You see?’

  ‘Sort of,’ said Kier.

  ‘Good.’

  Chiang stood up and bowed his head.

  ‘Then let us begin.’

  TEN

  ‘Someone is about to attack you,’ warned Chiang. ‘Show me your defence.’

  Kier shifted two-thirds of his weight on to his back foot and pointed the other foot towards Chiang. Then he held his left palm face outwards and drew his right fist back against his hip.

  ‘No,’ said Chiang. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I look at you and straight away I know what you are going to do. You might as well send me a postcard.’

  ‘How can you possibly know?’ Kier’s fist tightened with irritation. ‘I could be about to do one of a thousand things.’

  ‘All right,’ said Chiang, ‘then do them.’

  Kier took a deep breath, held it beneath his diaphragm and focused on Chiang’s hands, looking for the slightest flicker of movement. He was ready this time. He would wait until the—

  ‘Ow! Ahhh … Uhnnnnff!’

  ‘You see?’ said Chiang, as Kier lifted his face from the carpet. ‘You are too tense, too rigid, too angry. You must learn to relax.’

  Relax? thought Kier. How can I relax when you keep throwing me on the floor?

  ‘You must stand naturally,’ Chiang told him when he was on his feet again. ‘This way you are a blank page and there is nothing for anyone to read. No one knows what you are going to do.’

  ‘Including me,’ said Kier.

  ‘Including you,’ agreed Chiang.

  Kier frowned.

  ‘So how’s that going to help?’

  ‘Because if you do not know, then your opponent will be unable to guess. You will retain the element of surprise.’

  Kier stared at Chiang, trying to make sense of what he said. But it was no good. The man talked in riddles.

  ‘Then how will I know what to do?’

  ‘You must learn to separate thought from action. You must train your body so that it can react to each new situation as it arises.’

  Chiang walked over to the window ledge and filled the shallow bowl with water from the jug. He took a red flower and a yellow flower from the vase, then returned with the bowl and placed it carefully on the floor between them. When Kier raised his eyebrows, Chiang simply inclined his head in the direction of the bowl and together they watched the water settle back into stillness.

  ‘What do you see?’ asked Chiang.

  ‘I see a bowl of water.’

  ‘And what do you notice about it?’

  ‘Umm, the bowl is white.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s made from clay.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kier was confused. What else was he supposed to say?

  ‘Tell me about the water.’

  ‘It’s clear.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s not moving. The water is still.’

  ‘Was it moving before?’

  ‘Yes, when you carried it.’

  ‘But there is no movement now?’

  Kier stared at the water and saw only his reflection in its smooth surface.

  ‘No. The water is still.’

  With lightning speed Chiang slapped his hand into the bowl, sending droplets of water flying in all directions. Some fell on to the carpet, some on to Kier’s cotton trousers and some on to the stones. Kier’s heart beat faster at this unexpected movement, but he remained silent as Chiang picked up the red flower and handed it to him.

  ‘The day is warm and the water will soon be gone,’ he said. ‘You must move quickly and place a petal on every droplet you see.’

  Kier was about to ask why when he realised there was no point. He was already becoming familiar with Chiang’s strange way of talking and knew it was best just to get on with it. Moving carefully, he searched for the dark spots where the water had landed and placed a red petal on each one. When he sat down again, he saw that there were still some petals left, so he tore them off and pressed them to the spots where the water had fallen on to his knees. Then he put the flower stalk to one side and stared at the patterns he had made, the petals dancing like embers from a fire.

  Chiang fetched the jug of water, refilled the bowl and waited for the water to settle. Then he nodded in Kier’s direction.

  ‘Now you.’

  Kier raised his hand and slapped the water just as Chiang had done. Without a word, Chiang picked up the yellow flower and began pulling off its petals, placing them on the spots where the water had fallen.

  ‘What do you see?’ he asked when he was sitting opposite Kier once more.

  ‘I see a new pattern.’

  ‘Is it different from before?’

  Kier looked at the sprinkling of yellow petals and saw how some had fallen in the gaps between the red petals, while others had fallen upon them or beyond.

  ‘Some parts are the same. But mostly it’s different.’

  ‘So you think the water is alive?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how does it know to do something different each time it is slapped?’

  ‘It doesn’t know. It just does it.’

  ‘It just does it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see. But you agree that it does it differently each time?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Kier was really confused now. He didn’t have the faintest idea what Chiang was getting at. But then he supposed that was nothing new.

  ‘So tell me. What is happening?’

  Kier stared at the random pattern of red and yellow petals, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Maybe there was something different about the way we hit the water,’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps I hit it harder, or softer, or at slightly more of an angle.’

  ‘And if you were to hit it again? Would you be able to hit it in the same way as before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So the water does not have to think. It has only stillness. But the way we behave towards it changes the way it reacts. Do you see?’

  Kier nodded.

  ‘I think I’m starting to.’

  ‘You must become like the water. The lessons you learn must dissolve in your blood until they are a part of you. Then you must hold them inside until the time comes for the world to break your stillness. When this happens, you will no longer need to ask the question “What shall I do?” because the answer will already be in your blood and in your bones.’

  Kier looked at the petals and the water, and knew something was changing inside him. He felt the pulse of his blood and the warmt
h of his feet against the stones.

  ‘Teach me more,’ he said. ‘Teach me everything you know.’

  *

  The next few weeks were the hardest of Kier’s life, but at least he was beginning to understand what Jackson had meant by ‘preparing himself’. The men who had murdered his father were professional, cold-blooded killers and if Jackson was serious about Kier looking for them, then Kier was going to need all the help he could get.

  At first, Chiang would wake him at dawn and Kier would follow the old man in silence down to the courtyard, where breakfast would be set beneath the branches of the old olive tree. But after a while his body clock began to change and he would find himself standing alone in the courtyard, looking up at the moon. When that happened, he would walk quietly to the little storeroom, take out the yoghurt, bread and olives and set the table for breakfast. Then he would sit cross-legged in the shadows, practising his stillness and waiting for Chiang to awake. Although Chiang never said anything, Kier guessed by the gentle tilt of his head as he sat down at the table that he was pleased. After that, he always tried to be up first. There was something about looking after the old man that gave him a quiet satisfaction, helping him to fill the empty spaces inside.

  One of the first things Chiang had said was, You were not listening hard enough, and Kier soon discovered this was something of a theme with him. You were not listening hard enough, you were not looking hard enough, you were not feeling hard enough …

  Nothing was ever enough, and however hard Kier pushed himself, Chiang always pushed him harder.

  ‘It is not enough to listen with your ears,’ he said one day. ‘You must also listen with your skin.’

  Listen with your skin?

  Kier was used to Chiang’s strange pronouncements, but this was the weirdest so far.

  Chiang made him take off his shirt and stood him a couple of metres in front of the storeroom door. Then he handed him two small twists of yellow rag.

  ‘What are these for?’ Kier asked.

  ‘Put them in your ears,’ said Chiang. ‘Then face the other way and tell me when the door behind you opens.’

  ‘Yeah, because that’s useful,’ said Kier. His muscles ached and he felt as if he hadn’t slept in days. ‘I’m really going to need that in my life.’

  For the first time he noticed a flicker of anger in Chiang’s eyes. It wasn’t much – a brief shadow on a summer’s day – but Kier saw it nonetheless.

  ‘You think I do this for my own amusement?’

  Muttering something under his breath about it certainly not being for his amusement, Kier stuffed the rags in his ears and turned away. He tried to feel the slight change in pressure on his skin that Chiang had told him would be there when the door opened. But his heart wasn’t in it and he kept getting it wrong. After the fifteenth or sixteenth failed attempt, Chiang crept up and slapped him sharply on the neck.

  ‘Ow!’ shouted Kier, outraged at this unexpected assault.

  Pulling the rags from his ears, he stomped up the stairs to his room and slammed the door behind him.

  For the rest of the day he lay on his mattress and fumed, calling Chiang every name under the sun. He kept expecting Chiang to appear at the door in that silent, spooky way he had, ready to chastise him for failing to learn his lessons properly. But when, after several hours, Chiang didn’t appear, Kier’s anger began to fade and tiredness overtook him.

  When he awoke, the room was bathed in moonlight and Chiang was standing in the doorway, holding what appeared to be a piece of a cactus plant. It was shaped like a mouse’s ear, sharp spines protecting its soft flesh and small spheres of orange-red fruit sprouting from its top edge. Kier had seen them growing in the courtyard and by the side of the road.

  ‘Do you think I am too hard on you?’ Chiang asked, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor.

  Kier sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know. Sometimes, maybe.’

  Chiang held up the cactus.

  ‘You know what this is?’

  Kier looked at it warily, worried that Chiang might suddenly whack him with it.

  ‘It’s a cactus.’

  ‘Yes, a prickly pear. It grows in deserts, dry scrubland, places where most things would be unable to survive. And yet it does survive. Look.’

  Kier leaned forward and saw that, between the sharp thorns, there were needle-fine hairs ready to prick and pierce the skin of the unwary.

  ‘It has evolved to protect itself from the things that would seek to destroy it.’

  ‘Right,’ said Kier, wondering why Chiang had turned up in the middle of the night to tell him this.

  ‘Your life has changed, I think. From now on there will be many things that will tear at your flesh and attempt to devour you. So, like the cactus, your defences must be strong. Growing them will be painful. But behind them, the goodness will remain.’

  Chiang took a small knife from his pocket and began expertly removing the cactus spikes before cutting one of the red fruits from the top. He held it in his palm and sliced down its middle. As the fruit fell into two halves, Kier was surprised to see that inside was soft purple flesh, juicy and studded with small black seeds.

  ‘Here,’ said Chiang, handing him a piece.

  Kier put the fruit in his mouth and felt its sweetness dissolve on his tongue, the sugary juice overflowing and dribbling down his chin.

  ‘Now do you understand?’ asked Chiang.

  Kier nodded, wiping the juice away with his fingers. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good,’ said Chiang. ‘Then you must take strength from this sweetness, for there is still much work to be done.’

  Kier looked at the moon on the water and bowed his head.

  ‘I am ready,’ he said.

  ELEVEN

  ‘How was it?’ asked Saskia as Kier climbed into the truck beside her.

  ‘It was … interesting,’ said Kier.

  It had been nearly six weeks since Saskia had dropped him off at the monastery, six weeks of increasingly strange lessons involving – among other things – running up walls, dodging logs on ropes and standing silently in the darkness, trying to detect the exact moment when the hungry mosquitoes would land. But it was only now that he realised how much he had changed, and not just physically. It was true that every gram of excess fat had fallen away from his body and his jeans felt strangely constricting, despite the fact that they now hung loosely around his hips. But it was more than that. He felt calmer, less troubled, as if he had been pulled from a stormy sea and washed on to the sands of a foreign shore.

  ‘It’s a pretty intense few weeks, huh?’

  ‘You’ve been there too?’

  Saskia grinned.

  ‘Oh yeah. Everyone on the programme gets to spend some quality time with Chiang.’

  ‘So what happens now? Will Jackson tell me what he’s got planned?’

  ‘Maybe. But it won’t be before you’ve had some driving lessons and a couple of days with a firearms instructor.’

  ‘Driving lessons?’ said Kier, feeling his earlier calm beginning to desert him. ‘Firearms instructor?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Saskia. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  *

  The next few days were spent at an underground shooting range in the company of a short, red-haired American named Baz. Baz was built like a bulldog and wore the kind of pained expression that suggested someone had flattened his kennel and taken his bone away.

  ‘This here’s a pump-action shotgun,’ he told Kier, after showing him how to take an AK-47 rifle apart and put it back together again. He aimed it at the cardboard soldier at the end of the range and blasted two quick shots into it. ‘See? Find yourself on the wrong end of it and it’ll punch a hole the size of a fist in your chest.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kier. ‘I remember.’

  ‘Listen, kid,’ said Baz. ‘I heard about what happened, OK? But that’s all the more reason why you need to know about this stuff.’
>
  ‘But I don’t want to kill anyone,’ said Kier.

  ‘You don’t have to. But you do have to learn how not to be killed. And the more you know about these things, the easier that’s going to be. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ said Kier. After the calm of the monastery, the crackle of gunfire and smell of smoke came as something of a shock. But within a short time he enjoyed the discipline of learning something new and soon became adept at handling a range of weapons, from the small 9mm Browning pistol to the more substantial Heckler & Koch sub-machine gun.

  ‘You’re a pretty good shot,’ said Baz after Kier had put a cluster of bullets into a target twenty-five metres away. ‘To tell you the truth, it’s a long time since I saw anyone with such a steady arm.’

  Kier smiled as he thought of the hours he’d spent with Chiang learning to control his breathing and his heartbeat, learning to become still like the water.

  He knew the old man would have appreciated that.

  *

  After two days spent underground in the artificial glare of fluorescent lights, Kier was glad to be out in the fresh air again.

  ‘What you have to remember,’ said his instructor, Frankie, as they sat in a green Land Cruiser looking out over a patch of dry scrubland, ‘is that all cars are pretty much the same.’

  Kier recognised him as one of the men in suits from Jackson’s villa, but he definitely seemed more at home in shorts and a T-shirt. Although he was a good twenty years older than Kier, Frankie treated him like an equal and seemed determined that they should have a good time.

  ‘Mr Jackson calls this a training session,’ he said. ‘I call it a chance to mess around in someone else’s motor and get paid for it. You ready?’

  Kier grinned.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m ready.’

  Frankie floored the accelerator, spinning the tyres, and Kier was thrown back hard against his seat as they shot across the dry red earth.

  ‘Woo-hoo!’ cried Frankie, continuing to accelerate until, just as Kier felt certain they would crash, he pulled on the handbrake and the back end slewed sideways in a cloud of dust. Releasing the handbrake, Frankie stamped on the accelerator again and the car rocketed back in the direction they had come.

  ‘How are you liking it so far?’ he yelled above the howl of the engine.