The Keeper

by Natasha Mostert

  Her eyes were questioning; her mouth so defenceless.

  Destinies can be altered. But it requires sacrifice. Time to be a hero, Ashton.

  He stepped forward and took her hand. For just a moment she resisted, but then she allowed him to guide her fingers and press them gently to his body.

  ‘We are transceivers and transmitters of energy, Mia. You and I both. All that separates us is intent. You will have to change your intent.’

  At first her eyes remained confused, but then he saw in them slow comprehension and felt her fingers jerk against his hand. ‘No.’ She took a step back, straining against the pressure of his fingers. ‘I can’t. How can I destroy you?’

  ‘A minute ago, you were ready to kill me.’

  ‘But I couldn’t do it! And that was combat, this is not. I am a Keeper. We exchange energy for healing, not for destroying.’

  ‘You are not only a Keeper of Light. You are also a Keeper of Dust. Fa chi is both yin and yang. Black and white.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I am not asking you to kill. I’m asking you to restore… balance.’

  Her face was deeply flushed, emotion staining her cheekbones like paint.

  ‘Do it for Nick. Because I will be coming for him, Mia. I stayed my hand once, but one day—tomorrow, the day after, next year—I won’t be able to help myself. It is only a matter of time.’

  ‘I will protect Nick.’

  ‘How many fighters can you protect? What about all the others who will cross my path? They will never be safe from me.’

  You will never be safe from me.

  He looked into her stricken eyes and he wondered if there was anything more painful than losing what had never truly been yours.

  ‘Do it. Before I change my mind.’

  • • •

  In the end, it did not take so very long after all. Barely an hour. Not long, she thought, to reverse the journey of a lifetime.

  He was staring at his reflection. She watched, numbly, as he stretched out his hand towards his mirrored image and stared with sick amazement at the ink marks on his skin. During the past hour she had obliterated each of the glyphs and ideograms she had so painstakingly transferred to his body during so many summer nights and had filled them in with black ink. They sat on his flesh like blind, malignant warts. Blocked. Across his energy numbers were tattooed two eyes. In one eye, a circle with three lines. Energy exchanged; energy reversed.

  The ultimate death touch.

  For a moment she closed her eyes, unable to watch the helpless horror on his face.

  She opened her eyes to find that he had turned away from the mirror. The disbelief had left his face and his features were now in eerie repose: that beautiful face with its strong planes and angles, the wide, sensual mouth, the slightly hawkish nose and graceful brows. He was buttoning his shirt with unhurried, precise fingers as though nothing was wrong, as though this had just been another of their sessions together.

  He looked up and his eyes were a clear, light grey. ‘Here is where I leave you.’

  She didn’t answer, couldn’t. She tasted salt in her mouth, felt tears on her cheek.

  At the door he turned to look at her. And then, unexpectedly, he smiled, and it was the same secretive smile she remembered from when he had first walked through that very same door months ago: a smile that said, I know you.

  ‘Goodbye, Mia. Have a good life.’

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  FIGHT RIGHT MAGAZINE

  28 March

  NICK DUFFY LOSES SHOT AT UK TITLE IN TITANIC BATTLE

  REPORTED BY LEE JAMES

  On one of the coldest nights of the year the action inside the ring was red-hot as Nick Duffy failed in his bid to capture the WKA British Kickboxing title in the light-heavyweight division. He was stopped in the ninth by his opponent, Raoul du Preez, who fired a surprise roundhouse kick at Duffy’s head.

  Six months ago, Duffy won the Southern Regional belt against Kenny Burton and last night it looked as though he would take home the British championship as well. It was a glorious battle and it brought the crowd to their feet. For nine gruelling rounds, Duffy never eased the pressure, locking his opponent in against the ropes and battering him with a flurry of combinations: attack kickboxing at its purest.

  The judges’ scorecards had put Duffy ahead for the first eight rounds before he went down in the ninth. To have victory snatched from you in the blink of an eye is enough to break any fighter’s heart, but Duffy seemed to take his defeat in his stride. He was even philosophical about his broken nose: ‘It had to happen some time. And my fiancée says it’s an improvement.’

  DUST

  ‘We die only once and for such a long time.’

  —Molière

  EPILOGUE

  The snow underneath his feet was virgin white. It was still very early in the morning and the light was just starting to touch the sky.

  He folded his arms across his chest as though trying to keep the warmth inside. He was so very cold. The breath leaving his lips was a cloud in the icy air. He stopped and looked back over his shoulder at his footprints in the snow: the imprints of his right foot seemed deeper than the left, as though he were suffering from an injury that caused him to labour as he walked.

  The cold. He had problems coping with the cold.

  But these days he could not cope with hot weather either. For a moment he thought back on the recent months he had spent in Thailand. Every morning he had walked past the steaming rice paddies and past the shrines where garlands of flowers oozed sickly-sweet perfume, and it had been a struggle to breathe. Sometimes he had made the journey to the open-air camp where the Muay Thai fighters were training; their sleek, strong bodies working out for hours in the heat. They had paid no attention to him, this farang, foreigner, who at first looked on with longing but who could then no longer find within him any desire.

  Greater than the vitality oozing from his body was the vitality oozing from his mind. In Thailand he had been content to spend most of his time sleeping on the veranda of his house, dozing next to his songbirds in their bamboo cage, singing their hearts out day after day. He’d sleep, oblivious to the aching blue of the sky above him, to the beauty of the glimmering wings of the dragonflies flitting across the swampy water at the bottom of the garden.

  A month ago, he decided the time had come to return home.

  The catacombs would not be open to the public for another two hours, but the Capuchin monks knew him well by this time. His donations were generous and in return they allowed him inside long before the tourist buses arrived.

  So cold. The place was dim with shadows and his footsteps echoed flatly. The mummies stared down at him with their ruined faces.

  His little princess was waiting for him. He placed his hands on the case in which she lay and the glass surface was chilly against his fingers. Her face was peaceful and unchanging—forever young.

  Turning away from her, he sat down heavily on a wooden bench. The icy stone of the floor seeped into the soles of his feet. His joints ached.

  He was turning into a living Deadman. He could feel it. He could see it. When he looked into the mirror, he’d notice the greying of his skin and the lilac veins underneath his eyes. The flesh at his jaw was slackening and his hair was thinning and growing coarse. He’d open his shirt and stare at his reflection. He’d stare at the black ink marks on his skin: a visible curse, an open wound draining his chi from his hara in a slow—such a slow—drip.

  He no longer tested his light emissions: he knew they were incoherent and his energy numbers off. His periodic rhythms were unstable.

  Why live if you don’t feel alive? He was reaching out to his own death, longing for it, but when would it come? Weeks, months… years from now?

  Who was thinking these thoughts? Was it him? Or his Deadman? In his dreams he still desired; in his dreams his chi flowed through his body like liquid lightning. He was whole again when he sl
ept.

  A stale ray of sunshine fell through a window up high, and on to the bench on which he was sitting. Dust motes gleamed in the light. He closed his eyes and leant back against the wooden bench. On his eyelids, the sun lay softly.

  An old man slumbering, searching for dreams. His mouth was half-open and his breath passed his lips shallowly. All sensation in his body was converging into that small space behind his eyes, and then—there she was, holding out her hand to him. Her hair was a cloud of gold and her slim, strong body seemed etched with light.

  Oh! He felt his heart contract. And even though he was asleep, he knew there were tears oozing from underneath his eyelids. He was so happy to see her. And as he looked at her lovely face he remembered a time and a place when everything made sense.

  She asked him a question and it was the same question she always asked: ‘What is the greatest desire?’

  He opened his lips, but the words would not come. She turned her head and her hand fell by her side. But as she walked away, leaving him in the cold with his dreams and his memories, he whispered:

  ‘To love forever. That is the answer.’

  ON WRITING THE KEEPER

  I was working on the final chapters of The Keeper when I broke my ankle. It happened while I was sparring with my kickboxing instructor and managed—much to both our surprise—to sweep his leg out from underneath him. My ankle remained entangled with his and when we both hit the mat it snapped. For the next eight weeks I would be Crutches Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

  Being able to laugh in a lopsided way at my misfortune could not take away from the fact that the fracture was painful, required surgery and would keep me from training for six months. I’ve had accidents in the past as well—bruised ribs, a cracked nose and a broken little toe—but this was the first time a few uneasy questions started to rattle around in my mind. What was it that so attracted me to combat? Why do I like to punch and be punched? What kind of person does that make me?

  I still don’t have the answers. All I know is that when I train I am happy, and am acutely aware of my own vital energy. I could therefore not think of a better milieu for a book that deals with the concept of chi. However, I know there will be readers to whom the idea of physically challenging someone, even in a controlled environment, is unacceptable and they may have difficulty understanding Nick Duffy and the world in which he lives. I have complete respect for this point of view. But I think Joyce Carol Oates, in her book On Boxing, may have said it best:

  Of course it is primitive, too, as birth, death and erotic love might be said to be primitive, and forces our reluctant acknowledgement that the most profound experiences of our lives are physical events—though we believe ourselves to be, and surely are, essentially spiritual beings.

  Tattoos, quantum physics, muscled men and chi: I started writing The Keeper with a number of highly haphazard ideas in my head. Some of these ideas had been germinating for a while. When I researched the topic of ‘remote viewing’ for my previous book, Season of the Witch, I became interested in the concept of psi-space and read up on Hall Putoff’s work at Stanford Research Institute and his enthusiasm for the Zero-Point Field. A chance reading of Lynne McTaggart’s The Field, in which she offers a compelling argument for the concept of an interconnected universe, further inspired me, specifically her chapter on Fritz-Albert Popp and his research into biophotonics. Her second book, The Intention Experiment, was invaluable to my understanding of remote healing. My imagination was also kicked into overdrive by Robert O. Becker’s intriguing book The Body Electric, which deals with organ regeneration and bioelectronics. As for Reiki, it is worth remembering that, though Usui Mikao (1865–1926) is considered its founder, the origin of healing through universal energy dates back to before the time of Christ and Sammasambuddha. Fa gung—the transmission of chi in meditation—is a very old concept.

  Dim-Mak—death touch—is a staple of manga and martial-arts films and spans the spectrum with characters whose heads explode as in Fist of the North Star to Quentin Tarantino’s vengeful Bride in Kill Bill. However, the concept itself is a highly complicated one, as I discovered when I started to research the subject. For those readers interested in reading an actual Book of Light and Dust, I recommend A. Flane Walker and Richard C. Bauer’s The Ancient Art of Life and Death, which also features a highly informative section on acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. Another excellent work is The Encyclopedia of Dim-Mak, by Erle Montaigue and Wally Simpson.

  Increasing your chi sensitivity is central to the discipline of martial arts. For a beautifully written exposition of this journey I highly recommend Kenji Tokitsu’s Ki and the Way of the Martial Arts.

  The phrase ‘stepping out’ is my own, as is the concept of ‘the Keeper’, but I was inspired and enchanted by the many myths and legends that feature battle-scarred warriors who are protected—or cursed—by beautiful, powerful women.

  In the Dojo. From left to right: Scott Poulton, Carlos Andrade, Gideon Remfry, Natasha Mostert and David Laurent.

  Photographer: David Dettmann

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am privileged to belong to two great dojos: KX Gym UK, and Tim Izli’s Cobra Gym—the fighting home of a number of talented fighters, many of them title-winners. Some of these men and women have trained alongside me, sparred with me and have patiently answered my never-ending questions as I followed them from fight to fight. In no particular order, I would like to thank: Tim Izli, Scott Poulton, Victor Espinosa, Mati Parks, Frankie Dervish, Sarah Skelt, Jaime Bodkin, Aaron Deere, David Laurent and the magnificent Errol ‘Classy’ Christie—a great fighter and a fighting great. Thanks to Cengiz ‘Hawk’ Dervis—Cengiz, it all started with you! Special thanks to Shensoy Dervish, Shen Chi Do master and the man with the stupendous flying kicks. I have attended his Monday evening class for the past six years and cannot imagine starting my week any other way. I am hugely indebted to Carlos ‘Lionheart’ Andrade, former WKA European light-heavyweight kickboxing champion. He is teacher, friend and the father of my adorable god-daughter. His big-heart fighting style gave me the idea for this book. I would also like to thank fitness guru and tattoo enthusiast Gideon Remfry for his assistance and for introducing me to the very cool Mr Alex Binnie of Into You Tattoo. As Alex has not read the manuscript, any errors are, of course, my responsibility alone.

  Thanks to the team at Transworld Publishers who worked hard on my behalf. I also depend on a group of friends whose judgement I trust implicitly to be my first readers. Thanks to Rochelle Colfer, Ksana Golod, Catherine Gull, Dianne Hofmeyr, Sonja Lewis, Karen McMurray, Niki Muller and my mother-in-law, Joan Mostert, for their input and encouragement. Thanks to Valerie Salembier, a lady with exquisite taste, for her comments. Special thanks to Gaynor Rupert: I wouldn’t dream of submitting my manuscript without the benefit of her meticulous feedback. Thanks to my brother, Frans, who has the unenviable task of ensuring his sister does not embarrass herself too much when it comes to the scientific aspects of her books. As I do not always follow his sound advice, he should in no way be held responsible for my more extreme flights of fancy. Stefan, my oldest brother, reminds me to think visually and is responsible for my inspired website. My mother, Hantie, is my touchstone. I have never met anyone more creative or imaginative.

  Finally, there is Frederick, my deeply wonderful husband. I am so blessed to have him in my life.

  London,

  14 January 2009

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Natasha Mostert is a South African novelist and screenwriter. She grew up in Pretoria and Johannesburg but currently lives in London, United Kingdom.

  Educated in South Africa and at Columbia University, New York, Mostert majored in modern languages and holds graduate degrees in Lexicography and Applied Linguistics.

  She has worked as a teacher in the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch at WITS University, Johannesburg and as project coordinator in the publishing department of public television station WNET/Channel Thirteen, New York
. Her political opinion pieces have appeared on the op-ed page of the New York Times, and in Newsweek, the Independent and The Times (London).

  Mostert’s fourth novel, Season of the Witch, won the 2009 World Book Day: Book to Talk About Award. Click here to read the first two chapters.

  She is an avid kickboxer. Please visit her website to find out more about her involvement with the CPAU Fight for Peace project, which teaches Afghan women how to box and feel empowered in their lives.

  Future goals include writing poetry, executing a perfect spinning crescent kick, and coming face to face with the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe.

  FIGHTING FOR PEACE

  Shortly after finishing The Keeper I happened to come across a BBC news article about a group of Afghan women who are being taught how to box. These ladies are sponsored by a peace organisation that is endeavouring to make the women feel more empowered and in charge of their lives. What I found especially poignant is that the gym in which they train is located in a football stadium that was used in the past by the Taliban for public executions, including the killing of women.

  I know how liberated I feel when I am in the dojo, and can only imagine how much more so it must be for these women, who lead restricted lives and who are still coming to terms with a terrible period in Afghan history. The photographs that accompany the article tell the story. One picture shows a girl, her hands encased in boxing gloves, an expression of utter delight on her face. Another picture is of two women sparring. One of them has her hair upswept and gathered with a comb, and she looks beautiful and feminine, but also strong and determined. You look at these pictures and you sense the joy and energy in the room.