The Book of the Sword

by Carrie Asai

  “No.”

  “Okay. So there’s no need to reserve your force in this area.” Karen grabbed both of my elbows and pressed them in a way that seemed to drain the tension out of them. She tapped my hip with one hand, and the same thing happened. Immediately I felt more comfortable and loose in the position.

  “Hey, that’s cool. What did you do?” Hiro had never once touched me during the training.

  “Everyone has pressure points on their body. Those are points that when pressed or touched will release the stored-up energy and tension. I’m sure Hiro will be telling you more about that later on—it’s pretty helpful in terms of combat.”

  I hated the way she said Hiro. It kind of glided off her tongue.

  “Okay. Run through the kicks.”

  The first kick felt right, but the more I did, the worse they got. I couldn’t get Hiro out of my mind. What was his deal with Karen? Were they just dojo buddies? Were they—I reached the last kick, which was a high one, lost my balance again, and stumbled.

  “You see?” I moaned to Karen. “I’m hopeless.”

  Karen looked serious. “No, not hopeless. Your first ones were pretty good. Let’s focus on the high kicks. I think you’re kicking out too hard. Don’t worry about the force quite so much right now—that will come naturally once you master the move.”

  She’s actual nice, not fake nice, I thought. Your problem is that you’re jealous.

  I tried the kicks again and stumbled every time. Karen made some more adjustments to my stance, but it didn’t seem to help.

  “Okay, stop,” said Karen. “It must be hard to do this stuff when Hiro’s not here to show you how it should look. I’m going to run through the series and you follow. Okay?”

  Karen stepped to the middle of the mat, focused herself, and then released a chain of seven or eight snap kicks that took my breath away. She looked fierce, and her moves were flawless. When she finished, she returned to her ready position and bowed slightly.

  “Now you try.”

  I did. All I could think about as I tried yet again to get the damn kicks right was the fact that I would never be as smooth and graceful as Karen.

  On the last kick I fell. I lay on the ground for a moment and looked up at Karen, who was smiling down at me. Hiro would have looked kind of pissed, but Karen had her same sympathetic smile. Was she happy I kept screwing up? Did she want me to be a lousy student for Hiro?

  I shoved the bitchy thoughts out of my head. “I’m a failure,” I told Karen.

  “No, you’re not, Heaven. But you do seem distracted.” Karen looked at her watch. “How about we try some sparring? Sometimes it’s easier when practice is a little more hands-on.”

  “Okay, I guess…,” I said nervously, picturing Karen beating me into an unattractive bloody lump.

  “You go first. Attack me.” Karen assumed a ready position, and I prepared to deliver a kick to her chest.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” I asked doubtfully, starting to sweat again.

  “Trust me,” she answered, her face calm. Of course she was calm. She had nothing to be uncalm about.

  I kicked, and the next thing I knew I was splayed out on the ground, Karen’s face looming above me again. Smiling. Always smiling that nice, nice, nice smile.

  “Not bad. But you left yourself open. Try again.”

  I got up slowly, rubbing my leg. “Can’t we do without the hurling-to-the-ground thing?”

  “Sorry, kiddo,” Karen said cheerfully. “This is the real world. Get used to it.” She was enjoying this a little too much. “Try again.”

  Again I approached and kicked. And ended up on the floor, landing so hard, I thought I’d have a piece of the matt embedded in me for the rest of my life.

  “So,” Karen said, “how’s it going living with Hiro?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, dragging myself up again. This didn’t seem like the time for girl chat.

  Karen cocked an eyebrow in a way that actually reminded me of Hiro. Had she picked it up from him or vice versa? “Come on, kid, you gotten in his pants yet?”

  What? Had she actually said—

  “You should see your face.” Karen’s words came out surrounded by giggles. “I’m sorry. I was just messing with you. I know Hiro would never—” She shook her head, getting herself under control. “Sorry, really. Did I offend you? I forgot what an innocent person you must be. Hiro said you had a really sheltered upbringing.”

  “I’m not offended,” I told her, my voice coming out sharper than I meant it to. I didn’t want Karen to know she’d gotten to me, even though she totally had. Not for the reason she thought. But because she found it so ridiculous that Hiro could ever want me that way. I pulled myself up straight and looked her in the eye. “How about you? Is that why you’re asking?” I pasted a little fake smile onto the end.

  The expression that quickly passed over Karen’s face gave me a burst of satisfaction. You haven’t, I thought. Even though you want to, really bad.

  “Come on, let’s go again,” Karen said.

  Fine. And this time you’re going down, I thought. Let’s see if you’re so funny lying on the ground with the mat up your butt.

  Focus. I kicked. Connected. Yes!

  Karen twirled around and launched into a series of attacks. Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Her arms and legs were like slashing bars of steel.

  I used the blocks Hiro had taught me, the impact of Karen’s blows reverberating through my body all the way down to my bones. If she actually connected with one of those…Now wasn’t the time to think about it.

  I let my instincts take control. Snap! I connected again, not that well, but it still felt good.

  Karen came back hard. I saw a kick coming, but I was too slow. I couldn’t block it. Thwack! Her foot slammed into my shoulder. If she’d hit my neck, I’d be dead.

  Don’t think, I ordered myself again. My body knew what to do. I just had to allow it to move on its own. I had to stop thinking.

  Karen and I fought our way across the mat, her green eyes boring into mine. Bring it, just go on and bring it, I tried to tell her with my gaze. We didn’t stop until we ended up locked together against the wall, both of us breathing hard.

  “I thought I was the supposed to be the attacker,” I gasped, my face inches away from Karen’s.

  She didn’t step back. “You have to be prepared for anything, you know.” We stayed frozen for what felt like an entire day. Finally Karen backed off.

  “Okay. That was great. You’ve really come a long way in the last month,” Karen said, that smile of hers back on her face. “How’s the mission going?”

  “You know about that?” How much did I hate it that the two of them talked about me?

  “Hiro told me he’d given you one, but he didn’t explain it,” Karen said. “We can talk about it if you want.”

  I hesitated. I needed help on my mission. And Karen was a good teacher. I’d heard some of her students talking, and they seemed crazy about her. Maybe that attack thing wasn’t so weird. She’d come after me like a ninja, but maybe that was just how she worked with students.

  “I’d like that,” I said tentatively.

  “Good. Let’s take a break and get a soda.”

  We bought Diet Cokes from the vending machine and went out to the large square courtyard in the middle of the dojo that was used for meditation. It had a rock garden and a man-made creek that flowed out into a small fishpond with several orange and gold koi swimming in slow, regular circles. Some wooden picnic tables had been placed along the perimeter of the courtyard in the shade of the building’s overhang, and we sat there and sipped at our drinks.

  “So what’s your mission?”

  I explained it to Karen and even told her the story that Hiro had told, which still made no sense to me.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.”

  “Do you get it?” I shook out my hair, smoothed it, then pulled it back into a ponytail. I was sure I still looked lik
e a ragamuffin compared to Karen.

  “I think so,” Karen answered. “But my getting it is probably completely different from Hiro’s getting it or your getting it—”

  “Which is not getting it,” I said gloomily.

  “For now.” Karen thought for a minute. “The only thing I can tell you is that the answer is inside you, and that’s the only place worth looking for it.”

  I couldn’t help rolling my eyes a little bit. “Thank you, Mr. Miyagi. I think that’s the answer to every problem in America. At least in movies like The Karate Kid.”

  Karen grinned. “Well, you know what they say—a cliché is only a cliché because it’s true.”

  “Okay, I’ll think about it.” I realized that all we’d talked about was me and my problems. She was still a total mystery to me. “So where are you from?” I asked, curious.

  “I’m from San Francisco, actually. That’s where I grew up. My parents moved there from Japan when I was about five. But I’ve been in L.A. for about three years now.”

  “Do you like it?”

  Karen tilted her head and looked thoughtful. “I love the dojo here. It’s been a home to me. But eventually what I’d really like to do is go back to San Fran and open my own dojo. In a couple more years I’ll be ready.”

  “That’s so great. I mean, that you’ve got this plan.” I felt a pang of jealousy. Life must be so easy for her. She could go where she wanted, live the life she chose. I was sure that she was exactly the kind of person Hiro would respect. She was so independent and good at what she did.

  Karen drained the last of her soda. “Time to get back to work,” she said. “Thanks for the sparring.”

  “Anytime.” I smiled. Except hopefully never again, I added silently. I decided I liked Karen much better outside the training room. After she left, I stayed on the bench, my face turned toward the hot L.A. sun, trying to think about my mission, not wonder about Karen and Hiro. It was none of my business, anyway.

  In a way, I was more confused about the mission than ever. If the answer was inside me, then how to pry it out? Maybe accepting death just meant not being afraid to put myself in dangerous situations. Maybe I needed to be willing to seek out danger and confront it. Karen certainly seemed like someone who wouldn’t let anything or anyone stop her from fighting or from challenging death.

  That had to be it! The best, if the only, idea I’d had about the mission so far. I would start looking for ways to confront death. I was happy I’d had a breakthrough, but I wasn’t so happy about my plan—I had the feeling accepting death was different from confronting death. But what else could I do? I just wasn’t ready to accept it, and maybe if Hiro realized I was willing to fight, to look danger in the eye, he would think that I’d completed my mission. After all, how could he know what was going on inside my head? He was perceptive but not a mind reader.

  So now the only question was—what to do?

  That was stupid. I should know better. Look at all these students in their crisp white gis. They turn to me to teach them how to fight, and my responsibility is to teach them restraint. To know when to use force and when not to. To fight out of necessity, not anger or fear. How could I have lost it like that with Heaven?

  If only she weren’t quite so beautiful. Even when she’s bedraggled, she looks like some kind of royalty. It’s not as if she’s at peace—her inner struggle is so visible, and it makes her face riveting. It’s been so long since I felt threatened by another woman, but she’s grown so close to Hiro after only a month. It’s taken me over a year to get close to him, to learn to really know him. How did she gain such easy entrance to his life? And why won’t he tell me why she’s here? I know they share something, some great bond. But I don’t know what it is.

  I need to stop behaving like a twelve-year-old. She’s a lost little girl. I should be giving her my total support. That’s what Hiro would want. And she’s gone through so much already.

  I know more about her than she thinks. I’ve been in Japan at least once every year since my parents emigrated, and the story of JAL999 always fascinated me. Along with everyone else, I wondered how a little baby could survive like that, thrown into the ocean from a burning plane. And who had taken the time to wrap her in the life jacket that ultimately saved her life, kept her afloat?

  Time for class. Time to take charge. These students see me as a strong, capable woman. A role model. But recently, deep down inside, I’ve been feeling like a kid again.

  Maybe it’s time Hiro and I had a talk.

  Karen

  14

  “I have the day off. I thought we might go to the beach.”

  I almost dropped my chopsticks. “The beach?” Hiro was actually suggesting something fun? Things had been pretty normal between us since our argument. A little bit strained, but no biggie. Still, I hadn’t been expecting him to take me to the beach!

  “I want to practice throws. I think you’re ready, and they’re a lot easier if you do them in the water,” he explained.

  Oh. It was a training thing. “But I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  Hiro reached under the kitchen table and pulled out a plastic shopping bag. “Here you go—a Speedo. I got it for you yesterday.”

  He held up a long, drooping piece of spandex. It looked too big to be a bathing suit. At least it doesn’t have a little skirt, I told myself. “Wow. Thanks. But, um, won’t it be a little exposed? The beach, I mean, not me in the suit,” I added.

  Hiro smiled. “I know a place that’s pretty secluded. We’ll be able to see anyone who approaches the beach. I borrowed a car from a friend of mine. So we can go in style.”

  I didn’t know why Hiro was in such a good mood, but it was contagious. “Cool. I’ll go change.”

  About an hour later Hiro pulled the car over onto an unpaved lot next to the road, where three other cars were already parked. We were high above the water, and the sky was so clear that I could look straight out to sea for miles. Japan is over there, I thought, and felt that familiar pang that came whenever I remembered how far away my home was. Truly, truly far.

  “Let’s go.” Hiro climbed out of the car and slammed the door. I followed him as he climbed down the rocks toward the beach. When we reached the sand, I looked back toward the lot and saw that Hiro was right—with the way the road crested and curved along the shore, we had the little cove all to ourselves—almost. A few women with small children played in the surf, and a bored-looking lifeguard sat in his tall wooden chair, staring out at the water. I’d never seen a lifeguard, and this one was exactly like the ones from Baywatch. He wore the same bright orange swimming trunks, and reflective, wraparound sunglasses shielded his eyes. His hair was bleached almost white from the sun, and he was even tanner than the guys on the show.

  That tan freaked me out. I pawed through the bag Hiro had plopped down on the sand and looked for sunblock. I slid off my gi pants, slathered on the lotion, and started to hand it to Hiro. But he’d pulled off his shirt and kicked off his sandals and was racing toward the water. “Come on! It’s going to be great!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  He dived in, his body slicing neatly through the choppy waves. I started after him. The Speedo Hiro bought me was a good fit, but I couldn’t help wishing I had one of my Prada or Versace bikinis from home, which I’d had tailored to my figure. This suit was just way too athletic and sensible.

  Great, Heaven, I thought. I’m sure samurai really waste their time thinking about swimwear. And Hiro probably wouldn’t notice if I walked around stark naked.

  Well, maybe he’d notice a little.

  I stuck one of my big toes into the ocean. The fierce wind made the water seem colder than it actually was and brought goose bumps out on my flesh. Hiro splashed me from a few feet out.

  “Cut it out. I need to take my time.”

  “Take the plunge,” Hiro urged. “It’s good practice.”

  “For what?” I put both feet in the water.

  “Anything.”
r />   I sucked in a breath and dove into a wave. Immediate exhilaration. I swam a few quick strokes underwater, then surfaced, laughing. I had always been a strong swimmer and spent long hours by our pool at home on the weekends.

  “Feels good, doesn’t it?” said Hiro. He’d found a spot where the water came up to his knees. “Let’s get started.”

  I wanted to swim more, but I knew better than to argue, so I just joined him in the knee-deep water.

  “Okay. Throws are all about leverage and balance—not brute strength. So it shouldn’t matter at all how big your opponent is,” Hiro explained. “If the opportunity presents itself, you need to be able to use these moves to take him down.”

  “Or her,” I said, thinking of Karen.

  “Right.”

  “Are you sure it has nothing to do with weight?”

  “Well, let’s say any weight within reason. You could probably outrun a sumo if you needed to or use several other techniques to defend yourself that would make the throws unnecessary. So I wouldn’t worry too much about that.”

  “Gotcha.” I grinned. We were at the beach! We were going to do lifts in the water, just like Baby and Johnny in Dirty Dancing. Maybe today my L.A. life would actually be like a movie. Finally.

  “Okay. The first throw is called ‘byobudaoshi.’ ”

  “To topple a folding screen?” I translated.

  “Exactly. So you be my opponent. As you come toward me—I block with my left open hand, step back on the right leg, then get my leg around yours like this—keep coming—then—sweep the leg!”

  Suddenly I was sitting in the water with a healthy dose of ocean up my nose.

  “Hiro! Thanks for the warning!” I gasped. Baby didn’t get water up her nose and choke and sputter after they practiced a move. After all these weeks of pain, couldn’t I even have two minutes of movie magic? Jeez.

  “You’re supposed to be prepared for anything. Remember?” Hiro asked.

  “Still…” I coughed as I stood up. I should have known better than to think training would be fun just because we were at the beach.

  “We’re going to try a few more, and then you can be the one who does the throwing. This next one’s called ‘taniotoshi.’ ”