“Ha, perhaps you are right. I mean I wouldn’t argue with the self-evaluation of such a wise man as you.”
“Such a wise man? Nah, girl, I am not wise at all, but I’ll take the undeserved compliment.”
With my hands propped on his chest I lift myself up a bit and look into his eyes for a few moments.
“I can’t figure out if you are totally good or totally bad, Drago.”
“Well, I’m not completely rotten.”
*****
Loud thudding noises emanate from right above us.
“Ah, the hookers are home,” Drago says. “A car usually brings them back at this hour, and they walk around in high heels for a while.”
“You have interesting neighbors.”
“Yup, this is an exciting neighborhood and a lively building. They’ll quiet down in a bit.”
He shuts off the bedside lamp.
“Let’s go to sleep, girl. Try to fall asleep before I do.”
“Why?”
“I snore like crazy. Nose broken several times.”
Lying on my back I reach for his hand. He picks up my hand, kisses it, places it back under the covers, and keeps holding it. Within a few minutes his breathing changes, and then, first in a sort of a hesitant tentative way and after that louder and with more assuredness, he starts snoring. Well, he was not kidding about that. I am pretty sure the neighbors on both sides, and above and below, can hear him. Thinking that I probably will not be able to fall asleep to such loud snoring, I decide that I will just lie here for a bit and then go back to the dojo. But minutes and minutes pass and I can’t seem to be able to bring myself to get up. Lying next to him feels so incredibly good. Everything in me just wants to be as near to him as possible. I turn on my left side, put my leg on top of his and my arm around him. Being in this position hurts my injured elbow, but I don’t care. I close my eyes and stay like this, my thoughts flowing softer and softer and finally disappearing altogether.
When I wake up, it is almost seven and I immediately think that I’ve overslept and am in big trouble now. Then I remember it’s Sunday and classes do not start till nine. Sunday. If I go back to sleep now, Drago and I can wake up together hours later and then stay in bed. He is lying on his side, breathing softly, not snoring anymore. For a moment I am very much tempted to curl up next to him and close my eyes again. But no, I can’t do that. I must get up now and return to the dojo.
I get out of the bed as quietly as I can and get dressed in the living room. The one-eyed cat is nowhere to be seen, but the dog comes up to the door to see me off. I’ve asked Drago the names of his pets, and he said their official names are Uchimata and Morote Seoi Nage, after his favorite judo throws, but he mostly just calls them Cat and Dog. It is difficult for the dog to be standing up, so while I am putting on my boots, she lies down. I squat down beside her and she puts her head on my knees and I pat her on the head for a while, and then all of a sudden, I just start crying. It is the strangest thing, but I believe I am happy and am crying from happiness.
Outside it is so cold that when I inhale the frosty air the snot freezes inside my nose. I think about getting a cab but prefer to walk a few blocks to the 96th Street station, where I can catch the Q train. I walk very fast, that feeling of happiness I had earlier still within me and growing with each step I take. I become more and more acutely aware of being the most alive I have ever been, my whole body filled to the brim with effervescent joy.
*****
It is not easy to climb a hanging ladder up to the third floor when a sharp pain shoots through your whole arm if you as much as try to move the elbow. Damn, I realize that my right knee is fucked up too and putting a lot of weight on it is not very feasible right now. What should have taken me only three to four minutes becomes a slow and laborious ascent and I wonder what the neighbors across the courtyard might think, and do, if they happen to observe me. What if they assume I am a robber and call the police? Nah, that probably won’t happen. This is New York City, a place where people believe deeply in the live-and-let-live adage and do not interfere in others’ affairs. Besides, seeing a woman climb a ladder hanging off a window on a Sunday morning is not nearly enough to surprise the hardy residents of this town. They’ll just think I am doing some sort of a sports activity.
Back in my room, I pull the ladder in and store it under the bed. I consider whether to lie down for a bit, but, despite having slept for only a few hours at Drago’s, I feel wide awake, and so I decide to go downstairs instead and wash my hair, which smells like cigarette smoke.
After the shower I stand in the middle of the locker room examining my naked body in the mirror. By now the bruises have gained a very definite bright-blue coloration. There is an especially huge one on my shin. I touch it and it’s very swollen and painful. This hematoma might not dissolve on its own, and I should probably get some treatment for it.
Straightening up, I suddenly see the reflection of Liam’s figure standing a few feet behind me.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I pick up the towel from the bench and wrap it around me.
“Inspecting the locker rooms, which is my job, you know.”
“Get out.”
“What are you doing down here so early?” he asks and does not move from his spot. “That is some nasty bruise.” He points at my leg. “And what the hell happened to your face?”
“I fell while taking a shower.”
“Repeatedly?” His reply to my blatant lie can be nothing but sarcastic of course.
“Liam, get out!”
For a few more seconds he stands perfectly still, looking at me with great suspicion and clearly wanting to ask more questions. Then he turns around and walks away. Lifting the curtain that separates the locker room from the hallway he pauses and says, “Listen, are you okay?” Strange as it is, but it seems to me there is real concern in his voice.
“What the fuck do you care?” I reply instead of just keeping quiet.
He walks out without saying anything else.
*****
Throughout the day I manage to take it easy. In the first class I partner up with Martine. I give her the same legend about slipping and falling badly in the shower. I am not sure she buys it, but she doesn’t question me further. Even though she usually prefers to train very hard, she now goes softly and slowly, and I am very grateful to her for that. In the following classes I work with beginners at the back of the mat showing them the basic footwork, and so am able to let my sore body rest a bit.
Before the last class of the day, which is taught by Sensei, my luck changes. I notice Sensei glance at me, his forehead furrowed and the corners of his mouth drawn down. He doesn’t ask me anything directly but inquires through the head uchi-deshi if I am all right. I bid Liam to let Sensei know that I am absolutely fine, and that these are just a couple scratches that won’t hinder my training in any way.
At the beginning of the class, Liam bows to me, which means he extends an offer of training together. It is against the dojo etiquette to refuse to partner with a person who has bowed to you, especially if the invitation comes from a higher ranked martial artist. Usually lower-ranked persons are to seek out and bow to higher-ranked ones, and it now strikes me as very strange that Liam should be inviting me to train.
“Sensei told me to do it,” he pronounces curtly as we start working on the first technique.
Liam and I have not trained together in quite a long time, definitely not since the eventful Winter Assembly. I have tried to avoid him on the mat, never bowing to him at the beginning of classes and, if a certain technique is practiced in groups, waiting to see which group Liam chooses and then going to a different one. I must admit that I am . . . well, not exactly scared of him, but definitely wary.
I have a piece of blue tape on my left sleeve to indicate that my elbow is injured. Usually people are respectful of
the blue tape and when training with an injured person make an effort to be careful. A thought crosses my mind that Liam might pretend that he has not noticed the blue tape. That would be very much like him. I have half a mind to tell him, but something in me does not allow me to say out loud that my elbow hurts and to ask Liam to take it easy on me. I don’t know why I can’t just say it. I guess I don’t want to sound like I am complaining or asking for special treatment.
To my surprise Liam acknowledges my injury and, when executing techniques that might put pressure on my left arm, he lets up and proceeds with care. In general, he seems to be going at a slower pace than usual and does not display any of his habitual enthusiasm and passion for training. Even his smirk is gone. He does not look directly at me either. Unless he is in a very bad mood, he always looks his training partner right in the eyes, especially when attacking. Now it’s as if he does not even see me, gazing at the wall behind me or down at the mat.
During the whole class Sensei remains nearby and keeps a watchful eye on me and Liam. He never once says anything to us, but by his serious and almost severe expression I can tell that he is not happy.
“It sucks training with you,” Liam whispers when doing a pin, which immobilizes me on the ground. “Why do you think Sensei partnered us up? He wanted to see some good training out of you. And instead he sees this. You think this is a Nidan-worthy training?”
Lying flat on my stomach, with my head turned in the other direction, I can’t see Liam’s face, but I can imagine what it looks like at this precise moment, those very dark eyes of his blazing with suppressed fury. I tap out and he releases the pin. Up on our feet, we do not immediately resume training, but stand very close for a few moments, just staring into each other’s eyes. Then Liam’s gaze shifts downward at my elbow with the blue tape and I realize that I am holding and slightly massaging it. Ah damn, it probably looks as if I were trying to draw his attention to my injury and thus make an excuse for my subpar training.
“If you can’t train, you shouldn’t be on the mat,” he says. “Or maybe you shouldn’t even be at the dojo at all.”
*****
Toward the end of the class we are practicing a two-hand shoulder throw. Our pace has slowed down even more, Liam going through the motions in an exaggeratedly uninterested and aloof way, as if to show that he would rather be doing anything else or training with anybody else but me. Several times he mutters under his breath something about me being worthless on the mat and again suggesting I should leave the dojo. I feel more and more annoyed and frustrated. I do my best to ignore Liam’s games and focus on the technique, using the slow pace to work on my angles.
When it’s my turn to throw, I grip Liam’s sleeve and lapel, unbalance him, and shoot in, going lower than his belt. But something is off and I can’t seem to fully engage my messed-up elbow. I am taking too much time, trying to adjust my position.
“The fuck are you doing? You don’t even know how to throw?” Liam says.
He is clearly trying to provoke me. I do not reply anything, take a deep breath to keep the irritation under control, and am about to finish the throw by extending my legs, bending forward, and turning.
Suddenly my right knee buckles under me. I fall down, losing all control of the technique and sending Liam into a haphazard free fall.
For a split second it seems he would land right on top of my knee and break it, but he makes an almost impossible adjustment in the air and misses me by an inch and falls down at the most dangerous angle, his neck going straight into the mat.
Everything just stops.
There are no sounds, no visuals, no movements—nothing exists for me at this moment, only Liam lying on the floor, seemingly unconscious.
I am on my knees beside him, feeling scared, so very scared. I want to check his pulse, but instead just touch my fingers gently to his skin and withdraw my hand. I am so scared. What if he’s already dead? This thought invades my head, and my whole body goes numb with a sudden and unbearable pain. In an instant, all his terrible behavior toward me is of no importance—all I remember right now is that this is Liam, with whom I had such close, complicated, but almost intimate friendship in the past, and then that one night turned into passion. And maybe it was more than just passion. There was tenderness and . . . and I don’t know what else. Liam. Please, just be alive.
I am not aware at all of how much time passes. Probably no more than a few seconds, but these seconds are interminable. Then Liam stirs, sits up, and moves his neck back and forth and sideways, making sure it’s not injured.
“Liam,” I pronounce his name several times. He does not look at me.
People have gathered around and I can hear someone’s voice ask quietly, “What the hell was that? Did she throw him like that on purpose?”
“Liam . . .” I move in close to him. “It was an accident.” For fuck’s sake, he must know that it was not revenge on my part, that I would not deliberately throw him in such a dangerous way. He must believe me.
He doesn’t reply and gets up without once looking at me.
*****
After the class ends and we bow out, Sensei does not immediately step off the mat as he usually does, but remains standing in the middle. We keep sitting in seiza, waiting for what he will do next.
“True martial art is about the precision and perfection of the technique and the self-control of the martial artist,” Sensei says.
We all listen with the greatest attention and deference—it is not often, if ever, that Sensei gives a speech.
“Control your opponent through being in control of your own body, your emotions, and your force. True martial art is not about inflicting injury on your opponent through loss of self-control. Anger, frustration, resentment have no place on the mat.”
We bow to Sensei again, and after he leaves, we bow to our training partners.
“Liam, it was an accident,” I repeat.
Yet once more he turns away from me.
I don’t get this man. I simply don’t get him. He hates me and probably thinks I hate him too—he deliberately tried to harm me during the Winter Assembly, he often lashes out at me, he makes my life at the dojo very hard, and yet just now when, because of my failed technique, he would have fallen on my leg and broken it, I saw him make an almost superhuman effort to land away from me, risking a severe injury to himself.
Chapter 11
A week later, my face has sufficiently healed, and looking in the mirror I examine it with attention, trying to finally figure out what it looks like. Oval shaped with a regular nose, a small mouth, big brown eyes, and high cheek bones, framed by light brown hair. Strange, I can study for a long time every separate feature, and yet the whole picture still evades me. I wonder if it’s only me, or if others also have problems knowing their own faces.
I have not used makeup in all my time living at the dojo, well, except when Ricardo the Stylist put some on me before the Dark Fight. I remember that he said it was a good idea to accentuate my eyes, so I do the same now using eyeliner, eyeshadow, and mascara. I also comb my freshly washed hair with special care. Sweating for hours on the mat every day, putting it up in a tight topknot, and not paying much attention to it for a long time—all that has quite damaged my hair. So earlier today I put tons of coconut oil in and left it for a while before washing it out, and now the result is pretty great. For once, my hair is soft and shiny. All in all, I am happy with my reflection in the mirror, except perhaps the cheeks being too thin—but at least they do not look as hollow, and the cheekbones are not as salient as on some other days when I train intensely on not enough sleep and food. Last night I had a good night’s sleep and made sure to eat well throughout the day today. I had a large bowl of oatmeal with raisins and walnuts for breakfast, a tuna sandwich for lunch, and then ate some sushi which Hiroji shared with me after the last class of the day.
Thinking about f
ood makes me hungry again, and I wonder if I should eat something quickly, but realize it is five to eleven and Drago must already be waiting for me. I climb down the ladder outside my window, walk through the garage, and find him chatting with the garage attendant. I told Drago about my slipping-out strategy and he thought it would be a good idea to give a little something to the friendly man, who leaves the garage’s back door open for me. So today he brought him a bottle of good whiskey and some cash.
“That’s how things work in the Balkans,” he says when we get into the car.
“But this is not the Balkans.”
“I am pretty sure this is how things work everywhere. You are too young to know that. You’ll learn. The importance of money especially. You hungry?”
I tell him that I am a bit hungry and we drive a few blocks to Le Midi, a French restaurant on 13th Street where they play old French and American movies on a big screen. We sit at a small table in the bar area and I have a glass of Sauternes and Drago drinks cider. We want to order something to eat and they say the kitchen has already closed but they can still make us the Le Midi salad. The salad is delicious, especially the poached pears, candied walnuts, and Roquefort, but that’s not enough food, and so the waiter also brings us bread, pâté, an assortment of cheeses and some fresh fruit.
Tonight they are showing The Charade with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. Drago and I both like old movies and The Charade is a really good one and we watch it in silence for a while. When a highly stylized and rather fake-looking fight scene between Cary Grant and one of the gangsters comes on, we look at each other and smile.
“You any good in a fight, uchi-deshi girl?” Drago asks wrinkling the corners of his eyes. “If we were to venture into a bad neighborhood, would I be safe by your side?”
“Nah, I suggest you learn some martial arts yourself. Oh, wait, I forgot, aren’t you supposed to be a fifth dan in judo?”
The Dark Fights Page 12