The Dark Fights

by Alexandra Vinarov

  “These are new. Pretty strong stuff.” Head Tattoo nods toward the little bag in my hand. He wants to add something else but cuts himself off.

  “Are you going to actually watch me take them and then have me open my mouth and check, like they do with psychiatric patients?” I ask. “Is that what Sergey has ordered you to do?”

  He stares at me for a few moments, looking pretty embarrassed and unsure of how to proceed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Russian did, in fact, give such orders, or perhaps even tougher ones. In the end Head Tattoo mutters something unintelligible under his breath and moves away.

  As I sit alone in the bathroom I twirl the bag with the pills in my fingers. Do I take them or not? If I am to step into the cage tonight, I must take them. There is no other way. If I don’t, the condition I am in, I’ll get destroyed, smashed on the canvas with a bad injury or worse. Do I take them or not? Do I take them or not? Ah, fuck it. I open the little plastic bag, throw the pills into my mouth, and wash them down with water from the tap.

  When, some time later, Head Tattoo is leading me toward the cage, he looks at me questioningly. I nod.

  *****

  Stepping into the cage, I am already shaking on the inside and cannot stand still. The sensation is even stronger than what I felt the time I took the drugs during that training session. I clench and unclench my fists, jump around, do circular motions with my head, and stretch my neck and shoulder muscles in a sort of a jerky and erratic way. A violent uncontrollable desire to fight, to hit, to throw down and destroy comes over me. It’s starting somewhere deep inside me and pushes out through my every pore. It is so intense and powerful, there is no way I can keep it in.

  As soon as the referee calls “fight” I charge at my opponent—a very tall girl with pink hair and unnaturally bright violet-colored eyes—and throw a series of strikes. I easily avoid or block her attacks and land her a heavy blow on the sternum, throw her down, and follow up by brutal punches and downward elbow strikes to the head. I glance at the table where Sergey is sitting with a couple of guests. He looks very happy and nods his head at me and smiles a broad and satisfied smile.

  The violet girl manages to clamber to her feet, but I immediately strike her on the temple. Disoriented, she raises her arm, trying to punch me. I grab her arm, hold onto it as if it were a tree branch, jump up and put one leg around her neck and the other behind her back and take her down onto the canvas in a spectacular and tough takedown. Driven by the desire for the aggression and destruction, I bring her down so hard, that I feel the strong impact in my own body. At this moment I am strangely aware of the fact that I’m really enjoying the brutal combat and finding its intensity fulfilling and pleasurable.

  I have my opponent in my favorite juji-gatame—a perpendicular arm bar—hold her tight so that she does not have a single chance of escaping, and am about to end this fight by cranking her elbow joint, when suddenly I glance at Sergey’s table again . . . and I release the juji-gatame hold, get up from the floor, and stand for a few moments just staring.

  *****

  There is a tall man standing at Sergey’s table seemingly involved in a discussion or an argument with him. I can’t see the man’s face but somehow I’m sure it’s Drago. I’m simply convinced that it cannot be anyone but him. I remain in one spot, having forgotten about the fight instantaneously, unable to avert my eyes from the man.

  When the violet girl pounces on me from behind and attempts to put me in a rear naked choke, I am caught completely off guard. Once this type of choke is fully applied, it is practically impossible to get out of it. My speed and power still working in overdrive, I am able to hook my leg around hers, go down on my knee, turn my body brusquely, and throw her down. I then rush to get out of the cage, and the referee blocks my way. I punch the referee hard on the jaw and knock him out, and hurl myself over the top of the cage.

  I feel the blood pulsating hard somewhere behind my ears and see colored spots before my eyes. In a kind of a frenzy I run up to the tall man and for some reason push him with both my hands in a not-very-martial move. He steps back, trips, tries to hold onto the table, almost overturning it and sending a bunch of glasses, bottles, and plates crashing to the floor. At that moment I realize that my drugged brain has played a cruel trick on me. It was just a hallucination. The man is not Drago. It is a complete stranger and he looks at me in dismay, his mouth pronouncing some words that I cannot seem to comprehend.

  I am suddenly gasping for air and feel very nauseous. The drugs stop working and, just like that first time when I took them in the gym, I am now crashing, all the energy drained out of me. The new drugs being stronger, the crash is even worse now.

  My legs crumble under me and I am about to fall down. Head Tattoo holds me up and helps me walk to the bathroom, opens the tap with cold water, wets a towel, and presses it to my face and the nape of my neck. He sits me on the bench, and I close my eyes, trying to control the nausea and to take strained shallow breaths, unable to breathe fully.

  When I open my eyes again, it is Sergey and the doctor who are standing before me. Sergey takes my chin and lifts my head up. “Don’t worry, beauty, I’m not angry with you,” he says. “It’s the drugs. We’ll adjust the dosage for the next fight.”

  I have a very strong and almost uncontrollable desire to spit into his face, but I am somehow able to check myself. I just push his hand away, lower my head, and don’t reply at all. I hear them having a discussion in hushed voices, and then the doctor hands me another pill that he says will make me feel better in no time. Sergey insists that after some rest I should come upstairs and join the big birthday party.

  When Ricardo the Stylist comes in to help me get ready, I spot a pair of scissors among his things and, when he is not paying attention, grab it and am about to start cutting off my hair. I can’t quite say why I want to do this. I suppose it is a gesture of desperation or rebellion of some sort.

  Ricardo the Stylist screams out and stops my hand. I am still so weak I can’t fight him. He takes the scissors from me, and, his eyes panic-stricken, begs me not to do a thing like this. The boss wants the Samurai Princess to have long hair, and it will be he, Ricardo the Stylist, who will suffer the consequences if anything should change in my appearance.

  I don’t argue. My moment of utter gloom and despair, or whatever it was, has now passed. The recovery pill is starting to work already and I am feeling better and my mood alters. I talk in a loud voice and laugh exaggeratedly. This abrupt change in mood is likely not a healthy thing either, but I prefer not to dwell on it.

  Ricardo the Stylist puts me in a figure-hugging silvery dress and declares it looks stunning, beautiful, dazzling. All of a sudden I get very impatient and want to go upstairs. A desire to be in a crowd of people with music and alcohol comes over me. Before rushing out of the bathroom, I pick a very bright-red color lipstick and apply a thick layer to my lips.

  *****

  As I go up the stairs and into the main room, I see it’s very crowded here. The English language is interspersed with a lot of Russian. The whole place is decorated in what I guess is supposed to be the prerevolutionary Russian style, with gilded furniture, replica Fabergé eggs, large candles, and even portraits of the last Tsar and his family. There is no stage, and a singer accompanied by a band is performing old Russian love songs seemingly right in the middle of the crowd. Waiters dressed as Cossacks are serving classic Russian sweet champagne and small blinis with a variety of fillings. A tray covered with blinis and black caviar appears, and people pounce on it so fast that it is empty within a minute.

  A famous Russian opera singer, with a very heavy bust, tightly curled hair, and a kind pleasant face, is sitting at a table all by herself eating beef stroganoff and drinking vodka. I’ve heard rumors that she never starts singing unless she has had her plate of beef stroganoff and several vodkas. Once, as an experiment, she was served amaretto on the rocks.
She was in a foul mood afterward and declined to perform.

  I’ve met the singer at previous Sergey’s parties, and she now waves to me to join her at her table. I have a vodka with her, but the sight of her eating beef stroganoff, putting chunks of meat into her mouth and chewing them vigorously, makes me a bit nauseous again, and I make up an excuse and leave the table.

  A tray with champagne appears right by my side, and I drink two glasses straight away, one after the other. The alcohol probably doesn’t mix too well with the earlier pill, for pretty quickly everything around me starts looking blurry and all the faces and voices blend into one loud, grimacing mass. As I take a few steps through the crowd, I realize I definitely cannot walk a straight line. Damn it, I’m a martial artist, aren’t I? I should be able to be in control of my body. Ah, fuck it. Who cares! My unsteady swaying motions go well with the music, and I just need to have another drink to give in fully to the party ambience.

  I reach for another glass of champagne, stumble, and somebody catches me by the elbow, and doesn’t let me fall down. It’s Head Tattoo again, and I am awfully glad to see him and I put my arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek. I can discern a confused and slightly embarrassed expression on his face and start laughing. Head Tattoo doesn’t let me drink more, declares I need some food in me right away, gets ahold of a fresh plate with caviar blinis, and makes me eat two.

  He stays with me for a while, acting like a perfect gentleman, watching over me, and getting me to drink water and eat some more food. After making sure I am all right and can now stand more or less steady on my high heels, he lets me be, and I continue my way through the party alone, heading in the general direction of the opera singer’s voice. She is now performing, accompanied by a pianist, and the music and her mesmerizing voice seem to transform this midtown nightclub into a true Russian imperial palace and give an air of authenticity to the gaudy and fake decorations.

  Trying to get closer to the piano, I enter a particularly crowded area of the room, where bodies are in such close proximity you can smell each person’s perfume, deodorant, cologne, or lack thereof. It seems to me that the singer’s voice carries through and over the crowd, enveloping everything and everyone in a magical veil.

  “Sasha,” I suddenly hear a voice speak right into my ear, startling me. “Don’t turn around,” the voice says. “They are watching your every move.”

  Chapter 21

  My first impulse is to turn and see who it is but something, perhaps the urgency and the gravity of the voice, stops me. I think I recognize the familiar intonations, but I don’t trust my own senses right now. Perhaps I am hallucinating again. If it is the person I think it is, what could he possibly be doing here? Nah, it can’t be him.

  “Go toward the bar, turn left and then behind the column. There are no video cameras there,” the voice dictates.

  Full of doubts, I nevertheless do as the voice says, and a few seconds after I get to a sort of a niche behind the column, he appears next to me.

  Liam.

  It takes me a few moments to adjust my mind to his being here—a figure from my former and infinitely remote life emerging in the midst of my present. Can it really be him? Somehow it seems impossible to me that Liam should be right here, in these circumstances. But yes, it is him, and his inimitable dark eyes are burrowing into my mind as if trying to drill into my very core. We stand for a while just looking at each other. Liam’s face is much thinner than I remember it, the cheekbones standing out more, the eye sockets deeper, the jawline even more pronounced than before. He is wearing his only suit and it does not fit him as well as it used to—the jacket is sitting somewhat loose on his torso. It is so strange, I feel as if it’s been many years since I last saw Liam. He appears now out of a part of my life that I left completely behind and can never ever go back to.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I’m working this event. Found out that the bearded bastard who said he was your uncle but is really a fucking gangster owns this club, so I got a bouncing gig here.”

  “What are you doing here?” I repeat my question.

  He looks me straight in the eyes, and his gaze is so intense I almost cannot bear it.

  “I came for you,” he pronounces, emphasizing every word. “I should never have let you go in the first place, but I was angry and jealous. So fucking jealous.” He pauses and swallows hard. I can see that he wants to tell me a lot and to convince me of something, but I know he is not used to giving speeches. He goes on, the words coming out faster now but a bit awkward. “I heard you were living with a guy . . . I now understand that when you really care for a woman you do everything to help her, even though . . . even though she’s chosen another man. I understand that now, but before I just didn’t know how to deal with the jealousy. I was an idiot. But now I am getting you out of here, this life, the Dark Fights, all of it.”

  He takes me by both arms and pulls me gently into him.

  “You are coming back to the dojo with me,” he says.

  “Impossible. Sensei won’t allow it. No.” I pull back slightly and he lets go of my arms.

  “We’ll figure something out. The life you have now . . . it’s not you. It’s not who you are supposed to be. You’ve made a wrong choice and now you’re so lost you can’t even see it. You must listen to me for once. Chuck all this and come with me, Sasha.”

  His strong and urgent words manage to get through the muddled outer layer of my mind. I start to make sense of what he is saying. He could be right—perhaps somewhere down the road I did veer off the right course and am now lost. If I stay, I will keep sinking into this bottomless bog. If I go with him, I might make it to the surface again. But can I really do it, go with him, just like this?

  He sees my hesitation and nods with reassurance and takes my hand. I put my fingers through his and hold tight. At that moment Buzz Cut and Baldy appear near us. I let go of Liam’s hand. They look at us with suspicion. “The boss wants you,” one of them says to me. “And you should be working the back door,” he barks at Liam.

  At this point I realize that the opera singing has stopped and there is now an interval in the entertainment. As I walk from behind the column, throwing one last glance at Liam, I can see that the crowd has dispersed somewhat, many of the guests now sitting at tables, on couches, and in armchairs, leaving the middle of the room empty. A gentleman in a tuxedo comes to the center of the dance floor and speaks into a microphone, going back and forth between English and Russian. He makes a toast and asks everyone to raise their glasses and drink to Sergey Petrovich’s health, prosperity, happiness, and good fortune. He then announces that there is a special present for Sergey Petrovich—his favorite song.

  The band—guitars and violins—starts playing, and several singers dressed as Russian gypsies sing. It is a romantic, deeply felt type of singing, going from very forlorn and dramatic to energetic and cheerful, and the rhythm changing from slow to fast. Sergey gets up from his seat, raises his glass, drinks from it, and throws it on the ground in a big Russian gesture. He then takes a few steps to the music moving his arms in the air, and glances around, as if looking for something or someone.

  He spots me standing near the dance floor, walks right up to me, and extends his arm inviting me to dance. I shake my head and step back.

  “Dance with me, beauty,” he says. “Come on. It’s my birthday.”

  He takes my hand and leads me to the dance floor. On a sort of an autopilot I first follow him, but then come to, free my hand in a brusque motion, and push him away. He tries to grab my arm again. I am a split second away from throwing him, when a fist appears as if out of nowhere, lands on the Russian’s jaw and knocks him out. The lightning-speed fist belongs to Liam, and with Sergey cold on the floor, Liam and I stand for a moment or two just looking at each other.

  The singing and the music halt. Everything is suddenly very quiet.
I am vaguely aware of being in the center of a big room with lots of people, but for all I care I could be in the middle of a desert. I don’t look at anything or anybody now. I stare right in front of me, into Liam’s very dark eyes.

  I don’t know how long this strange state lasts. In actual time, perhaps no more than a second. The next moment, time resumes its normal speed, Buzz Cut and Baldy run up and pounce on Liam. Head Tattoo busies himself with reviving his boss.

  Liam, Buzz Cut, and Baldy trade a number of blows that look rough but do not do much damage on either side. Buzz Cut then sneaks in a good punch and immediately attempts a head kick, but only connects with air. Liam lands a powerful shot on the chin of Buzz Cut, who wobbles, and Liam grabs him and throws him in a beautifully executed ippon seoi nage, a shoulder throw.

  He then shoots for a double leg takedown of Baldy, who manages to react quickly and counter. Liam changes tactics and strikes him on the neck with a crushing open hand, and, while Baldy seems momentarily dazed, executes on him an extremely effective combination of an elbow lock and a throw.

  A couple more bouncers join in the fight and at one point Liam charges in with great force but places his head too low, and within a split second his opponent gets him in a standing guillotine choke. The guy’s hold seems pretty powerful and his body position is strong and centered, and for a moment I am scared there is no way Liam can get out of this choke. Yet perhaps I underestimate Liam’s fighting skills and his strength. He escapes from the choke and the bout goes on.

  Meanwhile Sergey comes to and yells, “Who the fuck let that crazy uchi-deshi in here?”

  Head Tattoo tries to reply that Liam is one of the bouncers at this event, but Sergey just keeps shouting and cursing. He wants to know “who the fuck hired the crazy uchi-deshi” and when no answer comes forth, he continues cursing, interjecting Russian expletives into his speech.