Sometimes
in Shadow
THREE
---Bonnie woke up at six-thirty.
She got dressed and went downstairs. From the landing, she heard
Jake snoring. Hearing it, she whispered to herself that she was
glad her husband hadn’t snored like that; it would have
broken up a beautiful romance. At the foot of the stairs, she
stuck her head around the corner to look into the living room
where Jake had fallen asleep. She burst out laughing. He was not
on the sofa as she had expected. He was sprawled on the floor,
one arm wrapped around the leg of her coffee table. His hair was
as disheveled as his shirt, and his right front pants pocket stuck
out like a mocking, coated tongue. She ducked back, hoping he
had not seen her.
---“I’m up,” he
said.
---“I’m sorry.”
She walked into the living room, her hand over her mouth, trying
to stop herself from laughing. “Really . . . I am.”
---Bonnie was struck by Jake’s
eyes; they were bright, clear and sparkling.
---Jake sat, laughing. Then, as if
pulled straight up by a rope around his chest, he stood. He neither
leaned forward nor held onto anything—he simply stood. It
happened so quickly that Bonnie was not sure that she had seen
it. Later that day, when she was alone, she tried to stand up
as he had. It was impossible. Jake walked past her toward the
downstairs bathroom, stuffing himself back into order.
---Bonnie and Jake stayed in the
house all day while Martin slept. At first, Bonnie wanted to go
out. Then the phone calls started, calls for Martin. After the
first few, which were about an hour apart, the phone rang every
ten or fifteen minutes. Each time, a young male voice asked for
Martin. By mid-afternoon, the calls turned abusive.
---“I couldn’t talk you
into disconnecting the phone?” Jake asked. They were in
the family room, where, for forty minutes, Jake had kept Bonnie
company while she rode her exercise bike. “You’ve
managed to get me to answer your phone every time.”
---Bonnie stopped pedaling. “I’m
sorry. I’d hate to unplug it, but—”
---“Just kidding. Anyway, I
figure you’ll get off that damnable thing soon.” He
squinted at her. “I don’t think this much exercise
can be good for you.”
---Bonnie wiped her face and arms
with her towel. “Are the calls really bad?”
---“Yes. I’ll keep getting
the phone.”
---“You said—”
---“And I also said I was kidding.
Now, go shower. If things escalate, I want you dressed and near
me before it gets dark.”
---“Then let’s leave.”
Bonnie suggested. “Take Martin and go someplace else.”
---“I’d like Martin to
get as much sleep as possible. He needs time and rest to get back
in touch with his soul—for want of a better word.”
---“Jake, if it’s this
bad, why not call the police?”
---“You’re right, I should.”
---While Bonnie showered, Jake called
the police. He told them he had seen some suspicious young boys
running around the neighborhood. They said they would schedule
a drive-by. Jake knew it would not stop anything, but it could
slow things down. They didn’t say it to Jake, but they were
worried. Bonnie’s house was less than a quarter mile from
where they had found thirteen dismembered dogs three days before.
Complaints from Bonnie’s neighborhood were taken seriously.
* * *
---Chemmg
Tse Lu was seventy-nine when he came to the United States. He
was part of a large community of people who had fled Tibet during
the 1959 revolution. His Master, Ka, who claimed to be a descendant,
on his mother’s side, of the great Milarepa, had wanted
him to leave for some time.
---People were born with diverse
skills. Chemmg Tse Lu was a warrior, though not in the secular
sense. He never took up arms against the Chinese. His battle was
bigger; he fought Evil. He needed to find and recruit disciples
in the West. The East was no longer able to fight alone.
---In the late sixties, Jake left
Chicago for California. He was not a hippie, but the allure of
the West Coast was strong. In Los Angeles he found a house not
far from the ocean. He rented the basement; the owner lived upstairs.
One day a friend of the owner came to visit. His name was Bing.
He had driven down from San Francisco for a week’s vacation.
He practiced Tai Chi four to five hours a day on the beach. Unlike
the common, daily exercises that millions practice throughout
the world, it had gone farther.
---Jake watched him work out. Bing
was oblivious to the audience. He was holding his hand palm out,
fingers slightly bent. He pushed it away from his chest, the movement
aimed inadvertently at Jake. Even at fifty feet, Jake felt the
pressure, like being hit in the chest with a missed football.
---A week later, Jake moved to San
Francisco.
---Jake studied Tai Chi for a year
with Dr. Pak, Bing’s Master. Jake was the janitor and handyman
at Dr. Pak’s dojo, in return for room, board, and lessons.
He was the most diligent of Pak’s students, but far from
the best. When the other students weren’t around, ---Pak
would laugh at him, teasing and goading. The laugh argued of talents
misapplied.
---Pak sent Jake out for groceries;
they were going to have a visitor for dinner. It was evening when
Jake returned. Pak was playing Go with a plainly dressed, dark-skinned
man, introduced to Jake as Chemmg Tse Lu. The game was in the
first third of play. The four corners and sides were claimed.
White and black were engaged in a struggle along the left side.
It looked to Jake as though Pak, playing black, was winning.
---Jake played Pak every day. He
took a thirteen stone handicap and usually lost. The few times
he had won, he felt Pak had thrown the game.
---Within twenty minutes, black was
in a position to capture a large group of white stones along the
upper edge of the board. Chemmg smiled as Pak put the black stone
he had been holding back into the red-brown, cherry bowl of slate
stones on the floor next to him. Pak bowed, conceding the game,
and laughed as they cleared the board.
---“But . . . Dr. Pak would
have captured—”
---“Sometimes you must lose
a battle to win the war,” Chemmg said. These were the first
words Jake heard from Chemmg, said with almost no trace of an
accent.
---Jake cooked dinner. He prepared
three of Pak’s favorites: vegetarian stir-fried crab meat,
bean sauce noodles, and the salad—seasoned, parboiled asparagus
called dragon whiskers.
---“You are joining us, of
course,” Chemmg said to Jake, as he was serving them.
---Jake looked uneasily at Dr. Pak.
“Usually I—”
---“Yes,” Pak said, “it
would please us.”
---Jake returned to the kitchen to
get his plate.
---“On your way back, there
is a bottle of special plum wine in my bag,” Chemmg said.
“Could you get it?”
---Throughout dinner, the two older
men spoke Chinese, English, and Japanese. They said Jake’s
name often, looked at him, and laughed. Jake felt honored to be
eating with them, but he was very uncomfortable.
---After dinner, they went for a
walk. Chemmg asked Jake questions. Pak practiced pushing out with
his open palms, as Jake had seen Bing do on the beach a year earlier.
An empty, green, wine bottle shattered under the absent-minded
pressure. Chemmg laughed. “As long as I have known you,”
he said to Pak, “you have been a show-off.”
---The next morning Chemmg was meditating
when Jake got up. Jake asked him if he wanted a cup of tea.
---“Yes, in a few minutes.
First, sit. We must talk.”
---Jake sat on the floor opposite
Chemmg.
---“You are like a fish ready
to spawn, but trapped in the wrong river. Pak and I have talked
about it. I would like you to study with me. I cannot promise
that you will ever learn feats of physical prowess. I can promise
that you will find a challenge like no other. Pak has recommended
you over all his other pupils for this, and he is right. Will
you join me?”
---“I came here to learn Tai
Chi. I’m not the best, but it’s what I want and like.”
---Chemmg’s childlike smile
threatened to connect his ears; his eyes twinkled. Jake thought
he was quivering beneath his robe. “You are one of the worst
I have ever seen to be so dedicated to the physical arts.”
---Jake’s eyes teared; he jumped
to his feet. He had taken an instant liking to Chemmg. Now he
wanted to turn away from Chemmg, to put a wall between them. Jake’s
reaction was all that Chemmg could take; Chemmg burst out laughing.
---Jake was shocked. He stared at
Chemmg in anger, and Chemmg stared back. Jake never knew at what
point the laughter stopped. He felt a gentle massaging and pressure
on the nerve centers in his solar plexus, in the base of his head,
and in his mind. His anger and hurt disappeared, but were not
forgotten. Chemmg could have removed them as though they had not
been felt, but that would not have served his purpose. Jake relaxed.
---Years later, when Jake had mastered
the technique, he looked back at those moments. Chemmg’s
control had been subtle, strong and thorough, but without bruising
or tearing. What amazed Jake was how Chemmg had been able to exercise
that control while leaving so many of Jake’s feelings intact.
---“You have potentials that
are different from the physical world you have your heart set
on. You are rare, Jacob Krajczynski.” Chemmg paused. For
a second time, Jake was shocked. It was not that Chemmg had no
trouble pronouncing his name that shocked him, but that he had
known it at all. Jake never used his surname. “We’ll
work together, and there is never enough time. Get your things,
and we will go.”
---Jake felt a hand on his shoulder.
He turned and looked at Dr. Pak. A narrow strip of morning sun
from the open window grazed his ear and ran down his right shoulder
and chest. “Go. You are in the care of the most talented
man I know. This is your destiny.”
---They drove in Jake’s car.
Chemmg explained briefly the problem of Good and Evil. Jake glanced
at Chemmg, “If Evil works through people—people who
commit crimes in order to create chaos—why not call the
police? Here at least, the police and the courts function fairly
well to remove such people from the streets.”
* * *
---The
police would slow them down, but not stop them. It would be dark
soon. Jake had checked on Martin. Martin was in a deep sleep.
---Bonnie made sandwiches for dinner,
and they split a beer. Jake was telling Russian jokes. The shriek
of a cat broke the spell. Jake put his sandwich down. He had checked
the doors a few minutes earlier. He had assured Bonnie that they
would be safe, but he was nervous. He knew he would be okay once
something happened, once he could gauge his opponent. Until then,
he worried.
---Something broke a window in the
family room. It was a rock. He picked it up, tossing it from hand
to hand as if it were too hot to hold.
---They’re
suckering me away from Bonnie, he thought. “Bonnie,
come in here,” he yelled.
---“What?” She asked,
setting her plate down on the desk next to her exercise bike.
---A second rock came through a window
in the living room, at the opposite end of the house.
---It’s not Bonnie, he realized,
it’s Martin. “Quick!”
---Jake nearly knocked her over as
he dashed out of the room and down the hall. “Come on!”
---They ran to Martin’s room.
A young man, dressed in black, held Martin’s arm, and was
leading him to the open window. As the door slammed open, the
man let go of Martin and pulled out a knife. He lunged at Jake.
Jake jumped back, out of the young man’s reach, pressing
Bonnie against the doorjamb.
---The man turned back to Martin.
---Jake tackled him, pushing him
away from Martin. The man fell across the bed, leveraging his
legs free of Jake’s grip. He spun to the floor and faced
Jake with a jackal grin; his knife slicing down at Jake’s
face. Jake struggled to find a foothold amongst the slippery CD’s,
papers, and books while keeping clear of the blade. For a second,
the man glanced away, looking for Martin. Jake got to his feet.
He parried the next swipe, and ignoring the threat of an attack
from the man’s other hand, he reached around and touched
the back of the man’s neck. A quick shift of his fingers
and Jake located the nerve cluster. He pressed, and the man collapsed–dead
on the floor.
---Bonnie was hugging Martin, standing
between him and the man on the floor. Martin’s face was
wet with tears.
---“He’ll be all right,”
Jake said to Bonnie.
---Jake looked out the window; whoever
else had been out there was gone. He led them downstairs, and
called the police. They would have a car and an ambulance there
in five minutes. Jake called Father McNamara.
---“Mac, this is Jake. I’m
with Bonnie and Martin Winslow.”
---“Are they all right?”
---“They’re safe.”
---“What’s happened?”
---“I don’t have time
to talk now. The police are on their way; I’ve had to stop
someone. We’ll—”
---“One of Martin’s friends?”
---“Yes. We’ll be tied
up for several hours. Take your time, but come over. Also, they’ll
need to sleep at your place.” A light from the driveway
shone through the window. “I’ll see you in a while.
The police are here.” He hung up.
