Since September the tai chi club have practiced their art through wind and rain, snow, freezing sleet, thunder, pestilence and war. While they’ve made their circles in the air the earth has travelled nearly two thirds of the way around the sun. Drawn as they are from every corner of the town and university, the young and the old, male and female, and with their goal of co-operative action and individual improvement, they are the very pattern of human civilization. Under the tutelage of Shayne and Shawn they have hardened, quickened, wisened, made the dean’s list, and tanned. And now they have swords.
Amid the snowy bones of late winter they flash their scimitars in synchronous swirls, red tassels flying. They lunge, step back, cut the air with a figure eight, double axle, land in place, slice at the ankle, somersault, slice at the neck, land, and begin all over again.
Shayne and Shawn step up.
Shayne: “Tai chi club! You are now tai chi army! There is only one obstacle to you now! Da Xi Shuai! Da Xi Shuai is the enemy of Chihli! Arrest Da Xi Shuai!”
They scatter.
Da Xi Shuai and F5 are buying sub sandwiches. Sword-bearing members of the tai chi army dash by, skid to a halt, and crowd around the store window. One of them has a cell phone out.
Henrietta: “This can’t be good.”
The six bolt through the kitchen and out the back door, pursued closely by the minions of Chihli.
Jacinthe and Agnes are out walking. Jacinthe is feeling a bit burdened by the big void in her love life, and, much to her own surprise, has turned to Agnes for advice. Agnes, who has no sense of having been set up with Dwayne by Jacinthe, is full of big-sisterly advice.
Agnes: “One is as good as another. Just walk up to one of them, grab him by the generals, and tell him, ‘Okay, buster, these are the rules.’”
“You think that would work?”
“Don’t wait till the playoffs are over!”
“Huh. Maybe I’ll try that.”
A figure runs along a adjacent rooftop.
Jacinthe: “Did you see that?”
“Where?”
“It’s gone now. Wait, look out!”
A dozen tai chi warriors approach doing handsprings, then plant their feet with fists poised. An Ugg boot spins past Jacinthe’s ear.
Agnes: “They’re firing their boots at us!”
“I don’t think that was intentional!”
“I think it’s time we got out of here!”
They run for it.
Meanwhile, Da Xi Shuai and the Famous5 are tearing down York Street toward the edge of town, pursued by about two thirds of the tai chi army.
Emily M.: “Da Xi Shuai! On behalf of F5 I just want to thank you for everything!”
Lou’Eaze: “Yeah, everything!”
The rest concur.
Da Xi Shuai: “That’s nice! But we’re not done yet! We just need an idea!”
Nellz Bellz: “You’re not Canadian, so maybe you don’t know this one. But I gotta say, this situation reminds me a lot of the Oka crisis!”
Suddenly the five put on the brakes and start walking away in five directions.
The pursuers stop in their tracks like the proverbial donkey between two bushels of carrots, confounded by the banquet of available prisoners. Gradually they break up and start in all directions after the dispersing rappers. Only a few target the scholar-warrior, who is now half a block ahead of them.
Da Xi Shuai leads them out of town, onto the marsh and down to the Tantramar River. The vagabond scrambles up a stalwart dyke and down the other side, followed moments later by the vigilantes, who stop on top and walk along, watching the fugitive float away in an aluminum rowboat on the outgoing tide.
Meanwhile Korogi and Dumont are walking across campus. White-clad tai chi club members dart by.
Korogi: “I think something’s up.”
Dumont: “Are swords really part of tai chi?”
“Not usually.”
As they watch a foursome join hands and launch a fifth member into the air to peer into a third-floor window.
Dumont: “Definitely looking for something.”
Korogi: “I think I know what.”
They head for the psychology department. Dumont uses a master key, they enter, then head downstairs. The stairs get progressively cobwebbier and the walls rockier, murkier, and black-and-whiter. Eventually they come to a thick metal door.
They open the vault door. Shayne and Shawn are in the radio-free room, bent over the Spring Snow Jade, which is saying:
“Cell phone? What is this cell phone? I told you I wanted a weapon. Surely in 2006 there’s some weapon that can turn the advantage to Chihli! You idiots! History will never be the same!”
The twins straighten up, embarrassed.
Shawn: “General Wu.”
Korogi takes possession of the Jade. Everyone files out. Korogi, last to go, has a notion, pushes the door shut, sets the stone back on the table, sings a stanza of “Picking Flowers,” then leans down like someone recording an answering-machine message and declares, in clear Chinese, “You are about to be attacked.”
Outside, the tai chi army are milling around, trading war stories and showing off their prisoners. Professor Rhodenizer strides into the midst of the rabble, chewing a cigar and packing the AK-47. She pulls a curved magazine from her coat pocket, attaches it to the underside of the weapon, points the gun skyward, and makes a fist around the trigger. Burning gunpowder flowers brightly around the muzzle as the magazine empties into the clouds overhead.
“Everybody go home right now, and get to bed!”
They go!
Wanxian. The Dean and interpreter get off a slender river boat and walk upslope among the crumbling concrete structures. This town is a dump. If anybody ever cared about this place they moved on when the dam was announced. The Dean feels a bit depressed by the sight of it, and also by the failure of his mission, but also a little bit liberated, like an straight-A student who has just flunked out for the first time.
They ask around and are shown the factory: a nondescript gray block like any other. Inside, the looms and sewing machines clatter on operated by women in yellow armgaiters who look up and tell each other jokes about the newcomers. Most of the fabric on the machines is Cornell red, but in the back corner there’s a small castle of clear plastic bags full of garnet and gold. They go back there.
A grandmotherly worker glances up from her knitting needles. She looks the two up and down, then sits back to hear their story. The interpreter fills her in.
She looks at the Dean and tells him:
[Interpreter]: “So you’re the retailer. I never thought I’d meet you. You look like a school teacher.”
“Ask her how long she’ll stay here.”
[Interpreter]: “Till the water comes in the door.”
“Ask her what she’ll do then.”
A long exchange follows in which they negotiate an answer and she knits.
Interpreter: “She says she’ll return to her village.”
“Ask her if it was all right, doing this for us.”
The woman gives the Dean a pitying and not unaffectionate smile, casts off the last stitch, breaks the yarn, and throws the scarf into a plastic bag. She pats his arm.
[Interpreter]: “There, there.”
Dean: “Thanks, I got that.”
Korogi is eating lunch in Dumont’s office with one leg over the arm of the interviewee’s chair, examining the contents of the room.
Dumont: “Looking for something to read?”
“Or a weapon. You never know when you’re about to be ambushed. Is that trash can metal?”
“Are you or are you not going to do something about that little punk?”
“I don’t know. Part of me says this is working out as it should and it would be wrong to interfere with it.”
“It’s not interfering when you’re getting the shit kicked out of you.”
“Hold on a minute, I win my fights.”
“You tie your fights.”
“Oh. Well, yeah, okay. I guess I have to find some way to get through to that kid that doesn’t involve us beating each other’s brains out.”
“How many times have I heard that sentence in this office? Look, here’s a book I want you to read.”
“I’m Okay, You’re Okay?” You’re joking.”
“Do you give your martial arts instructor this much attitude? Here it is in a nutshell. You’re locked into some kind of WWF death-match with that kid. As long as you keep butting foreheads like this it’s going to go on and on. At least, until one of you goes to jail. If you want to end it, you have to learn how to disarm your enemy. No more head on. Walk in from the blind spot. Speak in the voice of someone your opponent would never fight."
Korogi blinks and gives a mouthful of tuna sandwich a meditative chew. This is really sound advice.
So one muddy Tuesday morning Korogi hands Wheeler an envelope, who gives it to Jacinthe aftermusic appreciation class, who runs off to find Emily M., who takes it to Da Xi Shuai. The envelope contains a formal challenge, on very good cardstock, stating time and place.
The next morning at dawn two small groups appear on opposite sides of Rectory Lane field. Professor Korogi and Da Xi Shuai separate from their respective supporters and walk through the ground mist to the centre of the field. Korogi is dressed in traditional Japanese garb and has the wooden kenjitsu sword in a sheath between the shoulder blades. Da Xi Shuai, in castoffs from Frenchy’s, has the five-foot staff. The two take up position about twenty feet apart and just a little out of earshot of both groups. Professor Dumont, in the Korogi camp, shoulders a knapsack containing a first aid kit. Coincidentally Jacinthe has done likewise. The two groups watch as Korogi bows deeply with arms folded across the breast and the Spring Snow Jade in one hand. They can see that Korogi is orating at length. Da Xi Shuai steps forward, chin up, staff in one hand, listens, wavers, looks suddenly away from then back at Korogi, wobbles visibly, and faints dead to the ground. F5 shriek and run onto the field. Korogi walks off toward the professors.
Dumont: “What did you say?”
“I greeted my honoured opponent as the living avatar of my great-grandfather, also named Da Xi Shuai.”
Wheeler: “That kid is the reincarnation of your great-grandfather?”
“Yes.”
Rhodenizer: “You don’t know that that’s true.”
Korogi: “You don’t know that it’s false.”
Wheeler, Rhodenizer and Korogi are seated in the new faculty club, second floor, Centennial Hall. The leather upholstery is almost exactly the same lustrous red-brown as the almontillado in their glasses. The three exchange high fives.
Wheeler: “Nice work, Korogi.”
“Oh, it was nothing, really. Just an innocent question.”
“Oh, modesty. Those Finnish researchers were raving about how we were a decade ahead of the competition in chronophilogical theory.”
Rhodenizer: “I heard that one of them handed the chancellor a 50-million-Euro cheque at the wine and cheese.”
“That’s a myth. It was 45.”
“Well, the Sisu Institute is a permanent fixture now.”
“Where will it go?”
“I’ve seen an artist’s concept of an inverted pyramid over the soccer field.”
“How will they stick the red sandstone on that?”
They sit back and bask in the glow.
Rhodenizer: “The Dean had a nice office. Where is he now?”
Wheeler: “Basement Trueman.”
Korogi: “Say, whatever became of that machine-*cough* of yours?”
“Oh, well, if indeed that thing ever existed it could now possibly be in the muddy bottom of the Aulac River.”
Wheeler: “I hear your two TAs have applied for refugee status.”
Korogi: “Yes. We’ll see how that goes. Apparently there are certain interests in Taiwan who would be unhappy to see them around.”
Rhodenizer: “Maybe they can stay and work in your new monastery.”
“If I can get the current inhabitant to agree with them on anything. We’re still working on the lovingkindness thing.”
The clouds pass swiftly across the sun-warmed marsh. In the former faculty club, now Marsh Mountain Monastery, Da Xi Shuai is seated in the lotus position. Attracted by the smell of incense a bee hovers noisy about a foot from the ear of the meditating scholar-warrior. Da Xi Shuai opens one eye and glares at the insect.
“Fuck off, bee.”
August. A minibus pulls up to the side of the road and Jake gets out with a knapsack and a plastic cooler. He trudges up the driveway and goes in the kitchen door. At the kitchen table he kicks off his muddy workboots and throws a sweaty baseball cap at the coatrack. His mother calls, “There’s some mail for you on the counter.” He reaches back for the manila envelope, opens it, and reads:
[Page 1: panel 1] A truck crests a hill. We can make out the faces of the driver and passenger. [1:2] Wide view: the Tantramar Marsh. [1:3] Driver, over the racket of the deisel engine and transmission [the written noises snake from panel to panel]: “So, what brings you to Sackville, anyway?” [1:4] Passenger: “I’m looking for something!” [1:5] Driver, wrestling gearbox: “Looking? Looking for what?” [1:6] Passenger: “Myself!” [1:7] Driver: “Eh? You travelled from China to Sackville, New Brunswick, to look for your cell phone?” [1:8] Passenger (laughing): “Yes!”
Jake smiles, nods, and starts searching the junk drawer for looseleaf.
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