Satori

could cost him his life. So she pushed him hard, insisted on perfection, challenged his intellect and considerable talent for languages. He exceeded her expectations – his pride made him a superb student.

They conversed through lunch, and then Nicholai took his customary walk in the garden. Knowing that he needed solitude, she was discreet enough never to accept his polite invitation to join him. Instead, she had a small rest before starting preparations for dinner. When he came back, they would go over maps of Montpellier, photographs of certain cafes, restaurants, and landmarks that a native would know. She quizzed him about the Place Ste.-Anne, the marketplace, who sold the best peaches, where one could get a decent bottle of wine for a price.

Following the afternoon study session, Nicholai repaired to his room to rest, study, and bathe, which he did in a gloriously hot Japanese tub. He emerged from the near-scalding water delightfully refreshed, and then dressed for dinner, which was always French and always superb. After dinner they had a coffee and a cognac, conversed casually, perhaps listened to a little radio until Solange retired to her bedroom.

Then Nicholai changed into a gi and went out into the garden for his nightly ritual. At first, Solange peeked through her window blinds to watch him perform the intricate maneuvers of the kata – the repetitive martial arts routines – of hoda korosu, “naked kill.” He appeared to be dancing, but after a few nights of watching Solange started to perceive that he was fighting numerous imaginary enemies coming at him from all directions, and that the motions of the “dance” were in fact defensive blocks followed by lethal strikes. If it was a dance, it was a dance of death.

Nicholai enjoyed these sessions very much – it was a joy to exercise in the garden, it calmed his mind and spirit, and besides, his instinct told him that he might very well need to polish his rusty skills to survive the mission, the target of which Haverford would still not disclose.

So Nicholai exercised with a purpose, glad to find that his mind and body responded even after the years of relative inactivity – although he did thousands of press-ups and sit-ups in his cell – and that the complicated and subtle movements of the hoda korosu kata came back to him.

He had started studying “naked kill” during his second year in Tokyo. The rarefied form of karate – which itself means “empty hand” – was taught by an old Japanese master of the lethal art who at first refused to teach an apparent Westerner the ancient secrets. But Nicholai persevered, mostly by kneeling in a painful position at the edge of the mat and watching, night after night, until finally the master called him over and administered a beating that was the first of many lessons.

Essential to hoda korosu was the mastery of ki, the internal life force that came from the proper management of breath. It was ki, flowing through the body from the lower abdomen to every vein, muscle, and nerve in the body, that gave the hoda korosu strikes their lethal force, especially at close range.

The other necessary element was the ability to calm the mind, to free it for the creativity to find a lethal weapon among common objects that might be at hand in the suddenness of an unexpected attack.

As he resumed his practice now, the first few nights were brutal in their clumsiness and would have been appalling had he not found his ineptitude almost comical. But his quickness and strength developed quickly and it wasn’t long before he reacquired some skill and even a measure of grace. His master had taught him – sometimes with a bamboo rod across the back – to train with utter seriousness, to picture his enemies as he dispatched them, and Nicholai did this as he slid back and forth across the garden, repeating the lengthy kata dozens of times before he stopped, his gi soaked with sweat. Then he treated himself to a quick bath, collapsed into bed, and was soon asleep.

One morning, two weeks into his stay, Solange surprised him by saying, “This is a big day for you, Nicholai.”

“How so?”

“The unveiling, so to speak.”

“Of…”

“You, of course,” she said. “Your face.”

He had gone to the doctor’s office once a week for the hefty Irish nurse to change his wrappings, none too gently at that. But she had deliberately kept him away from a mirror until the healing process was complete, so this would be the first time that he would see his reconstructed face.

If he was at all nervous or anxious, he didn’t betray it. It was as if Solange had told him that they were going to see a photo exhibit or a film. He seemed detached. If it were me, she thought, I would be a mess – he was as cool as a March morning, placid as a still pond.

“The doctor said that I could do it,” Solange said.

“Now?” Nicholai asked.

“If you wish.”

Nicholai shrugged. It would be nice to have the bandages off, certainly, but he wasn’t really all that curious about his face. He had sat in solitary confinement for those years, where it really didn’t matter what one looked like – there was no one there to react except the guards.

But suddenly he felt a twinge of anxiety, which surprised and displeased him. Suddenly it did matter to him what he looked like, and he realized that it was because of her.

I care what she thinks, he marveled to himself. I’m afraid of how she’ll react when the bandages come off and I am still ugly. He didn’t know that such feelings still resided in him.

Remarkable, he thought.

“I’m ready,” Nicholai said.

They went into the bathroom. She sat him down on a stool in front of the mirror, stood behind him, and gently unwrapped the bandages.

He was beautiful.

There is no other word for it, Solange thought. He is a beautiful man. His emerald green eyes stood out now against the high, sharp cheekbones. His long jaw was strong, his dimpled chin cute without being at all effeminate. And he was youthful-looking – far younger than his twenty-six years, even with all he’d been through.

“Bravo, Doctor,” Solange said. “Are you pleased?”

I’m relieved, Nicholai thought, seeing the smile on her face. She would have feigned the smile in any case, but he was relieved that the surgeon’s apparent skill had saved them both that indignity. He said, “I’m not sure that I recognize myself.”

“You are very handsome.”

“You think so?”

“Listen to you, fishing for a compliment,” Solange said. “Yes, I think so. You are very handsome. But now you make me feel so old.”

“You’re beautiful and you know it.”

“But fading,” she says. “Perhaps I should go see this doctor…”

8

HAVERFORD CAME that afternoon.

He inspected Nicholai’s face as if it were a product to be testmarketed and then pronounced it satisfactory. “He did a good job.”

“I’m pleased that you’re pleased,” Nicholai answered.

They sat down in the dining room. Haverford spread a file out on the table and without preamble began, “You are Michel Guibert, twenty-six years old, born in Montpellier, France. When you were ten years old your family moved to Hong Kong to pursue your father’s import-export business. You survived the Japanese occupation because your family were residents of Vichy France and therefore at peace with the Axis powers. By the time the war ended you were old enough to go into the family business.”

“Which was?”

“Arms,” Haverford said. “La famille Guibert has been in the weapons black market since the ball-and-musket era.”