Shamanka (34 page)

“I wouldn't
want
to do that.” Kitty winces.

Sam, who knows a thing or two about trick swords, picks up the staff and examines it. Perhaps it's cardboard painted to look like wood, in which case it would have split with ease. Perhaps it has a false compartment in the middle or a minor explosive device.

She can't find anything dodgy at all. It's a sound piece of wood. The boy had genuinely broken it across his chest.

“Qi gong!” he cries. “What I tell you, Miss Sam? All in the breathing!”

It seems that qi gong is a force to be reckoned with. Sam is keen to master the technique and asks if he wouldn't mind teaching her the basics.

The boy throws back his head and laughs. “How long you plan to stay – your lifetime? Take you many, many years to learn. First you must master Ch'am – this is the calming of body and mind to a single focus. Only then can you endure big elephant pain. Come, the monks will show you!”

Sam, Kitty and Lola follow him into the temple. The boy slips off his shoes and enters, bowing so low his pigtail touches the wooden floor. Sitting on a jade throne is a man with a shaved head and a very round face. In front of him, ten monks are meditating; the boy sticks his tongue out.

“When you meditate,” he whispers, “you must put tip of tongue against roof of mouth. You must not let thoughts of dragons playing at your gates distract you. You must be quiet as a junzi strolling in a faraway mountain. You must be as silent as a—”

“Quiet!” bellows Fu Bar Yetah.

One of the monks tuts, his concentration ruined. Seizing the moment, the boy slides on his knees towards his master and, tugging at his voluminous trouser legs, introduces his guests.

“They have come to learn our ways, master.”

“Really, Errant Boy?” sighs Fu Bar Yetah, and then, a little more kindly, “To learn about tranquillity, first one must shatter it, I suppose.” He beckons to Sam, Kitty and Lola. “Come, friends of Ruby Featha. See what the body can do once it has been mastered!”

He claps his hands. The monks stop adjusting their underwear and picking their noses, jump to their feet and line up in front of a heavily carved trunk. Fu Bar lifts the lid.

Each monk removes a weapon of his choice, including an iron bar, a block of mahogany and a heavy rock. They then assume their positions and wait for the command – all eyes are on their master, who is holding a party popper.

He pulls the string. There's a small bang and the monks fly into action, cartwheeling through the air and flick-flacking across the floor as if they have no bones. After this warm-up, they settle down and focus on their equipment.

Sam watches carefully as the tallest monk grabs an iron bar and, with a blood-curdling roar, smashes it over his partner's skull. It snaps like a candy cane.

Kitty clutches her head. “
Ow!
That must have hurt!”

The monk remains expressionless. Surely a heavy blow like that would cause concussion, unless he's superhuman? Perhaps the bar is made of rubber. But if so, how would it make that metallic clank?

“All in the breathing!” insists Fu Bar Yetah.

The youngest monk is holding a rock. His partner, eyes narrow with concentration, holds out his arm, preparing to chop it in half with his bare hand.

“Heeee-yah!”

He strikes; the rock breaks in two. Sam wonders if it was a fake rock, possibly cut from polystyrene, but it's clear from the sound it makes as it lands that it's not – it's solid. Perhaps it's been tampered with, cracked and lightly glued together so that it falls apart when struck?

“
Bai she xin shou!
” booms the master. “Hand is accurate as spittle of a white snake!”

However, nothing can explain the fattest monk's ability to stand upside down, supported on one finger. Why doesn't it snap under his weight? Sam looks to see if he is wearing some kind of support, a glass thimble perhaps. No, there appears to be no cheating going on.

“Very muscular finger!” beams Fu, “
Cuan xin zhi!
Direct the qi right into finger, finger is as strong as dagger. Finger can pierce heart.”

The monks bow to their guests. The show is over. Were they illusions? Were they real feats of strength, or were they Chinese magic?

“Please – examine the weapons,” says the master. “They are for real. Shaolin monks do not perform tricks like monkeys, OK? With long training, a man can move mountains.”

This is a slight exaggeration, but even so, Sam is in awe of the monks. “Incredible, Mr Fu!”

He raises his neat eyebrow so high, they disappear over the back of his head. “Incredible to you in the West, but in the East? Very old hat!” He leans back in his throne and tells her a story.

“Once, the ancient gods were trying to hide the strongest power in the universe from Man so he could not use it destructively. The first god say to hide it on the mountain top – no good! Man can climb. The second god say to hide it at bottom of the sea – no good! Man can swim. The third god say to hide it in the middle of the Earth – no good either, Man can dig. Finally, the fourth and wisest god of all, he say, ‘We must hide the power
within
Man – he'll never think to look for it there!'”

“But you found the power, Mr Fu!” says Sam.

“Ah, not me personally. The power of qi gong is thousands of years old. Master it and it will make you seem superhuman – but only to those with low expectations of themselves. You, Miss Sam, are Sleeping Tiger! Great strength lies within.”

“Am I a Sleeping Tiger?” asks Kitty.

“You are Turtle with Head in Shell!” guffaws Fu Bar.

Kitty feels vaguely insulted but Fu assures her that although turtles are helpless on land they are Queens of the Ocean. Given her sailing skills, Kitty likes his metaphor after all.

The monks invite them to the tea house where they all sit on a thick rug around a low table. Lola picks the green tea leaves out of her cup and eats them. Sam asks Mr Fu if he'd be willing to teach her qi gong – just a little bit, because she's in a hurry to find her parents. Has he met her father, John Tabuh, by any chance? Only she's certain he's visited China in the past few years. Fu Bar Yetah presses his fingers together and rests his chin on them.

“Slowly, slowly catchee daddy.”

“Sorry, Mr Fu?”

“I met your father last year,” admits Fu. “He was most impressed by qi gong and wanted to learn its secrets. He ask if it is possible to breathe qi into a corpse and bring it back to life.”

At this point, Errant Boy trips with the teapot and splashes boiling tea over his master's head. Lesser men might have sworn but Fu Bar deals with the pain by taking a deep breath and inflating his stomach like a balloon. His belly is now so full of qi, it shifts the table forward; he's now roughly the same shape as Lola.

“Sorry, master!” fawns the boy. He takes out a white handkerchief and buffs Fu's bald pate until he can see his reflection in it. Sam daren't continue the conversation until he has put his hanky away.

“Do you think it's possible to resurrect a dead person with qi gong, Mr Fu?”

Fu Bar nods his head and the sunlight dances off his glossy pate like a swarm of fireflies. “I do not doubt it – but to learn how takes longer than a dragon's tale. Your father was very keen to learn but he have no time! He and his wife were in a hurry to go to India.”

“Ah, Missy Christa – beautiful lady!” sighs Errant Boy.

Sam's heart leaps. “Do you hear that, Kitty? My mother was here! She was alive and well!”

Fu Bar Yetah pulls at his chin and pauses ominously. “Alive? In a manner of speaking.”

Sam's smile falters. “What, was she ill? Was she … dying?”

The master folds his hands and bows gravely. “A mother who loses her daughter dies every day.”

The masked magician produces an oblong piece of wood the size of a bed with hundreds of sharp nails sticking out of it. Naked to the waist, the magician lies down on the bed and goes to sleep. The body should be pierced to death, but on standing up, there's hardly a mark to be seen. How?

THE SECRET

This trick has nothing to do with paranormal strength or supreme faith. If there are enough nails, the weight of the body is distributed evenly between them so that the force exerted on each nail is not enough to break the skin. The dangerous parts are lying down and getting up where the weight may be briefly supported by only a few nails – ouch!

W
e're flying to India to visit a man called Bahut. His name has been throbbing away at the top of the witch doctor's list and the notebook smells faintly of aloo sag; an Indian dish made from spinach, which tastes much nicer than it sounds. Lola is looking lovely in a sari, Kitty is too hot and Sam is fretting about her mother; had she become seriously ill in China?

“Kitty, can't you ask the spirits if my mother is still alive?”

Kitty refuses and fans herself with an in-flight magazine. “Take no notice of Mr Pu. She can't have been that ill if your father took her to India.”

“Maybe she was dead when he took her to India.”

“Yes, yes, whatever.”

Sam is surprised at her callous tone. “Don't you care?”

Kitty gulps hard and stifles a sob. “Didn't mean it. Hate flying … arghhh the plane's tipping! Can't breathe!”

No wonder she's uncomfortable. It must be hard trying to suck enough oxygen through the nostril holes in her mask, but she still won't take it off.

“You might be cooler if you cut your hair shorter,” suggests Sam.

“I like it long.”

“It's funny how the fringe never seems to grow at all,” says Sam.

“It gets to a certain length, then it stops,” Kitty insists.

They travel in silence. Sam practises qi gong in her plane seat. Mr Fu taught her the basics during their two-week stay at the Hall of the Heavenly Kings. He was an excellent teacher, she was a quick learner and by the time she left, she'd learnt how to direct qi into her knees. Her jumps were nothing like as high as Errant Boy's, but that would come in time, Fu said.

“Practise night and day and you will jump as high as the moon hare!” he'd told her. “You very, very good … for a girl.”

They land in India. Sam practises her vertical jumps while they're waiting for the train to Nepal. Lola joins in and trips over her sari. Kitty is irritated by their boundless energy.

“How can you jump about in this heat?”

“It's all in the breathing.”

The train is packed and they're pushed into the carriages with sticks by the Indian porters. There's nowhere left to sit, and halfway to Nepal, Kitty can stand it no longer and announces that if they don't get off
right
now, she will die.

“But the train's still moving, Kitty.”

“Don't care. Let me through! Let me out!”

She opens the carriage door. Sam can't stop her.

“Kitty – don't!”

Kitty jumps.

The train is going slowly but the momentum is enough to send her flying across the dirt track. Sam fights her way to the door.

“Quick, Lola. Kitty's hurt.”

They hold hands and jump. They tumble and roll. Miraculously, neither is injured. Sam dusts herself down and runs over to Kitty who is lying on her front, clutching her face.

“Are you OK? Have you broken anything, Kitty?”

“Don't roll me over, I'm fine.”

She's trying desperately to adjust her mask. It had rolled up over her chin as she skidded along the ground. Sam tries to help her up, but Kitty lashes out. “Get off! Stop
fussing
. Go and hire a trick from over there. Leave me alone.”

Sam turns round. By the side of the dirt track, there are trucks for hire called tuk-tuks. The man in charge only has one eye. He mistakes Lola for the girl of his dreams and tries to exchange a tuk-tuk for her hand in marriage. He puts his arm around her waist, which Lola doesn't object to, but when he pinches her bottom, she slaps him round the face so hard he swallows his gold tooth. Luckily, Kitty arrives and has a word with him.