The Gone-Away World (14 page)

Ma Lubitsch taught me there was only ever one truth. That was how you knew it; it was unique. There were no multiple versions of events, there was no “from a certain point of view.” Ma Lubitsch is above all a mother, and motherhood is not a binary state. But here, by the roadside, in front of the smouldering char which was the House of the Voiceless Dragon, there are two truths. Both of them acknowledge certain facts. This house is number five in the street. It was inhabited by an old man of Chinese origin, and contained a collection of antique weapons, a lot of geriatric furniture and an antique gramo-phone. Sometime between six and midnight, when they returned, a fire started on the garden side of the house, which swiftly consumed the place.

So much is, as it were, the skeleton. The fire, however, has consumed the flesh, and so the skull of truth has two faces. The first is simple and bleakly comfortable. Yumei and Ophelia were staying with Master Wu while their home was being redecorated, but were out that evening at a puppet show. Alone, and perhaps lonely, Wu Shenyang went to bed late, having consumed a certain amount of brandy. He neglected to place the guard in front of the fire, and thus a stray spark emitted from green logs crackled across the room and ignited the mismatched curtains. The house was filled with paper and wood, and the blaze was rapid and very hot. This would be a hard truth. That kind of grief is of a commonplace sort, and it is cool enough to hold.

The second face is fanciful. There is no evidence for it. It is a hero's death. It goes like this:

The big clock is
tock tick
ing and the fire is low. Master Wu is eating spiced apple cake—Elisabeth has sent him one in a Tupperware pot. Master Wu is fascinated by Tupperware. The variety of it, the fabulous utility of reusable, sealable plastic containers pleases him. This box is the new kind with the little wings which clip down over the side to make the boxes airtight. He is holding the box loosely in one hand and flipping the side up,
clack,
and down again,
plick plack;
there are two fastenings on each side—they open as one, but you have to close them individually.
Clack
. . .
plick plack.
The plastic is cool, but still ductile or elastic (this part of my mind doesn't have full access to my education, isn't sure which word is appropriate). It is bendy, anyway, bendy enough that old fingers can open it without catching fingernails or abrading skin.
Clack
. . .
plick plack.
The apple cake is very good. It is fresh and sweet, with moist bits of apple and the applegoo which happens when you make a cake like this and get it just right. There are none of those awful retch-inducing bits of core which some cooks insist are an important part of the apple, presumably out of a false sense of parsimony, because those bits ruin perfectly good mouthfuls and therefore consume scarce apple cake resources. Elisabeth is an apple cake perfectionist.
Clack
. . .
plick plack.
Master Wu's fingers trace the smooth curve of the Tupperware box. It is a largish one. This particular model, he knows, comes with two segmented trays, so that you can store different but related foodstuffs in it. You could keep, for example, two portions of chicken, two of rice, and two of vegetables in oyster sauce. He does not actually like oyster sauce. It always tastes of oysters.
Clack
. . .
plick plack.
The box lid is a smooth quadrilateral with stubby wings. It is reinforced across the top with flanges or stanchions, injection-moulded as part of the lid form. It is not heavy, but it is strong. The base is more flexible, possibly so that it can absorb little shocks and knocks, possibly to allow for food and liquids which contract on cooling. The plastic is also resilient to being cut, almost sucks together around the small nicks and scars where someone has cut a cake
inside
it—something Master Wu would never do.
Clack
. . .
plick plack
. . .
tink.

Master Wu does not change his position. He does not tense. He is exactly as he was a moment ago. And yet everything is different. The noise
tink
is a specific thing. It has implications and layers of significance, like a sort of deranged domino game spread out across several floors of a mansion house. It is the sound made by the leftmost bell on the middle line. It means that a small amount of pressure has been applied to the middle window. The fact that only one bell sounded means that it was a very, very slight pressure, and it has now been withdrawn. It is as if a butterfly took off from the window. At this time of night, of course, it would be a moth.
Clack
. . .
plick plack.
So. The moth has departed. However . . .
tink.
It has a somewhat heavier-handed friend, perhaps a boy-moth chasing a girl-moth. If so, he is doing so just by the window on the right. And . . .
tinktink
. . . the girl-moth is a game lass, and she is running him all around the houses and all the way over to . . .
tink
. . . the window on the left.

Master Wu is sitting in the rocker. He is an old man. He has eaten a lot of cake and drunk some tea, and he's been playing with a Tupperware box for half an hour. If the cause of the bell ringing were not a pair of randy moths—if, for example, someone were thinking of entering his house with a view to assassinating him—they could not fail to see that he is over the hill. A harmless old geezer who is now falling asleep, lulled by the rhythm of his own fidgeting and the gentle movement of the chair. Perhaps he has chosen this fraught moment to enter a second childhood. His eyelids droop, but do not quite close. He is so old that the difference is hard to detect.

The man who comes through the leftmost window is big, which makes his silence all the more scary. He is in amazing shape; in order to step through as fast and quietly as he does, he has essentially to do the splits while standing on one leg, hold it, extend himself into the room and never lose his balance or his control as he moves onto the other foot. All this he does in a fraction of an eyeblink. The bells on the window make one more
tink
noise before he stills them.

Master Wu does not wake. He mumbles something, paws at his Tupperware. The intruder freezes. Two more men enter the room through the same window. More wait in the garden. There is an army out there. The ninjas—the foot soldiers of the Clockwork Hand Society—have finally come for Wu Shenyang. And as they look down at the old fart dozing in his chair, and as they realise that they have come all this way in such numbers and with such caution to deal with one octagenarian has-been, the leader gives a soft, unpleasant chuckle.

The lid of the Tupperware box hits him squarely over the eye. It's not a dangerous cut, but it makes his forehead bleed and he can't see clearly. He loses depth perception almost immediately, and so he cannot defend himself as the rocking chair flings Master Wu forward and almost into his arms. He thrusts and twists with his longknife, and it finds a target, but that target is the base of the Tupperware box. Master Wu twists it sharply. The plastic clutches around the knife blade, and the other man cannot easily withdraw it or hold onto it and consequently is in danger of being disarmed. His decision to cling to his weapon is instinctive, given that he has already been partially blinded and is not yet caught up with events as they are unfolding. Master Wu does not attempt to take the knife away. He accepts the direction his enemy has chosen, and flows with it, continues it and suddenly owns it. The other man finds his hips out of synch with his feet, his hands too far away from the centre line of his body for his arms to bring their strength to bear. The cycle ends with Master Wu in possession of the longknife, and the big man on tiptoe with the razor's edge under his chin. That's what you get for ignoring the beauty of Tupperware.

Master Wu chooses not to kill the man at this time. That is, in a sense, the definition of being a good guy. He knocks him out and hopes, very briefly, that his enemy will reconsider the path his life has taken. Then he steps smoothly between two more opponents and redirects their attacks towards each other. Regrettably, they are trying very hard to kill him and one of them therefore sustains a nasty wound high in the chest. This distracts his partner, and Master Wu takes advantage of this, propelling him backwards into two of his friends who are preparing an attack of their own.

The fight scene goes on, and it is fluid and magnificent, but at some point Master Wu realises something. He is getting tired, and they are not. He is unscathed, but by the same token he cannot sustain injuries, or he will lose. He has to be perfect; they only have to be persistent. He realises that even if he can beat all these men—even if he were to kill them, one by one—more will come, at a time and place not of his choosing. If he continues this battle much longer, the likelihood is that Yumei and Ophelia will come home, and even if they are not killed, they will be exposed. At the moment Master Wu could well be a bachelor. The ninjas have no knowledge of his family arrangements, because they haven't had the opportunity to look around inside the house, and that's where all the family photos are. They've seen only this room, and they've been kinda busy. Similarly, they do not have any idea who his students are. All that information is in the desk. Thus, he is the weak link in his enemies' chain. Without him, they simply cannot find the Voiceless Dragon. It will be not only silent, but invisible. That's the kind of situation which makes a ninja's shoulder blades itch. It will be interesting to see how they like having the shoe on the other foot. And it is at this point that he makes a decision.

There are three men coming for him now. They approach slightly out of time with one another, which makes dealing with them exponentially more difficult, and by-the-by implies that they're very good. It's hard to avoid accepting the rhythm of those around you. Master Wu steps to meet one of his attackers, then slides through the space another is preparing to occupy, and slams the second man into the first. Both of them tumble into the fireplace and ignite. The third man hesitates, then breaks off to haul them out. Master Wu takes the opportunity to open the liquor cabinet and select two bottles. He smashes them over his head, creating two extremely unpleasant weapons and also drenching himself in alcohol. He steps to one side, allowing a fresh enemy to destroy the cabinet, breaking more bottles, and then he moves around the room, leaving a trail. He ducks and bobs, slices and scores, his arms whirling and twisting around his body. As he passes the fireplace, he shuffles, splashes booze into the flames. An instant later, fire laps at his feet, following him as he continues around the room. The curtains catch, and the painted walls start to smoke. The ninjas pursue him; blades slash past his back and over his head, heavy hands clutch at him and stamping feet thunder against the ground where he is no longer standing. They cannot touch him. Wu Shenyang is made of water.

And then, amid the chaos, there is a single perfect moment of stillness, as all the actions and reactions are held in balance. Master Wu smiles, reaches out to the flames and catches fire. He is still smiling as he turns to the remaining ninjas, a glass razor in each hand, burning arms spread wide. Every single one of them will remember this feeling for the rest of their lives, in quiet moments and in the cold, truthful hours of the night, and every time they see Tupperware. They will remember the terrible old man with placid eyes who stepped nimbly towards them while his skin blistered and his hair fizzled away; who advanced as they fell back. They will remember that he forced them out of his home into the night, and that he followed them, and kept them at bay until the house and all its contents were beyond salvation, and then kneeled down neatly to expire, at peace, while they cowered in the dark. They will remember it as the moment they discovered fear.

M
ASTER
W
U
's funeral is surprisingly large. It seems he knew nearly everyone in Cricklewood Cove. Every tradesman, every family, every teacher from the Soames School, everyone from every beach house and second home, all of them arrive to see him off. People bring cakes and tea, and we all stand and raise them in salute—I had no idea he knew so many people. I mention it to Elisabeth.

“I asked them to come,” she says. “It's traditional to have a lot of guests. And I couldn't—” Her mouth gets very tight, and her hands clench in her pockets. I know what she is not able to say; I too am disappointed. The people we could not find—despite great efforts—are Master Wu's other students. In every city, on every continent, the Voiceless Dragon has vanished—boiled away like steam. Or, perhaps, ashamed to have left him alone, they're just dodging our calls.

In the midst of the crowd, Yumei and Ophelia are almost invisible, two more guests at a big, bewildered show funeral for an old man. The urn is very small, so it's not clear who carries it as we walk solemnly out of town to the sea. We scatter Master Wu into the wind from a high place, and he drifts like a cloud until the breeze whisks him off on new adventures. Elisabeth embraces me, then turns away, and we grieve separately.

Gonzo and Aline, always uneasy in each other's company, take turns with me when I return to Jarndice. They get me drunk and make me forget or at least live through it all, until two weeks later I wake and discover that although the sky is grey and the world is dark, it is a dark which rouses my heart rather than subdues it. It is evening, and I am not hungover. I can function again, and indeed I am supercharged. The presence of death has woken me in some profound way, and I take great bites out of life. Aline and I screw like mink, and I leap from the bed as if sleep is for other people, and devour books and concerts and beverages and vast amounts of food. I put on several pounds of bulk. I wear my shirt open halfway down my chest without irony, and no one sees fit to mock. I am Tarzan, I am Long John Silver, I am
all goddam that.
Behold! Gonzo finds me alarming.