The Gaze of Caprice (The Caprice Trilogy Book 1) (29 page)

Xiaoyu was moved into
Island Gardens Plaza Hotel
number 311.    The building wasn’t tall and skinny; it was short and fat.  It took up half the block and only a quarter of the sky.  The face of the building was flat with ribs showing.  Angular cement pillars striped the face of the building on either side of each window.  Each window gave birth to an external AC unit.  The building had a ten year-old design with a one year-old paint job.  The baby-blue hotel wasn’t high-class; it was middle of the road after renovation.  Uncle Woo wanted it that way.  Uncle Woo liked his branch to keep a low-profile.  The only thing lower than the building’s profile was the building itself.  It was a four-story endomorph surrounded by twenty-story athletes.  The building wasn’t tall enough to make the team but useful enough to make the cut—the Moons owned the whole thing out right.  The hotel wasn’t big enough to have a full restaurant.  It provided a simple buffet breakfast of rice, eggs, dumplings and spring rolls with your choice of tea or undrinkable coffee.  Still, many drank the coffee.  Xiaoyu was given special status.  He was brought his choice of breakfast from the buffet.  If the hotel ran out of anything, it was instructed to take special requests from room 311.  At night the kitchen wasn’t open, so someone was instructed to fill his order from the menus of nearby restaurants.  After a few weeks of residency, Xiaoyu had compiled a rainbow assortment of menus from local restaurants.  He trained with Master Song during the day which he enjoyed, but his favorite activity was pouring over the pink, blue and yellow menu leaflets in the evening.   Xiaoyu wasn’t allowed to order food directly to the hotel on his own.  The front desk staff would pick up his food and made sure it was delivered to his room quickly.

Xiaoyu and Master Song began to train at a local sparring gym—the warehouse had out lived its usefulness.  Xiaoyu would be fighting on a large stage so he needed a bigger practice home.  More than anything, he needed opponents.  The gym was relatively new—no rust and no mildew—so many Sanda boxing coaches had moved their business to the gym.  Wushu students trained there as well in the mornings.  The gym had a daily evolution from practitioners of martial arts to practitioners of martial acts.  By four o’clock in the afternoon, there wasn’t a Taichi or Wushu student to be found.  The gym was full of kickboxing students whose movements were directed at targets.  In the middle of the gym, was a training ring.  The ring was a perfect square—a 6x6 meter laboratory.  During practice, two fighters could share the ring with their sparring partners.  For a timed fight, the conditions were as real as could be.  The fight would be organized and the fighters would be stuck with each other, until one of them bowed out or knocked out.  Xiaoyu’s next fight was in the ring roughly six weeks after he fought the drone.  This fight was different.  There were other boys his age sitting in foldable steel chairs around the ring.  One of the gym staff served as referee.  The fight itself was not controversial, Xiaoyu won by knocking the other boy out at the end of the eleventh minute.  The controversy surrounded how much padding the boys should wear.  Sanda was a gloves only affair.  Punching was allowed.  Kicking was allowed, as was grappling, but the only protection afforded was your opponent’s padded gloves and your ability to defend yourself.  Mouthpieces and groin cups were a given.  Xiaoyu was almost ten years-old and his opponent was almost twelve.   The adults realized the boys couldn’t hit each other as hard as if they were full-grown.  But the organizers didn’t want the boys to sustain injuries that might harm their physical development.  The decision was to let the boys wear padded headgear but not foot pads.  Instead, their feet and ankles would be taped to guard against flesh wounds, as was tradition.

The fight was informative for almost everyone in the gym.  The other boys watching would have bet against Xiaoyu initially; he seemed shy early on—afraid to hit or get hit.  What it took them almost three minutes to realize was Xiaoyu wasn’t a fighter ready to fight.  He was a different kind of creature, a boy gifted with the strength of a grown woman—his own mother.  Xiaoyu was strong enough to deliver a solid blow to his opponent.  But his mother’s energy gave him an almost female intuition.  Unlike the other boy, he was able to ignore the poke of his Y-chromosome—egging him to land the first blow.  He understood trying to land the first punch increased his likelihood of making the first mistake.  His intuition was diplomatic enough to give that courtesy to the other boy.  When the other boy obliged him, the fight took a clear direction—in Xiaoyu’s favor.  Xiaoyu danced around the boy for over a minute throwing kicks to keep the boy from getting too bold.  Xiaoyu got close to the ropes once or twice before the other boy decided to try and pin him.  The boy overstretched on a punch trying to knock Xiaoyu into the ropes.  Xiaoyu took on the persona of Baba, who punished his mistakes.  The boy’s advance cost him in the form of a right hook to his defenseless chin.  Xiaoyu capitalized on the boy’s spinning vision.  The right hook made the boy’s eyes roll up making him blind to Xiaoyu’s feet.  Xiaoyu’s right hook was followed immediately with a right-footed roundhouse to the boy’s head.  The boy’s body did a half twist exposing his back.  Xiaoyu ran up behind the boy locking his arms around the boy’s waist.  Xiaoyu swept the other boy’s legs with his right foot taking the boy to the floor.  He finished this fight much like he had the previous one.  The two competitors stayed in the ring but only one was conscious. 

Master Song motioned for Xiaoyu to exit the ring.  He climbed out of the ring on the side adjacent to Master Song who gave him a stern look.  Master Song asked him why he had knocked the boy out.  His answer was to finish the fight.  Master Song pointed out the referee had called the fight before he had knocked the boy out and had tried to pull him off the boy.  Xiaoyu said he hadn’t noticed.  He was honest.  Master Song felt he had to explain something Xiaoyu had not considered, something only adults considered.  Master Song told Xiaoyu that he had to refrain from knocking his opponents out or it would be difficult for Master Song to find opponents for him.  Master Song pointed out the boy was two years older than Xiaoyu.  If instructors didn’t want to fight their twelve year-old students against Xiaoyu then he would have to fight older students.  The speech was meant to shock Xiaoyu as any warning would but it was a warning Xiaoyu couldn’t understand.  Xiaoyu understood numbers higher than twelve but he couldn’t understand the fiasco of fighting boys older than twelve.  If he was to be a true Jade Soldier, he would have to take all comers.  That was how the Artist had explained it and that was how he had understood it.  Since the
Mark
, that was how he thought.  He fought how he thought.  If he was to guard Uncle Woo or Deni Tam, he could only trust an unconscious opponent.

Master Song was a teacher with great ability but pupils didn’t come like Xiaoyu.  There were things that Master Song could teach Xiaoyu but some things the boy wouldn’t learn.  Master Song did not fault Xiaoyu for his hardheadedness because the boy had been selected.  Xiaoyu had no choice in the matter.  Master Song had trained many serving in the Moons’ ranks but never a Jade Soldier—not even a candidate.  Master Song could not be too rigid with Xiaoyu because he had never seen anyone walk the same path.  He usually thought hardheadedness interrupted learning and tried to root it out.  But he was suspicious about Xiaoyu.  He had a suspicion that grew into a hypothesis. 
Xiaoyu’s hardheadedness was his saving grace
.  The boy would pass from candidate to Jade Soldier for no other reason than that he wanted to.  Xiaoyu wouldn’t accept any other outcome.  Still, Master Song’s warnings came true.  Xiaoyu continued to knock his opponents unconscious making it harder to find opponents for him.  By the time Xiaoyu turned twelve his average opponent was between the ages of fifteen and sixteen.  The fights were getting more difficult and the fighters were more skilled.  Age had everything to do with it and it worked both ways.  Xiaoyu was growing stronger and his fights became more intuitive.  The decision was made that Xiaoyu’s path as a Jade Soldier candidate should start to change venues.  He had spent two and a half years training and sparring and the Moons were happy with his progress.  Mr. Cheung and the Stocky Man were regular audience members at Xiaoyu’s fights.  Xiaoyu had good technique but what they admired most was the boy’s maturity.  His maturity wasn’t a singularity.  Watching him fight once wasn’t enough.  The more they watched the more they realized Xiaoyu wasn’t beating his opponents; he let his opponents beat themselves. 

The Moons gave Xiaoyu a week off from training.  He knew something was approaching, he could feel the tremors in the ground beneath him as he lied in bed.  The Moons had given him time off before, just after he received the
Mark
.  Time off had never been for his benefit.  The Moons had always given it to benefit themselves.  Uncle Woo and Mr. Cheung were too efficient to just give Xiaoyu a week’s holiday.  The Moons were charming in their tobacco ways, but they were still organized criminals.  Criminals understood some things were better accomplished when certain people weren’t around.  Xiaoyu knew he was afforded a holiday so he could be kept out of the way.  It didn’t bother him.  He stretched in the mornings and before bed and spent his days ordering food and watching TV.  On the fifth day of his vacation, he had a surprise visitor.

The knock wasn’t subtle but it was brief, as if the person on the other side wasn’t used to waiting or considered himself above it.  Xiaoyu opened the door to an awkward moment.  It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize the man standing in front of him it was that he saw him from a different angle.  The last time Xiaoyu saw Deni Tam face-to-face, he was almost ten years-old.  Now, he was twelve years-old and stood almost eye-to-eye with Deni.  Deni was only three centimeters taller than Xiaoyu—maybe less. 

“
I have something for you
,” said Deni.  Xiaoyu paused before the idea came to him that Deni wanted to come in.  Xiaoyu waved Deni inside the room that was his home, without saying anything.  Deni’s head did a full panorama of the room.  The Moons’ chief executive was curious to see how a would-be Jade Soldier lived.  He observed everything forgetting his manners like an adolescent.  He opened the rice cooker that sat on the dresser to see that it was well-used but clean.  The room didn’t comport itself like the room of a pre-teen, neither did its occupant.  The room was functional not fashionable.  Missing were posters of martial arts stars that were common for boys Xiaoyu’s age—especially those who studied martial arts.  Where Deni expected to see a poster of
Enter the Dragon
or
Drunken Master
was standard wallpaper.  All walls in the room were bare.  Xiaoyu had even taken down the prints that previously hung on the wall:  one of a Spanish cavalryman; the other of volcanic peaks reminiscent of Hong Kong.  The two prints had been laid to rest under the bed for more than two years.  Xiaoyu himself didn’t know why he had taken the prints off the walls.  If asked, he would have said they weren’t necessary.  The room had nothing fantastic, everything in the room had to have a purpose.  Xiaoyu stood next to his bed wondering why Deni had come—everything in the room had to have a purpose.

“
You said you had something for me
,” said Xiaoyu snapping Deni out of a quasi-trance.

“
Yes, you’re right
,” said Deni, “
This arrived last week.  Sorry I didn’t have time to bring it to you earlier.  The front desk called me the day it arrived but I only had time to pick it up yesterday
.”  Deni handed Xiaoyu a small almost square envelope.  In the right corner, were three identical drawings of a man that Xiaoyu thought he had seen before.  The man’s hair was colored black and his skin was peach-colored.  He had a too-good-to-be-true smile on his face and a microphone in his hand.  He wore a sparkling yellow suit that contrasted a pink background.  Over his right shoulder was the number 29.  Over his left shoulder were three letters written vertically, USA.  At the bottom of the picture, was white on black lettering spelling the word:  ELVIS.  The stamps had six ink stripes over them, obscuring the man’s face slightly.  The envelope was addressed to Xiaoyu but sent to an address he didn’t remember, the
Harbour Gate Suites
Room 912.  Something in his mind flickered gently but he still couldn’t remember the
Harbour Gate Suites
.  He looked at the sender’s name for another clue, but saw a name he didn’t recognize—Wendy Lee.

“
You don’t remember the hotel do you
?” asked Deni looking at Xiaoyu.  Xiaoyu looked up at Deni with a blank look.

“
That’s where you stayed just after you got your tattoo.  That was over two years ago.  Remember they wouldn’t let you leave.  That was the first time we met
,” said Deni.  Xiaoyu remembered one thing about the hotel.  It was the last time he had written to his sister.  His mind fit pieces together and told him Xiaofeng had received his letter and had written him back, not from Beijing from Arizona.  Xiaoyu grew anxious but it went unnoticed by Deni.  Without any authority, he felt like telling Deni to leave but Mr. Cheung had told him he was to respect tradition.  If not for those traditions, he would have had Deni leave under threat of violence.  Deni didn’t seem to care.  He sat down on Xiaoyu’s bed while Xiaoyu remained standing.

“
It’s really a shame that I haven’t been to any of your matches, even your first one.  I stay so busy all the time.  You know a lot goes into running an organization as large and sophisticated as ours.  The trick is to make it look effortless but that only comes much much later.  Like a Jade Soldier, by the time you’ve finished walking your path you’ll do things and make them seem effortless.  That’s the reason behind all of this…this formality
.”  Deni put his elbows on his thighs and locked his hands together.  He paused before continuing.