We introduced ourselves. I watched with amusement as Yamashita gingerly shook hands with her. He doesn’t like to do it, but he is invariably polite to non-students, especially if he likes you. I got the feeling he liked Sarah.
The action gave me a minute to look at her more carefully. She wasn’t a small woman, but she had a lithe, graceful way about her. She looked fit. Mid-thirties, maybe. A good face, heart-shaped, with a lean jawline and brown eyes. She had the look of an adult about her—someone who knew enough about herself and the world to be relatively comfortable in it.
“Are you a Buddhist, Ms. Klein?” Yamashita asked. I was right. He did like her. Otherwise he never would have made the effort at conversation.
The flash of a smile. “Well, no. I study archery at the Center.”
“Tibetan archery?” I asked.
“Oh, No.” She hesitated for a second. “Actually it’s a meditative form of archery from Japan called
kyudo
.” She shrugged. “The Buddhists say there are lots of paths in life. These days, mine seems to include arrows.”
“How interesting.” My teacher smiled. I smiled, too. This was a woman I could grow to like.
Then she seemed to remember herself. “But you want to meet the Rinpoche, don’t you? And here I am, keeping you from him.” She gestured us toward the crowd and went off in another direction.
“A
kyudoka
, Burke,” Yamashita said to me.
“You don’t see one of those every day,” I admitted.
“She is attractive.” My teacher eyed me speculatively, but I said nothing. “She has good presence,” he continued. “I liked her.” Yamashita moved toward the Rinpoche, going slowly so I could worm my way through the crowd and stay next to him. “I had heard of this group practicing the Way of the Bow,” he said as an aside. “It would be interesting to visit them…”
In general, I don’t enjoy receptions of this type, so I distract myself by using them to train. I study people in motion: their patterns of movement and focus. At these events, there are typically a few spots where people concentrated their energies. It gave you a clue as to who was present and what was happening. I try to see how good I am at figuring this out by sensing the patterns.
You discount activity at the bar and food areas, of course. That’s a given. People cling to these sites like limpets, trying to look sophisticated while simultaneously consuming as much free stuff as possible. That night, there were a few other zones of activity I picked up on. The Real Estate Tycoon was there, natty and yet somehow feral at the same time. Various flunkies hovered nervously around him. He was trying to appear subdued in honor of his guest. It was obviously a strain—as you looked at him, you got the impression of a seething instability.
There was another major center of activity around Changpa Rinpoche himself, of course. He was hemmed in by the curious, by gushing student-Buddhists, and members of the museum’s PR department. But he didn’t seem overwhelmed. The Rinpoche was not a small man, and he had a certain presence. Even people who didn’t consciously sense anything spiritual were obviously affected by him. He stood there, smiling and making pleasant small talk, his head canted to one side in amusement, holding a cup of tea.
He was the main focal point, but I was also picking up something else. Close by, but with a slightly different feel, there was another swirl of people.
The person at the center of that group of admirers was big and broad-shouldered, square-jawed and dashing. He had bright blue eyes and a full mane of brownish-blonde hair. It took a minute to place him, then I did: Travis Stark. He stood there, smiling pleasantly at people, like an actor beaming at an audience. He was holding forth about something that obviously engaged the attention of his listeners.
My attention was redirected. Yamashita was gently prodding me with a finger toward Changpa Rinpoche. At least he meant it to be gentle. It was like being jabbed by an iron pipe.
And that’s when the really interesting thing happened. The room was filled with people, some clustered in the areas I had noted, but most circulating randomly. They spoke with each other, but their awareness wasn’t focused on anything beyond that. Conversation swirled through the air. Laughter bubbled here and there and glasses and plates clicked with the usual cocktail party noise. The crowd churned, coming together in odd spots, then breaking up and drifting on. In all that, I doubt very much that it was possible for anyone to notice my master’s approach to the guest of honor.
But the lama himself did.
I saw his head swivel around and those eyes look toward us. It was as if he heard something no one else did—a signal beyond the normal limen of human awareness. His body shifted slightly, facing fully toward Yamashita. A receiver turning toward a signal source. He raised his hand in a classic gesture, a
mudra
, or meditation posture that I had seen on countless statues of the Buddha: have no fear.
Some of the people he was with turned to see what Changpa was looking at. Simultaneously, I sensed a different type of activity from a few discrete spots in the room. A pattern was emerging. The Tycoon and his attendants began to approach. From another corner, Stark was listening, head down, as the bouncer we had encountered whispered in his ear. In the aimless swirl of party movement, the currents began to converge.
My friend Steve from the museum was with Changpa, and you could see his face brighten as he caught sight of me. He touched the Rinpoche lightly on the arm as he prepared to introduce us. Stark and the bodyguard vectored in on our location at the same time, both sets of jaws set in photogenic determination. And Real Estate Man moved toward us as well, churning through the crowd with the unconscious momentum of an abandoned ocean liner.
The lama broke into a broad smile. “Sensei,” he said, and bowed toward Yamashita. “How good to see you again.”
Yamashita bowed in turn, more deeply than I had ever seen him do before. “It has been too long, Rinpoche,” he answered. “Let me introduce Dr. Connor Burke.”
The holy man tore his pleased attention away from Yamashita and turned that clear, deep expression on me. Some of the intensity of his gaze bled away. His face settled into a look of contentment after a second, and he extended a hand. I reached for it as I sensed the looming presence of the Tycoon.
“Dr. Burke,” the lama said. “Your teacher has spoken of you. How nice to finally meet you…”
Real Estate’s Big Man broke in, and his formal prose couldn’t hide the accents of a New Yorker. “An extraordinary event, sir. We are honored by your presence.” He edged closer to Changpa, and the signal was clearly that I should disappear.
But monks, for all their introspection, are sometimes made of sterner stuff. Changpa smoothly shifted himself a foot to his left and turned so that Yamashita and I were still in his view. Then the bodyguard and Travis Stark appeared on the other side of us, and tried to edge us away as well. Changpa was placid, but not unaware.
“The room is so crowded, Dr. Burke. I am sorry.” He looked at the two men impassively, but the message was clear. They stepped back slightly, but you could see that they didn’t like it.
In the small void left by moving bodies, Yamashita and Changpa stood regarding each other. Their eyes were wide and unblinking, dark pools that hinted at depths of knowledge that were simultaneously the same and yet vastly different. Neither man moved a muscle, but stood, content in each other’s presence. It was an odd moment of quiet in the bustle that surrounded us.
An aide interjected himself. “Rinpoche,” he said, gesturing toward other well-dressed types who were eager to meet the lama, “please…”
Changpa smiled tightly at us. “Even in little things, we see how tightly we are strapped to life’s wheel. Please excuse me, gentlemen. Until the next time…” He turned to give the new-comers his full attention.
I thought at the time that the Rinpoche had an odd way of saying good-bye. I had forgotten that this was a man who saw things that had yet to come.
The bodyguard’s bulk blocked off Changpa and the Real Estate guy. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get to watch the two of them talk. Would Changpa touch the Tycoon? I kept getting mental images of a vampire hissing as contact with a holy object burned his flesh.
“What are you doing here?” a voice demanded, breaking my reverie. I looked. It was Stark.
“What are
you
doing here?” I responded, ever the clever conversationalist and master of the quick comeback.
He gave me a hard look. “I’m helping with security.”
“I came to see the Rinpoche.”
“Andy tells me you gave him a hard time,” Stark accused. His jaw muscles worked dramatically. I suspected he had been watching old Charlton Heston movies.
“Andy?”
“Part of my security detail.”
Ah. The bouncer.
“He said he couldn’t move you.” Stark looked at me with frank disbelief. The last time we met, I had knocked him down. You could tell he thought it was a fluke. At six-three or -four he had about half a foot on me. So did Andy.
“I didn’t want to be moved,” I said. “Besides, he was being a pain.”
Stark squinted at me. Very Redford-esque. Part of me thought he was silly. But he was still a pretty good size. And not very happy with me. The tension of our unfinished match still lingered.
Yamashita came up to us. Stark performed a pretty good bow toward Yamashita. “Sensei,” he said. My teacher gave a slight nod, the briefest movement that satisfied etiquette.
“What’s the problem here?” I asked. “Why’s that guy Andy so jumpy?”
Stark waved a hand and gave me flash of those even white teeth. “The Rinpoche doesn’t pay any attention, but there are always security issues. I try to be a little proactive about them.”
“Were you expecting anything in particular tonight?” I asked him. “I mean, why roust us?”
He looked off into the distance with narrowed eyes. Man of action, seeing things no one else does. “Let’s just say we had indications…” and he let it dangle in the air, as if mystery were the ultimate justification.
Yamashita lost interest, wandered over to a table and ate a piece of fruit. He watched the crowd impassively.
There was an awkward pause. Stark nodded toward him. “So. Old-style swordsmanship, huh?” I nodded. He flexed his hands in front of me. They looked like he could crack a coconut with them. “I always preferred the arts where there’s a lot of actual sparring,” he said with satisfaction. “Black belts in
jujutsu
and
kendo.
” Stark said the names like they were part of a magic spell. Was I supposed to swoon?
“But,” he continued, “I’ve just completed a seminar with a teacher who believes you should master the whole spectrum of systems. It’s very intense,” he told me.
I’ll bet
, I thought. But I was polite “Who’s the teacher?” I asked.
“Kita Takenobu,” he answered. It was obvious from his tone of voice that I was supposed to be impressed.
“The Yamaji,” I said. Stark nodded significantly and seemed gratified at my response.
I don’t know whether I was impressed, but I had heard of Kita Takenobu. The story went that he left Japan as a young black belt and had spent years wandering Asia in search of the ultimate martial art. He had been heavily influenced by experiences on the mainland. They said he had studied with masters in Korea, China, and Tibet. And, at some point in his search, he had come to America to teach what he had learned.
Kita was something of an outcast to the mainstream Japanese martial arts community. Japan is a tremendously conservative place, and the sensei there are real chauvinists. Kita’s synthesis of various Asian styles would not sit well with them, and from what I had heard, Kita was a maverick bent on doing things his own way. It didn’t surprise me that he ended up in this country. Yamashita had, too.
The last I heard, Kita had established a monastic training center high in the California mountains, called Yamaji, the Mountain Temple. He was setting up a huge martial arts organization based on his new system, giving seminars and attracting students. The word was that he had tremendous pull with the show business community, and had a number of wealthy patrons. I suppose that’s how you afford a mountain retreat. My teacher held lessons in a warehouse.
“How’d you hook up with him, Stark?”
He rolled his big shoulders, as if his muscles were too developed and needed to occasionally be bled of excess strength. “I was doing some stunt work in L.A. and met him out there.”
Mentally, I nodded. Stark’s looks had “aspiring actor” written all over them.
“And when I met him,” Stark continued, “and saw some of what he could do, I was just blown away. I’m hoping to be accepted as one of his
uchi deshi.
”
I arched my eyebrows in comment. An uchi deshi, an inner disciple, was someone who lived and studied with a teacher. It was an honor reserved for promising students. When I looked at Stark, I didn’t see someone who was serious enough to merit that sort of distinction. He seemed too self-absorbed.
“What brings you to New York?” I asked.
He shrugged his big shoulders. “I’ve got interests here,” he said vaguely.
“And I thought that before I go with Kita I’d study with some other people for a time. Sort of round my skills out. I thought that Asa Sensei might have something to show me… Now I’m wondering whether Yamashita might take me on for a while. Might be fun.”
Now he was really annoying me. You don’t shop for a martial arts teacher like Yamashita like you would buy a suit of clothes. Mostly, you hope you’re good enough for him to even notice you.
“Sensei has very high standards,” I said woodenly.
“Please.” He waved his hand. “I’ve been around a bit. And I’ve seen a real master, Burke,” Stark continued. “Kita’s incredible. Even the Rinpoche would be impressed by him.”
I shrugged. Every martial artist I know has some teacher he thinks is the ultimate authority. It’s part of the dynamics of studying with someone. There’s an emotional link created between a sensei and his trainees. It’s part respect, part admiration, and part fear. Stark felt it with Kita, but that didn’t mean much to me.