Satori - Don Winslow [63]
It is tempting though, Kang thought, so tempting. The thought of parading an American spy down to the Bridge of Heaven and having him shot … The titillating image of that bastard Liu following him a few days later … It would solve so many problems. But this “Guibert-Hel” connection — it was tenuous at best.
“What would you need?” Voroshenin asked.
Kang leaned back and thought about it for a few moments. “Perhaps if the father were to tell us this is not his son …”
51
NICHOLAI ROSE BEFORE DAWN, performed ten “Caged Leopards,” and then got dressed to go out for his morning run.
The very real prospect that this might be his last morning sharpened the air, brightened the colors, and lifted the mundane sounds of the city’s waking to the level of a symphony. The rumbling of a truck engine, the jingling of a bicycle bell, the clatter of a trash can being dragged across the pavement all had a clear, crystalline beauty that Nicholai appreciated for the first time.
The trees, then, took on a startling fresh beauty, artful compositions of silver, white, and black, delicately and perfectly balanced, changing tones with the gathering light. The ice on the lake reflected their images back to themselves as a friend reveals to a friend his best qualities.
The morning was truly beautiful, the tai chi players truly beautiful, China itself was truly beautiful and Nicholai realized with some sorrow that he would miss it all if he should, as was probable, die tonight.
But that is tonight, he thought, and this is this morning, and I am going to enjoy every moment of it.
As he ran onto the arched bridge to the Jade Isle, another jogger fell in behind him.
This was new, and Nicholai was aware of the interloper’s footfall behind him. He flexed his hands, preparing them for the leopard paw, if necessary. The runner was catching up with him, and Smiley and the Greyhound were a good twenty yards behind.
“The Dream of the West Chamber,” he heard the runner puff.
“What about it?”
“Be quiet and listen.”
In short bursts, the runner gave him the bones of the story, then said, “Near the end, the sheng and the dan find each other again …”
The runner sang:
I have helped the lovers come together
Although I have suffered hard words and beatings
The moon is rising in its silvery glow
I am the happy Red Maid.
“There will be much noise — gongs, drums, cymbals, then a moment of darkness …”
“Yes?’
“That is your moment.”
The runner picked up his pace and sprinted past Nicholai onto the island, then disappeared around a curve. Nicholai held his own pace and then saw an odd sight.
A lone monk walked toward him on the bridge.
He had a strange gait, as if walking were painful or he had some old injury that still troubled him. He came in small, delicate steps, as an old man would who feared that the bridge was slippery with ice, but as he came closer Nicholai saw that he wasn’t really old.
His eyes were old, though. They stared straight at Nicholai’s as if searching for something, and Nicholai recognized that those eyes had seen much, too much, things that no eyes should be made to see. Eyes that held knowledge that no man should be forced to know.
Nicholai stopped in his tracks.
The monk said softly, “Satori.”
“What?”
“Satori. To see things as they really are.”
The monk turned around and limped back toward the Jade Isle.
Nicholai hesitated and then followed him. “What am I not seeing?”
“The trap,” the monk answered. “And the way out of it.”
The vegetables were delicious, the steamed bun delicious, even the ordinary tea outdid itself.
I should “die” more often, Nicholai thought, if this is what the possibility of imminent death does for the senses. He could only imagine how making love to Solange today might feel. One might die from just the heightened pleasure.
A silly thought, he chided himself. You won’t die from pleasure — you’ll die in the trap,