25. The Silent Tracker

 

 

The monks panicked. The Master had not slept in his pavilion ! They had found the bed empty and cold in the small hours, anxious of his absence to the meditation of the morning which was directed by Hiro.

 

They have looked for him in all the nooks of the monastery. Filled with anguish they came towards Hiro which had the face of the bad days. The dark eyes under the brushy eyebrows threw flames. He was not happy. Not anxious !… Only not happy.

 

He felt the abandonment of the Master like a separation, a rupture also with him. He knew where he was : in the secret room, this cave under the monastery dug in the rock overhanging the precipice of the torrent throwing its fury to be retained between the abrupt rocks.

 

- He is where you cannot join him, he says to the monks bent in front of him.

 

The Master killer had eyes only for the thin figure of the young White which strolled in the courtyard for the training of fight. He looked at the monks moving, a mean scornful smile on the tight lips.

 

The full moon already that he came “to check their stupidities” according to his own terms !

 

But his observations on the postures and the breathings, but also on the movements of fight testified to his deep knowledge of the bodies and their connections with the consciousness. He deeply knew the connection between the hand and the brain and the monks became increasingly respectful in front of him when they noticed in their body the effect of his observations.

 

Hiro, day after day became useless for them… like an old dinosaur which did not have anymore his place in the play of the life and the death… An insufficiency of knowledges !

 

The Master killer had opened his heart to the Master and he did not recognize his “old friend” in the sad smile that he received for his interrogation. He felt all alone in front of this loss of authority… but especially of respect.

 

- The monks rely now more on him that in me ! He rose in front of the old man.

- It is right that it is thus, the Master says… He knows best the laws of the universe than us and the subtle relations between Creation and the Man.

- But he does as if he were the Master, Hiro howls with anger !

- You are mistaken, my friend… He is not a Master and he knows it well. Also he will never act as a Master… I have already told you which the characteristic of the Master was… at what one recognized him like a true Master, added the old man with a sound of reproach in his slow and tired voice.

- You told me one day: the Master is the one who always howls, the mouth full with reproaches when the encouragements do not make their effects…

 

Then the Master of fight returned in his memory and he added, the eyes in the gravels of the ground in front of him.

 

- You have also told me that the Master is the one who teaches, still and still… Also no one can become a true Master without having a lot of Earth in him… because only the Earth does not mind to always repeat… still and still !!!!… I believe that it is that you said to me, he added respectful, the eyes going up on the face of the old man in front of him.

 

Him also was now an old man. He seemed more vigorous in his body than the Master, because he came from these remote areas of the wild steppes with the wind like only presence, the dangerous water swallower of the men and the animals in the marshes, the lions of the mountain howling their famine ready to jump on all that could be eaten !…

 

In these places, the ears never sleep, the eyes are not closed. A wire of consciousness is always in awakening to recognize the death when it arrives. It is necessary to be in alarm and that works the flesh and the bones.

 

But now, since the young White is there, he feels old. He feels tired. He starts to feel useless.

 

- You have well remembered, my friend, said the Master… But it is your memory which speaks, not your body !… Then your body did not remember and this is the body which carries your suffering to not exist fully anymore… Because this young White, “my son” now, tells the truth of the bodies and the spirits more than you.

- Thus I do not understand that you say that he does not play the part of the “Master”…

- He does not play the “Master” because it is not a Master… It is an “Expert”… and you know what is this type of very particular and unique Beings in the training of the Men… Do you remember what I taught you now thirty years ago… when I had a “other son” and that this son there was also a “White”… Do you remember my friend ?

 

Hiro howls of fury… He leapt up and tried to jump over the balustrade and to run in the courtyard to no longer hear the words of the “Master” .

The old man tightened his stick and the legs of Hiro were immobilized. He felt the nose on hard wood from the veranda.

 

- Do not flee, My friend… there is more than twenty five years that you flee that !

- I do not want to hear you ! … I do not want to think only one more second of this White which was your son… the one who was to become the future Master of the Family.

- Why, throws the Master ?

- Because the pain twists my entrails… I gave everything to him. I taught him all that I knew !… I took care of him like a mother on her child… He belonged to my life… He was my life and my hope !… No, stop talking !… I do not want to awake the pain of my body… Please…, stop talking, my Master !… I put such an amount of time to make forget the suffering of my body !

- Then, answers my question : what I taught you in connection with this young White which had become “my son”… and of the relation between the Man and the Expert ?

 

Hiro kissed the wood under his lips and tried to escape in it.

 

- Please, stop talking, my Master… My entrails do not want to know this terrible suffering again when, one by one, I withdrew from his heart the eight short pieces of metal…

- That is called “balls” in the language of the men… Do not flee the reality !

- That are not balls for me, cried Hiro flat on his stomach over the wood… That is called “the life which leaves !”

- That is called the death of “your” dreams !… Stop fleeing !

 

The Master howled the words in the ear of Hiro lying.

 

- He was also called “Angel”… You remember !

- No, I do not want to remember anymore… It is not the same one !… It is a chance !... He does not have the same name !

- Yes, not the same name… My son of before had “Bret” like name… Him, he has “Nothing”… Angel Nothing !

- It is not the same one… I do not want ! 

- Then look at him doing… and stop crying on you and your dreams of “father” ! whispered the Master while straightening up.

 

He left Hiro hunched on the wood and left the small garden by the small door which gave on the torrent in fury. He needed the yell of the water to wash the yell of his heart on fire.

 

- Twenty five years already !… I did not believe to have again a “son" anymore… And here that one who is even more terrible that “my” Angel… this flesh that I worked pore by pore !

 

The noise of the water entered his ears and the sounds slipped into his heart to wash it.

 

- But “that one” does not need anybody… So, he is “Nothing” !…

- Why doesn't Hiro understand ?

 

Hiro observed the young White which moved among the combatants in their kimono of fight. He rectified a position, he gave a directive for the breath, sometimes he took the weapon and showed the movement of the body with it. He insisted on the look which guides the action. He showed how the gesture gave the measure of the one which acted and revealed the working of his spirit.

 

The monks listened. They did what he said to them. They followed his movements and sought to reproduce them in their perfection.

 

Hiro had asked them what they felt in their body and their spirit when they followed the directives of the White.

 

- Happiness in the body, they answered invariably…

- A pleasure with the action, some of them continued going deeper in their feeling.

- My spirit feels at ease and in its element said some of them who went even further in them…

- I am happy to be alive and to have a body, Tong said invariably.

 

The other monks nodded. Tong expressed in a few words what they felt in them, in the deepest. But the long monk could go to the essential. He did not lose himself like them in surperficial analyzes of their body and in the agitations of their spirit.

 

Therefore they respected “Long Day without Bread”. He looked at. He did not say anything. He let come. He let act the vital force of the event in his body without seeking to intervene. His spirit was not satisfied to observe. It was in the movement and caressed it.

He said to it « I love you ! »…

 

Thus the young White had said to him to practice the everyday life… and even the art to kill was their everyday life… also, he was not to make a separation.

 

- “All is linked” said the young man.

- Yes, all is linked, answered the long monk… But with you it is possible to feel it physically… not only a theory.

 

Then the long monk became day after day a reference for the others because he felt the best in his body the movement of the vital Force of the life. He increased each day his power of action and the others started to be afraid of his striking attacks.

 

They were still more afraid to attack !… The tall monk seemed like absent, indifferent to the action. Then, like the flash, his body was not there anymore !… and the attacker felt the death to enter him.

 

They knew that it was the fruit of the long hours of night that he spent in the small garden of the pavilion of the young White. When they hoisted their head over the wall of the small garden, they observed him training under the eye of the young man… But the White had at first placed his hands on his belly in lying position. May be during fifteen minutes. Then he said to him :

 

- Stand up and act with that while trying to follow it and not to lose its Intelligence…

 

Then the long monk lifted up and repeated the movements that Hiro had developed for them in the course of the day. But there was then another Dimension !… They perceived it very well, even over the low wall !… The monk did not pay anymore attention to his gestures. The look was not even inside him. The look was “elsewhere” !

 

- What a speed in the displacement !… One would say a feather which moves with the wind !…

 

They knew that a Force led Tong from the interior. They were questioned. They wanted to know but they were afraid of it at the same time.

 

Hiro followed the young White moving between the monks. He remembered very well what the Master had said to him thirty years ago about the Expert. He had told him “the Expert teaches the Masters on the essential points of the practice… the Expert is entirely a Free Man…! … and without return.”

 

Like this White now ! Only one gesture, only one look, only one word and the movement were transformed in its base. He felt well how was made the profound change in the body and in the spirit of the monk !… But he did not want to follow it… He did not want to recognize it !…

 

“Shit, I do not want “to see”, it is clear !… All my body refuses the reality in front of my eyes ! ”

 

He knew that he fled the reality because he did not want to suffer so atrociously once again. He knows that the young White was right when he said : “you know how to kill the bodies but you do not know how to kill the lie.”

 

In his heart, he knows that he would like to kill the body of this young White and he was afraid of himself.

 

The body of the Master bathed in the sunlight which went over the edge of the precipice. Leaning against the wall, he caressed with the end of his wrinkled fingers one of the Books of the Shin Family. It is the one which reported one of the “missions” of this young dead White which was his “sons” and his successor.

 

“But you loved too much the Men !… Here is where your defect brought you : to offer your body to the transformation towards the Beauty of the Life !… But this woman that you wanted to help emptied the charger of her gun on your back !… However you knew that she was behind you, the weapon aimed !!… But you believed that while offering you thus you could produce the reversal of her consciousness !… But she pulled the trigger and the frenzy of the murder seized her and she emptied the charger !… You see, my son, you were too awkward for her… Your presence was going to oblige her to change !… and she did not want !…”

It read again these few words in the middle of the Book. He has read them again thousand times for twenty five years !… How his hope was there… but also his concern !

 

Extract of the Books of the Shin Family.

 

- I saw Ange passing… concerned and light at the same time. In the shade of the veranda, Hiro, the Chief-cook, turns to the Roshi, sitting on his cushion, a few steps near him.

- He begins to leave his problem, slipped the old man at the night.

- You believe that he will success ?

 

A few seconds are shelled in silence.

 

- It is a strong man…, he will prefer to die than to be incomplete.

- A dead man is not used anymore for nothing, Hiro breathes.

- Not him… Him, he will not be used for nothing, if he is not complete.

 

Hiro contemplates these words. The silence, wrapped them again.

 

- His destiny cannot be content with middle term, isn't it? nods the Roshi.

- The water of the torrent must join the sea, so that the sea becomes again the water of the torrent.

 

Thus the Master of the monastery spoke.

 

− He is thus with his last stage ?

 

The Master does not answer; it is obvious.

 

− The Master-cook, who during months, took so many care of this young White, nine years ago already, to bring him back to the life when the Master found him almost dead in the forest, has the heart which tightens with hope but also with concern.

- He can always die from it ?

- Yes… he can always, answers the Roshi.

- You have well reported, in the writings of the Family, all our observations on this young White ?

- Yes, from day to day, Hiro assures.

 

The Roshi thinks one moment.

 

- It will be necessary to keep that very secret…, if he dies…

- And if he does not die ? asks Hiro.

 

A smile opens out on the lips of the Roshi, a smile of Buddha.

 

- Thus he will reverse the World !

 

His heart inflated under these words.

 

End of the extract of the Book.

 

 

 

Now, there is the other White, the one who occupies the pavilion beside his.

“Why Hiro does not understand that it is “Him” !… He is locked up in his loneliness of his fears… That complicates even more his movement to try to control this incredible play of the life and of the death in front of him”.

“Thus may be my “son” back again tells the truth. I am only one poor idiot unable to have even not succeeded in changing the one who is the closest to me… which continues to flee in front of the truth ! ”.

He knows that Hiro has the impulse to kill this new “son”… he is vigilant !… He said to Heidi to follow step by step the body of the young White. She likes him so deep in her heart that she will feel if death approaches him! Then she will shout with full lungs and he will act as the lightning… even if he must kill his old friend !

He opens the Book which reports the mission of his son who has asked him the most suffering. His body carried a long time the mark of this boy who he made enter him to save him one second time from the death. He was called Stephan. A name of the country of his son. He had asked him to go back to France because this boy shouted in the Void and the Universe was wounded. That had to be regularized. The Shin Family is there for that : that the harmony of the Universe can develop in the one of the Men standing on the Earth.

 

The first page of the Book said :

 

 

1. Silent Tracker and the Child

 

He stared at a point on the horizon, above the Western crest which grew bigger. That came towards him.

Then he knew that the pigeon brought him a ticket of the Master. He descended the steep slope towards the large rock from the basin. His barefoot were not wounded in the flints cutting like blades : a long practice.

 

He freed a stone masking a hole between rock and scree and took out a hiding place of bamboo. He spread grain on the ground and filled with water the fabric fixed on the wall.

 

Then he went up towards the cave hidden at the bottom of the fault, just an entry of hole for man with a sloping ledge in front of which he could hold sitting in the lotus position.

 

He was not worried anymore of the pigeon; he knew that he would carry a red ring.

“I need you, my son”.

 

He had this evening and this night still for him. He glanced at the horizon, the void on top of the crests, the slopes without grass, without anything. Here, it was too high. Only the wind was split on the stone points, the wind and the eagles.

 

He closed the eyes, centered his breathing three fingers Under the navel. He counted five times then raised the eyelids to let be born two narrow slits which drew towards the cheekbones.

 

His look was not anymore in outside. He travelled inside himself and the smile stretched the lips.

 

Tomorrow will be tomorrow, the present of tomorrow. He will have to release the pigeon, to close the cave with stones, then to go down again in the valley, at the men. He will meet the marmots, lower, well before the monastery. He knows that he will lie down in the pastures, without noise, to look at them running around their mothers whom they will not leave more than two meters, without a strident recall of this queen upright camped on its stone, supervising all. Nothing escaped to him.

 

Then, he will go along the crest and during hours, the monastery will be under him, nestled in the hollow sheltered from the winds, all against the torrent which made there a meander where were born the frogs which kept company at the Western pavilion put side by side with the wood palisade.

 

He will reach the door at night and the door will open in front of him without him needing to strike the bronze bell. He will pass it, greeting the monk restricted by his dresses because it is not very hot yet in this spring. For him, snow will have left its soles since quite a long time already.

 

He will cross the courtyard then will gain two gardens which he will go along. He knows that HIRO will examine him from the kitchens, looking for a sign of tiredness, of wound of the body.

 

He will continue and push with the palm the wood wicket between the thorn-bushes. At the bottom, against the palisade, the Western pavilion, the one of the Master. The perfume of the boiling tea will come to him and he will sit down under the veranda.

 

The old man will look at him coming, the eyes half open. They will say nothing. They will drink. Three cups.

 

He will seek on his body the trace of a wound of the heart.

 

Then, he will smile and say to his son why he makes him leave his mountain.

 

 

 

 

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