The Phoenix Affair

  *****

  Wan afternoon daylight shone through the two walls of windows that made the dojo’s west and south sides, but it added no warmth. True to form, the aikido school tended to skimp on heat in the winter and cooling in the summer, letting the temperature vary as it apparently did at dojo in Japan. Somehow it must be thought that primitive is better, austerity aids in learning, enduring hardship in the form of extremes of temperature was just part of the training. All very Japanese.

  Cameron reflected on all this as he came into the room and took it in, the mat had to have a surface temperature of about sixty degrees, very cold on the bottom of the feet. But it was much the same in his home dojo; even in the dead of Ohio winter with baseboard heaters going, sensei’s mats would also be cold, at least at the beginning of class. Once things got moving he would not notice it, and if the class was vigorous he’d soon be glad of the low temperature as it would cut down on his sweat.

  The room was bigger than many he’d been in, about forty feet square. He counted the one-meter mats, confirmed there were thirteen one way and fourteen another. A big dojo, and a lot of mats. The surface was firm, but it gave, and the old building’s wood floor could be felt to flex a little, so much better than the ground floor which might be concrete underneath. He dropped smoothly to the mat in a motion like water, rolled across shoulder and back with barely a sound, coming up to his feet in one unbroken flow, facing the opposite direction now, toward the kamiza, at the front of the dojo, where a small shrine stood. On the fourth wall, to his left, there were three wooden racks on which lay assorted wooden staffs and swords, practice weapons, a comforting, familiar sight, and looking up he saw the ceiling was high enough to practice with them unhindered. He relaxed, five minutes before class was to start, and sat on the mat to loosen his joints, stretch, look nonchalant, and watch his fellow students arrive.

  There were four already in the room, all apparently regulars, talking quietly in French in the back corner where the two windowed walls met. Two of these wore indigo blue hakama like his own, wide traditional pleated Japanese pants that looked very like a skirt over their white cotton judo uniforms, black belts visible underneath the straps that cinched the skirt about their hips. The others were in plain white from ankles to necks, no colored belts, a very typical Iwama-style school: black or white, nothing in between but skill and long, deliberate practice. A minute later another student arrived, this time a woman, also wearing hakama, about five feet three, perhaps a hundred and ten pounds, dark hair, blue eyes, a kind, pretty face and a ready smile, probably mid-thirties. She looked straight at him with a smile and a small bow, which he returned, having risen quickly to his knees with his feet tucked beneath him, under his hips. She said something in French that he did not recognize, and he replied in English, “I regret I do not speak French, do you speak English, I’m Paul Cameron?”

  She extended a hand, and said in accented English, “Hello, welcome, I am Elise Bourget. You are American?”

  “Yes, yes I am, I am in Paris on business this week, and very happy to have found your dojo. Will you point out sensei for me, I would like to meet him before class and introduce myself,” he said.

  “Oh, he is not here yet,” she replied, “he usually comes in at the stroke of the class start time, and we begin. You will probably have to wait until after class, but he will not mind. We are always pleased to have guests to train with. Now I had better stretch a little. Welcome, again, Mr. Cameron.” And she moved off several yards to an empty place on the mat.

  There was no sign of anyone he would have thought to be Ripley, but he’d not expected to see him yet anyway, no reason for him to show up until later, near the end of the class. A soft ruffle brought his attention around to his left and he saw the teacher enter, drop to his knees, bow in the general direction of the shrine at the front of the room. He rose, clapped his hands loudly, and all the students made to line up near the rear of the room, facing front, all on their knees, in order of rank as was customary. He took notice that the woman Elise appeared to outrank one of the two men in hakama. He took his place next to the lower of the two, the white belts lining up to his left as two more came hustling in and joined at the end. Eight students in all, pretty typical for a weeknight class anywhere in America.

  Sensei led the ceremonial bows and claps to begin class, and they spread out to warm up. Cameron watched the teacher carefully, mirroring his movements as they went through the unfamiliar warm-up routine. It was funny, he reflected, that everywhere he’d ever trained the techniques themselves were so very similarly practiced, and yet the warm-up routines seemed to come from different planets, some teachers placing great emphasis on limbering up the wrists and elbows, some focusing on stretching the legs and ignoring the arms altogether. He found he was also distracted, looking for Ripley, but he focused on breathing deeply with a long, loud rasping exhalation, “ki-breathing,” and he returned to the duty of the class.

  Twenty minutes later, he sailed through the air for the tenth time to land in another soft roll on the mat and spring to his feet, facing toward the teacher who’d thrown him. “Hai, dozo” sensei said with a shallow bow toward him, “Please begin,” and the students paired off to practice the technique the teacher’d been demonstrating on each of them.

  This time Cameron was paired with the senior student, a man about his height and weight but perhaps mid-thirties who moved with very obvious power and concentration, guaranteed to be a good partner. Cameron, the junior, was first to be thrown, and in a moment he was airborne yet again, reflecting as he flew that the man certainly had powerful aikido, fast, smooth, irresistible. Four times he flew, and then it was his turn to throw, he concentrated, breathed deeply, and did it perfectly, the overall feeling light and yet he tossed the man bodily across the room.

  It went on like this for another hour, the partners alternating, he threw and was thrown by Elise on three occasions, by sensei once more, and by the senior student twice more, the techniques varying across the aikido repertoire in a way that reflected the teacher’s theme or emphasis for the night, without ever a word about how they were connected or what this emphasis was supposed to be. It was very Japanese, right there in Paris, but they were all used to it. By the time it was over and they had bowed and clapped again he was damp with perspiration but feeling exquisitely alive, focused, alert. It was always the same, he reflected, perhaps also very Japanese.

  Cameron made his introductions to the teacher, and thanked him for allowing him to practice as a guest for the afternoon. He took a quick look around, glad to see that the other students were folding their hakama on the mats. He removed his hakama and laid it flat to begin the ritual of folding it, and the senior student approached, his own already done.

  “I think we may have trained together before,” the man said in English, sounding American but with a hint of what must be a French accent. He stood now only a couple of paces away. “I’m not certain, but I believe it was at a weekend seminar in Indiana, perhaps three or four years ago, and the teacher was Matsuoka Sensei. Were you there?”

  Cameron was amazed. “Yes, I was there, closer to four years ago, August I think it was.” He looked closer at the man, stood up, trying to find a memory, match the face, but he could not. He remembered a woman he’d trained with at the time, very light, very graceful, the best woman he’d worked with until tonight. He did not remember this guy, at least not specifically. “Are you American?”

  “Yes, I am, but I spend most of my time here in Paris, have been here for nearly ten years now, it’s my home. What did you think of Sensei?”

  “Excellent,” Cameron replied. “But . . .”

  The man smiled and waved as he turned to go. “I’ll be back in a minute, I’m just going in to change, wait here.”

  He was back in five minutes, wearing street clothes, his aikido equipment in a black duffle bag. Cameron had retrieved his own from the back corner of the dojo.
He’d come in his judo pants, planned to wear them back to the hotel or wherever his rendezvous with Ripley might take him, but his jacket, hakama and black belt were now inside the bag and he wore a dark grey polarfleece over a dry tee shirt. He was drying his hair with a towel.

  “That was an excellent seminar in Indiana,” the man said, “Matsuoka is amazing, a student of Segal Sensei’s you know? I remember you were quite good at the time, I thought, although I believe you were not yet shodan then, still wearing a white belt.”

  “Yes, yes I was,” Cameron said, feeling uncomfortable, not remembering as well as this guy.

  “Are you busy now?” the man said quickly. “Perhaps we could have a drink, perhaps some dinner?”

  Alarm bells went off in Cameron’s head, and he shifted his weight automatically, balancing evenly on both feet, the bag hung light in his hand, his knees flexed slightly as he lowered his center of gravity. “Who the heck is this guy” he wondered to himself, and he saw the man’s hand reaching for the pocket of his duffle.

  The smile broadened on the man’s face, and he said “Very good, Mr. Cameron, very good. But don’t be alarmed.” He produced a cap from the bag, and placed it on his head. “Boston Red Sox, Mr. Cameron. In Indiana my name was “Smith” if that helps you remember, although we only just barely introduced ourselves. Here, I’m Patrick Ripley. Now, let’s go find some dinner, we have a lot to talk about.”