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but a lot has happened just while we’ve been walking.”
    “It isn’t dawn yet in Santa Irene.”
    “But around the world. I need to read my e-mails. There was a new one from Jaswant. And I think Ravi sent me something about T.J.’s cousin–”
    “It’ll all be there when you get back.”
    “And I didn’t write my son …”
    She’s led me into a trap. We cut up the steps to the Supreme Court parking lot and a taxi is waiting. She has already made an appointment with Wu. In ten minutes we’re in his tiny, incense-laden waiting room.
    “Yes, harro, Missa Burridge? How-you?” Wu is, as always, cheery, calm, and gentle. He seems to get younger every time I see him.
    “Not so good, Wu. I’ve had some setbacks.”
    “You practise to you breathing, uh-huh?”
    “Sometimes,” I say. “When I can.”
    “Animulse?”
    “When I can,” I tell him, which he understands to mean no, I haven’t practised my animals. There are twelve of them; I’ve learned only six.
    “First animulse,” he says. “Then treatment.”
    We head into his studio. Wu teaches
qigong
and martial arts to a very few students, usually other instructors in town. The studio is for his own practice. He told me about coming from Taiwan fifteen years ago, how he wanted to continue practising outside for the fresh air, the natural energy of the sun and earth. But then November turned to December and there were no warm sea breezes in this cold town. Hence the studio.
    We warm up gently with breathing, stretching, and shaking exercises, the sort of thing I need to do every morning and every evening but can’t seem to find the discipline. Doing them beside Wu I feel a tingle and warmth and general blanket of well-being that I never feel when I try it alone. The energy must be coming from him.
    “Dragon,” he says, standing back and gesturing to me. I assume my ready position, a cat stance: weight on my right foot, left toe pointed in slightly, hands open near my hips, as relaxed as I can manage. Then I lunge forward, my fingers aimed at an imaginary neck.
    “Turn you heel!” he says, and I do it again and then on the other side. Then he stands opposite me and launches a slowpunch at my face. I intercept it with my forearms as I lunge, turn him as I turn my heel.
    “Slowly-slow. Relax. Keep going!”
    The “keep going” part is me jerking his arm, then thrusting towards his neck again as I step back. These are nasty fighting techniques, these animals. The
lun
, a mythical creature with the body of a cow, the scales of a fish, and the head of a lion, intercepts a punch, snaps the arm, then chokes the neck as the victim falls forward. The
pang
, a great bird, snaps the arm in a different direction, chops the throat, then pecks the side of the neck when the victim tries to defend himself. The
mandarin
, a little bird, stops a low, hooking punch, whirls the arm around, and strikes twice at the neck. The snake cracks the neck and attacks from below; the ape breaks the arm then shudders the body with a terrible spasm. They’re all part of
liu he ba fa
, water-boxing, which Wu says is a gentle but effective system of self-defence, especially good for overcoming opponents who are stronger, and for building internal energy. The theory is good and I enjoy practising with Wu, but the details are overwhelming: back straight, bum in, chin tucked, tongue on the roof of the mouth, weight distributed through the heel, elbows out, turn the heel, catch the arm with the side of the forearm, not the wrist or hand. Do this not that, that not this.
    “For confiden. In case attack again!”
    I think Wu gets a certain pleasure out of turning me into a pretzel while he shows me the various applications. It
is
for my confidence, but I can’t think I’ll ever be attacked again the way that I was. It was a once-in-a-lifetime event. For no good reason either. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I learned what none of us needs to know for sanity or