Anthropology of an American Girl: A Novel - By Hilary Thayer Hamann Page 0,239

moves in and finishes to the body. Rourke’s body is hard, like brick; but anyway, it gives, folding in and down, going gracefully to the floor. I suppose there are tender points, like hinges. Even skyscrapers can collapse.

Rourke stands and everyone applauds. Mr. Xinwu nods, excusing him, and Rourke passes through to me.

We meet in the hall. His hands locate my waist like picking a flower at the exact right place on the stem. I snap off the floor as he lifts me. His face has changed over the past three years. There are infinitesimal lines and recesses in the muscles, like code writing only I can read.

“I thought I saw you earlier,” he says. “On Prince Street. But it wasn’t you.” He pulls me tighter, then he lowers me, stepping back.

“When did you get in?” I ask.

“A few hours ago.”

“You haven’t seen Rob yet?”

“No,” Rourke says. “I came here straight from the airport.”

“He’s meeting you later?” I want to know when they will talk, when Rob will tell him everything.

“Yeah, he’ll give me a ride to my house.”

Mr. Xinwu is talking about throwing an opponent’s balance without causing harm, about trying to feel love for those things one hopes to protect rather than hatred for the adversary.

“How is it out west?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Not much different than here. Ever been there?”

I nod, clumsily, clumsy to admit that I’ve been to his particular part of the world without him, to invoke Mark even by implication. Mark and I went skiing in Aspen twice.

Rourke’s eyes stir; his weight shifts. Though I say no more, I’ve lost him. I can read his intent before it is manifest. I am like Mr. Xinwu. A master.

Would it help Rourke to know that I looked for him everywhere—every restaurant, every bar, every street. I tried so hard to see him that sometimes I did see him, only it was not him. Didn’t he just say, I thought I saw you. It wasn’t you.

We turn awkwardly and stare into the main room, watching the cops drift into pairs. One of each set turns his back to the wall, and the other faces him. “Remember,” Xinwu is saying, “confrontation is inevitable. Those who resort to violence have not mastered nonviolence. Keep control. Neutralize pushes. The only separation between you and a man in jail is control. And for police, control is a special obligation.”

I try to think of something to say. I ask Rourke if this is what he taught at the prison that time.

“More or less,” he replies stiffly. “More respect. Less combat.”

“Do you still do it?”

“Go into prisons? Not too much. Xinwu does it regularly.”

“And boxing? How does boxing fit into this?”

“This teaches control,” Rourke replies. “Boxing takes control.”

“As opposed to street fighting.”

“With organized fights there’s shared weight or class; with street fights, it’s a match of intention. How much something means to you versus how much it means to your opponent. You could lose everything.”

Everything, yes. A wife, a son, your life.

“Well, I’d better head back in,” he says.

“I guess I—should—you know, get going too.”

The staircase is tight and fireproof gray. I start down, gripping the rail. He’s there, near me, leaning. Over the harp of bars we kiss.

“Goodbye,” he says courteously. “It was good to see you.”

I’ve never been the victim of his courtesy before. He hands it off like a bomb. His elbows are on the rail. He is bending and his jacket splits and I can see inside to where it is beautiful. I don’t simply see that it’s beautiful, I feel that it is beautiful. I respond to beauty. I can’t remember the last time I responded to anything. I have so much at stake. I have only seconds. I am about to say, Rourke. But he speaks first.

“Tell Mark I said congratulations,” Rourke says, stripping the towel from his neck, shaking it at his side, looping it back over his shoulders.

The GTO skids up as Mark and I exit the apartment building. It moves alongside us, plowing into the asphalt like a grounded meteor. My first thought is that I haven’t seen the car for so long. Seeing the car is different from seeing him. It’s as if there has been no car since, as if his car is the only car. It was the place where you kept your clothes and heard your music and ate and slept and had sex; it was a car when you needed to move. Since then there have been only vehicles.