"She must be reeducated," added Chiun.
"You are a Buddhist?" Lobsang asked Squirrelly.
"Baptist."
"It is the same thing," said Chiun.
"Like hell it is," said Remo.
"I don't think we've been properly introduced," Squirrelly said suddenly, smiling in Remo's direction. "I'm Squirrelly Chicane."
"Remo Buttafuoco," said Remo.
"Any relation?"
"He's my sister."
"Sister?"
"Yeah, that part hasn't come out yet"
Squirrelly looked blank. "You know, I've suspected that for some time."
"Good for you."
Lobsang said, "You know the sutras?"
Squirrelly looked up from her empty yogurt cup. "Sutras?"
"Yes, you have learned these as a child?"
"I have a copy of the Kama Sutra." She looked toward Remo and smiled sweetly. "I know it by heart. Practice makes perfect."
"From this day forward," said Lobsang, "you must embrace celibacy."
"Celibacy!"
"You will eat no meat, no eggs, and meditate daily."
"I already do those things."
"Proof that she is truly Buddhist even if she has lost her way," cried Chiun.
"Look, whatever it takes, I'll do it. I'm really, really into being the Bunji Lamb. Or llama. Whatever. "
"You'll be sorry," said Remo.
"Hush," admonished Chiun.
"Why do you say that?" Squirrelly wanted to know.
"Because I've been on one of Chiun's little outings before. Everybody eats dung except him."
"I can see you're really evolved."
"Well, I don't go around thinking I've lived before."
"You have," said Squirrelly. "You just have to be open-minded like me."
"You're open-minded because you've got holes in your head."
"Remo has lived before," Chiun said blandly.
"The hell I have."
"You were once Lu the Disgraced. A Korean and a Master of Sinanju."
"Is this true, White Tiger?" asked Kula. "Were you once a Korean in a past life?"
Everyone looked to Remo with expectant and welcoming eyes. He felt like an alcoholic stepping into his first AA meeting.
"I don't want to talk about it," he said, and abruptly left the house.
REMO WALKED ALONG the beach. His face was a scowl, and there was an uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. Yet his feet left no discernible marks in the soft sand. Leaving no trace of his passing was so ingrained he was no longer conscious of the fact that he was doing it.
It was night now. The surf was murmuring in some ancient tongue, and the water swept up to spread a cold blanket of bitter cream on the sand. It would have erased his footprints had he left any.
Remo had been raised a Catholic. He had also been taught Western physics, which said it was not possible for a human being to outrun a speeding car, climb the sheer side of a building, dodge a bullet and drive a stiff finger into a block of steel-all feats Remo had learned to perform at Chiun's feet.
Just as his illusions about the physical world around him and his place in it had been stripped away by the Master of Sinanju, so had his religious beliefs been challenged.
When Dr. Harold W. Smith had hired Chiun to train Remo, he wanted only a Sinanju-trained white assassin who could operate in American society. What Smith got was a white man who grew to be more and more a part of the long lineage of Sinanju.
Twenty years later Remo stood with one foot in both worlds. He had learned to live with it. He was loyal to his country still. But a part of him was continually tugged toward the bleak fishing village on the West Korea Bay that had given rise to the House of Sinanju, which for centuries before the birth of Christ had served the thrones of the Old World.
Remo shared no blood with them, as far as he knew. But he was connected to all past Masters through powerful bonds of duty and tradition and honor. Only once or twice in a century was a Master of Sinanju created. And he was the first white man. It was an honor. Remo was proud of it.
Years ago, on one of their earliest missions, Chiun had told Remo about a prophecy of Sinanju, that one day a Master of Sinanju would train a white man who had died in the art of the sun source. And that white man-the dead white tiger, the stories called him-would be the avatar of Shiva the Destroyer. The Hindu god of destruction.
Remo had scoffed at that story. It was just another colorful fable told to mask a harsh reality, like sending the babies home to the sea. For a long time he figured it was something Chiun made up to cover his embarrassment over having to take on a non-Korean pupil.
But things had happened to Remo to make him wonder. He had experienced brief blackouts. When he emerged from them, he found he had done things. Sometimes it was as simple as an enemy lying dead at his feet and Remo having no recollection of killing him. Sometimes it was more. During the Gulf War he had lost several days' worth of memory.
That time Chiun had tried to explain that Shiva had possessed Remo, and the time was approaching when he would take total possession of Remo's mortal form.
That day Remo had walked out of the room, too.