Remo's throat worked as he struggled to answer. His words were thick.
"I was trying to visualize how it would have been."
"Ah," said Chiun, understanding.
"I'm trying to imagine the furniture," Remo went on in a distant voice. "Where the cooking fire would be, how the noodles would be drying out in the courtyard with the radishes in their big rattan bowls. The sleeping mats would be over there. How every morning she would wake me up with a kiss. I keep trying to see the children we won't ever have. And you know what, Chiun?" Remo said, his voice cracking.
"What?"
"I can't," Remo said, choking on the words. Chiun frowned.
"I can't imagine it. No matter how hard I try, I can't imagine how it would be. For a solid year I daydreamed about it all the time. I knew exactly how it would feel and smell and taste, but now I can't even bring back the memory of that dream."
Remo buried his head in his arms.
Chiun stepped inside and settled into a lotus position before his pupil. He waited.
"Why can't I do that, Chiun? Why can't I bring back the memory? It's all I have left."
"Because you know it was only a dream, and you have awakened from it."
Remo looked up. For the first time since the funeral procession, his face registered emotion. Anguish. His eyes were like old pennies, worn and impossibly sad.
"I had such plans, Chiun. Sinanju was going to be my home. No more Smith, no more killing. No more of any of it. Why couldn't I be happy? Just once. Finally. After all the shit I've had to live through."
"Let me explain something to you, Remo," the Master of Sinanju said quietly. "That which you call the 'shit,' that is life. Life is struggle. Do you think happiness can come to one such as you by living peacefully in a small ugly village surrounded by backward peasants? No. Not you. Not I. Why do you think I have lived in America these last two decades? Because I enjoy breathing brown air? To live is to struggle. To continue to exist is to respond to challenge."
"My life is screwed up," said Remo.
"You are the finest example of human power to walk the earth in our time-next to me, of course-and you say that your life is screwed up. You belong, not to me, not to Mah-Li, not even to Jilda and little Freya, Remo, but to a greater destiny. You act as if your life is over when truly it is just beginning. "
"I grew up in an orphanage. Having a family I could call my own was my greatest dream. I'd give up Sinanju for a normal life, a house with a white picket fence, and a wife and kids."
"No, you would not. You say it, but in your heart you do not mean it."
"How would you know what I mean?"
"I know you. Perhaps better than you do yourself."
"It's such a simple dream," Remo said. "Why can't it come true for me?"
"I remember when I married," said Chiun. "I, too, was filled with such yearnings. I married young, and my wife, although beautiful on our wedding day, grew shrill and old before her time. Have I ever told you about my wife?"
"Yeah. And I don't want to hear it again."
"Too bad. I am going to tell you anyway. In the past, you heard the lessons of past Masters of Sinanju from my lips. Of Wang, of Kung, of little Gi. But I have never told you the great lesson of the Master Chiun."
"Wrong. I know that one by heart," Remo said bitterly. "Never accept checks."
"I will ignore that," said Chiun, his squeaky voice dropping into the dramatic tone he used when telling lessons of past Masters. "I have always told you that my wife was barren, and having no heir, I was forced to train the son of my brother-in-law, Nuihc, in the art of Sinanju."
"Yeah," interrupted Remo. "And Nuihc went off to freelance for himself, sent no tribute back to the village, and you were left without a pupil. Until Smith hired you to train me. And even though I was a white who couldn't keep his elbow straight, you made do. And we took care of Nuihc. But he had trained Purcell, so now we have the same old problem of a renegade Master. He just wears a different face. Did I leave anything out?"
"How eloquent," Chiun said tartly. "But I have never told you the full story. About the time I had a son of my own. I will tell you that story now."
"Go ahead. I'm not going anywhere," Remo said resignedly, but the Master of Sinanju recognized the first stirrings of interest in his voice.
"The son who was born to me was named Song. He was a fine boy, lean of limb, with skin like tallow and intelligent eyes. I took him as my pupil, of course. And as the years passed, my heart swelled with pride as he learned, first the breathing, then the early exercises. He learned quickly, and the quicker he learned, the faster I pushed him along the path to greatness."
"Sounds familiar," said Remo.
"Oh, do not think that I have trained you hard. I have trained you rigorously, but compared to my dead son, Song, you have been loafing through the stages of Sinanju. In truth, I pushed too hard. I have never admitted this to anyone, but I killed my own son."
"You, Chiun? That's terrible."
"I did not kill with a stroke, or a blow, or a kick. I did not spill his blood with my own hands. I killed with pride. It was the first day of the spring, when the villagers were flying their kites to welcome the season. My son wished to join them. He was but eight. His ninth summer lay ahead of him, but it would be a summer as dark as night-although no one knew that on the day I tore his kite from his hands and marched him to Mount Paektusan.
"We stood at the bottom of Mount Paektusan. And I said to my son, 'If you are truly the son of my wife, you will climb Mount Paektusan in one day.' And my son say to me, 'O my father, I cannot. It is too high and my hands are too small.'
"And I said to him, 'The Master Go climbed Mount Paektusan when he was nine. Before him, no Master had climbed Mount Paektusan before his twelfth summer. I see greatness in you, and unless you wish to give the lie to my judgment, you will climb this peak before your ninth birthday. Begin now.' "
The Master of Sinanju smoothed the lap of his mourning kimono with thoughtful hands before going on. "Reluctantly my son began his climb. I sat in the melting spring snows to await him. I knew he would not make it on his first try, but I was determined that he would one day succeed, and if necessary, I would bring him to the base of Mount Paektusan every day until he succeeded or the summer rains made me a fool."
"He didn't make it," Remo said.
"On the first day," continued Chiun, "I watched him ascend until he was a spider speck against the snows of the high mountain and he disappeared into the upper mists. He had gone very high. I could tell, because at times falls of snow indicated that he was nearing the summit. I remember a moment on that day when I was very, very proud. But time passed, and my son did not descend from Mount Paektusan. I waited, determined that if he reached the summit on his own, he would descend on his own. I was stubborn. The sun set on my pride and it arose upon a stubborn young man-for I was young in those days-and when my son did not return, I scaled the peak to reach him, angry and intending to berate him for his lack of resolve.
"I found him near the summit," Chiun said softly, looking at his hands in his lap. "To this day, I do not know if he fell trying to reach the summit or while climbing down from it. The last of the snow had melted that morning, and there were no traces of his climb. My son lay on a wet outcropping, where he had fallen and dashed his head. He had been dead for many hours, but it had taken him many hours to die. Had I been less stubborn, I might have found him in time. I carried his body home to his mother, and from that day on she never had a civil word for me, nor would she allow me to enter her so that I would have another son and an opportunity for atonement. In time, age did make her barren, as I have told you in the past. But in truth, she did not trust me with another child."
"Why didn't you divorce her and remarry?"
"In Sinanju, one marries for life."
"Life sucks sometimes," said Remo.
"When you are Master you may write that in the scrolls of Sinanju, if that is your wish. But there are worthier thoughts. "
"I can't help how I feel."
"How do you feel?"
"How do you think I feel? I lost my bride-to-be, and the woman who mothered my daughter is afraid to have me around. All because of one man. "
"And so you will seek revenge, even though it costs you your life."
"What else do I have?"