SECRET RADIO blog

She stopped at the bakery on her way and picked up six of the large cinnamon rolls. One for her, two for Rolande, one for the Director (in case she needed to bribe him), and two for Anne Thomson.

As before, the garage door of the storage bin was open when she pulled up. Anne was inside, barefooted on the cold concrete floor, leaping from one old truck tire to another. The two tires were set up a few feet apart. She had to land exactly in the center of each one or else be tripped up by the thick rubber edges. The amazing thing was that she was doing it so quickly, over a distance of only a couple feet, but landing exact every time and springing away instantly, from tire to tire and back again. Feet together, she leaped back and forth without pause, the rhythm unvarying. All of this in bare feet on this cold morning, on a cold concrete surface. Carrie's feet ached just from watching her, but Carrie did not interrupt. This was what Bodhidharma had been talking about.

Anne finished after about twenty more leaps, and then she skipped free and looked up, her eyes open and cordial. "Good morning," she said.

"Is that your warm up every morning?" Carrie asked, her voice friendly.

"Cold mornings are the best. Will you have tea, Doctor?"

"Carrie, please. Yes, thank you."

Anne walked away to plug in the kettle. Carrie went back to the car trunk and opened it. She extracted the new sleeping bag.

As she entered, Anne glanced up from the kettle and offered a slight smile at sight of the bag. "You didn't waste time. I will have the interview." And she took the bag from Carrie. She pulled down the tattered bag from the wall and hung up the new one.

"Shall I call you Sifu?" Carrie asked. "Is that the proper way to say it?"

The young girl turned, and her eyes were surprised and yet suddenly kind. "How did you know to call me Sifu?"

"I read up on martial arts last night. I mean, as well as I could in a single night. Isn't that your proper title?"

Carrie had only meant to get things straight so that she could be accurate in her discussions with the girl, but the large brown eyes of the young master were suddenly much more open. "Anne is fine," she said.

"Wouldn't you like to put on shoes, Anne?"

Genuine humor flickered across the eyes on this question, as Anne realized that somebody barefoot on this chill morning was a difficult sight to bear. "Certainly."

"And I reviewed the cost of the sleeping bag," Carrie said. "I mean, it's not quite justifiable, with you being a gold medalist and all, to take up your time and give you only a sleeping bag. People of your stature are worth far more than that for their time."

"Dead people don't have stature," Anne said. She was slipping her bare feet into ancient Keds.

"But I'm required to be fair and just. Even in---in a cemetery, let's say, I would have to be equitable in the flowers I put in a grave. Don't you suppose that's right? Even if you were dead all the way, it's still not right to cheat the dead, is it?"

"No of course not." Anne nodded and her expression softened more. "Honor applies to us both. I'm not dead to honor. But I only asked you for a sleeping bag, and you brought it."

"I brought you some more things. To make a fair exchange for your time."

"I'll pour your tea. Bring them in, please." Her voice was quiet and kind. Carrie had feared that she would inadvertently offend the young master, but she realized that things were going her way. Anne Thomson was actually quite touched.

She retrieved the additional parcels from her car. Anne carefully extracted each item from the Wal-Mart bag and examined it while Carrie sipped her tea and watched. One wall of the room was lined with stacks of cardboard boxes. Anne placed each item in an open cardboard box, sorting them. These boxes, Carrie realized, served as the girl's wardrobe and cupboard. She identified the toiletry items going into the same box, the underwear packages going into another, followed by the hooded cotton sweatshirt, which Carrie had not been certain that Anne would accept.

"You have been very thoughtful," Anne said as she paused for a moment.

"Is that all right?" Carrie asked.

The question startled Anne. "Yes." And then she bowed---a real bow of deference, head and eyes down. "You've been very kind to me. And may your kindness be returned to you." And then she slowly straightened and resumed her sorting. Carrie was surprised to feel a lump in her throat. Her hand darted to her midsection and she forced away the emotions that would produce the scraping sensation.

Anne carefully put the shampoo bottles into the toiletries box. She was very clean about herself: her hair washed and brushed, her skin clean. Even the rags that she wore were spotless.

"How do you wash, Anne?" Carrie asked.

"There's a hose out back. And I have a bucket for rinsing. You can't see the place where the hose is from the road, so if I take care of it before the front gate opens, it's private." She finished and folded up the bag. She stowed this carefully in one of the boxes as well.

"Would you like to come with me to meet Dr. Rolande?" Carrie asked.

The large brown eyes suddenly fixed on her. For a moment, child-like curiosity and a gentle friendliness flickered across them and was then gone. "Yes," Anne Thomson said. "I would like to go with you."

She did not change her clothing, nor did she find any kind of wrap for herself until Carrie suggested it. Obediently, Anne dug the new hooded sweatshirt from its cardboard box, pulled it on over her thin, ancient sweatshirt, and followed Carrie to the car.

"So you do live here?" Carrie asked, trying to sound only casual.

"Sometimes I sleep over in other places. But you can usually find me here."

They climbed in and closed the doors. Carrie turned on the heater out of consideration for the girl's thin clothing. As they drove, she ventured another question: "Yesterday, you said you died eight years ago. What made you die?"

"A car accident," Anne told her. "I was twelve. We were all in the car. My father, my mother, my two brothers, and me. A drunk driver hit us. Broadside. It killed my mother and one brother instantly. I was knocked out, but I'd been dozing and never saw it, and besides, I was in the very back of the station wagon." She had her large brown eyes fixed on the road ahead as Carrie drove, watching everything as it flashed by, but she spoke, almost absent mindedly, as though she had told this story too many times to have to think about it. "When I came around, I was on the grass, and my father was alongside me. I heard him breathe with a kind of gulping. Gulp, gulp, gulp, and then he was dead too. My little brother lived long enough to get to the hospital, but then he died about an hour later."

"Your whole family---" Carrie gasped.

"And me," Anne said, still watching the scenery of Durham flash by as they drove into RTP. "I told myself that I died too, when my father died. That it was really me breathing my last breath that I heard. For a long time it helped me cope. And really, it changed me into a tremendous martial artist. I lost my fear." She at last brought her attention back to Carrie.

"How long did it last?" Carrie asked. "Pretending you were dead?"

The young woman hesitated, caught by the question and lost in thought for a moment. "I don't know that it ever was pretending," she said at last. "It was a refuge at first: something I ran into and out of. But then, as it began to take hold of me, I grew into it. The dead have no fear, Carrie." She hesitated again. "But they also have no passion, no ego, no cruelty, no need for revenge. The dead are truly free from the chains of the living."

Repression, Carrie thought. A certain amount of denial, and a generous amount of sublimation of the traumatic event. Anne Thompson had incredible coping abilities. She'd created a matrix of meaning for herself out of unique parts, enabling herself to go on after the tragedy. She had turned herself into a world class athlete. And, Carrie thought, she was twenty years old. Eight years difference, she thought, and then she realized that she'd placed her hand on her own midsection. She quickly banished the thought and moved her hand.

But the girl who sat next to her, already a champion fighter and a published writer, so serene and unmoved by what she had just related, at the same time suddenly seemed very vulnerable and very fragile. The woman at the Salvation Army store had hinted of this. One moment, Anne Thomson was the incarnation of centuries of martial training. And then in the next she was a mere girl.

Carrie cast a furtive glance at her guest. Though Anne seemed healthy enough, she was severely underweight by British or American standards. Her eyes were large and sensitive. Indeed, in an otherwise long and plain face, the eyes were arresting with a gentle, almost shy, sensitivity.

"Would you like a cinnamon roll?" Carrie asked. She passed the bag of six pastries to her guest and then pulled into traffic. Anne dipped her face into the bag and sniffed. Carrie glanced at her. Dead or not, the girl was clearly hungry, and the brown eyes widened slightly in surprise as the fragrance from within the white bag telegraphed its invitation to her.

"Thank you," Anne said quietly. Carrie concentrated on the road again. But when she glanced back at Anne, the young girl was methodically chewing her way through a cinnamon roll. Her eyes had the intense, thoughtful expression that one saw in the faces of stray cats and dogs, a calm intensity, a complete absorption in the process of eating.

Something inside of Carrie twisted. She realized that her hand was over her midsection again, and she willed it back to the steering wheel. She fixed her glance on the road again. Her eyes stung for a moment and then she quickly regained herself. She heard the bag rattle as Anne took another. Apparently the girl had mistaken the offer and thought that Carrie had given her the entire bag for herself. But Carrie said nothing to dissuade her.

It took Anne about four minutes to eat six large cinnamon rolls. "Thank you," she said again when she had finished.

"You're welcome," Carrie replied softly. Anne carefully folded up the white bag, and---Carrie noticed from a sideways glance--stroked it twice with her hand and then put it into the pocket of her jacket. She glanced around as the scenery flashed by.