Warren Murphy: Chinese Puzzle

And then waking up and discovering others who knew he had been framed because they had framed him. It was really part of the price he paid for being an orphan. He had no relatives, and having none, he would be missed by no one. And it was also part of the price he paid for having been seen efficiently killing some guerillas in Vietnam.

And so he had awakened in a hospital bed with a choice. Just start some training. It was one of those beautiful little steps that could lead to anything. To a journey of a thousand miles, a lifelong love affair, a great philosophy, or a life of death. Just one step at a time.

And so CURE, the organization that did not exist, got their man who did not exist with a new face and a new mind. It was the mind, not the body, that made Remo Williams Remo Williams. Whether he was Remo Cabell or Remo Pelham or all the other Remo’s he had ever been. They could change neither his voice, nor his instant response to his name. But they had changed him, the bastards. One step at a time. Yet he had helped. He had taken that first step, and done, albeit laughingly, the first things Chiun had taught him. Now he respected the aged Oriental as he had respected no one else he had ever known. And it saddened him to see Chiun react so un-Chiun-like to the talk of peace with China. Not that Remo cared. He had been taught not to care about those things. But it was strange that so wise a man could act so foolishly. Yet that same wise man had said once:

"One always retains the last few foolishnesses of childhood. To retain all of them is sickness. To understand them is wisdom. To abandon all of them is death. They are our first seeds of joy, and one must always have plants to water."

And in a hotel room many years from the tune of that first wisdom of the little father, Remo asked:

"Even for a Korean, little father?"

He saw the old man smile. And wait. And then say, slowly: "For a Korean? I feel I must truthfully say yes."

Remo pressed on.

"Even for the village of Sinanju?"

"You have great ambitions," Chiun said.

"My heart reaches to the sky."

"For Sinanju, you are all right. Just all right"

"Is your throat all right?"

"Why?"

"I thought it hurt you to say that."

"It most certainly did."

"It is an honour, little father, to be your son."

"Another point," Chiun said. "A man who cannot apologize is no man at all. My bad temper the other night came from the relief of my fear that you would be hurt. You came down the wall perfectly. Even if it took you 97 seconds."

"You went up perfectly, little father. And even more quickly."

"Any schmuck can do a perfect up, my son." Chiun had been picking up those Jewish words again. He learned them from the elderly Jewish ladies he liked to converse with, discussing their common interest: their betrayal by their children and the personal misery ensuing there from.

Mrs. Solomon was Chiun's latest. They met every day for breakfast in the restaurant that faced the sea. She would repeat how her son had sent her to San Juan for a vacation and did not phone, even though she had waited by the phone the entire first month.

Chiun would confide that his most loved son of 50 years ago was doing an unspeakable thing. And Mrs. Solomon would put a hand to her face in shared shock. She had done it for the last week and half. And Chiun had yet to tell her the unspeakable thing.

It was fortunate, Remo had thought, that no one laughed at the pair. Because there would surely be a laughter with an extra thoracic cavity.

It had almost come to that the day the young Puerto Rican busboy had sassed Mrs. Solomon for saying the bagels were not fresh. The busboy was the amateur middleweight champion of the island and was just holding the job at the Nacional until he turned professional.

One day he decided he did not want to be a professional. It was approximately the time he saw the wall coming at him, and the unfinished bagel going seaward.

Mrs. Solomon had personally registered a complaint about the young ruffian attacking a fine, warm, sweet, old man. Chiun had stood there in innocence as the ambulance attendants carried the unconscious busboy out of the dining area and into the ambulance.

How had the young man attacked the elderly gentleman? asked the Puerto Rican police.

"By leaning, I think," Mrs. Solomon said. That was definitely what she thought. After all, Mr. Parks certainly would not have reached across the table and thrown the person into a wall. Why, he was old enough to be her ... well, uncle.

"I mean, there was this snort from that young man and the next thing I saw, well, I guess, he was like kissing the wall and falling back down. It was very strange. Will he be all right?"

"He'll recover," a policeman said.

"That's nice," said Mrs. Solomon. "It will certainly make my friend feel better."

Her friend had bowed in his Oriental way. And Mrs. Solomon thought that was just adorable for a man carrying the burden of a son who had done an unspeakable thing. Remo had been forced to give Chiun another lecture. They had become more frequent since the President had announced plans to visit Red China.

They had sat on the beach as the Caribbean sky became red, then gray, then black, and when he felt they were alone, Remo had scooped a handful of sand and let it sift through 'his fingers, and said: "Little father, there is no man I respect like you."

Chiun sat quietly in his white robes, as though breathing his salt content for the day. He said nothing.

"There are times that pain me, little father," Remo said. "You do not know who we work for. I do. And knowing that, I know how important it is that we do not attract attention to ourselves. I do not know when this retraining will end and we will be separated. But when you are with me. ... Well, we were very lucky that the busboy thinks he slipped on something. We were lucky in San Francisco also last month. But as you yourself have told me, just as luck is given, it is taken 'away. Luck is the least sure of all events*"

The waves made steady slapping sounds and the air began to cool. Softly, Chiun said something that sounded like "kvinch."

"What?" said Remo.

"Kvetcher," said Chiun.

"I do not know Korean," said Remo.

"It is not Korean, but is apt anyway. Mrs. Solomon uses the word. It is a noun."

"I assume you want me to ask you what it means."

"It is of no matter. One is what one is."

"All right, Chiun. What is a kvetcher?"

"I do not know if it translates that well in English."

"Since when are you a rabbinical student?"

"This is Yiddish, not Hebrew."

"I'm not auditioning you for Fiddler on the Roof."

"A kvetcher is one who complains and complains and worries and complains over the slightest little nothing."

"That busboy will not walk without crutches for months."

"That busboy will no longer be abusive. I have given him an invaluable lesson."

"That he should never be off balance when you're in one of your moods?"

"That he should treat the elderly with respect. If more youngsters respected the elderly, the world would be a far more tranquil place. That has always been the trouble with civilization. Lack of respect for age."

"You're telling me that I should not talk to you like this?"

"You hear what you will hear and I say what I will say. That is what I am telling you."

"I may have to terminate this training because of what happened," Remo said.

"You will do what you will do and I will do what I will do."

"Will you not do what you have done?"

"I will take into account your nervousness over a nothing."

"Were those football players a nothing?"

"If one wants to worry, he will find no shortage of subjects."

Remo threw up his hands. Invincible ignorance was invincible ignorance.