Free The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway

abraded him and passed on, leaving him nearly eighty and stronger than a brace of college athletes, though he favours his right leg just a little. His wide, umber-coloured face is not impassive like that of Takagi Sensei, who once visited Mary’s dojo and grunted meaningfully as I launched weak and indicated attacks at a girl from Hosely; despite the bristling brows in shock-silver above his eyes, he is not stern. Wu Shenyang laughs loudly—alarmingly—at inappropriate moments, and seems to take joy in inconsequential things, like the colour of the window putty and the slipperiness of the carpet in front of his desk. The latter he demonstrates to me by standing square in the slick patch and gyrating wildly, waggling his whole body, sliding his slippers on the spot as he shifts his weight rapidly from one to the other and twisting his hips. When he has finished, nothing will do but that I take a turn. I am immediately concerned that he will think I am mocking his game leg, but again I copy his method exactly and he registers his approval by laughing and shouting “Elvis Presley! Graceland!” When he tries to say “rock and roll” he gets into a terrible tangle because his English is, even after many years speaking it, gently accented with his mother tongue—but this also doesn’t worry him in the slightest, and so it doesn’t worry me either. We pass on to further matters of consequence: he likes my trousers, but he thinks my watch is too young for me, because it features a smiling cat whose whiskers indicate the hour and minute. He also thinks I need a new barber, and though loyalty prompts me to defend Ma Lubitsch’s kitchen table cut, I do so in the knowledge that he is right. Wu Shenyang apologises—to me and to Ma Lubitsch. There is a snort from behind the sofa, but I am immune. An elder stranger, without irony, treats me as a being of equal worth—if of lesser experience and discernment in the matter of timepieces. In the course of the watch discussion we compare forearms, and it is established that mine is actually as thin as his, which for some reason is hugely pleasing to him. Only when I explain why I am here—though of course he must know—does he recover his composure. He peers at me gravely and ponders, and I prepare myself for the inevitable, the impossible testing and the sorrowful rejection. He turns to the wall and selects from amid the ducks a short fat sword with a single edge and a sharp point. Holding it carefully in one hand, he removes the sheath and turns to me.
    â€œTool of war. Very respectable. Man’s work.” He grimaces. “Or you could say, a butcher’s knife! It is very sharp,” says Wu Shenyang, “and very old. Take it and tell me what you feel.” He steps towards me, extending the hilt, and somehow his bad leg slips as he moves across the slick patch of carpet. The Tool of War is launched into the air, slowly rotating around the point where his hand released it, until (I am relieved to notice, though I have not yet had time to move) it points away from me. Wu Shenyang’s body hurtles forward, almost a dive, and I realise that the hilt of the weapon, striking my chest, will propel the blade into him. It is therefore incumbent upon me to move, and I do. The sword’s top edge is blunt, so I stroke it with my right palm, pushing the point outside our circle, and step forward and bend both knees, back straight, to support the old man as he tumbles.
    He does not tumble. His bad leg stretches out and takes the weight easily, and the blade, recaptured without fuss,
swooshes
through the air in a fluid, whirring spiral and returns to the sheath. Instead of his weight falling across my arms and being absorbed—somewhat—by my legs, the barest of contacts bespeaks his passing, and he emerges from the swirl standing by the door. I look down. My feet are spread in what is called a horseriding stance, my