I slip into the shadows and watch what happens next. The two men pause outside the building that the girl has entered, conferring over strategy. Then they too step inside.
From the sidewalk, I look up at the boarded-over windows. It is a vacant warehouse posted with a NO TRESPASSING notice. The door hangs ajar. I slip inside, into gloom so thick that I pause to let my eyes adjust as I rely on my other senses to take in what I cannot yet see. I hear the floor creaking. I smell burning candle wax. I see the faint glow of a doorway to my left. Pausing outside it, I peer into the room beyond.
The girl kneels before a makeshift table, her face lit by one flickering candle. Around her are signs of temporary habitation: a sleeping bag, tins of food, and a small camp stove. She is struggling with a balky can opener and is unaware of the two men closing in from behind.
Just as I draw in a breath to shout a warning, the girl whirls around to face the trespassers. All she has in her hand is the can opener, a meager weapon against two larger men.
“This is my home,” she says. “Get out.”
I had been prepared to intervene. Instead I pause where I am to watch what happens next. To see what the girl is made of.
One of the men laughs. “We’re just visiting, honey.”
“Did I invite you?”
“You look like you could use the company.”
“You look like you could use a brain.”
This, I think, is not a wise way to handle the situation. Now their lust is mingled with anger, a dangerous combination. Yet the girl stands perfectly still, perfectly calm, brandishing that pitiful kitchen utensil. As the men lunge, I am already on the balls of my feet, ready to spring.
The girl springs first. One leap and her foot thuds straight into the first man’s sternum. It’s an inelegant but effective blow and he staggers, gripping his chest as if he cannot breathe. Before the second man can react, she is already spinning toward him, and she slams the can opener against the side of his head. He howls and backs away.
This has turned interesting.
The first man has recovered and rushes at her, slamming her so hard that they both go sprawling onto the floor. She kicks and punches, and her fist cracks into his jaw. But fury has inured him to pain, and with a roar he rolls on top of her, immobilizing her with his weight.
Now the second man jumps back in. Grabbing her wrists, he pins them against the floor. Here is where youth and inexperience have landed her, in a calamity that she cannot possibly escape. As fierce as she is, the girl is green and untrained, and the inevitable is about to happen. Already the first man has unzipped her jeans and he yanks them down, past her skinny hips. His arousal is evident, his trousers bulging. Never is a man more vulnerable to attack.
He doesn’t hear me coming. One moment he’s unzipping his fly. The next, he’s on the floor, his jaw shattered, loose teeth spilling from his mouth.
The second man barely has time to release the girl’s hands and jump up, but he’s not quick enough. I am the tiger and he is only a lumbering buffalo, stupid and helpless against my strike. With a shriek he drops to the ground, and judging by the grotesque angle of his arm, his bone has been snapped in two.
I grab the girl and yank her to her feet. “Are you unhurt?”
She zips up her jeans and stares at me. “Who the hell are you?”
“That’s for later. Now we go!” I bark.
“How did you do that? How did you bring them down so fast?”
“Do you want to learn?”
“Yes!”
I look at the two men groaning and writhing at our feet. “Then here is the first lesson: Know when to run.” I give her a shove toward the door. “That time would be now.”
I watch her eat. For such a small girl, she has the appetite of a wolf, and she devours three chicken tacos, a lake of refried beans, and a large glass of Coca-Cola. Mexican food was what she wanted, so we sit in a cafe where mariachi music plays and the walls are adorned with gaudy paintings of dancing señoritas. Though the girl’s features are Chinese, she is clearly American, from her cropped hair to her tattered jeans. A crude and feral creature who noisily slurps up the last of her Coke and crunches loudly on the ice cubes.
I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of this venture. She is already too old to be taught, too wild to learn discipline. I should simply release her back to the streets, if that’s where she wants to go, and find another way. But then I notice the scars on her knuckles and remember how close she came to single-handedly taking down the two men. She has talent and she is fearless, and those are things that cannot be taught.
“Do you remember me?” I ask.
The girl sets down her glass and frowns. For an instant I think I see a flash of recognition, but then it’s gone, and she shakes her head.
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “Twelve years.” An eternity for a girl so young. “You were small.”
She shrugs. “Then no wonder I don’t remember you.” She reaches in her jacket, pulls out a cigarette, and starts to light it.
“You’re polluting your body.”
“It’s my body,” she retorts.
“Not if you wish to train.” I reach across the table and snatch the cigarette from her lips. “If you want to learn, your attitude must change. You must show respect.”
She snorts. “You sound like my mother.”
“I knew your mother. In Boston.”
“Well, she’s dead.”
“I know. She wrote me last month. She told me she was ill and had very little time left. That’s why I’m here.”
I’m surprised to see tears glisten in the girl’s eyes, and she quickly turns away, as though ashamed to reveal weakness. But in that vulnerable instant, before she hides her eyes, she makes me think of my own daughter, who was younger than this girl’s age when I lost her. I feel my own eyes sting with tears, but I don’t try to hide them, because sorrow has made me who I am. It has been the refining fire that has honed my resolve and sharpened my purpose.
I need this girl. Clearly, she also needs me.
“It’s taken me weeks to find you,” I tell her.
“Foster home sucked. I’m better off on my own.”
“If your mother saw you now, her heart would break.”
“My mother never had time for me.”
“Maybe because she was working two jobs, trying to keep you fed? Because she couldn’t count on anyone but herself to do it?”
“She let the world walk all over her. Not once did I see her stand up for anything. Not even me.”
“She was afraid.”
“She was spineless.”
I lean forward, suddenly enraged by this ungrateful brat. “Your poor mother suffered in ways you can’t possibly imagine. Everything she did was for you.” In disgust, I toss her cigarette back at her. She is not the girl I’d hoped to find. She may be strong and fearless, but no sense of filial duty binds her to her dead mother and father, no sense of family honor. Without those ties to our ancestors, we are lonely specks of dust, adrift and floating, attached to nothing and no one.
I pay the bill for her meal and stand. “Someday, I hope you find the wisdom to understand what your mother sacrificed for you.”
“You’re already leaving?”
“There’s nothing I can teach you.”
“Why would you want to, anyway? Why did you even come looking for me?”
“I thought I would find someone different. Someone I could teach. Someone who would help me.”
“To do what?”
I don’t know how to answer her question, and for a moment the only sound is the tinny mariachi music spilling from the restaurant speakers.
“Do you remember your father?” I ask. “Do you remember what happened to him?”
She stares back at me. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s why you came looking for me. Because my mother wrote you about him.”