The Chinese believe that you are most vulnerable during that brief moment of transition when you are leaving the bright world of internal awareness and re-entering the dark world of external stimuli. It is a time of momentary disorientation, a fleeting period of a kind of unawareness that has a tinge of loss or even fear about it. In the West we say we’re “coming out of it” or “coming back to reality”; in the East it’s often referred to as “losing the light.” Mr. Ma had taught him how to make the change as smoothly and unobtrusively as possible, but it still always left him with a vague feeling of sadness. He resolved to work on eliminating or at least reducing that feeling the next time; absence, he knew, was not the same thing as loss and he didn’t want to let the slightest sense of sadness mar even his recollections of those quiet times.
He glanced up slowly, raising the glass to drink and returning it to the table before he spoke.
“Anything the matter, Mr. McCabe?”
“No, sir. You just appeared to be busy with your own thoughts and I wasn’t sure if I should disturb you or not.”
“No problem. I was just slowing down my world a little and contemplating the consequences of stepping off. Not suicide, mind you, just the ramifications of a major change of pace. Care for that beer now?”
“Yes, thanks. My meeting was cancelled so I thought I would come back and have one before I go back to my rooms and prepare a history paper for tomorrow’s tutorial.”
“Fine. I’m glad you returned, sit down and I’ll get it for you. Abbots ale or would you prefer something else?”
“Abbots will do nicely, thanks.”
When he got up to place the order he thought he sensed nervousness in the man and when he sat down again and handed him his drink he was sure of it.
“Something on your mind, Colin, that you’d care to burden one of your long-suffering lecturers with?”
“As a matter of fact, sir, there is. I realize it’s none of my business, but the man who gave me that letter to give to you was a strange sort and I can’t figure out how he knew that I would know you; I’ve never seen him in here before and I’m sure I’ve never met him before. He wasn’t British and he didn’t sound like an American; looked like an Arab or a Turk and sounded as if he learned English by listening to a computer. I don’t mean to be insulting one of your friends, but he very definitely made me feel uneasy. To be truthful, not the sort I would expect a don to be mates with, even given the democratic inclinations of you Yanks. Not to put too fine a point on it, sir, the man looked like a bloke who broke heads for a living.”
He watched the young man carefully as he spoke, deciding it was the apparent general incongruity of the messenger and the visiting academic that bothered McCabe rather than anything more specific. He set aside, at least for the time being, his earlier suspicions and tried to put McCabe at ease.
“Not a friend of mine, Colin, so there’s no insult. Just a courier employed by some people I once knew from the States who are not very particular about whom they hire.”
He offered a reassuring smile and switched the conversation to his own seminar and the young man’s imminent history paper until McCabe finished his ale and took his leave, probably wondering what kind of letter such a courier would be bringing to his American teacher but apparently satisfied that the latter was not involved with obvious criminal types in some conspiracy against the Crown.