Project Empress 013

[Chapter 4 continued] 

The next day Cara arrived at Bacchus’ Barrel a few minutes before 10:00 am. She waited until it was exactly ten before ringing the doorbell. The door opened almost instantly, Walter appearing behind it, looking at her pleasantly surprised. 

“So you know how the doorbell works”, he said.

“Yes. I grew up here and I know how buttons work”, Cara said.

“Have you had breakfast?”, Walter asked as he let her in.

“I had my coffee. That’s all I need in the morning.”

Walter eyed her as he walked outside with a laminated paper sign in his hand and shrugged. “You know yourself best”, he said, closed the door a bit and put the sign on it.

“Why the sign?”, Cara asked.

“Because today the bar will remain closed.”

“Why? Did something happen? Do you need help?”, Cara asked fidgeting a bit.

Walter paused, his eyebrows rising on the tide of his amusement, which also pulled the corners of his mouth up. 

“You happened and if I’m not mistaken, I will be helping you.”

Cara turned crimson. “You c… can’t close your bar just for me…”, she stammered. 

“First, relax”, Walter raised his hand, moving it to pat her shoulder, but shortly before touching her, asked, “may I touch you?”

“What? Er… yes?”

Walter patted her on her shoulder, his giant hand was warm and heavy in a comforting way. A contrast to Natalie’s encouraging ‘pats’, which she always felt resonating like thunder through her entire body. 

“First we relax,” Walter continued. “This is my bar, I fought very long and very hard to get it. This gives me the luxury to decide what to do each day all on my own. Today I have decided to train you.”

“Why?”

“Why not? You are a good kid. Natalie believes in you. She even took you as her apprentice”, he snorted and shook his head as he said that. “Also on some days… I kind of miss it.”

“Teaching?”

“Yeah.”

“So you usually don’t like it?”

Walter gestured her to follow her. They walked through the bar to the door in the back leading to the toilets and the stairs. Just as Cara was starting to wonder if she had said something wrong, Walter spoke again. 

“No, I like it, but in the past, I trained soldiers mostly. Most of them didn’t get to the point where they could ever decide of what to do with their lives. What a waste…”, tears were pooling in Walter’s eyes. Cara fidgeted with her hands, not knowing what to say.

“In time I lost the taste for it. Even as things started to quiet down… Sometimes the things you do get polluted by the circumstances in which you do them, you know… So…” Walter shrugged. They walked up the stairs, past Walters flat up to the roof garden. 

Where the air on the street was cold, in that way that creeps past even the warmest clothes, draining the heat of all it touched, the garden itself was warm. The air was a bit humid but in a way that it carried the warmth of the garden into the body. The air smelled of the herbs grown here. As they moved past them it was the basil that gave the air most of its character. The place was bright, a quarter with the slightly unmotivated daylight the rest of the slack taken up by the rows of growth LED-strips om the glass ceiling.

Walter turned around to Cara, “Please promise me one thing; if I teach you, never, ever fight a war for someone else. If you fight, then only because it is you who wants to fight and if it is your fight you are going to fight.”

It took Cara a few moments to consider Walter’s words. It was a strange request she thought, more suitable to some kind of wizard or priest, rather than the owner of a wine bar. Then she had to consider the request itself. A part of her wanted to simply say yes, it felt like the right thing to do. It carried with it the tone of an epic. However Cara didn’t give her word lightly. It had to be something that she believed that she could actually do. If she did not try her best then what worth would her word have? 

But in the end, it sounded like a reasonable request. So far Cara had never been asked to fight any war. As she was thinking about it, she did think, that if she was asked to do something like that, the war that was happening was in some way or form also her own. That made sense. Cara nodded to her self.

“You have my word.”, Cara said.

Walter’s face relaxed, he put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Thank you Cara. That means a lot”, he let go of her shoulder and walked to the green in the middle of the garden. “If you want to get changed, you can do so in the shed over there, else leave your backpack over there and join me here.”

Cara nodded, went to the shack, changed clothes, and checked her face. She had chosen a simple and subtle make-up today. Now that she had a feel for the situation, she added a bit of eye-liner. A little bit fierce perhaps but mostly one that showed that she meant business. 

When she joined Walter he said, “Like the eyeliner, a good touch. Now let’s get started. We start super slow. I want you to attack me, as you are without weapons. Depending of the flow of it, I’ll react and counter, also really slow. OK.”

“Unarmed?”, Cara said.

“Unarmed.”

“But I don’t know any unarmed martial arts…”

“It’s OK. This isn’t a contest or anything. I just want to see how you move, how you react. Get to know you as a fighter. I don’t want to waste your time with things you already know, nor should I miss anything that you don’t know. And the best part is, if I see something that is already part of your flow for which you have no understanding yet, I can bring that into a context that will let that hidden quality of yours shine.”

“Okay”, Cara said, still feeling a bit awkward, as she didn’t know what was expected of here. In the Salle of Master Brumotti von Burg, there were always very clear rules, expectations and limits to any action a student made. She decided to throw a punch. She moved in slow motion, her fist moving towards Walters face, stopping half an inch in front of it. Cara stopped. Nothing happened.

“Er…”, Cara said.

“I’m waiting”, Walter said.

“I already attacked you and punched your nose.”

Walter looked her in the eyes. “Cara, you missed my nose. You do have to actually touch it for your punch to connect.”

“I can’t just punch you…”, she said her hand moving back.

“First of all: you didn’t. Then I told you that you should move slowly. You won’t hurt me in that speed since it also gives me enough time to react. I may be old but my reflexes aren’t that bad yet.” 

Cara blushed. 

“Also, and this is way more important, you control your attacks. You decide when to hurt me and when you won’t and right now we are two friends…”, Walter paused for a moment looking for the right words, “…slowly dancing in a martial way. You can touch me without hurting me, right?”

Cara nodded and threw another slow motion punch, this time using all her willpower to actually make contact. As she did so, Walter moved his head back with the punch. 

“Attagirl, now we’re talking. Keep it up.”

After a few of these ‘punches’ Walter started to react to the attacks, first with blocks, then with counters. After a while he had to remind Cara to go a bit slower. When they found a good rhythm Walter started attacks of his own if Cara took to long to decide what to do next.

After a while they were both dancing. In a martial way.