Page 33 of Captured By the Pakhan

Sergei comes down at eight, eats an enormous amount of cereal, and tells me about a documentary.

At nine we go outside.

That's new. That took eleven days, two arguments, and a bribe, and it turns out the bribe that works is telling him he doesn't have to enjoy it; he just has to be present for it.

"Again."

"I did it four times."

"You did it four times badly. Again."

He goes down on the grass in a heap that would break a wrist in a real fall, and I make him get up and do it again, and the fifth one is nearly right — chin tucked, arm slapping out, weight rolling through the shoulder instead of the elbow.

"There. That one. Feel the difference?"

"No."

"You're lying, and it's a bad lie, because your face did a thing." I haul him up by the back of his shirt. "Falling is the only martial art that matters. Everything else is optional. You will fall over ten thousand times in your life and get punched approximately never, and I would like you to survive the statistically likely event."

"Andrei says⁠—"

"Andrei has been punched a great deal, and it hasn't improved him."

He laughs.

Then we do the counting.

We've done it every day since the terrace, and it's not for emergencies; that's the point — you don't learn a technique inside the thing you need it for. You learn it on a Tuesday morning on a wet lawn while you're bored, so that when the floor goes out from under you, your body already knows the route.

"Five things you can see."

"Grass. The tree. Your stupid coat. The house. Andrei in the window pretending he isn't watching."

"That's five and one editorial."

"Four things I can hear." He counts them off on his fingers. "Birds. The generator. A car on the road. You are breathing loud on purpose."

"I do that so you've got something to match."

"I know." He shrugs. "It works better when you do it."

We sat on the wet grass for a while after that. I just wait while he picks at the seam of his sleeve.

"Papa did it," he says.

I keep my voice level. "Did what?"

"The counting. Last week, one time. He was standing outside the door, and he did it wrong; he said it through the door, and he said six things instead of five, and I could hear him getting it wrong." He's looking hard at his sleeve. "But he did it."

Through the door.

Four years of standing in a corridor, and a man who now stands in a corridor and counts through two inches of oak.

"He's practicing," I say.

"He's bad at it."

"He's extremely bad at it. He'll get less bad." I nudged him with my elbow. "How did it feel?"