The Match

by Romesh Gunesekera

  Tina didn’t seem to mind much about the car. Sunny hoped she might think he’d done it for her, because of her strained relations with her parents, but he didn’t get to talk to her. When classes started again a few days later, she flew away to her school in the hills and Sunny returned to his dreams of destiny.

  He had read about how the Zen master Awa Kenzo practised archery with his eyes closed, in the belief that if everything was calm a released arrow would find its own target; one after the other his arrows would plunge, head to butt, through the centre of a bull’s eye in the dark. Sunny thought if he closed his eyes he could do the same with a bat and swinging sock ball, or indeed his life and Tina’s. Attain perfection. Love. Everything. He believed in practice. It helped him think of the episode with the boundary and the Merc as a necessary event. Something mysterious and preordained; perhaps written in Aunty Lillie’s book of stars.

  Occasionally he managed to get Robby, and sometimes even Herbie, to join him in the park. He didn’t ask Robby about how far he’d got with Tina. He was pretty sure they had something going; seeing her with a bat in the privacy of her own garden must have been what had fired Robby’s interest in the game. Sunny’s only consolation was that at least she had watched him put a ball through its paces, whereas Robby had only watched her.

  ‘So?’ Hector said to Sunny as they watched the Buick disappear, taking Lester to the airport. He was off to Singapore for the weekend, to cover the Commonwealth Conference as a favour for an old newspaper buddy. ‘Anything planned for the weekend?’

  Lester had warned him to keep Sunny off the streets. ‘These demonstrations are getting bloody dangerous, Hector,’ he’d grumbled. Thousands of Filipino students had been out protesting in Manila. Four had been killed. Just ten days earlier two more and a young child had been shot by psyched-up soldiers outside Aguinaldo. The Diliman mini-Republic at the University of the Philippines was under siege. None of it appeared to make much impression on Hector. Nor on Sunny, overwhelmed by longing, pining already at the prospect of a dizzy romance.

  ‘Nothing tonight,’ Sunny replied, a little guardedly. He didn’t want to divulge his plans. His friend Junior was going up to Baguio to see his girl Pinky. Sunny wanted to tag along to find Tina.

  ‘In that case, join me.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I’m going to a little meeting, over in Quezon City. You might find it interesting.’

  ‘Political?’

  ‘No. It is a more spiritual revolution we are after.’

  ‘Are you a secret hippy, then, Uncle?’

  Hector smiled. ‘Have you ever heard of a man called Zaramazov?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘We are exploring some of his teaching.’

  ‘Is Dad involved?’

  ‘Lester? I don’t think so. He leaves that to his sister, no? Your Aunty Lillie, she has the spiritual touch. Your Papa prefers spirits. The blended and bottled variety, if you know what I mean.’

  Hector picked Sunny up at about eight. ‘Have you eaten?’

  ‘I had a burger.’ It may not have been soul food exactly, but for Sunny, in a way it was.

  ‘Good. There won’t be any food where we are going. For these meetings at Señora’s we fast.’ Hector spoke as though he’d picked up a new lexicon for the occasion, to match his beige Nehru shirt and pale cotton trousers.

  ‘Fast?’

  ‘It helps cleanse the body, while we attend to the mind.’

  They stopped at a Spanish colonial villa that had black metal gates. Enormous fruit trees shrouded the garden. Sunny had not seen such an ancient house anywhere in Makati. They were let in by a thin old man wearing a tribal sash of luminous colours. Hector nodded in his usual manner and led the way up the steps. There were voices inside. Sunny followed him.

  ‘Señora,’ Hector exclaimed as they walked into a candlelit courtyard.

  ‘Oh, Hector.’ A big, sassy voice sang out. ‘Sweetie.’

  ‘I’ve brought a new recruit.’

  The Señora was a large, glamorous lady who lay like a bejewelled bedspread across a vast, sagging divan. ‘How wonderful, Hector. A youngster.’ She turned up her face and twitched her nose. ‘Hmm, I can just smell that divine youth in him. Gor-geous. Come here, my sweetie.’

  ‘Hello.’ Sunny nodded politely, letting his hair flop over his glasses. There were about a dozen people – Pinoys as well as foreigners, men and women – in small huddles around the Igorot carvings that adorned the square.

  Someone struck a gamelan, sending out small ripples of beautiful sound.

  ‘Time, my little dears.’ The Señora slowly raised herself to her feet and great folds of her voluptuous flesh fell into place. She waved a hand, jettisoning some of her heavier jewellery. ‘All you pretty things hurry into the yellow room. The boys, if you are still intact after last time, go hang on to your little goolies in the green room today.’

  Sunny followed Hector who was smiling sheepishly. They formed a circle with the others in a bare room.

  ‘What do I do?’ Sunny whispered to Hector.

  Hector nodded his head slowly, rocking his whole body, as though in the green room his words had to drip out one by one. ‘Nothing . . . do nothing. Close your eyes. Just be. Here.’ He sank down and patted the floor.

  Sunny sat down and crossed his legs in a half-lotus position. He placed his hands over his groin and shut his eyes.

  ‘Rudy.’ A voice cried from the other side of the circle. ‘You made it, na?’

  It wasn’t a seance, as Sunny had thought it might be. More a group meditation, but without the accompanying plucked guitar strings and burning camel dung that a younger crowd would have had to smooth the mood. They sat for about an hour – for most of which Sunny kept his eyes firmly shut, trying to keep the image of Tina’s bewitching anatomy in soft focus and his own from becoming too obviously tumid in the process. From time to time there was a gasp as though someone had expired. Twice a torrent of words in Tagalog, and Pangasinan. Then someone started making tiny yelping sounds, like a dog in heat. These were the days when there was controversy over whether there should be a national language of the Philippines, and pure expression was as valued as communication. Sunny didn’t dare open his eyes, hoping Rudolf Navaratnam – although he hadn’t seen him, he was sure Tina’s father was the Rudy who’d come in late – had also shut his eyes before he had noticed who else was in the room. Then, from another room, he heard a scream. Had Rudolf gone to vent his rage on some other young innocent?

  Finally the gamelan sounded again. Hector tapped Sunny on the shoulder. ‘You can open your eyes.’

  ‘Finished? Is that all?’

  ‘Our prayers are over. But I think the girls had more fun tonight.’ He ushered Sunny towards the door. ‘The idea is to let the spirit flow . . .’

  Rudolf was waiting. ‘So, the famous batsman has joined us?’

  Sunny cringed, but then words arrived out of nowhere. It was miraculous. ‘I came to watch.’

  Rudolf smiled with frightening restraint. ‘We believe in the essential goodness of the spirit.’

  ‘Right.’ There was a lot of goodwill around. Sunny could feel it glow in every corner of this floating villa so far removed from the Vietnam war and the skirmishes in Mindanao, the private mercenaries, the gangsters, the New People’s Army and the military roaming the Philippines. He prayed it was strong enough at least to disarm Rudolf.

  The Señora called out. ‘Bambino, how was it for you, sweetie?’

  ‘Fine.’ Sunny twisted his hands together. ‘I didn’t know what to expect.’

  She laughed and grabbed his wrist. ‘Nobody does. That’s the way, the first time. You are a virgin aren’t you, darling?’ He heard a whinny behind him from where Rudolf had been.

  When Sunny got back home, he called Junior straightaway. ‘What’s happening?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Everything’s arranged. Síge na. Pinky says tomorrow night for the Valentine’s disco. It’ll be great. Your Tina wi
ll be there.’

  Sunny imagined himself cartwheeling across a dance floor towards Tina. ‘You got a car?’ It was two hundred kilometres away, up in the hills.

  ‘Ricardo, man.’

  It was half-past nine by the time Junior arrived in Ricardo’s blue Mustang. Beatriz informed Sunny that a pair of hoodlums were at the gate. He told her he’d be sleeping over at Robby’s house, even though he hadn’t been able to get hold of him.

  ‘Where?’ Her convent face dropped. ‘Don’ go someplace bad with those bakla boys.’

  Ricardo was older than Sunny’s other friends. He often wore Easy Rider sunglasses to hide his bloodshot eyes and his cheeks always looked bloated. He gave Sunny a tight thumb-lock when he got in the car.

  ‘OK?’

  Junior, curled up in the back, cheered. ‘Let’s go, paré. Vamos.’

  Ricardo raced the engine and they squealed off before Sunny had shut the door. The stereo was turned up high and Ricardo started thumping the steering wheel to the beat of Stey-hey-yeh-hey-pey-hen-wolf on a badly recorded cassette. Conversation was impossible. Ricardo in any case had limited capabilities outside the realms of lysergic acid and boiled cactus needles.

  By the time they reached Baguio, a soft late afternoon light had gilded the town. There were coloured ribbons on posts and banners across the main road giving the place a sense of impending festivity. The air was cool and fresh, with the smell of pine breath wafting through. The sky was pink in places; the earth glowed a rich red. A low fat sun tugged in a raft of coppery clouds through the gaps in the hills.

  Ricardo turned his car into a parking space by the Catholic bookshop. He switched off the engine. ‘Ano, Junior? Now what?’

  ‘Hang loose, man. Pinky has netball until five-thirty. We meet her at Al’s Joint.’

  ‘Can they do that? Call it a joint?’ Ricardo broke into an ugly, sweaty laugh. ‘So, who wants to be a little piggy then and snort, oink, oink?’

  Sunny slipped out of the car while Ricardo took an envelope out of his shirt pocket and tipping it carefully laid out two neat white lines on the dashboard. Sunny didn’t much like sticking burning leaves in his mouth, never mind stuffing powdered coconut up his nose. ‘I’ll see you guys later at the place. Have fun.’

  At the bottom of Session Road, he crossed over and headed for Burnham Park with its pond and ducks and willow trees, hoping Tina might be floating there, waiting by some star-crossed chance, for him to appear.

  There were couples everywhere that afternoon; even the ducks waddled in pairs. From time to time a gaggle of young girls, or a huddle of boys, arm in arm, would wheel out, waiting for dark when they could jump the gender gap. Under the trailing trees older, more brazen couples were entwined, their lips seldom apart. A few stray rays lit up the water before the heavy sun settled behind the western slopes. The six o’clock siren sounded across the city. Sunny stood alone and remembered a line from a song about how the light called out for more.

  The interior of Al’s Joint had been done up like a Chicago film set: green shades, bare floors and beams with hooks and paper hearts for Valentine’s Day. All the tables and chairs had been moved to the perimeter, as though a bomb had been dropped in the centre of the room. Two spotlights with coloured cellophane wheels were trained on the dance floor and the inescapable mirror ball swung threateningly above it.

  Sunny searched the faces around the room as slowly circling shoals of mirror light picked them out. There was no one he recognized except Pinky, Junior’s girlfriend, standing on her own. She waved at him and he made his way over.

  ‘Hi, Sunny.’ She tucked in a bit of her blouse that had come loose. ‘Where’s Junior?’

  ‘He was coming with Ricardo. I went for a walk.’

  Pinky frowned. ‘Oh God, not that creep. He’ll never get here.’

  Sunny got her a Lem-O-Lime while songs of black magic women and proud wailing Marys bounced on the hardwood floor. She flinched at ‘Mustang Sally’ and gave the DJ huffing behind the turntable a mean dirty look.

  When three American girls flounced in with their long scarves and tie-dye tunics, Pinky nudged Sunny. ‘There they are. Tina’s gang.’ Two older men accompanied them: black, tall, clean-shaven. ‘Those two are GIs from John Hay. The Camp.’ Pinky laughed. ‘But they are cool. Really, you must talk to them. They plan to go AWOL. The tall thin one wanted to join the Black Panthers but I think he is bakla, you know? He only likes to talk. But that Winston . . .’

  Neither of the GIs looked particularly effeminate to Sunny. ‘Where’s Tina?’

  ‘Let’s go ask.’ Pinky led the way. ‘Hi, Carole, guys.’

  One of the GIs offered Sunny a cigarette – fresh American Blue Seal. Sunny did a peace sign. ‘Thanks. I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Whey . . .’ He looked amazed. ‘Pakistan?’

  Sunny let it pass.

  ‘Isn’t Tina with you?’ Pinky spoke for Sunny.

  Carole’s eyes doubled in size. ‘Tina? Why, she went to Manila for the weekend, didn’t you hear? Some dumb philharmonic thing. We told her Al was having a wild Valentine’s, but she took the plane, like . . .’ She fingered a necklace of tiny coloured beads.

  ‘This morning?’

  ‘Yeah. She went home.’

  Pinky sucked in a corner of her lip and made a face of rubbery contrition. ‘Oh my God, Sunny, I’m so sorry. What a bummer.’

  Winston got hold of Pinky and pulled her on to the dance floor. The other GI asked Carole and she went too, her face thrust straight into his breast pocket. The other pair of girls bumped around their sling-bags dumped on the floor, clunking wooden bracelets together. The songs that night peddled fire and rain and hearts of gold that Sunny found very hard to take. He discovered a taste for rum and Coke and would have snorted a bucket of ascorbic acid if Ricardo had come pushing it.

  ‘Look at the booty,’ Lester said, opening his suitcase. He’d brought back two beautiful new English bats, a box of shiny red cricket balls and several pairs of gloves, pads, stumps and bails.

  ‘That’s serious stuff,’ Sunny said. ‘Seriously serious.’

  ‘You’ve been practising, I’m sure. And we’ll need the kit for the match.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll . . . get the guys going. My friend Junior wants to learn too.’

  ‘Don’t forget the girl. What’s her name? Tarka?’

  ‘Tina.’

  ‘Tina? Yes, whatever. Anyway, she’ll be a great surprise. Keep her up your sleeve.’

  ‘So, what do you think about this ceasefire?’ Hector asked Napoleon – Nappy for short – Lester’s closest Filipino friend. ‘You think Marcos is willing to negotiate?’ Although the forthcoming match was a major concern, Hector liked to deal with bigger issues from time to time, the way his bosses at the ADB did. Sunny, who was oiling the cricket bats, looked up to see Nappy’s reaction.

  Nappy, a small man with a wide face that broke easily into a flamboyant smile, was always seeking to improve his skills in what was hailed as a Filipino speciality: smooth interpersonal relationships, or SIRs. ‘Mindanao? I dunno. I think he is planning some, you know, ting. Marcos is trying to look ahead. He is a shorty, like me. We short guys know we have to sometimes step on another guy’s head to see what is coming. Mindanao, Sulu – these are back doors. Very tricky. It is the Muslim ting. We dunno what’ll happen.’

  Lester eyed him and got his pipe out. ‘Pan Islam,’ he growled in a low voice and started to scrape the bowl. He had brought Nappy and Hector home after a round of golf to meet Rudolf and Sunny and discuss the cricket match.

  ‘What do you mean, Lester? What pan?’ Hector squirmed as though he was being needled whenever Lester mentioned religion – any religion. It was a line that divided them: on one side was politics, opinions, facts and a reliance on basic common sense, a curious, somewhat uneasy combination of the natural and social sciences. On Hector’s side was a vague stew of mysticism, religion and extra-sensory perception that should have been anathema to international banking but w
as, for the initiates, much the same thing.

  ‘From Algeria to Indonesia. Nigeria to Washington.’

  ‘What, Lester? What? You sound like you are flogging a blooming encyclopaedia.’

  ‘Islam. World religions are like slow tornadoes. Is it not a topic at the Colombo Plan conference, Rudy?’

  Rudolf was quietly sipping a Coke and demolishing a tray of devilled peanuts. ‘China,’ he muttered. ‘In China they have driven all the religions into a concentrated force the size of a nuclear pea.’

  Nappy laughed. ‘Guys, we are talking about the Philippines. This is the Philippines, guys. We have all the volcanoes we want, already na. Marcos is playing for time. Like I say, he is a shorty looking ahead. All these demos and shooting and shouting. NPA, Maoists, Dante, Malacañang’s big libido scandal. He don’ like that. He’ll wanna handle one ting at a time. You can see that from the way he handled Dovey Beans, no? In the politics, like in the bed. So a bit of peace here, a bullet there and ram, ram, ram . . .’

  ‘Beam, Nappy. Beam,’ Hector corrected the notorious American woman’s name. The President’s salacious affair with her was the latest scandal in the newspapers.

  Nappy grinned, puzzled but amenable as ever. ‘Lester, you heard the secret bedroom tapes? Our President gunning in the bed?’

  ‘Grunting, Nappy. Grunting. It was the big show in Singapore. Raunchiest entertainment in Noddyland.’

  Nappy’s eyes shone. ‘They say he is like the parson who can’t keep it down, no?’

  Sunny found Nappy’s lewd interests a little embarrassing. The first time he visited he brought Lester a small, carved wooden man-in-a-barrel that displayed a massive spring-loaded erection every time the barrel was lifted. ‘Good icebreaker for a party,’ he’d sniggered. ‘Everybody loves it. Our number one handicraft.’

  ‘Never mind that. What about some looking ahead of our own? Sunny, what about this team?’ Lester pulled out a tiny notebook and a minuscule pencil from his pocket. ‘Let’s see . . . With the five of us, the two Thompsons, Sunny’s three friends, and Tina, I reckon we have a team. We don’t need Desai, thank God!’