The Banquet

Richard Oh

Most days the house was quiet. On Sunday afternoons it was especially quiet. Except for the interminable throaty crooning of the turtledoves, the only other sounds you would hear from Mira's bedroom were the wind chimes ululating funny verb to choose; "sounding" may be better from the eaves outside her window and the susurration from banana groves in the garden below.

On such afternoons she would turn on the stereo she'd inherited from her brother, Harlan, before he'd left for college in New York. Lying in bed with eyes closed, she would wait for Wagner's The Ride of Valkyries to build to an apocalyptic crescendo and listened to the houseboy's footsteps flip-flopping up the stairs and the hesitant knock on the door immediately after.

But this afternoon the house had been in a tumult since the early hours.

From where she was she could hear the clatter in the kitchen and Mom's shrill rebukes followed by panic exclamations from the maids.

Mira could not understand why Mother made such a fuss over everything. Nobody would turn up. She was sure of that. The thought caused another wave of migraine to jangle through her nerves.

In the pantheon of high school girls she belonged to the lower echelons between the easily forgettable and plain insignificant. Of course, her good friend Liz would debate this point with fervent disagreement with anyone who would listen. But that was Liz.

She felt strongly about things and when it came to friendship, especially with Mira, she was earnestly defensive. No wonder they were the only girls in class that did not seem to attract any boys.

She tried to warn Mom about it. The headstrong matron would have none of it.

"Things happen once in your life. You need to know when to capture it. One day you'll thank me for this," she had said.

But what happened if nobody showed up? Think of the embarrassment. Not to mention the waste. Emak's mango pudding, Mom's fruit cocktail and all the dishes. The Kalasan chicken, the salted vegetable duck soup and the ketoprak ...

What if? Mira found herself lost for a moment in a speculative mood. What if, out of some quirk in the way of things, someone did show up? Now who would that likely be? Not an unlikely possibility? But who? Not the idiot, Budi? She would not be surprised if he did. Just about the only person she could think of who would turn up.

The thought gave her a ticklish lift. The oddball Romeo must have a crush on her. The furtive glances, the awkward stiffness whenever she was around him. All semester long he had been behaving out of whack.

She heard a knock on the door. A timid tap, then after a while a quick succession of taps. Bachrun emerged with a tray carrying her afternoon chamomile tea and a plate of Emak's scrumptious lemon pound cakes.

Watching Bachrun pour her a cup of tea, she yawned and stretched out in bed. Then lackadaisically, she asked, "Bachrun, would you give me a massage, yes?"

The houseboy was probably 16, about her age but much taller with sinewy muscles honed by daily chores. It was always a tremendous pleasure for her to see him cringe in discomfort whenever she caught him with her unexpected requests.

The houseboy set the tray on the side-table. Then with eyes lowered he moved sideways toward the edge of the bed. She breathed in Cusson's soap blended in with the houseboy's musky body odor. A nauseating admixture that she found ineffably intoxicating.

She drew it all in, imbibing without restraint until she felt an airy lightness in her head. She heard the houseboy crack his knuckles and felt his firm fingers tweak her body, kneading tentatively at first and then gaining in strength as they glided upward from the calf underneath her duster and then up toward her rump, the small of her back, all the way to the nape of her neck.

On some spots, around her waist, near her ribcage where his fingers traversed she felt a quaint tingling sensation that spread quickly through her body. To suppress the sensation she stiffened up for fear that should she let her body respond freely to the lavish treatment of his fingers the houseboy would soon fathom her deep and forbidden thoughts.

It was a relief for Mira when Bachrun suddenly started to talk. Something rather peculiar for him because she never recalled him talking while giving her a massage.

"Non, is it true you're leaving home for college?" the houseboy remarked.

"Yes," she said. "Won't you be pleased I am going soon?" With her face against the satin duvet, she could imagine Bachrun's face blanche at her remark.

"Of course not!" She heard the houseboy's protesting tone and felt the sudden pressure of his fingers on her spine. "Ouch! Not so hard please."

"Sorry," Bachrun apologized frantically. "So sorry!"

"It's all right. Just not too hard, ok?"

His fingers slackened. What could he be thinking about now? Mira wondered.

"Well, soon you won't have to work that hard any more. You won't have to give me a massage, for instance," she said, her eyes closed, her body floating in a state of exquisite weightlessness.

"Please Non, don't say that," the houseboy said. "This is nothing at all. After all I enjoy ... I mean I don't mind doing it."

"Then why do you want to know if I'm leaving?"

The fingers paused and then continued tweaking hesitantly down the side of her armpit.

"The house will be very quiet, that's all," he said softly.

Sometimes she had no idea how long she should let him torture her in this manner before completely losing control. Her body craved for the fingers to deviate from their regular course and explore other regions, down there between her hips...

"Mira!" Emak's stentorian voice bellowed up from the landing downstairs. "There's a parcel waiting for you."

Mira straightened up with alacrity.

"Thanks, Bachrun," she said. The houseboy gave her a sheepish smile and shuffled out of the bedroom.

"What do you know?" Emak greeted her with a wide grin when she saw Mira coming down the stairs. "The little girl has got herself a suitor at long last!"

Mira feigned indifference and walked past Emak. She scanned the parcel neatly wrapped in metallized paper with a flourish of knotted red ribbons. Emak hovered around, watching her like a hawk, waiting for her to open the parcel, but Mira snatched it from the tall boy "tall boy" if a person, "tallboy" if a piece of furniture - can't tell from context and sauntered toward the garden.

Mom caught sight of her through the kitchen window.

"Get your Pop out of the cot," she hollered. Amid the range of whistling and steaming pots and pans, her face florid with sweltering heat, Mom appeared exceptionally beautiful to her. "He's been lying there like a corpse all afternoon."

Vicious remarks aside, it was comforting to see Mom so busy again. Mom always looked her best when preoccupied. Somehow when she was busy, the shadows dispersed from her face, replaced by a radiant glow of purpose. The house too came alive, resounding with her livid commands. Moments like these reminded Mira of the days gone by, when she was still a child. When the house echoed with Pop's guffaws and all sorts of bustling racket.

Lately the house was more often filled with the void of Mom's absences. She was always out at appointments: her dates with Tante Lena for bridge, her mornings at Maya's Salon for manicure and pedicure, afternoons at the spa and karaoke sessions in the evenings.

"The kids have grown, flown the coop," she liked to joke with her friends. "Not much else to do at home."

Mira stood before Pop, a crumpled heap in the cot under the mottled shade of a banana grove. His shirt opened down to the mound of his stomach, on which a tumbler was vicariously "precariously" seems more suitable perched to the uneven sonorous breathing.

Mira tried shaking him awake. But after a few attempts she gave up. It was like pulling a dead weight. Nothing shifted. She called out for the houseboy. As if he had been waiting there all along for her call, the houseboy materialized swiftly from behind the chicken shed.

Together they heaved Pop up from the cot and carried him, feet dragging behind and head hanging down Mira's shoulder, to his room. Mira caught a whiff of sour whiskey breath. She retched, faltering as if she was about to let go, but steeling herself, she held on and they lurched slowly into the house.

They lay Pop down on his bed. With the houseboy's help she was able to undress Pop. She fetched a rag and a pail of water from the bathroom and then gave Pop a scrub in bed. From the clutter of his dressing cabinet she chose a white starched shirt. She noticed the frayed thread around the collar. From a stack of haphazardly is better placed garments in the drawers she withdrew a pair of black cotton pants.

Then they proceeded to the almost impossible task of dressing Pop up. Head bent down, Pop was immobile in bed, while they, as if performing a contortionist's trick, twisted his hands and legs to slip the clothes onto him.

Afterward when the houseboy left the room, Mira sat on the edge of the bed watching Pop lying fully clothed in his pressed shirt and pants. It was a strange sight, Pop looking like a freshly painted wreck. She could not recall ever seeing him looking so ... spruced up.

From the few photographs she had found in Mom's drawers, she knew how handsome Pop once was. In the snapshots where she found them posing together they appeared the incomparable pair: tall and dashingly beautiful.

Mira looked around the room. She had not been in Pop's room for a while. The shades were always kept down on account of Pop's getting up late. As a result there was a dank mustiness that seemed to cling to everything in the room: the walls, the sofa and the cabinet. Books were everywhere, stacked on the bedside table, lying on the sofa, strewn all over underneath the bed.

Her left hand nudged something next to her on the bed. It was the package. She must have placed it there while laying Pop down. She picked it up and turned it around. So neatly packed. Looked almost as if it had been packed by a woman's hand. Perhaps Budi asked his mother to pack the gift for him. Mira could not help being amused. What a strange boy.

She opened the carefully wrapped foil and found a pen, a red Parker with her name elegantly engraved on it. Mira turned the box about to see if there was a note. But there was nothing else. What a timid boy, she thought and suddenly felt an ineffable sympathy for him.

Pop stirred, stretched and farted. He opened his eyes and saw Mira by the bedside.

"Ah Mira," he exclaimed as if expecting to see her in his room sitting by his bedside. This dawned on him after a moment. "What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Mom told me to get you ready."

"Ah she never gave up, did she?" He sat up, a lethargic lump laboring into life. And when he was steadily seated in the middle of the bed, he said with a mawkish smile, "I'm ready!"

It was always like that with Pop. Irreverently ludicrous, with a wry bent of humor only Mira could appreciate. Mom had long ago adopted an attitude of prissy indifference to his antics.

"Pop, why do you drink so much?"

"Ah the tough question again." He raised his hand and made a sailor's salute.

"Come on, Pop. You know it's not good for you."

"I know. But it's one of the two things that gets me on good terms with the rest of the world. The other is sleep. I am where I want to be when I drink or when I sleep. Sometimes when I am caught between sleep and wakefulness, I also drink, just so I know where the heck I am." Pop cackled, showing irregular dentition, tinted with a yellowish sheen.

"You should get your room tidied up. It's a mess."

Pop looked around disinterestedly. "But why bother? It'll be messy again tomorrow."

"Who's going to take care of you when I'm not around?"

"Oh don't get soppy," Pop said. "You're not trying to make me cry or anything, are you?"

"Can you be serious for just a second?"

"OK, OK. Don't have to be so fierce," Pop said. Then next to her, staring at his bare feet dangling down from the edge of the bed, he mumbled, "Oh don't you worry about me. I always take good care of myself, don't I?"