Passion Play

As Fabian threaded his way among the obstacles, Big Lick intermittently shying and bucking at one or another of them, he continued to contemplate Costeiro’s strategy, to ponder his own. He concluded that the Argentinean, like so many other polo players, valued teamwork and the urgency of the game, its incessant volley of pressure, danger, skill; solitary forms of horsemanship—even jumping—presented themselves as inferior in drama and thrill, and therefore were to be carried out casually, as gentlemanly diversions that called for no further authority, preparation or expertise.

  He was distracted by a slight commotion at the fringe of the field. Two of Costeiro’s grooms helped Alexandra set up the camera on its tripod, and Fabian saw her in the distance, the sheen of her jacket a luminous backdrop to the black metal. The Argentinean, still practicing, preened for her with several fresh jumps, now hitting a ball one of the grooms threw to him, radiating the conviction, as his mount cleared the obstacles, that he was as accomplished a jumper as he was a polo player. Fabian observed that whenever Costeiro’s pony was accelerating to clear the obstacle, the Argentinean, plying his mallet in anticipation of striking the ball, would tilt over the horse’s mane, shifting his weight above its shoulders, burdening its forelegs before his horse had a chance to clear the obstacle. If he was about to attempt a back or side shot, he would bend back or sideways, shifting his weight onto the pony’s rear, burdening its hind legs with further weight. In both instances, Costeiro carelessly tended to tip the pony off balance at the exact moment when, to hurdle the barrier, the animal most needed its balance.

  It was time to practice. Fabian threw Big Lick into a leisurely trot and then steered the horse toward the first of the obstacles.

  The mare took the jump smoothly, the hoofs of its forelegs higher than its belly, hind legs tucked in neatly behind the thighs, lifting its heaviest bulk in a clean sweep above the barrier, the pony’s performance a reward for the time and care he had spent in maintaining Big Lick and Gaited Amble at jumping.

  He repeated the maneuver, continuing to guide the horse solely with his legs, his hand gently holding the reins, his mallet at the ready. Each time he jumped, giving Big Lick its lead, the freedom to stretch out its neck, to balance its head, Fabian was careful to maintain a steady seat and not to shift his weight in a polo saddle that did not offer the support of one properly canted for jumping. To curb any association of jumping with pain, which could impel the mare to stop short in front of an obstacle and unseat him, he refrained from using the whip before a jump and was cautious not to rein in the horse too abruptly after it had cleared the obstacle.

  A half-dozen of Costeiro’s grooms moved into positions along the field and at the goal posts. Costeiro raised his arm, a signal that he was ready to start. Now he and Fabian began to ride toward the center of the field.

  Alexandra, her hair a liquid fan about her neck, stepped from behind the camera as the two men advanced toward her. Fabian saw the white ball in her hand; he sensed the stir she created, a schoolgirl about to play, waiting avidly for the signal to toss the ball.

  As Fabian and Costeiro came to a halt at the edge of the field, she threw the ball in, a lithe arc cleaving the morning light. Before it tumbled to a halt beside them, Costeiro, heaving in his zeal to get at it, already seized by the heat of the game, swerved his pony, his mallet scooping the ball gently into the air. As it scythed upward, he chased under it, his mallet a pendulum, his mount smoothly negotiating a parallel bar in pursuit of the ball. Just as his horse crested the bar, he caught the ball in flight, arrowing it toward the goal. Fabian, three lengths behind, unable to overtake him, watched the Argentinean’s pony take three more obstacles with springy ease. About a hundred yards from the goal, Costeiro bore down on the ball. Once again his mallet made faultless contact with it, a clap of triumph. In vaulting catapult, the ball drove straight between the posts—making the goal.

  Spurts of applause, yelps of Latin exultation and encouragement erupted from his grooms at the goal posts and the fringes of the field. Costeiro, slowing down, raised his hand to announce his scoring the first point. Tipping the brim of his helmet, the Argentinean, flushed with the pride of his performance, his habit of command unruffled, pranced his pony about in front of Alexandra’s camera, responding to her wave of victory with the homage of his raised mallet. As Costeiro and Fabian moved across the grass toward her, again returning to the starting point, a groom handed her a fresh ball, and she burst out from behind the camera, glowing with excitement. Boldly she threw the ball down, like a challenge, between the two men.

  This time, the ball rolled close to Fabian, yet he felt sluggish, torpid, uncertain whether he was able to muster the spirit to match Costeiro. Preoccupied with the attraction between Alexandra and Costeiro, with the Argentinean’s mastery in hitting the ball, Fabian still missed the contour of his own will, the bent of his own strategy: whether to play the ball or to play Costeiro.

  With the first few shots, the sweat began to bead under Fabian’s helmet, trickling into his eyes, blurring his vision, forcing him to blink more often; soon its taste was salty on his lips, and it began dripping down his neck and chin. His left hand holding the whip and reins, his right gripping the mallet, he could not pause long enough to lift his face guard and blot the sweat. To shake it off, he lowered his head, looking straight down, at the lush turf that glided, like a conveyor belt in perpetual, verdant motion, under his horse. The surface and depth of the grass were clear to him, every parched patch, every emerald strip. His eyes recorded mechanically the burnt-out blades of grass, mangled and flat, that smeared the head of his mallet at each strike, the dew that the ball, almost as if sweating, trailed like a fine mist in its course.

  To ready himself for the challenge of a strike, Fabian drew on his fund of mental blueprints, envisioning the moment of the hit upon him: his mallet in a swing at the lowest point of the ellipse of his arm, now moving upward, toward the point of impact that lay slightly ahead of the line of his foot, the flipping arc of his wrist adding speed to the mallet just when its head met the ball below its dead center, lofting it into the air with the concentrated momentum of his own energy, the velocity of his horse, even the breeze that, cooling his neck, sped him onward.

  He outflanked Costeiro and with an effortless stroke hit the ball, sending it swiftly on its way, to rest just inches from a triple bar. He had broken into a fast canter, clearing crossbars as he beat his way toward the white blur, when he realized that Big Lick had misread his command and was not slowing down enough for him to strike the ball. The mare plowed into the parallel bars with its chest, knocking the rails noisily askew, ribbons of color splintering beneath Fabian.

  Just then, Costeiro, seizing the chance, jammed through, goading the pony into a clever prance over the fallen bars, pushing Big Lick off balance. The ball his again, he launched a perfect backhand at it, and as it reeled into the distance, he curbed his mount; the pony, rearing, choked as Costeiro swiveled and took off after the ball. Breasting a pair of triple bars and two post-and-rails in swift progression, Costeiro overtook the ball and scooped it into the air again, catching it with a blow as it hurtled over the field. The ball, a thread of white, whistled toward the goal. Fabian, helpless, watched as Costeiro scored for the second time.

  The two men took starting positions again, changing sides. Alexandra pitched in a ball, and Costeiro, alert to the challenge of Fabian coming at him from the side, took off at full gallop, steadying himself as he reached the ball. His mallet missed it by an inch, but before he could return to claim it, Fabian charged up from the other end of the field; his legs hard on Big Lick, hurdling the post-and-rails, he bumped into Costeiro, riding him off and taking the ball by swatting it under the pony’s neck. Costeiro would not slacken his speed, and bore down as both riders simultaneously jumped a wall barrier. He could not pass Fabian, but uncoiling his mallet in a full swing, he propelled the ball into a tumbling roll that smashed it against a hedge-and-rail. Erect in his stirrups, Costeiro wheeled his foaming
pony abruptly, circling back to snatch the ball from under the hedge, spoiling Fabian’s chance for a shot at the goal.

  Just as Fabian readied Big Lick to breast a double set of post-and-rails, to retaliate with a back shot, Costeiro came at him from the side. The Argentinean’s mount jarred Fabian’s pony into a skid that knocked both obstacles sprawling in front of Fabian before he could steady himself in the saddle and bring Big Lick to balance. Gagging his pony, Costeiro forced it into a veering side collision with Fabian. Big Lick, tossing in panic, reared. Fabian, the animal plunging beneath him, felt one boot slip from the iron clasp of the stirrup. He lurched to the side, on the brink of losing his seat.

  At that moment, off balance, the security of his saddle awry, Fabian saw the ball. It was within reach, luring him, a summons he could not deny. His arm wheeling and winding with mounting velocity, the hand drawn close to his body, his eye stalking the ball, he stretched his arm, launching the mallet with a wrench of his shoulder, smashing at full tilt, the ball soaring into a high, liquid arc, steep above the barriers. As the ball spun against the air, the hand of the groom at the goal post was raised in announcement: Fabian had scored his first point.

  There was a mild flurry of scattered applause. A rush of blood invaded Fabian’s brain, the tides of breath pounding in his ears and throat. From a distance, he saw Costeiro’s friendly salute as he wheeled and rode toward his grooms, apparently having decided to change his pony. Alexandra gave no sign of recognition, moving out quickly to meet the Argentinean, who embraced her after he dismounted. For a moment, they looked at Fabian, who was beginning to circle the field slowly on Big Lick; then they turned away, retreating into their intimate whispering.

  As he watched them, Fabian was no longer torpid, without will. This morning, on this field, he knew his strategy.

  He returned to the starting point, watching as Costeiro took his new pony over each obstacle, priming it, the grooms calling out in Spanish. Fabian chose to keep Big Lick, although the mare, lathered and foaming, shining with sweat, quivered and trembled still. He stroked and gentled the horse, readying it for the next bout.

  He was aware of Alexandra ignoring his presence as she busied herself with the camera. When a groom scrambled toward her with a ball, she took it from him coolly and moved toward the rim of the field. Without a glance at Fabian, she tossed it before the Argentinean gently, almost an invitation.

  Fabian and Costeiro collided in their rush to it. Attempting a long tail shot, the Argentinean coiled his mallet in a whipping stroke that lunged up to catch Fabian under the brim of his helmet. Dizzied, Fabian swayed in his saddle, Big Lick suddenly aimless beneath him, the painted jumps and bars a grid of random colors, the ground a smudged reel of green.

  Costeiro circled back, pivoting his horse, smiling and gesturing a sportsman’s apology. Fabian, the daze of the blow receding, Costeiro’s blur of words drifting across the stir of the horses, met the Argentinean’s eyes, gleaming, alert. He attempted the response of the field, but the answering smile would not come: he remembered his troubled thoughts of the night before.

  Quickening to his instinct, Big Lick shot out, shoving Costeiro to the side and crowding his mount; Fabian and Costeiro locked and unlocked mallets in a melee over the ball. In the breach that opened between them, Fabian caught sight of the ball, directly in front of Big Lick’s legs. Collecting the horse, thrusting himself well into the saddle, he drove the ball straight from under the pony’s neck. It shot across the field, a white pellet winking in the sun, vaulting over two obstacles. Cutting off Costeiro, he took after it, clearing both jumps as he bore down on the ball. He reached it just as Big Lick was about to clear an oxer, the last obstacle before the goal posts, and pounded the ball high into the air. He could feel Big Lick gathering, bunching lithely to hurdle the obstacle. To keep his seat secure, Fabian forked his body tautly, tightening his legs around the horse’s ribs. At the pitch and zenith of his flight, he closed in on the ball, infusing his mallet with the mass and momentum of the horse, with the surge of the leap, with his own energy and will, a radiant stream of force cresting at full flood on the very brink of its shuddering collapse. Wood cracking on wood, the head of his mallet overtook its quarry. He watched the ball’s passage between the posts. He had scored his second goal. The game was at a draw.

  Once again, Fabian and Costeiro returned to the starting point, passing each other with a cool formality as they observed the ritual of changing sides of the field.

  The Argentinean’s face was dark with concentration, his eyes sullen. Alexandra, standing at the rim of the field, ignored both players, calculated, then hurled the ball out well over their heads, almost defiantly, mustering a force she had not drawn upon before. With the ball behind them, Costeiro and Fabian swiveled instantly, plunging their ponies over the first two obstacles, their jumps parallel lines of force, merging almost in an alignment so close that it seemed they wanted to ride each other off while still in flight. Big Lick’s eyes bulged in panic, skidding and shooting sideways, as the mare breasted a barrier, measuring the space between itself and a horse it did not know. The riders cleared the brush-and-rails, but the savage competition went on, a jostling duel as they bore down on the next obstacle. Fabian found himself braking Big Lick as the Argentinean snaffled his mount pitilessly at the approach to the parallel bars. Under strips of cheerful color, nestling in the green turf, the ball lay, waiting.

  A fight for possession broke out. Thwarting Fabian’s pursuit of the ball, Costeiro rammed his mount at Big Lick’s neck and haunches, butting and bunting, trapping the mare in the tangle of trampled rails. Canting Big Lick against the other pony, Fabian struck back, his knee guards ripping at Costeiro’s, hooking, then breaking loose, their mallets hissing as they whipped the air, flogging the legs of their prancing ponies, catching their hoofs, cramming the air with a staccato rattle of wood barking on wood, wrenching, the cracking noise a tide about Fabian’s ears, drowning the rush of his breath, his pitching chest. The ponies, foaming with panic and effort, their eyes wheeling in terror of the turmoil and of each other, reared violently, bucking and trampling. Its haunches pushed against the rails, Big Lick bolted, as if seared by a bar of flame, dislodging the rails with a swift kick of its hind legs; taking their flailing tumble as a springboard, the mare now catapulted forward, shoving Costeiro and his pony bristling in frenzy to one side, allowing Fabian to come at the ball in a perfect side back shot. While Costeiro tried to calm his pony, Fabian turned Big Lick on its hocks and followed the ball, striking it again, sending it in a sleek skim over a fence well before he cleared that obstacle, then, after the jump, whipping the ball straight toward the goal. Only two obstacles, one post-and-rails and one triple bar, remained before him. He was standing in the stirrups, already coiling his arm, poised to launch the mallet in a stroke that would send the ball over both obstacles, arrowing to its target, when he saw Alexandra. Hovering over her camera, she was midway at the side of the field, only a few yards away from where the ball had come to rest. Following Fabian’s run, waiting to catch his stroke, the camera an extension of her profile, Alexandra adjusted the aperture. In the lens of his thought, Fabian saw the face he would remember always, hovering over his body, a face he had touched, that had touched him; then he saw the ball pounding into Alexandra’s head, leveling her ear, the ruptured veins spurting blood, her jaw fallen away, pulverized bone burying one eye, a slimy mussel in its splintered shell, her forehead an oozing fissure in a skull like a discarded visor, the jet of blood from her temple rising, bright crimson.

  He was almost on the ball now, one part of his brain measuring the span between his mallet and the ball, the speed of the pony, the distance to the goal, another instantly denying the image of that bloodied face, imposing on it the black shield of the camera, its knobs and dials beacons in the sun, flickering only inches from the softness of her face, the tumult of her cascading hair.

  As he bore down on the ball, he tightened his grip on the mallet. In one
slope of unbroken impulse, his body canted to the plane of the ball, his arm raised, straightening, wheeling with impetus, his shoulder following, his wrist flexing back and up, he scythed the mallet forward, well ahead of Big Lick’s trunk, swinging down, connecting the very center of the mallet’s head to the equator of the ball in a clap of annihilating force.

  The ball rose into the light, flying like a skeet target bolted from its trap. Fabian looked full into the sun, his eye on the ball, its faint whining above him. His eyes flickering for a second on the silver blur of Alexandra, he watched the ball. It descended, pounding into the camera, shattering against it, tumbling it and the tripod down. Alexandra was left standing, her hands to her head, her screaming spilling over the field, the jab of Costeiro’s mallet on Fabian’s arm, flogging, flailing, dragging him to a halt.

  “What happened, what happened?” the Argentinean shouted, his face a storm of rage, vaulting from his pony even before it stopped and breaking into a run toward Alexandra, his mallet a discarded toy. Three grooms rushed toward Alexandra apprehensively, one of them stopping, almost reverently, to pick up the mangled camera. Fabian got off Big Lick and followed Costeiro calmly to where Alexandra stood, her hands twisting her hair, damp with fright, the mask of her composure askew, tears brimming in her eyes focused in a dead stare.

  “Alex, are you hurt?” Costeiro asked, taking her urgently, almost brutally, by the shoulders, searching her face, his hands plying her head and neck and throat, then thrusting her, limp in his grip, away from him. As she began to sob, he shuddered with relief, bringing her closer, his mouth on her forehead, whispering away her fear, brushing straw from her jacket, stroking her neck. Fabian watched the scene impassively; the grooms were openly excited and curious.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” Fabian said. “My pony slipped just as I was about to strike the ball—just as I hit it.”

  “You could have crippled Alexandra for life, you could have killed her.” Costeiro turned to him, shouting.