Crazy Auntie says that all human beings were created to play games, that’s what makes us human lah. Play is freedom, she says, and our minds are the greatest playgrounds of all. I dunno about all that. What I do know, without a shadow of a doubt, is that the best video game ever is Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Hands down. Even though me and Harun don’t know anyone who has actually played it yet, the world knows it bah, everyone knows it, and if Abah truly loves us, he’ll bring it back for us from his business trip to Kuala Lumpur.
Me and Harun will be the first kids in all of Kota Kinabalu to own it, and I’ll definitely be the first girl – everyone at school is gonna be so jealous, oh. We’ve nagged Abah so much, I’m worried he won’t buy it for us, just to prove a point, so sometimes I have to drag Harun away from him. Harun, with his big black eyes and wavy black hair and triangular face, like a pretty little alien, always wearing the same No Doubt t-shirt. Gross. We go out together onto the balcony to count boats on the hazy bay, green-blue, or into the kitchen to steal kumquat sticks and Ring Pops while our maid Siti isn’t looking, or crumple up balls of paper for our little cat Jiji to play with, or sit on the loungeroom floor drawing with oil pastels while Mak flicks between channels.
But Zelda’s never far from our minds.
A week ago, before Abah left KK (that’s what everyone calls Kota Kinabalu), we were mooching around, hanging in the doorway of his
and Mak’s bedroom, watching him get ready to fly to the peninsula for his big meeting. The air con was blasting. Abah kept adjusting the knot in the silk paisley tie he’d bought in Italy, picking Jiji’s white fur off his crow-coloured suit, preening goatee and moustache, twisting his head side to side to observe himself. Abah, skinny and straightbacked, hair brilliant with Brylcreem, six-foot-one – tall for a Malay man – with a head slightly too big for his neck. He looked handsome that day. And knew it.
—Abah, we’ll never ask you for anything again bah, I pleaded, trying to catch his eye.
Harun nodded hard.
—Ya, Abah, pleeease. It’s the best game in the world.
—Astaga! Abah replied in his deep voice, lighting a Davidoff cigarette, not taking his eyes off the bedroom mirror. Kids, you said that about the last one, and the one before that. Can’t you see I’m run ragged? This deal is crucial. Beyond crucial. But Harun’s big black eyes are a skeleton key. And me, Rozana Binti Yusuf, who everyone just calls Roz, with a nose as big as a garlic bulb – I’m persistent when I wanna be. When he turned away from the mirror, we caught his eyes and his stern pout melted into a quarter moon smile:
—I’ll see what I can do, sayang.
So, we’re up late tonight, waiting, stifling yawns and trying not to doze off, watching an old ghost movie with Mak. The fan creaks and grumbles and the KK evening simmers outside. We’ve begged her to let us watch Princess Mononoke, but she says there’s no way, she doesn’t want to watch it for the fiftieth time. Mak says ghost movies have been banned, but it’s easy enough to get them from Indon, so she puts on The Queen of Black Magic, which she herself has watched about fifty times.
—They accused you of using black magic? says the man on screen. Then just practise it. Curse all those people in that village.
After a while, Mak seems to get bored and changes to the news, and we groan in unison and try to wrestle the remote control from her, but she slaps our hands away. On the TV, Dr Mahathir is giving a speech, and Mak fidgets with the gold rings on her fingers. Even up this late, at home, she’s well made-up, hair in a high bun, eyelashes so thick it seems impossible for her eyelids to hold up. But her eyes take in everything, shrewd and sharp. She blinks dramatically and often.
Mak catches me watching her.
—Eh, watch lah the screen and not me!
Harun giggles.
—Roz, you’re so random sometimes.
There’s not much me and Harun agree on. I like Nirvana and Pennywise, he likes No Doubt and TLC (teenybopper). He likes fiddling around with gadgets and electronics and his hair (like Abah), I like manga and drawing in my art book (obsessed). I like Filet-OFish, he dips french fries in his chocolate thickshakes (gross). But we both believe in ghosts. We both think Princess Mononoke is the greatest movie ever, and second is My Neighbor Totoro, and third is Kiki’s Delivery Service. That’s why we called our cat Jiji. And, yep, we know we’re both going to love Zelda, we can agree on that too. Hands down, best video game ever. Did I say that already? Hm. Like Crazy Auntie says:
—Never hurts to tell the truth twice.
We’re ten storeys up. From time to time, I go out onto the big balcony and look out towards the islands, winking with light, and push Abah’s red boxing bag, back and forth, back and forth. It’s so heavy! I saw Siti filling it with sand. Siti is from the Philippines originally, but she’s been with us as long as I can remember.
Geckoes scramble mazes across the ceiling, the boxing bag swings back and forth. Abah’s never coming back, ever, and I’m never going to play Zelda. I hear Harun sigh, and Mak is lightly snoring now, and so is Jiji the cat. On the TV, silent, race cars are zooming around a track. What did Abah mean by his meeting being beyond crucial? I count the islands I can see – Gaya, Sepanggar, maybe even Manukan and Mamutik. Lights are twinkling on all of them, water villages and boats and resorts. Far to the left, somewhere in the darkness, is the scary one, Sulug Island, which people stopped living on after the war and has no lights on it. I’m trying to count, but I swear all the lights on the islands start to fade and go out, one by one.
Just as I’m sloping inside, towards bed, I hear the front door unlock, and in comes my Abah, with a tired but playful smile, hair ruffled, tie loose. We’re immediately all over him, unzipping his suitcase and rummaging through his toiletries bag and pressed shirts, fruitlessly, until he conjures the game from his suit jacket like a magician. Siok! Hooting and bouncing, we grab it from his hands, peppering him with kisses and hugs. As we bounce around with it, holding it up in triumph, Mak wakes up blearily and Abah kisses her on the top of the head from behind the couch. He goes out to the balcony, pauses to stroke Jiji behind the ear with the back of his index finger, then lights a cigarette. He leans back and pokes the boxing bag with his toe, smoking contentedly, looking out over the lights, glowing bright again now.
Fierceland, Omar Musa, Penguin Random House SEA.
