The robot wins its first point while Ansel is still saying, “Watch this.”
Jo turns the score card. One to nothing.
“I did,” she tells him.
Ansel is sixty-three. He has played table tennis in this hall for forty years, which is long enough to remember every lucky win as skill. Tonight is his farewell exhibition. His wife sold eighty tickets to help pay for the club roof.
He told her eighty people would see him beat a machine.
The machine stands at the other end of the table. Two wheels, one arm, one paddle. It has no face, which Ansel considers unsporting. There is nowhere to aim a meaningful look.
Ruth, the visiting team manager, adjusts the barrier behind it.
“Our exhibition is first to seven,” she says. “Same table, same ball. It follows the ball it can see. It can’t reach every part of the table, and it has no interest in your feelings.”
“A typical visiting player,” Ansel says.
The audience laughs. The robot doesn’t.
Ansel serves with heavy spin. The paddle meets the ball and returns it. He swings late. Two to nothing.
His old partner Len leans over the barrier.
“Try serving slowly.”
“I was planning that.”
“Plan it sooner.”
The hall smells of floor polish and coffee. Jo has spent the afternoon arranging chairs, checking tickets and persuading people that a bucket under the roof drip is not a drinks cooler. After tonight she wants a month without club business. Ansel promised her that too.
He serves slowly. The ball barely rises. The robot rolls forward and pushes it across the net, just out of his reach.
Three to nothing.
“It can do slow,” Ruth says.
“I noticed.”
Ansel takes the next ball from his pocket. He knows the width of this table. He knows the way a player reaches too far and leaves an opening. He looks at the robot’s wheels. It is still standing close to the far corner after its last return.
He sends the ball short to the other side.
The wheels turn. The arm stretches. The ball drops beyond the paddle’s reach and bounces twice.
Ansel raises both fists.
Jo turns his card to one.
“You’d think he’d won the roof,” she tells the first row.
He has one point, and now he knows how to get six more. The robot can’t stretch forever. He will move it side to side until its clever little arm becomes somebody else’s problem.
But on the next serve it stands closer to the middle. His short ball is no longer far enough away. It returns cleanly. He sends his reply into the net.
Four to one.
Ruth claps once. Ansel looks at her.
“It’s your player,” he says. “You might look less pleased.”
“You cheered yours.”
He has no good answer. He drinks water while Jo checks the tickets in her lap.
“We’ve paid for the repair?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Even if I lose?”
“They bought tickets to watch, Ansel. You didn’t promise a refund.”
He had privately promised a triumph. That promise is proving harder to collect.
The machine wins another point. Then another. Six to one.
Len comes close again.
“Your knee,” he whispers.
“What about it?”
“Could go bad. Dramatically. They’d stop the match. Call it unfinished.”
Ansel glances at the audience. His granddaughter is counting the cards. Two teenage players are sitting on the floor because he sold more seats than the hall owns.
He imagines leaving to applause, one hand on a knee that doesn’t hurt. Then he imagines telling Jo in the kitchen. She would know before he got through the first sentence.
“My knee is fine,” he says.
“For a man your age.”
“Go sit down.”
Ruth asks whether he wants a break. A real one. He says no.
The last rally is his best. He drives a ball wide, takes the return, puts the next one short. The machine rolls forward. He sends another wide ball behind it.
For a moment the paddle seems too far away.
It reaches.
The ball comes back high enough for Ansel to hit hard. He swings. The ball strikes the top of the net, hangs there for a cruel little moment, and falls on his side.
Seven to one.
The audience claps. Ansel doesn’t bow. He needs a moment before he can do anything that won’t look like throwing his paddle.
Ruth walks around the table and offers her hand.
“Good last rally.”
“Not that good.”
“No,” she says. “I wanted my player to win.”
He likes her better for that. He shakes her hand.
Len wants a rematch next month. The teenagers want to try the machine. Jo begins stacking chairs without saying what she wants.
Ansel looks at her, then at a young player by the table.
“Will you help put these away? I’m taking Jo home.”
The boy agrees. Jo hands him the keys and her list. Ansel expects her to thank him. Instead she puts on her coat as if she’d been waiting all evening.
At the bus stop he is still describing the ball that touched the net.
“Three fingers or four?” she asks, holding one closed hand behind her back. It is the guessing game they’ve played since their children were small.
“Four.”
She shows three.
“Again,” he says.
“The bus is coming.”
He opens his mouth, closes it, and laughs. She takes his paddle to free his hand, and they step onto the bus together.
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