Maori

by Alan Dean Foster

  “My name’s Andrew. I’m from Tarawera.” He purposely didn’t mention his last name. If she was unfamiliar with the name of Coffin it would mean nothing to her and if she was it might intimidate her. Andrew had seen it have that effect on both pakehas and Maori. Something about this particular young woman, though, told him she would be difficult to intimidate.

  “That’s a long ride,” she said.

  “Long and dusty and hot.” He continued to smile down at her as he paced alongside. It took a few minutes before she looked back up at him and grinned.

  “Well then, if it is long and dusty and hot perhaps you need a bath.”

  “A little early in the day for me to get wet, but you may be right. I’d be better received in polite company if I first got some of this dirt off.”

  “In polite company, yes. We barbarian Maoris, of course, would not mind.”

  “Naturally not.”

  The trail led away from town. Within minutes he was quite lost, having been swallowed by the steam. This was an especially active part of the volcanic plateau that covered the central part of North Island and they were surrounded by mysterious hissing and bubbling noises. It was as if the ground itself were gossiping about them, the rocks and pools whispering mischievously to each other. In the thick mist one’s imagination was easily stimulated. Hisses became words, mud pools bubbled with actual laughter.

  Had he misread her? If so and she decided to abandon him it could mean real trouble. Already they’d picked their way around pools large enough to boil horse and rider together. Twice he’d lost sight of her when the steam had thickened to swallow her completely. He’d spurred his mount then, only to hear her giggling off to one side. The whole area was crisscrossed with faint trails. Just when he was sure she’d left him to his own resources she would reappear. She was teasing him and he restrained himself from chiding her. Such conduct was unbecoming to a warrior.

  Then the mists on his right parted for just an instant and he had a glimpse of her standing naked by the side of a turquoise pool. Like a curtain the steam closed around her. There was laughter, then a small splash. He dismounted, tethered his horse to a broken stump, and tentatively approached.

  When he reached the pool he bent and tried to see through the steam. It was a cool day and there was more mist than usual. Several times he called out, but there was no answer.

  Then she burst from the pool almost at his feet, splashing him with hot water and giggling like a girl. He staggered back a couple of steps, arms wide, and stared down at himself.

  “Now look at what you’ve done! I’m soaked!”

  “Oh, you aren’t soaked. You’re just a little damp. But you’d better get out of those wet clothes. You wouldn’t want to catch cold.”

  That made him smile despite his momentary distress. He was more upset at having been so easily surprised than he was at being damp. In this region of steam it was all but impossible to catch a chill. That didn’t stop him from shedding his clothing and slipping into the pool. The moist heat invaded his body like a massage.

  “All right, you.” He spread his arms wide, feeling the water as he waded in deeper. There were spots on the bottom of the pool where the rocks were so hot you could barely touch them.

  Something clutched at him and he whirled. “You better hope I don’t catch you,” he shouted in mock warning.

  The touch came again and once more he grabbed only water. She was elusive as a lizard and fast as a mermaid.

  But when he finally did catch her she didn’t resist.

  They were alone in the pool at the end of the world. Gradually he forgot about the tourist coach and its passengers, about visiting the hotel, about the errand he’d come to run for his mother. He forgot everything save the young woman in his arms.

  Only later, as he dressed himself with her sitting and watching him, did he wonder what had brought him to this place. Some wondrous coincidence, a magical serendipity had caused her to step in front of his horse at just the right moment.

  “Will I see you again?” she asked. She sat quite naked on the rocks beside the pool, as unself-conscious as a child.

  “Tomorrow.” He struggled with a damp boot. “I’ll be back tomorrow. I have to do some shopping in Rotorua and return home tonight, but I swear I’ll return tomorrow.”

  She rose then and walked over to him, her brown form seemingly a mobile part of the misty, mysterious landscape. Both hands went around his neck.

  “Tomorrow? Just tomorrow?”

  He stood there with one boot on and one off and wrapped his arms around her. “No, not just tomorrow. The day after that, and the day after that, and on until we run out of days, I think.”

  “I’ll wait for you, then. In the third house at the end of the main road.” Abruptly she skipped out of his grasp.

  He watched while she dressed, a quick and simple task. She led him back to the main road. Only when they parted did he think to ask her name.

  “Valerie,” she told him. Then she became again one with the mist.

  3

  She was not, as he’d feared on returning home that night, an apparition. Not a dream but real. On his fifth visit to Ohinemutu she brought him to meet her family.

  A stocky older Maori stared hard at him when he entered the house. His first words were anything but friendly.

  “You are half pakeha.” It was clearly an accusation, not an observation.

  “Father!” Valerie said sharply.

  The man glanced at her and seemed about to say something when Andrew took another step forward.

  “It’s all right, Valerie. I’m used to it.” She looked mollified, but only a little. He turned to the man she’d called father.

  “I am also half Maori, sir.” He then recited several things in that language which caused the older man to relax slightly.

  “Well then, young man, it seems I must greet you as a guest.”

  They moved to a table. A woman brought drink and cookies and cakes from the bakery at Rotorua.

  “I understand you are fond of my daughter.”

  Andrew glanced over at where Valerie was making a pretense of busying herself with the refreshments, then turned back to his host. “We are fond of each other. I want to marry her.”

  The rangitira nodded, neither shocked nor surprised. “She has said as much.”

  “I want your permission.”

  The chief looked toward his daughter, who caught him staring and quickly turned away. He was well aware that a girl of age no longer needed parental approval to choose a husband-to-be, not in these days of permissive pakeha laws. It was a sign of respect for the old values that this young half-breed had come to request it.

  “This is hard for me. I fought the pakehas for many years.” He looked up evenly at his visitor. “I have killed many pakehas.”

  “The wars are done. There is no more fighting. Valerie and I are interested in our future, not your past.”

  A faint suggestion of a smile twisted the rangitira’s lips. “You speak like a warrior. Also with the confidence of youth. Once I had your confidence. The pakehas beat it out of me. But I have learned to live with what I am. It is one thing to do battle with the pakehas, another to welcome a white family into my own.”

  “Not just any family. My father is very wealthy. His name is honored in houses throughout the country.”

  “Not in this house it isn’t.” There was silence for a long time. Valerie and the old woman who’d brought the food whispered among themselves. Finally the rangitira sighed.

  “Once I swore to fight the pakeha to the death. Then I learned you cannot fight them to the death because for each one you kill ten more wash ashore. And they breed like flies.” He nodded at the far wall. It was lined with Maori spears, fine greenstone clubs, swords and pistols.

  “I have survived twenty-five great battles. Ten times I had pakeha bullets cut from my body. You must know by now that I was of the Hau Hau.” Andrew nodded.

  “And yet here I s
it, still alive despite all my wounds and boasting. I have a fine house and the pakehas in the village wave good morning to me and call me by name. ‘Opotiki,’ they cry, ‘how are you today!’ Or ‘fine day, Opotiki, isn’t it?’” He shook his head wonderingly. “When I meet the gods my first question to them will be to explain the pakeha to me, for surely a stranger breed of man never lived on this Earth. They fight you for years and years, slaughter women and children, and then when the fighting is over and the memories of spilt blood grow a little dim they think of you as a romantic figure. Or so a remarkable pakeha once told me. I will never understand them.”

  “My father fought in the wars too. Yet my mother is a Maori.”

  “Then your father is a man twice brave. Family.” Opotiki considered a moment longer, then sounded resigned. “Would it matter if I did not give my permission?”

  “Not to the law, but it would to me. It would matter very much, sir. As much as I love your daughter I tell you I would not marry her without your permission.”

  That made Valerie whirl. “Andrew!”

  “It’s true, Valerie. Remember I’m as much Maori as pakeha.” He looked back at Opotiki. “Under pakeha law I can marry your daughter without your permission, but by Maori tradition I will not.”

  The war chief sat a little straighter in his chair, wincing with effort. With a bullet still lodged near his spine it was a wonder he could sit at all.

  “Truly you are a man of two worlds. I warn you both, this will not be an easy thing for you. What of your pakeha father? What will he say to this union?”

  “How can he object, sir? He lives with a Maori woman himself. He can’t deny me the right to the same.”

  “Can he not? The pakehas can be very unpredictable in such things. Though what does it matter if a man and a woman love each other? And it is plain this is true. I must give my consent.”

  “Oh, Father!” Valerie abandoned the drinks she’d poured, upsetting the bottle in the process, as she raced to embrace him. He stood it for a little while before pushing her away, whereupon she threw herself into Andrew’s arms, kissing him repeatedly.

  “Where will you live? What will you do? I would not want you to take my daughter far from me.”

  Andrew managed to partly disengage himself from Valerie. “Don’t worry about that, sir. This is my home too. We’ll build a place of our own. Maybe here, or at Tarawera. As to what I’ll do, well, I hadn’t given it much thought. My father owns many businesses. I guess I’ll have to find one I can tolerate that will also let us continue to live in this region.”

  Opotiki was nodding approvingly. “You are thoughtful and respectful. You will make a good son-in-law, I think.”

  “I’ll try, sir.” He slipped clear of Valerie’s grasp and walked over to shake the rising Opotiki’s hand.

  “We must have a celebration,” the rangitira announced. “Tonight! Can you stay with us tonight or will your parents be concerned?”

  “I’m a grown man, sir. I go off on my own all the time. Of course I’ll stay.” He took one of Valerie’s hands and smiled down at her. “Tomorrow I’ll introduce Val to my parents.”

  “Won’t they be surprised when they learn what you’ve been doing all this time in Rotorua?” she asked him.

  “It won’t make any difference,” he replied, laughing at her. “Nothing makes any difference so long as two people love one another. My mother told me that once. She said that if you love each other anything is possible.” He bent low enough to meet her lips while Opotiki looked on approvingly.

  Among many peoples having a good time is little more than necessary relaxation, but to the Maori it is an art. The dancing and feasting went on late into the night. Light from lanterns and fires seeped through the mist so that from a distance the ground appeared to be ablaze.

  Opotiki had invited all the members of his whanau as well as friends and distant relations. There were even a few pakehas among the celebrants. None of them recognized Andrew Coffin. Even a close friend would have had trouble espying him through the mixture of firelight and steam, not to mention the smoke from the innumerable Maori pipes.

  Though it was early morning the celebration was still going on when Andrew took Valerie by the hand and the two of them stole away through the rear entrance of a long house. By now he knew the path that led to their secret place as well as she did. He held an oil lamp in front of them as they tiptoed their way through the mists, threading a course between mud pools and fumaroles until they reached the special pool where they’d first met.

  They slipped silently out of their clothes and into the shallows. In the chill of early morning the hot water was a stimulating shock to their systems. Surrounded by the palpitations of an uneasy Earth they swam and splashed until finally he grabbed her and pulled her close. Smiling, Valerie spread her legs as she floated next to him, wrapping them around his waist.

  Later they lay side by side on the warm rocks, their bodies drying in the cool air with only a pair of towels to cover their naked forms. The fingers of his left hand clung reassuringly to hers. The swirling mist offered only brief, fitful views of the stars above. They did not mind. The steam was a vast damp blanket, shielding them from the world’s prying eyes.

  “Tell me, Andrew: will we be happy?”

  He turned to smile gently at her. “As happy as two people have ever been.”

  “Will we have children?”

  “As many as you want.”

  “I wonder whether they’ll look like me or you, or your parents, or mine.”

  “They’ll be all colors. Brown and white and every shade in between. Maybe we can have some blue and pink ones as well.”

  She laughed at that and he laughed back and their eyes met. Their laughter faded as they rolled toward each other.

  It was Valerie who saw movement out of the corner of an eye. At first she thought it was merely a large rock revealed by a momentary parting of the mists, but it was too straight, too symmetrical for stone. The light from their lamp flashed off polished paua shell set in a staff taller than a tall man.

  She gasped and sat up fast, clutching at the towel that did little to cover her. Andrew was on his feet in an instant, not bothering to conceal his nakedness.

  “Who the hell are you—sir?” When he saw the stranger more clearly he repeated his angry query in Maori. “Why are you spying on us?”

  “I was not spying on you.” There was no anger in that calm, slightly irritated voice. Andrew relaxed a little.

  The stranger looked to his left, let out a soft sigh and stepped forward. Now he sounded amused. “I have seen more nudity than you will ever see, young man, and been witness to more coupling than you can imagine. Neither hold any mysteries for me.”

  “What are you doing out here this time of night? Andrew was still wary. Their visitor might be old, but he was tall, and the staff he carried was a formidable weapon.

  “Do you own this land? I was out for a walk. I often walk alone late at night the better to commune with the spirits of the Earth. I heard a noise that was not a hot pool and came to see what it was. Now that I have done this, I will leave.” Tugging his blanket higher on his shoulders he turned on one heel.

  “No, wait.” Andrew looked at Valerie in surprise. The figure halted. “You’re a tohunga, aren’t you?”

  He turned back to them. “I have some wisdom.”

  Andrew was bending over Valerie, whispering earnestly. “What is this, Val? Let him leave.”

  “No.” There was excitement in her voice. “Don’t you see, Andrew? This is a sign.”

  “It’s no sign,” he snapped, “unless you call it a sign of spying.”

  “Nonsense.” Wrapping the towel around her as best she was able, she rose and took a step forward. “Wise sir, Andrew and I are about to be married. Can you tell us if we will be happy in our life together?”

  Not all the light that gleamed in the eyes of the tall, shadowy figure was a reflection of what issued from their single lamp.
Andrew blinked once and the suspect glint was gone.

  “You ask me to see into the future. What makes you think, woman, I can do such a thing?” He looked sharply at Andrew, who stared back unwaveringly. The old man’s gaze was intense, but not threatening. “This one knows none can see the future. He has enough pakeha in him to know that. Superstitions, young man! Is that not so?”

  Andrew stepped forward to put a protective arm around Valerie’s shoulders. “It is. But I am Maori enough to listen with respect to whatever a tohunga cares to say.”

  That cracked the old man’s frozen expression ever so slightly. As the mist parted around him Andrew saw he was much older than he’d initially supposed.

  “I think you will be content. Any fool can see you love each other. That is important. I think also you respect one another. That is more important still. Also you laugh together, which is the most important thing of all. But,” he went on, his expression darkening unexpectedly, “you will not be happy if you stay here.”

  “Why not?” a suddenly concerned Valerie wondered.

  “Do you know how the pakeha visitors sometimes describe this country? They say it is like their Hell. That is what it is going to become, and soon.”

  Andrew was frowning in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

  “I mean that this entire region is going to be overturned. You should leave.”

  “But I can’t leave,” Valerie told him. “This is my home.”

  “And mine.” Andrew had begun to slip into his clothing. “What do you mean, ‘overturned’?”

  “Just that. Overturned.” He sounded sad now. “Perhaps you will be happy here anyway. I am an old man and very tired. I don’t see anything clearly anymore.”

  “We’ll be all right,” Valerie told him. “Don’t worry for us.”

  “I will not. Worry is bad for the belly.” He turned to leave.

  This time it was Andrew who called out to him, holding up their lamp. “Wait! We’ll come with you. You can’t find your way through there without a light. You’ll fall into a boiling mud pool or something.”

  “I have six gods.” The old tohunga smiled thinly. “I cannot be harmed.” With that he seemed to slide into the mists.