She frowned. “What are those chiefs?”
Grinning, he kissed her softly. “Father always referred to them as cheap royalty. Come, let’s get back to the camp. There’s still plenty to be done here.”
They did not think about the remarkable old man again that day. Later, that night, wrapped in each other’s arms, they did not think of him at all. That would not have displeased Tuhoto. It only meant things were once more as they should be.
12
The hospital was a strange place, but the strangeness did not trouble him. Tuhoto let them move him silently from place to place, from room to room. Many pakehas poked and prodded him, asked him questions. He answered as best he could, politely but with indifference. This was not what he had come to this place for.
Now that word of the disaster had been passed, the whole country had been mobilized to help the survivors of Tarawera. Supplies and help were pouring in from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and the smaller communities. Even those busy unloading or marking supplies or helping the physicians and nurses paused to gaze at the giant old Maori who towered over everyone at the hospital, much as the ancient moa had once loomed over the Maoris.
“We’ll just get you checked in for a couple of days. As a precaution.” the cheerful young pakeha who’d taken charge of the old tohunga spoke briskly, patronizingly. Tuhoto did not have to use much of his mind to listen to his words.
“Wait over there, please, while I fill out some papers. Then we’ll find you a room.” the young white man adjusted his glasses. “One more check-over, it says here, and then you can have a nice rest.”
Tuhoto nodded compliantly and moved to the other side of the busy room. It was filled with people who had suffered from the disaster. They mostly ignored him, involved as they were with their own afflictions.
He looked to his left, then to his right. The earnest young pakeha was busy with his papers. Tuhoto knew that white men needed four things to live: food, water, air, and papers to fill out. Silently he started up the nearest corridor.
It was quiet. No one challenged his right to be there. He turned a corner and continued down another deserted hallway. Once he paused, as if listening, before heading off in another direction.
All the doors he passed were identical except for the numbers on them. He stopped outside one, not bothering to read the numerals. It opened at his touch. Entering the shaded room, he closed the door quietly behind him.
On the single hospital bed an old man lay beneath clean sheets. He was not as old as Tuhoto nor as tall. The tohunga approached the bed until he was gazing down at the barely breathing figure. The eyes were closed tight.
“Hello, my friend Robert Coffin. This has been a bad time. But your son lives, and his woman. I thought you would want to know that, so I came to tell you.”
The figure in the bed did not reply, did not move, did not respond in any way to the words, but Tuhoto knew Coffin heard him anyway, with his body if not with his ears. That was all that mattered. Sighing deeply, the tohunga raised both hands over the bed and began to sing softly in the voice of a man much younger than one hundred and four. He sang a karakia, a prayer. A very important and powerful one.
When he was finished he lowered his arms, listening to the last words of the incantation as they dissolved in the sterile air. Moments passed. Then Robert Coffin’s eyes fluttered open. The body did not react, did not move. But the gray-haired head turned slightly. Makawe Rino, Tuhoto thought.
Coffin’s voice was feeble, confused. “Tuhoto?”
The tall, angular figure looming over the bed nodded once. “Yes, Captain Coffin. It is good to see you again.”
The eyes shut momentarily, signs of strain etched deep on the heavily lined face. Then they opened again. “I’d greet you, but I don’t think I can move. I’m very tired.”
“It does not matter, my friend. You have already greeted me.”
Coffin’s words came faintly, barely perceptible. “It was terrible, terrible. Andrew?”
Perhaps he had not heard, Tuhoto thought. “He is well. And the woman he would marry.”
“That’s good. That’s very good. Tuhoto, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can talk anymore. I need to rest.”
“The world needs to rest. This part of the land has been hurt. Even the gods are tired.”
“I haven’t done the right things recently, Tuhoto. There are things I wish I could take back.”
“You would not be a man if you did not wish that, Captain Coffin. All of us wish things we could take back.”
Coffin managed a feeble smile. “I tried to make up for a little, there at the last. But there’s never enough time, is there?”
“No, Captain Coffin, there is never enough time.”
The eyes closed again. This time even Tuhoto’s singsong prompting could not reopen them. The old Maori leaned over and placed four fingers on Coffin’s forehead. He whispered softly.
“Once, long, long ago, you gave me a ride from one place to another, Captain Coffin. You did not insult me. You treated me with respect and did not ask for payment. Now I will help you along your path from this world to Po, the land of peace and darkness. The torment within you will be stilled as the torment in the Earth has been stilled. I will miss you, my old friend. Perhaps when the time comes I will join you in Po and we will take ship there together for some interesting place, and talk as we once did of the people and gods, of the land and the sea, as we sail the ocean of darkness.”
He removed his fingers. The painful, barely noticeable rise and fall of Robert Coffin’s chest had ceased. Tuhoto turned and left the room without looking back, closing the door behind him as silently as when he’d entered.
The man who intercepted him in the corridor sounded exasperated. “There you are! Where did you get off to, old man?” He muttered under his breath. “Maoris! Just like children.” He smiled a smile he did not mean. “Come along, then.”
“I do not need to come along. I am done here.”
“Oh no you’re not.” The young pakeha was insistent. “You can’t leave looking like that. What would people think of our hospital?” Tilting his head to one side he eyed the long, stringy locks that tumbled from the old man’s head. “You need a bath and a haircut.”
“You cannot do that. If you bathe me and cut my hair I will die.”
The youth couldn’t resist smirking. “As I recall when they brought you in here you said you had six gods and couldn’t die.”
“If you do those pakeha things to me I will die.”
“Nonsense! And I thought you were an educated native. Now come along.” He reached out and locked his fingers around one thin wrist. The old man was much taller, but thin as a rail. The strength he had left was not of the physical kind. He could not stop the young man from pulling him up the hall.
Tuhoto looked back over his shoulder toward the room where he had bade farewell to an old friend. He thought of the country of his birth, where he had spent many pleasant times resting between his travels. It had all been destroyed. Though the birds and animals, the forest and the lakes would come back, he knew this would not happen in his lifetime. Not even with six gods to aid him.
So he did not object when the nurses washed him cleaner than he had ever been, or when they trimmed his hair in a style that was well thought of by modern Maoris.
“There, much better,” said the young orderly whose care he’d been given into.
Tuhoto looked at himself in a mirror, thoughtfully considered the clean face that stared back at him. “I would like a glass of water, please.”
“Certainly. Then we’ll see about getting in touch with your family or friends to take you back home, if you won’t stay and rest here.”
“I have no family. I have outlived all wives and all my children and now I have outlived all my friends as well. Those who know me scorn me as a sorcerer and devil.”
“More nonsense,” said the orderly briskly. It seemed to be his favorite word today. “You j
ust lie down on that fine bed over there and we’ll find you some new clothes. It’ll take some searching, but among all the goods that have been donated I’m sure we can find something close to your size. Then we’ll get you a nice, hot, fresh-cooked meal. And you needn’t worry. The government will take care of you if we can’t contact anyone who knows you.”
“I am not a child.” Tuhoto obediently walked over and sat down on the indicated bed. “The pakeha government is not my father.”
“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes to check on you,” said the orderly, ignoring the old man’s words.
He was on his way to the main desk when he was stopped by a priest.
“Excuse me, young man.”
“What is it, Vicar?” The orderly tried to restrain his impatience. With all the interruptions he’d never get anything done today.
“I saw your name tag.” The Vicar indicated the name pinned to the young man’s shirt. “You are the one attending a Robert Coffin, are you not?”
“Among others. We’re full to overflowing here, Vicar.”
“I know. I was doing work of my own elsewhere in the hospital when I was informed he had passed away. I’m here to perform the final rites.”
The orderly looked resigned. “All right, Vicar. Come along. I’ll take you to him. Didn’t know he’d expired, myself. I’m trying to do a dozen things at once.”
“We all are, my son.”
“Don’t know that I’ve seen you in here before, Vicar.” The orderly was trying to make conversation as the two men walked down the empty corridor.
“I am only yesterday off a ship from Auckland. I’ve come to offer my services to those in need. My name is Methune.” He spoke absently, his attention on the hallway ahead.
“Heaven knows we need all the help we can get, Vicar.” The orderly stopped outside an open door. “If you can wait just a moment, I need to check on a patient.” He poked his head inside while Methune waited impatiently.
“Hey! I’m helping someone else out here. If one of you can get that old Maori up to the front desk, someone there’ll take him down to the commissary for a feed.”
One of the nurses approached the door, rubbing his forehead with the back of an arm. “Doesn’t matter anymore, Will. The old boy’s dead.”
The orderly gaped at the nurse, speechless. Then he looked toward the bed where he’d left his charge. The bed was empty.
“Took him already,” the nurse explained. He was shaking his head. “Funny old bugger. One minute he was lying there fine. When I turned around he was gone. Just like that. Damnedest thing I ever saw.” Noticing Methune out in the hall he added, “Sorry, Father.”
“How—did he say anything, do anything?” The stunned orderly couldn’t take his eyes from the empty bed.
“Naw. He didn’t cry out or anything. Don’t think he even moved. He just kind of went away, like. Had his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. Like he was concentrating on something. I don’t know.” He looked past the dumbfounded orderly. “Do you believe in a soul, Father?”
“Naturally, my son,” Methune replied. “How else is one to believe?”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ve seen a lot of men die, Father. Here, in the wars. But I never saw one go like that. Like his spirit just evaporated.”
“A man who is truly at peace with himself can die so quietly you don’t realize what has happened.”
“That’s what it was like. Guess even a Maori’s got a soul, right?”
“We are all children of God.” Methune turned his attention to the motionless orderly. “Mr. Coffin’s room?”
“What? Oh, yeah. Yeah. This way, Vicar.” Pulling himself back together, the orderly resumed his march down the hall.
When they reached the right room, the young man paused with his hand on the latch. He seemed lost in himself. “Vicar, what you said back there, about all of us being children of the same God?”
“Yes?”
“I don’t suppose—I don’t guess there could be more than one, could there?”
Methune eyed him disapprovingly, but the orderly didn’t back down. “Young man, I have worked among the Maori all my life. They have adopted many of our ways, have married among us, entered wholeheartedly into our churches. They have fought against us and alongside us. I am not one to say what is possible and what is not in this world. I don’t believe any man knows the answers to the great mysteries. But as a Christian I can give you only one reply to that question.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say, Vicar. A man in your position, I know he couldn’t say much of anything else.”
But the orderly was not satisfied. As he opened the door admitting them to the silent room he knew he would not be able to believe exactly as his friends and neighbors did any longer. He would go to his own grave burdened by an unresolved question. Knowing that the one man who might answer it for him had already preceded him on that long journey.
EPILOGUE
1893
Rain had never bothered Rose Hull. It had been a welcome part of her life ever since she could remember. Rain kept people indoors, and those were the times when she and her friends had turned the city into their private playground. The feeling carried over into adulthood. Where others withdrew from the rain, she delighted in it.
It would have been better, though, for it not to rain on this particular day. Even as she considered this, the skies began to clear a little. A deluge could not have kept her at home this morning, but bad weather might affect the turnout for the election. There were candidates to be supported and beyond that, a much more important reason for certain citizens to get out and vote. Also, the rain would make trouble for the photographers. They would be more disappointed than anyone else. They had the job of recording a historic moment.
A voice reached her via the carriage’s speaking tube. “We’re almost there, Miss Hull.”
“Thank you, Ed.”
She leaned back in the plush seat and stared out the window. Hard to believe this was the same Auckland where she’d grown up. Now it was a city of fine buildings and paved streets. So much changed from her childhood. So many things changed.
She’d never really been a child, she reflected. Not in the accepted sense of the word. Her playmates had been mostly boys, like Edward, and Joby. Street urchins, ragamuffins, ship’s orphans, the offspring of whores and Maori transients. It was to be regretted.
As they parked outside the courthouse she saw two groups of people assembled on the steps. To the left was a small line of citizens waiting for the polls to open so they could cast their ballots. To their right, higher on the steps and trying to keep dry, were the reporters and photographers. Not just from New Zealand but from all around the world. It was an impressive gathering.
She smiled to herself. Four years the liberals had held power. They owed a large part of their success to her behind-the-scenes maneuvering and substantial financial support. Since they’d taken control life was beginning to change for the better for the common people.
Today she intended to do something she usually avoided, which was to purposely seek the limelight. To emphasize the importance of this day, this moment, she would accept a role in a historic drama.
She’d prepared herself for the reporters to rush the carriage, but the rain was as much her ally today as it had been when she was young. It kept them huddled beneath the overhang of the courthouse roof. Joby had climbed down from his footman’s position to intercept the one man who braved the elements to greet her. She recognized Simpson, the party representative. The expression he wore had nothing to do with the rain.
“Something wrong, Simpson?” She spoke without leaving the protection of the carriage.
The party man was obviously distressed at having to serve as the bearer of bad news. “I fear so, Miss Hull. We seem to have a bit of a problem.” He glanced back toward the courthouse entrance. The polls would be opening any moment now.
“What sort of problem?” She used
the voice she had been forced to develop over the years, the voice that reassured whoever was listening that anything, absolutely anything, could be fixed.
“Well, Miss Hull, it’s just that—there are some Maoris here.”
“Not with greenstone clubs in their hands, I presume?” She smiled to indicate she meant it as a joke. Though the Maori wars had been done with for over a decade you still had to reassure the uncertain at times. And while Simpson was an effective orator and legislator, he wasn’t quite what one would call bold and brave. Not like the early settlers who’d fought a continuous war with a tough and relentless enemy while building a country. She decided he would not have lasted long back in the fifties.
Different eras call for different skills, however. The man was a marvelous organizer.
“There aren’t many of them,” he was telling her, “and they don’t appear to be armed, but they are being difficult. Causing something of a commotion. So far we’ve kept it quiet, but we can’t keep the reporters and photographers away forever.”
“I see. What is it they want?”
“There are several women in the group. They’re saying that since today New Zealand will become the first country in the world to allow women to vote, they feel it would only be just if a true New Zealander cast the initial ballot. By that they mean one of their own kind. They have selected one of their number and insist they’ll block the polls unless she is allowed to vote first. I’ve argued with them, but they won’t see reason.”
“Depends whose reason you’re looking at, doesn’t it, Simpson?”
“Miss Hull?”
“Never mind. Be silent and let me think.”
There was no guarantee that whoever voted first here in central Auckland would actually be casting the earliest ballot. That could take place in Wellington or Napier or any of several dozen other cities and towns if the polls there happened to open a minute or two earlier. But attention was focused here, because while Auckland was no longer the country’s capital (that honor having passed to Wellington) it was still its largest city, the center of commerce, and the place where the world’s attention would be focused. Since it was the city best known to Europeans and Americans, this was where reporters from around the world had come to document this unique moment in the history of women’s rights.
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