When our father came home from work he wanted to go for Kui Hinemate right away, but she told him to wait so that Kui would go to bed and get some rest. They put our brother to bed and went to sleep themselves. I think that there was a flicker of fire in the grate and that the kettle was keeping warm.
The pain that woke her turned in her like a big wheel. Turning, turning, as she stared into the dark, then gradually weakened until it was gone. She woke Dadda then and asked him to go and get the great-grandmother.
Our father put on his coat and boots and went hurrying off with the lamp, the yard stones snapping.
Mama stoked the fire, stirring the embers, poking sticks into the grate, then made tea and set the teapot on the side of the stove — but in between times she leaned, gripping the edge of the table, talking to herself while the heavy wheel turned. She thought of our brother, Egypt, called Manny, who had been born in the night also, wrong way up and back to front, feet first and blue. Did you hear what she said as she leaned, her face so close to the table’s face that her breath came, still warm, back to her? ‘Won’t die, won’t cry,’ she said. ‘Not nobody.’ Thinking of Keita.
Our mother didn’t hate Keita, but knew her, understood what made her tick, believed that our grandmother would get satisfaction if it was known that our mother cried out, as though for the choice she’d made. She kept hold — for herself, for Dadda, for us, as though that could help her to understand something. As if it helped her to be.
Mama had her secrets when she was fifteen, writing secret letters to our father overseas, being in love. Then when Dadda returned from war in the hospital ship she ran away to Wellington to be with him. She had no money and nowhere to stay. Dadda’s relatives took her to live with them until it was almost time for him to come out of hospital, then they gave her money and sent her home.
But she was in love and didn’t go home at all, stepped off the train somewhere up the line and returned. Dadda’s family tried to make him send her away because she was only a child, they said. Do you see her? Our mother, in her skimpy dress and coat, her old shoes, a piece of stringy ribbon tying back her bouncy hair. He wouldn’t send her away. She wouldn’t go without him, naughty girl.
So the two of them were put on a train, but not to come home here. They went to our father’s parents’ place, where they lived until Manny was due to be born. Mama wanted to come home then because there was really no room for them at our other grandparents’ place. There was no chance of work there for Dadda.
She hoped that Keita would accept them when they arrived, but Keita shut the door on them and they had to go and stay with Aunty Kahu and Uncle Pop.
However, Keita arranged a wedding, since, according to her, our mother was no good for anything else, and when it was over she said, ‘You married this man and now he’ll look after you I’m sure,’ and went home. Our parents slept at the marae that night and the next day walked over the hill towards Uncle Pop’s place, in love with nowhere to go and not unhappy. At the top of the hill they looked across and Dadda pointed and said, ‘There’s a house for us,’ and they went running and shouting, Mama too fast with her round, round stomach, Dadda stumbling, laughing after her. To here.
They came dancing in to spider webs and dry fern. There was only one room then and no floor. Beetles dropped on them, pieces of wall fell away and they couldn’t stop laughing. They started cleaning with a manuka branch, sweeping the dirt floor and brushing the cobwebs away. They made a bed of dry fern when they’d finished, took off their wedding clothes, spread them and dropped, rolling together.
The next day they went to Aunty Horiana’s, whose land this house is on, and asked if they could stay here. Aunty Horiana’s grandmother, who was still alive then, said, ‘You have it because you’ve got a right.’ Think of them scratching here and there for boards and old nails to fix a floor, finding stones for a fireplace, patching holes with pieces of tin. Before Manny was born Dadda found work on the roads.
‘All right, my darling,’ Kui said when she arrived. ‘Our baby’s the right way up this time.’ That was you she was talking about. She didn’t know about me.
You came headfirst into a circle of lamplight above a pad of paper and towels over which our mother squatted — tiny, translucent, chicklike. Blood pulsed close under your skin and your cry was thin and indignant. You began to breathe, your limbs tightening, mucus running, as Kui held you in a small world upside down. When our mother bore down again the whenua dropped onto the towels, our whenua.
Kui helped Mama onto the bed and tended to her — washing and rubbing, pulling and pinning the binding cloth — and when that was done she stooped and spread the placenta, took the lamp down to look closely at it. That was when she found out about me, saw the signs, but she never spoke of me, I don’t know why. She put our whenua, our blanket, aside for burial and I listened to your indignant crying, Missy, thinking that the indignation could have been for me, your brother, your twin. If Kui had spoken there could have been a tear for me perhaps, at least a word or two.
‘Around Maleme,’ our father said, ‘fighting around Maleme. Some died there, some wounded, some taken. Twenty-eighth didn’t get right in. By the time we got to Pirgos there were too many of them. Enemy. Came in on troop-carriers, gliders, down on parachutes, in hundreds.
‘Well, getting out of there, keeping in the shelter of the bamboos and the olives, that’s when I got it. Boom. Both legs and a hole in the side. Nothing. Just a hot feeling in the legs but couldn’t get up, couldn’t move.’
Our mother was sitting in bed holding you against her shoulder. Kui was asleep by the fire. There was a candle. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why now?’
‘Passed out,’ he said, ‘and when I came to, the firing’s stopped. Blacking out. It was getting dark and bodies all around. Blacking out, coming to, blacking out, coming to. And in between times I hear my name, someone calling me, whispering. I know it’s brother Rere but I roll myself over, drag myself into the bamboos so he can’t find me because I don’t want him carrying me. I think if he carries me he won’t make it back. Up and down the grapes he went, round the bamboos looking at all the dead ones, seeing if it’s me.’
‘In the night, in your sleep, you talk,’ our mother said. ‘But only in your sleep — and once when Manny was born. Why? Why now?’
‘In the middle of it I think of a baby, that’s why,’ he said. ‘I was laying there thinking it’s nothing, to die, blacking out, coming to. But in the middle of it there’s a baby, like in a dream. It’s a little new baby, like my brothers and sisters I seen born, like this new little missy we got. My own baby it is. Like telling me, don’t die.
‘So I just waited, listened.
‘Just on dark and there’s no one calling me, no noise, no one moving so I pulled myself along, a little bit, a little bit, coming out of the bamboos. And when I get out he was there, Rere. He knew I was there somewhere. Not among the dead, so I must be there somewhere. He waited until he heard the bamboos jingle and he knew. He chucked his gear away, tied my legs and put me over his shoulder, swearing. “Leave me,” I said.
‘But no. Off he went over the stones and the rough, carrying, but most I don’t remember. We holed up now and again and once when he put me down I looked and saw he’s covered in blood, head to toe, as if it’s him who got it. That’s what I keep getting in my dream. Our brother covered head to toe in blood of mine. Blood moving, running, like coming out of him. My blood, him bleeding it.
‘We made it back to Platanius but I don’t remember much of that.
‘Then when I came back home and got the news that Rere was dead it was the worst day, the worst day of my life. He carried me, saved me, and now he was dead …’
‘Not from carrying you. Later in Egypt he died … another country.’
‘He was laughing, telling about me hiding, about him hiding from me. Should’ve left me there for a Crete girl to find, he said.’
Our father took you and tucked you into him — you al
ong with the skimp, the scrap that was the me that had rubbed into you, but he didn’t know about me. You, us, against him, quiet, quiet. Then he said, ‘Now Hori.’
‘Hori?’
‘They were all up getting ready to go to Horiana’s when I went to get Kui. Just heard about Hori.’
‘Hold your baby, Bobby,’ our mother said. ‘It’s why you came back. It’s why you come out of the bamboos. You come out of the bamboos for your kids and me. Pretty, see, and sleeping.’ She’d have said that of me too if there’d been blood enough, if I’d followed you squealing into the patch of yellow light. Pretty, see, and sleeping.
The next morning, as dawn came, our father took our placenta, our blanket (which held the only sign of me) wrapped in paper, and buried it where baby blankets go.
But there’s a spritish trace of me that has curled itself in to you. If Kui had spoken there could have been a story about me.
Thirty-two
It was fingernail
Fire
That set the world
Ablaze.
‘You have to say, “Please may I leave the room,” if you want a mimi,’ Makareta said. ‘Don’t say mimi at school.’
‘Why because?’ you asked.
‘It’s a rule.’
‘And any kids talk Maori to you,’ Manny said coming, going, turning himself, ‘you got to run away. Headmaster hit you with a big strap.’
Then listen to you howl, sitting bang on the track, mouth as big as a fire door. ‘Mama, Mama. Wanoo go home. Wanoo-oo.’ Missy Sissy. Our brother skedaddled, disappeared into the trees.
‘Don’t listen, don’t listen to him,’ Makareta said, pulling you by the arm. ‘Get up or you dirty all your new clothes.’ And that got you up, shut you up, because you liked the clothes. ‘There’s a nice teacher,’ Makareta said, brushing you down. ‘Miss Jamieson. Pretty dresses, beads and earrings, stockings and high heels.’ Then Manny appeared again, shunting his breath, putting his face to yours, ‘It’s a Pakeha,’ he yelled and down you went again, listen to it, bawling to beat thunder. ‘Look what you did, Manny,’ Makareta called as he ran, ran, gone.
She coaxed you with bread and jam, wiped your eyes and nose and told you about the books that there were to read, the slates there were to write on, the stamps for good work. ‘There’s blackboards and desks,’ she said, ‘a stick with a hook to open the windows, an alphabet, a photo of the King.’ Your mouth shut onto the bread and jam, your eyes sprang open and you let Makareta take you by the hand. ‘It’s not a real Pakeha, it’s Miss Jamieson,’ she said.
‘Hey, Missy, you come?’ kids called as you went in through the gate. ‘Missy, you five? Headmaster got a big strap.’
Into a big room where your eyes saw, from floor upwards, the high heels, stockings, pretty dress, beads and earrings. Red, red lips, smiling at you. Listen to it, your heart, flippity flipping. Red lips speaking to Makareta, ‘Tell me your cousin’s name.’
‘Maleme Karoria Tatua,’ Makareta said. I would have had a name, Pirgos or Platanius, if I’d squeaked, if there’d been enough blood for me. Manny was jumping from foot to foot saying, ‘My sister, my sister, she five.’
‘Take her to Mr Davis to enrol, then show her the lavatories,’ Miss Jamieson said. ‘Egypt, you stay here and explain where you’ve been for a week or more.’
You crossed the playground with Makareta to the other room where a yellow-haired man was making chalk lines on a board. Makareta gave our mother’s note to him. ‘Good morning, Maleme,’ Mr Davis said when he’d read the note, but you didn’t answer, Sissy Missy, eyelids down, mouth shut tight, feet pushing hard into the floor. ‘Is this Egypt’s sister?’ he asked. ‘Can she talk? Does she understand English? She was meant to be here two weeks ago.’ He put our mother’s note on his desk and turned back to the board, where he began writing in loops and sweeps between the lines that he had drawn. ‘Take her back to Miss Jamieson,’ he said. ‘Tell her she has to come to school every day.’
Out by the steps Bessie was ringing the bell and Makareta took you and stood you in line with the primer children. Manny, behind you, bumped you in the back and you began to walk, following the kids to the foot bath, where you all swished your feet as you went through, coming out at the other end making footprints on the concrete to the door. You all wiped your feet backwards, forwards on a scratchy mat, crossed the floor making footprints footprints to the big mat where you sat down. ‘Good morning,’ is what you all had to say before showing your handkerchiefs and fingernails.
‘Good, Maleme,’ Miss Jamieson said about the handkerchief and fingernails. I would’ve had nice fingers, a hanky to show, would’ve sat straight with my arms folded, hands tucked, one up, one down. ‘Good, Pirgos or Platanius,’ she’d have said to me — pretty dress, beads, earrings, lipstick. Lipstick! You reached out a hand to hold Manny’s arm, Miss Sis, and he dug his elbow hard, shoving you.
Then Miss Jamieson began talking about something, asking something but you didn’t know what. Kids were shooting their hands up to be chosen. Miss Jamieson chose Junior, who went to the front of the room, where he stood facing you all. He had to stand up straight, put his feet together, keep his hands by his sides and talk to you. ‘Our father and our uncle they goan up the hill to kill a pig,’ he said, ‘and they kill a pig. They burn it and cut it and hanging it up in the big tree any questions?’ Hands, hands. ‘How big it is?’ Tati asked, and Junior stretched his arm as high as he could to show how big.
Hands.
‘Our sister gone away in the train any questions?’ Tuahine said.
‘Where she gone?’
‘I don’t know, any more questions?’
‘How big the train?’
‘I don’t know, any more questions?’
Hands, hands. Our brother Manny stretching, flicking his arm see, eyes like eggs.
‘Egypt?’
‘Our mother got a dead baby,’ he said. ‘Our father bury it by the other dead baby, any questions?’
‘How many dead baby you got?’
‘Two, any more questions?’
‘How big it is?’ Manny held his hands apart to show the little size, then sat down.
He was telling about something that had happened just a few days before you were supposed to start school. Mama had been sewing the skirt, pulling string from the flour-bags and boiling them for your blouse.
But first of all mention must be made of Suda Bay, the name given to our brother Chumchum, Chummy, Chum, who was next born after you and me. You and Manny were under the table eating a potato when Chummy drew his first scrawny breath, both of you too young to remember. After Chummy there was a named and buried one, a girl, who you saw briefly one morning when you woke, before the box was closed. That made five of us including me.
You were playing with Chumchum down the bank when you heard our mother calling, but you pretended not to hear. You were watching for the kids coming home from school. After a while you noticed something different about our mother’s voice, something not angry, which made you curious. So you took Chumchum’s hand and went up the bank into the yard, where you saw Mama at the woodheap sitting on the chips, her back against the chopping block. ‘Go and get Kui Hinemate,’ she said, but you didn’t want to go, stood with your feet planted wanting to know why. ‘Mama’s sick,’ she said. ‘Go on, go and get Kui.’ Standing, standing, wondering how long before Mama got wild, sent you flying-running with a smack, but our mother didn’t move. ‘Tell her Mama bleeding,’ not moving, not picking up a stick to smack with. Then Mama lifted herself and you saw that the woodchips were covered with blood. Everywhere blood, wasting wasting, blood that could have been for me. ‘Chopped?’ you asked.
‘From in Mama’s puku,’ she said. ‘Run and tell Kui.’
So you ran crying along the track, Miss Tissy, through the long grass, the sourgrass, the puha, the poroporo and the nettles. Running, running, to the end of the path and round the side of the hill from where you could see our grandparents�
� place such a long way away, nettled legs burning.
You made your way downhill, carefully at first, but the steepness of the slope set your legs going faster and faster, too fast for themselves so that finally you went headlong, over and over, landing in the cold grass yodelling. But there was no one to hear.
Got up and made your way alongside the creek, through the wiwi, across the paddock looking for Aperehama or our grandfather, hands and knees bleeding, bleeding, wasting.
No one along the fences or in the paddocks, only the high grass and the ghosters. You were yelling for Mama, yelling for Kui.
No one at the sheds or in the gardens, no Aperehama, no Wi, no Keita, no Kui. ‘Kuuii, Kuuii,’ you called, and she came out onto the doorstep shading her eyes. ‘Is that you, little daughter Maleme?’ she said.
‘Mama sick.’
‘Come to Kui.’
‘Mama sore bleeding.’
‘You’re only as big as the wiwi, daughter Maleme. I’ll tell Keita about Mama, then you can take me.’
Near the house you heard our mother call in a voice that was for dead people. She was still sitting on the wood chips and was rocking backwards and forwards, holding Chumchum against her with one arm. With her other hand she held something wrapped in a cloth. Kui put her face against Mama’s face and cried in a way that was for dead people, then took the bundle. It was Mama’s dead baby wrapped in a piece of material that she’d torn from the bottom of her dress.
You helped move everything out of the kitchen into the yard while Kui and Keita prepared the bedroom. The outside fire was lit and Wi and Aperehama were cutting meat and preparing vegetables. People were arriving.
Once our mother was settled Keita went out to the woodheap and began cleaning up where Mama had been sitting, sprinkling water and scooping all the woodchips and wrapping them in paper. Blood again. She sent you to ask Aperehama to cut flax for her and you went with him, holding the lamp.
Cousins Page 16
