Catching the Current

by Jenny Pattrick

  ‘Let us take my son down to the water; he is driving me crazy with his questions,’ she says. But her feet drag as the little fellow pulls her along, and she is soon ready to sit in the sun, sheltered from the wind by a tall sand dune. Little Ditlev occupies himself sliding and jumping in the warm sand while the twins kick and gurgle on their blanket, bare-skinned, waving small arms to grab at air. Beyond the little group the beach stretches north and south, wide and flat. Here and there on the grey, wind-whipped sand bleached driftwood lies, embedded at odd angles, pointing at the sky. Far to the south a group of tiny figures dig for shellfish at the edge of the water, but apart from them the landscape is empty of people. Anahuia begins to feel a pull towards the kainga of her childhood. The sounds and smells of the shore are rising in her blood.

  She turns to the quiet woman beside her. ‘Will you go back to Karere?’

  Olga’s smile is tired. ‘I expect so … If the Hauhau leave us in peace … and if Viggo returns safely. Our plan is to settle here.’

  ‘But do you like it here? Would you prefer to go back to Denmark with the others?’

  Olga remains silent.

  Anahuia watches her stir the sand slowly and then push back her dark hair. There is determination in the movement, but sadness too.

  Anahuia decides to risk her question. ‘Can I ask you something, Fru Monrad?’

  ‘Of course.’ She smiles. ‘It is a pleasure to talk our language and at present there is no one else.’

  Anahuia is not quite sure that her Danish is up to this conversation.

  ‘Forgive me if my words seem blunt,’ she says, ‘but my Conrad told me about the war in your country, Denmark, and how your father-in-law, the bishop, did not want his countrymen to give in to the Germans.’

  Olga turns to look at Anahuia in surprise. ‘You know about all that?’

  ‘And how the bishop, who was also prime minister, made speeches to the Danish people that they should shed the last drop of their blood to defend sacred Danish soil.’

  ‘The bishop is a strong-willed man, with strong beliefs.’

  It seems that Olga is not taking offence, so Anahuia dares to continue. ‘My Conrad told how your own husband, Herr Viggo Monrad, fought in terrible battles in your own country; fought for land that the Danish people, over many centuries, believed was theirs. But then,’ Anahuia pauses to pick the words carefully, ‘then this same famous bishop sends this same son to fight tribes in the north, here in this country. Tribes who are fighting because their ancient land has been taken unfairly from them. Is it not the same?’

  Olga pulls at a clump of tussock. Anahuia looks away, fearing she has maybe said too much, but speaks again at last, this time gently.

  ‘How do the bishop and your husband feel about this present war?’

  Olga sighs. ‘Viggo would rather be farming than fighting.’

  ‘Then why does he fight? Surely your husband and the bishop would understand Titokowaru’s claims? Surely they would be more ready to fight on his side against the English?’

  Olga laughs at this. ‘Oh, Ana, it is not so simple as that!’

  ‘But why not? I don’t understand it at all.’

  ‘Viggo fights because he must. He became an officer in the army here so he could be given land. That land is up north in Patea. If he leaves the army he will lose his land.’

  ‘But you have land here at Karere.’

  ‘That is his father’s land.’

  ‘And now that his father is leaving?’

  ‘Viggo will come back to farm it if he is allowed.’

  ‘Oh. Then would he give his Patea land back to the Taranaki tribes?’

  Olga stands and walks over to little Ditlev, whose mouth is full of sand. She clears the gritty stuff out with her finger, lifts him to the top of a little dune, laughs and claps at his bold jump. When she returns she looks directly at Anahuia and speaks quickly.

  ‘You must understand that things are very different for us,’ she says. ‘Denmark is a small country and so is England.’

  ‘And so is New Zealand.’

  ‘But this country is almost empty! Where I come from every inch of the land is in use. The families are suddenly large — ten, twelve children. My grandmother was one of four only, with six babies dead before they reached one year. Now our babies live …’ for a moment she falters in her strong speech, ‘… mostly, and the land is too small. The farms are divided and divided till you cannot grow enough to eat. Can you understand that?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It was the same for my father’s family, but …’

  ‘More than a third of Danish land is lost! It is a great tragedy, yes. It is quite unjust to lay the blame on the bishop, as many back home do. He had no choice. But all the same, the land is lost. So now the bishop wishes to make sure his sons are well settled on enough land to feed them and their families for generations to come.’

  Anahuia is shocked to hear about the Patea land. It seems greedy to her. ‘Karere is a very large piece of land …’

  Olga frowns. ‘The bishop has been generous to us, but also he believes that his sons should work for their own land.’

  ‘Even if that land is stolen?’

  ‘Ana, do you think Viggo knew that? Of course not. He joined the army here and waited patiently and then was given his land, which he accepted in good faith. The war is nothing to do with him.’

  ‘Nothing to do with you? It is everything!’ Anahuia scrambles to her feet. She finds that she is enjoying the argument. Standing her full height, she points to the roofs of houses dotted all along the riverbank towards Foxton. ‘Look! Everywhere in sight are Pakeha houses. Foxton is full of Pakeha — whole families. Show me a Pakeha in Foxton who isn’t trying to buy more land. Fru Monrad, there are more of you than Ngati Raukawa and Rangitane and Ngati Toa put together, and all wanting a farm of your own. A large farm.’

  Olga stands now too. Perhaps she is astonished at the change in this woman, who has been a quiet servant for the past three years.

  ‘But Ana,’ she says, ‘look around you. The empty dunes here. The empty hills. The empty hills beyond them. There is room. Plenty of room. Europe is all used up. Would you deny homeless people a chance to live a decent life? That is so selfish!’

  Anahuia feels the warm sand between her toes and listens for a moment to the gulls screaming overhead. It would be stupid to antagonise this good woman, whose help she needs.

  ‘Of course I would not deny you …’ she says, ‘… if the land is sold. If the land is taken, well, that is another matter.’

  ‘We bought the Karere land fairly. It was land that Te Peeti sold in the proper manner.’

  Anahuia would like to argue again over the Patea land but sees that she has angered the other woman, who is, after all, loyally defending her husband.

  ‘Well,’ she says lightly, turning to tickle her baby’s fat tummy, ‘it is all hard for me to understand.’

  They leave the matter then, and talk a little of babies and of the doings of Foxton: the new flax-mill, the growing school. Olga suggests that Anahuia might like to return to work at Karere when the war is over. Anahuia thanks her without accepting.

  ‘But Ana, do you not feel Danish yourself?’ asks Olga as they walk back to the guest-house. ‘Half of you carries our blood. You speak our language.’

  ‘No! How can I feel Danish when I have never set foot on that soil?’

  ‘You do feel Maori, then?’

  Maori. Anahuia smiles at the strange word. As if all tribes are the same. ‘Fru Monrad,’ she says, ‘I am only just free now to find out where I might belong. Perhaps in a year I will come and tell you. I am not Rangitane, that is clear to me. But Te Ati Awa? I will have to go to my birthplace and see.’

  ‘And Rasmussen? The father of your babies?’

  Anahuia speaks with confidence. ‘He will certainly be part of my life. Certainly.’ Then adds, ‘Fru Monrad, I need a favour of you. When he returns to Karere will you tell him I have gone to my
people at Wharemauku and will wait for him there?’

  ‘I will.’ Olga’s face shows her doubt.

  ‘Tell him he should come down by boat or by land and I will be waiting.’

  At Langley’s Inn Olga stops at the door and asks Anahuia to wait for a moment. When she returns she holds a bag made from the white cotton cloth of a flour sack.

  ‘A farewell present,’ she says. ‘Your boys will need clothes and I have seen how quick your fingers are at stitching. I pride myself in my needlework but your hands are made for the work. You see,’ she laughs, ‘you have some good Danish blood in you, whatever you say.’

  Inside the bag are several pieces of material, sewing cottons and a small square of flannel bristling with pins and needles. The hard lump in the bottom of the bag is a large pair of scissors, a treasure that Anahuia has never dreamed of owning.

  ‘But all this …’ says Anahuia, astonished at such generosity, ‘are you sure?’

  ‘Take it with our blessing. You have been helpful to our family. And go with God.’

  Anahuia is so overjoyed she finds it difficult to maintain the usual dignified reserve with which she clothes her bare life.

  ‘Thank you,’ she says, adding a blessing in her own language: ‘Arohanui ki a koe.’

  WHEN Anahuia set out on her journey south her possessions, as she became very fond of stating, were these:

  – a tight-waisted dress that once belonged to the bishop’s wife

  – a plaid blanket

  – a flax kete in which were the precious sewing bag, a few strips of dried eel wrapped in flax leaves, four potatoes, some well-washed rags and two babies’ smocks

  – a cloth sling for her babies and a piece of blanket to keep them warm

  – identical twin boys, pale-skinned and bald-headed, aged one month

  – one gold guinea and one gold half guinea and two shillings given to her by Conrad, and now hidden inside a patch she had stitched invisibly to the inside of her bodice.

  ‘And just see what I have come to!’ she would exclaim to her grandchildren, sweeping her arms wide to encompass the large house, the polished furniture and, more than likely, a well-dressed client waiting to be served in the little studio. ‘Who would believe it?’

  4.

  ANAHUIA, ENJOYING A ride in a canoe down the coast towards her birthplace, her possessions and her babies bundled at her feet, imagines Conrad well on his way to the other side of the world, but in fact he is still in Wellington. He has secured a position on the sailing ship Asterope, but delay after delay has beset the sailing. A consignment of flax fibre arrived late; a southerly storm dashed the ship against the wharf, damaging several timbers; and then six of the crew disappeared one night, lured, no doubt, by dreams of becoming landowners in the new colony, or at least of owning their own businesses. The captain has seen it all before on other voyages. He might rage and curse but has no power to seek them out or force them back aboard. Fortunately, experience has taught him that if he waits a week or two, disillusioned settlers, bankrupt or exhausted or homesick — or all three — will decide to leave the land of their dashed hopes and return. Soon enough the captain will find his crew.

  Meanwhile Conrad tars rope, mends timber and cools his heels. He exchanges a ship he has carved from the tooth of a sperm whale for a battered accordion and teaches himself to play. Soon other sailors gather in the lengthening evenings, drawn by the music. They sit on barrels and boxes, tapping feet, piping and singing. Their songs come from all over the world — slave songs and love ditties from America, long rolling ballads from England, high haunting shanties from islands off Scotland and from Scandinavia, and whaling songs from the oceans of the world. Conrad knows dozens, and picks up more as quickly as anyone can sing them. His deep voice echoes off the new timber of the Wellington wharves, where there are always two or three big immigrant ships moored alongside Australian traders and a host of smaller steamers and sailing boats that trade up and down the coast. The air Conrad breathes, smelling of timber and tar, of fish and seaweed and sacking, seeps into his blood again, heady as wine. He would be entirely happy if other matters did not tug at the corners of his attention. Napoleon’s death. Anahuia and her baby.

  One night Conrad talks to a sailor who calls regularly at the Foxton port. The fellow has never heard of the Monrads, nor of Anahuia. He says that the settlers are panicked, that they are building a blockade because of rumours that the Taranaki war will spread right down to Foxton or worse. He has seen no sign, he says, of any trouble, though, and reckons it is all those nervous settlers seeing ghosts in a landscape too dark and spooked for their English minds to handle. Conrad decides to write a note to Anahuia but then the trader’s boat is gone again and the idea leaves his mind.

  On the night before, finally, they are to leave, Conrad and his fellow sailors are sharing a farewell jar or two of beer and a bit of music when they see passengers and their luggage being driven by a smart pair of horses and carriage onto the wharf. Bishop Monrad, his wife and two daughters are among them. This is a surprise. Conrad, uneasy to see them, needs to ask questions but they are escorted with some ceremony to their quarters. At least, thinks Conrad, the sons are not there. Nor the daughter-in-law. Perhaps all is well at Karere. He leaves the singers and climbs the gangway. But the door to the deck passengers’ quarters is closed, and sailors are forbidden to mix with such people. Conrad stamps around in the dark for a few minutes, then returns, with a shrug, to his beer and his friends.

  Three days into what turns out to be a hellish voyage, Conrad finally learns that he is the father of twin boys.

  5.

  Anahuia tells a story of death and escape

  ‘IMAGINE,’ ANAHUIA WOULD say to her grandchildren, choosing to speak in English as they listened best in that language, ‘imagine what I felt that evening when I arrived at last at the kainga where I was born. For three hours I had walked, carrying my bundle and those heavy babies, one of whom’ (she would tap a fair head) ‘was your father. Walking along that beach, tears came often to my eyes and don’t think it was only the sand blown into my eyes! There was the beautiful island Kapiti standing offshore, its six peaks deep purple against the setting sun; there to the south the blackly etched islands and mountains of Te Wai Pounamu, which they now call the South Island. Such a dull name! Those early settlers showed no imagination in their naming. North Island, South Island, East Cape, West Coast — points of the compass or dead Englishmen. No poetry at all. Nothing to tell the story of a place. Thank goodness a few of the old names survived.’

  Then a small dark hand or a fair one would tug at their Nana’s skirt and remind her of the story, for this part of her life was one told many times for its dramatic and frightening events.

  ‘What a shock, little ones, to walk down off the dunes to the bend in the stream where our kainga had always been. Where were the well-swept yards, the neat brushwood fences? Where were the fish hanging to dry and the dogs to bark at this weary traveller? Where, above all, were the members of my family?

  ‘Understand that all the hours that I walked I had been rehearsing in my head the words to explain my freedom, my babies, my life over the past nine years and my many plans for the future. But now no one stood in the untidy yard to hear my call. Two huts leaned crazily towards the ground like old drunk men; the pataka, which is the food-house, children, and should be high on stilts to keep away dogs and to allow the air to freshen the food, that pataka had lost its thatch, showing the whole world how empty it was. Only two huts still stood, both in urgent need of repair. It was a scene of desolation and emptiness and my heart sank to see it. Had I come all this way for nothing?

  ‘For a full minute I stood looking down from my dune, the setting sun warm on my back, the darkening kainga below chilling my heart. There was menace in that place: I could feel it. Quietly I scooped a hollow for the sleeping babies (your father, your uncle) and laid them in the warm sand, wrapped in their blanket. Then, alone, I walked, without c
alling any greeting, into the place where I was born.

  ‘As soon as I reached the yard I could hear a terrible rasping sound. Harsh as a saw trying to cut through the toughest maire-wood. My first thought was that a mad dog, eager to tear at me, was strangling on his own rope. Then the coughing began and I knew it was a human sound. The smell, too, was by now in my nostrils. Carefully, but less fearful now, I approached the smaller of the two huts. I called but no reply came — only the dreadful hawking cough and the slow drag of breath after breath being pulled into the body. Again I called, and this time there came a croaking reply — a woman’s voice.

  ‘Yes, children, as you know, that voice came from your great-grandmother Paora, who lay dying and alone in her hut. To begin with she seemed like a stranger to me — wasted as she was, the glands in her neck swollen as big as apples, and the rest of her no more than skin and bones. Around her mouth and dribbling down to the sand was bloody foam she had coughed up. The stench in the hut made me retch. I stared at the dark figure, gave my name. She cried out at my voice and began coughing all over again. It was not until I had made up the fire and raised her head to take a little hot water that I realised this poor sick woman was my own mother.’

  Usually Anahuia would pause here in her story, tears beginning to run down her old cheeks, and a grandchild would run quickly for a glass of rum with hot lemon, for this was the best part of the story, and if they were not careful their old Nana would drift into her own world of memories and forget to speak aloud. A long sip of the fragrant brew, a smile at the little one who wiped her tears with an embroidered handkerchief and then Anahuia would resume.

  ‘Where was everyone? My mother’s brothers and their wives? My grandfather and grandmother? I could see someone must have been caring for my mother, for the ferns under her were green, even though she had soiled them, and a tin bowl of fresh water lay beside her. My mother would not — or could not — speak. I do not know to this day whether she truly recognised me. Mostly her eyes rolled back into her head and all her concentration was on drawing one painful breath after another. I had seen this disease before, at a kainga downriver from Karere. The settlers called it scrofula but did not seem to suffer from it often. With our people, death always came after a painful swelling of the neck and much coughing.