Catching the Current

by Jenny Pattrick

  ‘For fear my babies might catch this terrible scrofula I made a small shelter just outside the hut where I could hear them but where the putrid air inside would not seep into their newborn lungs. I smiled to see them wrap their little arms around each other and suck the other’s thumb, under the stars. Inside, I cleaned my mother, sang to her and waited for her death. To be honest, I prayed for death, each breath was such a battle, and her moans so hard to bear. I tried propping her up against me but she thrashed and kicked as if I were the enemy, so I laid her down again. It was certainly not the joyful return I had imagined.

  ‘Then — oh, it would have been towards morning, as I had already crept out to feed the babies and settled them back to sleep — I heard a sudden noise outside. A bundle of sticks and something heavy were dropped to the ground and a heavy commanding voice shouted, “Who is there?” (He spoke in Maori, you understand, but you sluggards would not understand if I told it in that tongue.)

  ‘I called out quickly that I was a friend caring for a dying woman and that he should lower his voice in respect. “Ha!” he answered — with another rude word which I will not use. “Come out and show yourself in the proper way!”

  ‘I stood in the doorway, fearful at the rough voice and afraid my babies would wake, but also angry that he should interrupt my mother’s death. A tall man stood in the yard, clear in the moonlight. At his feet lay firewood and a bird of some sort — pukeko, perhaps — already plucked and beheaded. He wore dirty canvas trousers held by a leather belt, and another belt diagonally from one shoulder across his bare chest. Various things hung from the shoulder-belt: a powder-horn, a tin box, a small axe and other things I did not recognise. The rifle in his hands pointed at my chest. His dark hair hung wild and matted to his shoulders. Everything about this dark man was intimidating, you understand, but inside the hut each breath my mother took might have been her last, so I found courage to speak.

  ‘“My mother here is dying,” I said, trying to keep my voice from shaking, “and you are not helping with your loud voice and your rude manner.”

  ‘His black eyes glittered in that almost-morning light. For a moment longer he stood, and then he lowered his rifle. “That is my mother, not yours, stranger,” he said, “so leave her hut. I have come to feed her.”

  ‘Imagine my astonishment! Could this tall warrior be the young brother I had left so long ago? I called him by his name, Hoani, using my own, Anahuia. The tall warrior drew a sharp breath and walked closer, keeping the gun in his hand. I think he feared an ambush. It was clear to me that this man was fearful of something or somebody, because anyone could see that I posed no threat.

  ‘He repeated my name. I took a step out into the moonlight so that my face could be seen, thinking that if mine had changed as much as his then he would not see a sister in it. But, children, he did. Suddenly that stern and fearsome visage, with the whorls and lines of a proud moko outlining his nose and cheeks, broke into a wide grin and I saw the young boy.

  ‘“Anahuia?” he said again. “This is very good you are here. But do not call me by that old name. I have a new one — Turi, after the ancestor of Titokowaru himself.”

  ‘His words told me that my brother Turi was a follower of Pai Marire, which explained his furtive manner. The tribes in our area, though perhaps sympathetic to the cause, had taken the decision not to join. But this was not the moment for explanations. Our mother was dying. Together we went in to her.

  ‘It was too late for food. Almost immediately she slipped into unconsciousness. Still her strong body fought to drag in air, but every breath she took was followed by fierce coughing and then a choking flow of blood. Before morning she was dead.

  ‘It was a truly sad time. For a day I sat beside her, wailing and singing as was proper, but we could not bring other hapu to the tangi because Turi, it turned out, was on the run, hunted by the volunteers of the colonial militia. Together we buried her. Turi dug a place for her in the family graveyard and made a cross from two beautiful pieces of driftwood, bleached white by the sea. He carved onto the wood some marks that I did not recognise but which he said were Pai Marire symbols. He spoke a strange karakia over the grave — prayers I had never heard the bishop speak, nor those at my other kainga. Our mother, said Turi, had favoured Titokowaru, who was related by marriage to Te Ati Awa. She had seen her son go north to join the movement and had blessed his going, even though by then the family had shrunk to but a few. My mother’s last surviving brother, who was himself dying at the time, agreed that Turi should wear the moko of this hapu, as he was the only remaining son.

  ‘My brother wept many tears for his mother, whom he had loved dearly. We remembered our old life and spoke warmly of her, even though I still felt some old anger that she had let me go all those years before. Turi said he thought his mother had blessed his journey north in order that he might escape the terrible disease that was wiping out the family.

  ‘Those two days were both happy and sad for me. To find a brother lightened my heart. Though he was darker we looked a little alike: both tall and lean, both wearing this nose, which is a gift to all our family from your great-grandfather, Johan Gerhard Jensen. The sadness, of course, was that we two were the only ones remaining of our hapu. All the others had died, one by one, of this scrofula — even the babies.

  ‘“Perhaps,” I said, as we ate a quiet meal of potato and pukeko, baked over hot stones and scented with driftwood, “perhaps we have survived because of our Pakeha blood.”

  ‘That made my brother angry. He stabbed his knife into his food, then waved his portion in my face. “I have no Pakeha blood!” he shouted. “That is all renounced, along with my baptised name.”

  ‘And here, my children, is where the story grows dark, so close your ears if you are fearful. Now, up to this time, although of course Turi knew that I had babies with me, he had not seen them. I fed them a little distance from the hut. But the night was cold and our fire warm so I went to their little shelter and brought them close to the fire. Turi’s shouting woke my two little fellows. The fire shone on their fat little bodies and I held one up so that my brother could admire his nephew and feel proud that the family line would continue strongly. How wrong I was!

  ‘My brother started back with a cry almost of fear. He stared at one wriggling little baby and then at the other already sucking at my breast.

  ‘“They are Pakeha,” he whispered. “You have lain down with the enemy!”

  ‘I laughed at such dramatic talk. “What nonsense,” I said. “Conrad, the father of these babies, is a good man, a Dane like our father. You would like him.”

  ‘“I have renounced our father too,” shouted Turi, “as you must. I am the head of our hapu now. Our father was a bad and ungodly man.”

  ‘He kept staring at my babies with such hatred that I grew fearful. Quietly I removed myself from the fire and sat at a distance to feed and clean them. I decided to sleep that night with them in the little shelter I had built. But first I had to talk with this newly found brother to see why this hatred ate at him.

  ‘When I returned to the fire he was calmer, but the warmth between us had disappeared. I tried to talk quietly to him about my life with the Rangitane and with the Monrad family. I told him about Conrad — his skill with carving, his singing, how everyone liked and honoured him for his music and his stories and his great strength. How I was a fortunate woman that he chose to lie with me. Well … I tried to tell him all this but Turi twitched this way and that, snorted and interrupted.

  ‘“He is a Pakeha,” he growled. “They are all the same. They kill us and take our land and poison us with their filthy disease. We must rid our lands of this scourge. Drive them away or kill them if they will not go.”

  ‘He recited his words as if they had been drummed into him. I could not recognise my brother when he spoke like that. His eyes showed red as he looked at me.

  ‘“You have turned into a Pakeha,” he said.

  ‘“I am no Pakeha,” I r
eplied sternly, “and my Conrad has taken no land nor killed any of our people, Rangitane or Te Ati Awa. You speak like an angry child, not the head of our family!”

  ‘He made me angry, you see, with his strong views, allowing for no shades of colour, only pure black or white. It was in his nature, I think. A bullying side to him. From a small boy he was the one who demanded to be first for a canoe ride or to take first turn on the rope-swing above the river, pushing the other boys away. Then, perhaps because his father had dishonoured the family, he felt the need to stand prouder than the rest, and fiercer. And yet there was the warmth, too: his love for our mother and his gentleness towards me before he suspected me of going over to “the enemy”.

  ‘I tried, that night, to reason with him. I am not one to give in when a difficult task needs attention, as you all well know! “Turi”, I said to him, “you who now bear the name of the ancestor of Titokowaru himself. A quiet and gentle name. What do the words Pai Marire mean? Does the movement not stand for goodness and peace? Don’t they call your general a great peacemaker? Would Titokowaru himself want to drive away and kill peaceful farmers?”

  ‘“Of course he would. Those farmers have stolen the land!”

  ‘“Not everywhere,” I said, “not down here. The families I know have bought their land from chiefs who wish to sell.”

  ‘He wasn’t listening.

  ‘“And don’t preach to me about Titokowaru!” he said, stirring the fire until the sparks flew up, “I no longer follow that man. At his best he was a great general but now he has lain with another man’s wife and dishonoured our movement. He speaks again of peace. Peace! Now the strong warriors like me are leaving him,” he said, rolling his eyes to look fierce and warlike. “We have no interest in retreat or peace. He is crawling back to his own pa — retreating to Taranaki in disgrace — but I am heading towards Te Kooti in the east. He still fights. He will keep hatred in his heart for our enemies.”

  ‘I could have slapped my brother for his stupid puffed-up manner and proud words, but also I began to fear him. His beliefs inflamed his mind as liquor maddens a drunkard. In this mood my brother was a dangerous man. But yet I tried to turn my brother from his burning beliefs.

  ‘“Why do you feel so strongly?” I asked. “Have you seen much killing?”

  ‘He spoke with pride. “I have been at victorious battles up north where we have killed many and been killed. We have hunted the retreating Pakeha through the bush and picked them off like flies. We have ploughed up the land they stole and killed the surveying parties. I have myself killed seventeen Pakeha.”

  ‘Now, my chickens, you must not hate your great-uncle for this. Not the fighting in battle. As a soldier he fought an honourable war. That Titokowaru was a clever general. Very clever. And right was on his side. The land he fought for had been stolen, no doubt about it, and he fought his great battles only after trying the peaceful way. But bitterness had entered my brother’s heart at some stage — or perhaps the taste of killing had a flavour he enjoyed in some dark way so that he wanted that taste again and again, whether the Pakeha were soldiers or not.

  ‘The matter of the Dane, Heie, and his murder was different. I told you about the Danish worker whom the Monrads found axed and dying on the banks of the Manawatu River, you remember? Well, that night by the fire I learned that my own brother had killed Heie, a hard-working man who had fought in the battles, yes, but was now returning peacefully, walking alone through bush belonging to Ngati Toa, who were not at war.

  ‘“You killed that man?” I cried out. “But why?”

  ‘“He was alone. He had fought in the battles. He deserved to die.”

  ‘“You crept up behind and put an axe to his head? Then left him in pain to die alone? What kind of warrior is that?”

  ‘“A Pakeha does not need to be killed in an honourable way. They have not been honourable to us,” he said. But his head hung a little low as he spoke. I like to think he felt perhaps a crumb of shame at such a cowardly and cruel act.

  ‘He spoke to me then in a quiet and urgent voice, his eyes shining, his words as slippery as an eel. My babies, he said, were a danger to me: they marked me as a follower of Pakeha ways. They were so pale they would grow up as Pakeha, speaking their language and stealing our land. I was breeding children who would help destroy all the tribes. It would be an honourable thing, he said, to put them to sleep for ever so that they might not live to be a scourge to our people. What warrior, he asked, scorn in his voice, would take such a woman as a wife if she clung to these cursed babies?

  ‘He urged me to follow the Pai Marire way myself and work towards banishing the white man from this country. Titokowaru, he said, preached that Maori women of all tribes should bear many children and Pai Marire men take many wives so that our race might survive the dreadful diseases that even our own family had experienced.

  ‘Turi scratched in the sand as he spoke, as if already digging a small grave for my babies. I tell you, my dear grandchildren, my mokopuna, that those quiet words chilled me more deeply than all his fierce ranting. He had become a fanatic, you see, and fanatics are dangerous people, to be avoided and feared like a terrible disease, worse even than the scrofula that killed your great-grandmother.’

  And here in the story one of the children would tug again at the fine cloth of their Nana’s skirt to remind her of the story, for they had all heard the bit about fanatics many many times: about good warriors with worthy causes who turned bad and bitter because their eyes looked at the world through a single narrow hole and so on and so on. It was their Nana’s favourite lesson.

  ‘Well, my heart was chilled by his words, as I said, for I could see only too well Turi’s strength. I was strong too — and fierce, believe me — but I would be no match for him if it came to fighting hand to hand. So I pretended to listen, all the time thinking about escape.

  ‘“We should do it now,” he whispered, in his dangerous, mad voice, “while they are asleep.” But I said that I needed time to prepare for such a deed and that we would wait until morning. I lay down next to my babies, covering them with my body and shaking with fear at the unthinkable act my brother planned. In the end he settled by the fire, and when I heard him snoring I slipped into the hut and gathered into my kete a little food and my few possessions. I left them close to the doorway, innocent-seeming but ready to be picked up at a moment’s notice.

  ‘As I stepped past his sleeping body, he stirred. Firelight reflected in his open eyes as he silently watched me go back to my babies. I tried to seem calm but those cold eyes watching …! Turi had the sharp reflexes of a warrior. I decided that the time to escape would have to be morning, while he was engrossed in his prayers.

  ‘At first light my brother woke. I pretended to be asleep still, but watched through slitted eyes as he prepared to pray. Further away from the hut Turi had planted a rough imitation of a niu pole, which was the symbol for Pai Marire followers — to mark a place where they should gather and pray. He had thrust a tall post cut from the kanuka tree into the sand near to the stream and lashed two sticks across it, high up and pointing in the four directions of the compass. He had hoped to draw followers from those directions to his cause and had already told me how angry and disgusted he was that our people had not responded to his call. Only one young man, from a different hapu, had been prepared to travel with him to join Te Kooti.

  ‘Turi stood under the pole, one hand raised to heaven. Soon his strong voice started the karakia. Slowly he walked around his niu pole. The words of the prayers spoke of a just god and a peaceful one, and of the survival of the righteous and of the lion lying down with the lamb. But I knew that Turi would not lie down peacefully with my two lambs. I crawled to the hut, picked up the basket and scrabbled back to the babies. The prayers continued. Turi walked more quickly round and round the pole, his voice rising with the quickening pace. He went into a sort of trance as he prayed — I had watched him before — and afterwards washed slowly in the stream. A kind
of ritual cleansing, I think. So this was my choice of time to leave.

  ‘Oh, that was a difficult time, believe me! At every stumbling step I feared a hand on my shoulder, pictured my babies torn from me and axed before my eyes. He would not hurt me, I thought, but even of that I could not be sure. Lucky for me (and for some of you children, of course) that a high wind blew off the sea that day, driving great waves towards the shore. For a short time I walked at the edge of the water and then, where the waves crashed right up to the tussock of the dunes, I turned inland, hoping that all footprints would be smoothed by the rising tide.

  ‘For an hour I walked inland, until I reached the hills. There a track headed north and south through the low bush of the foothills. Under a clump of taupata trees, which bent low to the ground forming a screened tent, I hid, watching the track as I attended to my boys. No one passed. A long time I sat there quietly, watching and thinking. At last I saw him — my brother Turi — running towards me, north along the track. He carried his gun in one hand and axe in the other, running bare-chested and silent over the dusty track. I pressed each baby to a breast for fear they might cry, and sat there more still than a watching owl, as he passed by. My brother was in a hurry, looking this way and that. His manner was furtive, not vengeful. I thought that he had already forgotten me and was hurrying to join Te Kooti across the mountains, fearing as he went that he might be arrested for his murder of the Dane.