Flight of a Maori Goddess

by Lark, Sarah

  Waimarama raised her hands helplessly. “He is too weak right now to fight back the darkness.”

  “He should try harder,” she replied. “Is he in the house? I’ll go in and try to cheer him up.”

  Atamarie moved toward the house as self-assuredly as possible, but her first sight of Richard was shocking. The young man sat at the kitchen table, his head bent over an issue of Scientific American, but he wasn’t reading. It was more as if he were staring past the lines, as two weeks before he had stared past his flying machine and Atamarie’s excited face.

  “Atamarie.” Richard looked up when she entered, but he made no motion to stand, let alone to embrace her. “Did you want to help with the harvest again? The harvest is over. We need to plow and pay the rent and buy seeds.”

  Atamarie went determinedly up to him and kissed him, though only on his cheek—Richard smelled as if he had not bathed in ages. And his clothing was wrinkled and filthy. The cleanliness of the house and farm could only be attributed to Hamene and perhaps Shirley.

  “The harvest was already over when you flew,” Atamarie said energetically. “And you don’t need to worry about all this other junk anymore. Dobbins says you’re set for life once word of your motorized aeroplane gets around.”

  Richard smiled meekly. “But I didn’t fly, Atamie. At most, I hopped a bit. That’s what Peterson says. I hopped a bit. As usual. I—”

  Atamarie was not a very patient person. She felt anger rising within her. “Richard, I don’t care what Peterson says. You need to do it again. You need to show others. First and foremost, the press. But if you’re not comfortable with that, invite Dobbins.” How could she not have thought of it before? She should have just brought the professor with her. “And his students too. If half a college in Christchurch sees you fly, no one can deny it.”

  Not even you, she added in her head. Richard, however, only gave her another vacant smile.

  “I didn’t fly,” he repeated.

  Waimarama stepped in. “It’s not important for him,” she said quietly. “For the moment, it’s not important for him. He has to find his path out of the darkness, Atamarie. You want to make him famous. I understand what this is about for you, Atamarie. I’m not stupid.” Waimarama pointed to the magazine on the table. “My English isn’t good, and I can only read a bit. But I know what it’s about, what a big deal it is to pakeha to get such a flying machine into the air, that no one’s done it before.”

  Atamarie nodded. “Then, you also understand that he has to pull himself together now, has to show the world that—”

  “He must find the path out of the darkness,” repeated Waimarama.

  The old woman brought out a few herbs. Apparently, she was planning to use magic to free Richard.

  Atamarie gave up. She knew Waimarama would repeat her diagnosis again and again, just as mechanically as Richard insisted he had not flown. Atamarie needed some air.

  “I’m going to go look at the flying machine,” she announced.

  She hoped Richard would react to that, but he only lowered his head over his magazine again. Atamarie fled before he could deny that there even was such a machine.

  She quickly stepped out into a clear, early-fall day. It was sunny but cool. The sky was blue except for a few herringbone clouds, and the wind was unusually still. Atamarie thought fleetingly about what an ideal day it was for a flight attempt. In weather like this, Richard would have been able to keep the machine under control. Lost in thought, she wandered over and took a look at the aeroplane. It was true: nothing was broken. Only the canvas covering, which had been fastened by wire to the linkage and chassis, had torn loose in one place. Atamarie repaired it with a few quick motions. Then she pulled the aeroplane forward. It was light. She could move it effortlessly.

  She again admired its construction, with special affection for the motor and the eight-bladed propeller attached about the seat. Atamarie swung into the seat to take control of the little marvel of engineering. She had helped Richard craft the propeller, and attaching it in front had been her idea. Atamarie felt the aileron and elevator. She knew how to use both. She had seen the plans. And it really was not so different from Rawiri’s kites.

  Rawiri. She thought of him and how he had entrusted her with his kites, first when they were children, and then when she’d studied with him. In her hand, his manu had taken off like a bird, and Atamarie had been able to execute lightning-fast maneuvers with it. It was better, by contrast, to keep Richard’s flying contraption horizontal.

  “I name you Tawhaki,” Atamarie said to the flying machine, “after the god who brought mankind knowledge.”

  The aeroplane rolled lightly next to her. She did not need any horses to pull it up the hill. Atamarie trembled with excitement. She could repeat Richard’s flight and prove to him that he had not failed. With everyone at the fair, no one would see her. And even if someone did, at a distance they would confuse her blue riding dress for Richard’s overalls. As for her hair, Richard’s cap still lay in the aeroplane. No one would recognize her.

  The Otto motor roared to life at once when the young woman started it, and ran smoothly—Richard must have just been nervous when he ignited it before. Atamarie held tight to the seat and pushed off with her foot to start the plane rolling slowly forward. Atamarie held her breath as the machine went faster and faster—and then instinctively seized the right moment. She pulled on the elevator and took off. Slowly, Tawhaki rose into the air, reached a height of about fifteen feet, and held there effortlessly. Atamarie tried to keep the aeroplane balanced, but she found it too risky to continue flying along the street. What if someone came toward her, or the landing was a disaster?

  Then, however, the broom hedge came into view, and she seized the decision to break this shrub’s spell. She engaged the aileron and was amazed when the machine followed her steering motions. And a little higher. Atamarie pulled Tawhaki three more feet into the air and cheered when the machine flew over the hedge. Richard’s horses and goats fled toward the stables as the machine approached. Atamarie lowered it slowly and touched down in the paddock where Richard had practiced steering. The ground was even here, and it ran slightly uphill. Tawhaki rolled softly to a stop. Atamarie beamed with happiness as she climbed out.

  Hamene and Waimarama stared at her, speechless.

  “What are you looking at? I told you he flew,” Atamarie called to them.

  Hamene laughed. “Did you take the gods a message?” he teased.

  Atamarie pointed to the hedge. “I stuck my tongue out at a few cheeky spirits,” she declared.

  Waimarama did not smile. She looked sternly at Atamarie’s triumphant face.

  “Don’t tell him,” she bade her. “It wouldn’t help. You would only push him deeper into the darkness.”

  Atamarie felt she would explode if she didn’t tell someone about her flight. However, she could not possibly brag about it to Dobbins, and her family probably would have called her crazy. Not until the next day, when she set out for Christchurch, did she think of someone who would take interest without betraying her.

  I know, she wrote to the Maori tohunga Rawiri, I shouldn’t have done it, but it was so easy. It seemed almost natural to me. Atamarie thought she could hear Rawiri’s deep, friendly voice: Of course it was easy—your spirit sang the right song. The gods welcomed you, Atamarie Parekua Turei. You’ve been chosen.

  Chapter 6

  Doortje van Stout did not make any decision at first. She got up the day after her collapse, offering her assistance in the hospital again. Dr. Greenway gave her easy work, and as an expectant mother, she received extra food rations. Doortje accepted the special treatment without a word. Now, in retrospect, some things—the ravenous hunger she had been ashamed of, the constant fatigue and irritation—became clear. If only she had realized it earlier. Though Cornelis would not have married her anyway. He and Daisy had left for Pretoria as soon as the dissolution of the camps and the freeing of the prisoners of war had officia
lly been announced. Since then, the last of the Boer commandos had withdrawn. In May, the final peace treaties were to be signed. Doortje would have been alone then—with or without a baby.

  Yet, she still could not imagine leaving her country to follow Kevin into a whole new world. And she didn’t want to admit to herself that she would perhaps be glad to do so. It would be a betrayal of her people and her family, of all the values she had been taught, of her church, which would cast her out if her belly got any rounder. Already the women in camp had begun to avoid her. The respectable women talked behind her back; the camp whores openly laughed in her face. Doortje knew that Kevin was waiting on an answer, and time was running out. The commander in charge of closing their camp was expected any day.

  He appeared on a weekend when Roberta, Jenny, and Vincent had gone on a multiple-day excursion into the veld, along with several British officers who had been stationed in Karenstad for almost the entire war and did not want to go home without having set eyes on a lion at least once. Vincent had hired a few Zulu refugees as guides.

  In the camp hospital that day, the assistant nurses were cooking, and Doortje squatted to peel potatoes in front of the building. The hot, stuffy air inside got to her more and more, and she preferred staying out of the other women’s way. Only Antje Vooren still spoke to her. All the others whispered about the suspected Tommy whore. Many had not survived the six months of imprisonment, and the others had seen so much sorrow, sickness, and death that they no longer even recalled what had happened to Johanna and Doortje during their transportation to Karenstad. Also, because Doortje’s belly was still hardly rounded, they assumed she had conceived her child in the camp, perhaps while her mother and brothers lay dying. They spat in front of Doortje when she approached. She would not be able to bear it much longer.

  She began to dice the potatoes for the vegetable soup, struggling to shoo away the invasive flies forever swarming around her. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tall black horse stop in front of the camp director’s house. A blond man dismounted. She recognized his form at once, even if she could not see his face. She knew the colonel’s self-assured gestures, his quick, military-imprinted gait, his way of standing up straight. A cavalryman, an officer—but not a gentleman.

  Doortje leaped to her feet, and the potatoes hit the dirt.

  Kevin was taking care of paperwork in preparation for handing over the camp to the official who’d disband it. Anyone who wanted to know about the history of Karenstad would be able to find notes on it. Complete and unvarnished. Someday, he was sure of it, the incarceration of women and children in this war would be considered a crime.

  Kevin looked up when he heard knocking. Nandi would open it. He sighed at the thought. Some solution would have to be found for her too. After having spent her entire life on a Boer farm, could she integrate into a Zulu tribe? Make her way in a city? Now he heard her high, friendly voice.

  “Welcome, baas colonel. We awaited you. I announce you to doctor, yes?”

  The answer was a raw laugh. “Well, isn’t this a friendly welcome? Wouldn’t have expected it from old Drury. And what a nice little praline, black and delicious. I see the good doctor knew how to sweeten his life here. So, will you be staying with me when I take over for him?”

  A shiver ran down Kevin’s spine. Nandi’s voice now sounded frightened.

  “I not understand, baas colonel. I announce you.”

  Kevin opened the door to his office and struggled to smile comfortingly at the young woman.

  “That’s all right, Nandi. You can go.”

  Then he looked up at the destroyed face and the startling green-brown eyes of Colin Coltrane.

  “You?” he asked.

  Colin laughed. “We meet again, Dr. Drury. But don’t worry, no hard feelings. Your whining over the dead buggers was quickly forgotten. As soon as we took care of the next two commandos, the big shots in Pretoria loved me again. All in all, a lovely war. No sieges, no cannonballs flying about your ears, just a few idiot farmers you hunt like rabbits when you’re not setting their houses alight. A nice country too; I’ll be staying here. It’ll need a few years of military presence, after all, before the dogs are finally tame.” He smirked. “Maybe I’ll settle here. Sell the Boers a few proper horses and take a pretty girl. There’re plenty enough around.”

  Kevin looked at Colin Coltrane hatefully. “You’re supposed to take over the camp management? The repatriation of the families? Who had that brilliant idea? I’ll protest it, Coltrane. The women and children of the men you killed are here.”

  Coltrane shrugged. “It was war. That’s how it is. You won’t find a cavalry regiment that hasn’t shot Boers.”

  “You burned these people’s farms to the ground. They’ll recognize you.”

  Kevin felt helpless. Everything within him bristled at entrusting his charges to Colin Coltrane for the trek back to their homes.

  “Then they’ll know what’s waiting for them if they don’t get a move on, you see,” Coltrane observed. “Besides, I’m a gentleman, Dr. Drury. I know how to handle women. Ask your sister, the charming Matariki.”

  Kevin struggled not to punch him. Colin Coltrane was no doubt the more experienced brawler.

  Coltrane acted as if he did not notice Kevin’s rage. “So, show me around,” he ordered placidly. “We can start with your field hospital—I’m supposed to dissolve that first.”

  Kevin followed him as if numb. He needed to think of something. He would join the trek, of course, but he could not be everywhere at once. Nor did he know exactly from what he really meant to protect the women and children. Coltrane was a decorated officer. He should be able to keep a grip on his soldiers—if he wanted to.

  The men stepped out into the torrid sun. Kevin squinted in the brightness, taking in the peaceful scene that spread out before him. In front of a nearby tent, children were playing. Kevin recognized two of Antje Vooren’s children and two older girls. At the hitching post between the house and hospital stood Colin’s black horse, and Vincent was just then helping Roberta Fence down from her white pony. The safari participants must have heard of Coltrane’s arrival, and Vincent had doubtlessly rushed back to warn Kevin—too late. Not that warning him would have helped much.

  From the hospital came Doortje. Though her silence regarding his proposal racked his nerves, the sight of her always made his heart beat faster. Today, however, Doortje moved woodenly. Her face was as pale as a corpse’s and completely emotionless. Her body seemed tense—and she was holding something in her clenched fist. Kevin could not tell what it was. Colin Coltrane was now turning with a smirk to Vincent, who instinctively stepped protectively in front of Roberta.

  “Another old acquaintance. Who would have thought? Our veterinarian. Our most sensitive men all in one place. We’re just missing that Australian, what was his name?”

  Kevin saw with astonishment that Doortje was marching straight toward Colin Coltrane, who was facing away from her, and Roberta cried out in horror when she spied the knife. Coltrane stopped short, irritated. At that moment, Kevin recognized Doortje’s intention and rushed forward, but it was too late. Doortje van Stout stabbed Colin Coltrane in the back with all the power she possessed. The knife bounced off his shoulder blade, but Doortje still held it in her hand. Coltrane spun around in alarm and reached for the army revolver in his holster.

  When Doortje raised the bloody knife again, Kevin sprang into action. He could stop Coltrane or Doortje. But if he took Doortje down, Coltrane would shoot his attacker. Kevin could not risk that. He rushed Coltrane, seizing his arm and pulling it behind his back. He had not intended thereby to offer Doortje Coltrane’s unprotected chest.

  Doortje thrust without hesitation.

  “This is for Johanna, you pig,” she yelled, and pulled the knife out of the wound. Coltrane gasped, and Doortje rammed the blade between his ribs anew. “And that’s for me. And for my baby. And for—”

  Only when Doortje went to thrust the knif
e into Colin Coltrane’s breast a third time did the veterinarian run to her and hold her back.

  “Doortje, for heaven’s sake, Doortje.”

  Doortje dropped the knife when she saw that Coltrane’s body now hung limp in Kevin’s arms. Kevin stared at her in shock.

  “He—he was the one,” whispered Doortje. “He and his people. They had Johanna and they, they killed—and he had me.”

  She broke into sobs, pressing her bloody hands to her belly. Kevin let Coltrane drop to the ground, went to Doortje, and took her in his arms.

  Vincent kneeled down and felt for a pulse. “He’s dead.”

  Doortje’s first attack must have punctured the lung, and the second must have found the heart.

  Roberta looked around. The square was abandoned. “What do we do now?” she asked.

  Vincent looked at her uncomprehendingly. “There’s nothing more we can do. As I said—”

  Doortje and Kevin stood there motionless. Neither of them made a move.

  Roberta felt a flash of the old pain. For a heartbeat, an ugly thought announced itself: if everything now were to take its proper course, Kevin would never see Doortje van Stout again. Or if he did, it’d be at a murder trial. Roberta’s path would be clear again.

  She pulled herself together. She could not sacrifice Doortje to her hopeless love. And Kevin—he, too, was in danger. Roberta decided to save the man who had never taken her seriously.

  “Vincent,” she told him quietly, “if this gets out, she’ll be sentenced to death. And Kevin, heavens, he held the man down for her. That’s aiding or abetting or whatever. Hopefully no one saw.”

  “We saw,” murmured Vincent. “But you heard her. It was Coltrane who raped her. And set his men on her sister.”

  Roberta raised her hands as if she wanted to shake him. “But she’s not allowed to stick him like a pig. If we don’t do something now, they’ll hold her responsible.”