Flight of a Maori Goddess

by Lark, Sarah

  “At some point, he wrote that it didn’t work, that he hadn’t flown, that God didn’t want men to fly. There was something about crashing in a hedge.”

  Atamarie sighed. “That cursed hedge. But if he wrote the Wright brothers about his flier and his attempt, then they must have realized that he had either flown or was about to. And then they staged their flight. Heavens, Rawiri, how could he be so stupid?”

  Atamarie calculated with lightning speed. It added up. The Wright brothers had forced their first flight right after Richard had given up. They thought he was a crackpot, but they also knew he had flown, and they did not want to run the risk of not being first.

  “You did sing for him,” Rawiri said, “but the spirits did not hear you.”

  “Probably you can only sing for yourself,” she murmured. “Will you sing with me again?”

  Rawiri began the song to the gods, and Atamarie joined in. The Maori singers down in the garden took up the song, and in the twilight, an almost ethereal duet between heaven and earth unspooled.

  “It’s beautiful,” Doortje whispered as the kites danced and the tohunga sang. She felt shyly for Kevin’s hand.

  She did not know if that was proper, but lately she had sometimes longed for his touch, another thing she would never have admitted to herself a few months before. But why should she not desire Kevin? He was her husband. Kevin did not reject her either, squeezing her hand tenderly.

  This gesture did not escape Juliet. And it filled her with rage.

  Chapter 8

  “They were holding hands,” Roberta reported the next day to Atamarie. “While you two were singing up there. Doortje has completely changed. Your mother—”

  “My mother invited Rawiri to the Matariki celebration,” Atamarie answered distractedly, “with our tribe at Elizabeth Station. Since we’re both here for once, we’re going to celebrate with the Ngai Tahu. And he agreed. He’s going to make kites with the tribe’s children beforehand; he promised. Maybe we’ll do that together.”

  “Atamarie, are you even listening to me? I was talking about Kevin and Doortje.”

  “It’s nice that they’re finally happy,” Atamarie said. “Or would you prefer he picked Juliet? I already told you, Robbie; it won’t be you.”

  “And what about you and Rawiri?” Roberta asked.

  Atamarie shrugged. “He’s nice. When I’m with him, it’s lovely. And he loves me. But did I tell you that Richard apparently wrote letters to Wilbur and Orville Wright?”

  Roberta groaned.

  Over the next few days, Atamarie and Rawiri grew closer. After his arrival in Wellington, he had learned that she was on the South Island, and he made his way straight there. Atamarie, who until then had only seen Rawiri in the context of Parihaka, was pleasantly surprised. Furthermore, Rawiri was now educated, he had seen more of the world than Atamarie, and he knew how to tell interesting stories about it. Rawiri spoke of monstrously high buildings in New York. He described the Brooklyn Bridge, considered the longest suspension bridge in the world, and talked about spectacular feats in railroad engineering, of automobiles, and of plans for giant oceangoing steamships.

  “And flying, of course. It’s going to develop rapidly now.” He smiled. “Whether we sing or not.”

  Atamarie told him about her recent exams, her uncertain plans for the future, and her last trip to Richard’s farm. She did not want to lay out the whole story, but she was dying to compare Richard’s aeroplane with the Wrights’. Rawiri did her the favor of describing their machine in painstaking detail.

  “Professor Dobbins would also be interested in hearing about it,” she said. “If you travel back through Christchurch, you should offer to give a lecture to his class.”

  Rawiri looked at her incredulously. “You really believe I could? In front of all those learned people? I always had the feeling I was just some stupid Maori hick to you, who thought he could fly by jumping toward the sea, singing.”

  “It’s no worse than silently crashing into a hedge,” she said. “Besides—Richard never finished college either. Still, he built his aeroplane. And it flew better than the Wrights’.”

  A shadow crossed Rawiri’s face. “Again and again, you come back to Richard. Do you still love him, Atamarie? You know that I—I don’t want to pressure you, Atamarie. But I thought maybe we’d both go to Christchurch. You said yourself that the professor offered you a position at the institute. And I could study at Canterbury College—engineering. I’d like to build aeroplanes myself, teach a motor to sing. Have you ever considered that, Atamie? That they’re singing, whispering to the spirits?”

  Atamarie smiled. She had often listened to the sound of the Otto motor. For her, too, it was like music when it ran smoothly. But whispering?

  “You think someday there’ll be motors that whisper?” she asked.

  “Why not? They shouldn’t drown out the wind, and they can’t be so loud that people can’t hear themselves think.”

  Atamarie’s eyes flashed. “If you could reduce the vibrations—”

  Rawiri touched her arm. “Forget the motor for now. I have to know if there’s still something between you and Richard Pearse. Are you going to go away again to be with him? And come back when he doesn’t want you anymore? I might be your second choice, Atamarie, but you’re going to have to make a choice.”

  Atamarie leaned against the young man. The two had walked to the beach to fly Atamarie’s kites. Rawiri insisted that they could not be locked up in a museum, and Atamarie was beginning to feel that he was right. The other Maori pieces seemed to lose some of their luster in the community room, far from their marae and wharenui, from their wearers’ throats and the walls of the meetinghouses. But the manu could fly away. Now they smelled of the sea; the wind had tousled their decorative feathers. It gave them a different expression. The birdman seemed to tell of adventures in the air, the hawk looked fierce, and the canoe held its peace about the secrets of the ancestors.

  Now, the manu lay next to Atamarie and Rawiri in the sand while the two drank beer and gazed out to sea.

  “I don’t know if I have a choice, Rawiri,” she said. “I could love you. Maybe I already do. But sometimes I feel as if there were an aho tukutuku between me and Richard. Flax doesn’t tear so easily.”

  “Roberta says he’s probably married,” Rawiri said, and looked at Atamarie questioningly. “Doesn’t that break the line?”

  Atamarie shrugged helplessly. “I can still feel it, Rawiri. I can’t help it. It’s stronger than I am.”

  “In other words, he just needs to pull the line in,” Rawiri observed bitterly, and sought her gaze.

  Atamarie looked away. “Give me time,” she murmured. “Just give me time.”

  Roberta had come decidedly too early. Half an hour before the agreed-upon time, she was standing in front of the house on lower Stuart Street to attend a concert with Atamarie and Matariki—and Kevin and Doortje, of course. Still, she told herself that this was a coincidence. Just as it had only been on a whim that she had opted for a half-hour stroll to the city center instead of a ride in Sean and Violet’s coach. But the air was lovely that day, and Kevin would surely still be in his office while Doortje, Atamarie, and Matariki changed for the concert. Maybe he would have left the door to his practice ajar. Roberta would then be able to peek inside and maybe chat with him a bit. But only if chance dictated, of course. Roberta would never have planned something like that.

  Still, she was disappointed when she found the door closed. Was he already upstairs? But then she heard concerning noises from inside. A sharp cry—but she could have imagined that—and moaning. Kevin must have a patient, maybe an emergency. But his nursing assistant had surely gone home. Roberta could step in. In South Africa, she had occasionally helped out in the hospital. Uncertain, she slipped into the waiting room and saw the closed office door. Should she knock? The moaning could clearly be heard here—but somehow, somehow it did not sound pained.

  Curious, Roberta ti
ptoed closer to the door. A woman’s laughter. And a man’s voice. Kevin’s voice.

  “No, Juliet. No, no, really, you little beast, you’re a devil.”

  “Totally wrong, you know I’m an angel. I’m going to ride you until you admit it.”

  Roberta’s first impulse was to turn and flee. But there she remained, spellbound.

  “Juliet, really, I don’t want to anymore.”

  “Kevin, dearest, you don’t speak for your little fellow here. He just doesn’t want to come out of me, you see.”

  “Little fellow? Are you trying to insult me?”

  Giggling. “Oh, forgive me, naturally, I was speaking of your mighty member. You’re a stallion, dearest. Is that better?”

  “Much better. But you really shouldn’t. And I need to go upstairs. This concert—”

  “Should I sing for you? Let my body sing for you. Our duet is better than anything you’ll hear on the stage. Come, my stallion, now it’s your turn to ride.”

  “We can’t do that.” Kevin’s voice sounded pained, but Roberta wondered why, if he meant any of it, he did not simply get up and go.

  What she was hearing was repugnant, a far cry from the nights with Kevin she had dreamed of. Roberta had imagined tenderness and lovers’ oaths—and blissful, shared silence after the climax, itself like a sunrise or a shower of shooting stars. But this, if it was this lust and absurdity that he wanted, the last thing Roberta wanted in that moment was to be in Juliet’s place.

  She spun around hastily—and startled herself to death when a Victorian monstrosity of a vase fell and smashed on the floor.

  Kevin threw open the office door before Roberta had quite reached the exit. He was naked, a towel thrown hastily around his waist.

  “Roberta?” His eyes reflected his fright, but also relief. Thank God it was only Roberta. “What, uh, are you doing here? I was just freshening up. The three ladies are up in the—” Kevin smiled apologetically, begging her understanding.

  That was when Roberta realized that he took her for a clueless child. Just as he always had, no matter how hard she had worked in South Africa. Kevin might have found her useful, but he did not take her seriously. She felt a rising cold within her.

  “Don’t bother lying, Kevin. I heard everything. Tell Juliet she can come out. I could help lace her up. She does want to look presentable when she faces Doortje, doesn’t she?”

  Kevin’s face fell. “Roberta, please, don’t tell anyone. I know we shouldn’t see each other. I want to end it.”

  “Then why don’t you?” she asked contemptuously.

  “Please, Roberta, I love Doortje. But I can’t. I—”

  From the office came guffawing.

  Every word here was wasted. Roberta ran out and slammed the door behind her.

  “Roberta,” Kevin yelled after her.

  She ran down the stairs. Under no circumstances could she face the other women now. Atamarie would instantly see that something was wrong. And she could not tell her friend that she had wasted years of love and respect on a cheater who held Doortje’s hand one day and the next did disgusting things with Juliet Drury. And who still talked of love.

  Roberta took a cab to her parents’ house. Violet and Sean would worry when she did not appear at the concert, but she could tell them later that she suddenly felt ill. She’d blame it on the corset, which Violet had already scolded her for wearing. And tomorrow, she would take the train to Christchurch a few days early. Her family was going to see Rosie and Diamond, who had qualified for the New Zealand Trotting Cup. More than anything, Roberta wanted to see Vincent again. Roberta longed for his warm, understanding smile and his gentle eyes—eyes that recognized someone like Juliet at a glance.

  Roberta had finally had enough of unrequited love. Not to mention the wrong man.

  Chapter 9

  The next morning, things no longer seemed so simple.

  It surprised Violet that her daughter felt sick one day and wanted to set out on a journey the next, supposedly to visit a friend from school.

  “Did something happen, Roberta? You look pale.”

  “Nothing happened. I was just, um, tired. But now I feel better. I can travel, Mom. Don’t worry.” Roberta carefully laid skirts and blouses in her suitcase. “I’ll leave the corset at home too.”

  Violet observed her with a frown. “Something happened. But if you don’t want to tell me—it’s nothing really bad, is it, Robbie? Does it have something to do with a man?”

  Violet had been raped at a young age, and the associated fear still stuck in her bones. No matter how often she told herself that Roberta was quite safe in Dunedin, she hated it when her daughter went out alone.

  “Nothing happened to me, Mom. All it was, was that something—I—”

  “Saw something, Roberta? Did a man approach you improperly? There are those who take pleasure in, well, exposing, um, themselves to women. It’s called—” Violet thumbed through the dictionary in her head.

  Roberta laughed. “Mom, I did not see anything of the sort! I’m fine, really. I just want to go to Christchurch a couple days early. I’m sure Rosie will be happy.”

  “And the young man you got to know in South Africa? Is this about him? Roberta, I really don’t approve of you—without accompaniment. We don’t even know him.”

  Roberta looked at her mother indulgently. “You’ll get to know him this weekend. Now, enough, Mom. I’m fine. I’ve traveled alone to Christchurch before. No one’s going to gobble me up, least of all Vincent Taylor.”

  But Violet did not give up so quickly. “What’s he going to say when you come two days early, Roberta? It’ll look like you’re throwing yourself at him.”

  “I’m going to visit my friend first!” she repeated the lie. “She, uh, she has a problem, you see. She wrote me about it, and I think she really needs support. She’s a teacher, but she got involved with a man, and now she’s—”

  “Pregnant?” Violet took the bait. “Oh, the poor thing. But it does urgently need to be done away with, this nonsense of celibacy for female educators. A male teacher can marry at any time, but a woman’s supposed to live like a nun. Robbie, send your friend to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Perhaps they’ll find some work for her. Taking care of children for poor families.”

  Roberta acted as if she were listening attentively to Violet’s various offers of help for her nonexistent friend. She hated to lie to her mother, but she simply had to get out of town.

  In the end, Violet personally hailed her daughter a cab and sent her off to the train—but as Roberta sat happy within, doubts about what she was doing began to stir. Her mother was right. Even in Addington, they would find it strange when she showed up two days early. And she could not simply run to Vincent, apologize for her distance these last weeks, and offer to marry him. The best thing really would have been to wait for the weekend and to greet Vincent so warmly that he took courage and asked again. Then she could accept the proposal and blame her fickleness on not wanting to give up her profession. It was just a question of whether he would believe her. After all, he clearly suspected her infatuation with Kevin. Later, perhaps, they could talk about it—the last thing Roberta wanted was to keep a secret from her husband. Now, however, was no time for such confessions. Vincent shouldn’t assume he was her second choice.

  But what was she going to do with two unplanned days in Christchurch? Brood alone in a hotel room?

  The perfect solution came to her when the conductor announced Timaru as the next stop. What if she got out and looked into a few things? Now that she knew the truth about Kevin, maybe she could learn the truth about Richard for Atamarie.

  Ready for action, Roberta pulled her bag down from the rack. Maybe she would even get to lay eyes on the fantastic Richard Pearse at last. She only knew him from Atamarie’s descriptions—he might look very different to an outsider.

  She took a room in the nearest proper inn and asked directions to the rental stables.

  “
I’d like to get to Temuka,” she explained to the innkeeper. “How long is the ride?”

  “Two hours if you hurry,” the woman replied. “I used to have a young woman stay here frequently who had an acquaintance there. She told me she once made it in just over an hour. But Miss Turei rode like the devil himself.”

  Roberta smiled. Things were going better than she had hoped.

  In the rental stables, she asked for a calm horse and a chaise, then made her way along the largely unpaved road to Temuka. The sheep pastures and plains had a cheerless effect on Roberta, but that may have had to do with the weather. It was raining buckets, and although she had chosen a two-wheeled chaise with a roof, Roberta’s clothing was slowly getting wet. She sighed with relief when she reached Temuka, a typical village with neat wooden houses, a school, and a church. She hailed an approaching rider and inquired about the way to Richard’s farm.

  A while later, the infamous broom hedge came into view. Roberta had to smile. Atamarie had described all of it so vividly.

  The farm, however, was a surprise. Atamarie had told her that it was somewhat run-down, the yard full of farming equipment. Yet this house was newly painted—lovingly, the shutters snow white and the porch in blue. A rocking chair stood on it, and everything had a homey quality. Two well-nourished horses stood in the pasture. The yard was impeccably ordered. The farming equipment, lined up neatly by the barn, was neither old nor rusted.

  As the carriage approached the yard, a curtain moved behind a window. A moment later, the door opened, and a woman stepped out. She looked middle aged and motherly beneath her wide-brimmed hat.

  Was that Shirley?

  “Hello,” the woman greeted her cheerfully. “What can I do for you? Go on and hitch the horse in front of the barn; come in out of the rain.”

  Roberta climbed shyly out of the carriage. The rain soaked through her light shawl at once.

  “I’m actually looking for Richard and Shirley Pearse,” she said. “This, this is the Pearse farm, isn’t it?”