by Albert Wendt
and then refocused on us From their centre dropped one then two
then three of their leaders who flapped their wings open and circling lower
and lower brushed against Vela’s loving hands I’ve missed you
missed you he caressed them his eyes glittering with tears
More and more of them joined their circling dance
I held up my arms and they were soon a swift furred current
around me their fetid putrid stench the worst I’d ever encountered
I gagged and started choking and they unpeeled quickly to give me air
You’ll get used to it Vela said The more they love you the more smell
they emit so get used to it (I didn’t tell him I was terrified
any further increase in their love would choke me to death)
We sat down on a massive banyan root and Vela lowered the umbrella
They won’t shit on us anymore he chuckled I looked around
Ceilinged with pe’a the three banyans formed a massive cathedral
that wombed us in a fetid gloom of incredible growth and promise
This is the last city of pe’a left Vela’s sadness felt alien in that fecundity
Once they had eleven protected cities throughout our district
He didn’t need to tell me the causes of their destruction
When Nafanua’s congregation converted to the religion that preached
humans’ divine right to dominate every thing and dismissed
as superstition the tapu that connected all things in the Va-Atoa
even the pe’a became food easily harvested with shotguns
charcoal-roasted and served up as a ‘delicacy’ at elite parties
On our way down to the coast through neat taro cacao
and banana plantations he told me that in Nafanua’s queendom
the pe’a were made sacred after they’d saved an illustrious ancestor
who’d been captured in a battle tied up and dumped on a fire
As a colony the pe’a had darkened the skies as they’d descended
and urinated on the flames and had then carried him to safety
They saved me too but that’s a story for another time he said
and again I was impatient frustrated and irritated with him
taking me for granted as passive recorder of his ego-tripping
Later I would also admit to myself I was still deeply wounded
by his absence when my marriage was failing
that I was nothing more than the chronicler he needed
The white sand throughout Falealupo reflected a fierce light
that blinded us as we drove slowly through it neat thatched-fale
with families cooking their morning meal many waved to us
neat palm trees neat flower gardens and shrubbery everything afloat
You remember the story of Maifea? Vela asked I nodded
That’s where he landed He pointed at the cathedral ahead
It was of Hollywood dimensions blood-red roof massive twin towers
holding up a massive sky ablaze with arc lights and a massive chorus
of invisible angels promising you God as Charlton Heston (before he sold out
to the gun lobby) Was it in Viva Zapata starring Marlon Brando I’d first seen
a cathedral like this? Or in The Power and the Glory with Laurence Olivier?
What about in Anthony Quinn’s Mexican bandit movies?
From both sides of the cathedral extended a compound of buildings
that looked like the Spanish haciendas in those movies
The two-storied buildings were a school and quarters for the clergy
others the mission offices a large garage with three cars and a bus
Two women in black were sweeping the school’s front veranda
Straight out of the cowboy movies eh! Vela echoed my thoughts
They built it over Maifea’s? grave? I asked He nodded Right over
the bones of their first voyager to reach us and if you want
to kill another religion what do you do? Go right into its heart
and squat there I answered Yeah like they did here he indicated
Poor Nafanua eagerly waited for Maifea’s? people to bring Her their marvels
but they came with that and a Book that promised salvation
We parked beside the cathedral under a sprawling breadfruit tree
Two young men from the compound hurried over
We got out and they greeted us respectfully in Samoan
After I introduced Vela as Rajesh Patel he asked politely
to see ‘the Padre Head of this beautiful mission’
Impressed they bowed and said they would fetch him
One of them hurried off to do that and as the other led us up
the front cathedral steps I felt sacriligeous walking over Maifea’s? body
We entered and my heart stretched out to try to encompass the church’s
cavernous dimensions Maifea? is still here and he is so happy
we have returned Vela whispered in the cool sea of darkness
that rippled from our feet as we stood in the narrow doorway light
and filled every crevice every corner every detail of that cavern
I tried to feel Maifea’s? smiling unconditional presence
The youth disappeared into the darkness ahead struck a match
that flamed and he used that to light the altar candles
But I thought Maifea? had no memory! I protested to Vela who ignored
me and headed for the altar and the looming Crucifixion above it
He knelt down at the altar rail and hands clasped bowed his head
and appeared to be praying with the candlelight shimmering over
him like liquid fire and me bristling to confront him
about the limits of and borders between his facts and fictions
Or had he forgotten that in his original tale Maifea? had lost his
memory
and couldn’t remember daily even Nafanua his adopted mother?
Before I could do that a very Kiwi accent behind me said in Samoan
Welcome to our humble church gentlemen I’m Father Macdonald!
I turned and met Peter O’Toole’s double all he needed was a turban
diaphanous white robes and a white stallion and he was Lawrence of Arabia
We shook hands and he said The word has spread about Mr Patel
visiting our humble district in search of a chronicler called Vela
I pointed at the figure at the altar rail and we moved towards Vela
Dressed in a black ie lavalava and white shirt long blonde-bleached hair
that was tied in a ponytail deeply tanned skin luminous blue eyes
barefooted a lean body that moved effortlessly our Peter O’Toole
was now cast as the cultured beachcomber gone native the tortured priest
in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory or was I imagining wildly?
When Vela rose up and turned to us and I felt his total reaction
to Father Macdonald I knew my imagination was deadly accurate
Vela’s whole being was an unconditional Maifea? smile of trust
and gladness as he stepped forward bowed in the Indian fashion of greeting
held Father Macdonald’s right hand and despite the priest’s reluctance
raised it to his lips and kissed the ring on it
I’m not of your faith Father but I respect it and admire your Jesus
and his selfless sacrifice to save us Vela intoned with total conviction
Thank you sir the priest replied and I am an ardent admirer of your faith
Thank you Father we Hindus need to learn more about Christian alofa
So you know Samoan? the priest said A little only a little Vela responded
I learned it from Vela Nafanua’s chronicler who stayed with us in Bombay
I kno
w of Nafanua but not of that chronicler was Father Macdonald’s un-
expected reply Perhaps you could join us for morning tea and continue
discussing the Lady and Her chroniclers (I sensed Vela was upset by that plural)
A short while later we were seated in cane chairs on the spacious veranda
of the priests’ quarters cooled by the soft breeze weaving in from the sea
and being served morning tea and our host’s life in Falealupo
19
The Priest’s Tale
Six years out of the seminary in Aotearoa he’d been appointed
to Falealupo to replace Father Hatherly who’d drowned at the edge
of the headland behind the church (We could see it from the veranda
—the swirling waves and foam where Maifea? had been washed up)
He’d known little about Samoa and Falealupo but was ‘raring
to have a go at serving God and His grand mission’
Naivety ignorance and arrogance were the ingredients of his courage
But he didn’t know that then far from it he was a brute front-rower
from the Waikato utterly determined to devastate the opposition
(Vela and I being rugby fans appreciated his rugby analogy
but we maintained our attentive fascination in silence
eager for his story to unfold to unravel)
You know of course that Falealupo was our first crucial
foothold in the so-called pagan darkness he said In the heart of
the Lady’s congregation I heard myself countering
Yes right in the centre of Her government he said with sadness
Vela coughed and then explained Vela told me in Bombay
that it had been a beautifully calculated invasion
Father Macdonald said Nafanua’s people converted by
the hundreds and Her priests sold out to the new religion
I glanced at Vela with angry consternation but he avoided me
What about Her chroniclers? I asked In my over twenty years here
I’ve not found information about chroniclers Father Macdonald replied
But you know about Her priests Auva’a and Tupa’i? I continued
He nodded They are still the most prominent aiga here and our
Cardinal is their leading son He started chort-
ling You can accuse Nafanua’s priests of betraying Her but
in the ironical run of history Her grandson is now boss of
the arrogant church that outlawed Her into the Christian darkness!
So it has come back to us as She predicted! murmured Vela
Did She predict that? Father Macdonald’s interest was passionate
Nodding slowly Vela said According to Vela Nafanua
during the bitterest days of Her defeat by the Albinos told him
the future would see Her return to power because Her people’s
conversion didn’t mean their abandonment of their sacred gafa
in which She is their connection to all things including their identity
Now I see it Father Macdonald said more to himself than us
What do you see? I demanded Why She never hurled Her full Wrath
at Her people he answered She knew we couldn’t erase Her because
She is in the bones of all Her people from Tagaloaalagi to the present
Surprised and shocked I had to ask him So you believe there is a Nafanua?
He and Vela gazed at each other Over the years I’ve grown to believe it
That is considered heresy by your church! I accused
But it’s irresistable and healing Vela soothed him
Trembling visibly Father Macdonald said The first years of my life
here were unbelievably untroubled: our childlike parishioners were better
than the ones in Aotearoa — they attended all services masses
and confessions treated us with respect and total obedience
and their Christian ali’i and matai ruled their villages justly
In my arrogant front-rower complacency I didn’t bother learning
the culture and history of Falealupo and Nafanua Who’d united and ruled
Samoa for three hundred years because those were the days
of Darkness evil cannibalism savagery and ignorance
unworthy of knowing and best left out of the people’s memory
I wasn’t even disturbed by the rumours circulating among our
parishioners that Father Hatherly had taken his own life because
he’d opened up that Satanic book of heathenism and fallen prey
to Nafanua’s evil and irresistible powers of seduction
Father Macdonald stopped and we both gazed at Vela whose eyes
were glazed with pleasure his body taut with anticipation
Evening we’d just finished preparing for Christmas midnight mass
I was resting on the back church steps looking down at the headland
Unexpectedly I was enveloped by an overwhelming longing for
my childhood Waikato farm and my mother who’d abandoned us
when I was five and I never saw again and a pet lamb I’d bottle fed
but which died mysteriously and left me with guilt
I started weeping silently for myself and my homesickness
and through my tears I saw a lean young Palagi man costumed in
an eighteenth century sailor’s outfit clambering up the rocky headland
I waved to him but he seemed set on the direction of the church front steps
I ran back up the steps into the candlelit church feeling
he was the solution to my disturbing longing for home
Frantic I searched every corner of the church but he wasn’t there
At the crowded midnight mass I was passionate with hope he’d attend
and receive communion from my hands that longed inexplicably
for his forgiveness but he didn’t appear so afterwards while having supper
in our quarters I mentioned it to the other priests and nuns
who looked at one another and agreed they’d never seen such a person
Perhaps you should ask our learned native Cardinal! Father Malone
who’d lived in Falealupo for thirty years suggested The Cardinal once
told me that his pagan ancestors had buried their first Papalagi who’d
been washed ashore on the ground where our church now stands
Such a fanciful history eh! Father Malone laughed and I was left
riven with curiosity guilt and that unquenchable longing
Did he tell you the name of that shipwrecked sailor? Vela asked
Father Macdonald shook his head And when I later asked our Cardinal
he confirmed the grave and the sailor but not his name
Nafanua and Her people who found him must have given
him a name I deliberately tempted Vela who refused to look at me
I’ve not been able to learn that from our parishioners Father Macdonald replied
What game was Vela now playing not divulging Maifea’s? name?
My frustrated anger was threatening to shatter my loyalty to him
but Vela stopped that happening with his ferocious gaze
What happened next? he asked Father Macdonald and I had to swallow
my anger and let the priest continue his story (But right there I knew
Vela and I were dividing and was glad of it)
I was to glimpse and lose the abandoned sailor weekly and some-
times I hid in the church and waited for him but he never came
I told no one of my obsession while I searched for information
in our church records — I even wrote to a friend in the Vatican to check
our Pacific/Samoa archives —and when those showed little I started
talking to the Falealupo elders venturing into a reality considered worthless
I
learned that history well from Vela Vela interrupted so perhaps you
should start with Nafanua and Her conquest by your Albino ancestors
(Was that righteous anger in Vela’s instruction the sadistic desire to
see Father Macdonald subjected to Nafanua’s seductive mana and
punishment? I asked myself anticipating the tale’s development)
I ventured into supposed evil in search of an abandoned sailor
and found myself irreversibly fascinated with Nafanua’s menagerie
of characters their history and culture their seeing and believing and
in that driven quest the thick-headed front-rower was tranformed
into a devout follower of Nafanua who last year was accused
of heresy by his Roman colleagues but was saved from trial
by Nafanua’s heir our courageous Cardinal
So you too have fallen for Her? Vela continued his interrogation
What do you mean? Father Macdonald tried to escape him
Our Lady is more than a God you know that Father! Vela was triumphant
The hapless priest arms wrapped round his cringing body turned away
More than a God She is a woman and an irresistible seductress Vela sealed
the priest’s guilt anguish and future — and I couldn’t forgive Vela for that
Like Father Hatherly I was besotted with Her and was caught between Hell
and Her undeniable and dangerous beauty and needed to confess
it! Father Macdonald whimpered his anguished hands clasped to his eyes
as if to blind them And did you? Vela continued his enjoyment
I sought out our Cardinal and confessed my heretical madness to him
Like me you will have to learn to live with it he started my healing
Nafanua named the shipwrecked sailor Maifea? I started consoling
Father Macdonald Nafanua healed and adopted him in the hope of
