by Albert Wendt
to maintain their absolute loyalty to their true God and aiga
After days of worry diarrhoea Vela is emaciated and riven with anger
that Nafanua is absent when She is most needed
A crucial fatal error! He has described it to Auva’a and Tupa’i
And She will of course blame us when She returns to find many
of Her congregation have joined the Pope’s church because they’re hungry
for the Palagi’s cargo Auva’a accuses We may not be able to stem the conversions
She knows what She’s doing Tupa’i insists No matter what my aiga
and I will remain utterly faithful to Her Are you questioning my allegiance
to Her? Auva’a threatens and staggers up to confront Tupa’i
Stop it stop it! Vela interjects Squabbling isn’t going to help us!
So where is She? Auva’a demands C’mon useless poet where is She?
I bet you She’s sulking in Pulotu with Her crazy father Vela ventures
We don’t know when She’ll be back so we have to buy time Auva’a reasons
We and our people in public must continue the pretence of submission
but in secret ruthlessly enforce allegiance to Nafanua
As you know one aiga who has always opposed our domination has invited
the Pope to establish a church here on their land Tupa’i explains
That is dangerous for it’ll divide our people turn them against the true God
And us Auva’a reminds them and without a congregation who and what are we?
Mana-less powerless and poverty-stricken Vela hears himself admitting
So Tupa’i you know what to do with that treasonous aiga of Nobodies!
Vela weaves his way unobtrusively through the village through the strange
chanting the priest is teaching converts who now fill the faletele
round the captain and his sailors teaching spellbound warriors about rifles
pausing to observe with awe a priest stitching up a long wound
passing sailors showing their punts’ construction to fascinated canoe builders
and two women flirting with a whitebearded sailor who is obviously besotted
He slips into the thick stand of pandanus palms at the headland stops
and scrutinises the well-kept clearing and the stone grave ahead beside the sea
He lingers in the shade allowing the long chronicle of Maifea?
which he’d composed for Nafanua to roll like caressing waves
out of his mouth in loving recitation: … the waves roll-in
roll-out roll-in …
An old woman wrapped up to her head in a tattered dirty siapo shuffles
up to the grave unrolls a mat on the lowest tier sits on it and then
with meticulous loving care starts placing back the stones that have rolled
off the structure Come and sing me Maifea’s? song Vela hears the invitation
but there is no one else in the pandanus stand Come it is such a beautiful
composition one of your best Vela So he steps out from the shade
and obeys the old crone’s skeletal hand beckoning him forward
He sits beside her and they sing the story of Maifea’s? arrival
with his unconditional love his life with Nafanua as his adopted mother
who defended him even against Tagaloa and his death and Her waiting
for his people to break through the heavens with gifts for Her
of their superior technology miracles and healing
They weep as they sing and when they finish the old woman whispers
They’re here but they don’t have Maifea’s? alofa and understanding
Because they’re human like us they’re capable of limitless violence and
in their mission to ‘save us’ for their God are willing to even kill us
Sounds familiar to you songmaker? She asks He nods slowly
Yes Nafanua Auva’a and Tupa’i established their religion the same way
Are you distancing yourself from that endeavour? She accuses
I came after they’d succeeded and am only their historian Vela counters
Her deep cackling is a long accusation that eels through his marrow
So in the emerging equation you can do without your benefactors? She continues
Perhaps I can but I love them too much to be disloyal he murmurs
Pull my other arthritic leg: to save ourselves we’ll betray even sister! She scoffs
No commoner should talk to him like that and he starts to chastise her
but the siapo drops from around her face and in the white noon light
Nafanua’s terrible beauty pierces to his moa and his nausea threatens again
He prostrates himself before Her So you should be scared to shit She smiles
I’ll never betray you never never never! He cries She embraces him
and whispers My beloved you will soon read of Judas’s betrayal
He moves with Her back into the pandanus shade and he’s puzzled
by Her committed serenity as She tells him She’d been round the country
and was at first shocked by how much the Papalagi had penetrated:
many people were converting to four different lotu including the Popish
and had already destroyed Her image and manifestations
Apia was quickly becoming a Papalagi centre which sold guns
and the new weaponry to Her Tama’aiga to fight out their rivalry
Apia also now sold much of the Papalagi’s cargo Her people covet
Her shock turned to stoical resignation when She realized that erasing them
in Falealupo was to block temporarily only one path of the spreading conversion
She could assassinate all the Pope’s priests in Falealupo but they’d be replaced
by others and others willing to die for their Jehovah
So what are we going to do? Vela asks diplomatically
She shakes Her head once and as She walks away changes again into
the old hag armoured in tattered siapo trying to break from Her shadow
Vela shuffles to Maifea’s? grave puts back the last fallen stones and
weighed down with despondency contradiction and the unwillingness
to follow Nafanua into oblivion decides to again consult Auva’a about the future
It’s evening the Temple pulses to the cicadas’ rhythmic chorus
Vela and Auva’a sit waiting for their meal From the village comes the determined
sound of the priests’ new flock singing a Christian hymn about Life Everlasting
Despite our threats many of our aiga have joined them Vela admits
What did you expect? When Nafanua first freed Her people at Falealupo
all of them ditched their atua and worshipped Her Auva’a replies
It has always been that way: atua come and go depending on
their mana to provide what people desire and fulfil their dreams of
the ideal afterlife now a new atua has arrived and we can’t match
Its cargo and promises of a paradise more paradisical than Tagaloaalagi’s
He pauses wipes away his tears with his hands and finally relents:
To survive It we must join It and conquer It from within
That night while they’re sleeping beside the flickering fire
Nafanua Her hair flowing golden down Her back Her face luminous
with the serenity of alofa enters and sitting down between
Her old companions speaks Her final wishes into their dreaming:
One day you will return to the Cave of Prophecies and face my wrath
for your betrayal but for now Vela you’ll roam the world training
chroniclers who’ll write down my life in their different languages
out of them you’ll select one who will return with you to be
my chronicler in an even more terrib
le future Only then will I release
you from your immortality As for you my devious Auva’a by the time
we next meet you must ensure our aiga assumes the Headship
of the Pope’s church in our country and region
Gently She touches each one on the forehead and with tears
like diamonds in Her eyes rises rises and rises to Her full grace mana
and glory turns swiftly and marches out of the Temple into the moon-bright
forest singing with Her flyingfoxes who fly down rank after rank
and clinging onto Her lift Her up and away into the Moon’s final
sighing as It sheds the world’s placenta …
I stop myself from applauding the movie and examine the others:
Auva’a and Vela sit motionless heads bowed drenched with sweat
Crosslegged on the throne hands on each knee back ramrod straight
Nafanua gazes down at them Her eyes stripping them down to
their naked guilt and total submission to Her judgement
So my fickle friends She pronounces we meet as I planned
and we’ve just viewed my final prophecy in technicolour
She pauses and smiling widely orders them to look up
Was it a production that convinced you of its truths and possibilities?
The two men nod decisively and Vela says Your Lordship certainly
knows how to use art to represent our lives and reveal the deeper
realities behind the surface of the evermoving present
Wow Vela your journeys and adventures across our complex planet
have certainly improved your knowledge of philosophy people
and the principles of the new physics! She laughs
And did you in those journeys train chroniclers and disciples
for our future? He nods triumphantly All over the world and in
over two hundred languages — and from them I’ve selected
my replacement His name is Alapati and he has almost finished
the first full text of your chronicles (as I’ve told them to him)
Nafanua’s full gaze is now upon me and I can’t control my shivering
He’s not bad looking exudes gentleness and sensitivity so why
has his wife left him? She challenges (Heartless insensitive bitch!
I stop myself from saying) Were you abusive? She now asks directly
I shake my head and controlling my temper admit:
I wasn’t a very hands-on father or attentive loving husband
I was too busy with my career improving my CV and getting published
And listening to me and writing up your life story Vela rescues me
You sound just like me at your age Alapati She laughs I loved myself
too much to love others and power was my deadly aphrodisiac
So is he the chronicler you wanted? Vela boldly asks her
Before I decide I have to consider Auva’a’s case She answers
I betrayed you but you knew I was going to do that interjects Auva’a
And even if you consider my conversion to save myself and our aiga
treasonous I did it with the intention of destroying the Pope’s church
from within It Something which I sense you programmed into me
Very observant my beloved taulaaitu! She laughs And generations
of Auva’as after our last meeting have succeeded in finally making one
of my heirs Cardinal of the mortal Pope’s Menagerie in Polynesia
And for that Auva’a I forgive you and ask you to forgive me
He falls forward and holding Her right foot kisses it
Yuck! She shudders Every time I see you kissing the priest’s
ring I want to vomit so don’t do it to me — unless of course
you’ve become a foot fetishist like Vela in his sychophantic youth
They laugh together Yes I was such a foot-licker! Vela squeals
And is Vela going to be released? I was surprised by my presumption
Trying to hold in their laughter they stare at me and then
She shrieks and shrieks Her spittle spraying over us and exclaims
He’s bloody cheeky just like you used to be Vela Egotistical
and arrogantly sure of his talent! Her companions laugh some more
So he’s just right for the job of writing my biography
Do I have a say in the matter? I keep challenging
Not if you want your father Vela released She threatens
I catch a desperate plea in Vela’s face but deliberately delay
Besides your preening ego wants to write up my life so you
can be famous She accurately reads my ambition I can also throw
in immortality for you I glimpse a wicked glint of sadistic pleasure
in Her dark eyes and shiver though I’m sorely tempted
I’m not that power-addicted! I deny Her huge offer
Thank you son thank you Alapati! Vela cries
For the next three weeks we meet in the Cave every day
and I have to recite for Nafanua’s (and Vela’s and Auva’a’s) corrections
elaboration and editing all of Her chronicles as told to me by Vela
It’s so true that in any collaboration we each perceive reality so differently
offering even contradictory versions of the same events — memory
is so frail and erratic and tends to fill the gaps with egotistical fiction
Worst of all I have to deal with the three biggest egos I’ve ever
encountered with each insisting on the ‘truths’ of their versions
To protect my sanity I eventually play them off against each other
flattering each one to whale-like proportions and then pushing Nafanua
to pull rank on Her collaborators for what I want — after all
if I decide to quit you won’t have a chronicler I threaten Her
(1) The Ascension
The evening we finish Vela serves up a meal of bonito cooked in
coconut cream yam and papaya that we eat in mellow sad silence
which anticipates the separation of friends who love one another dearly
We will always be with you Alapati as you continue to story
our lives history and refusal to become nothing Nafanua blesses me
Outside in the forest our flyingfoxes and future wait to receive us
She puts Her gifted hand on my head and says Ia manuia lou olaga
And whenever you need me I’ll be there Turning to the others
She says trying to control Her sorrow You are now free —
thank you for your alofa for this unworthy person all these years
We meet always in the blood and gafa of our Cardinal and in
Alapati’s chronicles Vela consoles us Yes murmurs Auva’a
Nafanua leads us out into a world now free of the moon into
the cool weaving silence that holds every thing in balance into
Tagaloaalagi’s gifts of poto masalo agaga finagalo atamai
and loto which enable us to be human so capable of alofa and fa’aaloalo
Thank you for my freedom Vela whispers and we sogi Give my alofa
to Reina Sina Mele Michael and their spouses and my mokopuna
Nafanua spreads Her wide arms Auva’a and Vela move in and She gathers
them into Her sides Every leaf of every branch of every tree around us
comes alive with our flyingfoxes who break up into the air and then
in a swirling torrent swoop down catch the pagan Trinity
and whirlpool them up and up and up while I watch and watch
and witness their holy ascension into Tagaloaalagi’s Lagituaiva
(2) The Resurrection
‘The Adventures of Vela’ has been accepted for publication
I don’t think I lied to Nafanua not telling Her the title of our book
I’m certain that
because She can see every thing including the future
She knew what I was going to do while we collaborated on Her biography
I also know She’ll forgive me when She reads the book and realises
it is Her and Vela’s and Auva’a’s resurrection grander even than that of Jesus
Alapati
(Samoa — Fiji — Aotearoa/New Zealand — Hawaii — Aotearoa/New Zealand)
Copyright
First published in 2009 by Huia Publishers
39 Pipitea Street, PO Box 17–335
Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
www.huia.co.nz
ISBN 978-1-86969-363-3
Copyright © Albert Wendt 2009
Cover painting: Black Star 6, 2008 by Albert Wendt. Photograph courtesy of
McCarthy Art Gallery.
Drawings on pages 90—93 by Albert Wendt
Cover design: Tangerine Design Limited
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Wendt, Albert, 1939-
The adventures of Vela / Albert Wendt.
ISBN 978-1-869693-63-3
I. Title.
NZ823.2—dc
