Breaking Connections

by Albert Wendt

  Later, as Daniel is leaving her apartment, he asks Muta and Cheryl, ‘How come she sees me as a teenager and through Aaron?’

  ‘Ask her memory!’ Cheryl jokes. ‘Your mum now lives in vertical time, subject to a memory, a time machine, that is short-circuiting.’

  ‘E, suga, that’s a mighty way of putting it,’ Muta laughs.

  ‘Cheryl, that is a very accurate way of describing it,’ Daniel congratulates her. And he has only two days before he returns to Auckland for his mother to short-circuit him into existence; only two days.

  On his way back to his motel, he is puzzled and worried by Cheryl’s silence. ‘Would you mind if she doesn’t recognise you as you are?’ Cheryl asks.

  ‘I need her forgiveness,’ he confesses. ‘For that she has to see me. But I’m dreading that; dreading it more than anything else in my life.’

  When he visits her at mid-morning the next day, she and Muta are playing suipi at the dining table. She glances up and, seeing him, says, ‘Lemu, ua fiu Muka e kau mafai e malo ia ke a‘u!’ She hoots loudly and slams her cards down on the table.

  ‘I, Lemu, ua ou fiu!’ Muta plays along with Tasi’s misrecognition of Daniel as his father. ‘I’m the champ!’ his mother exclaims. She starts regathering the pack.

  ‘Granddad can beat you,’ Cheryl challenges her. ‘Eh, Granddad?’

  ‘Okay, Granddad, try and beat me!’ she laughs, handing Daniel the pack. So, smiling, Daniel sits down opposite her and, trying to recall and fit into his father’s identity, shape and manner, he shuffles the cards. Just before he deals them out, he gazes at her. Recognising her usual intense concentration and enjoyment of the game, his heart sings with alofa. When he remembers that his father usually lost to her – he won mainly when she allowed him to, and he knew that – he plays accordingly.

  That evening, not long after he gets back to his motel room, the phone rings. It is Laura. He doesn’t feel any reservations any more about talking with her. She wants to know about his mother. He describes in detail what has happened so far, and is surprised at how relaxed he is.

  ‘We have no aiga in Wellington, do we?’ she asks. He is puzzled but intrigued by her question. ‘You know, people who could visit her and take care of her if there’s an emergency?’ She is talking to him like she used to before the divorce.

  ‘Only distant ones – some of Dad’s cousins who’ve never liked Mum.’

  ‘I’ve discussed it with Cheryl and Phil, and they agree we should shift her to Auckland to be near us.’ She pauses, and he intuits that she’s remembered she shouldn’t be talking with him so familiarly. ‘Mere and the others think so too. And she has enough money to do that.’

  ‘Why not? We can help her better that way.’ And he needs time to repay his mother for his denial of her.

  ‘That’s wonderful. I’ve already checked, and there is a branch of Pacific Sunset in St Mary’s Bay, and they’ve got three empty apartments for sale.’

  ‘And I suppose you’ve checked them?’

  ‘I took Cheryl and Phil and Mere, and they all liked one in particular.’

  ‘So you and your devious kids and Mere have carefully walked me into this plan?’ He pretends offence.

  ‘Yes, but we had to make sure you liked it …’

  ‘How do you know I like it now?’

  ‘Your devious daughter rang me yesterday and told me she felt that you’d go for it!’ She laughs, and he finds himself joining in.

  ‘I think we should ask Muta if he would shift to Auckland with her,’ he suggests.

  ‘That’s a wonderful idea.’

  ‘Hell, Laura, you are all so bloody devious!’ He continues laughing.

  ‘Yeah, Dan: Muta has already agreed to come to Auckland and look after her!’

  37

  Using her legal and business connections in Wellington and Auckland, Laura quickly arranges the sale of his mother’s apartment back to Pacific Sunset Park and buys the one they have talked about in St Mary’s, not far from Laura’s home. Daniel flew up the morning before, and Cheryl and Muta are packing up his mother’s things and flying up with her a week or so later.

  In Cheryl’s sitting room, while Laura and Daniel are busy filling in the ownership papers for his mother’s new apartment, the phone rings. Laura answers it and hands it to Daniel.

  ‘Dan here,’ he says into the phone, and starts signing a form Laura has placed on the table before him. No reply. ‘Hello, it’s Dan here,’ he repeats impatiently. There is a soft, hesitant voice. ‘Sorry, but I can’t hear what you’re saying.’

  ‘It’s – it’s Tahu, here.’ The male voice is clearer, and for a moment Daniel thinks he recognises it. ‘You’ve obviously forgotten who I am,’ the now confident voice declares. Laura takes the form away from under his hand.

  ‘Sorry, but I can’t recall you,’ Daniel says.

  Daniel hears a large intake of breath, and the man says, ‘Remember Waioha, Dan? Years ago? I was one of ya cooks.’ Instantly those wonderful memories and the unforgettable feelings that go with them surge and surge in Daniel, like the waves in Waioha, in the bays of his mind and heart. And he is laughing with limitless surprise.

  ‘Tahu! Tahu, the Porridge King?’ he cries.

  ‘Yeah, mate,’ Tahu replies. ‘The cocky King of Porridge!’

  ‘Mate, where are you?’ Before Tahu can reply Daniel waves furiously at Laura. ‘Darling, it’s Tahu! You won’t believe it; it’s Tahu!’ And Laura is beside him. ‘Hey, Tahu, Laura’s right here.’ He thrusts the phone into her eager hands.

  ‘Hello, Tahu. How are you? Where are you?’ she cries. She listens. ‘He’s right here in Auckland,’ she tells Daniel. ‘I can’t believe it – after all these years.’ She hands Daniel the phone, glowing with happiness.

  ‘I met you and Laura recently,’ Tahu says, and Daniel is nonplussed. ‘But I didn’ wan’ you to know who I was – not then.’

  ‘Where was it?’ he asks hurriedly.

  There is a deep, hesitant pause. ‘At Aaron’s tangi – and I was relieved you didn’ recognise me, Dan.’

  The revelation, the recognition flashes: Fletch’s right-hand man with the full moko. ‘I thought so; I thought I’d seen you before.’

  ‘Yes, Dan, I sensed it when you first looked at me, and was scared ya’d say so in public.’

  ‘But why, Tahu?

  ‘You know, we’re in the middle of a bloody dangerous game, mate,’ Tahu explains. ‘I don’ wanna say any more on the phone. Can we meet somewhere?’

  Laura takes the phone from Daniel. She hasn’t heard Tahu’s request. ‘Tahu, when are we going to see you?’ Smiling widely, she keeps nodding, and then hands Daniel the phone. ‘You arrange it, darling,’ she tells him. ‘Soon. I want to see him.’ He nods, but waits until she is moving back across the room.

  They arrange it quickly, and Tahu is gone, leaving Daniel flying with an unquenchable yearning to see him and find out what he has been doing all these years. But as he turns to Laura, a breathless apprehension surges through him. Fletch and Feau and Bonzy are dangerous, dangerous players – should he fear Tahu too?

  ‘He’s going to ring us tomorrow and tell us where and when,’ he lies to Laura. She looks so beautiful in her happiness at having found Tahu again.

  ‘He was so naughty, eh?’ she comments. ‘So bloody naughty and sure of himself.’

  38

  The immense sky above Mission Bay is strung with garlands of silver-white clouds through which the sun, as it drops down from high noon, is barely visible, as a timid breeze fingers its way out of the horizon and gropes round the yachts and boats and ferries that are traversing the water, and then carefully maps the shapes of their faces and arms as they sit on the seawall.

  ‘How many years has it been, Dan?’ Tahu asks. He’d picked Daniel up from in front of Daniel’s apartment buildi
ng; they’d shared a hongi and embraced.

  ‘Almost thirty years?’

  ‘1978, wasn’ it, when we had that camp at Waioha?’

  ‘You’ve got a better memory than me.’ Daniel is seeing Tahu through his Waioha memories and the little information he’s had of him over the years – mainly rumours about him being involved in Aaron’s deals. He is already seeing someone different from the man he met at Aaron’s tangi, and because his Waioha memories are of a boy, Daniel needs to grow that boy into the stranger Tahu is now. Who is the Tahu behind the formidable moko, the tattooed mask? Daniel also wants to find out about Fatu and Aleki.

  ‘I’ve never forgotten that holiday, Dan; never,’ Tahu says, softly, his head lowered. Daniel waits for him. Thrusting his head up and gazing out into the harbor, his forehead glinting with sun, Tahu swallows, and then says, ‘I’ve never forgotten it because it became my measure – yeah – of what happiness should be.’

  ‘And since then?’ Daniel helps him.

  Tahu turns his moko to Daniel, his smile a mix of pain and cynicism. ‘My life has never measured up to that. Or should I say, I’ve never found that happiness again.’

  ‘It was also one of the happiest times of my life,’ Daniel encour-ages him.

  ‘It was when you and Laura got it together, eh?’

  ‘But look where we are now. We were young then, Tahu, expecting so much of ourselves and life, and full’a beans, ready to go places. Right?’

  Nodding gravely, Tahu replies, ‘Yeah, all us kids wanted to be like you and Aaron and Mere and Paul and Keith. To us you were da Bomb.’ The garlands of clouds are breaking up and drifting north, trailing their shadows across the bay. ‘Do ya believe in DNA, Dan – ya know, that the DNA in our cells predetermines who and what we become biologically?’

  Surprised, puzzled by this switch, Daniel wants to know where Tahu is going. ‘I think so; I mean, all scientists now take that as truth.’

  ‘I mean that whole Genome Project the Yanks completed three years ago, in mapping out all the genes, is going to offer us ways of curing many of our diseases.’ He stops and gazes at Daniel, a faint smile on his face. ‘Don’ worry, man, I got that from the Discovery and National Geographic channels, and the internet,’ he chuckles. Tahu the mischievous boy, or some of him, is still there. ‘Man, the internet now holds everything we ever want to know – and a hell of a lot of a rubbish. Jus’ Google and bam – the info and answers and choices are instant, and all you need to do is choose …’

  ‘It’s the bloody wasteful American dream of limitless choice,’ Daniel interjects.

  ‘Just like being in a super supermarket in a super shopping mall!’ They laugh together. ‘When we got back to Aucklan’ from Waioha, Aleki and I and Fatu were bloody determined to do well at high school, and go to varsity.’ He stops, and Daniel senses he can’t continue.

  ‘I’ve fucked up my life,’ Daniel intrudes. ‘Fucked it up so bad I don’t think I can fix it. I don’t think Laura’ll ever forgive me.’

  ‘You know, sometimes in my dreams I meet and see people I’ve never known before. I keep asking other people: where do you think they come from? I mean, if I’ve never seen or met them before in my waking life, where the hell are they from? Bloody scary.’ Tahu is now quite animated, his eyes shining with excitement, and for the first time, he is through the surface of the moko, free of it. ‘Ya know when I was in Pāremoremo the last time’ – the revelation snares Daniel’s attention – ‘I shared my cell with this strange Pākehā guy who was in there for fraud. He’d set up companies on the internet and used them to defraud millions of dollars from gullible investors. Like you, he was bloody well read, Dan. I asked him about the strangers in my dreams, and his explanation is the one I like the most.’ He ponders and then says, ‘He said our genes carry all our memories, our histories, our past experiences, all the languages we’ve known, down through the ages, connecting us to our very beginnings. So the DNA does not only carry the genetic code that gives us our biological features and so on, but it also carries those elements, features, things that can’t be measured, identified, seen – like the people in our dreams.’ Gazing at Daniel, Tahu adds, ‘Our whakapapa connects us to our atua, to all the ancestors, to all the stories that we were, are and will be, and all the beings and creatures we lived with in those previous stories. So in our dreams, when we’re free from the bounds of wakefulness, they sometimes visit us, or we visit them …’

  Daniel agrees with him – but why is Tahu so obsessed with it and talking about it now, when it is urgent that they talk about the last thirty years of being absent from each other’s lives? When Tahu turns his full moko to Daniel, it glows like an ageless icon that contains all that he was, is and will be.

  ‘You know, over the years, whenever I dream of our time at Waioha, the strangers are also there. The trouble is: they didn’t save me from the directions my life took.’

  ‘Did you expect them to?’ Daniel asks.

  ‘I wanted them to; hoped they would, because, not long after Waioha, my parents split up and my mother took me to Wellington and away from Aleki and Fatu and my other friends.’ Tahu goes on to detail the story of how his mother tried her best to keep them together, get them an education, but he’d ended up becoming another statistic of failure among young Māori. He’d left school without qualifications, got into trouble with the police and then escaped to Auckland, looking for Aleki and Fatu. ‘It was like in your novel, The Final Return,’ he laughs: ‘except there was no home to return to.’ Daniel waits, but Tahu refuses him access to Aleki and Fatu. ‘No, don’t ask!’ Tahu anticipates Daniel. ‘Don’t!’ The moko turns away from Daniel, and, gazing up into the sky, absorbs all the mana of the light. ‘And here we are, mate, back with Aaron. All our roads lead back to Aaron. Or should we say: ahead to him. And where do we go from here, Dan?’

  ‘The plot thickens.’

  ‘And who’s on whose side, mate?’

  ‘I’m on Aaron’s side,’ Daniel tests him. ‘Are you?’

  The moko is watching him again. ‘Depends, Dan.’

  ‘On what?’ Eventually Daniel has to look away from the ferocity of the moko. ‘On what?’

  ‘What I get out of it,’ Tahu replies, matter-of-factly. ‘I loved and admired Aaron, and I’m grateful for the work and help he gave me, but he would have expected me to get the most for myself out of this deal, Dan.’ He chuckles, low and gleeful. ‘He would have expected me to do that. I mean, I’ve served him loyally all those years; I even agreed to infiltrate Fletcher’s gang to keep an eye on him. Aaron died without paying me for this latest assignment, Dan. I have a mortgage to pay, child support for two kids too … monthly car payments – yeah, all the things you have to do to stay alive.’ The amusement is gone from his voice, and Daniel can’t escape the scorching scrutiny of his moko.

  ‘You know of course what he wants done to the bastards who – who killed him, Tahu?’

  Tahu nods once, decisively. ‘Fletch has told us what we must do,’ he says. ‘It’s a great plan for utu, as reciprocity for all that Aaron did for him.’ He pauses and turns the moko away from Daniel’s view. ‘But it’s not like that for me. For me it’s business, Dan. Just like Aaron would have treated it.’

  ‘So what are you asking for?’

  ‘To keep an eye on Fletch – and you can’t trust him, Dan – and carry out the utu, I need to know what’s in Aaron’s will, first.’ He nods and, smiling, adds, ‘Yes, I know you’re the sole executor of his will.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ Daniel tries to be bold.

  ‘Am I in it – and if so, for what?’ The moko is now inscrutable, hard; the boy at Waioha is gone utterly.

  ‘No, your name does not appear in it, Tahu,’ Daniel says. ‘Not that I can recollect. I’ll have to look at the will again.’

  ‘Does the name “Waioha Enterprises” appear in it?’


  Daniel thinks quickly and says, ‘Yes, it does. It’s in the list of beneficiaries.’

  ‘Aaron taught me how to protect myself in business, Dan. That’s one of my companies. He even got his lawyers to set it up for me.’

  Daniel starts laughing again, impressed with Aaron’s attention to detail. ‘I can’t recall what and how much Waioha Enterprises benefits by,’ he informs Tahu.

  ‘Do you think it’s likely to be more than what the other players in our game may offer Fletch – and me?’ The moko’s scrutiny is unwavering – the reality of business is its anchor.

  Is it fear and distrust again edging into Daniel’s belly? But he has to deal; he is trapped in the game. ‘Who are the other players?’ he hears himself asking. ‘And what have they offered you – if they have?’

  ‘Dan, you know who they are. Do I need to spell out their names?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daniel is adamant. ‘I need to know from you.’

  ‘Right: Bonzy and Feau – and you need to be very afraid of them; Fletch and me and the other members of our gang; all of the members of your so-called Tribe …’ He stops when he sees Daniel’s disbelief. ‘Dan, you’re not that naïve. Your lifelong friends stand to gain a lot from Aaron’s estate, and some of them may be willing to sell you out at the right price!’ He starts laughing. ‘Dan, we’re not the kids we were at Waioha. Even Mere, the beautiful, honest Judge, respected by everyone: what will she do if someone threatens to expose her links to Aaron and Fletch and Bonzy and Feau?’

  ‘Yes, to Aaron – but not to the others!’

  ‘Think about it, Dan. All these years, Bonzy and Feau have been in Aaron’s life and world, and Aaron has always been in Mere’s. How hard would it be to invent those links, connections, to Mere?’