The Parihaka Woman

by Witi Ihimaera

  ‘I don’t know how long after it was that I saw Marzelline coming along the deck. Rocco was remonstrating with her, “Where are you going? To talk to the boy? Ach, he is nothing.” Rocco wanted her to put on a hat to protect her skin but she shooed him away. She must have fitted herself with artificial limbs, which her long dress obscured; she was using crutches to balance herself. The deck was rolling and the wind was very blustery; I thought it would pick her up and she would be blown away like a delicate dandelion seedhead. I went towards her but she waved away my intentions to help.

  ‘“We’re both lucky, Eruera,” she said conspiratorially as I arranged a couple of bales of hay for her to sit on. “The three boxes you saved have all of Papa’s newly purchased books in them and three months’ supply of his favourite cigars. And in one of the barrels those men would have stolen, Schnaps!” She grinned, licking the perspiration that beaded her upper lip. “Papa would have been insufferable without reading material and without his cigars and alcohol but, pooh!, he smokes in the cabin while he reads, and so drives me out.”

  ‘Marzelline had brought two apples. She gave one to the pony, which snuffled at the fruit and then gladly ate it. The other apple she polished and gave to me. “Here,” she said. “I am so glad you are young. All of Papa’s workmen have been so old.” She made a face, crossed her eyes and made her tongue loll slack from her mouth.

  ‘She made me laugh. At the same time, I felt a shiver of apprehension. I shouldn’t get too close to Marzelline or allow her to get too close to me.’

  Flights of birds, some high, some low, skimmed across the sky.

  Under Captain Demmer’s captainship, the Anna Milder forged on towards the south. The shoreline was spellbinding; truly Te Wai Pounamu was spectacular. Impenetrable forest and high ferns spread from the coastline upward to snow-covered mountain peaks. Sometimes there were wondrous waterfalls, pouring down the ravines, as if the land was still rising from the sea.

  And seaward, the vista was just as breathtaking. Schools of dolphins rose to pace the vessel and, every now and then, the surface would boil with shoals of fish. At one point, a huge pod of whales jostled the Anna Milder, finally speeding along an ancient migratory trail towards the Antarctic. Further out on the horizon, sailing in the same direction, were other ships, their canvas billowing as they made for Bluff.

  Then the weather changed. Although the voyage had begun in sunlight, by early afternoon the sky had clouded over, the wind had turned cold and the sea was mounting. A storm was coming: the swell was extraordinary, lowering the vessel and lifting it as if the ocean was gasping for breath.

  Captain Demmer ordered Erenora to do the rounds of the vessel and when she reported back he muttered, ‘Good, she is nicely balanced as is and we can’t afford to have any cargo shift on deck when we go through the reef.’ He looked at the weather and gave Erenora a pitying glance. ‘This storm is a harbinger of winter, lad,’ he said. ‘You’re going to be living close with Herr Sonnleithner. Don’t let him bully you.’

  Suddenly the storm was upon them — violent winds and heavy rain. Erenora went to calm the pony and rig a shelter for him. Together they huddled beneath the canvas.

  Then Erenora saw Captain Demmer waving to her. ‘There’s the reef and there’s the island,’ he yelled. ‘Heaven help you, lad.’

  Far away, looming high out of gathering gloom was a circle of light, like a full moon with an aureole around it. Below it was something dark and massive and, for a moment, Erenora could have been looking at a gigantic taniw’a, with a jagged backbone and tail threshing the sea.

  ‘Yes,’ Captain Demmer nodded, ‘Peketua Island.’

  3.

  The waves were crashing against the ancient slab of the taniw’a’s scaly grey breast. Silhouetted in the darkening sky, the body of the beast thrashed and curved around a small bay, the tail studded with dangerous rocks.

  ‘Home,’ Erenora heard a voice yell in her ear. It was Marzelline, standing beside her, utterly fearless. ‘Isn’t it wunderbar?’ In preparation for landing she had changed into a seaman’s hat and cape. She lifted her face to the stinging rain and gave a wild Walküre cry.

  The taniw’a’s eye transformed itself into the lighthouse’s lantern. The powerful beam played across a sea broken by the exposed sharp points of the reef; waves were foaming around them. ‘Don’t worry, lad, there’s a way through,’ Captain Demmer said. ‘What we have to worry about is on the other side of the rocks.’

  Erenora saw what he meant. There was only a small gap in the taniw’a’s tail. Beyond was a glimpse of a quay. ‘You’ve got it easy,’ Captain Demmer continued. ‘You only have to brave the gap once.’ The sea was smashing against the tail but storming through the small space. He lined the Anna Milder up with the gap and waited for the breast of a tide to take them through. ‘As for me, I have to get in — and also get out.’

  Captain Demmer never liked to wait. He felt the swell beneath the Anna Milder, went with the surge, ‘It’s now or never,’ and grim faced, spun the wheel and steered the vessel straight for the gap.

  A man appeared out of the driving storm from a makeshift shelter on the quay.

  ‘Jack?’ Rocco roared at him. ‘Make the bowline secure, and now the stern. Danke.’

  ‘Don’t thank me,’ Jack answered, ‘the faster the vessel is unloaded the sooner I’ll be able to get away from this fuckin’ island.’

  Rocco turned to Erenora. ‘Carry your mistress off the boat,’ he shouted. ‘Take her to the shelter.’ But Marzelline struggled in Erenora’s arms. ‘Nein,’ she said impatiently when they reached the quay. ‘Put me down. I will go the rest of the way to the shelter myself.’

  Erenora lowered Marzelline onto the quay where she unstrapped her artificial legs; they would only slip in the rain. She pulled on heavy gloves and began to drag herself towards the shelter. When Jack came to help her she said something that sounded strange to Erenora: ‘No, Jack, it’s over.’ She saw that Erenora was eavesdropping and scolded Jack. ‘Go and help Papa,’ she said. As Jack shoved past Erenora he gave Marzelline a bitter glance.

  ‘I can’t keep the boat steady for too long,’ Captain Demmer yelled.

  Rocco appeared almost superhuman as he and Jack threw bales, boxes and sacks onto the quay. Erenora hauled them over to Marzelline to pack tightly into the shelter. By this time she was standing, having strapped on her legs again. ‘Nur hurtig fort,’ she reproved Erenora. ‘Quicker! Quicker!’

  Once that was done, the hard work of rolling the barrels of fuel up the gangplank began. A loud series of whinnies disturbed the work. ‘What’s that?’ Jack asked. The pony had broken loose from his ropes and was up on his hind legs, trying to get out of the enclosure. ‘Get the pony, Eruera,’ Rocco yelled. ‘Take him off before he jumps into the sea.’

  The terrified creature baulked at the shifting boards beneath his hooves and Erenora had no other option except to ride him off the tossing boat. ‘Don’t do that,’ Captain Demmer yelled, ‘you’ll only get killed.’ But she leapt onto the pony’s back and grasped his mane. Then, leaning down to unlatch the enclosure, she yelled into his ears, ‘’aere!’

  With a cry of fear, the pony clattered up the ramp and onto the quay.

  Erenora leapt down and slapped the pony on the rump, ‘Good boy.’ He ran along the quay and into the darkness. Erenora knew he would seek shelter somewhere; she would find him later.

  ‘Now the pony trap,’ Rocco instructed.

  Through the icy pellets of rain and squalling wind, Erenora manhandled the trap up the ramp. ‘I’ll take it now,’ Marzelline said, pulling it further into the shelter. Erenora joined Rocco and Jack in pushing the barrels of fuel onto the quay.

  It seemed only a second before a warning cry came from Captain Demmer. ‘The tide’s turning,’ he shouted. ‘Get aboard, Jack!’ The sea was rushing out, and the Anna Milder was beginning to strain on the ropes that tied her to the dock.

  Rocco pushed the last barrel ashore and sat on it
, panting.

  ‘Where’s my pay, you German bastard?’ Jack yelled, aiming a fist at Rocco’s face.

  The big German fended off the blow and pushed him away. ‘I’m a man of my word,’ he said, handing over a wet purse. ‘Every penny is there.’

  Jack looked at Erenora before he boarded. ‘All yours, mate, and you’re welcome to it.’ Then he called to Marzelline, ‘I’d have stayed if you’d asked me.’

  Rocco was laughing as he let go the lines. ‘Goodbye, Jack,’ he yelled.

  The Anna Milder was scraping the bottom, but then a wave rushed in, buoyed her up and she managed to turn on the breast of the outgoing sea. ‘Curse you, Rocco,’ Jack said, ‘you and your stinking island.’

  From out of the darkness Erenora saw Captain Demmer waving. Heaven help you, lad. Then the vessel disappeared, sucked out from the shelter of the quay into the stormy dark.

  Exhausted, Erenora crouched on the quay, but it wasn’t over yet. Rocco spoke to his daughter. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Of course, Papa.’ She was soaked through to the skin but seemed undaunted by the rain. Her fair curls were plastered to her forehead. She gathered her skirts together and, aided by her crutches, began to stump up the steps to open the stone cottage on the hillock behind the lighthouse.

  Rocco took up a sack and indicated to Erenora that he should do the same.

  ‘Follow your mistress,’ he said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  History and Fiction

  1.

  From this point I have to confess something.

  Throughout the first part of Erenora’s narrative dealing with the history and events at Parihaka, I was able to keep fairly close to the way she told it in her manuscript. Again, when Erenora and her sisters left Parihaka I have kept for the most part to Erenora’s record; my qualifications as a translator from Maori into English and an amateur historian were up to the task.

  But I wasn’t aware that Josie had been looking over my shoulder and, well, she’s taken me to task. ‘There’s too much of yourself going into the kuia’s story,’ she said. ‘Sometimes the way Erenora says things sounds more like you than her and, well, that goes for the story she’s telling too. And some of the stuff about Piharo … You make him sound like a really bad piece of work.’

  My darling Josie always goes straight for the jugular.

  Josie’s observation has made me pause and think for a bit. I’ve come to realise that although I’m writing Erenora’s history I’m doing so, unintentionally, in a fictional way. But just as I’m not a professional translator and historian, I’m also not a novelist. Why then, have I begun to treat history as an ouija board, putting my fingers on a glass and hoping that the spirit will lead the glass in the right direction?

  Lying in bed with Josie last night, I was silent. But I felt I had to defend myself, so I waited for her to pay me some attention. ‘All right,’ she said crossly, putting aside the book she was reading, ‘what are you brooding about now? Out with it!’

  ‘Can I just treat Erenora,’ I began, ‘and her story as if she were some person walking through history — as if history was a book? No! History is a living landscape and Erenora really lived and breathed. She cried, she laughed, she experienced every human emotion. What other way is there to honour her in my version of her manuscript than, therefore, to also imagine how she really was emotionally?’

  I pressed home my argument. ‘Can I just treat Erenora factually? No! And Piharo, he was worse than I’ve written him! He was a sadist, but I didn’t want to demonise him in the same way as Pakeha did Te Whiti and Tohu.’

  Josie sighed, and I thought I had won, but when she picked up her book, I realised she was sticking to her guns. ‘Your role should be as a recorder,’ she said before she began reading again, ‘not as a creator — or editor, for that matter.’

  My darling is like this: stubborn, pedantic, won’t let me hang one on her.

  From this point onward, however, Josie will be happy — or happier.

  Some years ago there was a development that lessened my need to involve myself so much in my ancestor’s story. Remember that I told you our family’s information about Erenora came from the unpublished manuscript in the St John’s archives? Unfortunately, from the point where Erenora goes to Peketua Island, the manuscript was fragmented. We know that once upon a time she’d written an entire and full account — the binding proves it, with bits of the lost manuscript still attached — but, aue, most of the pages in the final quarter were missing.

  Then came a new and surprising source of information that helped me to join the dots, as it were. This has lessened my propensity to imagine what happened and exacerbated my, well, penchant for creativity in fleshing out the characters involved.

  Let me take a few moments to tell you about it.

  2.

  A few years ago I said to Josie, ‘Why don’t we go for a holiday to the South Island?’

  Of course, she knew what I was up to: another of the research trips I’d been taking during my retirement to try to expand on my information about the Parihaka prisoners while they were in Te Wai Pounamu, and about the lives of Erenora and Horitana.

  Josie has always encouraged my amateur sleuthing. For one thing, it means another holiday in the campervan we bought especially for the purpose; I hadn’t realised that she felt so housebound when I was a teacher. For another, it provides her with the opportunity to bring along one of our ratbag mokopuna and show them the world, as well as to get them away from dope and gangs. This time we took along my son’s no-hoper, Tamati, and Josie gave him the job of driving us to Dunedin. How we got there in one piece, I don’t know. Josie should have known better than to offer the task to a boy racer.

  Anyhow, my purpose in going to Dunedin was to follow up a lead on Rocco Sonnleithner. I discovered that there was a Donald Sonnleithner who lived in Maori Hill, a lovely established suburb overlooking the city. The surname was such an unusual one, I was sure there must be a connection. Rather than tell him I was coming — he might have said no — I decided to drop in on him. Maori do this all the time otherwise the person you’re visiting might sneak out the back door while you’re knocking at the front, thinking you’ve come to be paid back the money you lent him.

  When we arrived in Dunedin, Josie immediately went to do some shopping for a nice warm coat, using the weather as an excuse. Tamati must have discovered some coven (or whatever) of boy racers, because he soon disappeared on me too. I decided that the walk would do me good so I made my way by foot to the address for Donald Sonnleithner listed in the telephone book. It was a good walk, almost an hour, and when I arrived I discovered a large two-storeyed Victorian building of the kind Dunedin is well known for: you’d call it a handsome house, built for a highly respected merchant family. Solid brick, with a pitched tiled roof and diamond-paned windows, it was understated but with just enough quality to indicate that, actually, it was a cut above the rest.

  Nothing venture, nothing win, I thought as I opened the gate, walked along a pathway between attractive gardens and rang the doorbell — it seemed to echo for ages, as if tolling back through time, but that’s me again and my fanciful imagination.

  Then, through the glass inset in the door I glimpsed the image of someone walking down the hall stairs … and I stepped back, suddenly embarrassed that I had come without making an appointment. But it was too late: the door opened and a man stood before me, about my own age and height, sprightly with an enquiring air. ‘Yes?’ he asked.

  As soon as I saw him, I knew he was Donald Sonnleithner and that I’d come to the right place. His eyes were so blue.

  I must say I was so startled by those eyes — so clear, so bright, so deep — that I had to pause, searching for words. ‘I’m sorry to call on you like this,’ I began, ‘but my name is …’

  ‘I think I know who you are,’ he said, raising his left hand to stop me, ‘or, at least, where you’ve come from. Are you from the Taranaki?’

 
; I nodded, puzzled. How could he guess that?

  ‘I thought so,’ and he smiled, though as Donald told me later, he also had to regain his composure. ‘You must be a descendant of Eruera. Our great-grandmother, Marzelline, always said that one day someone from Eruera’s tribe might pay us a call.’ He opened the door wider. ‘Do come in.’

  Since that time, Donald and I have remained in contact and we have become good friends. One day, he sent me a copy of Marzelline’s diary. Apparently, as for many young girls of her time, writing daily in it was a welcome pastime. It is from her strong, beautiful handwriting — in German, but Donald had translated it all into English for me — that I have been able to fill some of the gaps in Erenora’s own shredded manuscript.

  Some, but not all.

  The narrative will be as historically seamless as my talent can make it, but be warned that my loyalty may still compel me to repair and gloss over any cracks.

  Not only that; I love my ancestor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Island at the End of the World

  1.

  Throughout the storm, Rocco and Erenora transferred the stores from the quay to the cottage.

  ‘Bring them through,’ Marzelline urged Erenora. It didn’t matter to the young girl that she was cold and wet, there was work to do.

  Erenora barely had time to look at the interior as she ferried food — grain, molasses, lard, bacon, tea — from the quay to the pantry. Marzelline directed her where to put the other bales and boxes; Erenora marvelled at her energy and spirit as she methodically checked off the inventory.