The Unknown Zone

by Phil Smith

  Rachel shifted in her chair and tossed her head.

  ‘We’d better get down to business, eh Hemi!’

  He untied the bindings and removed the wrapping from the package. He was not surprised to find it contained greenstone.

  Rachel laid out the contents and delicately unfolded the tissue paper, using it to make nests to display each piece.

  Arrayed before them lay nearly fifty items of carved and polished nephrite. More than twenty were pendants, mostly fish hook and koru designs. Others were ear-pendants or neck adornments such as hei-tiki and manaia. There were seven small greenstone adzes and an assortment of carving chisels.

  ‘They’re so exquisite,’ said Rachel, holding a double koru up to the light. ‘It’s amazing that they’ve all been created without machines. Each one would have taken weeks or months to make.’

  ‘Maybe years, some of them,’ said Hemi, handing her a peculiar piece. ‘Look at this one here.’

  Its compound curves grooved around six oval holes; this was a black-speckled pekapeka of translucent stone, ground, sawn, drilled and polished into a kind of bat, the breadth of a hand.

  In the house in the midst of the Waitakere forest, the man and the woman sat transfixed.

  A morepork hooted for his mate.

  The Gordon’s bottle glugged again. More ice cubes clinked.

  At the bottom of the parcel lay a page from the Weekly News of April 1890, and a note in blue ink.

  The magazine page carried a picture of a beautiful painting entitled Anatohia. It was of a Maori woman of obvious nobility. She wore a cloak of huia and kiwi feathers and in her right hand she held a polished greenstone mere. Long, wavy black hair was parted in the middle and flowed over each shoulder.

  From the back of her head emerged two white-tipped huia tail feathers.

  From one ear hung a large shark tooth.

  Her chin and top lip were embellished by an elaborate moko.

  And around her neck was an extraordinary pendant.

  The heading along the top of the page declared:

  Painting’s Sale Recalls Tragic Incident

  Hemi’s eyes flicked to the foot of the page and he read the caption aloud:

  The sale last week of the historic masterpiece Anatohia, depicting the Maori chieftainess, Anatohia Reweti, of Ngati Hei, has excited renewed fascination in the saga of the poor woman’s tragic demise. Widely known as one of the most beautiful and influential women of the Coromandel region, she was the wife of the Pakeha trader, Raupeti Reweti. Anatohia disappeared more than sixty years ago when she plunged over a waterfall at her home in Kaimiro. Her body was never found and her death, and the consequent loss of the remarkable greenstone heirloom, named Moanawhakamana, shown here worn around her neck, marked the reversal in ascendancy and fortune of her tribe. The painting was purchased by the illustrious banker and politician, Mr Larnach, of Dunedin, for an undisclosed sum.

  ‘The story keeps unfolding,’ said Hemi, fascinated by how things from his past were now crowding into his life, and by Rachel’s keen interest in the portrait.

  ‘I’ll read what the note says, shall I?’ said Hemi. Rachel didn’t answer. She was looking intently at the picture of Anatohia. Then she turned to Hemi and said, ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

  ‘The note,’ said Hemi. ‘I was going to read the note.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Let’s hear it.’

  To the rightful owners of these treasures:

  These taonga were made by the Ngati Wairangi people of Westland as gifts for their friends, the Ngati Hei, of Coromandel, over a period of many generations.

  They were hidden during the Ngapuhi invasions and recovered during our logging operations at Kaimiro in 1891.

  These are some of the smaller pieces. Most of the collection remains to be found. Do with these treasures what your heart tells you is right, and may God bless you more than you can ask or think.

  Whatungarongaro te tangata: toitu te whenua.

  (People perish: the land lives on.)

  Tuapiro Ratana

  Hemi sipped his drink and reclined in the chair, stretching back, looking up at the clouds.

  He could sense Rachel watching him.

  ‘What’s next?’ she asked, dropping more ice cubes into their glasses. And when Hemi didn’t respond, she said, ‘Better open your envelope. It might be more money.’

  Hemi grinned. She was a great lawyer. He opened the flap and withdrew a legal document dated October 1871, signed by Raupeti Reweti and Tua Ratana. It set in place a thirty-year lease, granted by the two tribes, allowing Tua and his family to live at Kaimiro and mine for precious metals. In return he would pay ten per cent of his findings to the owners.

  Raupeti’s letter to Tua stated:

  I have always known the gold’s up there, but fearing corruption among the people I have guarded well the secret. Keep your mining work covert, Tua. Let not our land, or yourself be ruined by greed. Protect the forest. May the stream always run clear. Watch over our whenua well. If, when I have gone and you have prospered, it should come your way to secure the land, then do so. It is you, dear friend, we look upon to guard our heritage and perpetuate our memory. You are a just and honest man. See to it, if it be in your power, that our people are recompensed somehow. For under darkening clouds of circumstance are we being compelled inexorably to abandon our beloved Kaimiro.

  The letter alluded to the site of the greenstone cache, and Hemi sat upright when he read the words:

  ’neath a notable tree, ’twixt the columns of whose mighty roots are stored our sacred taonga.

  Rachel noticed Hemi’s reaction.

  ‘You know where this place is, don’t you?’ she said in a conspiratorial tone.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ said Hemi. ‘I hid something there myself, years ago. And yesterday I went back there to get it.’

  ‘The key!’ Her eyes widened.

  ‘That’s right. I know where the greenstone is.’

  ‘Tell me! Tell me!’

  ‘Well, actually, it’s in the back of my Toyota at Hikutaia.’

  ‘You’re having me on!’

  It seemed so far away, so long ago that he soared above the Kaimiro Valley on the wire, and he felt himself spinning, felt the void below him now.

  ‘I’ll take you there. It’s a fantastic story. You’ll never believe it unless I show you the evidence. I couldn’t attempt to explain it to you now. I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  Hemi realised he was on the brink of being a blabbermouth, and that his speech was slightly slurred.

  ‘I’d love to go with you, Hemi. When the time is right. I’ll go with you.’

  Hemi jolted as if he’d been suddenly wakened from sleep, and looked at his watch.

  ‘Speaking of time, I’d better get on the road,’ he mumbled. ‘Better call a taxi.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’

  ‘The Trident.’

  ‘Why not stay here?’ she asked. ‘There’s a spare toothbrush in the bathroom.’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ he stammered, desperately wanting to say yes. ‘I wouldn’t want to be any trouble, I mean …’

  She stood up and beckoned to him.

  ‘Come over here.’

  ‘Why, Rachel? What’s going on?’

  He got to his feet, finished his gin, and swayed over to the sofa where she was standing.

  ‘Do you have any plans for the weekend?’

  ‘Well I, ah … no, not really? Why?’

  Rachel took the lapels of his jacket and eased the garment back over his wide shoulders.

  ‘Lie down right here. We’re going to spend the weekend together.’

  ‘What …?’ he said, pretending to resist. ‘Are you sure …?’

  ‘On the sofa. There, try that for size. Isn’t that comfortable? I’ll get you some pillows. The bathroom’s through there to the right. There are towels on the shelf.’

  She took bedding from the cupboard and laid it over him. Then
she turned down the lights, knelt beside him and kissed him on the forehead as if it was the most natural and obvious thing in the world to do.

  ‘See you in the morning, Hemi,’ she whispered, and the last thing Hemi remembered was Rachel’s face six inches from his.

  20

  Return of the marakihau

  ‘Hey, Mum! There’s a man in our lounge!’

  Hemi thought he was dreaming. He groaned and turned over.

  ‘That’s Mr Ratana, Morgan,’ said Rachel. ‘He’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘Is he going to be my new father?’

  ‘That’s silly talk, Morgan. Now go and see if he’s awake, please. I’m making coffee.’

  The sound of a familiar voice brought him to his senses.

  ‘I’m awake,’ said Hemi, noticing the half-bottle of gin on the table. ‘Coffee would be great.’

  Rachel made a pile of toast with Olde English Marmalade and they sat in the morning sunlight out on the deck. A tui launched into his symphonic repertoire.

  ‘I got an invitation,’ she said, pressing the plunger down on the pot. ‘It’s to a hui at Kaimiro on the seventeenth.’

  ‘Seems strange,’ said Hemi, blinking in the sharp morning light. ‘I didn’t think you knew those people.’

  ‘I don’t. It’s signed Komuhumuhu Reweti. I guess that’s Kohu Reweti. For some reason he assumes I’m related to him. That’s why I’ve been invited.’ Rachel looked at him slyly askance. ‘By the way, Hemi, you look slightly shattered. Can I get you a Berocca?’

  ‘What’s the kaupapa?’ he glowered, rubbing his temples with his fingertips and ignoring her comment.

  ‘The purpose is basically to decide whether to make one final effort to have their land returned, or to call it a day.’

  ‘They think their fight for justice might be over, eh?’

  ‘Seems that way. They’re completely demoralised, and this new Waitangi Tribunal outfit have virtually told them to get stuffed.’

  ‘Do you think we can do something?’ asked Hemi, absentmindedly.

  The relentless pace of the previous day, plus a robust alcohol intake last night had fogged his memory. What did he mean ‘do something?’ What were all those documents with wax seals and red ribbons? How about the bullion, the bonds, the mining rights? Plus the seven hundred grand in rent payments? Whose was all that? What about the pounamu collection, the historic letters, maps and charts? Prime coastal real estate! A prosperous man made even better off by inheritance, asking a lawyer ‘can we do something’ for a group of dispirited and dispossessed people living with the pukeko and their shame at Opoutere?

  With a graceful movement, Rachel lifted the coffee pot and moved it steadily towards Hemi, all the time staring intently at him, her chin tucked in, one eyebrow raised higher than the other.

  ‘More coffee?’

  Hemi raised his cup to her, and saw in her face the qualities he’d seen in the eyes of the Lindauer painting. There was a defiant haughtiness combined with a mischievous discernment. She could look into his eyes and see him there, inside, in a way no one had ever done.

  Hemi returned her gaze over the rim of his coffee cup.

  He was thinking.

  Bart had told him time and again, ‘Hemi, make certain you’ve considered all the relevant information before making an important decision.’ The admonition had served him well.

  What would Sonny have done? ‘Get our land back, eh Hemi. One day, if you can. Put right this wrong.’

  The gossamer voices up there among the kiekie in the head branches; what were they whispering? Things about battles, journeys, victories and wounds. About growing in mana. ‘You will not fail us,’ they said.

  And Kohu Reweti? ‘We’re completely out of our depth here, Hemi,’ the kaumatua had told him. ‘We should work together with you.’ Hemi had been moved by their sincerity. He’d even made reference to ‘having the key to the problem’ before he left.

  Rachel broke the silence. ‘We could do a deal with them.’ The girlish, sing-song quality in her voice was gone. ‘There’d have to be a few dollars in it.’

  ‘Ever the lawyer, eh Rachel?’

  She frowned and shielded her eyes from the sun.

  ‘The interests of clients are paramount,’ she said, and Hemi saw the corners of her mouth twitch. And there, again, the link with the painting!

  Her family had come from the Coromandel. Revington. Reweti. A resonance he couldn’t yet place came to him.

  And what of the Ratana family and their Ngai Tahu lineage? Could poetic justice be served here, with the return of the land?

  And what of the marakihau, of Moanawhakamana? Would it, too, return?

  Hemi smiled.

  ‘You’re laughing at me,’ she grinned. ‘It’s hard to maintain my legal demeanour with you. I think I’d be better to have you as a friend than a client.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Anything you like.’

  ‘You have a beautiful smile, Rachel,’ said Hemi, with the calm confidence of someone who has made a huge decision.

  Early in the afternoon of the seventeenth, having fitted the extra seats to the Land Cruiser, Hemi negotiated the bends through the pohutukawa above the sea, and drove down into the valley of his childhood.

  Next to him was Rachel. In the back seats were Dexter Bannister, Bart Larkin, Kohu Reweti and his wife Maria, and young Morgan Revington.

  Several dozen people were on the beach when they arrived, collecting driftwood for the fire and rolling the bigger logs into place for seating. Most had come by vehicle, others by launch from Whitianga.

  The gathering had the solemn tone of a tangi. The waiata were sung without enthusiasm. The oratory lamented the decline in fortune and status of the iwi and the apparent impossibility of seeing their land returned to them.

  The day drew on. The tide came in.

  At times the oratory had been heartrending, the speakers venting years of accumulated sorrow and frustration at the loss of their lands through violence and deception by the raiders, the traders, the loggers, the miners, the farmers — and more recently — the developers.

  The melancholy proceedings dropped to a low point when an old man named Tuhoto, with tears streaming, had reached down and taken a handful of sand, letting it sift through his craggy fingers.

  ‘The bones of our ancestors lie in this soil!’ he cried. ‘Our beloved tupuna lived and died on this very same ground that we are using tonight. This whole seacoast belonged to us. We were the first to arrive here from Hawaiiki-nui, on the Arawa Canoe. Our rangatira, Tama-te-Kapua, placed the sacred pouwhenua, our mauri, into this land right where we sit.’

  Another speaker rose.

  It was Reweti’s ancient uncle, Tauwhaki-nui. He lamented the suffering of the people and how they had drifted away from the district in search of better prospects in the city.

  ‘My family are all gone now,’ said Tauwhaki-nui. ‘All our young people, our children, and their children: they leave school, leave home, bugger off, never return. Some of them get into trouble with the cops. What’s for them here, I ask you? No jobs, nothing. No wonder they call us no-hopers! No wonder they turn their backs on us. Once there were ten thousand of us Ngati Hei. Today we’re less than a hundred and fifty. Living like refugees, that’s us! Huddled together like pukeko in our swamp beside the Wharekawa. Tomorrow we will be extinct, like the huia and the moa. There’s no hope for us.’

  Sparks flew from the bonfire.

  Further away, on a flat area, men without shirts removed layers of soil, wet sacks and taro leaves from the steaming hangi mound, their sweating bodies gleaming in the light of flaming torches.

  Dexter Bannister, his briefcase at his side, his tie loosened, was enthralled by the proceedings. Morgan had gone off along the beach with a gang of older boys. Bart twirled an end of his moustache, his eyes on the hangi.

  Kohu Reweti stood up, cleared his throat, took a step forwards, and held his carved rakau out in
salutation.

  ‘Tihei mauri-ora,’ he announced. ‘We have talked enough of the difficulties facing us. Now it’s time to look for an answer to this question: do we fight on, for our mana-whenua, for our mokopuna, or do we give up? Do we have hopes and dreams for the future, or must we live in fear of what lies ahead? Can we find the courage and determination to rise to the challenge facing us, or do we roll over like dogs?’

  Murmurings arose from the assembly.

  ‘Nearly all of us here tonight are descendants of the Ngati Hei and the Ngati Wairangi,’ he went on. ‘We are especially honoured to welcome so many members of the Revington family, because we have a common ancestor. We are all the same hapu. Our forefather, a Pakeha, Raupeti Reweti, brought prosperity to our people and kept alive our hopes and our mana, until the musket and the lust for land left us disinherited and broken …’

  Then, standing in silence, Kohu Reweti bowed his head, prodded his stick aimlessly in the sand, and, paralysed by grief, he crumpled to his knees and cried.

  Rachel looked bewildered.

  She leaned towards Hemi. ‘These are my people? Is that what he just said?’

  ‘Seems that way, doesn’t it,’ said Hemi, knowing instantly this was a trite, almost disrespectful response. Rachel looked as if she’d seen the dead rise.

  To Hemi, who you were sat side by side with where you came from. His sense of identity was linked inextricably to his whakapapa. It gave life richness and depth. Could these qualities be lacking in one who knew nothing of their heritage? And if they were, what would their revelation bring to the beholder?

  ‘I’ve never known about my father’s family,’ said Rachel. She turned to him and he reached down and took both her hands gently. She was shaking. ‘Hemi, do you realise what this means to me?’

  It was clear she’d begun to understand why everyone hugged her when she’d arrived, why the children looked up at her saucer-eyed, why the young men shuffled coyly in her presence, and why the kaumatua smiled and nodded knowingly when Hemi introduced her. They all knew exactly who she was!