Child of the Dawn

by Coleman, Clare;

  Just as Tepua stood up to leave, a visitor appeared— perhaps the one who had been expected. At first glance Tepua saw a bedraggled figure dressed only in a maro. Suddenly she recognized the man. Eye-to-heaven!

  She felt a warm shock spread through her, and her stomach jumped. The priest would certainly know where to find Matopahu. Trembling in her eagerness, she threaded her way through the crowd of her fellow performers.

  Impatiently she stood waiting while Eye-to-heaven conferred with the lodge leaders. Straining to hear the conversation, she gathered that he had come to offer his assistance. The players needed many things that their hosts had not provided. They lacked bark-cloth for fresh clothing, but no trees on the motu were suitable for making it. They needed certain leaves and berries for face paints and cloth dyes, as well as bamboo for making nose flutes. Seeing the priest's ragged appearance, Tepua wondered how he could help.

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, nearly dancing in her frantic wish to speak to him. For the moment, her troupe's problems seemed unimportant. All that mattered was Matopahu.

  Eye-to-heaven saw her and subtly acknowledged her presence with a sideways glance, but his discussion with the lodge leaders went on. At last, when Head-lifted invited him for refreshments, the priest briefly turned aside. "I must talk to an old friend first," he said loudly, beckoning Tepua.

  Then she was alone with Eye-to-heaven, with no one else interrupting. She wished, with sudden fierceness, that the man before her was Matopahu. How she would fling herself into his arms....

  She wiped her stinging eyes with the back of her hand. She had to be careful not to want too much. Eye-to-heaven was a start. Yet she felt her stomach sink at the troubled look on his face. "I am sorry that my taio could not welcome you back," the priest said.

  Uncertainty made her discomfort worse. She had heard whispers about the fate of the high chief who was Matopahu's brother, but no one had explained what had happened to Matopahu himself. Was he sunk so deep in anger over his brother's overthrow, and his own change in fortune, that he could not face anyone?

  Impatiently she flung back her hair. "If it is Matopahu's pride that is keeping him from me, tell him to cast it away."

  "There is pride, but that is not all," said the priest. Tepua did not like the note of caution in his voice.

  "I have known Matopahu too long to be turned away easily, Eye-to-heaven. I have had enough of mysteries. Is he sick? Tell me!"

  The priest hesitated. "He is holding up better than I expected."

  "If you won't say what is weighing him down," said Tepua, exasperated, "then let me help lift his burden."

  The priest frowned. "What he has to do now, he must do alone. When I see him—"

  "Let me come with you!"

  Eye-to-heaven sighed. "He is stubborn. And perhaps foolish. If I bring you to him, I do not know what he will do."

  She felt coldness seep through her insides at his words. Had Matopahu gone so deeply into mourning that he would not want to see her? She had been away a long time, but that could not have changed things so much.

  Clenching her fist by her side, she said, "Show me the way. He need not know how I found him."

  The priest sighed. "My taio does not always know what is best for him. Seeing you may help him through his difficult trial. Can you leave your duties?"

  Tepua straightened herself and turned toward Aitofa. Asking permission to leave was not easy, Tepua realized. The time away from here had changed her. On her home atoll she had been the one who gave orders.

  Yet her high birth meant little to the Arioi of Tahiti. If she disobeyed Aitofa, she knew that she could be dismissed from the troupe. The position she had worked so hard to attain would be lost, her service to Oro ended.

  The lodge chiefess finished her conversation with Head-lifted and came to Tepua. "Go with the priest, if you must," she said quickly. "But be cautious, Tepua. Listen to what Eye-to-heaven tells you. Only a priest understands what has happened. I do not know if you should touch Matopahu or even go close to him."

  "Touch him...Not if it is tapu." Tepua blinked away a tear. "I...understand," she said, though she did not, and backed away.

  Matopahu's sharp stone adze bit deep into a stalk of giant bamboo as thick as his forearm. Another stroke nearly severed the cane, but a few tough fibers held. He twisted the stem in his sweat-grimed hands, wrenching it loose and throwing it aside.

  He knew that his mood was hardly the proper one for this task. Clearing a path to an abandoned marae should be done in a spirit of awe and reverence, not impatience. He lifted his adze and felt a wave of dizziness that dropped him to his knees.

  Oh, gods and ancestors, not again! He tried to lift the adze but it slipped from his fingers. Around him the bamboo canes seemed to crowd in, like warriors about to take him prisoner. He fought to get to his feet, but his legs had become clumsy and nerveless.

  The sun in this clearing had beat too long on his head, he tried to tell himself. But the pounding pain of a headache became the pounding of drums, and the throb of a low chant that grew louder....

  Here is your fish

  O great Ta'aroa....

  Matopahu clapped his hands over his face. The memory of the dream filled his mind. The disembodied, fire-lit hands wound cord about the corpse of his brother....

  While the drums beat, the dead arms were lifted and the sennit passed around. The folded legs were lifted and the sennit passed around. It bound the calves to the thighs, the knees to the chest, the elbows to the sides. The cord wound ever tighter until the wrapping became a solid mass about the body.

  The sennit mask of the face grew dark with moisture seeping from the hollows of the eyes. It was a sign that the god accepted the offering. The voices chanted.

  Take your fish

  O great god.

  Your fish is weeping.

  Matopahu fell on his side. He grabbed desperately at the earth, winding the wild grass around his fingers, driving his nails into the soil, fighting to feel the warmth and green life of the sunlit patch of hillside.

  He lay there, ribs heaving, one hand clenched, clawing the earth, as if he would defy the spirits of the aha-tu curse. And at last, by his own will, he felt the moist clay loam beneath his fingertips and the sun's warmth stroking his back, renewing his strength.

  The terror was past. Yet the memory remained so vivid that when he touched his face, he nearly felt the long deep welts made by cord pulled tightly across skin. Gradually his breathing slowed and he sat up. He stretched, running his hands down his arms and his shoulders as if to be sure that his flesh was unmarred by the marks of binding. His skin felt smooth and warm, shaped by strong muscle beneath.

  The sennit-curse might haunt his mind, but it had not yet ruined his body. Matopahu let his palms slide down his flanks as he got to his knees, feeling the sinewy power of his legs.

  Suddenly he was disgusted with himself, for he was caressing his own skin the way he might touch a woman. Part of him knew why he was doing it and accepted the reason. His body, once taken for granted, was now something precious to him; he stroked it to soothe away the sense of violation that still lingered.

  Despite the day's heat, he shivered, wanting someone warm and close who could take him in her arms. Thoughts of Tepua welled up. Yes, she could hold him, soothe him, drive away the torment....

  Only to replace it with one even worse. Matopahu groaned aloud. It would not be Tepua's fault, but her presence would torture him more than comfort him. He could enjoy her company, but not respond to her caresses.

  It did not matter if she understood and sympathized; unmanned as he was, her womanly allure would taunt him, making unspoken demands he could not meet.

  No, he refused to think of her. He had to stake his hopes on the tahu 'a. The healer would lift this curse from him, but first he had to complete the task of restoring the ancient marae. And he had barely begun to clear the path!

  The bamboo still stood before him. Wearily
he staggered to his feet and swung the adze again.

  By early afternoon, Tepua was following the priest up one of Eimeo's winding forest trails. The air was moist, filled with rich scents of earth and flowering trees. Branches overhung the path, letting only a few streaks of sunlight through.

  After her long time away from high islands, she was still not used to climbing. The priest kept up a swift pace. Underfoot, tangles of roots crossed the red clay, making every step difficult.

  She heard running water, a sound that grew louder. Following Eye-to-heaven down a muddy bank, she splashed across a stream and up the other side. Nowhere did she see any signs of habitation. Only the presence of an occasional ancient breadfruit tree suggested that people had lived here long ago.

  She was far inland now, ascending higher, constantly trying to catch her breath in the humid air beneath the trees. From time to time the canopy of branches opened to show a jagged spire of dark stone, a sacred mountain. Suddenly the priest halted, allowing her to rest. She sat down in a clump of giant ferns and closed her eyes.

  "My friend is just past that grove of chestnut trees. It is not far," whispered Eye-to-heaven. "I will wait here."

  At last Tepua was ready. Giant rata trees loomed overhead, their rounded seed cases littering the ground. These trees, she knew, often surrounded sacred courtyards. Goose-flesh rose on her arms as she eyed the fluted buttresses that grew from each trunk and gave the trees a nightmarish look.

  Ahead she heard the rhythmic sound of a stone adze chopping. The rhythm faltered. She came out from the shade to an open area that was brightened by the afternoon sunlight.

  Matopahu! His broad back was bathed in sweat, his copper skin streaked with grime. She fought her impulse to rush forward and embrace him.

  As he turned to her, a strange mixture of emotions shone in his eyes. There was longing mingled with delight and desperation. In the brief instant before his face became stony and his gaze distant, she saw intense fear cross his features. No, not fear, but something stronger. Dread. Why?

  He tossed aside the short-handled adze and wiped a sweaty hand across his face. As she advanced a step, he put up a hand and spoke in a hard rasp. "No closer. For your sake as well as mine." He lowered his head, staring at her through a begrimed tangle of curls.

  "I am not afraid," she shouted defiantly, taking another step. Eye-to-heaven had explained about the curse. She knew that some harm might come to her if she touched him.

  "Keep back!" Matopahu insisted. He stood there breathing hard and watching her.

  Dressed as he was in nothing but a maro, she could readily see the toll that his exile had taken. He was markedly thinner than when she had seen him last. Bruised hollows showed under his eyes and beneath his cheekbones. The eel tattoos that had once twined so elegantly around his calves were smeared with mud and marred with scratches. There was a strained tightness in his face, and his eyes were haunted.

  Compassion overwhelmed both her caution and the uncertainty of her feelings for him. The warnings no longer mattered. Impulsively, she crossed the distance between them....

  For an instant she imagined herself caught up in Matopahu's crushing embrace. Then his roar deafened her. With a long cane of bamboo he blocked her path, thrust her away from him. Staggering back, she collided with the fluted buttress of a rata tree and recoiled in fright. She slipped on a worn root and landed heavily on her back, tears of astonishment and rage stinging her eyes.

  "Must I be tainted twice over?" Matopahu cried. He loomed over her, his fists knotted, his eyes wild. 'This is no place for a woman," he shouted. "Go to your dancing. Go to your painted lovers!"

  "There are none," Tepua spat back from the ground. "The only one I want is painted with mud."

  His face twisted. "Would you rut with a dead man? The priests recited the aha-tu over my brother."

  "The priests can recite the color of the droppings they leave on the beach! It will not change me."

  "You do not understand...."

  "You are right," she said bitterly, "I am an ignorant coral islander, not fit to wash your noble feet." She picked herself up, shook leaves and grass from her wrap. Then she turned her back to him and started to walk away, flinging her long hair over her shoulder.

  "Wait." The rawness in his voice halted her, despite her rage.

  She turned to face him again. "I wanted to comfort you. You flung me away as if I were something poisonous."

  He swallowed. "I—I was trying to protect you."

  "And yourself as well?"

  In a low voice he answered, "When a man is engaged in work for the gods, he must not touch a woman."

  She clenched her fists in outrage. Why did men insist that women were profane, that their touch contaminated sacred things? Having seen priests make exceptions whenever it suited them, she no longer believed this.

  She thought there was another reason Matopahu had pushed her away, with a violence beyond what was needed. But he refused to confide in her. She stared at his tortured face. "We have been apart for so long. Is that all you can say to me?"

  He sighed, his body slumping. In a quiet voice he admitted, "I did not want you to leave Tahiti. You remember how I argued against it. When you were gone, I watched the sea every day, hoping to see your returning sails."

  Her hopes rose at his words. "Then we can be as we were. When these troubles are over."

  "Land-crab has destroyed that chance." He spread his grimy hands and thrust them toward her. "Do you wish to suffer my fate?"

  She held her ground. "I will share it with you."

  "No! I must suffer alone as the last of my line."

  'That is the arrogant Matopahu talking. That is the Matopahu who takes no help from anyone."

  "I am a dead man. Everyone believes it."

  "Eye-to-heaven does not. Nor do you."

  He only glared at her and straightened up. "I have work, and you are keeping me from it. Perhaps my friends are right. Perhaps I do have a chance to save myself. But I must do it alone." He picked up the adze. "Go! Return to your Arioi and forget that you have been here. If I survive this..."

  "Yes?"

  "Then we will have something to talk about." He turned away from her and picked up his adze. She watched him for a moment as he began hacking at another stand of bamboo. Then, eyes stinging, she found her way back to the trail.

  FIVE

  A day later, as dappled sunlight penetrated the trees, Matopahu descended a mud-slick bank to take his morning bath. The hillside stream, swollen from recent rains, foamed over the rocks with a comforting roar. In this place he could forget the harsh words he had said to Tepua. He could forget the task that lay ahead of him.

  He plunged naked into a deep pool where the stream curled around boulders. The chilly water enveloped him, stealing all thoughts. He came up, gasping and shivering, only to fling himself back in again.

  At last he came out on the bank and shook off some of the water. Standing in a patch of sunlight, he picked up the small garment he had draped over a bush. First he passed one end of the tapa band between his legs, carrying it around his right hip and across his flat belly to catch and secure the front. Drawing the maro around his left hip, he threaded it through itself in back, reversed the direction of winding, wrapped it several times about his hips, and knotted it at his side.

  He sighed as he forced himself to think about the work that lay ahead of him. Yesterday he had finished clearing a path to the old marae, finally crouching within reach of the tumbled ridge of black stones that once formed its boundary. Yet he had put off actually touching the ancient wall until he felt stronger.

  In his memory he saw clearly the abandoned sacred court, the moss-covered stones of the wall, the overgrown paving within. The site lay deep in shadow beneath the old trees, its aura of dread hanging in the humid air. With a shudder he thrust aside his fears. Yet he could not help wishing for a distraction this morning. It would not hurt to wait until the sun rose a bit higher.

&n
bsp; In the distance he heard a faint cry, a human voice, though it came from an unexpected direction. When Eye-to-heaven and the tahu 'a came to visit, they always used the path on the opposite side of the hill. Matopahu could not imagine who else might be climbing this isolated hillside.

  Grateful for a diversion, however brief, he set off through the trees, soon emerging at a broad swath of cleared land that he had never seen before. He heard another shout and then the hiss of an arrow's flight. A moment later he heard a soft impact as the arrow struck the ground. This was a te'a court, he realized, a place where the game of the gods was played.

  Then a boy charged by, a small white flag in his hand. He stopped where the arrow had come to rest and marked the place. When the youngster turned and saw Matopahu, he jumped back in surprise.

  "Who is shooting?" asked Matopahu.

  "The noble Fat-moon," the boy answered nervously.

  Matopahu's eyebrows rose at the name of the high chief who ruled a large section of Eimeo. "Is there to be a match?"

  "In ten days," the boy answered. Then he ducked as another arrow hissed overhead.

  Matopahu peered down the long te'a court. Far in the distance he saw the shooting platform of piled stones and the figure of the kneeling archer. "Your chief shoots well," he said as a third arrow came sailing in his direction. This one fell short of the others, and the boy didn't mark it.

  "Everyone knows that Fat-moon's team is the best on the island," said the boy, frowning. "It beats Putu-nui's every time. But you shouldn't be here. I'm the only one allowed to watch the chief practice."

  Matopahu had heard much of this team's victories. "Then I will go," he said with a laugh. "I must not disturb the great chief." He turned to retrace his steps, knowing he must return to the old marae. He had found a brief respite; he could no longer put off his task.