Legacy

by Whiti Hereaka

  Matatau crosses himself, and they are all silent.

  ‘Well, that would be a trick,’ Jack says, sitting up. He takes a handful of his tunic, brings it up to his face, sniffs it, and takes some of the mess into his mouth. Riki clamps his hand over his own mouth to keep from vomiting.

  ‘Bully beef.’ Jack laughs. He stands up and finds the can; it has a great hole right through it. ‘A good clean shot, I’d say.’

  Riki can’t hold it in any more, and vomits. Matatau laughs.

  ‘Are you all right, Pūweto?’ Jack has his arm around Riki. ‘You can’t blame the sea this time.’

  ‘I thought you were shot. I thought you had died.’

  ‘They can’t get rid of me that easily.’

  Riki does not have the same confidence.

  15

  13 JULY 1915

  The arrival of mail breaks the monotony of life in the trenches. Riki is surprised at how often people seem to write to each other. Post at home is usually junk mail, or bank statements, or a parcel from online shopping. He can’t remember ever receiving a letter, except for birthday cards from one of his old relatives. Riki’s not sure what he’d even say in a letter – what’s left after status updates, check-ins and texts?

  Today’s mail is a bumper delivery. Everyone seems to have a letter, even Riki. His is from Te Ariki’s mother, Waereti, Riki’s great-great … his grandmother. He can’t keep up with the great-great stuff.

  ‘We got a letter from Mo!’ Big Mo says.

  ‘Which one?’ Riki says, but Big and Little Mo are too engrossed in the letter to pay attention. Big Mo reads a page and then hands it on to Little Mo.

  ‘How’s Mo?’ Jack says.

  Without looking, Big Mo replies, ‘She’s well. But she’s worried about Mo …’

  Little Mo raises his head and then looks down as if he is shy. ‘She needn’t worry. I’m all right, aren’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ Big Mo replies, ‘We both are, because I have you too.’ Little Mo beams at his brother.

  ‘Sometimes,’ Rewai says to Riki, his voice low, ‘it is like he is a boy of ten years, not a man of twenty stone.’

  ‘How’s your wife?’ Riki says.

  ‘She’s not one for gushing sentiment,’ Rewai says, ‘But I’ve known her long enough to know that what she’s really saying between the news of home is that she misses me.’

  Matatau has turned away while reading his letter. Everyone knows that it will be from his sister, although he never talks about her. And that, of course, means there’s been plenty of room for speculation.

  A couple of days ago, when Mata had gone to find the Padre, Jack talked with the others about her.

  ‘None of our business,’ Rewai said.

  ‘She’s ugly as sin,’ said Big Mo.

  ‘No,’ said Jack. ‘She is beautiful, and he doesn’t want any of you black buggers sniffing around.’

  ‘How would you know?’

  ‘I just know these things,’ he said, but later he showed Riki a photograph of her and Matatau.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ Riki asked.

  ‘I … found it.’

  ‘You promised you wouldn’t go through his things again!’

  ‘I didn’t go through them again. I found it the first time. You’ve got to admit, she’s a beauty. I can see why Mata doesn’t want you blokes to know about her.’

  And she was – even though she looked a lot like her brother. Somehow his scowl was transformed in her face; she looked regal and proud. She had the same long nose as her brother, the same high forehead; but her jaw was softer, and there was the hint of a smile in her eyes. There was something familiar about her face. It was not just that she looked like her brother; there was something else that Riki couldn’t quite place …

  He goes back to Te Ariki’s letter. He doesn’t know much about the people described in it, so it’s hard to keep interested. But if he doesn’t read it as eagerly as his mates read theirs, they’ll suspect that something is wrong. He tries to take comfort in the words – the words of a mother reaching out to her son who is far from her. She signs off her letter simply: love from Mother.

  He feels a little sick at the thought of not answering her. He imagines the poor woman waiting for news of her boy. He imagines his own mother feels the same way. Te Awhina must be missing him. He misses her – rants and all. He never thought he’d miss those. Thinking about his mum makes him tear up a bit, like a baby. He clenches his jaw to try to stop the tears before any of the others catch him.

  Riki decides that he will write to Waereti; that he will write to her from across the globe and to his own mother across time. Te Awhina will one day read this letter without knowing that it is really for her.

  Mother, he writes, the son who writes to you today is not the same son you farewelled from home.

  16

  8 OCTOBER 1975

  TRANSCRIPT:

  Cassette number 3: Te Ariki Mikaera Pūweto (interviewee, WWI veteran) and Alamein Pūweto (interviewer and grandson of Te Ariki).

  ALAMEIN Should we wait for Auntie?

  TE ARIKI No. She’ll just try to answer the questions herself – like she has any idea of what she’s talking about. You know what I’ve learnt, boy?

  ALAMEIN What’s that, Koro?

  TE ARIKI There’s only a finite window of time when people take what you’ve got to say seriously. Before you’re, say, twenty or twenty-five, you’re too young to know any better. After sixty or so, people think you’re soft in the head. So you’ve only got forty years to speak up for yourself.

  ALAMEIN Forty years is a pretty long run, Koro.

  TE ARIKI [Laughs] Well, of course you think that now. Anyway, you have this window when the world is listening, but most people just waste it – afraid of telling the truth, afraid of standing out …

  ALAMEIN And you, Koro? Were you afraid?

  TE ARIKI Of course. Back then, boy, to stand out, to tell the truth? They sent people to the funny farm for less. Cut out parts of your brain. So I waited until it was safe to speak – and wouldn’t you know it? Now nobody is listening.

  ALAMEIN I’m listening, Koro.

  TE ARIKI And so are they.

  ALAMEIN Who, Koro?

  TE ARIKI The people listening to the tape, of course! The look on your face – I’m not making a tinfoil hat, y’know.

  ALAMEIN A tinfoil hat? What does that mean?

  TE ARIKI Something we used to say when I was young – when people were being paranoid about aliens or the FBI …

  ALAMEIN The FBI? They weren’t even around when you were young, Koro.

  TE ARIKI Hmm? No, I guess they weren’t. [Pause] Like I was saying, you need to speak out while you can, boy.

  ALAMEIN About what? I’ve got nothing to say.

  TE ARIKI Of course you do. Look at those people on the hīkoi, fighting for what they believe in …

  ALAMEIN Sounds like you want to join them.

  TE ARIKI If I was younger maybe I might …

  ALAMEIN Whina Cooper is older than you, Koro.

  TE ARIKI Is she just? It’s a funny thing, boy, to live through history. I guess we all do, one way or another.

  ALAMEIN Is that why you agreed to these interviews? To tell your story; to make history?

  TE ARIKI I’m just tired of carrying this story alone. I need to be free of it, do you understand?

  17

  5 AUGUST 1915

  Riki dreams of Gemma. He can’t see her, but he can feel her near, and smell her perfume. He had bought her a small bottle of it at Christmas – Jackson had said that it was too much, too extravagant a gift for a girl that Riki had only just begun to see. A gift like that sends a message, Jackson had said. A gift like that is serious. But Riki had liked the bottle – faceted glass with gold liquid inside. It reminded him of Gemma. The girl at the counter had sprayed the perfume on a card for him to smell. It smelt like toffee apples and crushed pears, and flowers that he couldn’t identify, and he was sold.
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br />   The perfume is almost overwhelming; Riki feels as if he’s been enveloped by it. He thinks of their night together after Jackson’s party. Gemma’s scent growing stronger as she took off her clothes. From afar the perfume was all sweetness and innocence – a day at the carnival: candy floss and merry-go-rounds – but closer to her, to the blush of her skin, the scent becomes muskier. It becomes more complex: mixed with the alcohol on their breath and the sweat of their bodies. In his mind the perfume has become fused with sensations; skin against skin, the taste of Gemma on his tongue, the surprise that her body was not only soft but strong as well.

  Gemma.

  He hears her voice now, but can’t make out her words; it sounds as if he is listening to her through water. He has no idea what she’s talking about, but he can hear her intonation. Her voice is light and rhythmic, as if she is reading one of those rhyming picture books. Is she reading to him? Or someone else? Their baby?

  Riki wakes at the thought of it. How far along would she be now if she kept the baby? Almost three months? There would still be time for her to make the decision to get rid of it. Maybe she would have, if Riki was still at home. They would have talked about their future, and how a baby would endanger it. If they told their parents, no doubt Te Awhina would have told them how hard it was to have Riki when she was still at university. The sacrifices that had to be made, the struggles that she had.

  And then she would say: But I wouldn’t change it now, son. You were the best thing that happened to me. She’d try to make the fact that Riki was a mistake somehow better, but it would just confuse the decision.

  Perhaps Gemma will hold on to the baby out of guilt now that Riki has disappeared. Or maybe, if Te Ariki is in his place, he has insisted on ‘making an honest woman’ of her.

  He hates to admit it, but he really hopes that she will keep it. It is a selfish wish to have a part of him still alive at home; especially as he knows that if he was there he wouldn’t want to be a father. But what if that kid is his only chance … at what? Continuing his line?

  Don’t be so sentimental, Gemma would say. It is just a cluster of cells. It’s no big deal; it’s like getting a mole removed.

  He presses his eyes shut and tries to will himself back to the dark, back to the toffee apples and the sound of her voice. He falls asleep again, but the dream of Gemma has gone.

  He gets up before dawn, as he has done for the past month, to stand to arms. Each man in the trench is up on the fire step, rifle loaded and bayonet attached, waiting for a pre-dawn attack. The theory is that the enemy is most likely to attack in the murky light of dawn or dusk. Riki supposes that this theory is shared by the other side; he imagines the two armies in a sort of stalemate, waiting for the other to attack.

  Despite the daily routine, adrenaline still affects him. Every time he steps up and rests his rifle on top of the sandbags, he can’t help but think: Is today the day? Will a bullet find me or my mates? Every day, he is confused by his competing wishes – that nothing will happen, and that something will happen. Sometimes the tension of waiting is too much for the men to bear – and someone will pull their trigger, sparking off a volley. It is such a relief to fire; it doesn’t matter if there is a target in sight. In the early morning light, that is quite impossible, anyway. He just pulls the trigger until a call to cease fire is raised.

  Today is the first day in at least a couple of weeks that Riki has felt well. It seemed everyone came down with a stomach bug – fever and diarrhoea. Riki found it torture to stand to arms during the worst of it, his arms shaking with fever and his stomach cramping. Worse was the effort it took to try to not shit himself. He knew he would not have a chance to clean himself until late in the evening when they went down to the beach to bathe in the ocean. Those days, if the enemy had attacked, Riki would have not seen them, even at point-blank. His eyes were shut in concentration, willing his bowels to keep hold until he was stood down; until he could make it to the latrine ahead of the other men who also had the strain.

  That’s what they called it – the strain. After, Riki supposed, the grip in the gut and the heave once you shit. On his worst day, Riki had visited the doctor, who could do little more than name it for his patient – dysentery. Riki had heard of it; it was a disease of the third world and disaster. At home, he would be given antibiotics, and would spend the days in bed watching movies or playing games, drinking electrolytes to prevent dehydration. But none of those things exist here. Riki has spent his illness resting as much as he can in the dugout, but he still has duties to perform – digging trenches and manning a machine gun. There is no point in protesting: he is a soldier, not a fallible human being.

  The way to feel good about a bad situation is to remember a worse one. So today Riki feels happy. He’s standing to arms before the sun has risen; he hasn’t had a decent wash in a month; there are lice on his clothes; but he no longer feels as if he is being stabbed in the guts. He nods. Happy, yeah, happy.

  After an hour or so, the men stand down and set about making breakfast. Riki’s been eating mainly plain boiled rice while his stomach has been dodgy. A few days ago they were issued with rum and bacon – the others ate the bacon fried with onions while Riki looked on with envy.

  Last night, Riki traded his issue of rum for the last bit of bacon. He fries it up now with a couple of biscuits – letting the bacon fat seep into them. Rice, bacon and biscuits; it’s not Masterchef, but it’s not too bad for in the trenches. He’s not just cooking for himself; he’ll share the meal with the others.

  ‘When do you think it will happen?’ Matatau says between mouthfuls. He has given up on trying to exorcise the flies; now he just waves his hands over his meal occasionally.

  ‘What?’ Riki says.

  ‘The big thing. The attack. It must be in a day or two, I reckon.’

  ‘What have you heard?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ Matatau says. ‘But why else would they have inspected our kit and the machine guns?’

  ‘Or given us this issue of rum,’ Jack says. ‘Mind you, when I went to the base to buy cigarettes it seemed to be quite busy, in the stores and on the beach. They must be getting ready for something.’

  Speculating is like that trigger-happy soldier standing to arms – a way to blow off steam.

  They eat quietly for a while. Riki looks at the sky – it is cloudy now, but that will soon burn off. Later he will go and find some branches so that they might have a cooler place to sit.

  ‘Have you blokes made your wills?’ Jack says, not looking up from his bacon and rice.

  ‘Can we not talk about it?’ Riki says.

  ‘We should be prepared,’ Jack says.

  ‘But when you talk about it … I don’t know; it makes it feel like it will happen.’

  ‘I have,’ Matatau says. ‘I’ve made mine. It was easy – I have no one else, so I’m leaving it all to my sister.’

  ‘What have you got to leave?’ Riki says. A familiar queasy feeling has replaced his joy.

  ‘Things at home, my pension, my’ – Matatau unconsciously taps his breast pocket, a tell that pickpockets look for in the movies – ‘effects.’

  ‘Well, I have nothing and no one. So it’s pointless.’

  ‘No one?’ Jack says. ‘There’s your mother.’ He pauses and smiles. ‘And we’ve all heard you talking in your sleep about Gemma …’

  Riki feels embarrassed – he didn’t know he talked in his sleep. He can’t bring himself to look up at Jack, whose smile would humiliate him, or at Matatau, whose smirk will enrage him.

  ‘So who is she? This Gemma?’

  ‘A girl at home. We’ve been seeing each other.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Clever, funny …’

  ‘That doesn’t really paint a picture, does it?’ Jack says. ‘Come on, Riki.’

  Gemma, Gemma. Where to start? ‘She’s a little shorter than me, not by much …’ Enough so that when I hold her I can rest my cheek on her forehea
d, so that she fits perfectly beside me.

  ‘Why haven’t you had any letters from this Gemma?’ Matatau says.

  ‘When I left … it was complicated.’

  ‘What does that mean? Complicated?’ Jack says.

  ‘She’s Catholic and you’re Protestant?’ Matatau asks.

  ‘No; I don’t know.’

  ‘Shh, Mata. I want to hear more about what she looks like,’ Jack says. ‘So far we haven’t got to the important details; we’ve only got her height.’

  ‘Religion is important …’ Matatau says.

  ‘To you, perhaps. Who cares what she believes if she’s a beauty? Is she? A beauty?’

  Yes she is. Riki nods.

  ‘It does matter,’ Matatau says. ‘When you get married and have children, how will you bring them up?’

  ‘We’re not getting married. At least I don’t think so, but if she decides to keep it of course I’d support her …’

  Jack and Matatau look shocked.

  ‘You got a girl in trouble?’ Jack shakes his head. ‘Then you must marry her.’

  ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again,’ Riki says, and he means it.

  ‘You will see her again, and you should take care of her,’ Jack says.

  ‘Does her family know?’ Matatau asks.

  ‘I suppose they would by now,’ Riki says.

  ‘Still,’ Matatau says. ‘No letters? Not from her or her family?’

  ‘What are you saying, Mata?’ Jack says.

  ‘I’m saying that it seems strange to me that his sweetheart has not written to him; not once since we got here. I’m saying that maybe there is no “Gemma” at all.’

  ‘Why would he lie about her?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t listen to Mata,’ Jack says. ‘Tell us what she looks like.’

  ‘Why? What does it matter?’ Riki doesn’t want to share his image of Gemma with them.

  ‘See? He can’t describe her because she doesn’t exist!’ Matatau says.

  It seems funny to Riki, because in a way Matatau is right: Gemma will not exist for another eighty or so years. But he wants to shut Matatau up, and so he describes her – the blue-green of her eyes that shifts depending on what she wears; her light brown hair, fine and straight and long; her skin, which seems to glow – that golden light she seems to possess.