Legacy

by Whiti Hereaka

  He didn’t realise how persistent Maraea would be.

  If he is stuck here in the past – forced to live out his life here – shouldn’t he have some choice in how he lives it? Riki doesn’t want the burden of ensuring that his whakapapa stays intact. Te Ariki married Maraea when he got back from the war. If they never married and had children, his koro and mother wouldn’t exist. But he can’t become his own great-great-grandfather. It is too much, and way too creepy.

  ‘It doesn’t seem right,’ Riki says. ‘To give her hope.’

  ‘You’ve got that backwards. She gives you hope.’ Rewai slaps Riki on the back. ‘Just write her a letter. If not for your sake, then for mine. I already have a fishwife of my own.’

  Riki shrugs. The letters are a welcome distraction from his life here. What harm is there in writing? A letter is not a promise or a real relationship; just words on paper.

  ‘Yeah, I will.’

  When Riki and Rewai get back to the tent, the boys are busy packing up their belongings.

  ‘We’re finally on the move!’ Tom is shoving things into his kit as if he will miss the transport to the front if he doesn’t rush.

  ‘Taihoa,’ Rewai says. ‘Pack your gear properly.’

  ‘But the order has come!’

  Rewai looks to Little Mo, who nods. ‘We’ve had the order to break camp.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Rewai says.

  Riki sighs. ‘To France.’

  ‘That’s what we all think. To Europe! Away from this cesspit,’ Tom says.

  Rewai takes Tom’s kit from him and upturns it so that everything falls on the ground.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘You’ll be carrying this kit for a long time, Tom. You’ll thank me when it is packed properly.’

  ‘We’ll be waiting hours for transport,’ Little Mo says.

  ‘If we’re lucky,’ Riki says.

  Riki knows what is waiting for them in Europe. Muddy trenches and digging tunnels. Fields of poppies fed by the bodies of the fallen. He’s in no hurry to leave Egypt.

  By early evening the camp is packed and everyone is ready to go, but no order has come to leave the site. Riki, Rewai and Little Mo sit on the ground like all the other old hands – playing cards, reading or taking a nap. Tom can’t seem to be still, and paces up and down.

  ‘You might as well sit,’ Riki says. ‘These things take forever.’

  ‘I can’t see how he can sleep,’ Tom nods at Little Mo, who has his hands laced across his chest.

  ‘You’ll be surprised where he can sleep,’ Rewai says. ‘You should probably try to get some rest. It will be a long night.’

  ‘I can’t sleep until we’re on the move. It was the same back in New Zealand. I couldn’t sleep a wink until we had finally boarded the ships and we were on our way.’

  Bub has been standing still, watching Tom as if he were his friend’s guard.

  ‘How about you, Bub?’ Rewai says. ‘Do you want to rest?’

  Tom stops pacing. ‘Bub is just as excited as me – aren’t you, Bub?’

  Bub looks to Rewai, then to Tom, as if he doesn’t know who he should answer to.

  ‘He has his own mind, don’t you, Bub?’ Rewai says.

  Bub looks surprised, as if he’s never thought that he has his own mind before. He nods to Rewai, and with an apologetic look to Tom he sits down with a sigh.

  ‘Here.’ Riki hands Bub a bottle of rum. ‘Have a nip.’

  But before Bub can even take the top off the bottle, Rewai takes it from him. ‘Neither of you are having a nip. I don’t want anyone falling off the train.’ Everyone knows who that is directed towards. Riki looks down at his feet.

  After an hour or so of waiting, Tom finally gives in and sits down. ‘I didn’t think we’d be waiting around so much.’

  ‘You haven’t got to the digging part yet,’ Riki says. ‘There’s a lot of digging.’

  ‘And fighting?’ Tom says.

  ‘When you get to that, you’ll wish for this night again.’

  ‘I can’t imagine that.’

  ‘No. I guess you can’t,’ Riki says.

  Another few hours pass. Tom is true to his word about not being able to sleep, so the rest of them take turns keeping him company while the others take naps. Except for Little Mo, who sleeps right through it all.

  It must be past midnight when it is Riki’s turn. Tom is fidgety, but at least he’s not pacing up and down now.

  ‘You really need to learn how to take a rest when you can,’ Riki says. You’ll burn out otherwise.’

  ‘But there’s too much to think about. Too much to plan.’

  Is there a plan? It’s comforting to think that way: that everything must happen for a reason; otherwise it’s just terrifying chaos. Riki misses Jack – Jack could have argued the point, then Matatau would have said something about free will triumphing over predestination. But Riki isn’t sure. If he does have free will, he’s pretty powerless. He’s damned either way.

  The order to march to Moascar Station comes. Riki and Tom wake the others. It takes a while to rouse Rewai and Bub, but Little Mo jumps up as if he hasn’t been sleeping soundly for hours and hours.

  Tom is like a little kid on his way to the playground.

  ‘But where is the train?’ he asks when at last they get there.

  ‘Looks like we’re waiting for it,’ Riki says.

  ‘More waiting?’ Tom says. ‘This is intolerable! I can’t believe that the British Army is so unorganised.’

  ‘He hasn’t seen the half of it yet,’ Rewai says, and he and Riki laugh.

  A couple of hours later, they board the train: a long line of open trucks. The men are so tightly squashed together that Riki thinks of cattle packed on trucks off to the works; dumb beasts whose fate is decided by someone else.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Rewai says to him.

  Riki shrugs and says, ‘Bully beef.’

  The last man pushes his way onto the truck and the gates are shut. The train shunts forward and they all sway together, too tightly packed to lose their footing. A great mass of khaki men.

  It is too dark to see the landscape; to say goodbye to Egypt once and for all. Riki looks up to the sky.

  ‘We’ll be there soon,’ Rewai says. ‘It’s almost dawn.’

  Try as he might, Riki cannot see a change in the night sky. It is still dark.

  32

  13 OCTOBER 1975

  Te Ariki has been sitting alone in his room all afternoon. Alamein left in a hurry when he got the phone call that morning. Te Ariki knows it will be a while yet before Te Awhina takes her first breath. Taimona is fussing in the kitchen – cooking and baking for the whānau who will turn up over the next few days.

  He has time before his daughter drives them both to the hospital to see the latest in the Pūweto line. Te Ariki traces a circle in the air – when you walk around a globe the curvature disappears; it is as if you are walking a straight line.

  He eases himself out of the chair. It always surprises him how weak his legs feel now. He’s been a runner all his life: he’s always been able to depend on his legs – and now they are just wasting away.

  Alamein’s gear is on a small table near the bookcase. Te Ariki walks slowly towards it, taking care not to make too much noise. As much as he loves his daughter, she can be a right busybody. He finds the book he was looking for – a thick volume of philosophy that no one else is interested in. Behind it is a small flask of rum. He chuckles to himself – she hasn’t found this stash yet.

  Ulcers be damned!

  He looks through the pile of tapes on the table. He finds a blank cassette, and puts it in his pocket with the flask. Then he picks up the recorder his grandson has left behind. It is heavier than he thought it would be. He goes back to his chair and sits down. The recorder feels heavy on his knees. The tape from his last interview is still in the recorder. Te Ariki pushes the ‘play’ and ‘record’ buttons together, like he has seen Alamein do so many tim
es in the past few days.

  He clears his throat, closes his eyes and speaks.

  ‘Alamein, today you will become a father. You’ve left my house already, even though there are a few hours left until your child will make her way into this world. As a father you will learn that there are decisions you must make in order to protect your child and your family. I wanted to tell you my story – the real story – but I still have the need to protect you all. Perhaps, when I’m gone, you’ll disagree – that I haven’t acted to protect you, but rather to protect myself.

  ‘You were so excited to meet your daughter that you left your equipment with me. And so I have decided to tell you my story: the real story. It is, as my darling Taimona called it, a confessional – not that I expect to be absolved of anything. In fact, you might not feel inclined to forgive me by the end of today, if things play out as they once did. I sincerely wish that something will change today, but I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it won’t.

  ‘Do you know how unlikely each one of our lives is? Every being on this planet owes its existence to a turn in a genetic kaleidoscope. How many patterns turn in the scope? Even the smallest twist will change it. How many turns would it take to create the original pattern? You could turn it for lifetime upon lifetime and you would never see the same one again. We want to think that even if the world is made up of random events and accidents, at least we have some agency. At least we’re not just playing a part in a script. We have control of our destiny. Even if we do follow a script, follow history, it would still be a miracle if it all turned out the same every time.’

  Te Ariki wipes his eyes.

  ‘It feels like I’ve fought all my life against the idea of fate. Time and time again I have hoped that we all have free will, but it seems to me that we don’t. It feels like I’ve never had a real choice. But do any of us? Perhaps we all just make the best of what the world offers us.

  ‘Do you remember when I read you fairy tales? One day you’ll return the favour and read them to me. Your favourite fairy tale was ‘Sleeping Beauty’. I don’t know if it was the wall of thorns or the idea of sleeping for one hundred years – you always liked to nap. To me that story is about a father who tries to save his daughter from a curse by burning all the spinning wheels in his kingdom. In the end, I think she would have been safer if he had warned her about the danger.

  ‘I am like that king – I’ve spent my life trying to hide the things that might hurt my whānau. I have spent my life trying to hide myself. If you’ll allow me the metaphor, I’m giving you the last spindle in my kingdom.

  ‘The way I figure it, I don’t have the time any more to wait until the time is right to tell my story. To tell the truth, that time has probably already been and gone. I’ll be dead soon. It’s OK, I’ve lived a long life.’ He laughs. ‘Longer than you can imagine.

  ‘I’m just so tired; do you understand, boy? I haven’t told anyone, not a soul. But I need to be free; I can no longer carry the weight of it. It is probably unfair of me, to burden you with the decision. You will have to decide if the world is governed by fate or free will. There’s still a part of me that wants to believe in free will; that’s why I’m making the tape.

  ‘And I still have a sliver of hope that in telling you I might change my life – the past and the future.’

  Te Ariki pauses. It is harder to tell the truth than he thought. He doesn’t want Alamein to be burdened by it, the way he has been. He takes the flask from his pocket, opens the lid and has a nip. He looks at the clock: the second hand relentlessly moves forward.

  ‘Not long now until your baby girl is born. She will inherit everything I have, and you will decide whether that is a blessing or a curse. I’ll confess all – my childhood, my life: I’ll tell you about ‘back then’. I’ve found a blank tape, so you needn’t worry about me recording over your research. I ask that you wait until I have passed to listen to it. Then it will be up to you. Although it is not really much of a choice, if I already know what you will do.

  ‘The things I’ve wanted to ask you, while we’ve been making these tapes. Questions I have had for years. I didn’t ask them not because I was afraid of the answers, but because you don’t know them yet. At every decision I’ve made in my life since the war, I’ve asked myself if this was the event that triggered everything. I’ve looked back and forward trying to figure out when. All this rewinding and unspooling – it’s all been a loop that just keeps going on and on. Is it the beginning or the end? It’s enough to do a man’s head in.’

  Te Ariki pushes ‘stop’.

  NOTE ON SOURCES

  While Legacy is a work of fiction, I have relied on the stories of the men who fought in the First World War to understand the daily life of a soldier: in particular, the diary of Rikihana Carkeek published as Home Little Maori Home: A Memoir of the Maori Contingent 1914–1916, Rikihana Carkeek 16/255, Tōtika Publications, 2003, and the oral histories published in An Awfully Big Adventure, Jane Tolerton, Penguin, 2013. As a work of fiction, Legacy is not intended to be a true reflection of the experiences of these men, nor is it an accurate historical record.

  The following works were also helpful:

  The ANZAC Experience, New Zealand, Australia and Empire in the First World War, Christopher Pugsley, Reed, Auckland, 2004.

  New Zealand and the First World War 1914–1919, Damien Fenton, Penguin, 2013.

  Te Hokowhitu a Tu – the Maori Pioneer Battalion in the First World War, Christopher Pugsley, Reed, 1995.

  With the ANZACs in Cairo, Guy Thornton, C.F., H.R. Allenson Ltd, 1918.

  Maori in the Great War, James Cowan, Willson Scott Publishing, 2011.

  The New Zealand Expeditionary Force in World War I, Wayne Stack, illustrated by Mike Chappell, Osprey Publishing, 2011.

  ‘New Zealand Mounted Rifles – Between the Lines’, http://www.nzmr.org/McCandlish/McCandlish3.html (last accessed 23 January 2018).

  Soldier’s Own Diary, Turnbull Library Record, 2014.

  Te Rangi Hiroa – the Life of Sir Peter Buck, J.B. Condliffe, Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd, 1971.

  The Great Wrong War – New Zealand Society in WWI, Stevan Eldred-Grigg, Random House New Zealand, 2010.

  New Zealanders at War, Michael King, Penguin, 2003.

  Holding on to Home: New Zealand Stories and Objects of the First World War, Kate Hunter and Kirstie Ross, Te Papa Press, 2014.

  The haka ‘Toia Mai’ on p. 52, chapter 5 can be found in Traditional Songs of the Maori, Mervyn McLean and Margaret Orbell, Auckland University Press, 1975, p. 32 – the name of the composer is not attributed.

  The speech by Te Rangi Hiroa (Sir Peter Buck) on p. 54, chapter 5 can be found in Te Rangi Hiroa – the Life of Sir Peter Buck, J.B. Condliffe, Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd, 1971, pp. 127–8.

  The quote of Lord Methuen on p. 105, chapter 9 can be found in ‘James Paumea Ferris’, http://www.anzacletters.co.nz/anzac-letters/10-james-paumea-ferris/letter-1/ (last accessed 23 January 2018).

  The passage Te Awhina reads on p. 109, chapter 10 is from Te Rangi Hiroa – the Life of Sir Peter Buck, J.B. Condliffe, Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd, 1971, p. 129.

  The speech of Captain Te Wainohu on p. 157, chapter 18 can be found in Maori in the Great War, James Cowan, Willson Scott Publishing, 2011, p. 49.

  The haka ‘Ka Mate’, on p. 105, chapter 9 and p. 159, chapter 18, was composed by Te Rauparaha, who was a chief of Ngāti Toa Rangatira.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am grateful for the generous support of Creative New Zealand.

  Thank you to my publisher, HUIA – especially Eboni Waitere, and my editors Jane Parkin and Daisy Coles.

  I must also thank Brian Bargh, who suggested that I write a novel about the Māori Contingent. I’m not sure that this is the novel he had in mind!

  And as always, thank you to my whānau – especially Cameron Nicholls.

 

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