by Lark, Sarah
“I don’t find you at all objectionable,” Kura breathed. “But marriage is out of the question for me. As an artist.”
Caleb nodded energetically. “Naturally. I had that same thought. So, you won’t hold all their talk against me?”
Kura rolled her eyes. She had touched this boy, caressed him, tried to excite him. And all he could think about was social convention.
When he led her out and politely said his good-byes a short while later, she gave it another try. She pushed herself up against him, smiling, her face right in front of his, her lips slightly parted.
Caleb blushed but made no move to kiss her.
“Perhaps we could continue with our work on the haka at the pub tomorrow afternoon?”
Kura nodded, resigned. Caleb was a hopeless case. But she enjoyed making music with him. She found it fascinating to watch the Maori recitatives suddenly take a readable form on paper—in the process becoming understandable and playable for other musicians. It might be even more interesting to arrange the music for European instruments. Kura had never been interested in composing before, but this spoke to her.
Over the next few weeks, the work with the songs of her ancestors filled her days, but her nights remained lonely, no matter what she did to try to encourage Caleb. She finally got her hopes up when he asked her to make contact with a local Maori tribe.
“I can well imagine how a haka like this sounds. You bring the various voices together beautifully, after all, Miss Martyn. But I would love to hear them in their native environment and see the dancing. Do you think the tribe would perform a haka for us?”
Kura nodded. “Yes, of course. It’s part of the greeting ritual when honored visitors introduce themselves. Only I don’t know where the nearest tribe lives. We might be on the road for several days…”
“If that’s not a problem for you,” Caleb said, “I’m sure my father would let me have the time off.”
Kura had already learned how exceedingly generous Caleb’s father was with his son’s time—at least when he spent it with Kura. She often wondered how the mine could possibly spare his help almost every morning or afternoon, since the work on the haka could only take place when the pub was closed. Mrs. Biller had begun to invite Kura regularly to tea—a wasted effort, really, but Kura found it far more enjoyable to work on Caleb’s perfectly tuned piano in his salon than in Paddy’s smoky pub. So she often made plans to work on music with Caleb first and then to drink tea afterward with his mother. As a pleasant ancillary, Mrs. Biller served exceptional delicacies with tea. Kura ate enough to last her the rest of the day.
“I do like it when young people help themselves heartily,” Mrs. Biller said enthusiastically as Kura devoured great quantities of sandwiches and cakes, but always with the most graceful of movements.
“Thank you,” said Kura.
They tracked down the nearest Maori tribe in the area around Punakaiki, a tiny village between Greymouth and Westport. The nearby Pancake Rocks formation was famous, Caleb explained excitedly as soon as Kura told him the location. Although he took little interest in anything practical—such as mining—he was nevertheless an enthusiastic geologist and suggested making a side trip to view the rocks while they were they were in the area visiting the tribe. There might even be a hostel nearby where they could spend the night.
“The tribe will invite us to spend the night there,” Kura replied.
Caleb nodded but looked a little nervous. “I don’t know. Would that be decent? I wouldn’t want to offend them.”
Kura laughed and tried once more to draw him out of his shell by stroking his hair and neck. She even rubbed her hips against him, but he only looked embarrassed.
“Caleb, I’m half-Maori. Anything that is decent to my people is acceptable to me as well. You will have to have to acquaint yourself with the customs of my people. After all, we mean to ask the tribe to make its defining repertoire, its own special tribal haka, available to us. And that won’t happen if you treat them like exotic animals.”
“Oh, I have the greatest respect…”
Kura did not listen further. Perhaps Caleb would finally let himself go, out of respect for the customs of her people. For the time being, however, she continued to spend her nights touching herself and dreaming of William.
The journey to Pancake Rocks took almost a full day with Kura’s coach and their horses. She had hoped for a faster team from the Billers’ stables. But Caleb knew almost as little about horses as she did, so they were both quite relieved to hear that it was better to hike the Pancake Rocks than to attempt the difficult path with a carriage. Moreover, the weather was stormy, which was making the horses jittery.
However, it was ideal weather for the Pancake Rocks, the bartender at the inn in Punakaiki had explained.
“The effect becomes truly spectacular when the sea swells. Then it looks like the ‘pancakes’ are being grilled over geysers!” the man said, laughing happily as he pocketed the money for two single rooms. He was, of course, convinced that the young couple really only wanted one. And though he could not have cared less where the two of them ended up spending the night, that had not stopped him from asking sternly for their marriage certificate when they arrived. The success of this ploy had raised his spirits, and after that he was delighted to play tour guide.
A short while later, Kura and Caleb found themselves ambling among the strange pancake-round rock layers along the edge of the roaring sea. Kura’s loose hair flew in the wind, and she looked ravishing. That had no effect on Caleb, however; he merely lectured, enthralled, about the density of limestone and the impact of hydraulic forces.
Kura’s beauty did attract two young Maori men, who, after speaking briefly with her, invited the two hikers to visit their tribe. It turned out that they had already heard of Kura. Since her guest performance for the tribe near Blenheim, she had become known as a tohunga, and the young men gave the impression that they could not wait to hear her music. The looks they gave Kura’s breasts and hips, though, indicated more, Caleb noticed with embarrassment. He insisted that they not accept the invitation immediately and instead head over to the Maori village the next day.
“Those two boys do not look very trustworthy to me,” he said, concerned, as he led Kura back to the inn. “Who knows what they would have attempted if we had simply followed them into the wilderness. Besides, it will be dark soon.”
Kura laughed. “They wouldn’t have attempted anything with us, although no doubt they would have liked to attempt something with me. Oh, don’t look at me like that, Caleb. It’s flattering. They probably would have spent the whole trip displaying their daring in an effort to lure me out of your bed and into one of theirs.”
“Kura!” Caleb looked at her indignantly.
Kura giggled. “Don’t be such a prude! Or should I have said we were married? Then they would have left me alone.”
Caleb looked like he was in agony, and Kura did not provoke him further. Though he still did not touch her that evening, he proved extremely generous by treating her to the best food and wine Punakaiki had to offer. That wasn’t saying much, but ever since Kura had embarked on her largely penniless nomadic life, she had learned how to appreciate small gestures.
The next morning, Kura followed the Maori’s directions to their kainga and found the village straightaway. Caleb was surprised by its size. Until then, he had apparently been under the impression that the Maori lived in tepees like some Indians in America. The diversity of houses, sleeping halls, cooking houses, and storehouses astounded him.
Kura wondered, not for the first time, how some pakeha children grew up so sheltered from reality. Although it was true that there was no fixed Maori settlement right next to Greymouth, as far as she knew, Caleb had visited several cities on the South Island, as well as Wellington and Auckland. Had there really been no opportunity to learn about Maori culture there? However, Caleb had still only been a child at the time. He, like Timothy Lambert, had spent almost his ent
ire youth in English boarding schools and universities.
As Kura had expected, they were convivially received and did not even have to ask the villagers to show them the most important haka.
“These tribal haka have an unusual story behind them,” Kura explained to Caleb while the men and women demonstrated their personal dance. “Originally, they were composed by rival tribes and meant to mock the tribe. But then the tribes adopted the haka themselves, out of pride that anyone had enough fear or respect for them to compose a defensive song.”
Naturally, Kura spoke fluent Maori, and the villagers were excited to see that Caleb had already picked up quite a few phrases and learned several more over the course of the day. Even Kura was surprised at how easily it came to him. Though she had learned a bit of French and German during her singing lessons, she had never succeeded in repeating the words with no accent as Caleb now managed to do with the Maori language.
Eventually, the two of them found themselves seated in the splendidly carved meetinghouse with the villagers, passing around the whiskey bottle they had brought with them. It wasn’t long before Kura was tipsy. To everybody’s amusement, she selected one of the strapping young dancers and disappeared outside with him. Caleb assumed an indignant expression, but not a jealous one. Kura grew a little annoyed when she noted it, and the Maori were rather surprised.
“You not…?”
Kura observed the man beside Caleb making an obscene gesture. Caleb turned red.
“No, we’re only… friends,” he stuttered.
The man followed this with a remark that caused a great deal of laughter.
“He says, ‘We Maori don’t do it with enemies either,’” his wife translated.
The next day, Kura explained to the still slightly indignant Caleb that she had only wanted to elicit a special love song from her companion. The young dancer was happy to sing one for Caleb too, after he had finished laughing. The thought of singing a love song for a man seemed more than a little strange to him. But then he sang and danced with almost exaggerated gestures, and Kura observed that Caleb was so lost in admiration that he hardly managed to notate the music. When his eyes lit up, it clarified to Kura once and for all why all her charms were wasted on him. Later, when he insisted that she translate the text for him, Kura took a few liberties with its obscene content.
Shortly before the two of them started upon their return to Greymouth, Kura had another encounter that preoccupied her a great deal more than Caleb’s obvious preference for the male sex.
The chief’s wife, a strong, resolute woman who had always danced the haka in the first row, spoke to Kura as she was packing her things away.
“You come from Greymouth, is that right? Do you know if the girl with the flaming hair is still there?”
“A redheaded girl?” Kura thought immediately of Elaine but pretended to be unsure.
“A delicate little creature who even looks a bit like you—if one has good eyes,” the chieftain’s wife said, smiling as an incensed look appeared on Kura’s face.
Kura nodded. “Elaine? She’s still there. She plays piano in a pub. Why? Do you know her?”
“We found her awhile ago and sent her to Greymouth. She was doing rather badly, having wandered through the mountains for days with her little dog and horse. I would have liked to keep her with us, but the men thought it was too dangerous. And they were right to be cautious. He’s still looking for her. But as long as she stays where she is, she should be safe.”
The woman turned away. Kura checked her curiosity and held back her questions about what made Greymouth so much safer than any other backwater on the West Coast and who was looking for Elaine anyway. Probably the husband she had fled. But that was a long time ago. He should have long since accepted the fact that Elaine would not be coming back.
With respect to love and marriage, Kura had been entirely shaped by her mother’s culture. A girl sought out the man she wanted to belong to, and if he did not meet her expectations, she took another. Why did the pakeha always have to combine that with marriage? Kura cast a cross look at Caleb. His parents would eventually push him to get married.
Kura hardly wanted to picture the afflicted girl’s wedding night.
6
William Martyn had practically flooded the North Island with sewing machines. At first, he had been assigned to a rather unattractive region on the East Coast. However, true to the teachings of the sales genius Carl Latimer, who had himself unloaded masses of sewing machines on the women-starved West Coast of the South Island, William had ridden complaisantly from farm to farm. Along the way, he informed himself of the most important gossip so that he always had something to chat about with the mistress of the house before he unpacked his wonder machine.
The ladies’ covetousness was then quick to awaken—Carl Latimer had not exaggerated on this point. Though it was true that the more isolated regions comprised a smaller market for his machines, he was always offered a free, and occasionally even heated, place to sleep. In those cases, William used every tactic at his disposal to close the deal. Sometimes he wondered if the women—especially the well-off but lonely women on the bigger farms—bought his machines only so they could avail themselves of his “maintenance services” the next time he stopped in the area.
He won over the more impoverished women and girls with arguments for saving money by sewing their own clothes and the possibility of making some extra money by touching up clothes for the neighbor women. It wasn’t long before his sales figures demolished all expectations, and the firm moved him to the much more attractive area around Auckland, where William additionally suggested that the machines might be used for the industrial production of articles of clothing. Instead of only inviting women to his demonstrations, he also passed out flyers to men—immigrants looking to establish themselves in their new country. By purchasing three or four sewing machines, according to William, anyone could produce clothing in bulk and earn a profit. William promised to provide the training himself on his next stop in the area, and he did just that. Although most of the businesses soon failed due to a lack of business savvy, two or three of the small companies operated successfully. One of his clients ordered new machines every few months as his business continued to expand.
The notion of ridding themselves of several machines at a time in this manner caused something of a sensation among the sales management. They invited William to give presentations on the concept in the North Island’s training center and entrusted him with another interesting sales area. William had begun driving a carriage appropriate to his standing with an elegant horse to pull it. He dressed in the latest fashion and enjoyed his new life. The only thorn in his side was the fact that he had not been able to track down Kura and the opera ensemble—though, truth be told, he did not know how his life and hers could be brought back into harmony. Sewing-machine marketing and opera singing were hardly compatible, and he knew that Kura would never have wanted to give up her career so soon.
As he directed his horse through the lively streets of Wellington on the lookout for his company’s main New Zealand offices, he contemplated that the opera singers must long since have been in Australia, the South Island, or even back in Europe. Had they taken Kura with them? William did not believe they had. The troupe’s director had given the impression that he wouldn’t tolerate any gods beside himself. And Kura certainly had what it took to be a star in Europe. Even if her gift was not enough for the grand opera houses, her appearance alone would have smoothed her path.
William finally located the office and found a place for his horse behind the building. The company’s sales director had personally invited him to an interview, and William was looking forward to it but not concerned. He knew his sales numbers and was expecting a bonus, not an admonishment. Perhaps there would be new assignments too. He tied his horse up and took the folder with his latest balance sheets out of the carriage before brushing the last bits of dust from his gray three-piece suit. The sui
t fit him admirably—though it had not actually been finished, as he always claimed, in one of the new factories using Singer sewing machines but by one of Auckland’s best men’s tailors.
Daniel Curbage, the sales director, greeted him amiably.
“Mr. Martyn! Not only punctual to the minute but also with a pile of new sales contracts under his arm!”
The man seized the contents of William’s folder at once. “I have to tell you how much your efforts never cease to impress us. May I offer you something? Coffee, tea, something a little stronger?”
William decided on tea. No doubt the whiskey would be excellent, but he had learned long ago that successful negotiations required a clear head, not to mention the fact that it always made a better impression when one did not reach for the bottle immediately.
Daniel Curbage nodded, clearly pleased, and waited for his secretary to bring the tea. Only then did he get down to business.
“Mr. Martyn, as you are well aware, you are one of our top workers—and naturally, during your training, you were singled out for possible advancement within the company.”
William nodded, though he hardly remembered that period. Back then, he had spent more time grappling with hemstitching than career planning.
“From a position as sales director for one of the larger districts, you could climb up to… well, up to my position,” Daniel Curbage said, laughing heartily as though the latter were a rather daring leap of the imagination. “And I had actually already selected you for a management position here in the office.” He looked at William, expecting appreciation.
