The Parihaka Woman

by Ihimaera, Witi

  ‘I did not take up Marzelline’s offer. I felt a slight sense of unease. We belonged to different worlds and this offer of intimacy was dangerous.

  ‘She began to prattle on. “You know, people feel sorry for me but I’m not sorry for myself. After all, I don’t know what it’s like to have legs, this is all I’ve ever known. I only wish …” she bit her lip and her eyes welled with tears “… that I wasn’t such a burden to Papa.”

  ‘“A burden?” I asked, astonished. Anybody could see that her father worshipped her. His eyes were always upon her, watching her every movement with undisguised wonder.

  ‘With a cry of self-pity Marzelline propelled herself savagely through the surf. She went so far out into the waves, as if she wanted to drown herself, that I leapt in after her.

  ‘“Oh, Eruera,” she sobbed as I carried her out of the water, “don’t you understand? Papa gives up his own life for me! Everything, for me! He buries himself away from the world just for me!”

  ‘She held onto me so tight, and there was such strength in her arms, as if she never wanted to let me go.’

  ‘Perhaps it was Marzelline’s self-pity that propelled her questing spirit. Wilfully, she wanted to prove to her father that he did not always have to look after her.

  ‘There was a path from the cottage along a steep cliff-face. One day while we were out on the cart, despite my entreaties she forced Napoleon to mount the path. When we got to the top, the view was breathtaking. But Rocco had witnessed the ascent, and a light began to flash from the cottage: Return immediately.

  ‘When I delivered Marzelline to the house, he was furious. “Didn’t you see how dangerous the path was, you stupid boy?” he shouted. “And you, daughter, you went too far. You could have been killed.”

  ‘Marzelline stood her ground. “Papa, you must let me grow up,” she said with determination. “You can’t always tell me what to do and where to go.”

  ‘That started a fierce argument, the patriarch trying to impose his will on his daughter and Marzelline rebelling against him. I couldn’t follow all their rapid German but at the climax of their altercation Marzelline screamed at him, “And what happens when you die, Papa? How will I manage to survive if you don’t allow me to find my own independence?”

  ‘The thought shocked Rocco so much that he paled. In vain entreaty, he put his arms out to her.

  ‘“No, Papa,” she said. “No!” and she pushed him away.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A Walk to the Other Side of the Island

  1.

  The first month drew to an end, with winter closing in. Erenora had kept close watch on Rocco, waiting for him to disclose another role, as gaoler on Peketua Island. While out with Marzelline, she had also made quick searches along the immediate beach to see if there were any secret places a prisoner might be kept. But Rocco’s anger when Marzelline had taken the cliff path with Napoleon had put paid to any wider search.

  If Horitana was here, where was he?

  Finally, with great daring, she decided to raise the subject at supper.

  Rocco mocked her. ‘Me, a gaoler for some secret prisoner?’

  Erenora almost believed him.

  ‘Then one day,’ Erenora wrote, ‘ Marzelline drove Napoleon at a fast canter along the beach to the very end.

  ‘Although there was a spur that blocked any further advancement, there was also a short tunnel to the other side. Most times the sea was too high to allow you to go through it but, on this particular day, it was a very low tide — down to only a couple of inches of water.

  ‘Marzelline was feeling impatient that day. She was looking particularly pretty and tossed her curls, saying, “Ach, Eruera, don’t you think that sometimes our world is too small?” She was still chafing at the limits her father placed on her independence, and I was cross with her that we had gone so far. “I’m late for my shift,” I said. Pouting, Marzelline turned the trap homeward.

  ‘We were making our way back to the cottage when, in the distance, there was a flash from the clifftop. Marzelline took out her mirror and replied. “It’s only Papa,” she said. “He hasn’t waited for you. He’s started his long nature walk. He must trust you, Eruera.”

  ‘I was instantly alert. “Where does he go?”

  ‘“Once a week he walks to a special place on the other side of the island to watch the seabirds. He likes to look at the birds, the penguins, seals and sea lions — they’re all of intense interest to him.” Then she pursed her lips and watched until Rocco had disappeared. “Good,” she said, “the mice can play!” She looked back at the hole — it was still fairly close — and I could see her scheming. “Let’s go back.” She shook Napoleon’s reins, turned him around and uttered her wild warrior cry.

  ‘“No!” I shouted. What if we were trapped by the incoming tide? Or if the cart hit a submerged rock and threw Marzelline into the waves? “Don’t go any further,” I called, but Marzelline took no notice. The water sprayed around Napoleon’s hooves and the wheels of the cart, and then, through the hole Marzelline drove the cart. Quickly I splashed after her.

  ‘“What took you so long?” she laughed when I joined her. “Isn’t it beautiful on this side?”

  ‘“You could have been killed,” I answered angrily.

  ‘“Poor Eruera, I scared you.” Taking no further notice of me, she urged Napoleon out of the shallows onto the sand.

  ‘Ahead was a brackish lagoon separated from the sea by snags and ridged sandbars. It was the kind of place where the detritus of the ocean was brought by swirling currents. Trapped in a bowl made by sheer cliffs leaning against the sky, the currents had no option but to drop their rubbish: piles of driftwood, mainly, and the bones of a giant whale.

  ‘Marzelline drove Napoleon along the rim of the bowl until we came to a fall of rocks, caused by the eroding sea. “We’d better turn back,” I said to her. “The tide is coming in fast.”

  ‘She nodded, “Ja, mir ist sowieso langweilig. I’m bored anyway. Nur totes Zeug hier. There are only dead things here.” Then something caught her attention. She shaded her eyes and pointed at it. “What’s that?”

  ‘I was looking at her and I swear that the first time I saw the remains of the old wreck was when they appeared in her clear blue eyes. I followed the direction of her gaze.

  ‘The hulk must have been there for many years. It looked as if, once upon a time, it had had three masts. Driven by countless storms, it had been pushed against the cliffs and come to rest in the sheltered hook of the lagoon. Only the stern and part of the upper deck and upper gun deck were exposed; most of the wreck was skeletal or buried in water and sand. On the stern was some faded lettering:

  VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE

  ‘“Oh,” Marzelline said, “it must have been a French ship.”

  ‘Vicomte de Bragelonne. I remembered the rumour about Horitana being held in the hulk of such a ship. Could he have been kept in the stern? I left Marzelline in the cart, then splashed swiftly through the shallow water to the hulk and clambered in.

  ‘“Eruera?” Marzelline called. She sounded petulant, as if cross that she couldn’t accompany me. I heard her encourage Napoleon to catch up.

  ‘First I searched the upper deck and gun deck, but it was silted up and awash with water. I then turned to investigate the great cabin at the stern. The floor had collapsed long ago and one side was completely exposed to the elements. Nobody could possibly have been imprisoned there.

  ‘Then I thought of Rocco — nature walking, once a week a long walk to the other side of the island while I am on duty — and my heart quickened.

  Perhaps Horitana had been moved.

  2.

  ‘I took Marzelline back to the cottage.

  ‘“Won’t you stay and keep me company while Papa is away?” she asked.

  ‘“No,” I answered. “I had best be about my other chores.”

  ‘She pouted a little but her moods were always mercurial. “Never mind,” she said brightl
y, “I’ll make you a lovely pudding for supper.” I left her humming in the kitchen and, with relief, set off at a run along the cliff path. The lighthouse would just have to look after itself.

  ‘The sky was pearly, washed with pink and purple. When I reached the top of the cliff I thought I’d lost Rocco: after all, he had quite a lead. Then, far off, I saw a faint flash of sun reflecting off the spyglass and realised that good fortune favoured me. I ran, moving fast to make up the time between Rocco and me. About twenty minutes later, perspiring heavily, I reached the spot where I’d last seen him and then, ten minutes later, I was just in time to see him strike purposefully north-west across the island. He must have been this way many times before: the grass was flattened, and he had chipped away scrub and branches to give him easier passage.

  ‘The physical characteristics of the other side of the island came as a revelation to me. There was a view over the stormy 7-mile passage that separated Peketua Island from the South Island. Oddly enough, the currents must have been as rough there as they were on the seaward side of Peketua. Their eroding force had created a coastline that had collapsed into a series of offshore pinnacles and sea stacks. Thousands of seabirds, obviously nesting there, wheeled above them.

  ‘Rocco came to a vent going down through a major fracture in the cliff; I presumed it had been created by some age-old volcanic activity. He sat there for a while, then began to look through his spyglass. I was disappointed: so he had come only to do some nature watching after all. But no, all of a sudden he began to carefully climb down a natural staircase in the cliffs. Then he disappeared.

  ‘I made my way after him to the rocky steps. I was tempted to follow him — but what if I met him on the way back? I decided I had to bide my time and come back another day.

  ‘But I knew, with certainty, that this was the island.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Rocco and Marzelline

  1.

  Do you want to see a photograph of Rocco and Marzelline?

  It was given to me by Donald, and must have been taken about five years after the events I’m telling you about, when Rocco left the island and began an export business in Dunedin.

  The photograph was taken for the Otago Daily Times. It shows Rocco as a successful merchant shaking the hand of the mayor and surrounded by employees of Sonnleithner Agricultural Supplies. He is a tall, solid man, with a very serious expression, and he has what was once called a mutton-chop beard — it covers most of his lower face. What is telling, I think, is the way the other men in the picture are standing: like the mayor, they’re not looking at the photographer but, rather, at Rocco. Certainly there’s a softness in his eyes, but he must have been a man whose authority was respected and admired. Judging from some of his public pronouncements that I’ve read, pompous though they are, he had made himself into a man of influence.

  Marzelline is standing in front with her father. Her back is straight, and you can just see the walking stick on which she’s supporting herself. She looks as if she has taken a quick deep breath and instructed the photographer, ‘Take the photograph now, sir, in case I lose my balance!’ Despite the strain of maintaining the pose, Marzelline manages to look surprisingly composed, and both the camera and the man behind it are in love with her. They’ve organised a penumbra around her, bathing her in light. She is already other-worldly to look at, but the halo highlights her pale skin and the startling silver-blonde hair. Although the photograph is not in colour, you can tell that her eyes must indeed have been striking. And while all the men are looking at Rocco, his gaze is directed at her.

  Marzelline is wearing the latest fashion, a beautiful floor-length light-coloured Victorian gown with a beaded bodice and sleeves; around her neck is a locket, tied high on her neck by a velvet ribbon. There are signs that in maturity she will incline to plumpness but at this moment she’s revealed as having an unusual and singular beauty. There’s something else too: a huge reservoir of strength.

  Such a girl would indeed have the Walküre’s cry within her.

  2.

  How had Rocco and Marzelline come to be in New Zealand?

  To tell this story, for which Donald supplied the background, I have to remind you that the dynamic imperialism which marked the New Zealand Company’s colonising zeal was not only attractive to pioneers of English, Scots and Irish extraction. By virtue of the company’s efforts in Germany, two parties of German migrants were attracted to settle at its second town in Nelson.

  Most of the Germans in the first party originated from the Rhenish provinces and were led by entrepreneur John Nicholas Beit, with whom they sailed from Germany in 1842 on the St Pauli. Beit had purchased land at Moutere for the purposes of wine production. Unfortunately, their arrival in June the following year coincided with the so-called Wairau Massacre in which, for a long time afterwards, the Ngati Toa chief Te Rauparaha was blamed for murdering a number of prominent townsmen. The incident must have caused the German settlers great anxiety: they had been motivated by economic opportunity and deep idealism — among their number were four Lutheran missionaries of the North German Missionary Society: J.H. Trost, J.W.C. Heine, J.F.C. Wohlers and J.C. Riemenschneider. Of them all, the Reverend Wohlers became the best known, labouring among Maori in the south. The last-named was, of course, the same man who later left Nelson and became Rimene of Warea.

  By the way, the second German party disembarked a year later, in September 1844. They were led by Count Graf Kuno zu Ranzau and, unfortunately, their arrival, too, coincided with disaster: the collapse of the New Zealand Company’s operations in New Zealand. Undeterred, and with better capital behind them, the immigrants established a small settlement named Ranzau and added their industry to the making of New Zealand.

  Rocco Sonnleithner came to New Zealand on the St Pauli with his family; he was five when they landed. When his parents moved to Ranzau he went to the Lutheran school at nearby Sarau. His love of reading developed there but he was not a good student and drifted into engineering; he worked on bridge construction in the district.

  A few years later Rocco met his wife, Lotte, and they married at St Paul’s Church in 1866. He could hardly credit his good fortune: although she was almost ten years older, a schoolteacher in her mid-thirties, she was regarded as a classic beauty. ‘What do you see in me?’ he asked her. She replied, ‘A good man, hard-working, who will make a good father.’ The truth was that Lotte had had many suitors but none had been considered suitable by her repressive, cultured and sophisticated parents. Rocco was her last chance.

  Because Lotte had married against her parents’ wishes, there was a falling out. ‘You will either accept my husband,’ Lotte told them, ‘or that will be the end between us.’ Not even her pregnancy appeared to change her mother and father’s view of the marriage, so Rocco decided to leave Ranzau and seek his fortune on the goldfields of Central Otago. He tried to convince Lotte to stay with her parents in Ranzau, but she had had enough. ‘They have already turned their backs on us,’ she said.

  Marzelline was born while her parents were panning for gold. From the moment Lotte and Rocco saw their daughter, they were struck by love for her. Lotte had the child she had always craved. As for Rocco, he never ceased to wonder that such a daughter could be the product of loins as rude and ugly as his.

  3.

  Let me go back to Erenora now.

  ‘As it happened,’ she wrote, ‘my intention to explore the place where Rocco had disappeared was both thwarted and, ironically, propelled by the arrival of the Anna Milder on its monthly visit. I was pleased to see Captain Demmer but I felt some frustration that time would be taken up with unloading the provisions that had come with him.

  ‘“How is Herr Sonnleithner treating you, lad?” Captain Demmer asked. I told him, “We’ve reached an accommodation with each other.” Even so, the captain made an offer, “If you want to come back with me, step aboard now.”

  ‘I shook my head. How could I do that? I was so near to discoveri
ng whether Horitana was here. Then Captain Demmer put a hand in his breast pocket and brought out an envelope. “I have a letter for you,” he said to Rocco. At the sight of its seal, Rocco’s face drained of colour.’

  After the Anna Milder had been unloaded and made her way from Peketua Island, Erenora took a rest in the barn. When she looked into a mirror she saw that her hair was getting long and decided to cut it before dinner.

  ‘I was at this task when Marzelline found me. “Would you let me do it?” she asked, her eyes shining. “I trim Papa’s beard and what remains of the hair on his head. Please, Eruera, please!” She was so insistent that I said yes.

  ‘At the end of the haircut Marzelline gathered the tresses in her palms and brought them to her lips. “Mmmmn, your hair smells beautiful,” she said. Then, just before she left, she asked me a very strange question. “Eruera, do you think I am pretty?” In her voice was all the yearning for affirmation felt by a young girl who does not know that she is, yes, lovely. I wanted to say, “Yes, you’re pretty, Marzelline, and some day some fortunate young man will come along and take you away with him.” But before I could do that she gave a gasp of horror as if she had unmasked something about herself she had not intended — or was frightened that I might say something she did not want to hear. “No, Jüngling, don’t tell me!”

  ‘She opened the door and stumbled back to the cottage.’

  That evening, at dinner, it seemed that everyone was agitated for one reason or another. Among the provisions landed was a very fine bottle of brandy. Despite Marzelline’s remonstrations — ‘Papa, wait until after dinner,’ — Rocco started drinking immediately after the Anna Milder left the quay.