by Lark, Sarah
“This is about Nandi, right?” asked Matariki. “I wondered the whole time if there wasn’t something special there. But I wouldn’t give up hope, Patrick. Mother mentioned something about that. Maybe they’re bringing Nandi back.”
Patrick exhaled sharply and walked as fast as he could with a wriggly three-year-old in his arms.
“No,” he said. “I won’t tolerate it. I understand that Mother instigated Juliet’s disappearance. And that’s disgraceful enough. But now to ‘buy’ Nandi back from her? That’s, that would be—”
Patrick drew up short. In front of them lay the pond fed by their waterfall. And at the water’s edge kneeled a woman with curly hair cascading down her back.
May made a squealing sound. “Nandi!” she called, and stretched her little arms toward her. “Daddy, I need Nandi.”
The little girl insisted on being let down and then ran as fast as she could to the young woman, who had just stood up. She beamed at Patrick and bent down to embrace his daughter. Nandi was not wearing shoes, and her dress was dirty. Patrick stared at her, speechless.
“Mr. Drury, I, I was allowed to run away, wasn’t I?”
Patrick raised his arms helplessly. “You can go wherever you want, Nandi,” he whispered, and stepped closer to her. “You know that. But I, well, I was so sad when I saw that you’d gone.” He reached both hands out to her, and the girl took them, trembling.
“I didn’t run away from you,” she said. “I’ve run back to you.”
Tears filled Patrick’s eyes. “But where did you run from? And why are you so—? But that’s not important. Come, you must be hungry. Did you come on foot? From where?”
“From Dunedin. Mrs. Drury wanted me to go with her. To Christchurch and then to America. But I don’t want to go there. And I’ve been thinking a long time about what Mrs. Doortje Drury always read me from the Bible, that I should be a good servant. But also, what you said, that I’m free. And what Mrs. Violet Coltrane says about women and the unions. And then, then I—how do you say?—flew Mrs. Drury?”
“Fled,” Patrick said happily.
“I fled, yes. I was supposed to buy her something to eat before the train left, but I ran away. With the money. But I still have it here, Mr. Drury. I didn’t want to steal.”
Nandi smiled shyly at Patrick.
Atamarie, however, was concerned by something else. “You came the whole way on foot? From Dunedin? Is that possible?”
Nandi nodded. “My people are good walkers,” she declared proudly. “But I am so tired now. Is it all right if I sleep awhile?”
“Let’s go home, Nandi,” May said again, and then, surprising everyone, “I love you, Mommy.”
“Looks like this one’s already made her choice,” Atamarie laughed.
“Smart girl,” said Matariki. “We should leave you three in peace.”
“Yes,” said Atamarie. “And you and I should go to the village. It’s getting dark, and Rawiri’s waiting for me.”
“Look.” Matariki pointed at the sky. The first stars were showing in the firmament, and the brightest among them were the eyes of the god Tawhirimatea—the bright star Whanui with its six radiant daughter stars in tow.
“Ka puta Matariki ka rere Whanui
Ko te tena o te tau e!”
Matariki greeted the constellation for which she was named with the old song. Atamarie joined in, and they both hugged Patrick, Nandi, and little May, who cheerfully sang along.
“Happy New Year!”
Up in the village, people were also laughing, dancing, and embracing one another. Rawiri and his students were sending the first kites into the air. The children began singing the karakia to steer them and to greet the stars. The old people cried and mourned as they did every year.
“Why are they crying?” Doortje asked her husband as Atamarie had once asked her mother. “I thought Matariki was a happy festival.”
Kevin nodded. “Matariki marks the changing of the years. An ending and a beginning. Matariki rises up, and the eyes of the god rest on us after he has been gone a long time. The tribal elders are now telling him what’s happened during that time. One last time, they mourn the dead of the previous year and lament the bad things that have happened to the tribe. But with that, the sorrow is then sealed. The dead go to the ancestors and become part of the past. After tonight, they won’t be thought of with tears or anger. They become part of memory and so also determine the future.”
“A beautiful custom,” Doortje said hesitantly. “Do you think—do you think this Maori god would listen to me too?”
Kevin kissed her. “Of course. Just go to the elders. Sing with them, tell them about your family, about all you lost, about your country, and they’ll understand you. The people and the stars.”
“And if I cry?” Doortje asked, choked up.
“Then you cry, Doortje. Like the others. It’s good to cry today. The future begins tomorrow.”
Kevin put his arm around her and led her to the group of elders. Hainga drew Doortje into the circle of sorrow and old songs.
Doortje Drury cried that night for the first time since she was a little girl. With a flood of tears, she conjured once more her dead, named her parents and siblings, and mourned her lost home and country.
But Kevin held her in his arms as she did, and during the night, the wind dried her tears. In the morning, the songs of children woke her. Atamarie and Rawiri sent their kites and dreams up to the gods. And the colorful manu carried the sorrow away.
Afterword
The South Island of New Zealand was home to a pioneer who took off in his motorized flier before the Wright brothers?
I, too, stopped short when I learned where the Richard Pearse Airport in Timaru got its name. It really is true: Richard Pearse was without a doubt one of the world’s first pilots of a motorized flier, and many signs point to him floating over Waitohi months before the Wright brothers’ flight, only to crash into a broom hedge. It was not much different for Wilbur and Orville. Their first flights ended similarly, but less thornily, in sand dunes. However, the date of the first flight is under dispute because Pearse never invited members of the press or experts, and he did not otherwise document his test flights. Yet there was no shortage of accidental witnesses such as neighbors and family members.
There are still television and radio interviews with these witnesses on the internet. That apparently none of them can remember whether Pearse first took off in the first months of 1903 or not until 1904 is often explained as the “simple mentality of country people,” who didn’t pay close attention to things like dates. That does not seem credible to me—a farmer seeing an aeroplane floating above his fields for the first time is going to remember whether those fields were harvested. And even if they don’t recall an exact date, there are personal time references that enable later investigation. Why no one dug deeper remains unexplored, and so Richard Pearse remains in the second or third row of flight pioneers. What’s more, he really is supposed to have corresponded with the Wright brothers—whether before or after his and/or their flight and to what extent could not be determined. The details given on that point in my book are fictive. His activity as an assistant at Canterbury College and his participation in the Taranaki expedition are also invented, along with the love story with Atamarie and Shirley, of course. In reality, Pearse remained unmarried his whole life and had no known relationships with women.
However, most of the information in this novel about Pearse’s life, his history, and his family background corresponds to the truth. For a few details, such as the horsepower of the motor he used, I found differing information in various sources. Instead of trying to verify them, I simply adopted what seemed most suitable to me. I’m not an expert on flight, and, despite my efforts to learn the basics, aerospace engineers may find mistakes, for which I apologize.
I only intentionally falsified Pearse’s story once: the real inventor did not move from his old farm near Christchurch to a new one in Otago until
1911. His reasons for the move may have been similar to those depicted in the book, but there are extensive blank spots in the documented course of his life, as well as further strange inconsistencies, such as his claim that he had not really flown. All of this was the reason for my massive speculation regarding Richard Pearse’s mental and emotional state: the man whom Atamarie gets to know in this novel suffers from a manic-depressive disorder, an illness still unknown at the beginning of the twentieth century and a condition instead described as melancholy. For me, such a disorder would explain much about the course of the real Pearse’s life, perhaps even motivating his family and neighbors to protect the unstable man from publicity. Nevertheless, this assumption naturally remains fictive. The only truly solid indication of mental illness is found at the end of Pearse’s life. He was admitted with severe paranoia to a psychiatric clinic in Christchurch in 1951 and died there two years later.
In contrast to Richard Pearse, Professor Dobbins, the dean of the Canterbury College of Engineering, is a largely fictional personage. He was inspired by the real-life Professor Dobson, who counted among the founders of Canterbury’s engineering department. However, I could not find out whether, alongside his other work in Christchurch—the city owes to him, among other things, its municipal water lines—he still taught at the university during those years. The college’s course requirements are authentic, and although it is rather unlikely that a girl would have graduated from the program so early, it would theoretically have been possible. The colleges in New Zealand were ahead of the rest of the world in opening themselves, often at their very founding, to female students.
The Egmont National Park around Mount Taranaki was, in fact, established in 1900, but I thought up the expedition to survey it.
All the information about the Maori art of making kites comes from authentic sources. The artistically decorated manu still belong to their living culture to this day. The reports of early flights by people on kites, however, are entirely legendary, which is why I refrained from having Atamarie and Rawiri take to the air.
New Zealand’s involvement in the Boer War and the story of the Rough Riders as presented are largely historically correct, as are the conditions of the concentration camps. Moreover, this term was first used in connection with the camps in South Africa. Though the Karenstad camp is fictional, it is heavily based on the Kroonstad camp.
In the book, the town of Wepener is located “on the border of Basutoland.” It still lies there today, but Basutoland is now called Lesotho. Basuto ponies have kept their name, however. They remain robust riding- and workhorses with a height at the withers of 14.2 hands or 56.8 inches, and they often run wild in the Maloti and Drakensberg Mountains.
As for the history of harness racing in New Zealand, the races mentioned actually did take place, and the New Zealand Trotting Cup was run for the first time in November 1904.
Acknowledgments
As always, many people worked together to make this book happen, from my wonderful agent, Bastian Schlück, to my no less extraordinary editor, Melanie Blank-Schröder, and exceptional copyeditor, Margit von Cossart. Without Margit, I would have gotten hopelessly tangled up and lost once again in my books’ thicket of time. Dates and compass points are not my thing. Thanks to my English language translator, Dustin Lovett, and AmazonCrossing editor, Elizabeth DeNoma, as well as developmental editor Anna Rosenwong.
Many thanks to my test readers as well and this time to my parents and friends in Mojácar who for weeks had to live with a certain absentmindedness on my part. A special thanks to my landladies, Joan and Anna Puzcas, who can now even read my books since they now appear in Spanish as well. Without you all, nothing would work, neither reading tours nor sinking for months into foreign cultures.
And, of course, many, many thanks to all the people who help bring this book to readers, from the marketing department and sales and distribution at Bastei Lübbe to the booksellers. Certainly, readers themselves have the greatest share in the success of Sarah Lark. Recently I enjoyed getting to know many of them personally.
Sarah Lark
About the Author
Photo © 2011 Gonzalo Perez
Born in Germany and now a resident of Spain, Sarah Lark is a horse aficionado and former travel guide who has experienced many of the world’s most beautiful landscapes on horseback. Through her adventures, she has developed an intimate relationship with the places she’s visited and the characters who live there. In her writing, Lark introduces readers to a New Zealand full of magic, beauty, and charm. Her ability to weave romance with history and to explore all the dark and triumphal corners of the human condition has made her a bestselling author worldwide.
About the Translator
Photo © 2011 Sanna Stegmaier
D. W. Lovett is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, from which he received a degree in comparative literature and German as well as a certificate from the university’s Center for Translation Studies. He has spent the last few years living in Europe. He has brought numerous titles by Sarah Lark into English, including the In the Land of the Long White Cloud saga, as well as Toward the Sea of Freedom and Beneath the Kauri Tree.