The Adventures of Vela

by Albert Wendt

  From my welcome home feast he excluded

  (against customary practice) his aristocracy calling

  them effete sons of pigs too overfed for war

  (and fucking) all military personnel because

  he’d heard I was now a dove all lesbians

  and transvestites because he was certain I was straight

  And invited (against customary practice) all artists

  (including commoners) because he wanted me to love

  the arts all chefs he considered worthy — only three

  and female and untitled but whose recipes he coveted

  the clubfooted who his taulaaitu predicted

  would rub sweet luck onto him that week

  The Menu: fresh seaeggs sea from Toamua

  brought freshly by fast spirit carrier

  fist-small palusami and umu-baked Niue taro

  wild pigeon stuffed with green papaya and coconut cream

  octupus cubed and baked in its own ink

  and coconut cream suckling pig rubbed with its

  own bile and turned Tongan-style over

  a charcoal fire wild pineapples from the volcanic

  soil of Asau orange-flavoured banana poi

  All to be washed down with cool green coconut

  juice and Dad’s expert commentary about

  true Samoan cuisine unpolluted by the foreign

  As we feasted to Dad’s strict rule of no abandoned

  gorging and gluttony taste and savour every flavour

  slowly I pretended uninhibited enjoyment

  but Tagatalua’s absence was a heavy tide

  spilling out from my heart

  In love I was double-personed

  Even when Dad to everyone’s surprise whooped up

  on his tail and conducted the impromptu choir

  of artists and the clubfooted and the singing

  and dancing began to ease the sated belly

  of the night and my hands clapped and

  my mouth sang loudly I was rooted in human pain

  knowing that Tagatalua would die

  abandoning me to an Atuahood without end

  with my self who’d experienced in love what

  the limits of joy are and can’t do without:

  an endless thirst without quenching

  You must dance for your father Mum prompted

  She rubbed my body with scented oil

  dressed me for the dance and on my head

  placed our aiga’s tuiga of long blonde hair

  scarlet segavao feathers and polished pearlshell —

  nest for the La’s mana and blessing

  As we joined the dancing I knew —

  and my heart was an excited puppy — how to win

  from Dad Tagatalua’s exemption

  I danced onto the floor to the beat of

  the fala paused bowed to my father and

  then flowed into the taualuga

  The feared Keeper of Pulotu had never danced

  in public so when Dad tailed his happy way

  from the choir to be the aiuli to

  my taupou there was hushed bewilderment —

  fear that a tapu was being broken

  Sing go on sing! he commanded and they continued

  Mum was weeping tanoafuls and all

  of Pulotu was a wonderful celebration

  to see the Eater-of-Darkness and his Heir

  dancing until my reflection in his huge

  glad eyes melted into tears

  and his mouth exclaiming: My Beloved Daughter!

  Admitting his love for me acknowledging

  my gender for the first unforgettable time

  that stripped away the shell of ruthless warrior

  and I was simply girl daughter blubbering

  in front of the motley choir of spirits blubbering

  all of Pulotu blubbering flooding

  More of that’ll ruin my reputation! he grunted

  next morning They’ll always be scared of you I said

  Sure? he asked I nodded and he inflated into

  his usual scowling self and ripped into his

  usual austere morning fare of taro papaya

  and sundried shark’s liver and mountain water

  For two weeks I waited played the ideal daughter

  yet when I sensed he wanted

  the warrior I outfought outeverythinged

  his champions allowing him to brag:

  My blood is best and a woman at that!

  (The Way of the Weapons has no place for drag)

  One evening while Mum hummed

  to the cicadas’ trilling and he lay contemplating

  the rafters I cast my line: Do many ask

  to return to the world of humans?

  Every day I’m asked for all sorts of reasons

  he nibbled at the bait and stayed alert

  Some plead premature death and to return to

  fulfil interrupted plans Others admit to

  immoral lives and want to relive more morally

  Others want to rush back and extinguish

  cooking fires and complete menial chores

  One baldy wanted to retrieve his wig

  Some leaders real and unreal still want to

  save their villages countries peoples (Poor

  buggers are hooked on the power cookery

  Suffer from atua-complexes!) Some virgins

  want to return to be relieved (pleasurably)

  of their haunting innocence

  One skinny beggar wanted one last lick

  of his sadistic missus Another longed for

  one more smell of his childhood A Tama’aiga

  who shall remain nameless was homesick

  for his pet turtles and lizards Yet another

  to re-experience his expensive and lordly funeral

  Pardon my un-Atualike language but I’ve never

  fathomed these ungrateful fucked-up humans:

  my Kingdom has an ideal standard of living and climate

  no starvation no permanent dying no anarchy

  no mosquitoes and diseases

  and I’m a wise and benevolent ruler

  yet some still prefer that pit of pain

  ruled over by psychopathic crazies

  Me included? I reminded him Of course

  not — you’re my blood he swallowed my hook

  Have you ever allowed people to return? I asked

  Hell Tagaloa no It’s against the natural order

  Humans die their spirits come to me

  their bodies become rich manure We atua

  can’t die — that’s our gift (and

  curse) Tagaloa Himself can’t alter what’s in

  that cycle encompassed by the Va

  What about the half-atua/half-tagata? I asked

  Who for instance? he countered Maui! I answered

  That arrogant ratbag: Hine really crushed him!

  In laughter his gullet opened and

  my elusive hook dropped into his belly

  But they can visit Pulotu and the heavens

  barred to ordinary humans I said

  But they die because of their human half

  Mongrels they are but very hardy

  and enterprising: comes from existing on the margins

  and hungering to belong (No one believed Dad

  was capable of theorising yet there he was

  expounding a novel thesis called ‘marginality’)

  Could someone who’s hermaphroditic be

  a marginal? I played the line If majority

  mores consider it normal then the person

  will be accepted he reasoned but if not then

  the poor bugger (or is it ‘buggeress’?) will be

  rejected as a deviant

  Is that your personal view? I played him further

  You know I’m liberal and tolerant

  and permit my subjects to be their true selves

  No closet dev
iant here The hook was

  truly embedded in his unsuspecting belly

  So in my most daughterish tone I said

  There is a person I love most dearly (Very

  good! Mum interjected) And want to restrict

  my life to that person (Nothing wrong in that

  Mum interjected) I’ve had enough of philandering

  (Your father’s always been faithful Mum interjected)

  It’s true love at last! (Wonderful! Mum interjected)

  Still contemplating the rafters Dad said Nothing

  wrong or unusual in that but is his ancestry

  untainted royalty? Is he master of the Way

  of the Weapons? Can he sire outstanding heirs?

  Love is not enough Nafa: not for your

  husband who is to rule with you forever

  Tagatalua qualifies on all counts I answered

  (Wonderful! Mum interjected) But may have

  a slight disadvantage (What’s that? Dad

  interjected) Of being fully human (Not

  a mixture? he interrupted Have you

  triple-checked his ancestry?)

  Not one cell of atua I replied

  Still contemplating the rafters he said Nothing

  wrong in that: ever since Lord Tagaloa created

  everything we atua have cohabited freely with

  humans siring handsome children sometimes

  marginal but gifted and driven

  But my children your only heirs will be

  mortal I reminded him He was bolt upright

  his eyes spearholes of fear

  My line must not be tainted by death he whispered

  No we mustn’t have that Mum interjected

  We tried not to look at Dad’s frightened tail

  Whenever Dad was deeply troubled he re-

  treated into the sea his original element

  into the dangerous whirlpools just off

  the reefs of Pulotu There in the rich

  turbulent womb of his conception he was

  foetus again safe free tidefed

  We waited and inside me Tagatalua

  was ready for rebirth into Atuahood

  or a oneway human dying

  You’ve really hurt your father Mum kept

  repeating Why not choose a nice atua?

  (Like Dad and his constant philandering? I thought)

  His strong sea-coral smell arrived first then

  he slid into our fale for the evening meal

  skin burnt ebony longhair bleached to fiery

  yellow exuding the joy of an impish secret

  Lucky we’d cooked his favourite night dish:

  charcoal barbecued whole chicken and boiled bananas

  He refused to look at us as he chuckled and ate

  chuckled and ate and ate and ate

  We slaughtered and cooked our flocks

  the neighbours’ and others to feed his in-

  satiable laughter until he just lay there

  laughing and caressing his mountainous belly

  Soon we had to flee to the neighbour’s

  for he started farting continuous thunder

  All night he thundered and Pulotu nearly choked

  on the chicken-flavoured stench

  All night he laughed and drummed his hands

  on his belly (and Mum and I fumed!)

  At first light I waded through an air

  of liquid stench and found him

  afloat (and snoring) in a pond of

  his shit and yellow-luminous piss

  Gently I took him outside wiped him clean

  with chicken feathers and put him asleep into the sea

  Buried the fale in feathers and burnt it down

  Basically we’re all excrement and urine

  some more so than others he said when he returned

  I ignored him as I packed to leave You’re full of piss he said

  You’ve used my love to try to get

  what’s been refused to others always

  (So it’s no? I interrupted ) It’s our Lord Tagaloa’s

  to give and I went and saw Him he said

  (And? I couldn’t suppress my greed) In his eyes

  was a burning sadness He owes me a few

  so He’s granted your wish! he whispered

  I was out and running home

  Wait! he called Tagaloa’s exact words were:

  Tagatalua shall live forever and growing

  Young and in love and in a hurry to tell

  my beloved of her deification I didn’t hear

  him call: Your mother and I will always

  love you! Or recognise Tagaloa’s exemption as riddle

  (1) The Riddle

  In the House of Sorrow atua too can die for

  a time for ever since our world was born

  out of Tagaloaalagi’s loneliness

  we atua were bred to fear solitude

  and the long sad silence that roots

  our reflections in Vanimonimo’s mysteries

  Selfsnared in that splendid House I picked at

  my wounds and sucked up their delicious

  bleeding but even then my father’s ironic

  laughter and farting would mock me and

  I’d curse him for not warning me about

  the exemption’s irreversible consequences

  Tagatalua shall live forever and growing: And she

  did live and grow but the growing was

  her body aging which at first we didn’t notice

  (in the selfcontained happiness of our

  love) until the first grey hair fingered

  its fear across her lush black head

  You said I was to be immortal she whispered

  when the first wrinkle was a bird footprint

  under her right eye She’s not going to die —

  that’s what I promised Tagaloa assured

  me when I confronted Him

  But her body’s aging! I insisted

  Yes that’s the growing He explained in the brood-

  ing honesty of His House Enraged I forgot

  who He was and sobbed and stamped my feet

  Nafa He consoled your religion preaches beauty

  isn’t physical but emanates from the agaga

  Learn to love her forever in her aging too

  Love at first sight and forever without infidelity

  or change or drift into killing boredom

  is the privilege of the young (and the

  very old who come late to know love) And

  I was young so I returned to Tagatalua

  convinced I’d love her always despite her growing

  For the duration of many human lifetimes

  we loved without change but with variety

  (because of our double natures) to keep boredom away

  Our taulaaitu disseminated new gospels about

  ideal love and family life with us as model

  Peace goodwill and prosperity reigned

  Children complete the ideal aiga Auva’a hinted

  and your subjects are asking for your completion

  If that’s the gospel why not! we decided

  (Our lives spin into crucial oscillations

  on innocent decisions we later regret

  and want unplaited from the rope of history)

  I’d conveniently proclaimed my subjects

  as my children — good for unity and loyalty

  But to be truthful in hindsight being an only

  child (and spoilt) I wasn’t fond of children:

  they were snottynosed yaw-ridden bawling hungry

  distractions from myself and life’s enjoyment

  So we and our taulaaitu embarked on

  ‘the natural enterprise that justifies all life’ (Auva’a’s

  description): being penisless I was to

  be mother (though Tagatalua wanted

  that honour) but I was secretly unhappy

  about it —
I still felt more a man than woman

  The sperm was Tagatalua’s but she was woman

  in our marriage so I believed I’d impregnated

  myself: Strange twists to our emotions

  Strange too I felt pretending fussy feminine

  mother to satisfy my subjects who arrived

  in worshipping droves to pay tribute to my illness

  And did my enterprising taulaaitu use

  my swelling to benefit our religion: daily

  reports on my blessed condition were spread

  through pilgrims to our nation to keep

  them believing in Atuahood and giving

  generously to me and my taulaaituhood

  Like you I believed maternal love was a sacred

  and natural instinct so it was an earthquake

  shock to discover when I started spewing

  the mornings away that I wanted to eject

  the parasite from inside me — maternal love’s

  another sweet myth to enslave women

  Keep them busy with annual childbearing

  away from the possibilities of free loving

  and the choices of infidelity (But

  as Boss of society I wasn’t ever to go

  public on that truthful heresy:

  atua and other privileged classes don’t suicide)

  I’d been wounded many times but that pain

  was nothing compared to the parasite dragging

  itself out in successive waves of wrenching-stopping

  wrenching-stopping to turn me inside out

  A true Samoan (and warrior) should swallow pain

  but I couldn’t bear it and screamed and screamed

  In case things went wrong and an edited version

  of the birth had to be fed to the people

  only Tagatalua Auva’a and the midwife attended —

  again Auva’a’s immaculate planning For

  a moment when I surfaced free at

  last of the parasite I caught a frightened

  disbelief in their eyes and glanced at the child

  in the midwife’s arms: still coated with birthfluid