The Adventures of Vela

by Albert Wendt

  and then refocused on us From their centre dropped one then two

  then three of their leaders who flapped their wings open and circling lower

  and lower brushed against Vela’s loving hands I’ve missed you

  missed you he caressed them his eyes glittering with tears

  More and more of them joined their circling dance

  I held up my arms and they were soon a swift furred current

  around me their fetid putrid stench the worst I’d ever encountered

  I gagged and started choking and they unpeeled quickly to give me air

  You’ll get used to it Vela said The more they love you the more smell

  they emit so get used to it (I didn’t tell him I was terrified

  any further increase in their love would choke me to death)

  We sat down on a massive banyan root and Vela lowered the umbrella

  They won’t shit on us anymore he chuckled I looked around

  Ceilinged with pe’a the three banyans formed a massive cathedral

  that wombed us in a fetid gloom of incredible growth and promise

  This is the last city of pe’a left Vela’s sadness felt alien in that fecundity

  Once they had eleven protected cities throughout our district

  He didn’t need to tell me the causes of their destruction

  When Nafanua’s congregation converted to the religion that preached

  humans’ divine right to dominate every thing and dismissed

  as superstition the tapu that connected all things in the Va-Atoa

  even the pe’a became food easily harvested with shotguns

  charcoal-roasted and served up as a ‘delicacy’ at elite parties

  On our way down to the coast through neat taro cacao

  and banana plantations he told me that in Nafanua’s queendom

  the pe’a were made sacred after they’d saved an illustrious ancestor

  who’d been captured in a battle tied up and dumped on a fire

  As a colony the pe’a had darkened the skies as they’d descended

  and urinated on the flames and had then carried him to safety

  They saved me too but that’s a story for another time he said

  and again I was impatient frustrated and irritated with him

  taking me for granted as passive recorder of his ego-tripping

  Later I would also admit to myself I was still deeply wounded

  by his absence when my marriage was failing

  that I was nothing more than the chronicler he needed

  The white sand throughout Falealupo reflected a fierce light

  that blinded us as we drove slowly through it neat thatched-fale

  with families cooking their morning meal many waved to us

  neat palm trees neat flower gardens and shrubbery everything afloat

  You remember the story of Maifea? Vela asked I nodded

  That’s where he landed He pointed at the cathedral ahead

  It was of Hollywood dimensions blood-red roof massive twin towers

  holding up a massive sky ablaze with arc lights and a massive chorus

  of invisible angels promising you God as Charlton Heston (before he sold out

  to the gun lobby) Was it in Viva Zapata starring Marlon Brando I’d first seen

  a cathedral like this? Or in The Power and the Glory with Laurence Olivier?

  What about in Anthony Quinn’s Mexican bandit movies?

  From both sides of the cathedral extended a compound of buildings

  that looked like the Spanish haciendas in those movies

  The two-storied buildings were a school and quarters for the clergy

  others the mission offices a large garage with three cars and a bus

  Two women in black were sweeping the school’s front veranda

  Straight out of the cowboy movies eh! Vela echoed my thoughts

  They built it over Maifea’s? grave? I asked He nodded Right over

  the bones of their first voyager to reach us and if you want

  to kill another religion what do you do? Go right into its heart

  and squat there I answered Yeah like they did here he indicated

  Poor Nafanua eagerly waited for Maifea’s? people to bring Her their marvels

  but they came with that and a Book that promised salvation

  We parked beside the cathedral under a sprawling breadfruit tree

  Two young men from the compound hurried over

  We got out and they greeted us respectfully in Samoan

  After I introduced Vela as Rajesh Patel he asked politely

  to see ‘the Padre Head of this beautiful mission’

  Impressed they bowed and said they would fetch him

  One of them hurried off to do that and as the other led us up

  the front cathedral steps I felt sacriligeous walking over Maifea’s? body

  We entered and my heart stretched out to try to encompass the church’s

  cavernous dimensions Maifea? is still here and he is so happy

  we have returned Vela whispered in the cool sea of darkness

  that rippled from our feet as we stood in the narrow doorway light

  and filled every crevice every corner every detail of that cavern

  I tried to feel Maifea’s? smiling unconditional presence

  The youth disappeared into the darkness ahead struck a match

  that flamed and he used that to light the altar candles

  But I thought Maifea? had no memory! I protested to Vela who ignored

  me and headed for the altar and the looming Crucifixion above it

  He knelt down at the altar rail and hands clasped bowed his head

  and appeared to be praying with the candlelight shimmering over

  him like liquid fire and me bristling to confront him

  about the limits of and borders between his facts and fictions

  Or had he forgotten that in his original tale Maifea? had lost his

  memory

  and couldn’t remember daily even Nafanua his adopted mother?

  Before I could do that a very Kiwi accent behind me said in Samoan

  Welcome to our humble church gentlemen I’m Father Macdonald!

  I turned and met Peter O’Toole’s double all he needed was a turban

  diaphanous white robes and a white stallion and he was Lawrence of Arabia

  We shook hands and he said The word has spread about Mr Patel

  visiting our humble district in search of a chronicler called Vela

  I pointed at the figure at the altar rail and we moved towards Vela

  Dressed in a black ie lavalava and white shirt long blonde-bleached hair

  that was tied in a ponytail deeply tanned skin luminous blue eyes

  barefooted a lean body that moved effortlessly our Peter O’Toole

  was now cast as the cultured beachcomber gone native the tortured priest

  in Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory or was I imagining wildly?

  When Vela rose up and turned to us and I felt his total reaction

  to Father Macdonald I knew my imagination was deadly accurate

  Vela’s whole being was an unconditional Maifea? smile of trust

  and gladness as he stepped forward bowed in the Indian fashion of greeting

  held Father Macdonald’s right hand and despite the priest’s reluctance

  raised it to his lips and kissed the ring on it

  I’m not of your faith Father but I respect it and admire your Jesus

  and his selfless sacrifice to save us Vela intoned with total conviction

  Thank you sir the priest replied and I am an ardent admirer of your faith

  Thank you Father we Hindus need to learn more about Christian alofa

  So you know Samoan? the priest said A little only a little Vela responded

  I learned it from Vela Nafanua’s chronicler who stayed with us in Bombay

  I kno
w of Nafanua but not of that chronicler was Father Macdonald’s un-

  expected reply Perhaps you could join us for morning tea and continue

  discussing the Lady and Her chroniclers (I sensed Vela was upset by that plural)

  A short while later we were seated in cane chairs on the spacious veranda

  of the priests’ quarters cooled by the soft breeze weaving in from the sea

  and being served morning tea and our host’s life in Falealupo

  19

  The Priest’s Tale

  Six years out of the seminary in Aotearoa he’d been appointed

  to Falealupo to replace Father Hatherly who’d drowned at the edge

  of the headland behind the church (We could see it from the veranda

  —the swirling waves and foam where Maifea? had been washed up)

  He’d known little about Samoa and Falealupo but was ‘raring

  to have a go at serving God and His grand mission’

  Naivety ignorance and arrogance were the ingredients of his courage

  But he didn’t know that then far from it he was a brute front-rower

  from the Waikato utterly determined to devastate the opposition

  (Vela and I being rugby fans appreciated his rugby analogy

  but we maintained our attentive fascination in silence

  eager for his story to unfold to unravel)

  You know of course that Falealupo was our first crucial

  foothold in the so-called pagan darkness he said In the heart of

  the Lady’s congregation I heard myself countering

  Yes right in the centre of Her government he said with sadness

  Vela coughed and then explained Vela told me in Bombay

  that it had been a beautifully calculated invasion

  Father Macdonald said Nafanua’s people converted by

  the hundreds and Her priests sold out to the new religion

  I glanced at Vela with angry consternation but he avoided me

  What about Her chroniclers? I asked In my over twenty years here

  I’ve not found information about chroniclers Father Macdonald replied

  But you know about Her priests Auva’a and Tupa’i? I continued

  He nodded They are still the most prominent aiga here and our

  Cardinal is their leading son He started chort-

  ling You can accuse Nafanua’s priests of betraying Her but

  in the ironical run of history Her grandson is now boss of

  the arrogant church that outlawed Her into the Christian darkness!

  So it has come back to us as She predicted! murmured Vela

  Did She predict that? Father Macdonald’s interest was passionate

  Nodding slowly Vela said According to Vela Nafanua

  during the bitterest days of Her defeat by the Albinos told him

  the future would see Her return to power because Her people’s

  conversion didn’t mean their abandonment of their sacred gafa

  in which She is their connection to all things including their identity

  Now I see it Father Macdonald said more to himself than us

  What do you see? I demanded Why She never hurled Her full Wrath

  at Her people he answered She knew we couldn’t erase Her because

  She is in the bones of all Her people from Tagaloaalagi to the present

  Surprised and shocked I had to ask him So you believe there is a Nafanua?

  He and Vela gazed at each other Over the years I’ve grown to believe it

  That is considered heresy by your church! I accused

  But it’s irresistable and healing Vela soothed him

  Trembling visibly Father Macdonald said The first years of my life

  here were unbelievably untroubled: our childlike parishioners were better

  than the ones in Aotearoa — they attended all services masses

  and confessions treated us with respect and total obedience

  and their Christian ali’i and matai ruled their villages justly

  In my arrogant front-rower complacency I didn’t bother learning

  the culture and history of Falealupo and Nafanua Who’d united and ruled

  Samoa for three hundred years because those were the days

  of Darkness evil cannibalism savagery and ignorance

  unworthy of knowing and best left out of the people’s memory

  I wasn’t even disturbed by the rumours circulating among our

  parishioners that Father Hatherly had taken his own life because

  he’d opened up that Satanic book of heathenism and fallen prey

  to Nafanua’s evil and irresistible powers of seduction

  Father Macdonald stopped and we both gazed at Vela whose eyes

  were glazed with pleasure his body taut with anticipation

  Evening we’d just finished preparing for Christmas midnight mass

  I was resting on the back church steps looking down at the headland

  Unexpectedly I was enveloped by an overwhelming longing for

  my childhood Waikato farm and my mother who’d abandoned us

  when I was five and I never saw again and a pet lamb I’d bottle fed

  but which died mysteriously and left me with guilt

  I started weeping silently for myself and my homesickness

  and through my tears I saw a lean young Palagi man costumed in

  an eighteenth century sailor’s outfit clambering up the rocky headland

  I waved to him but he seemed set on the direction of the church front steps

  I ran back up the steps into the candlelit church feeling

  he was the solution to my disturbing longing for home

  Frantic I searched every corner of the church but he wasn’t there

  At the crowded midnight mass I was passionate with hope he’d attend

  and receive communion from my hands that longed inexplicably

  for his forgiveness but he didn’t appear so afterwards while having supper

  in our quarters I mentioned it to the other priests and nuns

  who looked at one another and agreed they’d never seen such a person

  Perhaps you should ask our learned native Cardinal! Father Malone

  who’d lived in Falealupo for thirty years suggested The Cardinal once

  told me that his pagan ancestors had buried their first Papalagi who’d

  been washed ashore on the ground where our church now stands

  Such a fanciful history eh! Father Malone laughed and I was left

  riven with curiosity guilt and that unquenchable longing

  Did he tell you the name of that shipwrecked sailor? Vela asked

  Father Macdonald shook his head And when I later asked our Cardinal

  he confirmed the grave and the sailor but not his name

  Nafanua and Her people who found him must have given

  him a name I deliberately tempted Vela who refused to look at me

  I’ve not been able to learn that from our parishioners Father Macdonald replied

  What game was Vela now playing not divulging Maifea’s? name?

  My frustrated anger was threatening to shatter my loyalty to him

  but Vela stopped that happening with his ferocious gaze

  What happened next? he asked Father Macdonald and I had to swallow

  my anger and let the priest continue his story (But right there I knew

  Vela and I were dividing and was glad of it)

  I was to glimpse and lose the abandoned sailor weekly and some-

  times I hid in the church and waited for him but he never came

  I told no one of my obsession while I searched for information

  in our church records — I even wrote to a friend in the Vatican to check

  our Pacific/Samoa archives —and when those showed little I started

  talking to the Falealupo elders venturing into a reality considered worthless

  I
learned that history well from Vela Vela interrupted so perhaps you

  should start with Nafanua and Her conquest by your Albino ancestors

  (Was that righteous anger in Vela’s instruction the sadistic desire to

  see Father Macdonald subjected to Nafanua’s seductive mana and

  punishment? I asked myself anticipating the tale’s development)

  I ventured into supposed evil in search of an abandoned sailor

  and found myself irreversibly fascinated with Nafanua’s menagerie

  of characters their history and culture their seeing and believing and

  in that driven quest the thick-headed front-rower was tranformed

  into a devout follower of Nafanua who last year was accused

  of heresy by his Roman colleagues but was saved from trial

  by Nafanua’s heir our courageous Cardinal

  So you too have fallen for Her? Vela continued his interrogation

  What do you mean? Father Macdonald tried to escape him

  Our Lady is more than a God you know that Father! Vela was triumphant

  The hapless priest arms wrapped round his cringing body turned away

  More than a God She is a woman and an irresistible seductress Vela sealed

  the priest’s guilt anguish and future — and I couldn’t forgive Vela for that

  Like Father Hatherly I was besotted with Her and was caught between Hell

  and Her undeniable and dangerous beauty and needed to confess

  it! Father Macdonald whimpered his anguished hands clasped to his eyes

  as if to blind them And did you? Vela continued his enjoyment

  I sought out our Cardinal and confessed my heretical madness to him

  Like me you will have to learn to live with it he started my healing

  Nafanua named the shipwrecked sailor Maifea? I started consoling

  Father Macdonald Nafanua healed and adopted him in the hope of