The Adventures of Vela

by Albert Wendt

  to maintain their absolute loyalty to their true God and aiga

  After days of worry diarrhoea Vela is emaciated and riven with anger

  that Nafanua is absent when She is most needed

  A crucial fatal error! He has described it to Auva’a and Tupa’i

  And She will of course blame us when She returns to find many

  of Her congregation have joined the Pope’s church because they’re hungry

  for the Palagi’s cargo Auva’a accuses We may not be able to stem the conversions

  She knows what She’s doing Tupa’i insists No matter what my aiga

  and I will remain utterly faithful to Her Are you questioning my allegiance

  to Her? Auva’a threatens and staggers up to confront Tupa’i

  Stop it stop it! Vela interjects Squabbling isn’t going to help us!

  So where is She? Auva’a demands C’mon useless poet where is She?

  I bet you She’s sulking in Pulotu with Her crazy father Vela ventures

  We don’t know when She’ll be back so we have to buy time Auva’a reasons

  We and our people in public must continue the pretence of submission

  but in secret ruthlessly enforce allegiance to Nafanua

  As you know one aiga who has always opposed our domination has invited

  the Pope to establish a church here on their land Tupa’i explains

  That is dangerous for it’ll divide our people turn them against the true God

  And us Auva’a reminds them and without a congregation who and what are we?

  Mana-less powerless and poverty-stricken Vela hears himself admitting

  So Tupa’i you know what to do with that treasonous aiga of Nobodies!

  Vela weaves his way unobtrusively through the village through the strange

  chanting the priest is teaching converts who now fill the faletele

  round the captain and his sailors teaching spellbound warriors about rifles

  pausing to observe with awe a priest stitching up a long wound

  passing sailors showing their punts’ construction to fascinated canoe builders

  and two women flirting with a whitebearded sailor who is obviously besotted

  He slips into the thick stand of pandanus palms at the headland stops

  and scrutinises the well-kept clearing and the stone grave ahead beside the sea

  He lingers in the shade allowing the long chronicle of Maifea?

  which he’d composed for Nafanua to roll like caressing waves

  out of his mouth in loving recitation: … the waves roll-in

  roll-out roll-in …

  An old woman wrapped up to her head in a tattered dirty siapo shuffles

  up to the grave unrolls a mat on the lowest tier sits on it and then

  with meticulous loving care starts placing back the stones that have rolled

  off the structure Come and sing me Maifea’s? song Vela hears the invitation

  but there is no one else in the pandanus stand Come it is such a beautiful

  composition one of your best Vela So he steps out from the shade

  and obeys the old crone’s skeletal hand beckoning him forward

  He sits beside her and they sing the story of Maifea’s? arrival

  with his unconditional love his life with Nafanua as his adopted mother

  who defended him even against Tagaloa and his death and Her waiting

  for his people to break through the heavens with gifts for Her

  of their superior technology miracles and healing

  They weep as they sing and when they finish the old woman whispers

  They’re here but they don’t have Maifea’s? alofa and understanding

  Because they’re human like us they’re capable of limitless violence and

  in their mission to ‘save us’ for their God are willing to even kill us

  Sounds familiar to you songmaker? She asks He nods slowly

  Yes Nafanua Auva’a and Tupa’i established their religion the same way

  Are you distancing yourself from that endeavour? She accuses

  I came after they’d succeeded and am only their historian Vela counters

  Her deep cackling is a long accusation that eels through his marrow

  So in the emerging equation you can do without your benefactors? She continues

  Perhaps I can but I love them too much to be disloyal he murmurs

  Pull my other arthritic leg: to save ourselves we’ll betray even sister! She scoffs

  No commoner should talk to him like that and he starts to chastise her

  but the siapo drops from around her face and in the white noon light

  Nafanua’s terrible beauty pierces to his moa and his nausea threatens again

  He prostrates himself before Her So you should be scared to shit She smiles

  I’ll never betray you never never never! He cries She embraces him

  and whispers My beloved you will soon read of Judas’s betrayal

  He moves with Her back into the pandanus shade and he’s puzzled

  by Her committed serenity as She tells him She’d been round the country

  and was at first shocked by how much the Papalagi had penetrated:

  many people were converting to four different lotu including the Popish

  and had already destroyed Her image and manifestations

  Apia was quickly becoming a Papalagi centre which sold guns

  and the new weaponry to Her Tama’aiga to fight out their rivalry

  Apia also now sold much of the Papalagi’s cargo Her people covet

  Her shock turned to stoical resignation when She realized that erasing them

  in Falealupo was to block temporarily only one path of the spreading conversion

  She could assassinate all the Pope’s priests in Falealupo but they’d be replaced

  by others and others willing to die for their Jehovah

  So what are we going to do? Vela asks diplomatically

  She shakes Her head once and as She walks away changes again into

  the old hag armoured in tattered siapo trying to break from Her shadow

  Vela shuffles to Maifea’s? grave puts back the last fallen stones and

  weighed down with despondency contradiction and the unwillingness

  to follow Nafanua into oblivion decides to again consult Auva’a about the future

  It’s evening the Temple pulses to the cicadas’ rhythmic chorus

  Vela and Auva’a sit waiting for their meal From the village comes the determined

  sound of the priests’ new flock singing a Christian hymn about Life Everlasting

  Despite our threats many of our aiga have joined them Vela admits

  What did you expect? When Nafanua first freed Her people at Falealupo

  all of them ditched their atua and worshipped Her Auva’a replies

  It has always been that way: atua come and go depending on

  their mana to provide what people desire and fulfil their dreams of

  the ideal afterlife now a new atua has arrived and we can’t match

  Its cargo and promises of a paradise more paradisical than Tagaloaalagi’s

  He pauses wipes away his tears with his hands and finally relents:

  To survive It we must join It and conquer It from within

  That night while they’re sleeping beside the flickering fire

  Nafanua Her hair flowing golden down Her back Her face luminous

  with the serenity of alofa enters and sitting down between

  Her old companions speaks Her final wishes into their dreaming:

  One day you will return to the Cave of Prophecies and face my wrath

  for your betrayal but for now Vela you’ll roam the world training

  chroniclers who’ll write down my life in their different languages

  out of them you’ll select one who will return with you to be

  my chronicler in an even more terrib
le future Only then will I release

  you from your immortality As for you my devious Auva’a by the time

  we next meet you must ensure our aiga assumes the Headship

  of the Pope’s church in our country and region

  Gently She touches each one on the forehead and with tears

  like diamonds in Her eyes rises rises and rises to Her full grace mana

  and glory turns swiftly and marches out of the Temple into the moon-bright

  forest singing with Her flyingfoxes who fly down rank after rank

  and clinging onto Her lift Her up and away into the Moon’s final

  sighing as It sheds the world’s placenta …

  I stop myself from applauding the movie and examine the others:

  Auva’a and Vela sit motionless heads bowed drenched with sweat

  Crosslegged on the throne hands on each knee back ramrod straight

  Nafanua gazes down at them Her eyes stripping them down to

  their naked guilt and total submission to Her judgement

  So my fickle friends She pronounces we meet as I planned

  and we’ve just viewed my final prophecy in technicolour

  She pauses and smiling widely orders them to look up

  Was it a production that convinced you of its truths and possibilities?

  The two men nod decisively and Vela says Your Lordship certainly

  knows how to use art to represent our lives and reveal the deeper

  realities behind the surface of the evermoving present

  Wow Vela your journeys and adventures across our complex planet

  have certainly improved your knowledge of philosophy people

  and the principles of the new physics! She laughs

  And did you in those journeys train chroniclers and disciples

  for our future? He nods triumphantly All over the world and in

  over two hundred languages — and from them I’ve selected

  my replacement His name is Alapati and he has almost finished

  the first full text of your chronicles (as I’ve told them to him)

  Nafanua’s full gaze is now upon me and I can’t control my shivering

  He’s not bad looking exudes gentleness and sensitivity so why

  has his wife left him? She challenges (Heartless insensitive bitch!

  I stop myself from saying) Were you abusive? She now asks directly

  I shake my head and controlling my temper admit:

  I wasn’t a very hands-on father or attentive loving husband

  I was too busy with my career improving my CV and getting published

  And listening to me and writing up your life story Vela rescues me

  You sound just like me at your age Alapati She laughs I loved myself

  too much to love others and power was my deadly aphrodisiac

  So is he the chronicler you wanted? Vela boldly asks her

  Before I decide I have to consider Auva’a’s case She answers

  I betrayed you but you knew I was going to do that interjects Auva’a

  And even if you consider my conversion to save myself and our aiga

  treasonous I did it with the intention of destroying the Pope’s church

  from within It Something which I sense you programmed into me

  Very observant my beloved taulaaitu! She laughs And generations

  of Auva’as after our last meeting have succeeded in finally making one

  of my heirs Cardinal of the mortal Pope’s Menagerie in Polynesia

  And for that Auva’a I forgive you and ask you to forgive me

  He falls forward and holding Her right foot kisses it

  Yuck! She shudders Every time I see you kissing the priest’s

  ring I want to vomit so don’t do it to me — unless of course

  you’ve become a foot fetishist like Vela in his sychophantic youth

  They laugh together Yes I was such a foot-licker! Vela squeals

  And is Vela going to be released? I was surprised by my presumption

  Trying to hold in their laughter they stare at me and then

  She shrieks and shrieks Her spittle spraying over us and exclaims

  He’s bloody cheeky just like you used to be Vela Egotistical

  and arrogantly sure of his talent! Her companions laugh some more

  So he’s just right for the job of writing my biography

  Do I have a say in the matter? I keep challenging

  Not if you want your father Vela released She threatens

  I catch a desperate plea in Vela’s face but deliberately delay

  Besides your preening ego wants to write up my life so you

  can be famous She accurately reads my ambition I can also throw

  in immortality for you I glimpse a wicked glint of sadistic pleasure

  in Her dark eyes and shiver though I’m sorely tempted

  I’m not that power-addicted! I deny Her huge offer

  Thank you son thank you Alapati! Vela cries

  For the next three weeks we meet in the Cave every day

  and I have to recite for Nafanua’s (and Vela’s and Auva’a’s) corrections

  elaboration and editing all of Her chronicles as told to me by Vela

  It’s so true that in any collaboration we each perceive reality so differently

  offering even contradictory versions of the same events — memory

  is so frail and erratic and tends to fill the gaps with egotistical fiction

  Worst of all I have to deal with the three biggest egos I’ve ever

  encountered with each insisting on the ‘truths’ of their versions

  To protect my sanity I eventually play them off against each other

  flattering each one to whale-like proportions and then pushing Nafanua

  to pull rank on Her collaborators for what I want — after all

  if I decide to quit you won’t have a chronicler I threaten Her

  (1) The Ascension

  The evening we finish Vela serves up a meal of bonito cooked in

  coconut cream yam and papaya that we eat in mellow sad silence

  which anticipates the separation of friends who love one another dearly

  We will always be with you Alapati as you continue to story

  our lives history and refusal to become nothing Nafanua blesses me

  Outside in the forest our flyingfoxes and future wait to receive us

  She puts Her gifted hand on my head and says Ia manuia lou olaga

  And whenever you need me I’ll be there Turning to the others

  She says trying to control Her sorrow You are now free —

  thank you for your alofa for this unworthy person all these years

  We meet always in the blood and gafa of our Cardinal and in

  Alapati’s chronicles Vela consoles us Yes murmurs Auva’a

  Nafanua leads us out into a world now free of the moon into

  the cool weaving silence that holds every thing in balance into

  Tagaloaalagi’s gifts of poto masalo agaga finagalo atamai

  and loto which enable us to be human so capable of alofa and fa’aaloalo

  Thank you for my freedom Vela whispers and we sogi Give my alofa

  to Reina Sina Mele Michael and their spouses and my mokopuna

  Nafanua spreads Her wide arms Auva’a and Vela move in and She gathers

  them into Her sides Every leaf of every branch of every tree around us

  comes alive with our flyingfoxes who break up into the air and then

  in a swirling torrent swoop down catch the pagan Trinity

  and whirlpool them up and up and up while I watch and watch

  and witness their holy ascension into Tagaloaalagi’s Lagituaiva

  (2) The Resurrection

  ‘The Adventures of Vela’ has been accepted for publication

  I don’t think I lied to Nafanua not telling Her the title of our book

  I’m certain that
because She can see every thing including the future

  She knew what I was going to do while we collaborated on Her biography

  I also know She’ll forgive me when She reads the book and realises

  it is Her and Vela’s and Auva’a’s resurrection grander even than that of Jesus

  Alapati

  (Samoa — Fiji — Aotearoa/New Zealand — Hawaii — Aotearoa/New Zealand)

  Copyright

  First published in 2009 by Huia Publishers

  39 Pipitea Street, PO Box 17–335

  Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

  www.huia.co.nz

  ISBN 978-1-86969-363-3

  Copyright © Albert Wendt 2009

  Cover painting: Black Star 6, 2008 by Albert Wendt. Photograph courtesy of

  McCarthy Art Gallery.

  Drawings on pages 90—93 by Albert Wendt

  Cover design: Tangerine Design Limited

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

  National Library of New Zealand Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  Wendt, Albert, 1939-

  The adventures of Vela / Albert Wendt.

  ISBN 978-1-869693-63-3

  I. Title.

  NZ823.2—dc