by Albert Wendt
As usual, Daniel made it look as if his Dad was in charge, but he was really guiding him – this time down Wellington Street to the school gate and his first day of primary school.
Daniel avoided his dad’s shadow and coconut oil smell as his dad bent down and kissed him on the head, took his bag from him and, saying ‘bye Dad,’ hurried away from him, hoping none of the kids who now filled the front school grounds had seen the kiss. ‘Ia e kama lelei!’ his father called. Daniel didn’t turn to acknowledge the caution to be a good boy.
His parents had fussed over him that morning, and his mother had repeatedly assured him that he needn’t be scared of this new important phase in his life because his Palagi teachers and the Palagi pupils would treat him kindly. Daniel didn’t understand why he should be wary of those Palagi and of going to primary school. He’d just spent two years at the kindergarten down the road where every teacher and every other kid was Palagi, and he’d thrived, loved it. He wasn’t afraid of his new school; he wanted to get right into it, and was ahead of his jubilant feet that were almost bursting with joyous expectation as he raced through the school toward the wing where he knew his classroom was, and well away from the six weeks of the Christmas holidays, during which his dad had continued trying to fill his memory with his tortuously told and boring stories of Samoa, his village Malie, their aiga and their genealogies.
Do we ever instantly recognise and identify with accuracy the people who are going to remain crucial in our lives and in our memories of our lives? Do they emanate special odours or vibes or feelings or touch or sounds? Do they act in certain ways; possess certain mannerisms that captivate us immediately and inexplicably? Do they possess an inherent mana that influences and attracts us, binds us to them? Or do people, just by being in our lives for most of our lives, whether they want to or not, inevitably influence us and the ways we become? Of course, as a boy, Daniel never thought of it that way.
Alone he stood just inside the doorway, and observed. To his left some pupils were sitting at tables or standing against the wall; wary, fidgeting, waiting for something to happen.
In the middle of the room were a few sobbing, snivelling pupils whose parents were trying to console them. He certainly didn’t want to look at them. He searched for the teachers, and, in that search, located across the room another Samoan boy who was trying not to be noticed but who appeared brightly confident, fearlessly ready, willing, hungry for what was about to start.
Further down, sitting at a desk and observing every thing from under thick eyebrows, was a tall Palagi boy with hair Daniel’s mother would have described as ‘red as a summer sunset’, who, when he caught Daniel watching him, smiled the slowest, most open smile ever bestowed on Daniel.
At the right-hand corner near the blackboard, leaning with his right shoulder against the wall, his head tilted onto his shoulder, his fierce black eyes scrutinising Daniel and refusing to look away when Daniel gazed at him, was a Māori boy.
Then, just before a woman entered the room and stood behind the teacher’s desk, Daniel caught sight of a dark Māori girl huddled against the back corner trying to disguise the fact she was taller than all of them. She flicked her head up when she caught Daniel’s scrutiny and then dismissed him by flicking her long black ponytail like a whip at him once.
He must have recognised then that they were, like him, loving being there: recklessly ready for the future.
And, immediately, Miss Baystall came out of that future to live in them. ‘Children, children, come over here!’ she called, and, with her long bare arms, beckoned them, in an encompassing movement, to come and sit on the floor in front of her. ‘Come; don’t be afraid, children.’ Daniel noticed that even the snivelling children stopped their snivelling at once. Separating from their reluctant parents, they slipped over to her and, with their gazes fixed on her, sat down in the circle of her spell, in which Daniel was already anchored, cross-legged, back ramrod straight, as his Sunday school teacher had taught him, his arms folded across his chest. Out of her enveloping and secure quietness, she said, in almost a whisper, ‘Today is our first day together and this is our first story together.’ Daniel was caught forever in the vivid blueness of her eyes, in the inviting accessible trust in her face, and in the unconditional welcoming presence she exuded. He was ready for her first story; he wanted it, he needed it …
From a hardcover, illustrated anthology of stories, she retold dramatically the story of Sina and the eel, which his mother had told him throughout his life and which he’d not expected Miss Baystall to know.
When Daniel broke from her spell, he noticed the four pupils
he’d seen earlier sitting in front of him and behind him. He avoided
looking at them; especially at the girl who’d flicked her ponytail at him.
‘Now, children, my name is Miss Baystall,’ the teacher divulged, but Daniel had known this from his mother, who knew everything, the day she told him he was going to Freemans Bay School. His mum always sussed out everything well before you came across it, because she believed that a life full of surprises and the unexpected can also be clogged with pain and disappointments and, ultimately, disillusionment. Like your father’s life, she repeated to Daniel. ‘Can you all say “Miss Baystall”?’
‘Miss Baystall!’ they chorused, Daniel and his four companions chorusing the loudest.
‘Once more, children.’
‘Miss Baystall!’ This time the chorus was loud and together and triumphant.
‘Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?’ She smiled.
‘No, Miss Baystall!’ Daniel and his companions chorused as if
they’d rehearsed it. Some of the other kids twittered and laughed
and sniggered.
‘Bloody kids’ – the Māori girl’s whispered but adamant accusation from behind Daniel slid past his left ear. He didn’t want to believe he’d heard it, and glanced at Miss Baystall, praying she wasn’t thinking it had been him.
‘So, Mere, if you think it wasn’t hard, please spell it for us.’ With Daniel and his three companions, the rest of the class now held Mere and her ponytail in their sadistic gaze. (How did Miss Baystall know Mere’s name?)
Without hesitation, without fear, and with arrogant ease, Mere spelled it slowly and correctly, and then, swivelling her head round and up, flicked up her ponytail at the ‘bloody kids’. There!
‘Thank you, Mere!’ beamed Miss Baystall. Then unexpectedly she asked Mere, ‘Would you like me to spell your name, my dear?’ Mere nodded once. Miss Baystall pondered for a moment and then said, ‘Mere. M-E-R-E. Handsend. H-A-N-D-S-E-N-D.’ Starting with Mere, a large sigh of admiration rippled like a heightening wave through the class. Before Daniel and his companions knew it, the ‘bloody kids’ were a forest of pumping stiff arms calling ‘ME, ME, ME, Miss,’ and wanting to spell out their names and earn Miss Baystall’s love
and admiration.
Daniel and his companions were the last to spell their names. And that’s how Daniel learned his companions’ names and birthdates:
Mere Handsend, born 3 December 1958.
Keith Soothby, born 27 March 1958.
Paul Lagilua, born 4 April 1958.
Aaron Whairangi, born 27 October 1958
It was the gifted, meticulous investigator Mere who, on Wednesday, during playtime, while the boys were playing skip rope with her but trying to appear they weren’t, who put it to them, ‘I bet ya don’t know Miss Baystall’s whole name, eh!’
‘Who then, who then?’ Keith challenged.
She waited till they’d admitted ignorance and thereby acknowledged her superiority, and then recited, ‘Miss Baystall’s name is – yeah, is – yeah is –!’ What a torturer; what a bloody torturer! Aaron would say years later when they discussed this incident.
‘Hurry up, mulipo‘ua,’ Paul demanded. Daniel was shocked but wholly elated by Paul calling her an ars
e full of sores without her knowing it.
‘Yeah, Miss Ki‘o!’ Daniel taunted, using one of his mum’s favorite swear words; Mere didn’t know what this meant either.
‘Ya, tūtae, tūtae Coconuts!’ she attacked the others.
‘Okay, stop it!’ Aaron ordered. ‘Mere, you’re not being fair!’
Daniel started rolling up the skipping rope. ‘Here, you skip on ya own, ki‘o!’ And he handed her the rope, but she pushed it away.
‘It’s not fair you and Paul talking Samoan …’
‘Whad aboud you talking Māori?’ Keith accused her. Daniel started walking away with the rope; the other boys followed.
‘Okay, then,’ she relented. ‘Her whole name is Miss Caroline Hinavaiana Baystall.’
Daniel can’t remember exactly who started laughing first, but it must have been Keith, because he was the gifted linguist: a Palagi kid adopted by a Coconut family, Niueans. ‘Miss Caroline Hinavaiana Baystall, eh?’ Keith imitated Miss Baystall’s immaculate enunciation. Then they all imitated him, and soon they were skipping rope to Miss Baystall’s whole name, and within a day, their whole class knew about the Caroline and the Hinavaiana: especially about the latter, because it was so easy to make up jingles and rhymes with it.
Yes, Miss Baystall, Miss Caroline Baystall, Miss Caroline Hinavaiana Baystall. Where her parents ever got that Hinavaiana from, Daniel never had the courage or nastiness to find out, after Miss Baystall, on Friday afternoon during their first week at school, caught
Paul reciting:
Miss Baystall, Miss Baystall, Miss Hina-hina-hina-vaivai-ana
Is from Samoa-samoa-samoana …
And Aaron adding:
Yeah, Miss Baystall, Miss Baystall, Miss Hina-hina-hinaana
Is from Tahiti-tahiti-tahiti-nui-ana …
And Daniel trying to be smart:
And loves to Hina-hina-hina-vai-ana
In the cave of Ali Baba …
Miss Baystall wasn’t angry or upset or insulted or anything – or if she was, she never let on. She merely sighed that breathless sinking sigh they came to recognise as her saying, ‘that’s enough, and please don’t do it again’, and they didn’t – not out of fear but out of utter adoration and respect.
Twenty or so years later, when Daniel’s daughter was born, they called her Cheryl Hinavaiana. Keith’s first daughter was named Hinavaiana Karoline. Mere’s only child, a daughter, had the unfortunate birth certificate name of Hinavaiana Malaetau Lagilua Whairangi Suipi Handsend, but in life used the sensible name of Dottie Caroline Handsend, with her mother’s and Miss Baystall’s wholehearted agreement. When Paul and his wife Cherie had their first daughter, and the Tribe visited them in the maternity ward, Paul took them aside and threatened to kill them if they suggested to Cherie that she call her girl Hinavaiana or any other variation of that name. They realised he wasn’t kidding, and Aaron suggested they call her Mere. Cherie loved that and asked Mere for her permission, which Mere granted.
So you see, Miss Baystall’s name became one of the Tribe’s
family names.
A long time afterwards, Daniel was to realise that was the start of the vocabulary and language, te reo, that, over the stretch of their lives, became that of their Tribe: a rich and unique fusion of kiwi English, Māori, Samoan, Niuean, American movies and television. Miss Baystall’s initiating them into her stories and their language and imagination and possibilities was a fertile ingredient at the start. Alongside Daniel’s mother, Miss Baystall was also the start, the source, of Daniel’s love of literature.
10
Laura needed one more stage one paper to complete the BA section of her BA LLB, so she enrolled in Anthropology I: An Introduction to Pacific Cultures. She’d heard it was an easy option – besides, she’d always been fascinated with things Māori and Polynesian. She’d inherited that interest, she now believed, from her grandmother Nettie, who she and her mother had stayed with and who had cared for her whenever her mother had suffered ‘another bad spell of her illnesss’ and checked herself into the ‘hospital’, sometimes for weeks. At those times, Laura had prayed that her stay would be permanent. As time had passed, she’d ceased feeling guilty about it.
Her grandfather had died before she was born, and she knew little about him because Nettie and Laura’s mother had erased him from the family history they fed her. Nettie hadn’t remarried, preferring to raise her daughter (and later Laura) on her own in her comfortable home on Ngāmotu Beach in New Plymouth, living off her salary as a teacher and the small inheritance her farming parents had left her.
Laura preferred Grandma Nettie to her mother not because Nettie played to the stereotype of the grey-haired, loving, overindulgent grandmother who spoilt her grandchild but simply because her mother – and she’d always found it difficult to remember her name – was schizophrenic and her illness was worsening with every year. Laura was in precarious jeopardy from her mother’s blazing demons, who spilled out of her visions and tried to invade her heart. With Grandma and in her house she was safe from them; they daren’t invade her dreams because she was protected by the Māori artifacts, especially the ferociously faced carvings, that Grandma had strategically placed around their house. When she asked Grandma about the carvings, she’d admitted she knew little – and didn’t want to know more – about ‘those pagan idols your Grandfather collected, using up most of his salary each month.’
One cold and damp winter day, the brisk wind cutting into her face, she was relieved to get into the large lecture theatre. It was almost full, and she squeezed into the second-to-last row. She unwound and folded her long woollen scarf, took off her black beanie and shoved the two into her satchel.
The theatre was noisy and already smelling obnoxiously of damp sweaters, wet shoes and body odour; row after row of students appeared in semicircles below her. At the bottom was a long desk, a moveable lectern and blackboards. There were about 200 students, and she didn’t know any of them, although in her three years at Auckland University she had not come to know and befriend many students: she’d never felt safe, comfortable, secure in large groups, or with a large network of friends who expected you to adhere to a group friendship code of behaviour. She loved people – certain people, anyway – but every time she really worked to become a loyal, trusting, self-giving member of a group of friends, she just couldn’t go all the way; some inexplicable dark distrust lodged in her core adamantly refused to allow her to contribute herself, unconditionally, to the pool of selves that comprised the group. As far back as she could remember, she’d not had more than three friends at any given time. Three: why three? Or, as her driven mother would have challenged her, why not four or five or 200? To her mother, numbers had magical properties. If they were not interpreted and used correctly, they would harm you; even cause velvety dragon-like creatures from the Great Wall of China to erupt into your bowels and devour all your succulent family secrets, which had been stored there since the blazing instance of your conception.
Laura broke from her thoughts when the lecturer – and she was pleasantly surprised he was Māori/Polynesian and in his thirties at the most – walked self-consciously past her and down the aisle, while most of the students watched and wondered about him. Suited in navy blue, with a white shirt and red tie, he had abundant kinky black hair, a finely chiselled face and a tight fatless body. She imagined him coming straight out of Rousseau’s and the European Enlightenment’s visions of the Noble Savage. Yeah, and she was ready to pay him her full attention. But right then someone who was standing above her in the aisle, pressed her bony knee against hers, and nudged her twice, rudely. She glanced up and saw another Noble Savage, who, with her height and immaculate black sweater and jeans and bearing and arrogance, couldn’t be denied entry into the seat next to her. So Laura slid over to that seat and allowed the beautiful Polynesian maiden – a princess? – to ease into her seat. This was the clos
est Laura had ever been to a Māori, and she realised – and was intrigued about it – that she wanted to be that close.
‘Tēnā koutou, good morning. My name is Doctor Maurice Matangi, and I’m Ngāti Whātua!’ their lecturer started. Laura turned her attention to him.
‘Yeah, and I hope you know a lot about that, doctor,’ the noble princess beside Laura challenged under her breath, and so Laura’s attention, on her left, focused on her, while her attention to her right remained with the handsome, fearless one in the front.
‘For most of you this will be your introduction to Māori and other Pacific cultures …’
‘I like that reference, doctor; I hope your suntan goes all the way into your ihi!’ Laura continued her pretence of not listening to any of her neighbour’s bold challenges to their permanently suntanned lecturer, but was savouring fully, all of it.
Dr Matangi, after distributing copies of the course description, a list of prescribed texts and a detailed and lengthy reading list, spent most of the session explaining the material and answering questions from first-year students who were still intimidated by the indifferent, hostile, threatening atmosphere of the university. While he was doing that, the princess continued voicing her hopes for and expectations of Dr Matangi of the Ngāti Whātua and his course, skillfully and poetically.
Why Laura did it and why at that junction, and why with someone who obviously didn’t give a damn about her or any other unsuntanned member of their class, she was never able to figure out. But she took out her pad and, with her black ballpoint, printed a note: ‘HI, MY NAME IS LAURA + I DON’T KNOW ANYONE IN THIS COURSE.’ She pushed it, cautiously, towards her neighbour, feeling absolutely vulnerable exposing herself like that and expecting to be trampled on for doing so. She dared not look up at her possible tormenter, her ears ringing, her belly thumping.