Both Sides of the Moon

by Duff, Alan

  I was, Kapi made with small grin and realised it was the first he had made since that day. Though Wild Hair did not grin back. He only said, And what proud ancestral name do you know is unattractive description like Wild Hair? None, Kapi answered. None would pass down such a name.

  And yet am I so repulsive of physical countenance even with my hair that I have nothing to pass down to other generations? Clearly not, Wild Hair answered his own question. So, where does this leave me?

  I have no thinking within me, Wild Hair, to project into such a future. I have asked that of myself in this last season and more, countless times.

  Well we have answer, do we not? he asked the people. And they nodded and some made ugly, congenital expression of the deformed, the hideously born, the mentally unfit, with awkward misshapen movements of twisted bodies. Though within those Kapi noticed a certain softness, as if children, as if innocents, were answering in the undangerous affirmative to Wild Hair. Not like howling answer to a mind-bereft call to war. He further realised that these people were giving back response of mind — of mind and only that — no! How could this be?

  He reads me again, reads all of us, without fully knowing that he does, said Wild Hair wagging a knowing finger at Kapi, who noticed the nail was long, like the rest of them. He is almost upon our answer. Take your mind further, former warrior.

  But Kapi would not. He shook his head, was suddenly aware of the weight of the growth upon his scalp that having no village trimmer for so long must mean he himself was as similar appearance to Wild Hair. And yet he had said nothing of that.

  We invite you to take thought further on this question, Kapi. What answer would we have found? What do we have to pass on?

  The thought was preposterous but Kapi found himself saying it: Would it be a kind of love?

  Love, of a kind. But that is not the answer. Try another.

  Then Kapi knew, it came like an unexpected light in a cave, a flame, or glow-worms suddenly coming on. Except he could not say, it brought a threat of vomiting, of bodily sign of rejection of such unimaginable thought. So he shook his head, and was returned to that time when bile poised in his betraying belly to give warning to the enemy. I have less venturing man in me these days, he said.

  We understand that. So, let me tell you: it leaves me, and each person here — since the collective has forced us to be as singular existence — with none but idea. Untied, unbound, free idea to pass down. Our answer, if you would call it that, which we don’t, or not so certain in manner lest we are tied to it as if to a tree mightier than ourselves, our kind of answer is: of the mind, for the mind. Understand you that?

  No, Kapi did not understand, not for a moment — I was born being given all the answers. I only had to answer to the demands of warriorhood. I do not understand your words.

  If answers to everything are already in place for each person born, why would you seek more? And then what would your knowing be but repetition, same as yesterday’s knowledge? And then what if the world, of insect tiny or land and sea large, does continually change on you — what then of your fixed knowledge, how well does it serve you? Knowledge is like the sun breaking from dark storm clouds. And question is a bird soaring above those clouds. If you are born with all knowledge known ahead of you, then what training, what preparation is that for when life changes? And where does it offer light upon tomorrow?

  Still confused, Kapi said: It rarely changes. For most, never. Never. Kapi found himself near to getting emotional here. Tomorrow has always been the same as it was today and yesterday.

  What if you are born looking like some of us? What if you are born with mind that does not think like others and they deny you for that? Would this not create question in you, if only on how to escape their death sentence? If only to ask why you are born with a difference and why it is considered of such defect your own kind should have you killed or banished from their lives? It is why you are here and have not drowned yourself, or thrown yourself off a high cliff — because you have life and life wishes to live.

  It can live without question, I assure you.

  No, it cannot live without question. It may endure. It exists. But it does not live. Or we would be here intent on returning. Or making ourselves like those who spurned us. Yet there is not one who would consider such an idea. Not one.

  I hear you, Wild Hair. But I am not yet of your thinking. Not yet, but there is hope I think, Te Aranui Kapi. Or have you taken another name?

  I have no other name in my knowing mind of myself, Wild Hair. How about Wild Hair The Other? And all burst with laughter.

  What, my hair is as yours? This time they bent and twisted and hobbled and slapped each other and doubled over with much mirth. Kapi’s eyes got taken, too, by figures popping up in the rocks on the hill and laughing loudly also.

  We do not care much for appearance for its own sake. But Wild Hair The Other, you are twice my growth! And Wild Hair The Other was given to laughter himself. Or rather, a small chuckle in keeping with his residue of a warrior. And when the laughter had subsided, he asked if there was a trimmer of hair amongst them and, if nothing else, could he be trimmed of these wild, frizzy locks before he departed?

  A hand gestured towards a human shape that was woman — woman? Trimming hair! And ugly she was too, with one side of her face sagged all the way to the dropped shoulder. She was of prime child-bearing age, but who would mate with her?

  But he didn’t dare offend, he just nodded gratitude at the offer. And was reminded that he had not known woman (oh, Tangiwai) in a long time.

  Do you think about what happened to your people, Wild Hair The Other? — I have thought. And what did you conclude, or perhaps witness yourself? — That I destroyed my people, my name, my everything.

  By what — running? Or …? I was considering it was thinking that betrayed you. For what else could it be for one who is long proven in the same battles he has fought and won countless times?

  Ae, I was with thoughts. Many strange, disturbing thoughts. Of whence I do not know. Only that they have ended me here. — Ended? So did you not bring yourself here to start anew? And Wild Hair’s eyes for the first time held accusation.

  Anew? With respect, but how could this be for me anew? Wild Hair tapped his forehead: It is here and only here. Even in our pain we know more gladness than we knew in that former life. We do not yearn for those people.

  That may be so, but where is place for unfitting people who are forever condemned to roam, like slaves are condemned to stay still until their turn for death and the cooking ovens? Where is the life in that?

  We agree, it is no life, despite the joy we have made amongst ourselves. But one day there will be change and then it is our day, our time. From whence this great change that must be? The coming of creatures even stranger than we, yet hugely powerful. Who are they? I have heard of these people. Who are they?

  They are the white man. He comes in huge vessels that have many many sails to move him across the vast oceans faster than an entire village of your best paddlers could take you across the same. He is cruel, he has weapons of unimaginable killing power, he is clever, and he is here in this land spreading like a disease — to most. But to us, like a true sign, a true omen we can witness and test with our eyes, our brains, and not blindly accept like the givings of your precious tohungas.

  So now Kapi was much puzzled and intrigued. These people were not as he had imagined, not closely so. No man more intelligent had he ever heard speak. And nor calmly unauthoritative and yet so authoritative. A chief without need to title, to high-birth family lineage. A man of power without imposing power. A chief that saw in the future not defeat but change.

  So do I ask to be of your company? Or do I get this hair trimmed (by that ugly, droop-faced female) and be on my tormented way?

  What, and leave without asking questions of who we are, from whence and whom did we come? You are much too interested man — now you are — to just walk away like that, are you not? Come, sit wit
h us for a while, at least to tell of your last lonely year and some. Come, Wild Hair The Other. This is the other side of the conceptual moon, the side you see in the sun’s light. We shall give you new name: Moonlight.

  24

  But what of Tangiwai Kotuku the day her lover’s courage failed him? She and her people had found differently to Te Aranui’s tentative reuniting with a new people. Here is what they found with the outcast band they encountered.

  The terrain they walked over towards those men outlines performing haka — if such ill-timed haka could be called performance, and yet it had its own ferocity for being so ill-disciplined, so fundamentally out of control — was hard ground not given to high plant life, just tough, sinewy scrub that a prevailing wind from the south-east kept flattened and stolen of nourishment, and anyway there must be something not right with the soil, perhaps it lay with haunted bones, or memories not yet ground and washed away.

  It was land that fell suddenly into a short but deep ravine, which explained the outcasts’ apparent incautious courage, since it was this hill they had always lined up on to taunt this tribe’s war parties, and now some of them were pointing eagerly at a direction for the arrivals to go, as they were lifting up fronts of garment to display erect penises and the women their genitals, with much madness in their howling laughter at the same time the chaotic haka continued. Her small child in her hand frightened in his grip, Tangiwai spoke to him firmly, be not afraid, son. Not of anything.

  The decision had been made back up there, in the now overrun fortress village, the universe as they had known it, and if any had chosen to glance back it was smoke issuing from torched dwelling places and those burning taonga of magnificent carvings vanishing white into the sky, from so much growing of nature, to so much creativity of carving man, so much given meaning of this people, to so little lightness of billowing smoke all gone (all gone).

  So Tangiwai led them down a steep slope on a criss-crossing path over rocks that became earthern banking that then fell into the damp shadow of trees, whose trunks far below pushed their tops into light that the bases never knew.

  They descended as though into a cave, light just hints and dimmed suggestion, and footing was more and more slippery, and the presence of bad spirits became more known.

  At the bottom, out of nowhere, apparitioned a skinny man — older, perhaps reached a rare forty in these war times, without mana of facial tattoo that said he had known war, and he had wicked compensating eyes and missing teeth and stumps from putrid gums; he beckoned they follow him; which was across a short stretch of ravine bottom, out of which thrust tightly spaced thick tree trunks from a low canopy of thickest fern, competing for the light up there whilst down here it was wet and dark and with foreboding of bad spirits, or bad thoughts lurking.

  Up behind the thin man they trekked in a line led by Tangiwai, her child Ratanui farther at the rear and with instructions he should run should fight break out and go where his legs would take him. The birds made the only sound other than their progress, and they were shrill, as if trapped or as if not even birds were exempt being touched by the evil all around now. Suddenly, the man broke away to his left and disappeared into the growth. They all halted at a voice crying out that now they had them!

  The true people looked up and saw many ugly outcast men poised behind large rocks ready to push down on them. They were jabbering excitedly in a strange chattering tongue, in the same language but another dialect and harsher, more guttural sound; not so much a hint of that classical influence passed down from the period when all over the land the language had sprouted to a new, higher level of expression. And living things along with the heavens were included as graphic and poetic references and metaphors and much-gained meaning to the common perception.

  Not so these voices; they simply bellowed. As if these were a people lived too long under siege, or perhaps their thoughts were like good food gone rotten.

  She called up to them: I am Tangiwai Kotuku, the new leader of a people having to start anew. You are our nearest neighbour of no tribal affiliation and yet intimate knowledge of this territory as we. We are here to propose to you that we share its bounties and our joined skills. We come bearing no malice nor plan other than you be our last hope, and we in return to give you of what we may, which, we make promise, is considerable.

  There was a silence ended by laughter. Laughter that a few knew from days of going to or from battle: taunting, possessed by something, probably evil spirits and most certainly mental unwellness. And a voice called down that they were about to push a rock down to see if as a higher tribal species with all this promise to offer they did possess the necessary to withstand the crushing weight from above.

  But Tangiwai believed it was but a bluff and she continued onwards, and it was as she thought, no rock fell, and so she began to believe that this was chance after all. And her people were a little gladder behind her.

  But partway up the steep winding slope, there was a sound of a great weight making whisper through the air and the short, cut-off cry of someone’s life gone in a whisper, and then the crashing as the rock rolled on down the slope, and the people crying out in dismay, and some had Tangiwai’s name cursing off their fearful lips, for surely now they had entered the place of madmen and demons.

  Tangiwai screamed at the laughing outcasts behind the rocks that they must not be men, they must be of small, ineffectual, unpleasing penis size to do such cowardly act, and if she reached the top she would challenge the rock pusher to a fight to the death and damn him to the world where only cursed, forsaken spirits dwell — she would win, by Tu the God of War she would win.

  She charged up the slope, pulling and scrambling on root upthrust and vine and branch and smaller trunk. And she was heedless of where she was, only that she had singular desire to fight this small-cock coward who would push a rock down on a helpless member of her already devastated tribe.

  Puffing, she was at the top where the barren, low-heighted plains continued on the other side, across those tree tops as if they were dwarfs when in truth they were mightier than some that soared from flat land, and she met there a grinning man with a spear, which he had poised to launch at her and who said, I am he, and look — lifting loin garment with other hand to reveal an erect penis — is that small, is that a size that would not please a brave woman such as you? But still you will die for it, she-dog bitch. And he hurled the spear.

  But she ducked. It flew over her back. She stood up and said she had seen larger and look, now it is unswollen and looks like a dried muscle, tasteless and stringy, from a foul sea bed. So he came at her. And she at him.

  Her people came up as from a hole, afraid, fearful, unknowing and yet all too knowing, to sight of Tangiwai thrown herself at an outcast man and biting deep into his neck. They saw blood suddenly erupt from a burst pathway in the man’s neck, heard his strangled cry, saw Tangiwai the she-bird’s talons clawing then at his eyes, saw them turn to scarlet, then more blood-spurting sockets devoid of sight, devoid of the clever jelly and strand connection to the brain: severed the connection between light and the outside world and brain giving it interpretation, meaning, now meaning taken away.

  They saw the man falling, hands clutching at his missing eye holes, and Tangiwai atop of him with her skirt pulled up and her genitals squatted over what was sightless now, and screaming that he didn’t know what he was missing and he anyway could not have satisfied this, not this; not when it had known true warrior penetration and pleasuring (so it was clear and stated that she still had feeling for her erstwhile man, coward defiled though he was. He was still the standard by which she judged men).

  And the dying man’s companions stood at their poised rock places staring in astonished awe at their man’s unseeing face, full of damp cunt from sweating not desire, and the she-dog bitch drove a greenstone club across his face, cleaving him at a diagonal, fully halfway, with this club belonging to the warrior who had pleasured this cunt. She used both hands to pull the be
autiful stone out of ugly-faced bone and unhealthy flesh, and she aimed it again and found the pathway perfectly and the cut was near to the rear of his head held on by a scalp, an untrimmed thickness like soft bedding on the ground that ran scarlet, it oozed red, it stained the marriage of brown earth to blood making it not black not pink, but a colour of its own for which there was no name and yet so ingrained in the memories of all men and women and children of this savage land.

  But not all was victory, it was only life and lives spared by the ferocious fighting courage of Tangiwai the assumed leader; for she had to present herself to the leader of these outcasts, just a little further on in a stinking hovel of a people passing bodily waste where it took them, human and bird bones like a storm-washed shore of debris, flies as if this their breeding ground, stenches so thick it took all of Tangiwai’s fortitude not to show gag.

  And there this huge man, a quite bizarre tattooed giant of no hair, the countenance and mirroring eyes of no man, not a thinking one, not one with a shred of mercy in him, whose like she had never set eyes upon. His finest tattoo designs told her his ending up here must have been a fall from grace every bit as bad as Te Aranui’s now. But a coward this? It did not seem likely.

  He said to this bloodied woman (whom he had just been told had killed one of his men, had ripped out his eyes then tasted him what he could not see of her genitals, which surely be fat like the fabled oyster from land far south of here, and that this was act even he had never before heard of, he admired it, no denying), You had better show yourself to eyes that can see, and you better be a sight worth witnessing or I will cut out your genitals and put them into your mouth and watch you consume that vital part of yourself, of every woman, of every man — true man’s — vital interest, basic want, of every human’s birth even outcasts, even misfits come from cunts. He would surely make her eat the best and only part of herself important to him, or any man that he had respect for, which was few, if any.