Cowrie

by Cathie Dunsford

  Cowrie realises she must create another focus, which normally her work would provide, so that she does not centre all her emotions around Koana. She reads Paneke’s books on healing and the ancient art of lomilomi and uses her writing as an outlet for her feelings. Paneke is fascinated by her sketches of the rock drawings at Puako and explains many of the symbols to her. She talks with Paneke about Apelahama and comes to realise that her journey has wider than personal implications, that she has a role to play in claiming her ancestry along with all the other mixed-blood Pacific people, and in deciding what responsibilities lie with this knowledge. Paneke is sure this is why Apelahama guided her back home to Hawai‘i.

  Every night Cowrie dreams of Koana. As time passes, she becomes more afraid that Koana will distance herself further, finding the struggle to assert this new kind of friendship too difficult in her circumstances. The old night-mare returns. But each time, in mid-flight, she swims back into the wave. She never lets herself be smashed upon the beach, Mere has taught her how she can perform such miracles in her thoughts. Gradually, another dimension creeps in. She swims back out to sea yet the other turtles do not recognise her. The experience has altered her. She is alone.

  One morning, she wakes up in a fevered sweat, her lavalava on the floor beside her. It is hot outside, but inside feels like an oven. Then she remembers. She is in a long line of men and women and they are all naked. They have inverted triangles tattooed on to their shoulders and are headed for a concrete building in the distance. As they move inside, they smell the stench of burning flesh. The men grasp each other. The women hug one another. There are tears. The heat is unbearable and the stink of gas rises to engulf them.

  Cowrie can bear it no longer. She has to get up. She walks out to the lomilomi space and sits on the edge of the platform gazing into the heavens. She feels dwarfed by the sky. From up there, her presence would be like watching a person walk through the Kilauea crater from the rim. A black ant making its way across a hot lava field. What chance does it stand? The odds are stacked.

  She takes in a deep breath. She can not, will not give in to this feeling. After all, she did manage to prevent herself from crashing on to the rocks by diving back through the wave in her dream. Surely she can apply this to her fears now?

  Clouds obscure the moon. Some relief. The night rains are about to descend. Cowrie hears the downpour in the distance as it comes over the mountains from the west coast. She drops her lavalava, walks on to the grass and stands naked with her arms outstretched, waiting for the wet relief the heavens offer her. Rain descends, first in gentle drops then in large translucent sheets. She surrenders to the power of the water and it feeds her with renewed energy.

  The next morning, she sleeps in. Paneke brings her some pineapple juice and tells her that the sugar cane workers say the giant sea turtles are back at Punalu‘u Beach. She suggests Cowrie visit them and drop her off at Pahala on the way so she can get to Hilo for a meeting. Cowrie offers to drive her all the way but Paneke says no. She enjoys the bus ride, meets friends she hasn’t seen for a while and likes the driver. Cowrie laughs, agreeing to take her to Pahala.

  “Good. Then you can swim with the turtles,” adds Paneke as she leaves the room smiling.

  Cowrie grins. There is a touch of Hinekaro in Paneke. She knows how to get her way while pleasing others. Grabbing a T-shirt, she hitches her lavalava around her waist and joins Paneke at the table. She ladles fruit into the coconut half shell which they always leave out for her. As she drains the last drops of juice, turtle woman looks up at her. There is no fear in her eyes. She rides the wave with jubilant power.

  “Paneke, did you finish telling me the story about the child without knowledge of her origin whose real father asked her to be sent to him in a red canoe? Koana came in at the part where she and her girlfriend bathe in the sacred pool and a turtle rubs her back…”

  “Laukiamanuikahiki. Well, I stopped at the nice part. When she arrives, she is not recognised at first and an oven is ordered to be built for her death.”

  “An oven?” For a moment Cowrie freezes. She remembers her nightmare. “Surely an oven is a terrible fate for a supposed mistaken identity, especially when the grandmothers landed her in the chief’s garden without her consent?”

  “There’s no arguing with chiefs, Cowrie. Life was different then. But don’t worry. She never ends up in that oven. An owl sweeps over. It is really her aunt who assumes the form of an owl and she chants out her name and lineage and displays the tokens of her birth. The chief recognises her as his daughter.”

  “What tokens? I don’t remember you mentioning them before.”

  “When the chief got Hina with child, he left a feather cape, a bracelet and a whaletooth necklace so he would know it was really her when she returned.”

  Cowrie thinks of the offerings in Apelahama’s box which led her to Koana, and through her, Keo and Paneke. She has a lot to be grateful for. She secretly wonders what might have happened if the two girlfriends making lei in the garden by the sacred pool had run away together. What the touch of the turtle has to do with her.

  “Thank you for telling me the tale of Laukiamanuikahiki, Paneke.”

  “Ah, I see you can actually say her full name now, eh?” grins Paneke.

  “Yeah. I’ve been practising.”

  “So, you ready to go?”

  “Sure. I’ll just get my togs and fire up Honu.”

  “Togs? What’s a tog?”

  Now it is Cowrie’s turn to laugh. She races back to her room and returns with some bright purple, shimmering material. Holding it up, she says, “Some people call them bathing costumes. We call them togs.”

  Paneke is amazed. “Where does that word come from?” she asks.

  “Who knows?” replies Cowrie. “Somewhere hidden deep in our colonial heritage, no doubt.”

  Amused, Paneke repeats the word over several times. Cowrie knows that by this time tomorrow, half of the Hilo shopkeepers will be muttering the mantra togs… togs…togs.

  Kia ora Mere

  We returned home to find Koana’s former partner, Aka, and his friend Vile dead. (Vile was the fisherman who told me how they rebuilt the sacred heiau on the island captured by the US military.) I—and I think Keo—suspect that the military took revenge. But no one is willing to state it out loud. It’s not like the boys at Waiouru playing war games on the slopes of Ruapehu. This is for real.

  Koana is in shock. Paneke gave her a lomilomi treatment and I learned how to make the fire for the steambath beneath the steamhouse.

  Than Paneke told me more about the turtle woman myth: how an aunt turned into an owl and saved turtle woman from the ovens by chanting out her lineage and displaying the tokens of her birth. Suddenly, it all came together for me. Apelahama left those symbols in the old box for me to discover my heritage, rescue myself from oblivion, find a strength from my whakapapa to face the future.

  There’s another side to this I dreamed I was in a line of gays at Auschwitz, walking into the gas ovens I couldn’t stop it happening in my dream. But now I feel a new power. The aunt turned into an owl and saved turtle woman from the ovens. So can we be crafty and clever. We need to be, to survive.

  What do you think? You can tell me in person. I feel I am ready to return to Aotearoa now. Last night I dreamed you were calling me. I heard your voice through the boiling mud of Whakarewarewa. I hope you’re ok. I want to come home for the opening of the new marae and for Kuini’s writers’ hui also. And to take care of you as you took care of me,

  I love you, Mother.

  Arohanui,

  Cowrie.

  Paneke clears her post box at Pahala on the way. There is a letter for Cowrie from Mere. Sent to Na‘alehu post office c/- Koana and posted on. Mere seldom writes unless it is important. She prefers face-to-face contact. Cowrie rips open the letter while Paneke exclaims over the telephone account increase.

  Mere wants her to return home for the opening of the new marae. They need someon
e to help co-ordinate an arts festival to coincide with the opening and Cowrie’s name was put forward at one of the meetings. Mere feels it is her responsibility to accept, that she has been called to work for her community, that she should be honoured. Cowrie is relieved. She feared that Mere’s letter might contain bad news of her health. At the bottom of the page is a PTO. Cowrie turns the paper over and sees all her patterns for the tukutuku panels laid out across the page. They remind her of some of the markings etched into the pahoehoe lava flows at Puako. In the far corner, Mere has scrawled a note: “Rawinia’s herbs worked better than expected. Ka pai. Tena koe, Cowrie.”

  Suddenly, she is brimming with desire to see Mere again, relieved that she is all right.

  “What will you do?” asks Paneke.

  “I want to return home and yet a part of me wants to stay here also. I must talk to Koana first. Maybe she and the twins will be able to come and visit me in Aotearoa sometime. If I go home, I can raise some money for their airfare.”

  “Mere is missing you, Cowrie. Your community needs you there. We can look after Koana. She will miss you too, but I know she will understand. You must trust me on this.”

  “Mahalo, Paneke. You are right. It will be hard for me to tear myself away from Koana and the twins, but perhaps the time is right to do so now. I can return later when…”

  Before Cowrie can finish, she bursts into tears. Paneke holds her close against her chest.

  “There, there, Cowrie. You can swim back into the wave. There are many more opportunities to come.”

  “But I love Koana, deeply.”

  “I know, Cowrie. I have known all along. Your face, your whole being is aflame when Koana appears before you. Like Pele’s fire lighting the slopes of Kilauea at night. I don’t have to be a magician to see this.”

  Cowrie is shocked her feelings have been so transparent. “So you don’t mind?”

  “How can caring and loving of this depth be wrong? You have given the gift of yourself to Koana, Nele and Peni. That is the greatest love you can offer, Cowrie. Never forget this.”

  Cowrie is overwhelmed with relief. She thanks Paneke. Just in time. She notices the old bus drawing near in the rear-vision mirror. As it crawls to a halt in front of the post office, she helps Paneke out of the truck.

  “Go and see Koana now. Discuss this with her,” urges Paneke, as she boards the bus. Cowrie promises she will.

  Watching Paneke depart amidst the rattle and dust, Cowrie feels torn apart. She knows she wants to go home, back to Aotearoa. Back to where she was born. Yet a strong part of her now feels she belongs here at Punalu‘u, Pahala, Na‘alehu, on the Big Island, Hawai‘i, her ancestral home. She feels split at the root.

  Koana looks pleased to see Cowrie. She invites her in for some kona.

  “I’ve got some news to tell you, Koana,” begins Cowrie.

  “Not before I’ve explained some things to you,” replies Koana. “I know you’ve been hurting, holding yourself back, wondering why I allowed you to get so close then held you away…well, I want to explain as best I can.”

  Cowrie is surprised. Koana seldom opens up like this. “It’s ok, Koana. I know you need time to get over Aka’s death and…”

  “Kulikuli, Cowrie, kulikuli!”

  Cowrie knows this is a warning to be quiet and let Koana continue. She’d heard Paneke use it.

  “You know that Apelahama and my grandmother, Kini, were friends?”

  Cowrie nods.

  “Well, I found out from Ika‘Aka that they were more than friends. Tutu Kini was betrothed to Pakile, whom I knew as my kuku, grandfather. But my mother, the first born daughter, was thought to be the daughter of Kini and Apelahama. When your grandfather left for New Zealand, Tutu Kini and Pakile married immediately but according to Ika and others, she mourned the loss of Apelahama for years afterward.”

  Cowrie is stunned. “But why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Cowrie, listen to me. You know that day when I gave you lomilomi and then we kissed, or nearly kissed in the pool?”

  How could I ever forget it, thinks Cowrie.

  “A part of me wanted to respond to you. Even though I do not understand how two women can survive as lovers, I enjoyed being close to you. At that moment I wanted to kiss you. To be intimate.”

  “So what stopped you?”

  “Apelahama. Don’t you see, Cowrie? You and I are blood relatives, ‘ohana. We share the same grandfather. It would be kapu. It is forbidden.”

  Cowrie is excited for a minute, realising that her instinct is not wrong, that Koana did feel the intimacy by the pool. “But Koana. We don’t know that for sure. Besides, isn’t that out-dated now? I mean—we’d be kapu anyway because we are two women.”

  “No Cowrie. You don’t see. This is important to my family, therefore it is important to me. I cannot betray their trust in me.”

  “Or maybe that’s a good protection against the unknown?” Cowrie offers, feeling selfish to be pushing at the borders when Koana is being so giving.

  “Paha. But even if it were not so, I could never be sure that it would be what I’d want forever. I must think of Peni and Nele as well as other family members.”

  “But surely Nele and Peni would love it? They adore us being together.”

  “Yes. But would they feel the same when they are older, when the school kids start teasing them and the local community isolates them for having a mum who is kapu?”

  Cowrie thinks back to the roasting her friends’ kids got on Waiheke Island, where the lesbian mothers became a big issue at the local school. Another small island. Everyone knows everyone’s business. Different attitudes divide into opposing camps and fester underground rather than being aired openly. Koana is right. Here, it’d be centuries of tradition to fight. And it would be Koana who would have to bear the brunt of the prejudice, not her. It becomes more complex when large extended families are involved and different cultural expectations preside. On the other hand, friends like Paneke might understand.

  “You’re right, Koana. It would be a big move and it would have to be considered carefully. Besides, you don’t need to worry. I’ve decided to return home anyway.”

  “Not because of me, I hope.”

  “No. I’ve just received news from Mere. She wants me to come back for the opening of the new marae and the local community suggested I co-ordinate an arts festival to help celebrate the occasion. I need to do this, Koana. It is important to me. But I feel split. I don’t want to leave you and the twins.”

  Koana is relieved that the subject has changed and that she has actually had the courage to face up to Cowrie. She promised Paneke that she would explain about Apelahama and warned the others not to say anything until she was ready to share the news. She had to know she could trust Cowrie. It was important to keep Tutu Kini’s honour—even though a few people suspected her mother was actually Apelahama’s daughter. Had it not been for her feelings for Cowrie, she would have kept the secret forever.

  “‘Ohana. Whanau. So you do understand a little of what it is like for me here then, Cowrie?”

  “Yes,” Cowrie mumbles, thinking of Mere and her lifetime of devotion to the child she found at the Rawene Orphanage. “But I do think some people may be more understanding than you think, despite the old ways. They will recognise love for what it is, in all its forms.”

  “What makes you so sure, Cowrie?”

  “Just a conversation I had with Paneke. I think she might understand.”

  “Yes. Paneke might. But the others are not all like her. And I need time to sort out my feelings for Aka. What this means for the twins and me. Where we go from here.”

  “Yes. I recognise that. Just know you are always welcome to visit me, us, in Aotearoa, Koana. I’ll miss you. I wish we could have been lovers…”

  Koana puts her finger to Cowrie’s lips. She takes her hand and guides her to the lomilomi table. She delicately strips Cowrie and places her face down on the towel. Then she begins
the ritual call. Cowrie is in the crater. Pele is calling her from Hale ma‘uma’u. She rises up from the steam vent and flies over the crater surface. Below her, boiling mud and lava. Steam obscures her vision, then thins. Mere’s face appears, singing her name. Mere is pulling something out of the boiling mud. She cannot make out what it is. Then she is swimming. Her feet are being sculpted so that they are webbed and can help her carve her way back out into the waves. Her arms are shaped into fins…

  Cowrie wakes to feel Koana’s fingertips moving from her breasts up to her neck and face. Her body is liquid to the touch, flows with the movement of Koana’s fingers. She has no idea how she came to be on her back, but is so relaxed she does not care. Koana massages the lines of her face with the touch of a lover and bends down to breathe hot air on her cheek, her ear, as if to seal the sculpted shape her hands are creating. Cowrie’s eyes remain closed, hoping this will never end, when she hears a faint whisper in her ear “Laukiamanuikahiki”. She drifts back into a deep sleep.

  Cowrie rises late the next morning. A half papaya is left for her breakfast, so she squeezes lime juice over it, licking her fingers and reaching for the phone to book her flight home. Then she drives down to Punalu’u and makes for her favourite part of the beach between the coconut-fringed lagoon and the jade-green sea. Closing her eyes, she imagines what it will be like to be home, to see Mere’s face again, share all she has learned, get her perspective on things, hear the local gossip. She can’t wait to begin planning for the festival. Maybe Kuini will help organise a writers’ hui with her.

  Local kids run past her, kicking up sand in their wake. They plunge into the water and swim out fast. There is splashing, then calm. One of them is riding a sea turtle, his hand gripping the shell just behind the turtle’s neck. The others scream in delight. Each of them wants a ride. The turtle seems unperturbed. Cowrie stands for a better look. Behind them, more turtles appear.