by Alan Duff
My heart is pumping from the exertion of this last hundred yards, even more dangerous than the cliff, for it would be shameful to die at the enemy's hand after gaining the surprise.
Henry has us fanned out; he is leading from the rear to have the situation tactically covered. We love him as a man, a leader, would follow him to hell.
They cease to be human — have to, with the continual exchange in their guttural language, helmeted shapes passing booze around and laughing — I want only hand-to-hand combat, only a fight to the death: man to man, not mowing them down with combined tommy-gun fire. Though we sure as hell intend to finish off their booze and haka to their corpses, show their entire war-mongering nation our warrior contempt.
I am my fighting ancestor, Kereama Heretaunga, wanting to feel an enemy's life ebb from him. To cut off his head and spit contempt in his dead face, to cook and eat him.
My hatred turns to sweat like a breached dam.
We're used to their machine-gun fire raking the slope; their mortars lobbed everywhere a man might be; their blockage of the only pass within miles and miles of mountainous country. As our small unit nears them they begin a time-regulated firing attack down on our main body's position. We use the noise to move quicker with less caution, close the gap to less than fifty yards. I can smell blood like rose water.
The wind blows our way, stronger up here, exposed. Climbing the cliff there was not even a breath of wind. We can smell the alcohol, catch the tobacco drifts, cordite and smell of hot metal.
One of them turns to take a leak.
And as he stands there, full frontal, he must perceive the uneven shapes lumped up on ground he knows well. For now he yells. The bastard has seen us!
We open fire. Less than our optimum distance and they've chance to hunker down, even as we see them fall, the flailing of arms to the deadening sky, the sudden disappearance of a figure from sitting on sand bags. We haven't got all of them.
Caught by surprise ourselves we become individuals.
I see Henry's arm frantically ordering us forward. He stands up. So my brother and I stand up and we run at a crouch, firing. The night flamed with machine-gun fire our way. I stand full height and fire at the spitting flames. See one source go out, extinguished. And I dive to the ground. Give no thought to my brother nor anyone else.
A grenade explodes in their midst, briefly lit bodies akimbo, clawing at air at life departing. So close we might see their eye whites if light to do so. My brother's arm moves, he yanks me flat and near instantly comes the explosion from the second grenade, his. We hear German screams, the thunder of machine-guns; see the orange-red flames and fire streaks of hundreds of bullets.
Then the distinct thump of a metal object landing nearby. Wet sticky stuff everywhere on me. My brother has gone, he's just not there. I'm wiping away flesh bits and, I quickly figure, shattered brain matter.
Look around to see Charlie Raimona leap into the trench, firing as he spins. Germans fall. Another figure — I think it's Henry — fires into the Germans from the side. Charlie drops. The figure is not Henry, it's Tona Daniels; he's stopped firing. Now uses his machine-pistol as a club, screams in Maori. Screams.
Can't get the gore off me. My mind in blind panic against the unbearable. Not Harold. Not my baby brother. I was supposed to look after him.
But this is a fight for life now, so I've thrown my two grenades. Press close to the ground with the whump, rush of air and ear-splitting noise breaking free of the grenade. The firing at us has stopped.
Get to the edge of the trench and there is nothing but dead bodies. Two wearing our uniform. Take out my brother and that leaves only two of us.
From the side a figure emerges and I turn to fire—
It's Henry! he yells.
Something about his appearance bothers me. But not as much as the wetness soaked into my jacket, through my shirt, blood I know isn't mine.
As if my mind has caught up, I am only concerned with what covers me. Must remove every last gory piece of flesh and brain before it claims me. Something going wrong with my mind: I'm trembling all over. A grown man about to bawl like a baby.
There is a last thought Henry was cowering down to the side of the enemy trench. Then next day I'm being brought back in a jeep, stricken and mute. Disconnected. I know only to grieve for my beloved brother. Know only that I cannot and will not return home until this war is over, filled with guilt and shame that I've have failed in my duty to look after my kid brother.
Twenty years it has stayed there in the lightless vaults. I have made love with Lena at my home and we have done our act of walking, my hand in her crooked arm, to my seat by the bridge. Something is going on in my mind.
At first I think it's a new geyser breaking out, a rumbling, a shuddering it seems of the earth. I turn to Lena and see she is registering no more than the overcast afternoon and, I hope, the quiet satisfaction of our love-making.
Then it feels like my ear has popped, as if finally I have reached the surface after two decades down in some mental place of darkness. For I hear myself say quite clearly, Lena? Did you hear something? When since then I have never been able to speak her name in full, nor many other words.
The shock she turned my way was understandable. I was shocked myself. And soon memories were pouring in like breached sandbags.
What did you say, Barn?
Afraid to attempt to repeat lest it be a fluke, I used the old gestures to ask if she had heard a rumbling like geysers close by?
No, she shook her head. But, Barney? You spoke a whole sentence.
Yes, I had uttered something in full for the first time since that evening in Italy. The evening Henry Takahe hid himself till the danger was over.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
WE'RE AT MY FLAT, PARTYING hard with our latest batch of female groupies, the band members sniggering to each other that if there is no other reward to being a muso then we'll be satisfied.
Have my eye on a woman about my age, so darkly exotic she can't possibly be from this country, but I'm playing hard to get because that's a band member's privilege. The bourbon is going down well too. A drink I discovered is the perfect means of throwing off inhibitions so I can completely cut loose on the stage.
The girls are pestering us to provide live music, but we prefer to play recorded stuff so we can work our verbal magic on them. Tonight has been another sell-out gig. And a promoter has offered us big city venues. We're on our way.
Still, I dream of going with my father Jess to clubs, low lit and menacing, likely some patrons are carrying guns, an entirely coloured clientele, but I'll be feeling at home with my own kind. Drinking together, talking as men, wallowing in the music, discussing every technical and emotional detail, father and long-lost son.
This woman I'm watching refuses to meet my eyes. I ask around: who is she? No one knows; she arrived with another woman who is all over Nigel and kind of left her companion isolated. (I can never look at Nigel and not think of what his mother and I are doing. But do I feel guilt? No. Just feels strange and I don't think he for one moment suspects a thing. He even suggested he move into the flat with me and I had to make excuse about not knowing how long I wanted to stay here.)
Over I go, introduce myself. Ask who she is — you don't look like a New Zealander.
I am from Brazil. And you?
And me? Don't you know? I'm the lead singer.
Of what?
Of the band. My vanity a little pricked.
Oh, she says. I meant what country are you from?
New Zealand, of course.
My friend invited me only one hour ago. I came down from Auckland where I am studying at university my last year. I hope you don't mind?
Hell no. For she — Giselle — is quite the most beautiful and exotic female I've ever laid eyes on.
We talk for a bit and she soon has me completely under her spell, when normally it's the other way round. One of the perks of being in a band, you don't have to chase h
ard. Her accent, the teasingly direct eye contact, the private jokes dancing in her eyes, make me aware our women are limited in how they express. And if she's impressed by my lead singer status, she is hardly falling over herself.
While talking, I get a thought that maybe my mother looked similar to Giselle when she was twenty-two, same copper complexion, high cheekbones, green eyes . . . Christ, maybe I am falling for my mother. Ridiculous. I just love Mum and naturally would be attracted to someone of similar features.
She's studying English, visiting Two Lakes because, she says with a slow smile, everyone does. A world tourist destination, yes?
I ask if she has seen Waiwera yet.
Yes. Yesterday. It was amazing.
I'm from there. I could show you sights even more amazing, if you'd like?
Yes, I think next time I am here? Maybe it is worth a special trip, you think? Gives me this come-on smile. I'm hers.
You have to see it more than once to appreciate it properly.
Like people, yes?
She has it all, looks, style, what to say. Did you drive down from Auckland? Bus? Train? She came by train. We chat on, I'm falling for her. The bourbon helps.
We talk tastes: she's been raised on Latin music, but likes blues and this new trend called soul. You do? Yes, very much. I run through some famous singers' names, she knows them, of course she does.
Every Brazilian loves black music; we are a mix of races including Negro.
Then I see something about her features, complexion, and the question just comes out.
Do you have Negro in you?
She smiles and says, do you?
Well. My first response is to deny. Been living that father fantasy too long. But find myself nodding and she nods back and then we're mirroring grins.
In New Zealand I have met only one Negro, a Nigerian studying at my university. I was sure I could see the Negro in you, though of course I thought it impossible. You know you could pass for a Brazilian?
I tell my story. She tells hers: mother half Negro, half Portuguese; father French. Like we're long-lost cousins.
I will show you the samba, the rumba. If you are as you say, it will be easy. If not? Her facial expression replaces a shoulder shrug.
Latin American, Nigel? Like ordering a cocktail: he can whip up any form of music. He grabs my acoustic guitar and starts a Latin beat. Giselle so pleased she kisses him — on the lips. And I'm jealous. He's developed into rather a handsome critter, with his mother's good looks. Warn him with my eyes she's mine — buddy. I'm the guy who's sleeping with his mother. But who said life is rational?
Now, being taught dance steps by an exotic foreigner, I'm hers dangling on a string. Just like my mum. Her dance steps don't take long to pick up and she is a superb mover. Lifts me a few notches, the whole room cheering us on. This could be the war years and I my mother expressing what she always wanted, and filled with lust.
Never have I seen a woman so without inhibitions, not on a dance floor. In bed Isobel gives herself fully. But to dance like this is sex in itself. And everyone knows it, clapping in time, moving with their own sexual urges. Nigel is lost in acoustic guitar samba beat, we go right into the mood set. Time stands still.
That is, until I see a woman far too old for this company.
Isobel.
Is there something flawed about me that I have gone from hopelessly in love with this much older woman, only a few weeks ago gladly lost in her naked intimacy, to staring at her as if an unwelcome stranger?
But then what is she doing here at this hour, unannounced, a married woman past forty at our party?
A night of mirrors. Nigel's mother gives me the same jealous looks I gave him. Giselle looks too much like my mother. And I'm a born slut, not as if I'm doing it out of insecurity. I'm just a slut. Like my mother who is sleeping with Barney and thinks I don't know. Henry was right: he married a slut. Who gave birth to one.
She claimed her visit wasn't planned. Nigel and I the only ones who cared she was present and for different reasons, and I had to make damn sure mine were not showing. Unable to sleep, she claimed, she went for a drive and saw my flat lights on. Hoped we didn't mind if she dropped by for just a little while and anyway she hadn't seen Nigel for some weeks.
I made the introductions. What the hell. Isobel chatted amiably with Giselle while Nigel and I whispered to the other women to play it down till his mother had gone.
Next minute Giselle walked over and said thank you, I think you will make a good dancer. Goodbye.
Isobel sort of eased over, sipping on her drink with studied interest.
An absolute classical beauty, she said. Something our gene pool lacks in this isolated country — variation of breeders. She's part Negro too.
I wondered where this was going. Isobel stepped closer, so no one would hear.
I told that young woman I'm sleeping with you and intend doing so again very soon.
I'm not in the least flattered.
Saw this woman old enough to be my mother. I'd get Giselle's phone number from her friend. Though when I looked around Giselle's friend was gone too. And my old lover was giving glances I thought too obvious.
She said, you listen here, young man. Our relationship works both ways. You have said it's given you so much understanding. Well, perhaps you'd better ask what I want out of it.
Made me feel my age. Jesus.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HE ARRIVES LATE AT NIGHT at Falls Bath to find someone in the pool. Can't see who it is, but his name is spoken: Chud? Is that you? Knows the voice. Knows all the voices of her family for all the good relieving years of their loving him. Except Henry.
Wiki?
Yeah, it's me. What are you doing here this late, Chud?
Dunno. What are you doing?
I couldn't sleep. Soaking in here makes me sleepy. My father's snoring like he always does, sounds like a lion or something.
Or something, Chud mutters, aware of his discomfort, being taken by surprise. We don't have lions.
Try sleeping at our house after Dad's been drinking.
He can make out her shape but it has no face. Still, female presence alone stirs something within him.
It has felt like a cancerous growth, telling the boy and now the man: no woman has slept with me. Meaning he is loveless, still. Being around females is worse than uncomfortable. When it was girls he just wasn't at ease. Now it's women.
What to say, where do the words come from to speak to them? How can I feel relaxed with a woman? He figures the learning comes from parents, following their example, picking up ways and means of getting on or just being together. That a closeness with a female is a conversation times a hundred, a thousand, linked to form a whole. He knows that his discomfort becomes their discomfort, which becomes his added burden, as if shouting from the mountaintops his inadequacy with the female sex. Hell, he doesn't even know how to say hello, would you like a dance, a date, to talk?
The light bulb popped not long after I got here, Wiki says. Has to raise her voice to be heard above the pounding of falling water.
Chud is grateful: at least he can speak in the dark. You're not scared of ghosts are you?
Nah. That's for kids. You?
Well, sometimes. Walk around here and it sounds like murder being done, hearing the steam trying to get out a crack.
I don't believe in ghosts. How you been, Chuddy? Haven't seen you in a while. You tell my brother we haven't seen him at home in a while, either.
Now Chud has something to give him an emotional toehold, whereas before he feared he was in danger of toppling.
I think you better tell him. He's got too big for his boots far as I'm concerned.
Yeah. I dropped in with a friend a couple of weekends ago and he wouldn't let me in. Said it was his sleep-in time.
He might have had someone with him.
So? I'm his sister. And he could have just told me.
Could be he's got carried away with being the
lead singer in a band known all over town?
Could be he's forgotten who his family is.
And his friends.
When Chud sees a woman he desires he dries up. Can barely make eye contact, reads her every worst signal back and never sees encouragement, let alone returned desire. In his mind a woman is an impossible mystery. He fears rejection like a mortal blow to his heart. Like the innocent boy punished yet again.
Still, my bro is a nice guy. Wiki's voice from not quite pitch black: he can see her head and shoulders outline, a bit of moonlight up there, a few stars . . . And he is your best friend.
Not now.
He can see no shoulder strap to say she is wearing anything. The words naked female flash through his mind like food scent to a dog. But the human pulls him back saying, she's like your own sister.
He swallows — gulps, more like it — the sinful urge.
You have an argument? Friends do, you know. You'll make it up. You two, I've always seen as one person. You know?
Yeah. Naked female.
You getting in?
Is he getting in? What, with a naked young woman, even one he knows like a sister? That urge again, but stronger this time, the warning words as if drowned out by the same water-on-water sound making her, the naked female, raise her voice. You have never slept with a woman. Felt a woman's intimate touch . . . her skin, her mouth, her sex.
I was.
Doesn't say further that now he cannot get into the pool. You have never slept with a woman. Not I. You. Like the wallflower at the dance, sitting there seething, feeling unwanted. Angry.
When he sees a man, however, Chud's mind is clear, working out how to fight him. Can read every signal, conscious or concealed, as if one of Yank's books lent by Mrs post office Mac. Yank's friend. Who taught Yank things, but never took Chud into her confidence.
If other males were books then Chud would be the most well-read man around. He can read cowardice from fifty paces, smell fear from twenty. He can look into a man's eyes and know the courage, the doubts he carries, to an exact measurement. He can tell in a few seconds if a man is left or right-handed. He knows which way the other's best blows will come from and is ready with counter punches written like words on a page.