Potiki

by Patricia Grace

  It was our own that were able to bring us home. It was those who were not strong that could give us strength. The mud that covered our bodies and our clothes now clung to them as well, but it was the same mud that pulled at our feet, the mud of our own standing place.

  ‘We know now someone did this,’ Hemi said to Hoani. ‘Our nephews told us what they found.’

  ‘I understand you,’ Hoani said. ‘Nevertheless we must put all that aside. We must put the hurt aside, and we must approach the burial ground of the whanau without anger. Those other things … they are other matters. We will approach the damaged area together, the family, the friends. If there are visible remains, ka tika, we will not disturb them. What we are doing is that we are making the area safe and restful, so that if there is work that needs to be done then it can be done.’

  Rina and James assisted Granny Tamihana as she led us forward calling to the spirits to go ahead of her, to be forward of us all on the path that we would all one day follow, and to be restful. Rina and James waited with her, while those of us who were able, climbed the hill about the broken area until we were surrounding it. Hoani moved up and about the slip, sluicing water from a bucket and reciting the karakia.

  ‘Ka tika,’ he said, when he had at last finished. ‘All’s well. Those that are at rest do so in peace and the earth holds them still. There is nothing needing to be moved, only that the earth that has broken away should be replaced.’

  ‘Kei te pai e Pa. Ka tika.’

  ‘The earth could be replaced today, and then whatever needs to be done for the safety of the area could be done tomorrow, or later. Then, whatever else needs to be thought about can be thought about.’

  ‘Ka tika.’

  We stood there quietly for some moments, then Granny began to chant a waiata, one that was known only to her. It spiralled thinly upwards, linking the earth that we are, to the sky that we are, joining the past that we are to the now and beyond now that we are. And when she had finished they helped her home.

  ‘We’ll do what we can now,’ Stan said. ‘And the rest can wait till tomorrow.’ Those who had shovels moved in. We waited until the work was finished, then we, along with the friends who had accompanied us, made our way home to wash and change and rest.

  In the wharenui that evening there were many things to be discussed. We decided that we would ask for an official investigation because of what had been done. We asked Matiu and Timoti and the others not to leave their jobs. If the actions against us had been done deliberately in the hope of moving us, or of making us change our minds then we needed our own people there, ‘to watch and listen’, we said.

  ‘But nothing to do with workers, or supervisors of work,’ Matiu said. ‘More like the top ones, the ones we don’t see. Into bad business, so we hear. The big man does a fair bit of dealing. So we heard. And … the investigation, the police and that? They won’t do nothing. Nothing good will come … for us. But anyway. All of us, we’ll get back on the job, tomorrow. Or we’ll come and give a hand cleaning up.’

  ‘Kei te pai,’ Rina said to them. ‘You go back to work, we need you there. Leave tomorrow to us.’

  But help did come the next day. At mid-morning Reuben and Hiria arrived with their youngest son Pena and four others from Te Ope. They had a small truck, and on it was work equipment and water pipes, and also meat and vegetables. Those who were at the wharenui made them welcome and they were soon out helping restore the urupa, and to clean up the houses that had been affected, and then to work in the area that had been our gardens.

  And our livelihood.

  ‘There’s still the unemployment benefit,’ someone said, making light of the fact that we would not now have an income from the land, and that we would now be short of kai.

  ‘Never mind, he tangata,’ someone else reminded us. ‘We got people, ourselves as well as these others here. And the ground is still the same ground.’

  ‘Like our own insurance company.’

  Spirits were reviving.

  Reuben and Hiria and the others stayed for a week, and during that time the urupa, the area where the gardens had been, and our houses, were all cleaned up and made safe should there be heavy rain again.

  During that time Pena fell in love with Tangimoana but she was not ready to be in love with anyone.

  ‘I need him though,’ she said. ‘And that might be almost the same.’

  Pena thought it was enough and they have been together much of the time since then.

  In the evenings the Te Ope people talked about their struggles of the past, of their new work, and of their hopes and dreams. They were not new stories to us, except that stories are always new, or else there is always something new in stories.

  We told of our work, and of our dreams too, and discussed also the new threat to our lives which was the threat of money and power. Except that money and power were not a new threat. Money and power, at different times and in many different ways, had broken our tribes and our backs, and made us slaves, filled our mouths with stones, hollowed the insides of us, set us at the edge and beyond the edge, and watched our children die.

  But when Reuben heard a name, he said, ‘That’s the same one isn’t it, who was in the news a while back, two or three years ago? Had his Jag bombed. They say it was in retaliation for his lot burning the Bowder Street nightclub. Didn’t get done for it though, or even charged. Only got his Jag blown up. It was meant to have him in it when it blew, but didn’t. That’s what I heard. Dangerous man I’d say, and he’s got his people, that’s for sure.’

  Everything we need is here. Hemi is right to say it. But because it is so, and because we have been busy surviving, we have lost much of our interest in matters outside of here. But Reuben is a man who is in touch with a wider world. We were fearful of whatever else could happen.

  And the people of Te Ope spoke of James, ‘your mokopuna’, they called him. ‘He is giving part of his young life to us,’ they said, ‘just as all of you have given us your aroha in the past. When he rang back to tell us what had happened we packed up and came, and that’s what we will always do.’

  During that week others came too. There were the friends who had come on the first day, there were neighbours, and there were family returning from other places. They helped with the work and brought their koha to us. Often after work Matiu and Timoti would come and they would always have others with them.

  One night when the meeting-house was full of people Toko leaned towards me and said, ‘These are the people of hunger and anger that will come when everything is grown and green.’

  His face was hot and his hair was damp but he was not, just then, in pain. I moved him on to my knee, though he was not a child any longer, and he put his face against my hair.

  ‘The stories have changed,’ he said. He was weary as he leaned against me, and his words came slowly. ‘And there’s a night of colours. And also a night of stars.’

  An investigation was held but this mostly consisted of a questioning of us and our observations, and a criticism of our actions. We should not have removed the material that had allegedly dammed the creek. We should not have fixed the slip at the cemetery or put in drains. So the enquiry showed that a dam had possibly been made, that a channel had possibly been deliberately formed down the side of the hill, and that flooding had occurred, but that was all.

  20

  Toko

  On the night of colours I awoke to a night of sounds. There’s a story of colours and it is also a story of sounds.

  They were not new sounds, at first. They were the sounds of my brother Manu shouting and crying in his sleep, and of my birth mother Mary singing in her room.

  I did not open my eyes. I did not get up to wake my brother as I had always done when we were children. I did not get into bed beside him. My body was slow by then and I knew that I should not put strain on my growing heart. I knew not to get up in the night without someone to assist me. I called to my brother instead of going to him, but he did
not wake or stop his calling.

  I pulled the blanket from my face to call to Mary, but Mary did not hear me and did not stop her singing. And on opening my eyes I found that there was no darkness in the room. The night was light and full of dancing colours.

  ‘Hemi,’ I called. ‘Roimata, Tangi, James.’

  Then suddenly, in the night of ordinary sounds there were other sounds. Doors were opening, and slamming shut. There was calling and running on the paths and roadways. My parents and Tangi and James were running out of the house. People of the whanau were shouting and running, out into the night that was day-bright and filled with colour.

  ‘Mary wake him,’ I called. ‘Mary help me,’ but she did not hear. I rolled to the edge of my bed and put my feet to the floor. I turned, seating myself on my brother’s bed and shaking him. ‘Wake up, wake up,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ he said.

  ‘Wake up. Listen to the people.’

  ‘I am awake. I hear them, but it isn’t real.’

  ‘Wake up,’ I said. ‘It’s real. Listen to the people and look at the orange night.’

  My brother got out of his bed and went to the window.

  ‘The wharenui is on fire,’ he said. ‘And the people are running to the sea. They’re crying and shouting, and beating at the flames. But it isn’t real,’ he said.

  ‘It is. It’s real. Wake up.’

  ‘It won’t be real.’

  ‘Wake up and go and help them.’

  There were sirens in the night of sounds.

  ‘Help them?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes help. Go …’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The people. Hemi, Roimata, Tangi, James … Help them … put the fire out.’

  ‘We’re all burning,’ he said. ‘But it won’t be real. You wake and … nothing’s real.’

  ‘Take me,’ I said. ‘Come on help me.’ I pulled a rug over myself and edged into my chair. ‘Put your jacket on and help me.’

  Manu wheeled me out of the house and down the path as the engines went by. ‘The sirens,’ he said. ‘Burning. Burning in the night, but then … nothing. Nothing’s real.’

  Ahead of us Mary was running, in her own shuffling way, and she was calling and crying, ‘Oh don’t! Don’t go! Don’t go away from Mary!’

  And then Manu began to shout too, ‘It is! It is! Oh it’s real! We’re all awake, and it’s real! Fire is here, and burning!’

  ‘Leave me,’ I said. ‘Go and help them.’

  ‘People are making chains to the sea.’

  ‘Leave me and join them,’ I said.

  He left and I began to wheel myself slowly along in the shouting, crying, daylit colour night, towards the house of people. The timbers cracked like shot, and thudded into the orange burning like the falling of trees.

  And there was fire too, on the inside of me, burning and changing me, because fire does always cause to change whatever it feeds upon. Yet fire, in the beginning, had been gift-given, seeds of it springing from the topknot and into the heart of trees – not imprisoned but only hidden there, awaiting the breath and the touch.

  I made my way slowly to where my birth mother Mary had sat herself on the roadway rocking and crying and calling out, ‘Come back. Oh Boyboy they going away from me. Loving and singing people. Oh going away, oh Boyboy going away from me.’

  The firemen were running with the hoses, jetting the water into the flames, but the roof had gone. The great head of the great ancestor that looked out towards the people whenever they advanced across the marae had gone. The arms that had been extended in welcome, and the sacred and intricate backbone that had run through the apex, as well as the patterned ribs adjoining the backbone, had caved, and dropped into the flames, and gone.

  The walls had fallen too, taking and changing the tipuna of the people – the loving, warring, singing, talking, shouting guardians of the night and day. Taking also the patterns belonging to the lives and deaths of people, the stories and histories of people, and the work of hands and minds. Taking the people’s place of resting, their place of learning, of discussing, singing, dancing, sorrow, joy, renewal, and whanaungatanga. Taking the world inside which all else may be left behind, as dust is left on shoes beyond the door.

  The water from the hoses played over the flattened, smoking remnants of the ancestral house, and the sounds became silence. The night became dark.

  We could only stand silent in the night’s silence and in the night’s darkness. It was as if we were the new tekoteko figured about the edges of the gutted house, unhoused, standing in place of those that had gone to ash.

  There had not been a darker night or one more quiet. We moved to the wharekai to wait for morning. For a long time no one spoke but sat quietly and wept, and the tears were tears that went right back into the past of living memory and also into the distant past of only spoken memory. But the tears were also for the now, and for the future time.

  After a long time someone said that the house had gone but that we still had people, and we had the ground. ‘And you build from people and you build from the ground.’ But the words did not give comfort. No one else spoke.

  Instead we began to sing, which is a way of saving your soul, or the centre of you. It was a quiet and restful singing of melodies and harmonies circling in the increasing light that came to the wharekai, but which could not be made to rise above our eyes, and there was little comfort in it.

  Right then it was not comfort enough, and my sister stood up and shouted above the singing. ‘Those bastards next door did this,’ so we stopped singing. ‘And I’ll get them for this. Somehow.’

  ‘We’ll get it … looked into,’ someone said.

  ‘And this time, won’t touch anything.’ But they were only saying it to calm her. ‘An investigation should show …’

  ‘Fuck the investigation. What did that show last time? Told us nothing. Told us probably this probably that. Probably. Not “it did”. Not “who did”. Not “he did, she did”. Nothing. Fuck the enquiry. I know what it’ll find and you know what it’ll find. It’ll find we did it ourselves. They’ll go through all their shit and rubbish and try and hang it on us. Like last time. And. Who was last in the house yesterday? Aunty Mary, right? What’re they going to presume when they get that bit of information? When they find out it was her, Aunty Mary, that was last in there, what do you think they will all have buzzing round in their small, shitty screwed around minds?’

  No one spoke. We knew what would be in their minds.

  ‘Those Pakeha friends of ours knew what they were doing when they chainsawed tyres and bowled the shed over the bank. It should have been us doing that. Especially since it was thought we did it anyway. It was insinuated … Should have been us putting the chainsaw through. And, one of these days … soon … And if none of yous help me then it’ll just be me … all by my own black self.’

  None of us spoke, only sat, heavily, thinking about all that had happened and all that had been said. Fire causes to change what it touches, and yet it was, in the beginning, gift-given.

  When daylight came we went out to look at the ruin that had been the house of genealogies, of living and dying and dreams. Mary had gone out ahead of us and was standing amongst the disintegrated timbers pulling a scarred and blackened poupou from the pile.

  Our lives, our stories, had changed. Fire bursts at the feet and engulfs the world, and even the beat-winged bird cannot climb above it, but must call and cry for rain.

  21

  Toko

  We did not work in the gardens at all that day, even though it was the busy season. I could not work in the gardens on any day, but I could be there, and be useful in many ways. I could sort seed, or count out the little plants ready for transplanting, and I could label boxes, bags and trays.

  We stood looking at the remains of the house for a long time, then when Granny Tamihana turned away to go back to the wharekai we followed her.

  ‘What shall we do?’ someone said, but no o
ne answered, not Tangimoana, not any of us, not for a long time.

  Then Granny Tamihana said, ‘Manaakitia te manuhiri,’ and we became aware of people, the friends who had come when the land had flooded. And there were police and newspaper people and members of the fire brigade. ‘Look after the visitors.’

  We began to move round, rolling the white paper on to the tables, cutting bread, putting the water on to boil, taking cups from the cupboard, but we did not think about any of these things as we did them. Our bodies moved, our hands moved, doing the familiar things, but our thoughts, our spirits, were in ruin, fallen to broken earth.

  As we worked no one spoke, could not speak, not Tangimoana, not any of us, except occasionally Granny Tamihana.

  I can look back to that time and I can remember that it was the old lady Tamihana who moved to and fro, who filled the Zip with water, who began taking the cups from the cupboards, doing the things that the younger ones would usually do. It was the old lady and not Aunty Rina who said to put out the cups, toast some bread, set up the table, put the water on to boil, look after the visitors.

  And I can look back to that time and know that it was then, listening to Granny and watching her move about the wharekai, that I really understood her stories. For all of my life up until then I had listened to all her stories, stories which she always told with a kind of joyfulness. But it was then as she took the cups down, filled the Zip, took the spoons from the drawer, that I really understood that her life had truly been a life of loss and sorrow, and that loss and sorrow were ordinary in her life.

  As a young girl, the hills where she had learned the use of plants, and known the trees and birds that lived there, had gone to others.

  She had lost her most loved and only brother, and later had outlived her husband, all of her children, and some of her grandchildren as well. She had seen grandchildren and great-grandchildren leave and not return, or return broken and ill, only to leave again.