Potiki

by Patricia Grace

  I began to run then, shouting for Hemi, running and stumbling over the starry ground to the verandah. It was habit kicking off the shoes. I have no memory of taking off my shoes, even though every other movement, every sound and feeling, and everything seen that night is in my memory forever. But I have nothing in my memory about the shoes. I only know that our little niece came to me the next day bringing them. She was crying. ‘Aunty your shoes,’ she’d said.

  In the house I saw the tipped wheelchair and Toko sprawled across Mary’s lap. Manu was up hovering, dancing, talking, crying.

  And all of this I saw by the light of fire which fingered the special door frame and had begun to spread across the wall. Our child’s face had death on it, and I saw this, saw every death feature by the wild light of flame burning through his hair.

  His death had been with us for a long time, but it is the manner of his death that is so hard to bear. And it is the little bird that is the broken one now. With some difficulty we who are strong turn slowly to the living, but for the little Manu there has been no mending, no turning. That is the most difficult thing of all.

  26

  Roimata

  The men from the hills, mostly of our race but some not, stayed with us over the three days of mourning. They worked for us without resting, getting wood for the fires and helping with the preparations and the cooking of food. They set up extra cooking facilities for us. They made extra tables and forms, and built onto the wash-room because we had never accommodated such numbers of people as arrived all through the days from early in the morning.

  The men were still there on the third night after the tables had been cleared and the cleaning up finished. They stayed talking, singing, drinking – helping us to be again part of the living. Drinking yet not drinking, that was something I noticed. They stayed, they laughed and talked. But they did not drink, or drank little, only pretending to drink. When we went to bed they were there still, laughing, talking, singing, but not drinking at all.

  When I asked Tangimoana and Pena and James if they were coming home to sleep they said they would stay a while. Tangi was quiet and happy in her manner with the anger seemingly gone from her. James said, ‘We’re all right Ma, don’t worry about us,’ so I thought that I would not worry. There was something happening but I thought I would not worry because there had been enough pain. There was obligation to put trouble away, to talk, to sing, to notice the flowers that people had put about, to notice that your home had been tidied, your washing done, your beds made ready for you. We were exhausted and glad of exhaustion. We took our little sad bird home with us to sleep.

  It was in sleep that dawn exploded, and at dawn that sleep exploded. The house shook and somewhere there was a fall of glass. Hemi got up and rushed out but I was reluctant to rise. Something was happening but I thought that I should not be concerned, there had been enough pain already. Manu was sleeping quietly on the stretcher that we had put in our room for him. I could hear footsteps on the paths but they were hesitant. There were no voices, no shouting.

  Then the engines started up, the engines of the big machines that had been quiet in the hills and left standing for the past three days. I dressed slowly and went out, not because of fear or worry, but out of curiosity, or a need to be with others, a need not to be alone.

  It was a shrouded dawn of weightless, downy rain, with barely enough light to give substance to the land and sea.

  Up on the hills the new road had been blasted and the machines were moving in, pushing asphalt and rock down the hillsides, heaping it and pushing it forward, tipping and tumbling it into scaffolding and foundations of new buildings, some of which were burning and falling.

  All this was sensed in the half-darkness rather than clearly seen, while further back in the hills another blast was heard. Somehow there was joy in it.

  Then someone said that it would soon be light, light enough to see who they were who were working the machines, walking about with torches in the half-dark. We should all get back into our beds before the light came, and we should not come out of our houses, or look out until everything was quiet.

  So we all went back to our beds and listened to the machines and to the cracking and falling of timber, and to a string of detonations, some near and some far away. The machines seemed to come nearer, and it was almost full light. Then the engines stopped. There were voices, quiet voices, and people running. It was the way of running that is not meant to be heard. After that there was no sound.

  There was no sound, so we rose from our beds and looked out. The new road had been destroyed, the new structures had been flattened. The big machines were submerged in the sea. We saw all this from our windows but we did not, at first, go out.

  Later we went to the wharenui, looked in and saw the men and the young ones asleep in there. So we went in and collected all the clothing they had been wearing and distributed it to be washed. Hemi and some of the others hosed down the verandah floor, and cleaned the footwear that had been left there.

  We washed the clothing and hung it on our lines. Then we collected clean clothing and took it the wharenui leaving some by each bed. Breakfast was cooking in the wharekai and the tables had been set.

  We were a noisy lot that morning, joking with each other, laughing, chatting about everything – everything but not the one thing. When breakfast was almost ready we all went out to the wharenui and did a boisterous haka to wake the people up. It was a haka to wake them but it was also an expression of love and a shout of joy. We pulled the blankets from the sleepers and threw the clothes at them, shouting at them and not caring that there were two visitors at the door looking in on our private lives.

  ‘Get up, drunks.’

  ‘Come on, sore-heads, get up.’

  ‘Get over to that wharekai or your breakfast goes out to the seagulls.’

  ‘You lot, you’d sleep through Cyclone Harata …’

  ‘Or Tornado Tamati. You don’t know what goes on do you?’ ‘While you sleep.’

  We sang to them, love songs, which on that morning were songs of joy. We played tricks with the water in the showers, giving a cold blast here and a hot blast there by turning the outside taps off and on. Soon they were sitting at the tables showered and grinning, and wearing a strange mixture of clothes.

  ‘We’re just starting breakfast,’ Hemi said to the two officers. ‘Join us.’ There were other people there by then. A crowd had gathered on the beach and were looking back up to what had been the road, or out to where they could see the tips of the machines showing above the surface of the sea. There were photographers there, and people writing in notebooks, as well as officials who had cordoned off a large area. They wouldn’t join us, they’d have a look round.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Hemi said, leaving them standing on the steps.

  After breakfast we began the clean-up. We washed and stacked away all the dishes, cleaned the big cooking pots, carried the tables out to be scrubbed, and swept and mopped all the floors. We hosed down the wash and toilet facilities. Mattresses were carried out to be aired and all the linen gathered in a pile and taken away for washing. There was rubbish to bury or burn and empty bottles to be taken away. The wharenui was vacuumed and dusted and Mary took out her polishing cloths.

  ‘Are we speaking to the chief?’ one of them said to Stan.

  ‘We’re all chiefs here,’ he said.

  ‘Can we speak to the person in charge?’

  ‘We’re all in charge.’

  ‘Is there somewhere where we can talk?’ they asked.

  ‘Right here will do,’ said Stan.

  At that stage the mattresses were being brought in to be stacked at one end of the wharenui, but instead of stacking them we put them in place round the room and sat down to listen.

  ‘We’re making inquiries about incidents occurring on the land adjacent to here.’

  ‘Ask away,’ Stan said.

  ‘All right then, tell us what you know.’

  ‘The road has be
en broken up, the buildings are flat on the ground, the machines are in the sea.’

  ‘But you know more than that, obviously.’

  ‘That’s right. We woke early this morning because of what sounded like an explosion in the hills. It sounded close. We all got up and went out. It was still too dark to see but we heard the machines start up. We could hear them pushing rubble down the hill, pushing down what had been built. We saw the torches and the fires. Then we all went back to bed.’

  ‘All of you?’

  ‘All.’

  ‘Didn’t you want to know what was happening?’

  ‘We did, so we got up and went out. Once we found out what it was we went back to bed.’

  ‘Could you identify …’

  ‘We could not. It was not light enough to see.’

  ‘Surely you would have been interested in knowing who …?’

  ‘We were not interested.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If we’d been able to identify people we’d have been able to help you with your inquiry. We’ve helped you before on two occasions, as you know. We were not satisfied, not happy with what you made the inquiries show …’

  ‘The inquiries were thorough …’

  ‘We were not believed. There was evidence, we gave help, but we were not … understood, and not believed. What we told you then was turned against us, was given other meaning.’

  ‘We’ll have another look round.’

  ‘Be our guests,’ said Stan. ‘Look anywhere you like, talk to anyone. But if you need to come into this house again please remove your shoes. We’ve just finished cleaning up following the tangi of our child who was killed here Tuesday night.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Whose death was caused.’

  ‘Well … that’s proceeding, isn’t it? Time will …’

  ‘Time will probably not …’

  ‘We won’t stay long but we’ll need to speak … Who are all these people?’

  ‘People who live here, relatives and friends who have been at the tangi of our child, whose death was caused …’

  The two officers did not stay long after that. Over the next few days the machines were winched from the sea and taken away. The hills have been quiet since.

  The hills will be scarred for some time, and the beach front spoiled. But the scars will heal as growth returns, because the forest is there always, coiled in the body of the land. And the shores, the meeting places of the land and sea, if left will become clean again. We will put the boats out into clear water again and go for kahawai, moki and shark, and will put lines down for kelpie and cod. There will be good shellfishing again. There will be tuna to hang above the smoke fires.

  27

  James

  The young man said to the people, ‘There’s a story that says that the finishing of this poupou – this last for the old house, first for the new – goes into the future. That the completion will be done once it is known who the lower figure should be. I know now who must go there. I know now who it is that has been fathered by one who, in his own time, had no children of his own. I can do it now. But you might want me to wait until I’m older. You could think that this should be done by an older man.’

  ‘We want you to complete it now,’ they said. ‘But anyway you do not need our permission. The permission came to you before you were born. In the story it is said that one day someone would know who it is that should fill that place, know who it is that is the man’s tamaiti. If you know it, then you are the one. We will say the karakia and follow the correct rules before you begin.’

  ‘There’s a rule that I’ve heard of,’ the young man said, ‘that says not to show in wood those from living memory. But it has been done before, and now it will be done again.’

  ‘If you know it is right then it is right,’ they said. ‘We will have the karakia.’

  When the blessings had been done the young man put mattresses down in the meeting-house for himself, his brother and his aunt, and took up his tools. He placed his chisel between the new thighs of the tipuna and below the feet of the man-penis, and began shaping the head of the tamaiti.

  On one side of the head the chisel made a fine and perfect curve to the chin, but on the other side the head became widened and the jaw was hooked and lengthened. ‘A baby for the loving-man,’ the woman said. ‘Make him lovely and nice. A baby for me.’

  The brother of the young man began to cry but the young man said, ‘When this is finished you won’t cry any more, and soon there’ll be work for you to do, and you can help right now … to keep the chisels sharp, to collect the shavings, burn them the way we’ve been told. When it’s finished, then you won’t cry any more.’

  ‘Is it real?’ he said. ‘Is it real?’

  ‘It’s real, but nothing can be like it was before.’

  ‘Lovely and nice,’ the loving-woman said.

  The young man shaped out the shoulders, the one curving smoothly out and down from the neck, the other humping sharply from behind the ear. He outlined a full, broad chest, tapering to small thighs. He outlined the tops of the small legs lightly but only as far as the knees.

  When the outline was complete he put a mallet in his brother’s hand and showed him what to do.

  In the evenings, after a meal in the wharekai, the three would return to the house, clear away the shavings, tend to their tools, and go to sleep. And while they slept the house was quiet all through the night.

  One afternoon the young man put his tools down and went with his brother and his aunt and said to the rest of the people, ‘We are ready for the dedication.’

  And one morning soon after that the people assembled for the blessing. But it was not only the people whose house it was who were there. People came in large numbers bringing their gifts and their love.

  They looked at the completed carving and saw the tamaiti, the mokopuna, the potiki, with all his stories entwined about him, and they knew that the house was complete. They saw that the head of the tamaiti, alive with fire, had been widened and drawn down on one side. On that side of it was a small, shelled ear that listened to the soft whisperings, the lullabies, the quiet lamentations, while on the other side the ear was large and cupped to hear and know the wisdom of the world. The given pendant hung from the lobe. They saw that one eye had been set low towards the earth-mother and that it matched the green colour of the earth. And the other eye, they saw, had been set high, towards the sky-father, and it contained the blue and blood colours of the sky.

  They saw, and smiled, at the wide mouth that had at its corners the magic swirls, and that had the talking, storytelling tongue whirling out and down to where the heart began.

  They saw that one shoulder curved easily and without pain from the neck to the upper arm, while the other humped from behind the ear forming the twisted burden that weighted and broadened the upper arm. On this shoulder sat the companion, the little bird.

  The chest they saw was full of life and breath, and the large heart was patterned over the chest in a spiral that covered it completely. It was a spiral heart that had no breaking – no breaking and no end.

  The fish that was clutched to the belly by one three-fingered hand arched and looped above the hand, and rested its head on one shoulder, the shoulder that gave no pain. The eye of the fish was small and pink and told of its life and its death, while its mouth showed the hook shape. The long fish-tail coiled itself about a patterned rock. In the other hand was a woven basket that was heavy and full, but which as a gift was carried easily.

  Below the heart the pito became a plaited cord, and the plaited cord became a penis-child sleeping between the narrowed thighs. At each side there were the spinning, patterned wheels of the chair.

  Each small leg was hobbled with knotted seaweed strands and the feet were licked with fire.

  When most of the visitors had gone, the people whose house it was settled on the mattresses to tell, retell, listen to the stories. The stories were of people and whana
ungatanga, of the plaiting that gives strength to the basket, the weaving that gives the basket beauty, and of koha that makes the basket full.

  And the stories were also of the land and sea, sky and fire, life and death, love and anger and pain.

  28

  The stories

  A woman told of the gulls and of how they feed from sea and shore, rest on land but find freedom, the struggle that is freedom, in the skies. She told of how she had come there, being flown on the backs of gulls. The gulls had carried her, returning her there after a long time away. She told of gifts that she’d been given, and how gifts once given cannot be taken away and do not change. Gifts did not change even though there could be a shifting in the self caused by pain.

  ‘Light is a gift too,’ she said. ‘A gift of the sky, which is something that the earth knows. But the dark, the dark is a gift also because in the dark there is nurturing. These things are known to the earth as well as to the sky.

  ‘And the watchers know it, waiting, and believing that what is not seen will one day be seen. The waiters know that the earth will give its gifts, and that the sky will too.

  ‘I am an ever-watcher of the sky,’ she said, ‘a patient above-all watcher. I do not turn my back. Do not allow the eyes to move or close, but lock them always open on the pressing wall of sky.

  ‘It would have been an easy thing to turn shoulders against the stacking thunder, or to let the sleet-heavy eyelids droop and close. Could have been so easy, and so loving, to have gone towards the dark and been cradled there.

  ‘In a time of solid dark,’ she said, ‘I went down to the shore. Our eyes, the eyes of the whanau, are sea-eyes, being pitched constantly, inevitably, unceasingly towards the sea, rolling in reverse action to the tides. Our eyes are shore eyes, the shoreline being patterned, mapped, indelibly on the eyes.