Maimiti

In Titriano’s cabin everything could be heard – the squealing of those pigs and the bleating of goats and the loud laughter of men and women stowed in every available corner. Titriano wiped sweat from his brow with a cloth as I entered, but he could not erase the unspoken thoughts written thickly there. Now he would answer me at last.

‘Where are we going, Titriano, you must tell me now, do we go to Aitutaki? I don’t believe you.’

‘Tupuai. We go to Tupuai, madam.’ He attended agitatedly to the disordered papers which covered his table.

‘Why Tupuai? Is Parai not at Aitutaki? He’s dead, is he not?’

With wild red eyes he turned on me. ‘If he is dead, it is not by my hand!’

Whose entrails were they then, spilling red across the ocean for the shark of longing to follow?

‘By whose then? Tell me!’

‘No, you are mistaken. Listen, listen to me. We argued. I put him off the ship.’

‘You left him at Tupuai?’

‘No, we gave him the ship’s boat, the biggest one.’

Now in a flash the meaning of the dream came clear and my anger ignited.

‘Is that a way to treat your enemy? You should have killed him!’

‘He has a wife and children.’

‘What of that?’

‘I am a Christian!’

‘Now he will surely row all the way to England to avenge you!’

He came to his knees then like a child who has been caught breaking a tapu; he covered his head and began to moan. ‘You must help me, Mauatua,’ he said.

Above decks the men were bawling out orders to each other. Jenny’s strong laughter was heard above the other women’s, and a baby was crying.

‘That is no longer my name. Mauatua has gone. Nothing is the same any more, you understand.’

‘It is true, nothing is the same! All is lost!’

‘Lost? No, we will come with you to Tupuai. We want to come. We are your friends.’

‘They may never see Tahiti again. We can never return!’

‘A Tahitian always returns to Tahiti, we are not afraid! To them you are chief Titriano. Why on your knees? Let us go up and stand together before them, and tell them where we are going.’

So must a woman grasp hold of her destiny, a woman whose cord was cast into the ocean.