FOR WEEKS THAT became months, Charlie couldn’t get Jake out of his mind. That face-to-face meeting out at Tarawera, Jake’s hand going partway out in greeting till he recognised Charlie, who wasn’t returning the gesture. Yet Jake didn’t blink.
Not one flicker of truth confronted him unexpectedly, since he’d know Beth would have spilled her heart out to Charlie. Not guilt, nor resentment of Charlie, not the slightest embarrassment. He could have been just another big Maori out doing his hunter thing, with possibly a smile about to blossom, as they do when a man is in his element, at one with nature, mates and dogs against wild pig, or about to tell a lie as to whether he had a hunting permit. Or maybe just say something friendly or crack a funny.
At first, he’d not told Beth of running into Jake, not until he could settle himself down inside at what, by his standards, was a shameful descent into emotional reaction, especially the anger, desire to do violence against the man. To hell with that, leave it to my never-ending list of clients, to the ignorant parents whose ill-bred children become my department’s charge. Charlie Bennett was never going to behave like that, not even the emotional part.
So he told Beth of running into Jake and his two friends hunting on Charlie’s tribal land, and she smiled and said how funny. Imagine if you’d let rip at them. Might have had a tribal war on your hands, Mr Bennett. Plus the personal stuff.
No chance, he gave his own smile, loaded with meaning directed at Jake’s image in his head. (Must say he’s a fine-looking specimen.) I hope, though, you’re not saying I wouldn’t have stood a chance? (Now why am I talking like that?)
No, of course not. Though I’m surprised — very — to hear you talk like that. Did he get under your skin, honey? Did he say something? Give you a Jake the Muss look? They could reduce anyone, those stares of his could.
No, he didn’t and if he had I’d not be reduced, not by him or anyone else. It’s my reaction bothering me.
Oh? Beth was puzzled. What reaction is this?
Of wanting to hurt him. I even had a thought of grabbing his rifle and putting a bullet right between his eyes. And that would be clever, wouldn’t it? Charlie Bennett, head of Child Youth and Family Service, Two Lakes Division, much-respected citizen of this thriving city —
Thriving of crime, too, don’t forget. We got enough Maoris breaking the law without adding your name to it. Anyway it was a case of the man meeting the boy. My man meeting that boy. Let’s agree on that before you start reading it and me all wrong. Let’s start again, shall we? In that smiling, tolerant way of hers. One more reason why the relationship had worked.
So Charlie told her afresh of the encounter, and asked more questions about Jake, the childhood that made him what he was, since he dealt with young Jake types, hundreds over the years. I know you told me he grew up like too many Maoris kids, in a house that loved booze more than its children. Hardly a revelation. You’re just not allowed to state the truth in these politically correct times. Being told he was a descendant of slaves, his family shunned by the wider community, why wouldn’t he grow up with an extra chip on his shoulder? Charlie quoted an old Maori proverb taught by his grandmother: Kotahi te taha mahimahi, kotahi te taha paraoa.
Meaning: One side is of lowly birth, one side is of aristocratic descent.
Belying this modern-day belief that Maoris had no class system, when they did. And being tribal, with no notion of themselves as a race, let alone a nation, the snobbery extended to tribes looking down on each other. Like all humans, Charlie added with meaning. Since it’s rammed down our throats that Maori culture and Maori ways are egalitarian and so by implication they’re somehow morally superior.
Beth, there is another old proverb: He pai aha to te tutua? Which means: What good is it if one is a slave?
Now, if I were Jake’s advocate, I would have to say categorically that his anger against the world was perfectly understandable. (I even dreamed about Jake; he’s in the centuries ago past, atop a rocky pinnacle, being the bluffs at Tarawera, and hurling slaves to their deaths. But they kept coming until he could hurl no more and then it was his turn. A tattooed warrior slave hefted Jake up and threw him into eternity.)
My gran was the sweetest, kindest person I ever knew and yet when she spoke a certain proverb her face changed; she became ugly and I was confused at why. She’d say these words with an imperious sneer: Kaua te ware e tu ki te marae, meaning: let none of no rank or importance stand on a marae. My grandmother, Beth, was a snob. Yet she instilled in 94 me that I must be humble at all times and never let power or flattery swell my head.
There is another saying: He toa taumate taua, a warrior dies in battle. That means the warrior who allows himself to be captured and made a slave is at the opposite end of respect. It will be his cooked flesh the enemy will feast on.
Then Beth informed him rather awkwardly, I ran into Jake yesterday.
Silence.
He’s a changed man. We had quite a chat.
Charlie was shocked, as much at his reaction as he was at not being told until today. For he felt jealous, even angry, though covered it well, until he gave it away with a cough. I’m glad to hear he’s changed. That gives hope for everyone. Again at abruptly deciding he had work to do.
And he left the room in a state he’d never known in the past decade of living with this woman he more than loved, he adored. Inside he seethed with the unfamiliar emotion of jealousy. (Or was it intuition?) That made it twice Jake had got to him, perhaps got the better of him even if unknowingly.