The trouble was it looked like home. William MacAllister, The Reverend William MacAllister, knew that he was a two month sea voyage and a long trip up the Whanganui river to this place, which ought to be utterly alien to his eyes, as the fern forests were, cold and strange.
But this sunny upland, dotted with grazing horses, looked like Minniegaff, where he was born, in the Borders of Scotland. Even the Whanganui rushing past, golden brown and foaming, looked like the Dee, and the anglers standing in the shallows, flogging the water to drive the fish to the surface, were homely to his eyes. Just so had the salmon anglers done in the spring, with the water foaming around their thighs.
Admittedly, these fishermen were brown and naked and were sniggling for eels which they would kill with a trident, but the scene was disturbingly familiar. Alien and homelike. The Pa on the crown on the hill, a wooden stockade, was not odd to eyes used to Scottish sheep-folds. And the people, oh, the people were beautiful.
He had volunteered for this mission. He had never been Reproved for Immorality before the congregation. He had never attracted the wrong kind of attention. He had been exceedingly careful, never touching, never even lingering too long in the company of young men. But there were desires he refused to admit to his mind, whatever his treacherous body wanted. He would not indulge it. In New Zealand, amongst the Beastly Unenlightened Heathen, he surely would not be tempted.
He had never been more wrong. The Maori were comely, strong and brown and delightful. They wore very few clothes (when fishing, none) and they had, as his instructors had informed him, absolutely no shame when it came to sexual matters. Young women could take as many lovers as they liked until they married. Young men could lie together if they wished. Even now, to his fascinated revulsion, one boy hip-deep in the river was turning his head and leaning over to kiss another fishing boy. On the neck. And then - laughing - on the mouth...
He dragged his eyes away with an effort. The old man Hakawau, the local tohunga, sitting near him, grunted with displeasure and stood up, cupping his old hands so that his voice would carry. At last, thought the Reverend William MacAllister, his sermons had borne fruit. Hakawau was about to reprove the boys for sin.
Instead, the old man yelled
‘Fishing now, fucking later!’ The boys laughed and broke apart. Hakawau sat down again. ‘Boys!’ he exclaimed. ‘Plenty of time for play; today the eels are running and there is work to be done!’
He looked for assent to the minister, an agreement that youth were lazy and self-indulgent, and could not understand why the Reverend MacAllister blushed and hurried away. These Pakeha were odd. The old man chuckled and reminded himself that he had yet to tell William about the day he had roasted and eaten a bishop, removing the amethyst ring from his hand before placing him in the earth oven, the hangi. It wasn’t actually true, but it would be entertaining to watch the reverend’s reaction. Hakawau wasn’t giving up power as easily as these other priests assumed he would. His magic belonged to the land, the river and the sky. No pale saviour was going to abolish those.
And why had the man rushed away? Nothing unusual had happened...
William reached his little house and flung himself inside, pulling the bark door shut. He tore at his collar and fell to his knees. He prayed ferociously to be relieved of this dreadful burden, of this appalling, unforgiveable sin.
He stayed on his knees until his whole body ached, but God did not answer him.
That night, he sat at a communal fire and told stories about the love of God and Christ’s care for his children. He ate fresh roasted eel and drank English tea, for which the old man had conceived a liking. Hakawau told the story of Tiki and Tutaneki, famous warriors.
‘They were devoted lovers,’ said the old man. ‘They slept never a night apart until the coming of the princess, Hinemoa, and then Tiki married Hinemoa’s sister, and they all lay together. Many famous men and women are descended from them,’ he said to the circle of attentive faces. The Reverend shifted uneasily. ‘They were true Takataapui - faithful, lifelong lovers.’
The Reverend William MacAllister blushed purple. He had learned his Maori language from the lexicon and dictionary which they had given him in Scotland. That term - takataapui - was used to mean ‘brotherly love’. What had he been saying? What had he been preaching? He stumbled to his feet and bade the company a blurred, hasty good night. The old Tohunga watched him go, and then smiled a small smile. Those nearest him exchanged glances. The old man was up to something. Best to not notice and ask for another story. Perhaps the one about the blind, ash-white, underground lizard monster, the ngarara. They all liked that one.
That night, the reverend could not sleep. He finally gave up trying and sat at his door, looking out onto the quiet village. Those two boys from the river stole past, arms wreathed around each other, kissing and giggling. He shut his eyes.
Someone came and sat beside him, thighs just touching, and asked, ‘Why are you wakeful?’
He turned his head. In the moonlight he saw Tuikaramea, his sole convert, silvered and statuesque. His hair was like a torrent of black silk, his profile as beautiful as any by Michaelangelo, his mouth as red as a fuchsia flower. Around his head was a wreath of those blossoms which smelt like woodbine and whose name he didn’t know. Alien and familiar. Terrible as an army with banners.
‘I... do not know,’ stuttered the reverend.
‘I do,’ replied the young man, taking William’s hand. He shuddered at the affectionate touch. ‘You need a lover. Here I am,’ he said simply, laying their joined hands on his lap.
‘No, it’s sin, it’s damnation, let go of me!’
William MacAllister struggled. Tuikaramea was strong. He pinned the reverend to the wall of his hut with the other hand.
‘You told me,’ he said, emphasising the ‘you’, ‘You told me that your God was love. That he loved all his creatures. Should you alone of all his creatures be unloved? You want me. I can feel your desire. Love is not wrong. It is not sin. You taught me that. Did you lie to me, William?’
‘No, I didn’t, I didn’t lie,’ protested William MacAllister. ‘This is not lawful, it is not love!’
‘How?’ asked Tuikaramea, honestly puzzled. ‘Explain.’
‘In the bible, it says that man shall not lie with man,’ said William MacAllister through his teeth. ‘It is an abomination.’
‘So you did lie to me,’ Tuikaramea released the hand. It fell into William’s lap, empty, already chilling. ‘Love is not love, it seems. You will see me no more. I go to my mother’s kin, downriver.’
William drew in a deep, agonised breath. The young man was standing, was leaving! He could not bear it. He surged up and wrapped his arms around Tuikaramea’s waist, pressing his face against the taut muscle which flexed under his cheek.
‘No, I did not lie, I would know love, and God is love,’ he said into scented skin. ‘Don’t go, don’t leave me, Tui.’
Tuikaramea yielded to the pressure of the desperate embrace. He sank down and took William into his arms. Tui had been fascinated with the man from the moment of his arrival. He was so different, with his pale skin and his red hair and his strange, unreadable blue eyes. Tui had no lover. His mother had always complained that he brought no helper to the family. And now the man was pliant under his hands.
Clearly he had never lain with a man before. But Tui had never had anyone respond so fiercely, digging fingers into his hip to urge him closer, crying out with his pleasure.
Then they lay together on the reverend’s crumpled bed and Tui murmured words of love into his ear. William MacAllister waited for the rush of guilt and the burning shame and remorse he expected to feel. Here he was, a minister of the Kirk, lying naked and sated, his head on the barbaric, tattooed breast of a native. He had betrayed his Religion and his own morals. He was apostate, outcast, accursed, abominable. He had lain in filthy sexual commerce with a savage.
A savage so kind, so generous, and so beautiful that his heart ached to see his fringed eyes close in sleep. A lover in the manner of the country. ‘We shall be like Tiki and Tutanekei,’ those exemplars of male love and devotion. A marriage. A brotherhood.
The Reverend William MacAllister sighed and kissed Tui, whose name meant ‘wings of a black bird flying’ on the forehead, and then on the soft tresses of his hair. He felt no revulsion, no horror, no guilt. He had not lied. God was love, after all. He had mouthed the words all his life, but never felt them before.
In his own hut, tended by his two wives, the old man Hakawau grinned privately. He had heard the reverend’s shout of consummation. So, indeed, had half the village. That would reduce the number of MacAllister’s foolish denunciations on sexual sins. Hakawau would no longer be reproved for having two wives. Also, Tuikaramea needed a lover, and the boy had chosen the reverend all by himself. So that was all right.
Tomorrow, they would dig a hangi, cook a lot of fish, and Hakawau would tell the Reverend William MacAllister the story about the bishop.