Kia kaha, Rīpeka. I’m here, hush now.
My sister weeps on my shoulder. I could almost believe she is a little girl again, bringing her tears to me. Behind her in the shadows Hata waits, holding Kararaina, their baby. She is bundled in a blanket, and he raises it to protect her from the cold wind.
I hold Rīpeka a little while longer. Then gently I break our embrace.
What will we do now, Brother? she asks. What will become of us?
We walk towards Hata. Ngā mihi, I say to him. How are you?
Kei te pai, he answers. He lifts baby Kararaina up for me to kiss. Say hello to Uncle, Bub.
Tama’s got a suitcase, Rīpeka tells Hata, as if he’s a chauffeur. Bring it to the car.
All my sisters have a bossy streak in them. In their world they are not my sisters; I am their brother. When we get to the vehicle, Hata puts Kararaina in her carrycot on the back seat and then hops into the front.
We can all fit, Rīpeka tells me, moving to the centre. She thinks I haven’t noticed she is pregnant with her second child. Be a bit of a squeeze, won’t it? I ask her.
It’s that Hata! she answers. He can’t keep his hands off my beautiful body.
I shut the door. As we wait for Hata, I put my arms around my sister. I wonder what she is doing, poking me and prodding me, until I realise she is trying to find the same configuration as Dad’s when he cradled her. I try my best approximation. From now on it will have to do.
Hata has got more sense than Dad when it snows, Rīpeka begins. We’ve finished lambing on Wauchop’s station, so we were home nice and cosy when Mum telephoned us. Hata heard me scream and came running. He tried to calm me down, I think he was scared for the baby I am carrying as much as me. We went to Waituhi straight away. I rushed from the car and saw the funeral director was there talking to Mum. Mere and Wiki had already arrived from their jobs in town too.
Mum said: We’re taking your father to the funeral parlour. But I wanted to see him before then. Where is he? I said to Mum. Nothing could stop me … I ran into the bedroom and … I don’t know what I did or what I said, only that I cried out his name and held him to me.
I hug my sister closer. She’s always been the one in the family to go into detail. In the past Mere, Wiki and I have often rolled our eyes, but, this afternoon, her kōrero is somehow comforting: I need to know. And Rīpeka’s right: although we might be afraid of death, what we really fear is seeing the person we love in their casket, isn’t it?
Hata arrives at the car with my suitcase, puts it in the boot and then comes to sit in the driver’s seat. He starts the motor. It’s been quite a day, eh, he says to me. He drives the car out of the terminal car park, through Te Hāpara suburb and onto the main road out of Gisborne.
Mum asked us to help her choose clothes for Dad, Rīpeka continues, his shirt, tie and suit, and brown shoes to put on his feet. Mere asked: What kind of fashion statement is that? And Wiki answered: Nobody will know except us, and he liked those shoes. As for his hat, we will put it on him later. Before we left the farmhouse, we telephoned Nani Miro, and she sent some of the Ringatū women with the knowledge, the mātauranga, to do with tūpāpaku. They were waiting when we arrived at the funeral home. Te Hinutohu was officiating and she told the undertaker that, after he had prepared Dad’s body, we would dress him. She performed the rituals over Dad and, when he was returned, she smiled at us and said: The wife of Rongo is here, the daughters of Rongo are here, you, whose sacred duty it is to dress our taonga. This is what women do, this is your act of love. He would not want anybody else except his own women to do this for him.
The car passes through Makaraka. There is a sudden burst of laughter as we pass. Laughter and joy: they are no longer part of the world I know.
On either side, open fields. Ahead, mountains still sunlit.
Tama, the ritual was so wonderful, Rīpeka says to me. Te Hinutohu led the way, guiding us. I never expected Dad to be so … beautiful. Mum stroked and massaged him so that his limbs would be supple while we washed and dressed him. While we were doing this, Mum talked to him. About their courting days. How honoured she had been to be his wife. How much she would miss his passion when making love: No more will I have your body to give me joy. Some of her stories were so intimate they would have made you blush. Others were outrageous, they made us laugh. Mere realised the undertaker had parted Dad’s hair on the wrong side. Wiki scolded Mum: You sleep with a man all these years and you haven’t noticed? And Mum answered: You girls, sometimes I think you knew more about your Dad than I did. And when we had completed dressing him and recombed his hair, Mum said to Dad: Look what your daughters have done for you, Husband. How handsome and beautiful they have made you for all the world to see.
And then Nani Miro arrived. She asked us: Have you done as all daughters of man have performed since the beginning of Time? Have you rendered unto your father as did the daughters of Eve to their father Adam? If you have done your duty, let us take him before the people.
The car approaches the Matawhero crossroads. Dad used to sell his stock at the saleyards here. There was once a military station nearby, during the New Zealand Wars; Te Kooti Ārikirangi led a raid on it and killed militia and their families. The consequence was the Government’s war on the prophet.
Kararaina begins to cry. She lifts her hands into the air, wanting to be picked up. I turn to soothe her, but she just looks at me as if I am a stranger and reaches out for Rīpeka.
She doesn’t remember me, I tell my sister.
You’ve been gone from home a long time, she answers. What’s wrong, Bub? Look: your uncle’s come all the way from Wellington! A long, long way! … No more cry no more tangi. Everything’s all right now.
Across the Matawhero Bridge we go, turning right at the roundabout towards Pātūtahi. The road unfolds like a dream before me. I could almost believe that this was our family’s old truck, and Dad was driving, and Dad and I are laughing and …
But Dad is dead. The long Pō has begun, for he has taken the light with him. Tears, do not fall. Heart, do not thunder so. Let me have peace from my sorrow.
Hata takes over the kōrero: Uncle Hepa Walker took his boys down to open the meeting house and set up the tent next to it. However, when Nani Miro saw them doing it she told them: Forget it. In this weather? Shift Rongo onto the porch.
Onto the porch?
Yes, Hata continues. She told everyone we can reset the tikanga on this occasion because of the cold. She did something similar last year, do you recall?
Yes, I remembered: one of our cousins had died in Australia and, on the day his body was due to arrive, his brothers telephoned ahead to say they didn’t think they’d be able to arrive before dark, so they were planning to stop somewhere and come on the next day. But Nani Miro said: This is his marae, he can be brought on any time, day or night.
Our Auntie Mary has started up the cookhouse to feed all the people who will come, Hata continues. The smoke curled across the hills and, as soon as they saw it, the iwi knew someone had died. When people found out about Dad, they came to help.
Lots of spuds to peel, Rīpeka takes over. Nani Maka, you know, Maka tiko bum, came to help. And all the time, the trucks were arriving and more people were coming with more potatoes and pumpkins and mutton and … Auē, my hands are still sore … and look at my beautiful fingernails. I just had them done yesterday.
Many people are helping out, Hata continues. Uncle Charlie Whatu gave Mum his pay this week. Mum, she said: Never mind, you keep it for your family. But he told her not to be hōhā and take it or else! Even Auntie Rose, you know how flash we used to think she was, she arrived and yelled out: Where’s a knife, somebody give me a knife, I’ll show you girls how to peel spuds. And she sat down with us in her flash clothes, crying away. And she got a ring from John. He said she had to come home. Auntie Rose, she got wild and told him to go to hell, she wasn’t coming home for him, there was too much work to do here.
Even Auntie Rose is at the hall?
She got the boys to set up the trestles and started the inventory of all the crockery and utensils. She kept everybody going, and she really ripped into some of the crew when she thought they were taking too much time setting up. Afterward, I went up to her and I told her: Auntie, I never used to think of you as a ringawera, thank you.
The hau kāinga are all pitching in, Hata says. It didn’t take long for Uncle Pita to get Mahana Three out pig-hunting. They’ve gone up the back of Te Karaka, should be back tomorrow …
Yeah, Rīpeka says, digging him in the ribs. And you were late coming to pick me up. You stop off at the pub somewhere eh?
Me? Hata answers. How can I when you’ve got all our money!
Clouds scud slowly across the landscape of my mind. There is a pall over my sun. Rongopai, below, is plunged into shadow.
The greenstone has shattered. What comes after?
How are the kids holding up? Are they all right, Rīpeka?
We took them around to Auntie Arihia’s to play with Maka and Erua while we were at the undertakers. They know about tangihanga and have been to others. But this one is for our dad, their father too.
My world has gone almost full circle. Its desolation is immeasurable, the pall over the sun complete. The painted panels of Rongopai crumble, the beams of that ancient roof fall. Yet, sometime, the world must turn again. Another hour must begin, the clock hands moving on. A sun explodes, another brightens the sky, forming nova. A new morning. From the ruins of an old life, a new one must rise. Some day.
E Pā, for you, I will create the world anew. For Rīpeka, for all my family, I will build a good life.
The car turns at the T-junction that leads to Pātūtahi. On the other side of it, some miles further on, is Waituhi where Father waits. He was taken there straight from the funeral parlour. My sisters, Hata and Koro and two of my cousins, Simeon and Andrew Whatu, carried his casket onto the marae. Already I see Dad lying there: on the porch of the meeting house, the place of love, silhouetted in the last rays of the sun. Mum is watching over Dad. Mārama and Hōne are with her.
He will be like the medieval monarch I saw in an illustration, being ferried on a funeral barge from Avalon, surrounded by such proud, mourning women. My father is my own king, as great as any legend, and he shall be taken to Hawaiki on a waka of burnished splendour across a sea of death.
Auē. Auē … is the cry of sadness. Auē. Auē … is the keening of women on the marae, waiting to welcome the visitors to the tangi. Auē. Auē . . is the call that has come to me, haramai ki te kāinga … Auē. Auē … is the homecalling.
Pātūtahi glimmers and fades past. The car crosses a small bridge. The road stretches away in front of me, endless and unending, toward Waituhi, where Father waits. There were so many things we meant to do together. How can I do them without him?
The road curves around the hill, Pukepoto, the entrance to Waituhi. The sunlight seems to be spilling into the valley. Everything starts spinning past, the church and Pākōwhai marae, the houses …
People must have known I would be arriving around now. I can see them standing by the roadside, heads bowed in respect to a returning son.
Suddenly, ahead, I see Rongopai. The gateway is open. My courage fails me. How can anyone look upon the person they love, in death, and survive?
I close my eyes, tightly, tightly closed. When I open them, Dad will come striding to the car. He will say: Have you come home to help me with the lambing, Son? He will embrace me and laugh and say: We better get you out of your city clothes first, and then haere māua ki te mahi.
All this will happen when I open my eyes. When the car slows down, when it stops bumping and swaying through the gateway.
The car has stopped.
Now I will open my eyes.
So much light, so much blinding light.
My eyes prick with tears. The last light of the day, and the world is aglow with the sunset. The clouds seep with flames which spread higher through the clouds as if they were the branches of a burning tree.
And for the third and last time, the āhua of my father appears. If I hold his gaze, I might force him to stay. But I know I can’t.
This is where I leave you, Tama … and this is my final kōrero. The eldest always looks after the younger ones of the family. I was taught that as a child; I teach you the same thing now. Look after your mother, your sisters and your younger brother.
I am here, Dad.
There’s one thing more, Son. It conflicts with the loyalties you must show to your whānau, your iwi. Our family’s role has always been to ensure ahi kā but, at the same time, I must respect your own wishes about where you want to go in your life. Whether you stay or leave is up to you.
He presses his palm against my heart. I feel the imprint of his hand.
Just remember: Tōu manawa, ō rātou manawa. Your heart is also their heart.
And then his eyes grow tender.
Your heart is my heart too, Son. When it comes your time to follow me to death, look for my special knot in the sedge. You will recognise it when you see it.
The sun moves below the clouds, like a golden meniscus glowing.
Whichever way you choose, be kind.