A Crooked Rib (22 page)

‘Fanny dearest, you’re a heroine! All Auckland is talking about your bravery. And, though it’s a terrible thing to say, I’m glad the old house burned down. It was always the most uncomfortable place imaginable and here we are in delightful new surroundings. Just look at that splendid view across the Grafton Gully.’

‘But how long are we to remain here?’

‘Why, as long as we need. Until a new Government House can be built. But I’m in no hurry for that. I like it very well here at Moleskin Hall. It’s so much better appointed than the old Government House. Now, I’m obliged to take provisions to the hospital, so I’ve ordered a light lunch for you, and the physician says you’re to take a little walk in the grounds, then rest. I shall see you later this afternoon.’

I was dozing beneath a tree in the sloping gardens when I became aware I had company.

‘Te Toa!’

‘Miss Fanny.’

‘I must thank you for all you’ve done for me.’

‘There are no marks of the burns on your shoulder and your feet?’

‘They’re quite healed. I didn’t know leaves could soothe so.’

‘It was not the leaves alone. At first, we applied a poultice of herbs to your shoulder, then bound the leaves about it.’

‘We?’

‘I did not myself touch you, but I watched the tohunga as he tended you.’

‘But … but … my shift was cut from me. My … when I woke I had no clothing on my … upper parts.’

‘Clothing would have prevented the healing.’

I said nothing, but Te Toa appeared to read my thoughts. ‘Our women never cover their breasts. It is only at the Mission that they are obliged to be unnatural, and then only when Pihopa is present. And he and Mata were not at Waimate when I took you there.’ He paused. ‘Will you ride with me again?’

I looked away.

‘But, first, you must tell me what has turned you against me?’

I was silent.

‘Please. Miss Fanny.’

‘It … I …’

‘I am listening most carefully.’

‘Te Toa, I know you are married.’

He laughed. ‘We do not call it married but, yes, I have two wives.’ He scrutinised my face and grew immediately serious. ‘
This
is what has made you so … unfriendly to me? But why? What have my wives to do with—?’

I began to weep.

‘You like me, I think, Miss Fanny.’

‘I do,’ I said, through sobs. ‘That is exactly the problem. You and I, we are not allowed to … We are always obliged to meet in secret. There’s no other person to whom I can speak as freely as I do to you, and yet, were it to be known that—’

‘You are right,’ he said, ‘and I have been very foolish not to have seen it.’

‘You are not only … so different from me but you are
married
. And you have two wives. The church does not permit it.’

‘In these matters, the opinion of the church is of no importance. It is our own customs that we follow. And, I assure you, for a chief of my rank, I am very modest in my needs. Many others of my station have three or four wives.’

‘I know this, but … Are you in love with your wives?’

‘Listen to me, Fanny. We chiefs do not marry for love. We are married for alliances, for land, to end warfare. Our wives are highborn, the daughters of chiefs; our fathers and uncles, our grandfathers, arrange such unions between us. I am an honourable man; I treat my wives and my children with respect and kindness, but this is not the same as love in the way that I believe you speak of it. And is it not
the same for you Pakeha? Do you tell me that Te Kawana loves Mata? Or she, him? It is a useful alliance between them. And even Pihopa Selwyn loves his Mission and his Christian god, Te Ariki, more than he loves Mata Pihopa.’

‘But one is
supposed
to love God more than any other.’

‘So? Pihopa has made an alliance with Te Ariki in just the way that my grandfather made the alliances between me and my wives. It is right to be united for reasons of power and conquest. And for land. Even the church wishes to have our land for Te Ariki.’

‘No, it is the New Zealand Company that wants land — and for themselves.’

‘It is also the church. The land for the Missions, the land on which the churches are to be built. “Give them to us for Te Ariki,” says Pihopa, says Mr Williams, says even Mr Hadfield.’

‘But this is not to do with love.’

‘No, indeed. It is to do with power and alliance. Just like my wives.’

‘If you were a Pakeha, you would choose your wife for love.’

Te Toa looked at me and shook his head. ‘Where are these Pakeha who have chosen a wife for love? Mr Eyre needs a wife to look after him and to provide children for him, Mr Godley wants a wife who will command him, Te Kawana has a wife because it is proper, like Pihopa and—’

‘Sir William and Lady Martin married for love.’

‘There, I think you are correct. But see how rare it is? If it is so with Pakeha, why not also with Maori?’

I sat in silence.

‘And this — my wives — is why you have made a distance between us?’

I nodded.

‘But now that you understand the nature of our alliances, may we again become friends?’ He moved towards me, but then drew back. ‘Fanny, I was at General Wynyard’s when I saw the flames, when I understood that Government House was burning, and I could not stop myself from fleeing at once to find you. It was my greatest fear that you might have perished, that I might have lost you …’ He paused. ‘Perhaps you might call this love. How can I know? I am a paramount chief. I cannot confide these thoughts to other Maori. I
should never speak so to any other woman. Only with you can I be so truthful.’

And I saw that he was right. It was as if the two most unlike people in the world had been flung together — a puppet show for dispassionate gods. And only to each other could we acknowledge the strange bond between us.

‘And I, too, can never speak of it to my sister or any other, not even to Lady Martin. For all her compassion, she would not, could not, comprehend or condone such an alliance.’

‘I know this. If you were the man and I the woman, there would be no difficulty. It is well known that many important Pakeha men take our women to live with them and appear quite openly with them in society. But, for us …’

‘Then would it be … perhaps we should not meet again?’

‘If you prefer it, then we will not. But I do not think you prefer it. Nor I. It is only by chance that you are here in Aotearoa, that you and I have met, but if the gods have seen fit to bring us together, should we oppose their design?’

‘You can’t imagine how much I wish to see you, Te Toa, how much I’ve missed your company.’

‘And I. You enter my thoughts when I am engaged on other business. I hear your voice, I feel you in the air about me. I believe this may be the love of which you speak. So then, though I do not love my wives, Fanny, it is possible I may love you.’

‘I …’

‘And you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I knew this. I have always known it since we went together to the slave settlement. Do you remember?’

I nodded. ‘Te Toa, there is something else which troubles me very greatly. But I can’t speak of it, even to you.
Especially
to you …’

‘I believe I know what this may be.’

‘So, can you answer me?’

‘If you want to have my answer, you must first have the courage to ask me your question.’

I tried to speak but could not. I fought with myself to frame the words but was unable to utter them.

‘You cannot ask this question of me because you do not wish to hear my truthful reply. But, if you do not know the truth, like the matter of my wives, this business will stand always between us.’

‘I know. But how can I say it?’

‘I think you have no choice.’

I could not meet Te Toa’s eye. I looked down, drew in my breath and forced myself to speak. ‘I … Te Toa …?’

‘Yes?’

Blood rushed into my face; tears started in my eyes; the words came in a sudden rush. ‘Have you eaten
human flesh
?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you are so wise and kind. How
could
you commit that most terrible crime?’

‘Because I do not consider it so. I think you have no understanding of such things. I do not eat the flesh of others every day. Sometimes, it is true, after battle, our defeated enemies are slain and roasted in our ovens. And there are stories of times of famine when raids were made to capture supplies of food but, usually, it is only the custom during battle. If I have defeated my opponent, I will slay him, and my tohunga will then offer prayers over his body and make a sacred fire. On this, he will place my enemy, open his chest and lift out the organs containing his wairua, his spirit, and in the slowly curling smoke the gods will reveal a message to my tohunga. “Carry on this battle”, or “Allow the conquered to retire vanquished”, they will tell him. And then, to obtain the power of my rival, I will consume his heart and his liver.’

I stared in utter horror. Te Toa gently touched my arm with his hand, the hand with which he had placed human flesh in his mouth. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘I can see how greatly this shocks you. But it is our custom. And, surely, it is not so very different from your Christianity?’

‘It is entirely different! Christianity would
never
condone such a thing.’

‘Fanny, you are wrong. In his church, every Sunday, and often on other days, Pihopa performs this very same action and he is not even engaged in battle.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘That perhaps it is
Pihopa
who exceeds himself. We Maori eat one another, but we would never commit the sin of eating our own gods.’

I looked at him in confusion.

‘Is this not true? “The body and blood of Te Ariki,” says Pihopa, and he holds up the liquid and the little disc.’

‘But that is Holy Communion.’

‘So it is with me when I am consuming my enemy’s spirit.’

‘The Bishop doesn’t eat the
real
flesh of Christ. For the Communion, he uses bread and wine.’

‘I know this, but it is exactly the same. Each time, does not Pihopa say so?’

‘The Communion is only symbolic …’

‘And it is symbolic also when one chief ritually eats his rival. Do you take the Holy Communion of Pihopa?’

‘Yes.’

‘And does he not tell you it is Te Ariki you are swallowing?’

‘Yes, but Pihopa has not
slain
Te Ariki!’

‘He tells us Te Ariki was killed by his own tribe. And, over and over again, he becomes holy food.’ Te Toa sat down beside me. ‘So, now, are we again friends as before? Think, Fanny. For all of the time you have known me, I have always had my wives, I have always done these things about which we are speaking. When you did not know this, you were my friend. Now I have been truthful to you — and you turn away. But I am exactly the same man.’

I tried to summon those principles that I believed myself to honour. I thought of Lucy, Aunt, my sisters, their distress should my conduct ever become known to them. For a moment, I seemed to step outside of myself and watch us, sitting together. I am in danger, I told myself. I should, I
must
leave now. At once. Instead, I heard my own voice saying, ‘I am afraid, Te Toa.’

‘Of me?’

‘No, of what people may say.’

‘Who are these people? I am well known to the Pakeha as a man of honour. Your own honour will not be compromised by riding with me. Do not Te Kawana and General Wynyard ride often with pretty young girls?’

‘It’s not you, I fear. It is … myself.’

Te Toa put his arms about me and held me to him. I made no resistance.

I rode alone to the Domain, tethered Tsarina and, as instructed by Te Toa, pushed through the undergrowth on foot to the deserted slave settlement. He strode towards me and I ran to him. ‘I have left my own mount far away,’ he said, in answer to my unspoken question. ‘No one will disturb us or suspect we are here together.’

There was about Te Toa the dense, heavy tang of earth, overlaid with a pungency like that of some of the green plants we plucked. As I rested against his unclothed chest, I was enveloped by a heady, spicy odour that, in its unfamiliarity, both drew and deterred me. Nakedness seemed entirely natural to him.

‘Te Toa,’ I said, seeking by conversation to cover my own apprehension, ‘how old are you?’

He looked puzzled. ‘Why, the age I am now.’

‘No, in what year were you born?’

‘I was born at the third new moon after my father’s conquest of Ngati Whatua.’

It was my turn to look bemused. ‘On what day?’

‘That day, itself.’

‘But you must know how many years you’ve been alive.’

He shook his head. ‘No, I have been a child, then a young boy, and now I am a man. That is how many years I have been alive.’

I was astounded. ‘I was born in 1824,’ I said, ‘so I will be twenty-five years old in November.’

‘This is very helpful Pakeha reckoning, I am sure, but for us Maori it is of no use at all. And now,’ he said gently, reaching to caress my face, ‘we should stop this talking. Come here, beside me.’

After some time, and his stroking of my arms and cheeks, I consented to part with everything but my shift and, though it was not cold, stood shivering before him. He placed his arms around me. ‘When you asked if I loved my wives, I said I did not think I knew what you meant. Now I know that I have this most difficult feeling for you, so it is certain to me that I feel love for you.’

‘Being in love is not supposed to be difficult …’

‘Are you sure of this? It seems to me very difficult. I am thinking of you when I should not, I am telling myself every day I must not ride to see you. I must not betray by a single word or look what I feel for you. And all the time, I wish to be with you.’

‘I know.’

‘Fanny, you must tell me. Do you understand what happens between a man and a woman?’

‘I … I … It’s not something I can speak about, even to my sister …’

‘You remember the carvings at my pa? In the wharenui?’

I said nothing.

‘I know that you saw them. I saw you redden and look away. And then, a little later, I saw you look again, but quickly. You were ashamed.’