Into the River (5 page)

She was holding up the story. “There were no police, Winnie. Carry on, Ra, what happened next?”

“Waking up where Diego did, far out to sea, different laws applied. Being a sailor, Diego was better placed than most to adapt to his new situation, but he had become intoxicated with the vision of a new life. This was the plan that had stretched before him like
a magnificent dream. It had seemed both remote and tantalisingly within his reach, like little fish in a crystal pool.

“While feasting on this vision, he had lost sight of what was happening immediately around him. After years of trusting no one, of constantly watching his back, he had finally surrendered to the idea of home. To the luxury of trust. To his brothers. He had found what everyone in the world wants: a turangawaewae … a place to stand.

“Now his brothers’ betrayal had stripped him of the possibility of rest. He was like the toroa now, the great winged albatross, facing a life of constant flight. There was a sliver of glass embedded in his heart and the only thing that could remove it was utu, revenge. It was all he wanted. Only that would ever allow him to rest.

“When he was finally released from his cell, the only sight of land was a tooth of rock jutting up from the horizon. He didn’t need to be told that it was the Rock of Gibraltar. He was on his way to the Dutch East Indies. Diego was a strong swimmer and in his desperation might have been tempted to leap over the side if it were not for one thing: around his ankles were stout shackles joined by a length of heavy chain.

“It was a long, slow journey down the side of Africa and around Cape of Good Hope. The dull routine of ships was a life he knew well enough. But he was just a deckhand now, with no exalted status like in his former life. His lot was the menial duties of the lower order. He kept aloof from the other men, feeding on his anger. He had a mission and nothing would deter him from it.

“At Cape Town the ship stopped only for a day, long enough to take on fresh water and provisions. Unlike the other impressed men, Diego was locked below deck in a tiny storeroom where galley supplies were kept. Here, amongst the sacks of flour and barrels of olive oil, he pondered his position. He realised that he was treated differently from the others. Money had changed hands. His brothers had paid the captain to make sure he never
returned. Something would happen to him, maybe even before the next port.

“Diego bided his time. The next stop was Colombo on the island that hangs like a pearl below India.”

Ra pointed to the old fly-spotted map on the sitting room wall.

“Sri Lanka!” Te Arepa barked, as if it were some sort of competition with Rawinia.

“Ceylon, it was called in those days. Once again he was locked in the storeroom before the island was even sighted. He could smell the thick tropical air, even deep in the musty hold. He lay on a pile of sail cloth in the darkness, waiting, listening. Through the wooden hull he could hear the deck hands calling to the hawkers in small boats; the scraping on the deck as barrels were hauled aboard; then finally silence. Everyone had gone ashore.

“Some time later he awoke, to unfamiliar noises. Something was wrong. He heard running feet. Fighting. Screams. Then voices from different parts of the ship. Foreign voices. Raiders. After a while the voices became less frantic. There were new sounds. Hammering and smashing. The voices came closer. It was only a matter of time before he met the same fate as the men left on watch.

“Soon, the raiders were on his own deck, then, in the next room, and finally, just outside his door. A flicker of light showed beneath it. Someone began to attack the thick wood with an axe. Stripping off his shirt, Diego rubbed olive oil on his arms and upper body. He would make himself as slippery as an eel. Perhaps he could barge past the invaders and down the narrow passageways. Surprise was his only weapon. As the door began to collapse, he reached into a flour sack and coated his face with powder.

“The door split down the middle and yellow light flooded the tiny room. The raiders were greeted by a glistening figure with glaring white face, who rose up from a crouch, hissing and waving his arms. The men’s eyes widened and they turned and ran off
screaming. Diego waited, as their shouts echoed up and down the ship.

“As he reached the deck, the last of the invaders was struggling down a rope to a waiting boat. The moon was full and it was easy to see the trail of loot left behind. Nearby, two small boats were being frantically rowed to port, half a mile away. Diego walked to the railing and peered over. A heavily laden man was so startled by Diego’s glowing white face that he half jumped, half fell, into the waiting boat.

“Diego looked about him. The barque, deserted now, seemed his for the taking. With a lantern he hurried through the dark passages, searching to see who remained. There were only three men still on the boat. All dead. The blood and debris made it easy to see what had happened.

“Diego was faced with two possible choices. He could swim ashore and hide out until the boat sailed on. Or he could take the ship.”

Ra paused, letting the decision play in the children’s heads.

“This ship was a barque, built for a crew of thirty. Ten men per watch.

“Diego did what others could never dream of doing. He took the ship.

“The first and most difficult task was to raise the anchor. Turning the bollards was usually a job for three. He found a saw in the carpenter’s cabin and freed the ship from the sea floor. Once unsecured, the vessel immediately felt the tug of the outgoing tide and began to drift.”

“Yea!” cheered Rawinia.

“But a drifting ship cannot be steered, so he made busy, unfurling a sail. With a single sheet he could luff and head the barque towards the open sea.”

Ra sank back in his chair. “That’s all for now, you two. It’s late and my voice is tired.”

“But you’ve hardly started!”

“A little more then.

“After weeks of captivity, weeks brooding on a fate that was monstrously unfair, Diego was now once more in control of his own destiny. Now, mokos, it is one thing to achieve freedom, but it is another to keep it. Chance is a fickle friend. Before long, he saw a ship on the horizon, bearing down on him. The wide ocean has pathways, and a ship with one sail will always be outrun. How could he explain himself? How could he avoid further capture, imprisonment, maybe death?

“Little more than an hour later the speedy clipper drew up next to him. This ship, the
S.S. Devon
, was bringing settlers to the new land, Aotearoa. To the captain, Diego’s ship represented the bounty of the ocean. The salvage reward would be enough to fund his retirement.

“Diego’s ship was grappled and boarded.

“Diego struggled to make himself understood in English. One look at the destruction wrought by the pirates and it was as if he was wearing a sign saying ‘lock me up’. The captain ordered that he be taken to a small cell below deck. A skeleton crew was assigned and the two ships headed off to their distant destination.

“His situation, once bleak, was now hopeless. He was imprisoned, shackled, aboard a ship where he could not make himself understood; facing charges of piracy, and heading for the scaffold in a foreign land. In such times a man’s true nature is tested. Diego had to look deep within himself to find the courage to continue. Here our ancestor Diego Santos was reborn and became one of us.

“His cell had no light, and was deep in the bowels of the ship. His needs were taken care of by the lowliest member of the crew, the cabin boy. This boy and the cook would visit him once a day to bring him food and water and to take away the bucket of excrement.

“For the first few days, the boy was terrified and the older man stood in the hallway, drawn sword in one hand and lantern in the
other, while the boy rushed in to exchange the vessels from the day before. As the days went by, Diego perfected a posture that presented no threat. He smiled and greeted the pair and soon they were happy enough to be able to exchange the few words they had of each other’s language.

“The boy’s name was …”

“Oliver Twist!” Rawinia bleated.

“No, a different Oliver, this one.”

“Carry on, Ra.” Te Arepa was not one for digressions.

“This Oliver was an orphan who had earned his keep on ships since he was seven years old. Diego gradually befriended the boy, and managed to give an account of himself. This lad hungered for Diego’s halting stories, and soon began to find time to steal down and talk to him through the locked door.

“Inside us all, no matter how old or young, there is a sense of justice. The unfairness of what this young Oliver heard lit a fire in him — as Diego knew it would.

“After a while the cook allowed the child to take the meals down unaccompanied and sit with Diego while he ate. This was something they both looked forward to. Each day Diego thought of some new episode, and, with Oliver’s help, told a series of wonderful tales: stories of storms, of fights, of races and feats of strength or cunning, stories that made the boy wonder how anyone could be treated so cruelly, stories lightly delivered that made them both laugh out loud.

“One day Oliver brought news that made the pirate cry out something in his own language. The coastline of Aotearoa was there, on the starboard side of the ship. Landfall would be only hours away.

“Diego told the boy that from here he would be taken to a prison and from there to the gallows. The law had no time for pirates. He said, ‘I have no regrets but one last wish.’

“‘What’s that?’ Oliver asked.

“‘To stand on the deck and breathe the salt air. To feel the wind
in my face … if only for a minute. It is a sailor’s wish.’

“And so it was that night, when all aboard were asleep, the boy stole the key. He found Diego up and pacing about in his tiny cell like a hungry leopard. The two crept through the passageways that led up to the rear decks, Oliver timorously navigating the black spaces, Diego carrying his chains so they made no sound. There was a bright full moon when they eased open the hatch. Not thirty feet away was the helmsman, his back to them. Sure enough, on the starboard side, across a few miles of white flecked sea, was the dark outline of an unknown shore.

“Oliver looked at Diego uneasily, perhaps regretting what he had done. Diego had assured the boy that he would stay on the deck for no longer than a minute, but now they were in the open he seemed a different person from the prisoner he had talked to in the cramped cell. They walked to the railing. Diego offered the boy his hand. Oliver shook it solemnly. The older man then stepped carefully over the railings, threw his head back, and yelled the word ‘Libertad!’ and …”

“And leapt into the wine-dark sea.”

“You know this story as well as I do, Te Arepa. You should be telling it.”

“No, I like to listen to it. My head fills with pictures.”

“What does ‘libertad’ mean?” asked Rawinia.

Ra sat back silently for a while as if the effort of recollection had drained every ounce of his strength. After a while he said, “It means freedom in Spanish.” There was a wistful tone to his voice. Then he sat forward. “That really is it, you two. Look at Rawinia.” She had curled up in the nest of her blanket and could hardly keep her eyes open.

The following night the children arrived early, waiting for Ra to resume his story. There seemed to be an endless number of small
tasks that needed his attention, and for a while the two children thought they were going to miss out. When he finally appeared he carried a small, shiny adze.

He passed it to Te Arepa who examined it carefully before handing it on to Rawinia. Neither of them had seen it before. It was black and glossy, like glass, and completely smooth but for two small grooves running up each side.

“What do you think this is?”

Te Arepa felt its weight again, heavier than he expected, and cold too, but there was something else about it, something a bit scary, something he couldn’t define.

“Put it next to your lips, boy.”

He did and immediately sprang back. “Ae! What’s that?”

“That’s the mauri.”

Rawinia took it in her hands to try it next to her mouth, but she could feel nothing.

“This stone has drunk men’s blood. It has a history that our iwi shares with others.”

“Where did it come from?”

Ra laughed. “Boy, that’s a big question. If I was to tell you that story you would have no time to hear the last episode of Diego’s history. So which do you want?”

“Diego!” they chorused.

Ra sank back into the old armchair, his eyes focused on some spot above their heads. They knew he was trying to remember. Trying to find the words to continue his recitation.

“This is a tale of death and birth, a tale of blood and trickery. It is the tale of our family and the tale which ties us into the history and genealogy of the greater group. You asked, boy, ‘Where does this come from?’”

Ra held the adze between finger and thumb.

“Well, the easy answer is, from the head of Ngahuia’s ko. It was brought into our tribe when she arrived with Tamehana.”

Te Arepa was about to speak but Ra held up his hand to stop
him. The stream could not be broken now.

“Tamehana was the first husband. The one who died of the strange sickness that took so many of our people. Maybe today they would say it was due to some foreign sickness, something missing from the diet, the land, or maybe we had become too isolated, and our families had intermingled and weakened. Who knows? But Ngahuia was destined to bring new life into our dying iwi, and the first thing she brought was this strange ko which had the sharpest, hardest blade we had ever known. Those grooves, boy. They were made when Diego drove the stone through the rivet that held the flanges of his leg irons together. This ko stone was hard enough to break the iron and free Diego. It was from here that his history begins to blend with our own.

“Diego was quick to learn our language and our ways. Many said that now, freed of his chains, he would be gone. That Ngahuia would wake one morning to an empty bed. But they were wrong. In us he found something that he had lost in Spain, or something perhaps that he had never really known. He found aroha, love. Not just the love between a man and a woman, but the love of the whanau and the love of the iwi. Here no one expected anything of him but he brought to us the seed of our liberation. Just as we were able to liberate him from his chains, his death sentence, he was able to finally liberate us from those northern demons who were poised to wipe us out. To take our land and our women … to obliterate our history.