The Whale Rider (8 page)

Then the second half of the programme began. There was Kahu in her
skirt and bodice, standing so proudly in front of the school cultural group.
‘Hands on hips!’ she yelled. ‘Let’s
begin!’ she ordered. And as she sang, she smiled a brilliant smile at all of us.
Her voice rang out with pride.

‘That young girl’s a cracker,’ I
overheard someone say. But my heart was aching for her and I wanted to leave. Nanny Flowers
gripped me hard and said, ‘No, we all have to sit here, like it or not.’
Her lips were quivering.

The action songs continued, one after another, and I could see that
Kahu had realised that Koro Apirana was not going to arrive. The light kept dimming,
gradually fading from her face, like a light bulb flickering. By the time the bracket was
concluded she was staring down at the floor trying not to see us. She looked as if she was
feeling ashamed, and I loved her all the more for her vulnerability.

We tried to bolster her courage by clapping loudly, and we were
rewarded by a tremulous smile playing on her face. It was then that the headmaster stepped
forward. He made an announcement: one of the students would read the speech which had won
the East Coast primary schools contest. What was remarkable, he said, was that the student
had given it entirely in her own tongue, the Maori language. He called for Kahutia Te Rangi
to come forward.

‘Did you know about this?’ Nanny Flowers asked.

‘No,’ said Porourangi. ‘Come to think of
it, she did mention she had a surprise. For her Koro —’

To the cheers of her schoolmates Kahu advanced to the front of the
stage.

‘E nga rangatira,’ Kahu began, ‘e nga
iwi,’ she looked at Koro Apirana’s empty seat, ‘tena koutou,
tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.’ There were stars in her eyes, like sparkling
tears. ‘Distinguished guests, members of the audience, my speech is a speech of
love for my grandfather, Koro Apirana.’

Nanny Flowers gave a sob, and tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Kahu’s voice was clear and warm as she told of her love for
her grandfather and her respect for him. Her tones rang with pride as she recited his
whakapapa and ours. She conveyed how grateful she was to live in Whangara and that her main
aim in life was to fulfil the wishes of her grandfather and of the tribe.

And I felt so proud of her, so proud, and so sad that Koro Apirana was
not there to hear how much she loved him. And I wanted to shout,
Well done, good on you
, to this young girl who was not really so brave and
who would have liked the support of the one person who was never there — her Koro,
Apirana. At the end of the speech I leapt to my feet to do a haka of support for her. Then
the boys were joining in, and Nanny Flowers was kicking off her shoes. ‘Uia mai
koia, whakahuatia ake ko wai te whare nei e? Ko Te Kani —’ The sadness
and the joy swept us all away in acknowledging Kahu, but we knew that her heart was aching
for Koro Apirana.

In the car, later, Porourangi said, ‘Your
Koro couldn’t make it tonight, darling.’

‘That’s all right, Daddy. I don’t
mind.’

Nanny Flowers hugged her fiercely. ‘I tell you, Kahu,
tomorrow I’m really getting a divorce. Your Koro can go his way and I’ll
go mine.’

Kahu put her face against Nanny Flowers’ cheeks. Her voice
was drained and defeated. ‘It’s not Paka’s fault,
Nanny,’ she said, ‘that I’m a girl.’

thirteen

Two weeks after the school break-up ceremony, Koro Apirana took the
young boys from the school onto the sea. It was early morning as he put them in his boat and
headed out past the bay where the water suddenly turned dark green.

When the sun tipped the sea, Koro Apirana began a prayer. He had a
carved stone in his hand and suddenly he threw it into the ocean. The boys watched until
they could see it no longer.

‘One of you must bring that stone back to me,’
Koro Apirana said. ‘Go now.’

The boys were eager to prove themselves but the stone had gone too
deep. Some were afraid of the darkness. Others were unable to dive so far down. Despite
valiant attempts they could not do it.

Koro Apirana’s face sagged. ‘Okay, boys,
you’ve done well. Let’s get you all home.’

When he got back to the homestead, Koro Apirana shut himself in the
bedroom. Slowly, he began to weep.

‘What’s wrong with my
Koro?’ Kahu asked. She was sitting with me on the verandah. ‘Is it
because of the stone?’

‘How did you know about that?’ I asked,
astonished.

‘One of the boys told me,’ Kahu said. ‘I
wish I could make Paka happy again.’ Her eyes held a hint of gravity.

The next morning I was up early, intending to go out onto the sea in
my dinghy. To my surprise, Kahu was waiting at the door in her white dress and sandals.
There were white ribbons in her pigtails.

‘Can I come for a ride, Uncle Rawiri?’ she asked.

I couldn’t really say no, so I nodded my head. Just as we
were ready to leave, Nanny Flowers yelled out, ‘
Hoi
, wait for me!’ She had decided to join us. ‘I
can’t stand to hear the old paka feeling sorry for himself. Mmmm, what a beautiful
day! The sun is shining.’

We rowed out past the bay and Kahu asked again about the stone.

‘What stone!’ Nanny Flowers said.

So I told her, and Nanny wanted to be shown where it had been dropped
into the water. We went out into the ocean where it suddenly turned indigo.

‘Goodness,’ Nanny said. ‘No wonder those
boys couldn’t get it. This is
deep
.’

‘Does Koro Apirana really want it back?’ Kahu
asked.

‘Yeah, I suppose he must,’ Nanny Flowers said,
‘the old paka. Well, serve him right for —’

Kahu said simply, ‘I’ll get it.’

Before we could stop her she stood up and dived overboard. Until that
moment I had never even known she could swim.

Nanny’s mouth made a big O. Then the breath rushed into her
lungs and she screamed, ‘Oh no!’ She jabbed me hard and said,
‘Go after her, Rawiri.
Go
.’ She
virtually pushed me over the side of the rowboat.

‘Give me the diving mask,’ I yelled. Nanny Flowers
threw it at me and quickly I put it on. I took three deep breaths and did a duck dive.

I couldn’t see her. The sea looked empty.
There was only a small stingray flapping down towards the reef.

Then I got a big fright because the stingray turned around and,
smiling, waved at me. It was Kahu in her white dress and sandals, dog-paddling down to the
sea floor, her braids floating around her head.

I gasped and swallowed sea water. I came to the surface coughing and
spluttering.

‘Where is she!’ Nanny Flowers screamed.
‘Has she drowned? Oh no, my Kahu.’ And before I could stop her she
jumped in beside me, just about emptying the whole ocean. She didn’t even give me
a chance to explain as she grabbed the mask off me and put it on. Then she tried to swim
underwater, but her dress was so filled with air that no matter how hard she tried she
remained on the surface like a balloon with legs kicking out of it. I doubt if she could
have gotten deeper anyway because she was so fat she couldn’t sink.

‘Oh Kahu,’ Nanny Flowers cried again. But this
time I told her to take a deep breath and, when she was looking underwater, to watch where I
would point.

We went beneath the surface. Suddenly I pointed down. Kahu was
searching the reef, drifting around the coral. Nanny Flowers’ eyes widened with
disbelief.

Whatever it was Kahu was searching for, she was having difficulty
finding it. But just then white shapes came speeding out of the dark towards her. I thought
they were sharks, and Nanny Flowers began to blow bubbles of terror.

They were dolphins. They circled around Kahu and seemed to be talking
to her. She nodded and grabbed one around its body. As quick as a flash, the dolphins sped
her to another area of the reef and stopped. Kahu seemed to say, ‘Down
here?’ and the dolphins made a nodding motion.

Suddenly Kahu made a quick, darting gesture. She picked something up,
inspected it, appeared satisfied with it, and went back to the dolphins. Slowly the girl and
the dolphins rose towards us. But just as they were midway, Kahu stopped again. She kissed
the dolphins goodbye and gave Nanny Flowers a heart attack by returning to the reef. She
picked up a crayfish and resumed her upward journey. The dolphins were like silver dreams as
they disappeared.

Nanny Flowers and I were treading water when Kahu
appeared between us, smoothing her hair back from her face and blinking away the sea water.
Nanny Flowers, sobbing, hugged her close in the water.

‘I’m all right, Nanny,’ Kahu laughed.

She showed the crayfish to us. ‘This is for Paka’s
tea,’ she said. ‘And you can give him back his stone.’

She placed the stone in Nanny Flowers’ hands. Nanny Flowers
looked at me quickly. As we were pulling ourselves back into the dinghy she said,
‘Not a word about this to Koro Apirana.’

I nodded. I looked back landward and in the distance saw the carving
of Paikea on his whale like a portent.

As we got to the beach, Nanny Flowers said again, ‘Not a
word, Rawiri. Not a word about the stone or our Kahu.’ She looked up at Paikea.

‘He’s not ready yet,’ she said.

The sea seemed to be trembling with anticipation.

Haumi e, hui e,
taiki e
.

Let it be done.

winter

whale song, whale rider

fourteen

The muted thunder boomed under water like a great door opening far
away. Suddenly the sea was filled with awesome singing, a song with eternity in it. Then the
whale burst through the sea and astride the head was a man. He was wondrous to look upon. He
was the whale rider.

He had come, the whale rider, from the sacred island far to the east.
He had called to the whale, saying, ‘Friend, you and I must take the gifts of life
to the new land, life-giving seeds to make it fruitful.’ The journey had been long
and arduous, but the whale had been filled with joy at the close companionship they shared
as they sped through the southern seas.

Then they had arrived at the land, and at a place called Whangara the
golden rider had dismounted. He had taken the gifts of Hawaiki to the people and the land
and sea had blossomed.

For a time the whale had rested in the sea which sighed at Whangara.
Time had passed like a swift current, but in its passing had come the first tastes of
separation. His golden master had met a woman and had married her. Time passed, time passed
like a dream. One day, the whale’s golden master had come to the great beast and
there had been sadness in his eyes.

‘One last ride, friend,’ his master had said.

In elation, anger and despair, the whale had taken his golden master
deeper than ever before and had sung to him of the sacred islands and of their friendship.
But his master had been firm. At the end of the ride, he had said, ‘I have been
fruitful and soon children will come to me. My destiny lies here. As for you, return to the
Kingdom of Tangaroa and to your own kind.’

The heartache of that separation had never left the whale, nor had the
remembrance of that touch of brow to brow in the last hongi.

Antarctica. The Well of the World. Te Wai Ora o te Ao. Above, the
frozen continent was swept with an inhuman, raging storm. Below, where the Furies could
not reach, the sea was calm and unworldly. The light played gently on the frozen ice
layer and bathed the undersea kingdom with an unearthly radiance. The giant roots of the
ice extending down from the surface sparkled, glowed, twinkled and flashed prisms of
light like strobes in a vast subterranean cathedral. The ice cracked, moaned, shivered
and susurrated with rippling glissandi, a giant organ playing a titanic
symphony.

Within the fluted ice chambers the herd of whales moved with
infinite grace in holy procession. As they did so they offered their own choral harmony
to the natural orchestration. Their movements were languid and lyrical, and belied the
physical reality of their sizes; their tail flukes gently stroked the water, manoeuvring
them ever southward. Around and above them the sealions, penguins and other Antarctic
denizens darted, circled and swooped in graceful waltz.

Then the whales could go no further. Their sonics indicated that
there was nothing in front except a solid wall of ice. Bewildered, the ancient bull
whale let loose a ripple of harmonics, a plaintive cry for advice. Had his golden master
been with him, he would have been given the direction in which to turn.

All of a sudden a shaft of light penetrated the underwater world and
turned it into a gigantic hall of mirrors. In each one the ancient whale seemed to see a
vision of himself being spurred ahead by his golden master. He made a quick turn and
suddenly shards of ice began to cascade like spears around the herd. The elderly females
throbbed their alarm to him. They were already further south than they had ever been
before and the mirrors, for them, appeared only to reflect a crystal tomb for the herd.
They communicated the urgency of the situation to their leader.

The aurora australis played above the ice world and the reflected
light was like a mesmerising dream to the ancient bull whale. He began to follow the
light, turning away from the southward plunge. As he did so he increased his speed, and
the turbulence of his wake caused ice waterfalls within the undersea kingdom. Twenty
metres long, he no longer possessed the flexibility to manoeuvre at speed.

The herd followed through the crashing, falling ice. They saw their
leader rising to the surface and watched as the surface starred around him. They began
to mourn, for they knew that their journey to the dangerous islands was now a reality.
Their leader was totally ensnared in the rhapsody of his dreams of the golden rider. So
long part of their own whakapapa and legend, the golden rider could not be dislodged
from their leader’s thoughts. The last journey had begun and at the end of it
Death was waiting.

The aurora australis was like Hine Nui Te Po, Goddess of Death,
flashing above the radiant land. The whales swept swiftly through the southern
seas.

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

Let it be done.