I've Been Thinking About You, Sister

3

I took another break from the story. Once upon a time, I would not have questioned the directness or ingenuousness of my writing. But I know more postcolonial theory now, and not only do I write literature, I also teach postcolonial identity. Is any of this reflected in the story? No.

My problem was that I was, well, still indigenous. Unlike Derek Walcott, a poet of African, Dutch and West Indian descent, born in St Lucia and commuting between Boston and Trinidad, I was not a ‘divided child who entered the house of literature as a houseboy’ and who had become a paradigm of the polycultural order, making of English a polyglot literature. Nor, like Salman Rushdie, Booker Prize winner for his tumultuous, multiheaded myth of modern India, Midnight’s Children, Kazuo Ishiguro, Vikram Seth, Timothy Mo, Rohinton Mistry or Pico Iyer, was I a transcultural writer, the product not so much of colonial division as of the international culture that has grown up since the war, and addressing an audience as mixed up and eclectic and uprooted as themselves. Situated at a crossroads, they reflected on their hyphenated status in the new-world global village with a different kind of sophistication than mine as an indigenous writer.

And where was my sense of irony? To this day, my closest friends bemoan the fact that I don’t have an ironic bone in my body. If I had, I might have been able to undercut the otherwise positive, sacralised and hopeful nature of my mythmaking. I would, instead, have highlighted the nihilistic despair of the victimised and oppressed and the need to continue to propose political and revolutionary solutions. Hybrid writers have often commented, as Edward Saïd did, that: ‘The centre is full of tired scepticism, a kind of knowing irony. There’s something very stale about it.’ As for American literature, it had been sapped by such trends as minimalism. Bharati Mukherjee has written, ‘The real energy of American fiction is coming from people who have lived 400 years within a generation. They’ve been through wars, orbited the world, had traumatic histories prior to coming, and they’ve got big, extraordinary stories to tell. In place of the generic account of divorce in Hampstead or Connecticut, the international writers offer magically new kinds of subject matter and electric ways of expressing it.’

Perhaps there is another way out. My postcolonial colleagues might honour me not for the more political novelising that has been the central poutokomanawa of my artistry — but, rather, for the activism that has been associated with it.

For instance, First Nations friends still talk about the time, over twenty-five years ago, when they came to see me at the Harborfront Festival, Toronto, where I was to read my work. They told me that no First Nations writer had ever been invited to read in Canada’s most prestigious literary festival, and they asked me to represent them. I was so angry that when I came to read I instead let rip to the primarily white and unsuspecting audience, accusing them and Canada of racism of the worst kind: denial of the native existence and erasure of First Nations culture as a willful exercise of Canadian genocide. By the time I finished, there was a stony silence. Greg Gatenby said to me as I walked off the stage, ‘Well, that was interesting. I’ve never seen a writer committing suicide in public before.’

I am an example of one of those writers who could never resist the disastrous.

Ah well, to proceed.

To be frank, I do not know why my parents were detained at the airport at Sfax. I imagine that there was some irregularity with their passports. The most likely explanation is this:

‘I am very sorry to tell you both,’ the senior customs officer said, ‘but you must have a visa to enter our country. Without it, I cannot permit you to visit.’

But I am only guessing at the reason. There may have been another: perhaps their passports looked too new and clean and therefore suspiciously false. They may have needed different entry documents. The names on their airline tickets might have been different from the names on their passports — Mum and Dad had both Maori and Pakeha surnames. Perhaps they had been mistaken for a couple of criminals on Interpol’s list.

‘Therefore,’ the senior customs officer advised them, ‘I will retain your passports and, as I have already told you, you will both be held in custody at the airport. When your plane leaves tomorrow for Paris you will be escorted onto it. At that time, your passports will be returned to you.’

After a while, however, the senior customs officer relented somewhat, and agreed to allow Mum and Dad to remain in the transit area where at least there were dutyfree shops, food outlets and comfortable seating. After all, how far would an old lady and an old man with a walking stick have got if they decided to make a run for it? And without passports?

Mum and Dad were just two old people, bewildered and unable to get to their destination. But my father regained his strength. ‘Sir,’ he tried once again, ‘whatever the problem is, surely, as reasonable people, we can find a solution? My wife and I are here in your country for only a short time. What harm can we do in that time?’ He showed the customs officer photographs of Uncle Rangiora. ‘All my wife wishes to do is to visit her brother’s grave, pay her respects, and then we will be on our way. Will you not permit us to do that?’

No matter how much Dad tried to explain the situation and to apologise for any error they may have inadvertently made, he just couldn’t get through to the senior customs officer, who was adamant.

What made it worse was that the incident really hurt my parents’ sense of pride and personal honour. ‘You are treating us as if we are criminals,’ Dad said in a temper. ‘I may have received the occasional parking ticket but my wife and I have never been before a judge or committed any crimes. To be treated like this is deeply shaming.’

The customs officer would not be swayed. He retained their passports, showed them the transit lounge, deposited their bags beside them and advised them that under no circumstances were they to leave. Of course, as soon as he had gone, Mum burst into tears. She’s generally a strong woman but her tears were from embarrassment and humiliation. ‘And now look at us, Dad,’ she wept, ‘we’ve become a bag lady and a bag man.’ She was also aching because to come all this way with her river stones and not be able to put them on her brother’s grave was a terrible heartbreak for her.

They sat, talked, waited, and slept. Every now and then Dad wandered off to get Mum a sandwich and a cup of chocolate. Mum talked about Uncle Rangiora and how they would waltz together. ‘He was such a good brother to me,’ she told Dad. ‘He always saved the last waltz for me. I remember well when we danced together for the last time. It was on the platform of the railway station in 1941, just before all the East Coast boys got on the train to Wellington. I was still a teenager. Rangiora was looking so handsome in his soldier’s cap and uniform; I had on my best white dress so that he would always remember me while he was fighting in the war. Rangiora had a girlfriend, a lovely girl from Te Araroa, but just before he got the order to fall in, he turned to me and asked, “Would you like to waltz, sister?” He opened his arms, I stepped into them, we both went onto our toes, and we began —

I mean no disrespect to my father, but Uncle Rangiora was the love of my mother’s life. Dad knew it and we, her children, knew it. I suspect that when you lose someone you love when you are both young, the love for that person is heightened and romanticised in some way. The rest of us had to fit in and around that big love, realising that we had no chance of winning because, well, Mum knows our faults too well to let us get away with anything.

My parents continued to while away the day at the airport. They were distressed — but really, there was nothing that could be done about their situation. I imagine that some of the cafeteria workers, puzzled by Dad’s constant visits for more hot chocolate and food, sympathised with their plight and offered words of comfort. When night came, I can imagine my parents sleeping sitting up, a crescent moon gliding overhead and shining on Dad’s white trainers. I can see cleaners going by, hushing each other so as not to wake them. I know that Dad must have disengaged himself from Mum’s arms a couple of times to go to the toilet, as his waterworks were not always reliable. But I know he would have hobbled back as fast as he could to make sure that Mum was not alone for too long. There have not been many nights when they have slept apart. No doubt Mum woke a couple of times to stare out into the dark velvet of the Tunisian sky, her face enigmatic and eternal.

The new day dawned. Mum went to wash her face, comb her hair and make herself respectable. When she came back, Dad did the same. She scolded him to put on a new white shirt and tie. ‘That’s better,’ she said when he returned. ‘Seven hours from now we’ll be on the plane, Dad.’ She tried to be light-hearted about it.

Mum’s head nodded and she drifted into sleep. Then she felt someone shaking her awake. When she opened her eyes the first thing she saw was a pair of very shiny shoes. She would have recognised those shoes anywhere.

‘Madam? Aroha? Did you enjoy your visit to Sfax?’ It was Monsieur Samaritan, their companion on the plane from Paris.

Mum saw that Dad was still sleeping, his mouth wide open, and his trousers wide open too. She nudged him awake. Dad told Monsieur Samaritan what had happened. ‘We have been in the airport all this time,’ he said. ‘Our passports were taken from us.’

Well, there’s no other way to say it — Monsieur Samaritan went ballistic. ‘Please come with me,’ he said, tight-lipped. Mum and Dad had known he was a VIP but they had not realised that he was such a powerful government official. He stormed into the customs area and began to speak rapidly to every underling around, and then to the senior customs officer. I have no idea what he said but I can imagine that it was something like this:

‘Don’t you fools know that these two people have come all the way from New Zealand? Who was the imbecile who said they should not be allowed into our country? Do you realise that this lady’s brother fought and died to enable our freedom? Why am I surrounded by such incompetent and stupid people? Do you think they are terrorists? Do they look like terrorists? Where are their passports? Give them back immediately!’

Monsieur Samaritan then looked at his watch. He mopped his brow and, calming down, bowed gravely to Mum and Dad. ‘Please accept my apologies,’ he said, ‘but perhaps I can be of some service? Although you only have a short time left before your plane departs, it would be my great privilege to accompany you to the Commonwealth graves.’

He hastened them out of the terminal and into the heat to his car, and ordered the driver to put his foot down. ‘Quick! Quick! As fast as you can!’

As I have said, I have never been to Tunisia, so I don’t know what the roads are like from the airport to the Commonwealth war graves. My imagination conjures up heat and dust, roads crowded with traffic, the occasional camel, and the shimmering haze of a bright white day. Conscious of the restricted time, I can hear Monsieur Samaritan urging his driver to ‘Go faster! Faster!’, and the car, with its official pennant flying, speeding through a city of Arabic architecture, serrated walls and minarets.

At last, they arrived. But what was this? The gates were closed. Monsieur Samaritan commanded the driver to go and investigate.

‘Alas, Monsieur Tom,’ Monsieur Samaritan said, ‘the cemetery is closed during the middle of the day.’ Monsieur Samaritan instructed the driver to ring the bell at the gateway, and keep ringing until someone came. As luck would have it, a gatekeeper arrived and let them in.

‘Thank you,’ Mum said. She reached into her bag for one of her bone pendants to give the gravedigger, but the car was already moving swiftly through the gateway.

I’m told that the cemetery at Sfax is huge — rows and rows of white crosses — and Mum and Dad’s time was ticking by. Even Monsieur Samaritan saw the hopelessness of the task. ‘How will your wife be able to find her brother,’ he said to Dad, ‘among all these dead?’

The gatekeeper had pointed them in the general direction of the Australian and New Zealand section. Suddenly Mum yelled ‘Stop!’ She opened the door of the car and took off. ‘I’ll find him,’ she said. All that training, running around the block in Te Hapara, was about to pay off.

‘Aroha,’ Dad called, reaching for his walking stick. ‘Wait for me —’

But she was already far away, sprinting like a sixteen-year-old through all those rows of white crosses. She stopped at a rise in the graveyard. When Dad and Monsieur Samaritan reached her, they saw more crosses. Which one was Rangiora’s?

‘It really is impossible,’ Monsieur Samaritan said.

Mum was standing with the sun shining full upon her face. Perspiration beaded her forehead and neck. Dad saw her face crumple and went to offer her solace. ‘Keep your hands off me,’ she screamed, frustrated.

Then she saw a little brown bird. It fluttered above her, cocked an eye and turned away. With a cry, Mum took off after it, following the bird as it dipped and sashayed around the white crosses, up, over and down a small hillock. When Dad and Monsieur Samaritan reached the top of the hillock, they saw Mum in the distance, kneeling beside a small cross, weeping. By the time they caught up with her again, she was putting her river stones on Uncle Rangiora’s grave. She had already poured her river water out of its bottle and it was seeping into the sand. There was a radiant look on her face, as if something important had been completed.

Dad and Monsieur Samaritan waited in silence. Then, ‘I will go back to the car and wait for you,’ Monsieur Samaritan said. ‘Please take as much time as you wish, but we should be returning to the airport shortly.’

Dad nodded at him. He watched Mum as she finished laying her river stones. She stood up, wiped her hands on her dress, smiled at Dad and put out her hands. ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you. Will you dance a waltz with me, Dad?’

Gripping his walking stick in one hand and Mum in the other, Dad did his best.

Mum and Dad returned to the airport. Monsieur Samaritan escorted them through customs and saw them to their flight. ‘I’m so sorry you didn’t have more time with your brother,’ he said to Mum.

‘Sorry?’ Mum answered. ‘Please don’t be. And thank you, Monsieur Samaritan.’

From Paris, my parents went on to New York. There’s a photograph taken by a sidewalk photographer which captures the glow of Mum’s happiness. She’s with Dad, and he’s balancing on his walking stick and wearing his white trainers. My cousin Watene took them to see 42nd Street and Cats. Mum told Dad she didn’t want to sleep for one minute, and dragged him up the Empire State Building and down to the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty.

Four days later, they boarded a bus for a tour across America all the way to the West Coast. Dad was looking forward to the trip and his eyes brightened when he saw all the other tourists boarding the bus. As I have mentioned before, he loves to talk to strangers about his family, his tribe, and his sporting exploits.

However, his face fell when he discovered that the other tourists on the bus were German-speaking and didn’t understand English very well.

My parents survived the bus tour. They caught the plane from Los Angeles back to New Zealand, where they were welcomed with tears and much elation by a huge whanau that has never wanted them to go away overseas again — ever.

On their return home, Mum bought four huge scrapbooks and pasted every postcard, photograph and programme into it, including the souvenir programme from the Folies Bergère and the photograph taken in New York. Pride of place was reserved for a blow-up of a photograph of her and Dad standing at Uncle Rangiora’s grave in the hot sun in Tunisia; with them is a gentleman dressed formally and wearing the shiniest shoes — Monsieur Samaritan. Dad had his hip operation, and put away his walking stick and his new white trainers.

If you go home to Te Hapara, you will see the map of Mum and Dad’s travels on the wall in the living room.

Three months after the trip, Mum telephoned me in Wellington. She told me she was bothered about Rangiora being buried so far away from New Zealand. ‘I want him to come back home,’ she told me.

On her behalf I wrote to the Minister of Defence and the Minister of Maori Affairs. They both gave the same response: the Maori Battalion had made a collective agreement that all the boys who died on the battlefield should stay together in the country where they had fallen.

Dad is ninety-two this year. Mum is eighty-five. She still puts a memorial notice about Uncle Rangiora in The Gisborne Herald every year.