White Lies

1

Another dawn, and she drags her old bones up from sleep.

Her name is Paraiti and when she is sleeping her bones are light and weightless. But as she wakes she is aware of all the stiffness, aches and numbness of a body that has aged. She opens her eyes, listening to her heart thumping away as it pushes the blood through thickened veins. She hears the usual wheeze and gurgle as her lungs force her breath in and out, and she feels a lump of phlegm in her throat. Creaking like an old door on worn-out hinges, she heaves herself into a sitting position, opens the flap of the tent and spits into the cuspidor she keeps for holding her offensive bodily fluids.

Now that she is awake, Paraiti fumbles among her blankets for her Bible and hymnal and starts to chant a karakia. Old habits die hard, and she wouldn’t dream of beginning a new day without himene and prayer. Her parents Te Teira and Hera, if they were alive, would roar with laughter to see her now; in the old days, when the Ringatu faithful were all at prayer in the smoky meeting house, she was the child always squirming and wriggling. ‘Kaore e korikori koe,’ Te Teira would reprimand her.

Although Paraiti went for a few years to a native school, she can’t read very well; she trusts to her memory when quoting from the Old Testament or singing hymns. She raises a hand in the sign of the faithful.

‘Kororia ki to ingoa tapu,’ she begins. ‘Glory be to Thy holy name.’

She lifts her eyes to the sky lightening above her, and gives thanks to God for having made the world. The huge forest canopy has been a protective umbrella for her sleep. Here, at the bend of a river, with giant ferns unfolding in the lower growth, she has had the perfect camping ground.

Karakia over, she whistles out to her stallion, Ataahua, and Kaihe, her mule. They whinny back — good, they have not foraged too far away in the night. Where’s Tiaki, her pig dog? Aha, there he is, on the other side of the river.

She calls to him, ‘Have you brought something for my breakfast or have you been selfish and wolfed it all down yourself?’

No, today Tiaki has been kind to his mistress. He jumps headlong into the water and swims across; he offers a fat wood pigeon, still alive and unmarked in his jaws.

‘Homai te kereru,’ Paraiti asks him. ‘Give me the bird.’ He sighs, knowing she will release it back into the woods. ‘Ae, Tiaki, we let this one go. Give the first to Tane, Lord of the Forest.’ She gives the pigeon its freedom and it creaks and whistles its way back into the trees. ‘Now go, Tiaki, the second pigeon is for us.’

Right-oh, down to the edge of the river to wash herself, get the pikaro out of her eyes, and use a clean rag to wash her neck, armpits and nether parts. While she is at it, she sprinkles water over her head, and looks at her reflection, hoping to see some improvement. No such luck. Still the same old face, only getting older: big Maori nose, heavy upper lip, three chins, and lots of bushy hair. She fixes the hair by pinning it back with two large ivory combs but, aue, now she can see more of her face. Never mind: there’s nobody else around to frighten.

Time for breakfast. Paraiti rekindles the fire and hangs a billy of water on an iron rod supported by two strong branches; she also puts a skillet among the hot embers.

Tiaki comes back with a second bird. Paraiti has a sneaking suspicion that he catches two birds at the same time and, somehow, has learnt the trick of pinning the second bird down with a stone, keeping it for later. Now that he has served his mistress, Tiaki bounds off in search of his own breakfast.

Paraiti plucks the pigeon and puts it in the skillet; very soon it is sizzling in its own fat. From one of her saddlebags she takes some damper bread and honey. There’s nothing like a fresh pigeon and damper bread running with honey to start the day. A cup of manuka tea made in the billy and, ka pai, she is in seventh heaven.

Once she’s breakfasted, she’s keen to get going. Quickly, she dismantles the tent and bedding and stows them in the saddlebag. She goes down to the river to rinse the breakfast implements, then douses the fire and cleans up around her. She buries the contents of the cuspidor in the ground. Nobody would ever know she’d been here.

At Paraiti’s whistle, Ataahua and Kaihe come at the gallop. She loads Kaihe first, then she puts the bridle and saddle on Ataahua and taps him on the front knees. Once upon a time she could get on a horse without trouble, but these days it’s too much for her old bones. Ataahua obliges, going down on his front legs. He waits for Paraiti to settle and then hoists himself up with a whinny of grumpiness; over the past few years his mistress has got not only older but heavier.

‘Me haere tatou,’ she tells Ataahua. ‘Let us go.’

Pulling her mule after her, she fords the river and climbs the track on the other side. By the time she reaches the top of the ridge, Tiaki has joined her with a supercilious look on his face, as if he has given her only the second-best pigeon. The mist has lifted from the valleys and the air is clear. The forest is raucous with birdsong. Far away, Paraiti can see the smoke curling above the village of Ruatahuna, her destination.

2

Paraiti is not her real name, but the name people know her by. Mostly she is called Scarface — emblematic of the deep red welt that travels diagonally from her right temple across the bridge of her nose and, luckily missing her left eye, reappears to feather her left cheekbone. The scar was caused when Paraiti was a young girl, in 1880. Her family group was hiding deep within the Urewera country when they were set upon by constabulary forces who were hunting bigger game — the rebel prophet, Te Kooti. They restrained Paraiti’s parents with ropes while they ransacked the encampment. When they couldn’t find Te Kooti, one of them took a burning stick from the cooking fire and slashed Paraiti with it. As her parents were led away to be imprisoned, her father Te Teira cried out, ‘Daughter, quickly, go to the stream and lie down in the cold water.’ Hera, Paraiti’s mother, died while they were still incarcerated, and when Te Teira was released a year later, he went searching throughout Tuhoe and the King Country for his daughter. As soon as he saw the scarred little girl on the roadside at Te Kuiti, where she had been lovingly cared for, he knew it was her.

Today is the first day of June in the Year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine. Paraiti is fifty-four years old now, and a traditional healer.

Maori people have not lost faith in their own healers. Indeed, although those who live in the cities and towns have access to the Pakeha doctors, those who still reside in tribal villages in the backblocks and remote coastal areas rely on travelling healers like Paraiti for medical help. Vilified by the government authorities for their work, the healers are still committed to the health and wellbeing of the morehu, the survivors of the land wars. Many of Paraiti’s people of the Ringatu faith do not trust the authorities at all. And, of course, the Depression is beginning to bite. Who can Maori turn to, apart from their own healers, when they have no money to pay the Pakeha takuta?

Three weeks ago, Paraiti was still in her village of Waituhi, preparing for her travels. The autumn had been unseasonably cold, with southerlies driving into the foothills. Paraiti had huddled close to a warm fire in her old one-room kauta near the painted meeting house, Rongopai. Even so, she was determined to keep to her annual trip. She had become stir-crazy and wanted to be out on the road.

It was time for her to leave her hearth.

She carefully selected the medicines, unguents, potions, analgesics, antiseptics, styptics, philtres, emetics, blood purifiers and ointments that she needed. She took only kao, dried kumara and water as provisions; food would be her payment from her patients and, should she require extra kai for herself and her animals, the Lord and the land provided. She knew all the traditional food-gathering areas — fern grounds, pa tuna, taro and kumara gardens and bird sanctuaries — and, as well, she had some special secret areas where she went to stock up on herbs and healing plants.

Paraiti took a small tent and a bedroll. For protection she put her rifle in a sling and a knife in her left boot. Although she might not be attractive, she was still a woman, and men were men.

She went to Rongopai, the great cathedral of her people, and in its stunning interior — verily a Garden of Eden — she prayed to God for safe passage. She filled five blue bottles with the healing waters that bubbled up from a deep underground spring behind the house, and sprinkled herself and her animals with the water. Then she strapped the saddlebags around Kaihe’s girth, bridled and saddled Ataahua, tapped on his front knees and climbed aboard. Straightaway, she urged Ataahua up, ‘Timata,’ and headed into the foothills behind Waituhi.

A day’s travel took her to the boundary between the lands of Te Whanau a Kai and Tuhoe, and there she sought Rua’s Track, one of the great horse tracks joining the central North Island to the tribes of Poverty Bay in the east. She followed the track up the Wharekopae River, through Waimaha by way of the Hangaroa Valley to Maungapohatu. The only people who travelled the track were Maori like herself; sometimes they were families but most often they were foresters, labourers or pig hunters.

On her third day, however, Paraiti joined a wagon-train of some forty members; they, too, were making for Ruatahuna. They knew who she was and were honoured to have her join them. And she, in turn, valued the opportunity to sharpen up her social skills, to share a billy of manuka tea and flat bread, to spend time playing cards and to korero with some of the old ones about the way the world was changing. But they made slow progress, so Paraiti took her leave of them and journeyed on alone.

And now, Ruatahuna lay ahead.

As she approaches Ruatahuna, Paraiti knows she will be late for the service. She can hear the bell ringing at the meeting house, Te Whai a Te Motu, calling the Ringatu faithful to gather together on this very special day. The First of June in the church calendar is the Sabbath of the Sabbath, as written in Leviticus 23:4: ‘Ko nga hakari nunui enei a Ihowa, ko nga huihuinga tapu e karangatia e koutou i nga wa e rite ai.’ It is also the beginning of the Maori New Year, with the pre-dawn heliacal rising of Matariki, the bright stars of fruitfulness. On this happy day, each person contributes seeds to the mara tapu, the sacred garden. This is part of the huamata ritual, for out of the old seed comes the new plant, symbolic of the renewal of God’s promise to all his people.

Paraiti urges Ataahua quickly through the village. Some of the local dogs bark at them, and Paraiti gives Tiaki a warning glance, ‘Don’t bark back, it’s Sunday.’ He gives her a sniffy look, then growls menacingly at the dogs so that they whine and back away. Ahead, Paraiti sees her cousin Horiana’s house. She knows Horiana won’t mind if she ties the animals to her fence. ‘Don’t eat Horiana’s roses,’ she tells Kaihe. Even so, she is troubled to see that the roses are taking over the native vines in the garden.

Wrapping her scarf around her face, and taking with her a small sachet of seeds, Paraiti makes for the marae. Horses and buggies are tied to the fence outside and, hello, a few motoka as well. Inside, the meeting house is stacked to the gills; people are sitting up against the walls, prayer books in hand. Wirepa, the local poutikanga, pillar of authority, is leading the service.

‘Kororia ki to ingoa tapu,’ he intones. ‘And verily, an angel appeared to the prophet Te Kooti, and the angel was clothed in garments as white as snow, his hair like stars, and he wore a crown and a girdle like unto the setting sun and the rising thereof, and the angel’s fan was like the rainbow and his staff was a myriad hues. And the angel said to Te Kooti, “I will not forsake thee or my people either.” And so we prevail to this very day. Glory be to thy holy name. Amine.’

Paraiti sees Horiana beckoning and making a place beside her. Stooping, she makes her way over to her cousin.

‘E noho, whanaunga,’ Horiana welcomes her. They kiss and hug as if they haven’t seen each other for a thousand years. ‘We’ll korero afterwards,’ Horiana whispers, opening her prayer book.

Paraiti gives a sign of apology to Wirepa for interrupting the service. She hears a buzz as people realise she has arrived: ‘Scarface … Te Takuta … Paraiti … Scarface.’ She smiles at familiar faces. She doesn’t mind that people call her Scarface; they use the name as an identification, not to mock her. She lets herself be absorbed into the meeting house. It is such an honour to be sitting within Te Whai a Te Motu, with its figurative paintings and beautiful kowhaiwhai rafter patterns. Here, in the bosom of this holy place, Paraiti joins in praising and giving thanks to God.

The service adjourns to the mara tapu outside Te Whai a Te Motu. There, Paraiti and others offer their seeds for the sowing. Wirepa intones a final karakia. After the service there are people to be greeted and further korero to be had with the local elders.

After the midday meal, Paraiti sets up her tent in her usual place on the marae. Horiana, who acts as her assistant in Tuhoe, has been taking bookings. ‘Lots of people want to see you,’ she tells her. ‘The usual problems. Nothing too difficult so far.’ Always bossy, Horiana sits outside the tent deciding when clients should enter and depart. Inside, there are three chairs and a bed: a slab of wood covered with a fine woven flax mat. Stacked against one of the walls of the tent are the rongoa and the herbal pharmacy that Paraiti draws on for her work. Not all have been brought by her; some have been stockpiled by Horiana for her arrival. They include kumarahou for asthma; waoriki for arthritis; ake, kareao, miro or rimu gum for bleeding and haemorrhaging; hakekakeha or harakeke roots for blood cleansing and to promote regular blood functions; mingimingi, the mamaku pith and punga fern pith for scrofulous tumours, abcesses and boils; kawakawa for bronchitis and catarrh; weka oil, kowhai and bluegum juice for bruises, sprains and aching bones; harakeke and kauri gum to treat burns; puwha and mimiha gum for mouth and teeth ailments; harakeke for chilblains and bad circulation; houhere and tawa for colds; titoki for constipation; piupiu for cramp; wood charcoal for dandruff; koromiko buds for diarrhoea and dysentery; eel oil for earache; powdered moss for eczema and scabies; kaikaiatua as an emetic; pirita for epilepsy; seaweed for goitre; paewhenua for haemorrhoids; piripiri for urinary health; fernroot and convolvulus roots for lactation; flax leaf juice for sciatica; huainanga as an emetic to expel tapeworms and so on.

On a small table are the surgical implements of her trade. Unlike some of her brother and sister healers, Paraiti shuns Pakeha utensils and keeps to traditional ones: wooden sticks and scrapers, sharp-edged shells and obsidian flakes for cutting, thorns for opening up abscesses, stones to heat before placing on the body, lacy houhere bark and cobwebs as poultices and dressings, palm tree splints for broken bones, kahakaha fibre for bandaging, and various oils for massaging.

For any major bonesetting that requires steam treatment, Paraiti organises times at a makeshift spa. Her father gave her special knowledge of the various massages to heal and knit broken bones. He also taught her therapeutic massage for the elderly; he himself loved nothing better than to submit himself to Paraiti’s strong kneading and stroking of his body to keep his circulation going. ‘Daughter,’ he would sigh, ‘you have such goodness in your hands.’

The clinic opens, and the patients are of the usual kind. Some are easily treated — patients with coughs or colds and children with asthma or bronchitis. Boils are lanced and the ripe cores squeezed out before Paraiti returns the patient to Horiana to apply a poultice. Paraiti gives a short greeting to patients returning for a check-up, and notes whether a broken leg has set well, or a burn is in need of further bathing or lotions. Sprained joints, too, are treated with ease; with Horiana holding the patient, Paraiti pulls the joint back in place, then instructs Horiana how to bind it.

A young man with a deep cut on his forehead comes in. ‘How did you come by this?’ Paraiti asks.

‘His wife threw a knife at him when he came home drunk from the hotel,’ Horiana answers, rolling her eyes with contempt.

‘You will need stitches,’ Paraiti says. She makes a thread of muka and uses a wooden needle to sew the wound. As a dressing, she applies the ash from a burnt flax stalk. Throughout all this, the young man does not flinch. He’s a cheeky one, though; just before he leaves he asks, ‘Scarface, you couldn’t throw in a love philtre with the treatment, could you? My wife’s still angry with me and won’t let me perform my customary and expert lovemaking duties.’

Paraiti’s eyes twinkle. ‘Oh really? But I have heard otherwise about your lovemaking. Do you think it might be the beer that is putting you off your stroke? No love philtre is required. Your wife will eventually forgive you and soon you will plough her in your usual diligent and boring manner, the poor woman. But if you must drink, chew puwha gum — it will mask your breath when you go home at night.’

Another young man comes in, but, as soon as he sees Paraiti, he changes his mind and goes out. He is embarrassed because he has a venereal disease. A male takuta is preferred to a woman healer.

A young woman with shell splinters in the heels of her feet requires a little more care; she carelessly ran across a reef while gathering pupu and mussels. ‘I was being chased by a giant octopus,’ she tells Paraiti.

Paraiti winks at Horiana. ‘Oh yes, and what was his name?’ She cuts around the wounds until the pieces of shell can be seen. Smiling at the young woman, Paraiti then lowers her head. ‘Here is the kiss of Scarface,’ she says. She bites on each piece of shell with her teeth and pulls them out. ‘If your octopus really loves you and wants to ensnare you in his eight arms, and if that causes you to run over shells again, show him how to use his own teeth.’

The next patient causes some hilarity. He has constipation and hasn’t had a good bowel movement for days. ‘I have just the right potion,’ Paraiti tells him. ‘Crushed flax roots and, here, if you disrobe, I will also blow some potion into your rectum so that the result comes quicker.’ But the patient’s wife is with him and she accosts Paraiti:

‘Oh no, you don’t! If anybody is to disrobe my husband and blow anything up his rectum, it will be me! Do I want the whole world to know how awful a sight his bum is? Best for him and me to keep that treasure a family secret.’

So it goes on throughout the remainder of the day; each patient pays Paraiti in coin or in food — a koha, no matter how small.

However, there are some who are sick without obvious symptoms and their treatment cannot be diagnosed with ease. With such patients Paraiti takes a history of their activities before they became ill and, if she suspects an answer, administers a likely remedy. If she is still unsure, she advises the patient to drink lots of clean water and gives them a potion against the pain or fever. ‘Sometimes,’ she tells them, ‘the body has its own ways of making itself well again. Time will tell.’

There are other patients whom Paraiti will treat separately, away from the clinic at Horiana’s house, because their conditions are more serious. One is a forester with a broken leg that will need to be broken again; Paraiti believes his best recourse would be to go to the hospital at Rotorua but the forester refuses to let their doctors look at him — he is worried about the expense. Another is a young girl with an eye condition that bespeaks oncoming blindness. A third is an old koroua with a debilitating illness; nothing can cure old age but, as she often did with her father, Paraiti will give this old man a good massage and steam bath for temporary relief. He is already walking towards God.

The time comes to stop work for the day. ‘Come back tomorrow,’ Horiana tells the other people waiting in line. They are disappointed, but another day won’t hurt them.

‘But I will see the mother,’ Paraiti says, pointing to a woman waiting with her daughter. She has constantly given up her place in the line to others.

‘Thank you, takuta,’ the mother says respectfully as she steps into the tent. She is trying to hide her distress. ‘Actually, I do not come for my own sake but on behalf of my daughter, Florence. Do you have something that will enable her to keep her baby? She can never go to term and loses the baby always around the third month.’

Paraiti notices how small Florence is. She places her hands on the girl’s stomach. E hika, this girl is very cold.

‘How many times have you conceived?’ Paraiti asks her.

‘Three,’ Florence replies, ‘and three times my babies have died inside me. But I really want this child.’

Paraiti takes a look at the girl. She smells her breath; aue, she smokes the Pakeha cigarettes. She looks at her eyes; they are milky and clouded, and her fingernails and toenails are brittle and dry. Finally, Paraiti feels with her fingers around the girl’s womb — again, so cold. She speaks, not unkindly, to the girl.

‘A baby in the womb is like a kumara being fed nutrients from the vine of your body. But your vine is not giving your baby the right foods. Your circulation is sluggish and, therefore, the nourishment is not getting to the child. Bad foods and bad vine are the reasons why, in the third month, your baby withers and dies. Also, the garden in which your baby grows is not warm.’

Paraiti looks at Florence’s mother. ‘I will put your daughter on a diet, which she must follow without straying,’ she tells her. ‘The diet is rich in nutrients. I will also put her on a regime of exercise that will improve her circulation. Florence must stop smoking Pakeha cigarettes immediately. Also, it is important that her blood temperature is increased. I will show you massages to make her body a whare tangata that is nice and cosy. Keep to the diet, the massages, and make sure she stays in the sunlight and eats vegetables and fruits and fish, especially shellfish. Try to make sure she is always warm.’

The mother holds Paraiti’s hands and kisses them. ‘Thank you, takuta.’

Paraiti sees them to the door of the tent. ‘I will also give you some potions that will improve Florence’s health while she is with child.’

‘Will you attend the birth?’ the mother asks.

‘No,’ Paraiti answers. ‘The authorities will not allow it.’ She turns to Florence. ‘Go well, and be assured that if you follow my instructions, the birth should be normal and you will be delivered of a healthy child.’ She kisses Florence on the forehead. ‘What greater blessing can any woman have than to give birth to a son or daughter for the iwi? Will you let me know when the baby is born? Ma te Atua koe e manaaki.’

3

This is Paraiti’s life and world. She is an agent of life, prolonging and optimising it. Paraiti’s knowledge, therefore, is of the treatment of the body not the spirit, though sometimes these two are intertwined.

But Paraiti does not live and practise at the higher level of a tohunga. She is not a mediator between the human world and the spiritual world. She does not heal mate atua, diseases of the gods; she has no competency in dealing with those sicknesses that are due to possession of the spirit. While she has known some very great priests — with skills in the spiritual, arcane and esoteric arts: prophecy, dream, sign, rehu, whakakitenga, makutu, moemoea and whiu — that is not her domain. Nor does she return spells onto those responsible for casting them.

Paraiti’s father was such a priest, a man of immense wisdom, whom the iwi consulted on all matters of importance because of his powers of divination. Indeed, it was as a priest that Te Teira had served the great prophet Te Kooti, and remained loyal to him to the very end; this was why the people of Te Kuiti had looked after Paraiti, and had taken them both in after he was released from prison. Te Teira loved to talk about the early days of the prophet’s victories. He used the language of the Old Testament, and likened Te Kooti’s exploits to the great exodus and the flight of the Israelites from the lands of Egypt into the Canaan. It was all metaphorical talk but Paraiti was moved by its grandeur and imagery. ‘In the end Te Kooti was pardoned,’ Te Teira told Paraiti as they sat in front of the fire in their kauta. ‘I will tell you how. The government wanted to run a railway line through the King country, and issued a general amnesty to all criminals, no matter what they had done, to secure the land. The prophet was saved by the iron horse!’ he laughed.

‘It was 1884 when that railway opened,’ he went on. ‘You and I were travelling to some hui or other, I can’t remember which one, but you were my right-hand man, do you remember? We came across some Ringatu boys bending over the rails listening. We got off our horses too and bent down and listened. And your eyes went big and wide and you said to me, “Papa, the rails are singing a strange waiata!” Then suddenly, around the corner came that iron horse, a huge ngarara, a monster, belching smoke and roaring at us. Our horses started to buck and bolt but, resolute in the face of the ngarara, you raised your rifle and fired a shot at it.’ Te Teira laughed. ‘I suppose you were still trying to protect your papa, ne?’

Paraiti’s shot did not bring the ngarara to the ground. But as it swayed and slithered past, she saw the many men and women who had been eaten by it, imprisoned in its intestines. She raised a tangi to them, a great lament. Of course, she had been mistaken. The passengers in the train were very much alive, dispersing into settlements — and the ngarara was just another monster eating up the land.

It was in Te Kuiti that Paraiti grew into womanhood. Although Te Teira would have wished for her to marry some kind farmer or fisherman of the tribe, raise children and live a happy life, those options were closed to her because of her kanohi wera, her burnt face. No matter that he was revered for his medical skills; even his great mana could not obtain a husband for her. She was twenty-four and already accustomed to rejection when, in a terrible moment of truth, she asked, ‘Father, what man, in the moment of ecstasy, would look upon my face and not wish it was someone else’s?’ Te Teira himself acknowledged that his daughter was destined to become a spinster, with no provider once he was gone.

Paraiti’s father had to go underground when the Tohunga Suppression Act was passed in 1908. The purpose of the Act was to replace tohunga, traditional Maori healers, with ‘modern medicine’. The politicians made a lot of noise about ‘charlatan’ tohunga, but the Act was primarily directed at Rua Kenana who, some say, succeeded Te Kooti as prophet. ‘As when the Pakeha pardoned Te Kooti,’ Te Teira said, ‘they brought in a law ostensibly for one thing when it was really for another.’

Te Teira had defied the Act by continuing to practise covertly. And he taught his daughter the arts of healing so that she could achieve economic independence as a functioning member of the iwi. In 1917, when Paraiti was forty-two, the Spanish influenza hit Maori settlements and the people were unable to get treatment from the Pakeha doctors. Paraiti joined her father in offering succour and support to the sick and dying in Te Kuiti. The irony was that the disease had been brought among the people by the Maori soldiers who had gone to fight in the Great War, on the other side of the world.

After the epidemic was over, Te Teira received a letter from a powerful kuia of Te Whanau a Kai on the East Coast, asking him to come and help her in improving the health of her people. Her name was Riripeti, and her persuasive powers were so great that, eventually, with the consent of the people of Te Kuiti, Te Teira accepted her offer. He migrated east with his daughter and they ended up in Waituhi. There Te Teira finished installing in Paraiti the safer knowledge — not the knowledge of the tohunga, but the knowledge of the healer. In particular, he bequeathed to her the rare skill of Maori massage, and the patience to massage deep beneath the skin and move muscles and bones and tissue to their proper places, should they be broken, torn or out of alignment.

And when he died in her arms of old age, four years ago, she was still massaging him and trying to keep his circulation going long after he became cold.

But Paraiti has a dilemma. As she closes her clinic in Ruatahuna for the day, her thoughts fly back to a request she received just before leaving Waituhi.

She was asked to take life, not to give it.

This is how it happened.

A week earlier, in the middle of packing for her annual trip, a thought popped into Paraiti’s head: ‘I think I’ll ride into Gisborne and go to the pictures.’ Just like that the thought came, and the more Paraiti pushed it away, the more it stuck in her mind. Truth to tell, she didn’t need an excuse to go, so she made one up: she would buy some gifts for all the ladies who would be helping at her clinics on her travels. Horiana wasn’t the only one, but for Horiana especially she would get her some of those Pakeha bloomers that would keep her nice and cool in the summer.

Paraiti got up at the crack of dawn, dressed in her town clothes, saddled Ataahua and set off for Gisborne. She stopped for a picnic lunch by the Taruheru River, then rode on to Gisborne and settled Ataahua in the municipal stables just across the Peel Street bridge. It was midday by the town clock when she joined the townsfolk on Gladstone Road.

Paraiti always came to Gisborne with some apprehension. Being among Pakeha was not natural for her; she felt she was crossing some great divide from one world to another. The slash of the scar across her face didn’t help either; it marked her out in some sinister way. Even though these were modern times, and Pakeha liked to say that Maori and Pakeha were one people now, there were still signs of division: there were the Pakeha parts of Gisborne, particularly the palatial houses along Waterside Drive, and then there were the narrow shanty streets where the Maori lived.

Steadying her nerves, she made her way to the Regent to see what film was on. She was delighted to see that Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush was showing. She bought a ticket at the booth.

Humming to herself, Paraiti looked at the town clock again and saw that she had an hour to wait before the film began — time enough to go shopping. As she crossed Gladstone Road to Harrison Esq. Haberdashery, the latest model Packard went by with two women in it. One was a young Pakeha woman with auburn hair, of considerable beauty, and the other was a middle-aged Maori woman, probably her maid. When the Maori woman saw Paraiti, she pointed her out to her mistress.

Paraiti entered Harrison’s and went over to look at the bolts of fabric. She felt she was in a magic land of laces, silks, wools, calicoes, twills and cottons. The colours were stunning — shimmering blues, glowing yellows and bright reds. A senior saleswoman appraised her as she came in and immediately approached her. ‘May I help you?’ she asked. There was no accompanying ‘Madam’ to her enquiry, but Paraiti’s self-confidence had grown — and she had been to Harrison’s before and she knew the kawa, the protocol:

1. Shop attendants were always supercilious but they were, sorry lady, only shop assistants, even if they were senior saleswomen.

2. She had as much right as anybody else to shop in Harrison’s.

3. Her money was as good as anybody else’s.

She unpinned her hat and placed it on the counter, claiming some territory. ‘Why, thank you,’ she said pleasantly, revealing her scar in order to intimidate the saleswoman. ‘I’d like to see that bolt of cloth and that one and that one,’ and she pointed to the ones that were highest in the stacks.

Meantime, Paraiti rummaged through some of the other fashionable material and accessories that were on display. By the time the saleswoman returned, she had made her selection: a variety of attractive lengths of fabric, bold, with lots of flash. She also selected a couple of pairs of bloomers with very risqué ruffles on the legs. Pleased with her purchases, Paraiti waited at the doorway for the final piece of kawa to be observed:

4. When the paying customer is ready to depart, the door is always opened for her.

In a happy mood, humming to herself, Paraiti made her way back to the Regent, window shopping on the way, and took her seat in the theatre. Unnoticed, the Maori maid, who had been watching Paraiti in the haberdashery, and had followed her back, took a seat a few rows back.

Paraiti loved nothing better than to sit in the dark where nobody could see her and get caught up in the fantasies on screen. She had seen Charlie Chaplin’s previous movie, The Kid, and hoped that The Gold Rush would be just as good — and it was. The audience in the Regent couldn’t stop laughing. Paraiti thought she would die — the tears were running down her face at the part where the starving man in the film kept looking at the little tramp and imagining seeing a nice juicy chicken. And she just about mimied herself when the little tramp was in the pivoting hut caught on the edge of a crevasse; the hut see-sawed whenever Charlie walked from one side to the other. At the end she wanted to clap and clap: Charlie Chaplin was the greatest film clown in the world. She was so glad that she had come into town.

But when she came out of the theatre into the mid-afternoon sun and saw the Maori maid standing in the sunlight like a dark presence, she felt as if somebody had just walked over her grave.

‘You are Paraiti?’ the maid asked. She was subservient, eyes downcast, her years weighing her down — but her words were full of purpose. ‘May I trouble you for your time? I have a mistress who needs a job done. If you accept the job, you will find the price to your liking.’

Although everything in her being shouted out, ‘Don’t do this, turn away’, Paraiti equivocated. She had always believed in fate, and it struck her that coming to Gisborne ‘just like that’ might not be coincidental. She found herself saying, ‘Kei te pai, all right. Let me drop my parcels off at the municipal stables and then I will give your mistress an hour of my time.’

That task accomplished, the Maori servant introduced herself. ‘My name is Maraea,’ she said. ‘My mistress is Mrs Rebecca Vickers. The Honourable Mr Vickers is currently in Europe on business. We are only recently arrived in Gisborne. Be good enough to follow me, but stay far enough back so that people do not know that we are together.’

Paraiti was immediately offended, but it was too late — she had already agreed to speak to Mrs Vickers. She followed Maraea into the Pakeha part of town. The houses on Waterside Drive, ranged along the river with willow trees greening along the banks, spoke of elegance and quality.

Maraea waved Paraiti to join her. ‘The Vickers’ residence is the fourth house along, the two-storey one with the rhododendron bushes and wrought-iron gate. When we arrive at the house I will go in and see if it is safe for my mistress to see you. Kindly do not approach until I signal to you with my handkerchief.’

‘What have I got myself into?’ Paraiti wondered. Increasingly irritated, she watched Maraea walk towards the house, disappear and, after a minute or so, return to the street and wave her handkerchief. Paraiti approached the house and was just about to enter through the gate when she heard Maraea whisper from the bushes: ‘Do not come in through the front entrance, fool. Go around to the side gate, which is where such folk as you and I must enter. I will open the back door for you.’

Paraiti continued to the side gate. She opened it and walked along the gravelled pathway. A Maori gardener at work in the garden tipped his hat to her. Maraea stood at the doorway to the kitchen.

‘Come in,’ she urged Paraiti. ‘Quickly now. And you,’ she said to the gardener, ‘Mrs Vickers is not pleased with the way you have trimmed the lawn. Do it again.’

Paraiti followed Maraea through a long corridor to the front of the house. The sun shone through the crystal glass of the front door. The entrance was panelled with polished wood and lined with red carpet. A tall clock ticked in an oak cabinet against one wall. A huge oval mirror hung on another wall. A small table with a visitors’ book and a vase of lilies stood in the curve of the stairway to the first floor. Hanging from the ceiling was a crystal chandelier.

‘Be kind enough to take off your hat,’ Maraea said.

She led Paraiti up the stairs and ushered her into a back sitting-room. ‘Mrs Vickers will see you soon.’

‘Come away from the window.’

Paraiti had been in the sitting room a good ten minutes before Mrs Vickers arrived. The room showed all the trappings and accoutrements of a prosperous Pakeha merchant. The green velvet curtains were tied back with gold tassels. Antique chairs fitted with gold damask cushions were arranged around small card tables; the room was no doubt used as an after-dinner smoking-room by the gentlemen, or a place where the ladies could congregate in the afternoons to chat over cards. To one side was a fireplace, with a beautiful chaise longue in front of it. The decorations had an Oriental look — as if the Honourable and Mrs Vickers had spent some time in the East — and on the mantel above the fireplace was a photograph of a smiling couple, a young wife and her husband, standing with an Indian potentate. Electric lights in decorative glass lampshades were set into the walls, and everywhere there were mirrors. Paraiti had gravitated to the window, and was looking out at the garden below.

Turning, she immediately became disoriented; the hairs prickled on the back of her neck. In all the mirrors a young woman was reflected — in her mid-twenties, with red hair, tall and slim, and wearing a beaded mauve dress. But which was the woman and which was her reflection? And how long had she been standing there?

On her guard, Paraiti watched as the woman approached her. She was pale, beautiful. Her hair had been tinted with henna and her skin was glazed to perfection; her eyes were green, flecked with gold, the irises large, mesmerising and open. Paraiti resisted her hypnotic gaze, and immediately the woman’s irises narrowed. Then she did something perfectly strange — seductive, almost. She cupped Paraiti’s chin, lifted her face and clinically observed and then touched the scar.

The act took Paraiti’s breath away. Nobody except Te Teira had ever been so intimate with her. ‘I was told you were ugly,’ the woman said in a clipped English accent, though not without sympathy. ‘But really, you are only burnt and scarred.’ She withdrew her hands, but the imprint of her fingers still scalded Paraiti’s skin. Then she turned, wandering through the room. ‘My name is Mrs Rebecca Vickers,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming. And if you have stolen anything while you have been alone in the room, it would be wise of you to put it back where it belongs before you leave.’

Paraiti bit back a sharp retort. She recognised the battle of wills that was going on, and there was nothing to stop her from leaving, except that there was something about the situation, that sense of fate again that restrained her; she would bide her time. She tried to put a background to the woman: an English girl of good family and upper-class breeding, married to a man of wealth who travelled the world; she had brought with her to New Zealand her societal expectations, including the customary control of a household run by servants. She regarded Paraiti as being in a similar position to her maid. But there was also a sense of calculation, as if she was trying to manoeuvre Paraiti into a position of subservience, even of compliance.

‘What might I help you with, Mrs Vickers?’ Paraiti asked. She saw that Maraea had come into the room with a small bowl of water, a handcloth and a large towel.

‘Thank you, Maraea,’ Mrs Vickers said. Casually, with great self-possession, she began to unbutton her dress; it fell to the floor. Her skin was whiter than white, and without blemish. Aware of her beauty, Mrs Vickers stepped out of the dress, but kept on her high heels. Although she was wearing a silk slip, Paraiti immediately saw what her artful dress had been hiding: Mrs Vickers was pregnant.

‘It’s very simple,’ Mrs Vickers said as she removed her underwear. ‘I am carrying a child. I don’t want it. I want you to get rid of it.’

Her directness stunned Paraiti. Mrs Vickers was clearly a woman accustomed to getting her way. Well, two could play at that game. She asked Mrs Vickers to lie on the chaise longue and began inspecting her. ‘When did you last menstruate? How many weeks have passed since then?’ she asked as she felt Mrs Vickers’ whare tangata — her house of birth — to ascertain the placement of the baby and the point the pregnancy had reached. The uterus had already grown to the height of the belly-button, and the skin was beginning to stretch. Paraiti concluded her inspection. Mrs Vickers liked to be direct, did she? Time then to be direct and push back.

‘You are a Pakeha,’ she began. ‘Why have you not gone to a doctor of your own kind?’

‘Of course I have consulted European doctors,’ Rebecca Vickers answered, ‘and much earlier than this, when I missed my period. Whatever they did to me did not work.’

‘Then why have you not had further consultations with them?’ Paraiti asked.

‘Do not presume that I haven’t done what you suggest,’ Mrs Vickers responded, ‘but even they failed again; they now tell me that I have gone beyond the point of no return. When Maraea saw you in the street today she thought you might offer me some hope. She told me that you Maori have ancient ways, and could get rid of it.’

‘If your doctors can’t perform your miracle for you,’ Paraiti flared, ‘don’t expect me to be able to. Oh yes, I know of the herbal strategies that can lead to the termination of the pregnancy, but they work only in the first nine weeks. Some healers are able to induce the abortion by the steam bathing method and a concoction of flax and supplejack root juices. But your baby is at least twenty-four weeks grown — too late for the introduction of herbs that will make your uterus cramp and break down, so that the baby can be emptied and expelled from the womb.’

Angrily, Mrs Vickers put on her dress again. ‘I knew this was a foolish notion, but Maraea told me that you were renowned for your clever hands and that, by manipulation, you could secure the result I seek.’

‘And you assumed I would do it just because you asked me?’ Paraiti’s voice overrode Mrs Vickers. ‘Why are you so intent on ridding yourself of your baby? Most women would be overjoyed to be a mother. A baby is the crown of any woman’s achievement.’

When she had been inspecting Mrs Vickers the baby had moved, cradling against Paraiti’s palms. And oh, Paraiti’s heart had gone out to it.

Mrs Vickers lost her temper. ‘You stupid woman,’ she raged. ‘That is only the case if the husband is the father. How long do you think my husband will keep me when he discovers I am pregnant with another man’s child?’

So that was it.

Mrs Vickers realised she had gone too far. She reached for a silver cigarette case, opened it and took out a cigarette. Maraea lit it for her. Then, coolly, ‘Are you sure there is nothing you can do for me?’ she asked, inhaling.

‘You are already too far gone,’ Paraiti answered. ‘You will have to carry the child to term.’

Mrs Vickers exhaled. Then, ‘Rip it from my womb,’ she said in a voice that chilled.

‘That would require you to be cut open,’ Paraiti flared. ‘It is too dangerous and you could die, along with the baby. Even if you survived you would be scarred and carry the evidence of the operation. Your husband would know that something had happened.’

‘I will pay you handsomely for your work. And for your silence.’

‘It is dirty, shameful work. No person would do it.’

‘What you mean is that you will not do it,’ Mrs Vickers said scornfully. ‘Well I will find somebody who is not as morally concerned as you are and, one way or another, I will be rid of this burden.’ The smoke from her cigarette curled in the air. ‘Maraea will pay you for your consultation. She will give you a cup of tea and cake before you leave.’

Maraea signed to Paraiti that the consultation was over. Just as Paraiti was leaving, she saw Mrs Vickers standing and tapping ash into an ashtray. Mrs Vickers’ reflection locked eyes with Paraiti, and the room filled with eyes from all the mirrors.

‘You doctors,’ Mrs Vickers said. ‘Pakeha or Maori, you’re all the same, kei te mimi ahau ki runga ki a koutou.’

Paraiti gasped. She looked closely at Mrs Vickers’ flawless skin and noted again the glaze so cleverly applied across her face. When she reached the kitchen she declined Maraea’s offer of tea and cake. She wanted to get away.

‘She will kill the baby,’ Maraea told her, ‘make no mistake about it. And if she kills her own self in doing it, well — if the baby is born, her life will be destroyed anyhow.’

You doctors, you’re all the same, I will urinate on all of you.

And Paraiti asked the question, even though she already knew the answer. ‘He Maori ia?’

‘Yes,’ Maraea answered. ‘She is Maori.’

4

It is another dawn and Paraiti drags her old bones up from sleep. She raises her hand in prayer, ‘Kororia ki to ingoa tapu. Glory be to Thy holy name,’ and praises God again for the gift of life and the joy of another day. What greater blessing could humankind receive than to be able to live and breathe, here, on the bright strand between earth and sky?

Five weeks have passed since Paraiti was at Ruatahuna. Horiana had just loved her bloomers; she half jested to Paraiti: ‘They’re so pretty, and it’s such a shame to wear them under my dress, why don’t I wear them on the outside?’

Pulling Kaihe after her and with Tiaki on guard, Paraiti had visited the sick, wounded and elderly of Ruatoki, Waimana and Murupara. Then, her heart lifting, she began a clinic for her patients at Te Kuiti.

It was so wonderful for Paraiti to be back among the people who had given sanctuary to her and Te Teira those many years ago. No sooner had she arrived than she was ordered by the great chief, Whaturangi, to pitch her tent close to Te Tokanganui a Noho, the great ‘unification’ marae, prototype for most of the later Ringatu meeting houses. ‘Your dad would be cross with us if we didn’t acknowledge you,’ her cousin Peti growled, ‘and there are enough angry ghosts floating around us as it is.’ Indeed, in Paraiti’s honour, a special remembrance service was held for Te Teira in the meeting house. Sitting there, within the latticed walls and with the beautiful painted kowhaiwhai rafters soaring above her, Paraiti again honoured the morehu, the loyal remnants of Te Kooti, survivors in a changing world.

Then it was down to business again. A stream of patients waited for a consultation, with Peti at the flap of the tent. A young man with a broken leg would now be able to walk, following Paraiti’s skilful manipulation of his bones. An older forester, who had chopped off three fingers of his right hand, had the wounds cauterised. A child with chronic asthma would now breathe more easily if he followed the regime of herbal inhalants and exercises that Paraiti gave his anxious parents. A young girl was brought in covered in pustules; Paraiti looked after her during the night, using her poultices to draw out the pus and her soporifics to bring down the girl’s fever. And if Paraiti was not able to cure all those who sought her help, at least she had tried to make them more comfortable.

From Te Kuiti, Paraiti cut across to the lands of Te Whanau a Apanui: Te Teko, Whakatane, Te Karaka and Ohiwa Harbour. More patients, more successful diagnoses and treatments, and always humour, as people laughed in the face of their illness or impending death. Like the old kuia, wasting away; when Paraiti inspected her, she was horrified, saying: ‘E kui, you are all skin and bones.’ To her, Paraiti had given a strong herbal painkiller, her skilful massaging hands, and the gift of a few more precious days to breathe and to praise the Lord.

Then, just after leaving her clinic at Ohiwa Habour, Paraiti had a disturbing dream. The dream was a jumble of chaotic images. A face on fire — it was her face. A ngarara bearing down on her; she took up her rifle and shot at it. As the ngarara went by, Paraiti saw a woman with auburn hair coiled within the ngarara’s slithering entrails. Then Charlie Chaplin appeared — how did he get into her dream? He was in a hut and it was see-sawing on the edge of a cliff. But it wasn’t Charlie Chaplin at all — it was Paraiti herself. Suddenly, as the hut slid over the cliff, Te Teira appeared, put a hand out and pulled her out of the hut. He cupped Paraiti’s chin in his hands and wiped her face clear of the scar. He did this again and again.

Paraiti woke up puzzled and anxious. What did the dream mean?

The dream gnawed at Paraiti as she travelled around the coastline from Opotiki to Omaramutu, Torere and Maraenui. Wherever she went, she performed her healing duties. As for Tiaki, Ataahua and Kaihe, they loved swimming in the sea. Paraiti took Tiaki fishing with her in a favourite lagoon. She speared a fish and let the spear sink with the fish down to the bottom. ‘Kia tere,’ she commanded Tiaki. Immediately he dived after the speared fish, swimming down, down, down until he was able to grasp the spear in his teeth and return to the surface.

Camping on the beach one evening, Paraiti saw an uncommonly bright star blazing across the sky. That night she had the dream again. It had changed in two respects: the auburn-haired woman had now become the ngarara, and it was a child who was caught in its slithering shape.

This morning, Paraiti is waiting for Tiaki to bring her breakfast. Perhaps he has gone fishing without her and will bring her back a nice silver-finned kahawai. Of course she will have to throw it back into the sea — first fish to Tangaroa — but the thought of a fish for breakfast is enticing. She leaves her tent to get some driftwood together for a fire to boil water for her manuka tea. She puts the skillet on the fire so it will be ready for Tiaki’s catch.

As she is ranging along the beach, with the surf rolling in, she sees an old koroua sitting on a log in the middle of a vast expanse of sand. He is smiling at her and waving to her as if he knows her.

As soon as she sees him, Paraiti’s heart bursts with pain and love. She drops her driftwood and runs towards him like a young girl. When she gets nearer, he motions her to sit down next to him.

‘Hello, daughter,’ Te Teira says. ‘Isn’t it a lovely morning?’

Paraiti smiles at him. ‘Yes, Dad.’

He closes his eyes and sniffs the sea air. ‘Mmm, kei te whiti te ra, such a day brings back so many memories, daughter.’ Then he looks at Paraiti again, and she can feel herself drowning in his eyes, irradiated with his love. ‘You always had good hands, daughter. They can save lives and they can heal people. You know what you have to do.’ Then he is gone.

After breakfast, Paraiti talks to her animals. ‘Well, Tiaki, Ataahua and Kaihe, I know you are expecting us to head southward to Ngati Porou, and I know you like to visit kin at Tikitiki, Tokomaru Bay, Tolaga Bay and Whangara, but we have to cancel our travels; maybe we’ll go to Ngati Porou another day. Instead, we will go straight home.’

The animals simply look at her with a puzzled expression. So? What are we waiting for? Let’s get going.

Paraiti puts on her wide-brimmed hat. She packs the saddlebags, says a karakia on the beach and sprinkles sea water over her head and those of her animals. She taps Ataahua on his knees and mounts him.

It will be a long, hard ride. She wants to send a telegram from Opotiki and be at the Waioeka Gorge by nightfall, and reach Gisborne in two days’ time, if all goes well.

Better get a move on. ‘Me hoki matou ki te wa kainga,’ she orders.

The waves thunder and spray around her as she heads inland.

5

Two days later, and Mrs Rebecca Vickers waits in the upstairs drawing room of her home on Waterside Drive.

She is smouldering with irritation. Yesterday, Maraea had brought news that Scarface had telegraphed from Opotiki to say that she was returning to Gisborne, and had a matter of mutual benefit to discuss. An appointment has been arranged for this evening.

Mrs Vickers wears her auburn hair unpinned. She is dressed in a long crimson robe. Her full and generous pregnancy is clearly showing. Her backbone has curved to make space for the baby, and all the other organs have found their places around the whare tangata.

All her attempts to end her pregnancy have failed. The last butcher left her for dead on the bathroom floor. But the baby is still alive inside her.

Lighting a cigarette, she looks out the window. The day is already beginning to wane. She rings the bell for Maraea and tells her to bring the latest edition of The Tatler and switch on a reading lamp. The magazine has a full-page photograph of a young film actress, Merle Oberon: rich black hair, high noble forehead, exquisite cheekbones, the neck of a swan, and skin of unsurpassed whiteness. Regarded as the quintessential English rose, Merle Oberon is the woman of her generation — looks, style and manners — on whom Rebecca Vickers has modelled her own image. Opalescent eyes blazing, she throws the magazine to the floor. Waiting for Paraiti, she broods, eyes unblinking. If she doesn’t play her cards right, everything will be over. Everything.

What is Mrs Vickers’ secret? She has been passing for white ever since she was a young girl of twelve. Her father was English, her mother a Maori woman he met in Auckland and promised to marry but didn’t. Rather than return to her kainga, Mrs Vickers’ mother instead fled to Christchurch, where her daughter was born out of wedlock. Mrs Vickers is therefore a halfcaste. In other countries where interracial relationships — or miscegenation — lead to children, those children are called, by blood quantum, halfbreed, Eurasian, mulatto or quadroon. But Mrs Vickers is more white than brown. Pigmentocracy has enabled her to blend in and thus assure for herself all the benefits of being Pakeha. So began, with her mother’s connivance, her process of crossing over the colour bar.

No moral judgement should be assumed about her masquerade. Why not applaud a woman who has been able so successfully to move into the Pakeha part of town? And why not congratulate her for the huge accomplishment of catching the eye of the elderly Mr Vickers? As many other women have done before her, Mrs Vickers has parlayed her youthful sexuality to obtain matrimony and entry to high society, which she would not have obtained by pedigree. Aided by the application of an acidic nitrate, she has kept her skin glazed like porcelain; she knows full well that her white skin is her passport. She has perfected her masquerade with a long period spent in London, and an even longer period among the Raj in India, where her husband’s wealth was at her disposal. She is not willing to lose everything for the sake of a moment of adulterous passion.

Mrs Vickers does not know it, but Merle Oberon is, ironically, her perfect exemplar. Born in Karachi, India, the English actress maintains her position as a famous film star only because people do not know she is Eurasian. Like Mrs Vickers, Merle Oberon, the famous English rose, also bears the taint of the tar.

Suddenly she hears footsteps. It is Maraea. ‘Scarface has arrived. She is waiting for you in the parlour.’

Paraiti is unprepared for Mrs Vickers’ appearance. One month on, pregnancy has given her a transcendent, astonishing beauty. In her crimson robe, she looks like a gorgeous katipo spider.

‘You said you had a matter of mutual benefit to discuss with me,’ Mrs Vickers says angrily. ‘If you’ve come to gloat, you can get out now.’

Paraiti is exhausted from her journey. She has not detoured to Waituhi — her animals are tied up three streets away. She takes the upper hand. ‘You want something from me,’ she says, ‘and if you agree to my terms, I will do it. I will begin the induction of your baby, tonight if you wish, and you will abort it ahead of its time.’

Mrs Vickers’ eyes dilate. She turns her back on Paraiti and looks into the mirror above the fireplace, trying to mask her elation. Her reflection blazes in all the other mirrors in the room. ‘Tonight? What is the method?’

‘You will begin a herbal abortion. I will give you a compound which you will drink at least three times a day for the next seven days. The compound has ingredients which will bring on contractions and cause your whare tangata to collapse. By the sixth day, the compounds will affect the pito, the cord that connects your baby to your womb, and it will begin to constrict. To assist the process I will come every second evening to massage the area of the whare tangata and manipulate the baby inside. The massage will be deep, forceful and extremely painful for you. But both the compound and the massage should have the desired effect. On the seventh day I will return to physically assist your baby’s expulsion from your womb.’

‘Seven days?’ Mrs Vickers considers the proposal. She rings the bell for the servant Maraea. ‘When does Mr Vickers’ ship arrive in Auckland?’

‘In six days, madam,’ Maraea replies.

‘He will be expecting me to be there …’ Mrs Vickers turns to Paraiti. ‘You must take less time.’ It is not a request; it is a command.

Paraiti stays her ground. ‘Less time means more risk to you,’ she answers. ‘I have already accelerated the normal dosage. When the cramps begin, your body might not be able to cope with the strain. Your heart could go into arrest.’

‘Less time, I say,’ Mrs Vickers lashes. ‘You already know how strong I am. Just rid me of my burden.’

Paraiti’s head is whirling: Yes, Mrs Vickers has the stamina. She must be allowed to think that she has the victory. ‘So be it,’ she nods. ‘I will deliver your baby on the sixth day.’

Mrs Vickers smiles with satisfaction. Then, ‘I want to know if the baby will be born dead or alive,’ she demands.

Paraiti realises she must be very careful about her reply. According to her calculations the pregnancy is under seven months, but the foetus should be fully viable. If so, the baby would have to survive the poisonous and dangerous ordeal as the whare tangata collapses. It could be dead before the contractions pushed it into the birth canal. Paraiti’s voice quivers with emotion. ‘There is every possibility that the baby will be stillborn,’ she says.

Mrs Vickers looks at Maraea. ‘Every possibility,’ she echoes mockingly. Self-possessed, always aware, she turns to face Paraiti again.

‘And why are you doing this, Scarface?’ She moves with surprising swiftness, cupping Paraiti’s chin with one hand and, with the other, stroking the scar that crosses her face. The touch of her hand stings.

‘He Maori koe,’ Paraiti answers, pulling back. ‘You are a Maori.’ But she can still feel Mrs Vickers probing her soul, and she warns her, ‘Kia tupato, tuahine. Be careful. What I am proposing to do is against the law. You push me and I will change my mind.’

The threat of withdrawal has the desired effect. Mrs Vickers blinks and steps back. But she is soon on the offensive again. ‘You mentioned your terms. What do you want, Scarface?’

It is now or never. ‘I will not require payment for my services,’ Paraiti says quickly. ‘You will not understand this, Mrs Vickers, but my purpose is to save lives, not to take life away. Whether the baby is dead or alive, I will keep it.’

‘What are you up to?’ Mrs Vickers asks. ‘Wait here while I consider.’

Paraiti watches as Mrs Vickers and Maraea leave the room. She hears them talking in low voices. When they return, Mrs Vickers mocks, ‘I had not realised that your motives would be so humanitarian, but I agree to your request. What option do I have? You hold all the cards. I should have known you wouldn’t want blood money to go with it. But I warn you, Paraiti, if the baby is alive, take it quickly for I would soon murder it. Now let us begin the treatment.’

Asking Maraea to bring up the saddlebags containing her medicines, Paraiti instructs both women on the dosage and its frequency. She measures out the first dose and administers it. Self-confident though she is, Mrs Vickers’ eyes show alarm. Her face increases in pallor; after all, it is a poison that is being administered to her. Following the dose, Paraiti begins to massage Mrs Vickers. The massage is light at first and Mrs Vickers sighs and relaxes into it. ‘This is not so difficult to cope with,’ she laughs. But then Paraiti goes deeper, stronger, faster — above, around and upon the mound of the whare tangata. Soon, sweat starts to pop out on Mrs Vickers’ forehead and she groans, ‘No, please, enough, no.’ For half an hour Paraiti keeps up the massage, her eyes dark and her face grim, until Mrs Vickers starts to scream with the pain.

Paraiti stops. Mrs Vickers moans; she can feel the after-effects of Paraiti’s manipulations rippling within her womb.

But the massage isn’t over.

Paraiti administers a hard, shocking series of chops with her hands on and around the baby within the whare tangata, then applies relentless pressure on the baby. Please child, forgive me, but this is the only way. She can sense the baby beneath her hands, fighting the unbearable pain — and Mrs Vickers screams and loses consciousness.

‘Every second day, this?’ Maraea asks, horrified.

‘Yes,’ Paraiti answers. ‘Meantime, make sure your mistress drinks the compound. This regime is the only way to achieve the abortion on the sixth day. Under no circumstances can we slow or halt the procedure.’

It is time for Paraiti to leave. Just as she does so, Mrs Vickers revives and, exhausted, speaks to her. ‘You and I, Scarface, we are not so dissimilar. You wear your scar where people can see it. I wear mine where they can’t. Our lives have both been influenced by them. Me pera maua.’

Paraiti ponders her words, and then nods in reluctant agreement. ‘I can find my own way out,’ she says. She walks down the stairs, along the corridor to the side door. As she walks down the pathway and closes the gate behind her, she is aware that Mrs Vickers is watching her go. She continues along Waterside Drive and, when she is out of sight of the house, her legs fail her and she collapses into the shadows. ‘Oh, child, forgive me for the pain I have done to you tonight.’

My purpose is to save lives, Mrs Vickers, not take them away.

She hears panting and sees that Tiaki has joined her; he licks her face. In the distance, tied to a fence, are Ataahua and Kaihe. Sighing to herself, Paraiti joins her animals. They could be home by dawn.

‘I have gambled tonight,’ she says to Tiaki as she mounts Ataahua. ‘I have played a game of life and death. Let us pray that I will win.’

Together they fade in and out of the streetlights and, finally, into the comforting dark beyond the town.

6

Normally, Paraiti would have spent the rest of her haerenga on a circuit of the villages closest to Waituhi. The old woman with a dog, horse and mule are familiar sights among the Ringatu faithful in Turanga, which the Pakeha have renamed Poverty Bay.

Paraiti would have travelled throughout the lands of Te Whanau a Kai, Te Aitanga a Mahaki, Tai Manuhiri and Rongowhakaata. Wherever the Ringatu festivals take place, there you would have found her. Where the faithful gather to sing, pray and praise God, there she would be also: Waihirere, Puha, Mangatu, Rangatira, Waioeka, Awapuni, Muriwai and many other local marae. Still avoiding te rori Pakeha, the Pakeha road, she would instead have ridden the old trails along the foothills or rivers, the unseen roads that crisscross the plains like a spider’s web.

But for six days, Paraiti remains in Waituhi, venturing only every second day to Gisborne, and returning at midnight. ‘Where is Scarface?’ her people ask, puzzled at this change in her routine. ‘Is she ill? What will happen to us if she is unable to visit this year?’ And some, worried, come to Waituhi to knock on the door of her kauta. ‘Are you all right, takuta?’

When they are patiently told that everything is kei te pai and that she is only delayed, they leave.

Even so, Paraiti decides to make an appearance at a Ringatu hui at Takipu, the large meeting house at Te Karaka, so that the people will see she’s still alive and kicking. Takipu is so beautiful that Paraiti cannot help but be grateful that her whakapapa connects her to such a glorious world.

The hui incorporates a kohatu ceremony, an unveiling of the headstone of a brother Ringatu healer, Paora, who died a year ago. The obelisk, the final token of aroha, is polished granite, gleaming in the sun. It is a sign of the love for a rangatira. As Paraiti joins the local iwi, weeping, around the obelisk, she reflects on the fragility of life. ‘Not many of us morehu left,’ she thinks to herself.

Afterwards, she spends some time talking to Paora’s widow, Tereina. ‘It was a beautiful unveiling for a beautiful man,’ she says.

‘Ae,’ Tereina replies. ‘A woman must have a good man at least once in her lifetime and I was lucky, he was the best.’ Tereina smiles at the memory. ‘The men may be the leaders, but when they die, it is the women who become the guardians of the land and the future.’

Returning to Waituhi, Paraiti cannot shake off Tereina’s comment about having a man in her life. She has always been alone with her animals, unloved by any man except her beloved father. Would things have been different if she had not been scarred?

Her mood deepens as she thinks of all the changes she has observed in her travels. Since she and her father saw the ngarara, the marks of the new civilisation have proliferated across the land. New highways and roads. More sheep and cattle farms. Where once there was a swingbridge there is now a two-lane bridge across the river. And although the old Maori tracks are still there, many of them have barbed-wire fences across them, necessitating a detour until a gate is found. On the gate is always a padlock and a sign that says ‘Private Land. Tresspassers will be prosecuted. Keep out.’

The changes are always noted by the travellers of the tracks and passed on to other travellers, ‘Kia tupato, beware,’ because, sometimes, horses or children can be ensnared in the coils of barbed wire discarded in the bush after the fences have been built. Paraiti has sewn up many wounds inflicted by barbed wire as pighunters and foresters have rushed after prey in the half light of darkness.

So the travellers keep themselves up to date with the death of Maori country. And Paraiti suddenly recalls Mrs Vickers’ words. You wear your scar where people can see it. I wear mine where they can’t.

Of all the changes wreaked by civilisation, it is the spiritual changes that are the worst. The ngarara is not only physical; it has already infiltrated and invaded the moral world that Paraiti has always tried to protect. She cannot but compare Mrs Vickers’ situation to that of the young girl in Ruatahuna — what was her name again, Florence? — who had lost three babies while they were still in the womb. In one case, the baby is strongly desired; in the other, unwanted.

Perhaps the marks that really matter are, indeed, the ones that can’t be seen.

How Paraiti manages to get through the next six days, she will never know. She prays constantly, morning, noon and night, her karakia unceasing and seamless. All that sustains her as she hastens to Waterside Drive and her rendezvous with Mrs Vickers is her immense faith, and the words of her father, ‘You know what you have to do.’

But every second evening, when Maraea meets her at the side door, ‘Come in, quickly, before you are seen,’ Paraiti feels sick to her stomach that all her efforts might be for nought — that, instead of saving the baby, she will be complicit in its death. And every time she administers the herbal compound, following it up with forceful massaging, and then the rapid blows to the womb, she realises that her anxiety must be as nothing when compared to that of the baby in the womb.

What must it be like to be in the house of birth, a whare meant to nurture and sustain, undergoing the trauma as its walls and roof are caving in? And in that environment, with stitched tukutuku ripping apart, kowhaiwhai panels cracking, and the destruction of all the whakapapa contained therein, what must it be like for the baby? Where can it go when the poutokomanawa begins to collapse and the poisons begin to flood through the placenta that feeds it? Even when fighting back, how can it know that even this is anticipated and is part of its brutal eviction?

‘Forgive me, child, oh forgive me,’ Paraiti whispers as she maintains the treatment. Ironically, Mrs Vickers’ own strength and stamina are working in the baby’s favour.

And on the sixth evening, when Mrs Vickers, groaning in pain, cries out, ‘Now, Scarface, do your work and rid me of this child,’ Paraiti plays her trump.

She has been stalling for time. ‘Your cervix has not dilated sufficiently,’ she says to Mrs Vickers. ‘The door of the whare tangata is not wide enough to enable the baby’s delivery.’ Paraiti has not increased the dosage, nor the massage therapy; every hour increases the chances of the baby’s survival. Turning a deaf ear to Mrs Vickers’ torrent of curses, Paraiti tells her, ‘I will do it tomorrow night.’

‘Kororia ki to ingoa tapu,’ she prays to the evening sky and all throughout the next day. Her animals, sensing her anxiety, honour her fervency with barks, whinnies and brays of their own; otherwise, they stand and wait in silence and on good behaviour.

‘You planned this delay all along,’ Mrs Vickers seethes. ‘Well, two can play at that game, Scarface.’

The final treatment has forced her waters to break. The birth has begun. The contractions are coming strongly — and the baby has slipped from the whare tangata into the birth canal.

Paraiti ignores the accusation. ‘Your trial will soon be over,’ she answers, ‘and it will be advisable for you to focus on the difficulties ahead. A normal birth is difficult enough. One that has been induced as forcefully as this, and before time, is more so.’

Yes, Mrs Vickers has stamina all right but, even so, she is being truly tested. She is dressed in a white slip, the cloth already stained at her thighs. Her skin shines with a film of sweat.

‘How do you wish to give birth, Mrs Vickers?’ Paraiti asks. ‘The Maori way or the Pakeha way?’ She knows the question has a hint of insolence about it but, after all, Mrs Vickers has Maori ancestry and it needs to be asked. Although the Pakeha position is prone, unnatural, Paraiti assumes that this is the way Mrs Vickers would wish the baby to be delivered. Her answer, however, surprises Paraiti.

‘My mother has prepared a place so that I can deliver the Maori way,’ she says. ‘If it was good enough for her illegitimate child, it is good enough for mine.’

Her mother?

Paraiti realises that Mrs Vickers is talking about Maraea. ‘Ki a koe?’ she asks Maraea, and she looks at the older woman to affirm the relationship.

Maraea averts her eyes but nods her head briefly. ‘Yes, I am Rebecca’s mother. But I never thought the pathway would lead to this, Scarface, believe me.’

There is no resemblance at all. One is old, dark, indecisive; the other young, fair, purposeful. What kind of unholy relationship, what kind of charade is this between daughter and mother?

Leading the way, and supporting her daughter as she goes, Maraea beckons Paraiti down the circular stairs and then a further set of steps to a small cellar. She switches on a light and Paraiti sees that Maraea has done her work well. Two hand posts have been dug into the clay, and beneath the place where Mrs Vickers will squat are clean cotton blankets and a swaddling cloth to wrap the baby in.

With a cry of relief, Mrs Vickers shrugs off her slip and, naked, takes her place between the posts in a squatting position, thighs apart. Her pendulous breasts are already leaking with milk. ‘No, I won’t need those,’ she says to Maraea, refusing the thongs that her mother wants to bind her hands with. ‘Do your work, Scarface,’ she pants, ‘and make it quick.’

Maraea has already taken a position behind her, supporting her.

‘Massage your daughter,’ Paraiti commands. ‘Press hard on her lower abdomen and whare tangata so that the baby is prompted to move further downward.’

The whare tangata is collapsing. But there is a heartbeat — faint, but a sign — to reveal that the baby still lives. ‘I am here, child,’ Paraiti whispers. ‘Kia tere, come quickly now.’ She takes her own position, facing Mrs Vickers, and presses her knees against her chest.

‘You will pay for this,’ she says. And suddenly her face is in rictus. She takes a deep breath, her mouth opening in surprise, ‘Oh.’

Paraiti places her hands on Mrs Vickers’ swollen belly. She feels the baby beneath, as it pushes head first against the birth opening. Paraiti’s manipulation is firm and vigorous as she presses and hastens the baby on its way. The contractions are rippling, stronger and stronger, and the first fluids stream from the vagina as the doorway proudly begins to open.

‘Now, bear down,’ Paraiti orders.

Mrs Vickers does not flail the air. Her face constricts and she arches her neck with a hiss. With a gush of blood, undulation after undulation, the baby slides out, head followed by shoulders, body and limbs, into the world. The baby is dark-skinned with wet, matted red hair.

‘A girl,’ Paraiti whispers in awe. ‘Haere mai, e hine, ki te Ao o Tane. Welcome, child, to the world of humankind.’

Quickly, she cradles her, clearing her face of mucus, ready to give her the first breath of life.

‘No,’ Mrs Vickers instructs. ‘Let it die.’

Paraiti does not heed her. Maraea is weeping, restraining Mrs Vickers as Paraiti clears the baby’s mouth and massages her chest. Immediately, she starts to wail. Her eyes open. They are green, shining, angry.

Mrs Vickers falls back, exhausted. She doesn’t even look at her daughter.

Paraiti cuts the umbilical cord and ties it with flax. She places the child at Mrs Vickers’ breast.

Mrs Vickers looks at Paraiti. ‘You broke your agreement to deliver me in six days. I now break mine. This child has no future. Get out.’

‘Have I failed?’

Paraiti’s faith makes her keep watch by the sickle moon on the house of Mrs Vickers. Around two o’clock in the morning, she sees Mrs Vickers and Maraea getting into the Packard.

Earlier, when Maraea showed Paraiti to the door, she said, ‘Rebecca will not kill the baby in this house. She wants to, but I have convinced her of the spiritual consequences of such an act — of having a child ghost destroy the calm of her life. But she will get rid of it. Keep watch and follow closely after us.’

‘E Tiaki,’ Paraiti tells her dog, ‘kia tere. Follow.’ Keeping to the shadows, Tiaki slinks silently in pursuit. Paraiti follows after on Ataahua.

The Packard is travelling fast. Ataahua is at the gallop. Even so, Paraiti has trouble keeping up and has to rely on Tiaki to run ahead, keep watch, return to show Ataahua the way, and run ahead again. Nevertheless, together they manage to hold on to the thin thread of pursuit, and when Paraiti reaches Roebuck Road, she sees the Packard parked on the bridge overlooking the river.

On the other side of the bridge is a small Maori settlement.

Paraiti quickly dismounts and watches from the darkness.

Mrs Vickers gets out of the car and takes a sack from the back seat. She moves very slowly and painfully but with determination. Paraiti hears a thin wail from within the sack. Her eyes prick with tears. She cannot believe Mrs Vickers intends to throw the sack in the river.

But Maraea is objecting. She struggles with her daughter saying, ‘Kaore, daughter, no.’ Mrs Vickers slaps her and she falls to the ground. Then, taking up the sack, she throws it over the bridge as cavalierly as if she is drowning kittens.

‘Aue, e hine,’ Paraiti cries.

She must wait until the car turns and makes its way back to Waterside Drive. Once it has gone past her hiding place she runs to the bridge to look over. The sack is floating away on the dark river; it won’t be too long before it sinks. ‘Haere atu,’ she yells to Tiaki. She points at the sack in the river and he jumps off the bridge and splashes into the water.

Paraiti’s heart is beating as she slips and slides down to the river’s edge. She can hear the thin wail of the child again. ‘Kia tere, kia tere!’ she urges Tiaki. The sack is becoming waterlogged and it is sinking. ‘Quick, Tiaki, quick.’

He is too late. The sack disappears under the water.

With a yelp, Tiaki dives for it — has not his mistress taught him at a favoured lagoon to bring back speared fish from the sea? The depths of the river are dark, so dark. But something flicks across his nose, a trailing piece of twine from the sack as it goes deeper, and he lunges —

Tiaki breaks out of the water. In his teeth, he has the sack. ‘He kuri pai!’ Paraiti calls to him, ‘Good dog. Hoki mai ki ahau. Bring the baby to me.’

Her usually clever fingers are so clumsy! They take so long to untie the knot. ‘Do your work quickly, fingers, quickly.’

And, oh, the baby is so still, with the tinge of blue on her skin. She already has the waxen sheen of death upon her. ‘Move quickly, hands, you have always healed, always saved lives. Give warmth to the child, massage the small heart and body to beat again and to bring the water up from her lungs. Quickly, hands, quickly. And now — ’

Paraiti holds the baby by the ankles and, praying again, gives the child a mighty slap on her tiny bottom.

The heart begins to pump, the lungs expel the water and the baby yells, spraying water out of her mouth. She tries to draw breath but starts to cough; that’s good, as she will get rid of all the water from her lungs. Very soon she is breathing and crying, and Paraiti continues to rub her down, increasing her body warmth. Tiaki noses in to see what she is doing. He whimpers with love and licks her.

‘Oh, pae kare,’ Paraiti says to herself, ‘Oh, thank God.’ She takes a moment to calm down. Then she addresses the baby, ‘I will call you Waiputa,’ she says. ‘Born of water.’ She sprinkles her head with water to bless her.

Waiputa is already nuzzling Paraiti’s breasts. ‘You’re not going to have any luck with those old dugs,’ Paraiti tells her. ‘I better find you a wet nurse.’ She looks across the river at the Maori settlement; there’s bound to be some younger woman there, breastfeeding her own child, who owes Paraiti a favour and won’t mind suckling another child.

As for the future? Paraiti smiles to herself. ‘What a menagerie we will make, Waiputa! A scar-faced woman, two old nags, a pig dog and you.’

Others had begun their lives with less.

7

Seven years later.

Time has been kind to Paraiti. Although her eyesight has dimmed a little, her memory is as sharp as ever, her medical skills intact, and her hands still do their blessed work. Tiaki has grown a bit greyer and is not as formidable a hunter in the forest as he used to be; instead of hunting a second pigeon he sometimes nips the first one on a wing so that it can’t fly too far and, when Paraiti releases it, sneakily, that is the same one he brings back. Both Ataahua and Kaihe are casting a keen eye on the pasture across the road where they can be retired to live out the rest of their years. Time for some other young colt and mule to take over.

This morning Paraiti woke as usual at dawn, said her karakia, performed her ablutions, packed the saddlebags and set off down the road. She still makes her annual haerenga and, in the year 1936, she is on her way to a hui at Te Mana o Turanga, Whakato Marae, Manutuke, the birthplace of the prophet Te Kooti. Oh, how she loves that meeting house! So full of carvings and stories of the people. Whenever she visits, it is like the past comes to life before her.

And she is so looking forward to the hui, too. There are two major thanksgiving festivals in the annual Ringatu calendar: one is held on 1 June, coinciding with the beginning of the Maori New Year, when the mara tapu is planted to commemorate God’s promise of salvation to all humankind; the other is held on 1 November, the celebration of the Passover, established by the prophet Te Kooti according to Exodus 40:2: ‘Hei tera tuatahi o te marama tuatahi koe, whakaara ai te tapenakara o te teneti o te whakaminenga.’

The tapu is lifted from the sacred garden and what has been planted on 1 June is harvested — symbolic of the resurrection of Christ. In this ceremony of ‘The Lifting of the First Fruits’, the people make a commitment for the next six months to walk in righteousness.

Paraiti usually travels by the side of the Pakeha roads now. Many of the great Maori trails are fenced off, and the last time she travelled on Rua’s Track, she had trouble hanging on when she was negotiating the steepest part. But she still grumbles about the ways that civilisation is advancing through the world, and she is always pointing out more of its marks.

She comes to the fork of the road where roadmen have been constructing a combined road and rail bridge. She’s never seen one quite like it. The road has been made of a black and sticky material. Tiaki sniffs at it and growls. Ataahua and Kaihe stand patiently waiting for the order to move across.

‘It might be like the Red Sea,’ Paraiti mutters. ‘We could be halfway and next minute, aue, the waves will come over us.’

‘No it won’t, Nan,’ a young voice says. ‘It’s called tarseal. Come on, there’s no traffic. Let’s cross now.’

Riding Kaihe is a pretty young girl, dark, with auburn hair. Paraiti has an assistant now, a whangai daughter, Waiputa. Waiputa now fills her waning years. She is someone to love; the new seed for the future, blossoming from Paraiti’s old life. In turn, Waiputa is someone who loves her matua. They make a good team, the scarred one and the unscarred one.

‘Tarseal, eh?’ Paraiti answers. ‘You’re learning lots of big words at that school of yours.’

She pulls Kaihe across the black river. Aue, motorised traffic is faster than a horse and an old mule. It can come out of nowhere and is onto you before you know it. Roaring across the bridge like a ngarara comes a huge sheep truck and trailer.

‘Quickly, Nan,’ Waiputa says. ‘We have to get to the other side of the road.’

But Paraiti knows how fast she can go. Quick? She is already at quick. There’s nothing to do except face the ngarara. ‘E tu,’ she says to Ataahua and Kaihe. Together, they turn to the oncoming monster. Paraiti reaches for her rifle.

The truck driver signals to her, ‘Get off the road,’ and then slams on the brakes. The truck squeals to a halt, its trailer rattling, wheezing, collapsing before the old woman and her whangai daughter. The driver swears and starts to open the door. But when he sees the old, greying dog snarling and the little red-haired girl baring her teeth, he shuts it again, quick and lively. ‘Stupid old woman,’ he yells at Paraiti as he drives his truck around them.

Paraiti gets to the other side of the road. Waiputa looks at her and wags a finger. ‘Bad girl, Nan. We could have been killed.’

‘I know,’ Paraiti answers. ‘And I realise it was just a truck. But you know, in the old days, I would have shot it.’

Paraiti peers at the sun and begins to laugh and laugh. Then, looking at the road ahead she pulls down her sunhat and says to Waiputa, Tiaki, Ataahua and Kaihe:

‘Looks like we’re just going to have to last forever.’