Tina Makereti - Where the Rekohu Bone Sings

Here on the other side of the leaping world, I do not know the times or names of things. Like the vision of the tohuk when they ascend the mountain, I see a picture of a life and think maybe that life is mine.

I see a boy. He is small as if there is big space between us. I am him but he is not yet me. I look and know at the same time what comes next. He plays and dreams the stories his father tells of the day the Sun People first come. They sail the ocean on a boat with fishing-net wings, his father says, when he is only a boy. The father hides among the kpi trees with the mothers and wives for safe-keeping. Our men go out to greet the Sun People. The father yearns to go too.

The visitors seem to come from the heavens, but they bring with them the blind cave of eternal night. Tamakaroro is killed. When the Sun People sail away, the sky becomes dark and thunder and lightning strike down, but they have not eaten our dead and they leave gifts of remorse. The Council of Elders gather and say this happen because the welcome of peace is not properly made.

The boy that is me and not-me dreams up the white fishing-net sails and the people who come with the god of fire inside them, puffing smoke from their mouths. He makes pictures in his mind of the soft coverings on their bodies. He runs the beach, singing of the world that lies beyond the waves. Sing and dream, boy, while you can. Run and sing your fathers stories even if you should not go to that place.

I watch the boy run and I know what comes next. Even though it is terrible, I cannot stop it. I cannot stop it.

1882

MERE BEAT A RHYTHM IN THE DOUGH POUND-LIFT-fold-breathe-pound-lift-fold-breathe down with the heels of her hands, the muscles in her arms working as she lifted the heavy mass and turned it to be folded over again. She was baking twice as much as usual, but she was old enough now to handle this. Though hika it hurt. Shed get used to it. Show that Audrey she could run things and get everything done. Still have time to steal a smoke with Iraia out in the shed if no one caught them.

Four loaves every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and fry bread in between if they ran out. That had been Meres work since she was nine, and now she was fifteen she was soon to take on the whole kitchen. Whea Audie had been teaching her since she was a bubba, but Whea Audie had started to wear out her welcome. That morning was the first her aunt hadnt been waiting in the dark kitchen at dawn, starting the fire even though shed instructed Mere to do it, just to show her how slow she was. The day before, Mere had convinced her to go across the bay early with her father to prepare the house there while he checked the nets and hunting gear. Mere, two of her brothers and Iraia would follow in the afternoon with more equipment and supplies. They were gearing up for the autumn camp.

Audie was the name Mere had christened her aunt when she was two and couldnt say Audrey properly. Meres father, T, had quickly taken up the nickname for his sister and most people had forgotten she even had a different name. Except Mere. Audrey, she often whispered as she pounded the breads flesh under her hard palms, Audrey-tawdry-mean-old-hua!

Before her aunt and father left, Mere had cooked porridge for them over the fire. Fresh cream and a dab of butter just how Papa liked it. Whea Audie couldnt fault the food, and Mere had been extra sweet, reassuring them that she would take charge of the final preparations. There was only one way to get Audie to leave their house and out of Meres way, and that was to prove she could handle cooking for everyone herself. She would produce the thickest, sweetest loaves of bread imaginable, and boil up some watercress and the leftover bones from last weeks wild pig. The bread should last until she got into the gardens on the other side and the boys got out to fish and hunt. Then thered be days of smoking fish and eels, and preserves to make from the fruit that grew only across the bay.

The first three loaves were ready to go into the oven. She opened the heavy iron door with the hook-ended poker, and lifted each loaf in its tin, lightly casting them through the door one by one to avoid touching the range. The heat was intense. Working in the warm kitchen, she always felt damp under her collar and sleeves, but when she approached the furnace it was so fierce she forgot the sweat and discomfort. Sometimes she would stay close for longer than was necessary, as if challenging it to overwhelm her. Perhaps she would swoon like fine ladies were said to do when overcome by heat or excitement (she had once seen Fanny Scrimshaw faint in church when she was pregnant), but this never happened to Mere. Instead, she would shiver in the face of the extreme temperature, her whole body rebelling against its intensity. Then she would come over all cool and relaxed. It was as if the range and the fire within it were a creature that allowed her this close acquaintance a taniwha that reacted to her challenges with a calm caress. She didnt tell anyone of these thoughts, though she knew her pride in her housework was more than her aunt would have liked.