Keri Hulme - The Bone People

by the muscles of stronghearted women and men-

But Cheops' canoe travelled the way of the dead, and that's a journey and a half… coffined it was, confined between stone

blocks.

Where will I find this ship? In stone? In water as he suggested?

Or only in the clouded remnants of an old man's mind?

The kaumatua's grasp on his arm tightens again.

"Here," he says in a choked whisper, "here."

The earth track goes on a way yet, turning a corner to head towards the sea. The sea is loud here, as though the diminishing rock walls, by some freak of acoustics, channel the sound in. There doesn't appear to be anything different about this part of the gorge. Joe looks sadly round.

Mad and stricken after all-

"See. It?"

The rasping urgency of the tired voice makes him stare at the bare surrounding rocks as hard as he can. Tears blur his vision.

I can't say even Yes for him. I can't tell him a lie. The wind blows a little more strongly, and the white streamers of cloud shift away from the face of the sun. Over by the cliff, something glints. "Is it water?" asks Joe sharply. The old man sags. "Haere…" pushing himself away from Joe, go, you go, I cannot

go.

As gently as possible, Joe helps him lie down at the side of the track. He takes off his parka and wraps it into a pad, a pillow for the kaumatua's head. The old man's eyes are closed.

"I'll come right back."

Don't die yet, he thinks fiercely. He clambers over the rocks towards the glint, his heart pounding.

A weathered stratum of rock makes an overhang. It is almost a cave, but it hasn't a floor. A great natural well, like a sinkhole, a cenote, has been formed in the rock.

The water is pale green and milky, as though it contains lime dust in suspension. It is opaque at first glance. But in a very short time — trick of the light, or his eyes adjusting — he can see shadows in the pool. He can't tell how deep the water is, or how large the things that show as shadows are. They cover the bottom of the pool, with patches and gaps between them. Long angular shadows mainly, with two round ones at the far side.

It can't be one of the great ships… the pool's only, what? twenty feet in diameter… but there's something down there… rock debris? Old logs? Dunno… where does the water come from? Underground spring maybe… there doesn't seem to be any outflow or overflow-

He puts his hand in the water cautiously, meaning to see whether the water is coloured or contains stone flour, and snatches it out again before his fingers go in past the knuckles. Jesus Holy!

It's like ten thousand tiny bubbles bursting on his skin, a mild electric current, an aliveness.

He notices that the water is not still at the far end of the pool. Fine tendrils, filaments of clearness, rise and meld with the pale green, like an ice-cube melting in whisky and spinning lucid threads into the surrounding colour.

He edges back from the side of the pool. Peace, peace, I'm just looking… maybe I should introduce myself?

Feeling foolish, squatting on his haunches by the overhang, he tells the water his name and his tribe, that Tiaki Mira has named him as his replacement.

Stupid fool, Ngakau… what do words mean to, whatever it is? If it's anything-

He says "E noho ra" before he goes, though.

The old man is sitting, back against a rock, when he returns.

"Not dead yet!" He calls cheerfully, triumphantly. "I am staggering on the edge of corruption, but I'm not dead yet!"

Fresh strength has been infused into him, from the rest or by Joe finding what he was sent to find. His eyes are bright and see the present again, and he no longer mumbles unintelligibly to the ghosts that surround him.

He produces Kerewin's last cigar from the pocket of his greatcoat, and lights it, passing it then to Joe.

E hoa, if only you could see where your smokes went… where

are you now? And the last time I shared a smoke, it was with Haimona-

O boy, what are they doing to you? Though maybe you can't know-

They smoke in silence, sharing the cigar puff and puff about.

"Pity we didn't bring the tea," says the kaumatua suddenly. "It's a good place for a picnic nei?"

Joe looks at him sideways. "A bit too quiet for my liking."

"O, it's not like this all the time… plenty of noise in a thunderstorm! It booms and echoes all up the gorge like giant men yelling… and when there's an earthquake! Ahh, I've been here when the earth was creaking and groaning as if she were giving birth… and sometimes, on long summer evenings when the flies are humming, sometimes…" the bantering note is gone, and his voice is low and dreamy, "the old people come back. I've seen them standing round the mouth of that shelter up there, watching and talking softly. With their long oiled hair, and their fine strong bodies, and proud free-eyed faces… sometimes they talk, and sometimes they walk, filing away down a track that isn't there anymore, silent under the sun… maybe they don't come back, maybe I've gone into their time, because they've looked to where I sit and shaded their eyes, squinting, as though they could see something but not enough. And once, a woman threw a piece of cooked kumara at me and I ducked, and laughed… and once I looked at my dog, and he'd gone misty. Insubstantial, until I put my hand on him, and he whined and licked my hand, and when I looked back, the old ones had gone… mysteries,

O Joseph. All the land is filled with mysteries, and this place fairly sings with them."

"I don't think I'd like to meet any of the old folk."

I don't think I could look them straight in the eye. I'd feel like a thing of no account, less than a slave.

"You may, and you may not."

The old man shrugs, and begins talking about other days and happenings, when he was younger and spent much of his time hunting pig and deer through the scrub.

"Fishing and hunting and looking after my garden," he finishes, "that's how my life has been spent. It has been a very easy life,

I suppose. No wars or great doings. Just watching things grow, and catching things for food. No family worries after the old woman died. No money problems, always enough to eat, enough to smoke, a roof over my head. A man can find satisfaction with enough."

"Yes," says Joe.

His thigh has started to ache after all the walking and scrambling over the rocks, and his arm is throbbing hard.

I'd like to stretch out in the sun and go to sleep while he talks, but I can't do that.

He says with an effort,

"Your dogs, e pou? Where did you get them?"

"O the old lady had a bitch, that somehow got herself in pup…

dog' from a hunter's Pack maybe? They bred among themselves, never too many, all good strong dogs, not a mean or bad cur among them. The last one, he died about two years ago, and I didn't have the heart to start again. Just as well, ne? It's not good for a dog to outlive his master… they were company as well as hunting companions. That last one, Tika he was called, must have been the only dog in the country who was brought up and lived on fish, eh. I haven't hunted pig or deer for many years now, but I can still fish… o, he used to get a bit of bird now and then, but mainly

fish-" He sits in the sun, his hands folded in his lap, remembering

the dogs, retelling their exploits as they come into his mind.

It's maybe his last talk, Ngakau. Make it happy for him.

So he chuckles amiably at the funny stories, and clucks his tongue at the bad ones, and mourns with the old man over the deaths of long-dead dogs. The ache in his arm and leg grows, but he doesn't let it show on his face.

At last the kaumatua reaches out his hand to him. "Help me up, o Joseph."

When standing, he cries out in a loud voice, something that is gutteral and archaic and incomprehensible to Joe. The chant rings in the gorge, an echo dying seconds after the last word has been called out.