Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

The sun was hot that day and the meadow was brilliant with spring daisies and other wild flowers. A slight breeze rippled the long stems, making waves of yellow and green. Grandmother Ramona was not wearing her beekeeping clothes. She walked into the middle of the field and stopped for a moment, breathing in the fragrance. Then she began to karanga to the bees, to call them hither –

‘Haramai, haramai, e nga pi aroha haramai —’

At first there was silence. Then, from the four corners of the meadow rose a humming sound as wave after wave of bees came shimmering and swarming like golden clouds towards her. Grandmother lifted her arms, her lips and her face to the honey bees. They came to rest in her open palms, to kiss her lips and taste her tears.

Afterward, she said that she had only two requests. The first was that we would never cut the meadow. The second was that we would love the bees as she had loved them. They, in their turn, would give us the sweetest honey in the world.

Then Grandmother turned her back and started to walk away. I swear to you that the honey bees made such a sound, such a loud buzzing, that you would think they would die of love.

Since then, whenever I have had to let go of anything or anybody in my life, I have always tried to remember Grandmother Ramona on that day.

She never returned.

That night we had the earth for our floor, the stars for our ceiling and the Waipaoa rustling at our doorway. Strangely enough, my mother was not as perturbed about sleeping in the open as I thought she would be.

‘No vampire in his right mind is going to turn up when we have all of Grandmother’s bees to protect us,’ she said.

There was a derelict house on a small western rise which Dad planned to restore for us to live in. It had three bedrooms, a verandah which had been partially closed in as a fourth bedroom, sitting room, dining room and kitchen. One wall was completely exposed and would have to be rebuilt, and the roof over the back part of the house was missing. Elsewhere there were areas which would have to be patched. There was no bathroom or toilet, and washing would have to be done in the river. Nor was the old outside windmill operable; we would have to repair the vanes and pump to enable water to be drawn up from the river along the rise to the house.

The next morning, when the sun came up, we were ready to begin. The house had been used for storing hay and old clapped-out equipment — heavy pieces of iron, car and tractor parts, all the junk associated with farming. Sheep, birds and dogs had left copious droppings. Huge spiders’ webs were strung in all the rooms. The first task was to clean the whole place out –

‘Let’s get to it,’ Dad said.

I had been given another job — the digging of a drophole for the outhouse toilet.

Just then we heard the sound of cars driving up the track. Our gang, Mahana Four, had come to help us — Uncle Hone and Aunt Kate, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Albie, Pani and Miriam, Sephora and Esther, Sam Whatu and his sons Willie, David and Benjamin, Auntie Molly, Haromi, Peewee and Mackie.

‘Don’t tell Father,’ Uncle Hone said.

‘My name is Charlie Whatu,’ Aunt Ruth winked.

‘Just keep Mother Ramona’s damn bees away from us!’ Aunt Kate added.

By nightfall, the place had been swept and scrubbed, and repairs made to broken window sashes and doors. David and Benjamin had helped me with the drophole and Uncle Sam had rigged up a small private enclosure as a bathroom. An inventory had also been made of what had to be done to the house — new roofing, replacement of rotten wallboards and floorboards, glass for broken windows, new doors and so on. We also needed some fences; Mum wanted to keep some fowls. The list seemed endless.

‘There’s a lot of work to do, Josh,’ Uncle Hone said. ‘I’m glad you’ve got plenty of money.’

My mother and father tried to keep up a brave front, but the real situation was that we were hardpressed for cash, what with the repairs on the car and the extra tithe we were paying.

Then David said, ‘Hey, I think Dad’s got an old window frame you could have.’

And Benjamin said, ‘What about that old roofing iron stacked behind old Pera’s place? He doesn’t want it any more. That’ll do for now for the holes in the roof.’

Auntie Molly said, ‘I’ve got an old wood oven you could use, Huria. Oh yes, and a bath that is too small now — and don’t anybody make a crack about that, thank you.’

Even Haromi came up with something. ‘I’m going into town next Friday,’ she said. ‘I could steal some curtains from Melbourne Cash!’

One by one the inventory of what needed to be paid for began to reduce. By the end of the first week we had a real roof, doors that opened and closed, windows which had sugarbags over them and — a home.

Visitors began turning up with furniture they thought might come in handy. Maggie brought a coal iron. Uncle Pera brought a kerosene lamp and one day he asked me to go around to his place for a wardrobe with a full length mirror!

‘What do I need one of these for now?’ he wheezed. ‘I only gets a fright when I go past it and see that old man in it.’

The visitors would come to visit, pretend to be looking at nothing, but think, ‘Hmmmn, Huria and Joshua need a rooster for their hens —’ When they came back they would just happen to have whatever it was they thought we needed.

My mother was embarrassed about such magnanimity. ‘I’ve got nothing to give in return,’ she said.

‘Nothing?’ the visitors would say. ‘You don’t think we want anything in return, do you?’ But some of them would pause. ‘Well, actually, if you happen to have any of Mother Ramona’s honey to spare —’

Grandmother Ramona had gifted us not only land but also honey to barter with.

There were some items, however, that nobody could give us — fence posts, glass for the window panes and a new pump for the windmill. These things had to be purchased. I can remember clearly how proud we were, after many hours of frustration, when the windmill vanes began to revolve. We had been just about ready to give up and reconcile ourselves to carting water up from the river by drum when there was an imperceptible change in the wind’s direction. The machinery gave a jerk , loosening all the joints, and there was a wheezing like Uncle Pera. The sound of water came slowly gurgling through old systems and flushing up into the house.

Despite the fact that we began to go into debt with the wood mill and hardware store in Gisborne — and we plunged quickly into the red with Miss Zelda, Miss Daisy and Scott — such moments were magical. The final touch was Glory’s.

‘I want you to put this up,’ she said. She had a hammer and the sign she had given Mum and Dad at Christmas.

‘Whereabouts?’ I asked.

‘Over the front door, silly.’

Spring came again, and with it the shearing. Once more the family gathered at the homestead with the families of Ihaka Mahana and Zebediah Whatu for the September thanksgiving meeting. The telling of the Mahana shearing history retained all its power and mana. At church, Grandfather gave his usual reading –

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want,

He leadeth me beside the still waters,

He restoreth my soul –

Shortly afterward Haromi left school, tossing aside her school uniform with one hand and turning into an instant nymphet.

‘Watch out, world,’ she squealed, ‘here I come.’

Haromi tried to get a job in Gisborne, without success. She started to hang out with the bodgies at the Starlight Café. Two weeks later Aunt Sarah caught her sneaking in through the window after being out all night.