Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

Our mouths fell open.

Then Grandmother Ramona’s eyes softened. Her demeanour became supplicatory.

‘Your father is dead. You are his children. I am your mother. The dead to the dead. The living to the living. I have a request. I have done my duty by him, your father, and by you all. I want you to let me go now. Go back to him who I have loved all my life.’ She paused. ‘To Rupeni.’

To Rupeni ?

There was a shocked silence, then Aunt Sarah stepped up to Grandmother Ramona and said, ‘You’re over sixty, you stupid old woman. What the hell are you playing at?’

Bedlam broke out.

It is very difficult to trust adults once you have found them out. All my life I was accustomed to the usual Mahana evasiveness whenever I had any questions. Answers like, ‘Ask no questions and you get no lies.’ Or, ‘It’s none of your business.’ Or, ‘When you’re older we’ll tell you.’ These had always been the three main responses to any questions about the enmity between the Mahanas and the Poatas. So is my scepticism to be wondered at when a story turns out to be a complete lie from the start?

From the very beginning I had been brought up to fight the Poatas because they hated us. I had been told that this hatred stemmed from Rupeni Poata and his rivalry with Grandfather Tamihana on the sporting field and in haka. But God had always been on Grandfather’s side and thus he was the one who always triumphed. Even where Rupeni Poata happened to excel, it was always because he was good at strategy or on game plan: Grandfather’s physical strength allowed him to win in taiaha and mere, but Rupeni’s intelligence enabled him to triumph in peruperu and haka.

Wrong. Rupeni was the better sportsman and Tamihana always had it in for him because, no matter how hard he tried, Rupeni was the one who consistently came first.

Again, I had always believed Grandfather and Rupeni Poata were natural competitors, never wishing to play on the same side and always playing against each other. The one arena where Grandfather was the clear winner was in the love stakes, where his outright handsomeness and sexuality sidelined Rupeni completely. In the shower room there was no doubt as to who was the more virile man.

Wrong again. Grandfather, despite his physical attributes, was not the clear winner in the love stakes either.

The keystone to the rivalry, so I had been led to believe, was that Rupeni hated Grandfather after he had taken Ramona, who loved Grandfather, from the doors of the church.

Wrong for the third count.

When the First World War came, it is true that Rupeni and some of his friends were advocates of Sir Apirana Ngata and heeded his call to enlist in the Pioneer Battalion. It is also true that Grandfather’s mother refused to let him enlist. And it is true that just prior to leaving for France, Rupeni and Ramona were engaged to be married. But Ramona had never been in love with Grandfather at all. She had been faithfully Rupeni’s for many years, and wanted nothing more than to marry him before he left to go overseas with the Pioneer Battalion.

The truth is: Tamihana had never even seen Ramona until the day before her wedding.

This is how it happened.

Waituhi was playing football in Ramona’s village of Hauiti, and had won the game. On his way back to the pa, where the team was being billeted, Tamihana passed by a house near the church. He heard women inside giggling, and, attracted by the sound, crept up to the flax and peered through.

Tamihana saw a girl in white, her back to him, with her head completely covered by a veil. Her mothers and sisters were fussing over the hem of her wedding dress. The girl turned in profile and the sunlight lit through the veil. Tamihana could see that she was very young. Sixteen.

‘E kare ma!’ the girl trilled.

The girl laughed, her face to the sun, and the wind lifted her veil so that for a moment Tamihana could gaze on Ramona.

Tamihana was eighteen. He had had many women. But he took one look at Ramona and was pierced to the heart by the lightning rod of God. Other women in Tamihana’s life became as nothing to Ramona’s innocent beauty. In one look he devoured her lips, her body, her eyes, her breasts, her hair and her thighs. His physical desire was such that he felt his cock storming out of its phallic sheath like a sword. He knew without doubt that she was a virgin.

When Tamihana found out that Ramona was the ridiculous Rupeni Poata’s bride, and that they were to be married the next day, he roared with laughter.

Came the wedding day and Tamihana, astride a white horse, watched from a hiding place near the church. He saw Rupeni arrive in his Model T Ford. He glanced down the road. Ramona was on her way to the church. The band was playing –

— Ramona I hear the mission bells above –

A woman among the wedding guests saw the party approaching. She began to karanga to Ramona, her mother and father and sisters, all coming along the road. Rupeni, aglow with love, stepped out to greet his bride. Tamihana spurred his white horse along the road. It was all so easy.

The wedding guests scattered as Tamihana galloped through them. He slashed Rupeni’s cheek as Rupeni tried to catch the reins of the stallion. The blood flicked across Ramona’s white dress like glowing rubies. Tamihana leaned down. He lifted Ramona up.

‘Ko wai koe!’ she cried. ‘Who are you?’

Ramona fitted easily into his arms. Her perfume took his breath away and triggered his lust.

‘Kaore,’ she pleaded. ‘Kaore.’

He placed her in front of him. His breath hissed. Even as Tamihana galloped away he had turned her to face him. He prised her legs apart. He heard her whimpering and saw her glance at Rupeni, so far away now.

He unbuttoned his trousers. Lifted her up and onto him.

‘ Ruu-penne —’

Screaming, Ramona’s breath sucked the veil into her mouth.

Again Grandmother asked the family: ‘I want you to let me go now, back to Rupeni Poata, the man whom I have loved all my life.’

The family argued all that night. They reached a decision.

‘No.’

Grandmother stood up.

‘I will abide by your decision,’ she said.

A week after that fateful meeting I was digging in some fence posts at our farm. Glory was helping me.

‘You have to do something,’ she said during our smoko. ‘Grandmother Ramona has decided to die.’

So it was true then.

‘Why me?’ I asked.

Glory shrugged. ‘It’s your job.’

‘My job?’

She looked at me as if I was hopelessly dumb. ‘Of course, silly.’

Since the family meeting, Grandmother Ramona had locked herself in her room and refused to eat. Every morning, noon and evening Aunt Sephora pounded on her door. No answer.

‘She’ll come around,’ Aunt Sarah said. ‘When she gets hungry she’ll eat.’

Grandmother never did.

‘This is emotional blackmail,’ Aunt Sarah said angrily. ‘If Mother Ramona wants to die, then so be it. I will not have our father’s name and mana trampled on. If Mother goes to Rupeni it will be like shitting on all our father stood for. There has always been war between the Mahanas and Poatas.’

Glory’s words were still ringing in my ears when I went around to the homestead. I tapped on the window. Grandmother came to it but wouldn’t open it. Her face was ethereal.

‘What’s this all about, Grandmother?’

‘You must help me,’ she said.

I went back to work. My father Joshua had taken over digging in the fence posts.

‘Dad,’ I said, ‘if you hadn’t met Mum, would you have been able to fall in love with somebody else?’

He paused. He looked at me strangely. My father has always been a man of the soil. The earth is something he knows. Emotions? Those too he knows with his heart. He does not need to explain with words. There is a language of the heart which is more profound than words from the lips. He tried his best.