Witi Ihimaera - Bulibasha

Everybody laughed.

‘Well,’ Uncle Matiu asked Aunt Ruth, ‘does that sound fair to you?’

Come on, Aunt Ruth, come to Simeon.

‘Oh, all right.’

Gotcha.

‘Round number two!’ Uncle Matiu said.

My heart was pounding. Glory was humming beside me. She looked totally unconcerned. What was the fuss all about?

‘How many for Mother this time?’ Uncle Matiu asked.

This time nine. Uncle Jack was still hanging out against Aunt Sarah.

‘How many against?’

This time eleven.

Grandmother Ramona looked across to me, her face wan. She knew Aunt Ruth’s impassioned defence of the Mahana mana had appealed to the family’s sense of honour. There was only one vote to go. What should I do? There had to be some way of giving Grandmother a fair chance. Surely there were some of the family who, under other less public circumstances, would vote for –

Then I knew. I put up my hand again.

‘The third vote should be by secret ballot,’ I announced. ‘Then people can really vote the way they feel.’

Aunt Ruth stared at me. ‘If I ever get into trouble with the law, remind me to engage you as my lawyer,’ she said.

‘So,’ Uncle Matiu asked, ‘we take Simeon’s suggestion? Kua pai. Then hand out sheets of paper and everybody vote. Simeon, you can count them when we’ve finished.’

‘Not on your life!’ Aunt Sarah exploded. ‘If anybody’s going to count the votes it will be me and Ruth.’ Then she began to whimper, then sob, then heave. Tears ran down her eyes. She looked as if she was going to have a heart attack.

‘Our father was a good man,’ she wailed. ‘We love our mother too, but Mum, you have only selfish desires in your heart. Our father is up there, dead. Dead ! Nobody can speak for him except us. Even though he is dead, he is still Bulibasha.’

I thought, Oh shit, shit, shit .

Uncle Matiu coughed. ‘Let’s vote now,’ he said.

The room was filled with the sounds of scratching. Then quiet descended and gradually the papers started to come my way. I recognised my mother’s wilful ‘Ae,’ in favour of Grandmother. My father had also voted ‘Ae.’ So had Miriam, Pani, Sephora and Esther, Jack and Albie. But with growing despair I knew that Aunt Sarah’s last speech had brought the sword of Damocles to hang above Grandmother’s head.

Nine for Grandmother, eleven against. We had almost done it, but almost was not good enough.

‘Well, Simeon,’ Aunt Sarah, said, ‘bring the papers for me and Ruth to count. Don’t take all night.’

My feet had turned to lead. I started to walk across the room. Glory stopped humming. She gave a sigh of exasperation and glared hard at me. Her eyebrows knitted together: Well? What next?

I nodded: Play dead, Glory.

She fainted.

My mother rushed up to her with a cry. Aunts and uncles crowded around. Just for a moment the vote was forgotten.

Out with my pencil. Add two slips of paper with ‘Ae’ on them; subtract two slips with ‘Kaore’ on them.

‘I’m all right,’ Glory said, reviving.

Her look told me, You owe me one, brother.

Sometimes when I think of Grandmother Ramona now I imagine a silent film with people walking in the fast jerking way we used to laugh at when we were children. Dressed entirely in white, she is la paloma, a beautiful white dove, in an overdressed Spanish court. Her lover is a young man who demonstrates his love with his hands across his heart.

He has nothing to give Ramona. Not riches, not lands, not even a proud castle in Spain. Nothing — except his love. A love which will endure for ever.

The night after the vote was one of unparalleled beauty. The sky was so clear that you could see to the end of the universe. My father Joshua and I were standing with the men of the family at the bottom of the steps to the homestead. Through the wide open windows, their curtains billowing in the evening breeze, we could see the women. Grandmother Ramona was sitting in front of her mirror, combing her hair. My sister Glory was threading yellow daisies through it. Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah were still haranguing their mother, their voices like cicadas.

Uncle Matiu came out the front door. ‘Rupeni’s on his way,’ he announced.

I flushed and had to hide my face in the shadows. Yes, I was ashamed. My manipulation had changed the course of family history for ever. There was something arrogant in the notion, something God-like in the assumption.

‘You make the decision.’

But underpinning it all was a new emotion, a reckless disregard for the rightness of things. I could play with people as if they were toys. There was not so much difference, after all, between me and my grandfather, the Bulibasha.

Of course Aunt Ruth and Aunt Sarah had just about died when they counted the votes. They looked at each other and blanched and counted again. Then Aunt Ruth pierced me with a glance. She suspected something. She and Aunt Sarah continued to protest, but in the end they had to agree that the result meant Grandmother could go to Rupeni Poata.

I don’t know how long we waited that night. Members of the family came and went. Zebediah Whatu turned up, and strong words were sent to Grandmother. Ihaka also had a go at her. Even Granduncle Pera wanted a few words. Every now and then there’d be the sound of yet another screaming match in the house as the women, too, argued with each other. Maggie came for a moment; so did Auntie Molly. Everyone had their own opinion.

Another hour passed. Uncle Hone looked at his watch and said, ‘Rupeni’s sure taking his time.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t want her after all,’ Uncle Aperahama suggested with a laugh.

‘Well,’ Uncle Matiu said, ‘maybe we don’t want her either.’

Then a sound began to pierce the darkness — the phut phut oogle oogle of a vintage car. Now we knew why it had taken Rupeni so long to get to Waituhi. Along the road came the headlights of a Model T Ford, the one which Rupeni had locked in his garage for forty-five years. The car turned into the driveway; its bonnet and cab were festooned with ribbons. Two tiny dolls dressed in wedding clothes were affixed to the radiator.

The Model T coughed to a stop in front of the homestead. Rupeni got out. I didn’t know what to think at first, because he was wearing a morning suit that was much too small for him and his pants were tight across his bum. There was a ripping sound from his coat as he strained to push shut the rickety car door, and to add insult to injury his wing collar burst open and he had to clutch at his bowtie to stop it from falling off.

‘Ko ahau,’ he said. ‘It is I.’

‘You stay there, Rupeni Poata,’ Uncle Matiu yelled out to him. ‘Dad never let you come across the threshold when he was alive, so don’t think you can cross the threshold now. Your woman will come to you.’

Rupeni nodded.

‘What’s he doing now?’ Uncle Ihaka asked.

Rupeni had gone around to the back seat of the car. He reached in and began cranking furiously with his arm. Then –

— Ramona, I hear the mission bells above –

Good grief.

Grandmother appeared on the verandah with her daughters beside her like a chorus of unwilling bridesmaids. My sisters were there too, as flower girls. Glory caught my eye and pointed at her artwork in Grandmother Ramona’s hair. I gave her the thumbs-up. Grandmother Ramona was wearing the old wedding gown, pinned and tucked with safety pins, a simple white dress like a nightgown falling to her ankles. Glory’s flowers were lovely, but the rest of Grandmother Ramona looked wrong, her attempt at turning back the clock a foolish and pathetic charade. Yet there was a rightness too in the challenge, an integrity in a gesture made in the face of Time.