Witi Ihimaera: I've Been Thinking About You, Sister

No matter how much Dad tried to explain the situation and to apologise for any error they may have inadvertently made, he just couldn’t get through to the senior customs officer, who was adamant.

What made it worse was that the incident really hurt my parents’ sense of pride and personal honour. ‘You are treating us as if we are criminals,’ Dad said in a temper. ‘I may have received the occasional parking ticket but my wife and I have never been before a judge or committed any crimes. To be treated like this is deeply shaming.’

The customs officer would not be swayed. He retained their passports, showed them the transit lounge, deposited their bags beside them and advised them that under no circumstances were they to leave. Of course, as soon as he had gone, Mum burst into tears. She’s generally a strong woman but her tears were from embarrassment and humiliation. ‘And now look at us, Dad,’ she wept, ‘we’ve become a bag lady and a bag man.’ She was also aching because to come all this way with her river stones and not be able to put them on her brother’s grave was a terrible heartbreak for her.

They sat, talked, waited, and slept. Every now and then Dad wandered off to get Mum a sandwich and a cup of chocolate. Mum talked about Uncle Rangiora and how they would waltz together. ‘He was such a good brother to me,’ she told Dad. ‘He always saved the last waltz for me. I remember well when we danced together for the last time. It was on the platform of the railway station in 1941, just before all the East Coast boys got on the train to Wellington. I was still a teenager. Rangiora was looking so handsome in his soldier’s cap and uniform; I had on my best white dress so that he would always remember me while he was fighting in the war. Rangiora had a girlfriend, a lovely girl from Te Araroa, but just before he got the order to fall in, he turned to me and asked, “Would you like to waltz, sister?” He opened his arms, I stepped into them, we both went onto our toes, and we began —

I mean no disrespect to my father, but Uncle Rangiora was the love of my mother’s life. Dad knew it and we, her children, knew it. I suspect that when you lose someone you love when you are both young, the love for that person is heightened and romanticised in some way. The rest of us had to fit in and around that big love, realising that we had no chance of winning because, well, Mum knows our faults too well to let us get away with anything.

My parents continued to while away the day at the airport. They were distressed — but really, there was nothing that could be done about their situation. I imagine that some of the cafeteria workers, puzzled by Dad’s constant visits for more hot chocolate and food, sympathised with their plight and offered words of comfort. When night came, I can imagine my parents sleeping sitting up, a crescent moon gliding overhead and shining on Dad’s white trainers. I can see cleaners going by, hushing each other so as not to wake them. I know that Dad must have disengaged himself from Mum’s arms a couple of times to go to the toilet, as his waterworks were not always reliable. But I know he would have hobbled back as fast as he could to make sure that Mum was not alone for too long. There have not been many nights when they have slept apart. No doubt Mum woke a couple of times to stare out into the dark velvet of the Tunisian sky, her face enigmatic and eternal.

The new day dawned. Mum went to wash her face, comb her hair and make herself respectable. When she came back, Dad did the same. She scolded him to put on a new white shirt and tie. ‘That’s better,’ she said when he returned. ‘Seven hours from now we’ll be on the plane, Dad.’ She tried to be light-hearted about it.

Mum’s head nodded and she drifted into sleep. Then she felt someone shaking her awake. When she opened her eyes the first thing she saw was a pair of very shiny shoes. She would have recognised those shoes anywhere.

‘Madam? Aroha? Did you enjoy your visit to Sfax?’ It was Monsieur Samaritan, their companion on the plane from Paris.

Mum saw that Dad was still sleeping, his mouth wide open, and his trousers wide open too. She nudged him awake. Dad told Monsieur Samaritan what had happened. ‘We have been in the airport all this time,’ he said. ‘Our passports were taken from us.’

Well, there’s no other way to say it — Monsieur Samaritan went ballistic. ‘Please come with me,’ he said, tight-lipped. Mum and Dad had known he was a VIP but they had not realised that he was such a powerful government official. He stormed into the customs area and began to speak rapidly to every underling around, and then to the senior customs officer. I have no idea what he said but I can imagine that it was something like this:

‘Don’t you fools know that these two people have come all the way from New Zealand? Who was the imbecile who said they should not be allowed into our country? Do you realise that this lady’s brother fought and died to enable our freedom? Why am I surrounded by such incompetent and stupid people? Do you think they are terrorists? Do they look like terrorists? Where are their passports? Give them back immediately!’

Monsieur Samaritan then looked at his watch. He mopped his brow and, calming down, bowed gravely to Mum and Dad. ‘Please accept my apologies,’ he said, ‘but perhaps I can be of some service? Although you only have a short time left before your plane departs, it would be my great privilege to accompany you to the Commonwealth graves.’

He hastened them out of the terminal and into the heat to his car, and ordered the driver to put his foot down. ‘Quick! Quick! As fast as you can!’

As I have said, I have never been to Tunisia, so I don’t know what the roads are like from the airport to the Commonwealth war graves. My imagination conjures up heat and dust, roads crowded with traffic, the occasional camel, and the shimmering haze of a bright white day. Conscious of the restricted time, I can hear Monsieur Samaritan urging his driver to ‘Go faster! Faster!’, and the car, with its official pennant flying, speeding through a city of Arabic architecture, serrated walls and minarets.

At last, they arrived. But what was this? The gates were closed. Monsieur Samaritan commanded the driver to go and investigate.

‘Alas, Monsieur Tom,’ Monsieur Samaritan said, ‘the cemetery is closed during the middle of the day.’ Monsieur Samaritan instructed the driver to ring the bell at the gateway, and keep ringing until someone came. As luck would have it, a gatekeeper arrived and let them in.

‘Thank you,’ Mum said. She reached into her bag for one of her bone pendants to give the gravedigger, but the car was already moving swiftly through the gateway.

I’m told that the cemetery at Sfax is huge — rows and rows of white crosses — and Mum and Dad’s time was ticking by. Even Monsieur Samaritan saw the hopelessness of the task. ‘How will your wife be able to find her brother,’ he said to Dad, ‘among all these dead?’

The gatekeeper had pointed them in the general direction of the Australian and New Zealand section. Suddenly Mum yelled ‘Stop!’ She opened the door of the car and took off. ‘I’ll find him,’ she said. All that training, running around the block in Te Hapara, was about to pay off.

‘Aroha,’ Dad called, reaching for his walking stick. ‘Wait for me —’

But she was already far away, sprinting like a sixteen-year-old through all those rows of white crosses. She stopped at a rise in the graveyard. When Dad and Monsieur Samaritan reached her, they saw more crosses. Which one was Rangiora’s?