Witi Ihimaera - The Parihaka Woman

So Rocco’s wanderings began. He decided not to return to Ranzau but instead set out for Dunedin. It was difficult for a man with a small child to find a job that suited — he wouldn’t let anybody mind her. Eventually, he found the position of lighthouse keeper. This gave him the isolation he craved for himself and his daughter.

Marzelline didn’t speak until she was six. When she did her first words were clear and concise. ‘Wirst du mir vergeben, Papa? Will you forgive me?’

Rocco’s mood changed from maudlin to morose. He began to sing more wildly, the words spat out with bitterness and loathing.

Having heard Rocco’s story, Erenora was reminded of her own mother, Miriam, deprived, like Lotte Sonnleithner, of the chance to watch her daughter grow into womanhood.

Exhaustion made Rocco turn from his singing and the memories and look at Erenora. ‘I am not a good man, Eruera. Because of me, my own wife died. I crippled my daughter and now … now I am to be made complicit in something just as terrible.’

‘Yes?’ Erenora answered, holding her breath.

‘The rumour is true,’ he said. ‘I am not only a lighthouse keeper, Eruera. I am also a gaoler.’ He was almost asleep on his feet, groaning from drunkenness.

Erenora stifled a cry, then fiercely she began to shake him. ‘You have a prisoner here?’

Rocco stirred, and shook his head to revive himself. ‘I have never liked the job,’ he slurred, ‘but I am well paid. The man was a political agitator, one of your own kind, so that was my reason for agreeing to keep him under my care. He was shipped to the island in great secrecy. His place of incarceration is a cave by the sea, at the bottom of a cliff on the other side of Peketua. I visit him once a week to take food to him. But not for much longer.’

‘What does he look like?’ It was lucky that Rocco was so inebriated. One glance at Erenora, and her love and concern for Horitana would have been revealed.

‘I have never seen his face,’ Rocco answered, belching. ‘He is padlocked into a silver thing . His suffering has often moved me but, after all, he must have done something really serious to merit such punishment. I am strictly forbidden to speak to him or help him. Even so, I have had some moments of weakness for the poor fellow — and I have gladly given him food and drink. It will soon be all over with him. Er sterb’ in seinen Ketten. He will die in his chains.’

With a drunken gesture, Rocco gave Erenora the letter that Captain Demmer had handed to him:

I am sending a man on a chartered vessel who will take care of your prisoner. You are to give him up to my man’s care. It is time for him to be added to my collection. In preparation, dig a grave for him.

The signature made Erenora gasp. Piharo ! So he was behind Horitana’s punishment.

‘What is the deed the writer speaks of?’ she asked Rocco.

‘Although he has paid me well to guard the prisoner,’ Rocco began, ‘I draw the line at murder.’

‘Murder?’ The word froze Erenora’s blood.

‘For the past year he has been sweetening my position by offering me an extra purse if I kill the prisoner. In letter after letter he has ordered me to take on the job of executioner. He has fulminated against me, accusing me of lacking courage. I have refused to comply. Now he sends a cut-throat to do his purpose.’

Erenora watched Rocco as he subsided into his self-pity.

‘Whatever happens will happen,’ he groaned, ‘and who knows when this man will come? Tomorrow or the day after? Meantime, I had better attend to the lantern.’

‘No, mein Herr,’ Erenora answered. ‘I will take over looking after the lighthouse for the night. You go to bed.’

‘Where?’ Rocco asked. ‘Marzelline is certain to have locked me out. By the way, she knows nothing of this. Eruera, I warn you, do not tell her. I would not want her to think less of me. I am her father, not a killer.’

‘I will take you to the barn now,’ Erenora nodded. ‘Can you stand up?’ She put her shoulders under his arms to help him. The changed position made Rocco vomit. ‘Ach, I am sorry, Eruera.’ But after that he was better able to stagger with her through the trapdoors and down the stairs. ‘You are a good boy,’ he said. ‘No wonder my daughter is fond of you.’

Together, under the moonlight, they wove their way towards the barn. They paused at an outside pump where Rocco washed his face and mouth, trying to recover.

‘I am sorry, Eruera,’ he said.

Panting, Erenora helped him to the barn, pushed him up to the loft and put him to bed. She hoped he would soon fall asleep. She needed time to think, to come up with a plan. But in his drunken stupor, Rocco looked at her, dazed and puzzled. ‘Eruera …’ Before Erenora could stop him, Rocco kissed her. It was not a kiss of friendship and nor was it pleasant, tasting acrid and bitter. Propelled by some need for expiation, it was deep and long.

And moaning with sexual need and desire, Rocco began to pull Erenora down into his powerful arms.

‘Nein,’ she said. Her voice was sharp, like a rifle shot.

Rocco looked at her, horrified, and then fell back, dead drunk.

You can understand Rocco’s dilemma, can’t you, eh. He had sensed Erenora’s innate femininity.

As for Marzelline, was it any wonder that she had fallen in love with Eruera? She was an impressionable young girl alone on an island where the only other men had been her father and the labourers he employed to help him; none of them had been a Jüngling.

In Marzelline’s diary there’s an entry that shows her feelings for Eruera.

‘Mir ist so wunderbar, es engt das Herz mir ein. I feel so strange, my heart is gripped. I am in love! He is the Jüngling who came to help Papa in his lighthouse duties. His name is Eruera, and he is a Maori. I wish I could draw his portrait: he is slim and has wide shoulders tapering to a small waist. He is taller than me but not as tall as Papa.

‘Despite his dark colouring, Eruera is most handsome to me. He has glowing eyes and full lips and his hair is the shiniest I have ever seen on a man. O namenlose Pein! How I wish he would look kindly on me, not as a friend or as his employer’s daughter but as a sweetheart.

‘Does he have such thoughts for me? I must admit that there are times when he is holding me in his arms and looking into my eyes that I see … tenderness. Die Hoffnung schon erfüllt die Brust. Hope already fills my breast with inexpressible delight! How wonderful to imagine how we could be if we were … dare I say it … man and wife? In the peace of quiet domesticity we would wake in each other’s arms. Each day would be filled with joy and love. And the nights … I tremble to think of the delights we would find in each other! Ja, ja, er liebt mich, es ist klar, ich werde glücklich sein.’

As for Erenora, her mind was in turmoil. In particular, she was seized with rage against Piharo.

‘Monster! How my blood boils at your cruel revenge! Did not the call of pity or the voice of humanity ever touch your vicious mind?’

She began to sob, but then regained her composure. What was the use of spending precious time railing against Piharo? Gathering her strength, she drew courage from what she knew she had to do: rescue Horitana from the assassin and get him away before the chartered vessel arrived. If possible she would do it in the morning. She looked at the turbulent sea, and the dark furious night.

‘Yet, though hatred and anger storm through your soul like relentless ocean waves, Piharo, in me a rainbow arches over the dark sky.’