Witi Ihimaera - The Thrill of Falling - Stories

‘And so you think you know what that is now, do you?’ he asked.

Come out, come out, wherever you are . ‘I think so,’ I answered.

‘Not good enough,’ he thundered.

‘All right then, Koro,’ I said. I took a deep breath. ‘I want to be my own navigator.’

For a moment there was silence. Then Dad gave a slight cough. ‘Well, Little Tu can’t be clearer than that, eh dear?’ he said to Mum.

I live in Marseilles now. The winter quarters of Le Cirque du Monde are on the outskirts of the city.

I’ve been training hard. Jean-Luc is my choreographer, and together we have created an aerial act. I’ve practised each element of the act, the combination of held postures and drops — arabesques, hip wrap knots, crucifixions, dives, lean-outs, pistons, windmills and miracle splits — over a thousand times, but it feels more like a million.

Koro has been staying with me.

Letting me go? Well, it helped that Uncle Tu-Bad finally made it to the end of the race. Koro has begun to talk to him again about Tupaea; he is the rightful heir. Even better, Koro’s planning to return to Uawa soon.

Not that I could rid myself entirely of Koro. Do you think Mum would have let me come over here without a chaperon? Get off the grass. And Koro had, of course, been bereft at the thought of my leaving New Zealand. ‘It was bad enough when your mother brought you to Wellington, but now you are going to France?’

He had acted as if we would never see each other again. In a moment of passion, I said to him, ‘Come with me, Koro.’

I really meant it. He’s my best friend. I’m glad he came.

On our trip over here I wanted to give Koro a surprise.

‘We’re stopping a few days in Tahiti,’ I told him.

The flight arrived around midnight, and as soon as we’d checked into our hotel, all Koro wanted to do was look at the starlit sky. ‘There they are, mokopuna,’ he said. ‘The directional stars and constellations still looking as they must have in Tupaea’s time.’ He was in the grip of deep emotion as he pointed out Matari’i, the Pleiades; Ana muri, Aldebaran; Ana mua, Antares; Te matau a Maui, the hook of Scorpio.

I knew he was thinking of his ancestor, for, you see, Tupaea never did get to England.

On the return home the Endeavour dropped anchor in Batavia. There, Cook set to repairing the vessel as well as allowing time for those crew who had scurvy to recover from it. But Batavia was an unhealthy city criss-crossed with canals filthy with litter and excrement and, all around, swamp filled with clouds of malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes.

‘Some of the ill were kept on board,’ Koro said, ‘but others were carried onshore and put into tents. Nobody knew anything about malaria in those days and didn’t realise it was carried by the mosquitoes. Multiple bites made the sick get worse and they succumbed to the fever. Dysentery, from contaminated local water, also weakened them, and the ship’s surgeon himself was the first to die.

‘Aue, Tupaea and Taiata also must have been bitten. Some desperate and kindly attempts were made to find fresh fruits for them both, but it was too late. Taiata died, racked by fever and attacked by a cold and inflammation on his lungs. Tupaea was unconscious at the time and didn’t even know the boy had gone until a few days later. When he was told, Tupaea was inconsolable, crying out for him.’

A star fell from the highest heaven, Te Raituitai. Together, Koro and I watched it trailing across the night sky.

‘Can you imagine,’ Koro asked, ‘our ancestor bewailing his fate? He knew that he would be next to go. Who would mourn him and prepare him for the journey to Rohutu noanoa, the Tahitian paradise, to meet ’Oro after his death? Who would administer the last rites? Where was the grand temple where he would be surrounded by his relatives and friends? Who would come for his bones to take them back to Raiatea? How would they find him? When he did, indeed, succumb to death, he and Taiata were both buried on the island of Eadam.’

‘I wonder,’ I said, ‘how Purea felt when she heard that Tupaea had died?’

‘I imagine she took the news very badly,’ Koro replied. ‘She would have ascended to the topmost staircase of Mahiatea and looked across the sea towards Batavia, attempting to invoke a pathway for his spirit and Taita’s to return to Hawaiki.’

Then I asked the question that had long been bothering me. ‘Why did Tupaea decide to join James Cook on the Endeavour in the first place, Koro?’

‘Don’t you know?’ he answered. ‘When he left Tahiti he was on a diplomatic mission for Purea.’

Between the arrival of the Dolphin and the Endeavour , Purea had suffered a huge defeat at the hands of the fighting chief Tutaha. At one of the battles, the sand had been covered with the bones of her defenders and Tupaea himself had been wounded by a spear tipped with a stingray’s tail; it pierced his chest.

‘When you reach England,’ Purea said to Tupaea, her eyes burning bright, ‘I want you to be my ambassador and petition King George to support me to regain control of the Maohi nation. An alliance with such a rich and powerful king could help me to oust Tutaha and take back sovereignty. Ask King George in my name, as one sovereign to another of equal standing to me, to give me waka as powerful as the ships I have seen and fill them with cannon and arms so that I might fulfil this task.’

‘And Tupaea too,’ Koro continued, ‘had his own vested interest in obtaining Pakeha arms. With them he could return to Raiatea and take the island back from its conquerors and for ’Oro. Who knows, Tupaea may have realised that the Pakeha would be back in Tahiti again and that, at some point, the Maohi might need to go to war with the pale strangers, using their amazing armaments against them.’

There was one other stop before we resumed our journey to France.

I took Koro on a plane to Porapora and then a small vessel across the lagoon to Hawaiki — or Raiatea, as it’s known. There was mist on the water, but as we approached the island it lifted, and a beautiful rainbow appeared.

I should have known that Koro would be reduced to tears. ‘Thank you, mokopuna,’ he said.

We found the local rangatira. ‘As soon as the rainbow appeared,’ he smiled, ‘I knew somebody was coming.’ We shook hands and pressed noses. Koro was weeping with joy and, for the first time I could recall, speechless.

‘My grandfather and I are descendants of Tupaea, the Arioi,’ I said on his behalf.

The rangatira called a huge meeting, which lasted into the night. Above, the stars were dancing, eavesdropping.

But all that Mum wanted to know when I rang her from Tahiti was: ‘Did Pa give that ironwood and red cloth back?’

‘You’ll have to ask him,’ I said.

Tonight’s the night.

The unveiling of the Cirque’s new production, Oceania .

Mum and Dad have arrived after a long trip from Aotearoa to Paris and thence down to Marseilles. At the airport, the first thing Mum asks me is whether or not I have a girlfriend; she still harbours a hope that I might come back to New Zealand and to Marama — but Marama has found someone better.

‘Yes,’ I reply, ‘her name’s Odile Dessaix.’

She looks at Dad. ‘Oh no, what happens if we have French grandchildren!’

He smiles at her. ‘Actually, dear, it’s about time Little Tu started thinking of marrying and … any moko will do.’