Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘So what other games do you play?’ Harper asked.

The question was innocent enough but somehow Sam couldn’t resist teasing: ‘American football.’

‘You’re kidding!’

‘Don’t you know? American football, that’s a traditional Maori sport.’

With a roar of laughter, Harper lunged for Sam and all of a sudden they were sparring, ducking and weaving just out of each other’s reach but sometimes connecting — the warmth of the sun-dried skin grazing the other. Then Sam put up his hands and went to the tap and dashed cold water onto his face. When he turned he saw that Harper had picked up the greenstone pendant.

‘What’s this?’

‘It’s a hei tiki. My father gave it to me before I left home. It’s been in my family for years. It’s supposed to protect me.’

The hei tiki was in the shape of a man. The sun refracted through the whorls and spirals, lit up the face with its wide eyes and protruding tongue.

‘A hay teekee ?’ Harper asked. ‘I can even see the veins . ’

When Arapeta had placed it around Sam’s neck, the hei tiki had come alive with his body heat and found a place on his chest where it could settle.

Harper pointed to the penis, curving around the left thigh.

‘And what’s this? And these?’

There were pale spots in the greenstone spurting from the head of the penis to the hei tiki’s shoulders.

‘The name of the hei tiki is Tunui a te Ika. The name commemorates Halley’s Comet. When people saw it in the sky it reminded them of a man’s orgasm when he is making love. As for the pale spots, they’re um, stars …’

Harper looked at Sam to see if he was kidding or not.

‘You’re having me on.’

‘No, it’s true,’ Sam said. He tried to keep his face as straight as possible but, in the end, he couldn’t help it. He doubled up with laughter, and Harper gave in. Turei, George and the others watched, perplexed. Then:

‘I have to go,’ Sam said.

He flicked the cord of the hei tiki over his neck. Felt the hei tiki find its home. Extended his hand to Harper.

‘Thanks for the game.’

Harper’s handshake was firm. ‘Affirmative,’ he grinned. ‘The base is small. Maybe we’ll bump into each other again. You owe me a re-match.’

It was a fair enough expectation but it never happened. Then, a week later, Victory Company was given leave in Vung Tau.

‘Time to party,’ Turei crowed, rubbing his hands together.

It was four in the afternoon, and Victor Company had just settled into their quarters in Vung Tau. The one thing on everybody’s mind was sex and booze — not Captain Fellowes wasting his time with his cautionary briefing:

‘I know this will go in one ear and out the other, but don’t go anywhere alone, don’t spend all your money, stay out of areas that look dangerous, if you want to have sex with the bar girls wear a condom, and get back before curfew.’

Ha. When Sam, George and Turei formed a threesome and headed into town, staying together was the only piece of advice they intended to keep. As for the rest, well, rules were made to be broken, mate, and surely Captain Fellowes knew that Maori never wore condoms.

By five o’clock the three boys from Waituhi hit the shantytown of bars near the port. George was leading and he suggested a shortcut which found then lost in a maze of narrow passageways between bustling market stalls.

‘You’re supposed to be a scout,’ Turei grumbled, ‘but you can’t even find your way to a fuck.’

The market was filled with flowers for temple offerings, and fruits like pineapples, green papayas, rambutans, mangoes, lychees, breadfruit, guavas, passionfruit, bush limes, custard apples and avocados. Hawkers sold rice, fresh noodles and bean curd. A vendor offered eggs of all kinds: quail eggs, chicken and duck eggs, and preserved eggs covered in a sooty mixture of ash, lime and salt. In another area of the market were baskets crammed with tiny chicks and ducklings, cheeping, wriggling and climbing over each other. Indoors, under a corrugated-iron roof, were fresh fish and meat markets. Fish wriggled and flopped in shallow metal trays. Lobsters with royal blue claws and iridescent purple carapaces lay in heaps. White geese with yellow beaks sat tethered next to black geese with red beaks. There were song birds for sale inside bamboo cages. Clouds of flies rose as customers browsed through lumps of meat. Some looked suspiciously like dog or rat.

George gave a horrified yell as he blundered into a snake pit. The snakes had bright green eyes and shiny green skin. A wizened old man was skinning them. They hissed and struck as he grabbed them and slit them open.

Sam took over the lead as soon as they were through the jumble of stalls. They reached the other marketplace where sex in all its infinite varieties was waiting — a jumble of streets with red-light bars filled with bar girls, pimps and touts. Already trade was brisk, and Sam, George and Turei were just three in a big stream of Yank, Aussie and other soldiers walking through the streets. Girls with big smiles tugged and pulled and called out to them as they passed by.

Some of the girls weren’t, well, exactly pretty. It was remarkable what a little darkness and lighting could do; wanting to be laid also helped. There was nothing like a surfeit of raging hormones coupled with the relaxing effect of bad alcohol to make every girl a real doll.

George saw a call girl to his liking. She was built on the big side which was probably why she wasn’t as busy as her companions. She eyed George and she knew a sucker when she saw one.

‘Whoa up, Neddy,’ George said.

‘You bastard,’ Turei answered. ‘She looks like Emma!’

‘What can I say? Your sister has ruined skinny women for me —’

George approached the girl and chatted to her. She showed the stamp in her health card, indicating she’d had a check-up.

‘You know another two girls for my friends?’ George asked.

The girl put two fingers in her mouth and whistled — and she was soon negotiating with other bar girls who had come running at her signal.

‘All the girls are ready,’ the girl said, ‘just for you Kiwis.’

The three girls dragged the boys into the LOVE FOR YOU HERE BAR, just across the street. Very soon they were in separate cubicles with a girl in each. In deference to Sam’s rank, George gave him the prettiest one, he held on to the big one and Turei had the third. Sam’s girl had him climaxing in seconds.

‘Wah,’ the bar girl smiled, ‘you’ve been waiting a long time for that, eh, soldier boy!’

Half an hour later, Sam made his way down the stairs. The bar was so crowded and filled with smoke and soldiers that he didn’t see Turei until he bumped into him.

‘Yo, bro!’ Turei grinned. ‘Is the Sarge a happy chappie?’

Sam smiled and nodded. ‘So where’s George?’

‘Still upstairs, the bastard,’ Turei said. ‘But I’m going to have his arse. Look at this —’ Turei had been in negotiation with the bar owner and had bought a glass of evil-looking wine.

‘What is it?’ Sam asked.

The bar owner thought Sam was interested. He showed him a small barrel filled with clear liquid. Coiled in the liquid were several fat snakes, a metre long, with brown backs and bellies striped cream and black.

‘Snake wine of course,’ the bar owner said. ‘Makes your manly weapon big and strong. And after you drink wine you eat snake. No good if manly weapon big and strong but does not go all night long. You want some?’

‘No thanks,’ Sam said.

At that moment George joined them. ‘Oh, mateys, I need a drink.’

Sam saw the gleam in Turei’s eye. ‘This is not a good idea,’ he whispered. George hated snakes. But: