Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

May God have mercy.

Tuia i runga, tuia i raro.

The world was being constructed again.

Tuia i roto, tuia i waho.

The top and bottom bound together by the light.

Tuia i te here tangata ka rongo te Ao.

Now the outer framework and inner framework. Fixed firmly, the knots soldered by the shafts of the sun.

The promise of life, the impulse of history, was reborn.

I made a cup of coffee and watched the dawn rising. Impishly I decided to ring Auntie Pat.

‘You’re lucky some of us don’t need our beauty sleep,’ she said. ‘What’s up?’

‘I’ve seen George and I’ve finished reading the diary.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’ve never liked this conspiracy of silence, this secret about Sam. I was too much of a coward to do anything about it while Dad was alive. Monty and I kept the secret by remaining silent. It’s a great weight off my conscience knowing that you are now aware of him.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me I looked like him?’

‘Who told you that?’

‘George remarked on it. You can see it in the photograph.’

Auntie Pat thought about that for a moment.

‘Yes, I suppose I can understand why George would think that. He always had a sentimental streak and would have wanted to see Sam in you. But Sam was much handsomer.’

‘Gee, thanks, Auntie.’

‘So I guess you’ll be wanting to know what happened when Cliff Harper came to New Zealand. You know I don’t really want to talk about him, don’t you? But I suppose I have to. Are you still making a lot of money? Fly up and see me at the end of the week. You can stay at my house in Gisborne. Don’t worry, I won’t let your folks know you’re coming. We’ll talk then. Can you do it? You’re not otherwise occupied?’

‘If you’re asking if Jason and I are back together, no.’

‘No other boyfriend? Goodness, that must mean you’re still celibate. You better watch out. Your gears might rust up.’

‘Do you want me to come or don’t you!’

‘Yes of course I do, Nephew. I’ll see you soon then.’

All that week I was working at Toi Maori finishing off another commission for Roimata. Two days before leaving for Gisborne, Roimata came in waving a fax and smiling with satisfaction.

‘This is it!’ she said. ‘This is the official invitation for you and me to go to Canada! They want us there next month, all expenses paid. So who’s a clever girl?’

I grinned at her. ‘That’s abso-bloody-lutely fantastic.’

The idea of getting out of the country and away from all the stuff I was dealing with sounded wonderful.

Roimata took a deep breath and then said lightly, in a way that made me suspicious, ‘Let’s go out and celebrate. I have a cousin in town. I told him I’d meet him at Jordan’s bar.’

‘If this is one of your schemes to hitch me up with somebody, I’ve already met Long Dong Silver.’

‘No, it’s not him. It’s somebody else and, anyway, you owe me for the night out with Auntie Pat.’

‘Look, I can find my own dates. I don’t need you to pimp for me.’

Roimata grabbed my arm and pulled me after her into the street.

‘Tane’s nothing like that,’ she said, laughing.

As it happened the cousin wasn’t a blind date, and he was somebody I had long admired but never met. His real name was Tane Mahuta, but a national magazine had profiled him with the headline ‘The Noble Savage’, and the nickname stuck.

‘Kia ora, Michael. Roimata’s told me a lot about you,’ Tane said as we shook hands. He turned to Roimata: ‘Listen, cousin, I can’t stay long, but —’

I watched as Tane and Roimata continued their conversation. In the 1980s Tane had been a popular male prostitute. He’d become politicised when, during the Great Epidemic, all the health funding went to Pakeha organisations for the simple reason that there weren’t any Maori ones. Maori themselves, with their heads in the flax, pretended there wasn’t a problem because Maori gay men didn’t exist — except for transvestites like Carmen and they weren’t men — and there were no Maori gay leaders in the community. But Tane knew Maori were dying of Aids in Auckland, the largest Polynesian city in the world. Every month more Polynesians became statistics, crawling into holes like animals to give their last gasp rather than to go home and shame parents who would have hidden them away anyway. The job chose him , and so Tane left his beat on Karangahape Road. He came out publicly, was vilified for it, but an extraordinary thing happened. He was one person standing up, and the next moment, others started to join him. Te Waka Awhina Tane, the first gay organisation to support the needs of Maori and Polynesian young gay men, was born.

‘You know,’ Tane said, ‘the funny thing was that our Maori people felt it was bad enough my working the streets, but when I came out as a gay leader that was far worse. You know how our people are.’

Tane’s eyes were glowing and his smile was as bright as the sun. In his emerald-coloured pareu, and with a whalebone neckpiece against his bronzed skin, he looked as if he had been born with the dawn.

‘You’ve just come out, right?’ he asked.

‘Yes. It hasn’t been easy.’

‘You may think it’s the end of your life, but it isn’t. It’s just the beginning. It takes guts. Too many people associate being gay with being weak. It isn’t a weakness, it’s a strength.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘What brings you to Wellington?’

Roimata answered for Tane, and he looked at her with amusement. ‘Tane’s setting up a branch of Te Waka Awhina Tane down here. Gay men and women are strong, but we need to be stronger. We need to become more visible. You know, the problem is that our lives are controlled by the white heterosexual culture —’

Tane looked at me — and interrupted Roimata with a laugh.

‘Does she do this to you too?’ he asked me.

‘All the time,’ I said, sighing, and Roimata poked me crossly.

‘You guys need me,’ she said, ‘and don’t you forget it.’

Tane hugged her and then looked at his watch. Roimata gave him a glance and he nodded and turned to me.

‘Perhaps next time I’m in Wellington we could have a talk about how you can get involved with what we’re doing down here. As well, Roimata had hoped there’d be time for me to ask you about —’

Roimata didn’t think I saw her give him a quick kick on the shin.

‘Yes, well, we will leave it for next time. Obviously I need to be properly briefed.’

He kissed Roimata and shook my hand.

‘And now I really have to go. Ma te Atua koe e manaaki.’

Friday came around and it was time to fly to Gisborne to see Auntie Pat. Another week had gone by — and still no sign of Jason. Every evening I arrived home full of hope that he’d rung. I sometimes imagined him waiting for me, saying, ‘Forgive me, I’m sorry.’ I saw myself kissing him and replying, ‘No, it was my fault.’ And all the while we were pulling off each other’s clothes because, God, it had been such a long time since we had made love. There were never any messages and Jason was never waiting. I couldn’t go on living with all this indecision. I telephoned him at work — and he answered.

‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said. His voice was cold, dismissive.

‘Can you spare me half an hour?’ I asked. ’I’d really like to see you,’

‘Yes, it’s time we talked. The Angel Bar in an hour? Good.’

I took a seat by the window and watched Jason as he approached the bar. As soon as I saw him I knew this was a different Jason. You know how it is — you live with someone, you love someone, you get to know everything about him — and then one day, you see him on the street and it’s not him any longer. Sure, it looks like him, talks like him, but it isn’t him at all. He’s gone, and another person has slipped like a thief into the place where he once used to be.