Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘I love you, son, but I have to give you your punishment.’

Sam had been expecting to be punished. Now that the prospect was here, he was relieved — as long as it was done quickly. It was easier all round to get it over and done with. Then everything could get back to normal.

Sam walked out of the house and onto the verandah. He waited for Dad to tell Mum to stay in the house and then to follow him.

But this time it was different.

‘Florence, I want you and the kids to come with me,’ Dad said.

Mum began to plead, ‘No.’

‘They don’t need to see this,’ Sam said. ‘It’s always been just between you and me.’

Dad shook his head. That’s when Sam felt a surge of rebellion.

The family walked down to the barn. The dogs began to bark and, in the paddock, the mustang herd started up a soft whinnying like the wind. The moon was bloated, full.

Dad stopped at the yards where, earlier that day, the horses had been broken in.

‘Haramai e tama,’ he said.

Sam stepped forward.

‘Strip to the waist.’

Sam took off his shirt. His skin gleamed with the moon. Dad pushed him towards the gate. Made him turn. His back to the gate. His face looking forward. Sam’s heart began to race with anxiety because this, again, was different. In the past, Dad always positioned him with his back to the whip. Before he could protest, Dad had tied ropes to his wrists and splayed him across the gate.

‘What are you going to do, Daddy?’ Patty cried out.

‘Sam has been bad,’ Florence said.

She watched as Arapeta went into the shed to get the bullwhip.

Sam shouted at them both. ‘Mum, go now, take the kids with you. Mum?’ But it was too late, because Dad was back.

With desperation, Sam called out again.

‘Mum, all of you, turn around so you won’t see. Put your hands over your eyes, okay? Dad, this has got nothing to do with them. Let them go.’

Dad’s voice came out of some dark hole in space. ‘They must stay.’

All of a sudden, Sam began to fight. When Arapeta came up to him and whispered into his left ear, ‘Have you asked God’s forgiveness?’ Sam answered:

‘Look, Dad, I chose to stay because you’re my father. I choose to stay because I realise I have obligations to you and the iwi. Do what you have to do, but don’t bring God into this.’

‘So you don’t want his forgiveness?’

‘I’ve done what I’ve done, and you can punish me for that. But as for how I feel about what I’ve done —’ The words slipped out so freely that they surprised Sam. ‘How can I ask God’s forgiveness for something that doesn’t feel wrong?’

‘It was a sin, son,’ Dad answered. ‘You feel no remorse? No shame?’

With a gasp of wonder, Sam realised that no, he didn’t feel sorry. He didn’t feel ashamed.

‘But I haven’t sinned,’ he said.

It was the first time he had stood up for who he was and for what he had become — and he began to laugh. He was still laughing while Dad was laying out the whip, tracking its length across the ground. A snake, ready to strike.

‘So you will not repent of your sin?’ Arapeta asked.

Arapeta’s eyes were popping with rage. He felt that Sam was not only laughing at God, but also at him.

‘If there is one thing I will do tonight, it will be to whip that laughter out of you and teach you obedience.’

Once started, Arapeta could never be stopped. Once begun, whatever he had decided to do was done until it was over. Despite Sam’s protestations he sent the lash to flick diagonally across Sam’s chest. He sent it again to curl around Sam’s neck like a lover’s embrace. Once more he sent it, and Sam hissed as he felt its cool touch across his stomach.

‘I am to be punished,’ Sam realised, ‘regardless of whether I am right or wrong, guilty or innocent.’

He called out to Arapeta.

‘Dad, can’t you see that I’ve stayed? I’ve stayed out of love for you —’

With a cry, Arapeta drew back his whip hand, and the whip began to sing its song.

‘You say you love me when you have abused everything that I have given you? Your manhood, your tribe, your history? You disgust me, Son, you make me wish you had never been born.’

The whip arced through the air and sliced the moon in half. The second cut criss-crossed the night, pulling in meteors. The third added the upper horizon, shredding the night and letting the blood of Heaven spill out. At the fourth cut, the blood was trickling like crimson comets. By the fifth, it was running across the moon like a river.

‘Oh, Holy Hone Hika …’

The whip opened Sam’s skin and the pain arrested his body with shock. Florence was wailing. Patty and Monty were watching with horror.

Ten lashes — and at every lash, the rebellion in Sam rose until all he felt was a seething rage against Arapeta and all he represented. Then Arapeta put the whip down and Sam thought the punishment was over. Patty brought some water from the pump, and Mum began to untie the ropes.

‘Leave him there,’ Arapeta ordered. ‘He still hasn’t asked God’s forgiveness.’

Mum began to wail.

‘Sam, tell your father you’re sorry. Tell him, and all this will be over. Lie if you have to.’

Sam smiled at her.

‘I can’t, Mum, I can’t. Dad won’t ever let me be who I want to be, I realise that now.’

He looked across the distance and held Arapeta’s glance.

‘I should have gone with Cliff.’

‘You turn away from me, your own father? You still won’t repent. So be it.’

No quarter asked. No quarter given. Ten more lashes. In the paddock the horses were racing in circles. The dogs had stopped barking and were whimpering, pulling at their chains, trying to huddle in the furthest corner of their kennels. As he was wavering between consciousness and unconsciousness, Sam remembered a story from his days at Bible Class. It was about the great battle in Heaven between God and the Archangel Satan. God’s angels had won the battle and, at the peace talks, God said to Satan, ‘If you will bow down to me, I will forgive you and you may stay. But if you will not, you will be banished to Hell —’

Arapeta was there once more.

‘Will you give me obedience, Son. Will you repent?’

Sam shook his head. He had his answer ready.

‘I won’t bow down to you,’ he said. ‘I would rather rule in Hell than serve you in Heaven.’

He fainted. For how long, he didn’t know. But through the haze of pain and sadness, he heard Mum shouting:

‘No, Arapeta. No more. No more.’

‘Get out of the way, Florence. You too, Patty —’

‘No,’ Mum said again. ‘You’ll have to kill me first —’

Sam saw Mum fighting with Dad. But he must have been imagining it because Mum never ever fought with …

Sam felt something like soft warm rain splashing on his face. He sighed because it must all be over, and it was so warm, so warm.

But Mum was still screaming and Sam realised something was terribly wrong. He shook himself awake and put his left arm to shield himself against the rain to see what was happening. He started to shiver with grief.

This can’t be happening. Please let it be just a dream.

Dad was standing above him. He had unbuttoned his trousers. With a cry of horror, Sam was rolling out from beneath the arc of Arapeta’s piss.

‘You animal,’ Florence said to Arapeta.

Her eyes were filled with loathing.

Disbelievingly, Sam wiped his face clean. The world had tipped over into insanity.

‘Dad, what have you done to me?’

Arapeta buttoned up his trousers.

‘You are no longer my son or a man,’ he said. ‘It should have been you, not Turei, who came back in that lead-lined coffin.’