Witi Ihimaera - Uncle's Story

‘Tell Roimata not to bother to have a kid of her own,’ she yelled, as I ran to catch my flight. ‘She can take one of mine!’

It’s strange how these things happen. On the flight to Los Angeles the plane ran into a lightning storm. The lightning flashed and zinged and crackled across the sky in a display of awesome power. I kept thinking of fluorescent gateways, opening and opening, one after the other, a limitless set of doors leading to some great mystery.

Was the lightning display just to be admired for itself, or was it a portent of some kind? Was there something in what Sterling had told me about people of two spirits and the berdache culture:

‘People of two spirits were shamans. The berdache were the ones to go out onto the battlefields to collect the dead. They could communicate with the gods. They were dream travellers —’

Somewhere between Houston and Los Angeles I tapped into my second spirit. I saw myself holding Uncle Sam’s body in my arms and carrying it through a pyrotechnic storm of lightning strikes and fluorescent gateways. Ahead, in that fearful universe, I saw an altar. I placed Uncle Sam’s body on it and uttered a prayer to any gods who were listening:

‘Have mercy. Have pity. Please, not eternal darkness —’

Was that it? Was that what happened?

All I know is that it was stifling and hot in Los Angeles. My throat was dry. There was a water fountain near the airline’s lounge, but I wasn’t quite sure how to operate it. There was no hand button or foot pedal to activate the flow. A teenage girl, watching, put me out of my misery.

‘It works automatically,’ she said. ‘You lower your face to the fountain and —’

Yeah, the water comes out and spits you in the eye.

I heard a ripple of amusement as I drank. The water was cool. I scooped some in my left hand and rubbed it on my neck. I began to stand.

That’s when I felt the presence of the past.

Perhaps the music being piped through the terminal had something to do with it: ‘Rhapsody In Blue’, redolent of the Big Band era, American nostalgia, Fourth of July. The ‘Rhapsody’ reached that point where the big melody comes in. It soared above me and I followed its path —

And a flight of helicopters came out of the music, circling down through the blue sky over Vietnam, to land at the far end of the concourse. The lead chopper was already on the ground. The rotors slowed to a halt. A pilot stepped out. He saw me, waved, smiled, took off his sunglasses. His eyes, so green. His teeth, so white and even. His boyish grin. He looked so handsome in his flyer’s kit.

‘Hey! Sam —’

Cliff Harper.

‘This can’t be happening.’

The water from the fountain was still fresh on my hands. I swayed, closed my eyes and spread the water with my fingers across my lips.

Ah, rainwater, it is always so cool.

When I recovered, I looked back down the concourse. My heart was pounding — had it just been my imagination? People were rushing backwards and forwards, obscuring my vision. Then I saw him again, the handsome, smiling pilot walking towards me. It was happening. But something was wrong. At every step, at every move as he tried to get through the press of people, he became older. His youthful stride began to falter — and I began to feel an extraordinary sense of aroha for him.

Time had indeed been kind to Cliff Harper. The devastatingly handsome pilot whom Uncle Sam had known had become a middle-aged man who still had an immense physical charm. It was not just a matter of matinee-idol looks. It was also a matter of charisma.

Cliff Harper stopped some ten metres away. He still carried himself with grace and strength. I realised he hadn’t seen me. He had taken off his glasses and was wiping them with a handkerchief.

I stepped into his line of vision. For some reason I became so angry:

‘Why now, Mr Harper? Why come now?’

Cliff Harper gave a gasp.

‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘My son told me you looked like the photograph, but —’

‘Why didn’t you stay in the past where you belong?’

Cliff Harper didn’t hear me. He took a step forward, his walking stick slipped on the tiled floor and he fell into my arms:

‘I never expected you to look so like Sam —’

I helped him to a nearby seat. Some passersby stopped and asked if I needed any assistance.

‘No,’ I said. ‘But perhaps a glass of water?’

I turned to Cliff Harper. I was still angry.

‘How did you find me?’

‘I have friends in the airlines. When I came back from Vietnam I became a commercial pilot. My friends were able to check on the incoming flight details you gave me on the telephone and tell me when you were flying out.’

He was still looking at me as if he couldn’t believe — or was afraid to believe — who I was.

‘So why now? Why?’

‘Young Cliff gave me Tunui a te Ika and your letter. I knew then that I couldn’t keep on closing Sam out of my memory.’

He began to talk fast, almost as if he was pleading for me to understand.

‘This might be hard for you to understand, but whenever memories of those war years threaten to come into my mind, I close them off. It’s the same with Sam. I dare not think about him. If I do —’

He was expecting me to reply, but I remained tight-lipped, refusing to give him any quarter. He tried again.

‘You live your life, son, that’s all I can say. When I left Sam, and your country, I closed the door. I thought, ‘Sam’s made his decision to stay with his family.’ I was stubborn. I was too proud. I kept going forward. Day by day. Month by month. Year by year. And, you know, all of a sudden I’d made it to the other side. I met Wendy. A really good woman. We got ourselves three kids. All boys. Eldest is twenty-five now, Cliff junior, whom you’ve already met.’

‘You still haven’t told me why you decided to come to see me now.’

Cliff Harper looked up. His eyes were brimming with tears.

‘Do you know anything at all about love, son? Do you know what it is like to close it away, lock yourself up so damned tight and throw away the key? Sam and I, we were going to be back to back together against the rest of the world. I believed it would happen. He believed it would happen. When it didn’t, I didn’t blame him. I blamed myself. I’ve been blaming myself these past thirty years. And I know this sounds crazy, but I got to thinking that Sam, he blamed me too. When you began to telephone me, I just didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know anything. Don’t you understand? I should never have left Sam behind.’

Then he became angry. He pulled Tunui a te Ika out of his pocket.

‘No, you wouldn’t know anything about love, you son of a bitch. And you had to bring me the goddam key, didn’t you —’

His face grew grim.

‘You had to disobey me and you’ve left me with a lot of explaining to do to my family. That’s in the future, but right now I want to know about the past. So you start talking, son, and start talking fast. I want to know the details of what happened to Sam. You said in your letter there had been a car accident —’

‘He was coming to meet you at the airport. There was a woman changing her tyre on the side of the road. Uncle Sam stopped to help her. It was raining. The traffic was heavy. While Uncle Sam was changing the tyre, a truck smashed into the car. It fell on him. He died instantly.’

Cliff Harper gave a sharp cry. He groaned and hunched forward.

‘Dear God —’

Five minutes later, I was sitting with Cliff Harper in the business class lounge. We had managed to make a kind of peace with each other, and Cliff Harper was making peace with his past. It was strange how it happened. The story of Sam’s death may have been a tragedy, but in some wonderful way it was also an affirmation that Cliff Harper had been waiting for all these years.