Witi Ihimaera - The Whale Rider

The sea trench, Hawaiki. The Place of the Gods. The Home of the Ancients. The whale herd hovered in the goldened sea like regal airships. Far above, the surface of the sea was afire with the sun’s plunge from day into night. Below lay the sea trench. The herd was waiting for the sign from their ancient leader that it should descend between the protective walls of the trench and flow with the thermal stream away from the island known as the Place of the Gods.

But their leader was still mourning. Two weeks earlier the herd had been feeding in the Tuamotu Archipelago when suddenly a flash of bright light had scalded the sea and giant tidal soundwaves had exerted so much pressure that internal ear canals had bled. Seven young calves had died. The ancient whale remembered this occurrence happening before; screaming a lament of condemnation, he had led them away in front of the lethal tide that he knew would come. On that pellmell, headlong and mindless escape, he had noticed more cracks in the ocean floor, hairline fractures indicating serious damage below the crust of the earth. Now, some weeks later, the leader was still unsure about the radiation level in the sea trench. He was fearful of the contamination seeping from Moruroa. He was afraid of the genetic effects of the undersea radiation on the remaining herd and calves in this place which had once, ironically, been the womb of the world.

The elderly females tried to nurse his nostalgia, but the ancient whale could not stop the rush of memories. Once this place had been crystalline clear. It had been the place of his childhood and that of his golden master too. Following that first disastrous sounding, they had ridden many times above the trench. His golden master had taught the whale to flex his muscles and sinews so that handholds in the skin would appear, enabling the rider to ascend to the whale’s head. There, further muscle contractions would provide saddle and stirrups. And when the whale sounded, he would lock his master’s ankles with strong muscles and open a small breathing chamber, just behind his spout. In the space of time, his master needed only to caress his left fin, and the whale would respond.

Suddenly, the sea trench seemed to pulsate and crackle with a lightswarm of luminescence. Sparkling like a galaxy was a net of radioactive death. For the first time in all the years of his leadership, the ancient whale deviated from his usual primeval track. The herd ascended to the surface. The decision was made to seek before time the silent waters of the Antarctic. But the elderly females pealed their anxieties to one another because the dangerous islands were also in that vicinity. Nevertheless they quickly followed their leader away from the poisoned water. They were right to worry because the ancient whale could only despair that the place of life, and the Gods, had now become a place of death. The herd thundered through the sea.

Haumi e, hui e, taiki e.

Let it be done.

The next year Kahu turned four and I decided it was about time I went out to see the world. Koro Apirana thought it was a good idea but Nanny Flowers didn’t like it at all.

‘What’s wrong with Whangara?’ she said. ‘You got the whole world right here. Nothing you can get anywhere else that you can’t get here. You must be in trouble .’

I shook my head. ‘No, I’m clean,’ I answered.

‘Then there must be a girl you’re running away from. She looked at me suspiciously, and poked me between the ribs. ‘You been up to mischief, eh?’

I denied that too. Laughing, I eased myself up from the chair and did a Clint Eastwood. ‘Let’s just say, Ma’am,’ I drawled, then went for my six-gun, ‘that there’s not enough room in this here town for the two of us.’

Over the following four months I put in double time at the Works and got my Air New Zealand ticket. The boys took up a collection and gave me a fantastic party. My darling Joyleen Carol cried buckets over me. At the airport I said to Nanny Flowers, ‘Don’t forget to look after my bike.’ ‘Don’t worry,’ she said sarcastically, ‘I’ll feed it some hay and give it water every day.’

‘Give Kahu a kiss from me.’

‘Ae,’ Nanny Flowers quivered. ‘God be with you. And don’t forget to come back, Rawiri, or else —’

She pulled a toy water-pistol from her basket.

‘ Bang ,’ she said.

I flew to Australia.

Unlike Kahu, my birth cord couldn’t have been put in the ground at Whangara because I didn’t return there until four years later. I discovered that everything I’d been told about Aussie was true: it was big, bold, brassy, bawdy and beautiful. When I first arrived I stayed in Sydney with my cousin, Kingi, who had an apartment in Bondi. I hadn’t realised that there were so many other Maoris over there (I thought I’d be the first) and after a while I realised why it was nicknamed ‘Kiwi Valley’. Wherever you went, the pubs, the shows, the clubs, the restaurants, the movies, the theatres, you could always count on bumping into a cousin. In some hotels, above the noise and buzz of the patrons, you were bound to hear somebody shouting to somebody else, ‘Gidday, cous!’

I was like a kid in a great big toyshop, wanting to touch everything. Whangara wasn’t as big as this , with its teeming city streets, glass skyscrapers, glitter and glitz. Nor could Friday night in the town ever compare with the action in the Cross, that part of Sydney to which people thronged, either to look or be looked at. People were selling anything and everything up the Cross and if you wanted to buy you just ‘paid the man’.

It was there that I came upon my cous Henare, who was now wearing a dress, and another cous, Reremoana, who had changed her name to Lola L’Amour and had red hair and fishnet stockings. I couldn’t understand Kingi’s attitude at all; he was always trying to cross the street whenever he saw a cous he didn’t want to be seen with. But I would just bowl along regardless and yell, ‘Gidday cous!’

As far as I could see, they were living the way they wanted to and no matter what changes they had made to themselves or their lives, a cous was a cous. I guess also that I didn’t feel that much different: I looked much the same as they did, with my leather jacket and pants matching their own gear with its buckles and scarves and whips. ‘What game are you into?’ they would tease. ‘What game?’ They would josh and kid and joke around and sometimes we would meet up later at some party or other. But always, in the early morning, when the sunlight was beginning to crack the midnight glamour, the memories would come seeping through. ‘How’s our Nanny? How’s our Koro? If you write to them, don’t tell them that you saw us like this .’

In the search for fame, fortune, power and success, some of my cousins had opted for the base metal and not the gold. They may have turned their lives upside down in the process, like Sydney Harbour Bridge’s reflection in the harbour, but they always craved the respect of our tribe. They weren’t embarrassed, but hiding the way they lived was one way of maintaining the respect. There was no better cloak than those starry nights under the turning Southern Cross.

Kingi and I got along fine, but when I found a mate of my own, I moved in with him. I had gotten a job working as a brickie and had also started playing League. It was through League that I met my buddy, Jeff, who told me he was looking for someone to share his flat. Jeff was a friendly, out-front guy, quick to laugh, quick to believe and quick to trust. He told me of his family in Mount Hagen, Papua New Guinea, and I told him about mine in Whangara. I also told him about Kahu.