Witi Ihimaera - White Lies

One night, Paraiti was woken by the arrival of a cart. In it, lying on blankets, barely conscious, was a man, probably in his early forties. ‘Takuta?’ he murmured. ‘Help!’

Although Maori don’t like people arriving in the evening, Paraiti woke Peti so that they could treat the man. ‘Bring the light closer,’ she said to Peti, who held a Tilley lamp. He was extremely handsome, with curly hair and an open, strong-featured face; he was muscular and tall, with sturdy shoulders.

Two friends had brought him in. ‘He has had an accident,’ one of them told Paraiti, ‘at the mill. We were cutting down a tree and it fell the wrong way and landed on top of him.’

‘What is your name?’ she asked him.

‘Ihaka,’ he answered.

When she lifted the blanket she saw that one of his legs was broken in two places. ‘You should go to the Pakeha hospital in Hamilton,’ she told him.

He moaned and opened his eyes. ‘I can’t afford it,’ he replied. ‘Won’t you help? I will give you anything.’

‘Anything?’ Paraiti smiled.

‘Well …’ he said, looking her up and down.

She laughed. ‘Think a lot of yourself, don’t you!’ Then she nodded. ‘I will do what they would do,’ she told him. ‘I will try to save the leg.’ No use trying to pretend. ‘If I can’t, I will have to take it off.’

Ihaka raised himself on his elbows in terror. His face was filled with panic and there were tears of pain in his eyes. ‘I need to work, e kui, for my wife and children, and who will employ a one-legged man?’ He clutched Paraiti tightly.

At his touch, Paraiti gave a sharp intake of breath: to be touched by him, so strongly, in such an unguarded moment. ‘I will do my best,’ she said. She had felt … his goodness. She gave Ihaka a piece of wood to put into his mouth so that he would not bite his tongue. ‘You must be brave, Ihaka,’ Paraiti said. ‘This is going to hurt, and no amount of herbal painkiller will help you.’

He cupped his genitals; his simple modesty affected Paraiti, and, as she set about the work of resetting his broken bones, she could not help the surge of desire — was it? — that coursed quietly through her. Who would not be affected by such beauty? He began to groan; sweat popped on his forehead.

‘Go back to your proper places,’ Paraiti said as she began to apply her herbal medicines to his leg and to massage the bones and muscles beneath the skin. Throughout the ordeal, Ihaka tried his best not to cry out, but, when Paraiti started to push and reassemble and manipulate, saying ‘Go back! Return, I say!’, he gave a loud agonised cry, bit the wood almost in two and became senseless. ‘It is better this way,’ Paraiti said to his white-faced friends.

All night Paraiti and Peti worked on Ihaka’s leg, applying the massage deeper and deeper. Paraiti’s fingers sought the fractured bones — three places, yes, three — sensing where she should push them before they would knit and click into place. Over and over she and Peti worked, with immense patience. ‘No, don’t stop,’ she told Peti, when her assistant began to tire.

Finally, however, she was satisfied. ‘Prepare the needle and thread,’ she said.

Sewing the skin, Paraiti also splinted the leg with palm tree splints and wrapped it with kahakaha bandaging. She sang a song to her needle, telling it to sew sweetly and tenderly and not to scar Ihaka’s strong thighs. ‘Let his wife look upon him again and not see your pathway,’ she sang.

How fortunate that Ihaka was so strong of body, spirit and heart.

And Paraiti poured her great aroha into the young man. Never had she known a man, any man, and so she treated him as the lover she might have had, if she had ever been pretty.

By dawn it was over.

When Ihaka revived, he looked thankfully at Paraiti and kissed her hands. ‘You saved my leg?’

She nodded.

‘I have no money to pay you,’ he said.

‘That is all right,’ Paraiti answered. ‘Let my work be a gift to you. You still have a long road to take before you recover fully. Peti will look after you as you convalesce, giving you the massages I will teach her. May your future be blessed.’

With her work over in Te Kuiti, Paraiti said her farewells.

She cut across to the lands of Te Whanau a Apanui: Te Teko and Whakatane. At one point she saw many birds hastening above her head as if escaping some danger, and then she smelt smoke in the air.

‘Titiro,’ Paraiti said to Kaihe as they reached the top of a mountain ridge. In front of them the entire forest was on fire; Pakeha were clearing the trees to provide more land for the growing river settlement. With an involuntary gesture, Paraiti put a hand to her face as if to protect herself. She wheeled Ataahua and Kaihe away from the blaze, skirting it while embers fell about her. She found a small stream, and, soaking the fabric of her tent, draped it across her horse and mule to protect them from hot ash. Then she slogged on, wrapping a scarf around her face, her eyes watering from the smoke, until she had gained the safety of the lands of Te Karaka.

From there it was only a short ride to Ohiwa, where she rested.

And then it was back to business. More patients, more successful diagnoses and treatments, and always humour, as people laughed in the face of their illness or impending death. Like the old kuia who was wasting away. When Paraiti examined her, she was horrified: ‘E kui, you are all skin and bones.’ A strong herbal painkiller, and her skilful massaging hands, gave a few more precious days to breathe and to praise the Lord.

Then, just after leaving her clinic at Ohiwa Habour, Paraiti had a disturbing dream. It was a jumble of chaotic images. A face on fire — it was her face. A ngangara bearing down on her; she took up her rifle and shot at it. As the ngangara went by, Paraiti saw a woman with auburn hair coiled within its slithering entrails. What was this? Charlie Chaplin came walking in his familiar way, twirling his cane — how did he get into her dream? He was in a hut and it was see-sawing on the edge of a cliff. But it wasn’t Charlie Chaplin at all — it was Paraiti herself. Suddenly, as the hut slid over the cliff, Te Teira appeared, put a hand out and pulled her to safety. Suspended in mid-air, he cupped Paraiti’s chin in his hands and wiped her face clear of the scar. He did this again and again. Below, Paraiti saw the hut smash to pieces in the snow.

Paraiti woke up puzzled and anxious. What did the dream mean?

The dream gnawed at Paraiti as she travelled around the coastline from Opotiki to Omaramutu, Torere and Maraenui. Wherever she went, she performed her healing duties. And when she rested, she took Tiaki, Ataahua and Kaihe down to the sea where the horse and mule could soothe their legs in the surf.

Paraiti took Tiaki fishing with her in a favourite lagoon. She speared a fish, but it floated with the spear away from the rocks. ‘Kia tere,’ she commanded Tiaki. Immediately he dived into the sea after the speared fish, swimming fast and grabbing it just before it sank. ‘What would I do without you?’ Paraiti winked.

Camping on the beach one evening, Paraiti saw an uncommonly bright star blazing a trail across the sky. That night she had the dream again. It had changed in two respects: the auburn-haired woman had now become the ngangara, and it was a child who was caught in its slithering shape.

This morning, Paraiti is waiting for Tiaki to bring her breakfast. Perhaps he has caught a nice silver-finned kahawai.