Cowrie Page 4

  As they pass the turn-off to Ka Lae, she thinks of the fisherman’s tale of the rebuilding of the sacred heiau on the forbidden island: the nuclear testing site. Anger swells within her as she remembers the struggle for Ngati Whatua to reclaim their land at Bastion Point, Aotearoa. After months of occupation, five hundred police were sent in to arrest two hundred Ngati Whatua and their supporters. They’d trained for this moment and each person resisted peacefully, dropping limply in the arms of struggling policemen—some of them Maori. Cowrie never forgot the sight of one young Ngati Whatua woman looking into the eyes of a Maori policeman and challenging his betrayal of their cause. Moments like these were etched on her brain forever. They spoke more than all the rhetoric ever could. They were like markings in the sand—a trail of survival and change—recording all the betrayals and broken promises along the way. And they were never simple. One tribe pitched against the other, each trying to survive within an alien system of possession which marked out land as an object rather than a living part of the spirit.

  How could anyone presume to own land? A Navajo poet who stayed with Cowrie over the Women Writers’ Hui explained that her people did not believe in land ownership, that we are all only caretakers of the land. “The land belongs to she who takes care of it,” she’d said. Cowrie believed it too. She looks over towards the rocky cliffs of Ka Lae and wonders how the Maori waka ever launched there. She feels a sudden chill shudder down her spine, resting itself at the base of her backbone. A strange sensation of waiting for something to happen.

  She decides to stop for a break and bring the kids inside the cab for a while. She pulls over and slides out of her seat. The chilling feeling does not leave her until long after they have had refreshments and are back on the road west.

  At Kona, they stop for lunch. Kalo soaked in coconut milk and wrapped in banana leaves. Followed by Nele’s first batch of kalo chips! Koana has prepared a feast for them in the basket she gave the twins to look after. Fresh mangoes and bananas and some raw ‘ahi drenched in lime juice. Cowrie licks her fingers after the feed and wishes Koana were here so she could work her tongue between each of her fingers in turn, drinking in the coconut and lime and the sweet skin salt. Instead, she settles for wiping the sticky substance from Nele’s cheeks with the edge of her lavalava while Peni pushes his face into the sand to see how much he can pick up with the juice acting as a glue.

  The beach is filled with people, including tourists who usually just drive through Na‘alehu. Cowrie is not keen to stay, but the kids are excited by it all. They check out a few shops by the sea, and Nele is overjoyed when she finds Hilo Hattie’s. It is filled to the brim with all kinds of hats, from woven island hats, like flax ones back home, with brightly painted bands, to bowlers and top hats. Nele fancies a black bowler het and swaggers down the shop with it on. The Hawai‘ian youth who serves them enjoys Nele’s performance. Getting jealous, Peni tries on a grey top het. Cowrie’s hard-earned cash is getting low. She will need to find work soon or return home, but she cannot resist the twins.

  When they emerge from the shop, decked out in their new hats, Peni and Nele take on new personae. They hold their heads high and walk like haole, in long, exaggerated strides mimicking the corporate business men they have seen on the television. Cowrie wishes Koana could see them now. Even on the beach, they keep their colonial hats perched on their ragged mops of hair. Peni picks up a twig and pretends to smoke it. As they sit on a rock, looking out to sea, Cowrie is reminded of the old Goldie paintings of early Maoris after European settlement. Mere had one of an old man with a bowler het on and a pounamu earring dangling from one ear. Another was of a Maori woman with a beautiful moko and a child slung on her back. Both of their faces looked sad in the paintings. Were they? Or was this just the European portrayal of them? Even Peni and Nele are uncharacteristically quiet and, for a moment, frozen in time.

  The road north continues to follow the coast and soon they come across an old art deco style building painted cream with coffee-brown features. Across the sloping semiround roof is a sign marking the Aloha Theatre. Cowrie is amused to see the English spelling of theatre on the top, just below the crown which sets the building’s date as 1932 and the American spelling below on a swinging sign which reads ‘Aloha Theater’. She points out the difference to Nele, who loves playing with words. Nele notices that the cafe is also with the modern spelling and after much pleading from her companions, and a thirsty glance at the expresso sign, Cowrie hauls Honu to a stop a little further on and they walk back to the building, past the Aloha Village Store which is stacked with luscious-looking natural foods. The kids stock up on sesame and apricot bars while Cowrie fills her kete with fresh fruit and unsalted macadamia nuts, dried papaya and different samples of local kai moana.

  From Kainaliu, the road forks left up to Kailua Bay and from there up to Kiholo Bay. Evidence of lava-flows from Mauna Loa can be seen spanning both sides of the road: an alien moonscape with patches of lush green palms from time to time near the ocean.

  Honu rattles into Puako on a dusty road and Peni reads the scrumpled-up map which Patsy had scrawled on the back of a cheque. Her house is on a dirt road parallel with the beach and as they turn into the drive, three mangy cats appear from beneath the cottage. By the time they draw up level with the house, the cats have disappeared in a screen of dust.

  The ground appears to be a very fine sand over rock and behind the house, in front of the truck, is a welcoming pond. Nele and Peni rush over to it and are delighted to see large fish splashing about. Cowrie is amazed. A natural brackish pond with fat trout by the dozen. This is too good to be true. She asks the kids if these fish are edible. They shake their heads. They’re not sure. Cowrie resolves to do a bit of netting after they’ve unpacked.

  There are dust screens on all the doors and windows, for good reason. The cottage is open plan with mattresses on the floor. Cowrie slings her hammock up on the side porch behind the mosquito netting. Nele and Peni each dive for their chosen beds and the unpacking ritual begins.

  After they’ve emptied the truck, Cowrie and Nele unwrap Koana’s raw marinated ‘ahi for dinner and each of them sets to making their favourite salads with the sparse vegies available on the island. The heat turns lettuce to cooked cabbage so Cowrie chooses fresh tomato and basil sliced with green peppers and Nele stands on a stool to grate carrot into a bowl of orange and coconut juice.

  Suddenly, there is an ungodly scream outside. Cowrie rushes through the screen door, letting it slam against the house and is horrified to see Peni lying on his back on the rocks beside the pool, gashes in his foot and blood everywhere.

  Fucking wildcats, thinks Cowrie, but they are not to be seen. Instead, the fish in the pool are crashing themselves against the side in an effort to reach the blood-oozing foot. They flap wildly against each other, one jumping into the air and landing high and dry before it slithers, snake-like, back into the water.

  Peni’s screams and waving arms have died down to foot-clutching moans. Cowrie bends to inspect the damage. A series of cuts line the soft flesh under his arch and his eyes have the look of one who has seen a terrible sight but can still hardly believe it. Maybe this was the chilling premonition I had while driving past Ka Lae, thinks Cowrie, hugging his foot to her breast as she wraps her lavalava around it to bandage the wound and allow him to hobble back indoors, while Nele holds his hand.

  After she has dressed the wounds properly and applied her herbal remedies, Cowrie asks the twins if there is an Hawai‘ian version of piranha. They have both seen fish that eat human flesh on television but they do not know of any such fish in waters around the island. Cowrie has no idea what led these fish to their frenzy but from her knowledge of sea creatures she understands that their behaviour is most unusual.

  That night, Cowrie lets them turn on the old black and white tv in the corner. The only picture they can get is a rerun of Out on a Limb. The kids think Shirley MacLaine is hilarious and they cover their heads with towels and p
retend to see stories in a large, round piece of lava rock which they mount on a spoon. The spoon conducts magical energy which allows them to be anything they like. Soon they are so lost in their own games, they forget about the television. Cowrie flicks it off with the dusty remote and heaves a sigh of relief as they gradually drift into sleep. She buries her nose back into a book on Hawai‘i she has picked off the shelf. Pele, by Herb Kane.

  Tena koe Kuini,

  Mahalo for your letter. It arrived just before I left for Puako and I only opened it tonight. Glad to hear the writing hui plans are going wall. Nele and Peni, (Koana’s twins) are now asleep and it’s hauntingly quiet, except for the ocean. I brought the kids over to house-sit an old cottage by the sea. Koana will join us at and of week. Can’t wait! Hey—ask Keri if she knows of any fish like piranha in Hawai‘i? Sounds bizarre, but pond fish attacked Peni’s foot today. Want into frenzy when blood appeared. Weird.

  Reading a fascinating book about Pele by Herb Kane—local Hawai‘ian artist of great mana. Stunning paintings. Pele ambodies spiritual power of the land here, just like Robin Kahukiwa’s depictions of Papatuanuku back home. Home? Well, Hawai‘i is starting to feel like home as wall.

  Have been dreaming about Koana. I think she likes me but she’s definitely not a dyke—yet! Can’t imagine her changing. Very traditional family values. Than again, you overcame that, eh? (am writing on aero not p.c. so Raglan P.O. don’t read it all first!)

  Enjoying Nele and Peni. Interesting mixture of US colonialism and traditional Hawai‘ian values. Koana has worked hard to preserve latter. Good on her. Koana…How can I stop thinking of her? Should I just accept our friendship or dare I imagine more? We’ve talked around It vaguely. She’s questioned her life with Aka and doesn’t want a new heterosexual partner at present. But I sense she’s not ready to imagine the possibility of loving a woman fully, I want to respect her needs but not repress my own. The endless dilemma. It’s like being a teenager again—feeling the attraction from both sides but being too afraid to act on it. Maybe I should be a neuter after all? Celibacy certainly has its attractions! I’m beginning to feel creative again, writing and sketching. What’s the latest on the writers’ hui?

  Miss you heaps.

  Arohanui—Cowrie XXX.

  Peni perches on the edge of a lava shelf at Puako beach while Cowrie and Nele try to convince him to dangle his foot into the healing salt waters of the ocean. He is not keen on introducing his wounds to shark-infested seas. “The shark is Pele’s brother,” Nele says. “Remember, we learned that in school last term. Ka-moho-ali‘i. When he’s not in the water, he lives in human form on the northern edge of the crater. Even Pele is scared of him. But she’ll make sure you’re protected.”

  Cowrie remembers reading something about this up at Volcano House. He was the shark god and Pele’s family offered him their corpses to become sharks and act as protectors of the family. All over Hawai‘i the shark spirit protected those who respected its powers. At the time, she thought of the Tongan fella, Seketoa, who used to play cricket with them at varsity. It was when a shark attack on a small boy at St Clair’s Beach in Dunedin made headlines. He told her that he was named after a fella who turned himself into a shark to escape death from his jealous, older brother. That shark now protects the whole family. He didn’t believe sharks would attack without some kind of reason. Cowrie wonders what Seke would’ve thought about the flesh-gashing fish in Patsy’s pond.

  By now, Nele has convinced Peni to gingerly place one toe, then the next until his whole foot is submerged in the water. At first it stings and he yells out bitterly. But gradually, the water begins to soothe his cuts. Peni has calmed down considerably when suddenly he rips his foot out of the water. Nele leans over to get a better look. “It’s just ‘opae, Peni. See, they want to tickle your toes.” Nele reaches her hand down into the sea and half a dozen large shrimps migrate to her fingertips, their feet dangling down and brushing against her skin. Peni carefully places his foot back into the water. The shrimps nuzzle up and when he wriggles his toes, they swim away, only to return to see what they’ve missed.

  Cowrie checks he’s all right then walks back up the rocks to get the ripped cloth lavalava which she’s been using to bandage his foot. She bends down to reach it and rising back to her full height she notices a fin out on the horizon. It moves rapidly through the waves towards them, then veers to the left. Peni and Nele are oblivious, now deep into stories of sea monsters and how Popeye fought the giant octopus. Cowrie keeps a wary eye on the large fish. It moves back and forth along the reef, at some distance from them, as if guarding something.

  Nele helps her dry and bandage Peni’s foot, pretending to be a shrimp as she dives in and out of Peni’s toes, making him giggle and protest at once. Once the cloth is carefully wound back around Peni’s foot, he hobbles up the rock shelf with them. Cowrie glances back out to sea. The shark has disappeared as quickly as it came. There is no sign of it, even on the far horizon. She wonders if she imagined its presence.

  Further along the lava shelf, Peni complains that his bandage is coming off. Cowrie bends down to tie it tighter and notices strange patterns in the rocks. “Some artistic people have been here. Look at this,” she exclaims, pointing to some stick figures of people running and others holding paddles above their heads.

  Nele kneels down for a closer look. “Ki‘i pohaku,” she says.

  Cowrie waits for an explanation.

  Peni prods her. “You know, rock drawings.”

  Nele adds, for good measure, “They are called petroglyphs, silly,” and Peni pokes her in the ribs for showing him up.

  Cowrie knew the good behaviour had to come to a halt sometime. She attempts a diversion. “Ok, you lot. Tell me about them. I know nothing, except for some rock drawings I’ve seen back home. They were mostly of taniwha and animals.”

  “What’s taniwha?” asks Peni.

  “Mythical creatures. Monsters. Usually found in water,” replies Cowrie, glad she has avoided a confrontation between them.

  By now all three are on their hands and knees, bent down over the rocks, examining the drawings. Some have almost faded away with the action of the sea water. Cowrie asks them how old these sculptures are. The twins are unsure, but they know it’s several hundred years since they were done. “Before haole arrived,” adds Peni, authoritatively. So they are pagan symbols, thinks Cowrie. She looks more closely at the figures before her. They bear strange and fascinating head gear. It seems as if spirits are issuing out from the tops of their heads.

  “Mum says there’s heaps of these drawings on a trail inland from the beach,” pipes up Nele. “She said to tell you to check them out. I forgot until now.”

  Peni yells out that this one with spiked hair looks like a punk. The figure has a huge, barbed head-dress.

  After musing over the artwork, they walk back on the other side of the road and there is a hand-painted sign sticking out of the lava rock marked “Kaeo trail, 1/2 mile. Petr…” The sign is broken but the arrow below the word Kaeo points inland. That’ll be Koana’s trail, thinks Cowrie. She longs to follow it but knows she must wait for Peni’s foot to heal. Half a mile could be a long way to hobble.

  “Let’s go see the pictures,” pleads Peni.

  “But what about your foot?”

  “No worries. See. It’s getting better,” he claims, placing all his weight on it and walking with only a slight limp.

  “Perhaps we’ll go when Koana comes.”

  “Come on Cowrie. Let’s go now,” urges Nele.

  “That’s not far. We walk further than that every day.”

  “Yeah,” agrees Peni.

  Cowrie pauses for a moment. She’s not in the mood to carry back a wounded soldier, even if he’s asserting bravery now. But her curiosity gets the better of her and she agrees. The three of them follow the track which is marked with small piles of stones every few hundred feet. Scrawny trees struggle to grow out of the hardened magma and provide welcome reli
ef from the hot sun. The pace is all right for Peni. It’s slow going, moving among the volcanic rock, and it is vital to watch where the feet fall lest they slip down a crack. Cowrie thinks of the journey through the Kilauea crater with Paneke and is relieved that the sign marks this as only half a mile away.

  Only a few hundred feet inland, Nele points out some marks on the rock. Large, rounded mounds of lava are etched with lines of stick figures that look like giant, moving ladders. The figures are poised in challenge mode. They are either marching or stalking each other with legs and arms outstretched.

  The line of figures seems to mark some kind of trail and reminds Cowrie of the curious markings that delineate topographical maps and ancient religious sites in early Aboriginal drawings. From standing height they resemble a large insect, a centipede perhaps.

  They enter an area of more dense bush scattered amongst the rocks. The scraggy trees seem to grow where little water is needed. This landscape resembles Rangitoto Island. It’s hard to believe that vegetation has a chance of growing out of this lava rock. Rangitoto is also volcanic and yet large pohutukawa, like the ‘ohi‘a trees, manage to spread their waving arms out of the hardened lava and drop their blood-red stamens on to the black basalt rocks below.

  A couple of times, they lose the trail, but instinct leads them back to the most worn path. It is difficult to get bearings when there is so much lava around them and little vegetation. Every now and again, a lizard emerges from a crack or lies still, sunning its back on a rock, hoping no one will spy its presence. Sweat is pouring down all three of them. The midday heat is unbearable and they hop from rock to rock and pause every now and again under a tree for some relief. Cowrie regrets that she did not insist that they return home for lunch and refreshments. Had they planned the trip, they would have brought plenty of liquid. She sometimes forgets the power of the heat to dehydrate the body on this island. Peni and Nele seem to be able to stand it better, but even they are complaining they have not brought their coke with them.