Sweet Jesus Christ alive! You'd better humour him Ngakau, but he's mad! Watching for sixty years over a canoe. A mauriora! a little god! Doesn't he know the museums are full of them.
But like an unseen current, there's a darker thought — Maybe a priestly canoe? A live god? A live mauriora? He says, with real bewilderment,
"What can I say? What do I do? I've seen them in museums, Pierced stones and old wooden sticks where the gods were supposed to live. Where the vital part of a thing was supposed to rest. But aren't they temporary? And can't they look after themselves?"
The old man mumbles,
"Not this one… it is the heart of this country. The heart of this land."
He straightens his shoulders, his dark eyes burning. In a stronger voice,
"By accident or design, when the old people arrived here, they induced, or maybe it arrived of itself, the spirit of the islands, part of the spirit of the earth herself, it rested in the godholder they had brought. O it isn't able to go now. It is both safe, it is vulnerable." He stops, aware suddenly that the phrases are mixed up, that he is speaking garble.
"O Joseph, my time is coming faster than I thought it would… there will be no time for ceremonies, you will have to take the land without prayers, but you will have my blessing… listen carefully. I was taught that it was the old people's belief that this country, and our people, are different and special. That something very great had allied itself with some of us, had given itself to us. But we changed. We ceased to nurture the land. We fought among ourselves. We were overcome by those white people in their hordes. We were broken and diminished. We forgot what we could have been, that Aotearoa was the shining land. Maybe it will be again… be that as it will, that thing which allied itself to us is still here. I take care of it, because it sleeps now. It retired into itself when the world changed, when the people changed. It can be taken and destroyed while it sleeps, I was told… and then this land would become empty of all the shiningness, all the peace, all the glory. Forever. The canoe… it has power, because of where it came from, and who built it, but it is just a canoe. One of the great voyaging ships of our people… but a ship, by itself, is not that important. And there are many little gods in the world yet, some mean, others impotently benign, some restless, others sleeping… but I am afraid for the mauri! Aue! How can I make you understand? How? How? How?"
He beats his fist against his thigh, drawing in his breath with a great sucking sound. He holds it, his bony chest swelling beneath the wings of his coat. Then, exhausted, he lets it stream out, and stands still, grey and anguished and weary.
"Three days ago, I would have laughed you to scorn, now I believe you," says Joe simply. "You came up the beach, prepared to meet someone and help someone. You've helped me. You've told of all the years you waited, keeping guard. You've told me why. You are a sane man, and a wise man. I believe you. I don't understand it all, but I believe you."
He stands up, cradling his arm.
"Show me where it is, and I will look after it until it tells me
He rests the broken arm against his belt, and holds out his other hand to the kaumatua. "Show me," he says again.
It is a long slow march, paced for a funeral, a march of death.
The kaumatua shuffles, bonefingered hand grasping Joe's forearm. He moves blindly; his feet catch on sticks and stumble on stones. He mutters to himself continuously. He is failing horribly fast, the upright man of yesterday become this scarecrow of bones mere hours later.
I have seen dead people, but I have never seen someone die.
What do you do? Hold their hand and let them get on with
it?
Pray? Tangi? Listen?
The old man trips again, and nearly falls. Joe steadies him with his body. "Corner. Left."
The words are forced out. Thick veins in the old man's forehead pulse alarmingly.
The beaten earth track forks. Joe helps him down the left-hand path. They come to rocks, worn and broken, but still towering above them. An ancient gorge where the river ran aeons ago, and carved this place for part of its bed. A silent place: ochre and slate grey stones. No birds. No insects. The only plants are weeds, stringy and grey and subdued.
The old man pulls on Joe's arm. He points with a trembling hand. "Cave. In ground." He tightens his lips and closes his eyes, concentrating. "I don't. Want. To be put there. In the town…."
Burial cave… and his grandmother will lie up there. Somewhere. There's a rock like a saddle about fifty yards away, in a direct line with where he's pointing. I'll take a look later. Maybe.
Joe shivers.
"E pou, don't worry. I won't put you there. You want to be buried in the town, I will take you there… but what marae? Who are your people?"
]('No. People. They're dead. The town…."
"You want to go to the cemetery in the town?"
A whisper of sound, Ae.
"So be it."
The kaumatua edges forward again. "Tauranga atua…" he says softly. Under his breath, again and again, "Tauranga atua, tauranga atua," as though those words give strength and enable him to walk.
Tauranga… a resting place for canoes, an anchorage. For a god canoe, what anchorage?
I remember a wet afternoon, when I was a child, and I read a magazine. It had the pictures and story of how they found an old canoe of the Egyptians… the sun ship of Cheops, that was it, a burial ship for a pharaoh to ride in. And I thought then — to think of it now! — how much more exciting it would be to find a ship of ours… not a dusty narrow craft in the desert sand, a river-craft if it sailed at all, but one of the far travelled salt sea ships, that knifed across great Kiwa centuries ago… guided by stars, powered by the winds and
by the muscles of stronghearted women and men-
But Cheops' canoe travelled the way of the dead, and that's a journey and a half… coffined it was, confined between stone
blocks.
Where will I find this ship? In stone? In water as he suggested?
Or only in the clouded remnants of an old man's mind?
The kaumatua's grasp on his arm tightens again.
"Here," he says in a choked whisper, "here."
The earth track goes on a way yet, turning a corner to head towards the sea. The sea is loud here, as though the diminishing rock walls, by some freak of acoustics, channel the sound in. There doesn't appear to be anything different about this part of the gorge. Joe looks sadly round.
Mad and stricken after all-
"See. It?"
The rasping urgency of the tired voice makes him stare at the bare surrounding rocks as hard as he can. Tears blur his vision.
I can't say even Yes for him. I can't tell him a lie. The wind blows a little more strongly, and the white streamers of cloud shift away from the face of the sun. Over by the cliff, something glints. "Is it water?" asks Joe sharply. The old man sags. "Haere…" pushing himself away from Joe, go, you go, I cannot
go.
As gently as possible, Joe helps him lie down at the side of the track. He takes off his parka and wraps it into a pad, a pillow for the kaumatua's head. The old man's eyes are closed.
"I'll come right back."
Don't die yet, he thinks fiercely. He clambers over the rocks towards the glint, his heart pounding.
A weathered stratum of rock makes an overhang. It is almost a cave, but it hasn't a floor. A great natural well, like a sinkhole, a cenote, has been formed in the rock.
The water is pale green and milky, as though it contains lime dust in suspension. It is opaque at first glance. But in a very short time — trick of the light, or his eyes adjusting — he can see shadows in the pool. He can't tell how deep the water is, or how large the things that show as shadows are. They cover the bottom of the pool, with patches and gaps between them. Long angular shadows mainly, with two round ones at the far side.