His Best Stories

  Witi Ihimaera

  HIS BEST STORIES

  Contents

  A GAME OF CARDS

  THE SEAHORSE AND THE REEF

  THE HALCYON SUMMER

  TENT ON THE HOME GROUND

  MASQUES AND ROSES

  THE BOY WITH THE CAMERA

  A NEW YEAR’S STORY

  BIG BROTHER, LITTLE SISTER

  TRUTH OF THE MATTER

  DUSTBINS

  THIS LIFE IS WEARY

  THE AFFECTIONATE KIDNAPPERS

  THE WASHERWOMAN’S CHILDREN

  WIWI

  SHORT FEATURES

  WHO ARE YOU TAKING TO THE SCHOOL DANCE, DARLING?

  A HISTORY OF NEW ZEALAND THROUGH SELECTED TEXTS

  LIFE AS IT REALLY IS

  FALLING

  A 60 SECOND STORY

  LIFE AND DEATH IN CALCUTTA

  SOMEONE IS LOOKING AT ME

  BEGINNING OF THE TOURNAMENT

  GOING TO THE HEIGHTS OF ABRAHAM

  Acknowledgements

  Follow Penguin

  his best stories

  Witi Ihimaera was born in Gisborne, New Zealand, in 1944. He was a pioneer of Maori writing in English: his collection of short stories Pounamu Pounamu was published in 1972, and followed by Tangi (1973), the first novel by a Maori. His works include novels, short-story collections, children’s books, plays and numerous anthologies. His novel The Whale Rider has been made into a successful international film, which won the Toronto Film Festival People’s Choice Award in 2002. Ihimaera is a professor of English at the University of Auckland, teaching creative writing and indigenous literature.

  OTHER FICTION BY WITI IHIMAERA

  Short Stories

  Pounamu Pounamu (1972)

  The New Net Goes Fishing (1977)

  Dear Miss Mansfield (1989)

  Kingfisher Come Home (1995)

  Ask the Posts of the House (2007)

  Novels

  Tangi (1973)

  Whanau (1974)

  The Matriarch (1986)

  The Whale Rider (1987)

  Bulibasha, King of the Gypsies (1994)

  Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1995)

  The Dream Swimmer (1997)

  The Uncle’s Story (2000)

  Sky Dancer (2001)

  Whanau II (2004)

  The Rope of Man (2005)

  Children’s Books

  The Whale Rider – children’s edition (2004)

  The Amazing Adventures of Razza the Rat (2006)

  Whaia te iti kahurangi

  Ki te tuohu koe, me tuohu

  Ki te maunga teitei

  Enga rangatira ma, tena koutou katoa.

  Thirty-five years is a long career as a writer, especially since it was never something I thought of doing. In all respects my life has been a magnificent accident, and I often have the suspicion that it was supposed to happen to somebody else. However, this life did happen, and it happened to me, and in the process it turned me into a working artist.

  My life has been devoted to the pursuit of excellence, equity and justice and I have tried to find these in every aspect — whether it be as a good son, brother, husband, lover, parent, friend or colleague — in all the careers I have had. Literature has become an extension of these pursuits, and it has given me the humbling opportunity to combine my passionate political beliefs as a Maori with my aesthetic aims as a man who always finishes what he starts and always does the best he can with what gifts he has. I like to think I articulate the concerns of the iwi and the times we live in. I constantly address the question, ‘What really matters?’, and I hope that I have been able to provide some of the answers not just for now, but for the ever-evolving future. This doesn’t mean I’m always right. I’m partisan about being Maori and will continue to be so. If necessary, I will be the last man standing.

  I owe so many people for this luminous journey. I thank all of you who have touched me and given me strength.

  Na reira, ka nui te aroha ki a koutou.

  Pursue the highest levels of attainment

  If you must bow your head, let it be only

  To the highest mountain.

  A GAME OF CARDS

  If ever I had a signature story, it would have to be ‘A Game of Cards’. It is the opening story of my first book, Pounamu Pounamu, 1972, and, ever since, it’s been my calling card.

  Pounamu Pounamu is an alternative, indigenous text. It tells stories about Maori by a Maori within settings that are Maori and with characters who are central to that setting — heroes, heroines and villains — rather than supporting players or sidekick. In the book I began to privilege the Maori story and to write narratives that are driven from a Maori kaupapa.

  ‘A Game of Cards’ introduces characters who are representative of my fiction: a young male narrator, an iwi he belongs to and, above all, matriarchal women who represent the strength of the tribe and the means by which its values are passed from one generation to the next. In this case, the woman is Miro, based on my Nani Mini who was my Dad’s beloved adoptive sister.

  The story also introduces my main themes of aroha, whanaungatanga and manaakitanga — love, acknowledging kin and tribal relationships and supporting Maori identity. It further introduces Waituhi as the location for most of my fiction. William Faulkner had his Yoknapatawpha County; I have my Waituhi Valley.

  I remember the agony I went through trying to figure out whether it was better to use a fictional name, like Faulkner did. It was the same Nani Mini who scolded me by saying, ‘Are you ashamed of us? Are you ashamed of Waituhi?’ I kept the name, Waituhi, but forgot to change Miro back to Nani Mini’s name before the story was published. It didn’t seem to matter: people from home immediately knew Miro was Nani Mini. Incidentally, Nani Mini’s house is still standing. If you go to Takitimu marae and look down at the road, Nani’s house is the one to the left of the lane.

  A Game of Cards

  The train pulled into the station. For a moment there was confusion: a voice blaring over the loudspeaker system, people getting off the train, the bustling and shoving of the crowd on the platform.

  Then, there was Dad, waiting for me. We hugged each other; we hadn’t seen each other for a long time. But I could tell something was wrong.

  ‘Your Nani Miro,’ he said. ‘She’s very sick.’

  Among all my kuia, Nani Miro was the one I loved most. It wasn’t one way either: everybody used to say I was her favourite mokopuna, and that she loved me more than her own children who’d grown up and had kids of their own. She lived down the road from us next to Rongopai meeting house in the old homestead which everybody in Waituhi called ‘Miro’s Museum’ because it housed the prized possessions of the whanau — the feather cloaks, greenstone ornaments, and the shields and trophies which Waituhi had won in sports and culture tournaments. As children we always used to think she was rich because she owned the most shares in what remained of our tribal land. We wondered why she didn’t buy a newer, more modern house. But Nani wasn’t thinking of moving.

  ‘Anyway,’ she used to say, ‘what with all my haddit kids and their haddit kids and all this haddit whanau being broke all the time and asking me for money, what have I got left to buy a new house with?’

  The truth was, that Nani liked her old homestead just as it was and didn’t really care about money either.

  ‘Who needs it?’ she used to ask. ‘What you think I had all my kids for, eh? What you think I have all my mokopuna for! To look after me, I’m not dumb!’

  Then she would laugh to herself. But it wasn’t true, really, because her family would send their kids to her place when they were broke and she looked after them! She liked her mokopuna, but not for too long. She’d ring up their parents and say:

&n
bsp; ‘When you coming to pick up your hoha kids! They’re wrecking the place!’

  I used to like going to Nani’s place with the rest of my cousins. In particular, I looked forward to Saturdays because that’s when all the women would take the day off, and turn up at Nani’s place to play cards. Nani loved all card games — five hundred, poker, canasta, pontoon, whist, hearts, euchre — you name it, she could play it.

  The sitting room would be crowded with the women. There they’d be, dressed in their best clothes, sitting at various tables among the sports trophies and photographs, the carvings and greenstone. In those days, Maori used to be heavy smokers, so the women would all be puffing clouds of smoke, laughing and joking and gossiping about who was pregnant — and relishing all the juicy bits too.

  Nani Miro was always at what was called ‘the top table’, reserved for the best players. Both she and Mrs Heta were the unrivalled champions and when it came to cards Mrs Heta, whose first name was Maka, was both Nani’s best friend and worst enemy.

  ‘You ready to be taken down?’ Mrs Heta would ask. ‘Oh, the cards are really talking to me today.’

  ‘Is that so, Maka?’ Nani would answer. ‘We’ll have to see about that, won’t we?’

  The women would begin to play cards. No doubt about it: Nani Miro and Mrs Heta were the queens of the game. They also happened, whenever they didn’t have the right cards, to be the biggest cheats I ever saw.

  Mrs Heta would cough and reach for a hanky while slyly slipping a card she wanted from beneath her dress. You never saw anybody reneging as much as she did in five hundred — and expecting to get away with it! But her greatest asset was her eyes which were big and googly. One eye would look straight ahead while the other swivelled around, having a look at the cards in the hands of the women sitting next to her.

  ‘Eeee! You cheat,’ Nani would say. ‘You just keep your eyes to yourself, Maka tiko bum.’

  Mrs Heta would look at Nani, highly offended. Then she would sniff and say, ‘You the cheat yourself, Miro Mananui. I saw you sneaking that ace from the bottom of the pack.’

  ‘How come you know I got an ace, Maka?’ Nani would say. ‘I know you! You dealt this hand, and you stuck that ace down there for yourself, you cheat! Well, ana! I got it now! So take that!’ She would slap down her hand. ‘Sweet, eh?’ she would laugh. ‘Good? Kapai?’ Sometimes she would do a little hula, making her victory sweeter.

  ‘Eeee, Miro!’ Mrs Heta would reply. ‘Well, I got a good hand too!’

  And she would slap her hand down too and bellow with laughter.

  ‘Take that!’

  And always they would squabble. I often wondered how they ever remained friends. The names they called each other!

  Sometimes, I would go and see Nani Miro when she was by herself, playing patience. That was her game whenever there was nobody around to play with her. And still she cheated! I’d watch her hands fumbling across the cards. I’d hear her say, ‘Oops,’ as she turned up a jack or queen she needed, and I’d join her laugh of triumph: ‘See, mokopuna? I’m too good for this game!’

  Nani used to try to teach me some of the games, but I wasn’t very interested.

  ‘How are you going to do good things for your people if you can’t concentrate?’ she would ask. ‘Here I am, counting on you to get a good education so that you can get the rest of our land back and you’re just hopeless, he hoha koe —’

  Not only that, but I didn’t yell and shout at her like the women did. She liked the bickering.

  ‘Aue,’ she would sigh. Then she’d look at me, offer words of wisdom that didn’t make sense like, ‘Don’t let me down,’ or ‘If you can’t beat the Pakeha one way remember that all’s fair in love — or cards,’ and deal out the cards in the only game I ever knew how to play.

  ‘Snap!’ I would yell as she let me win.

  Now, my kuia was sick.

  I went to see Nani Miro that afternoon after I’d dropped my suitcase at home. The koroua, Nani Tama, her long-suffering husband, opened the door. We embraced and he began to weep on my shoulder.

  ‘You talk to her, moko,’ he said. ‘She walked out of the hospital yesterday. She should go back there. It’s no use me trying to persuade her; she’s still as stubborn as, never listened to anything I say. But you —’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I answered.

  I walked down the hallway, past the sitting room to Nani Miro’s bedroom. The room had a strange antiseptic smell. The window was open. Sunlight shone brightly on the big bed in the middle of the room. Underneath the bed was a big chamber pot, yellow with urine.

  Nani Miro was lying in bed. Her pillow was flecked with small spots of blood where she had been coughing. She was so old looking. Her eyes were closed, her face was very grey, and her body was so thin, seeming to be all bones. Even when I was a child she must have been old, but I had never realised it. She must have been over seventy now. In that big bed, she looked like a tiny wrinkled doll.

  Then I noticed the lipstick. Hmmn.

  ‘You can wake up now, Nani,’ I said sarcastically.

  She moaned. A long, hoarse sigh grew on her lips. Her eyelids fluttered, and she looked at me with blank eyes … and then tears began to roll down her cheeks.

  She took me by surprise. ‘Don’t cry, kui,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m here.’

  But she wouldn’t stop. I sat beside her on the bed and she lifted her hands to me. ‘Haere mai, mokopuna. Haere mai. Mmm. Mmm.’

  I bent within her arms and we pressed noses. Then she started to shake with mirth and slapped me hard.

  ‘Snap!’ she said.

  She started to laugh and laugh and I was almost persuaded she was her own self. But I knew she wasn’t. Why do people you love grow old so suddenly?

  ‘What a haddit mokopuna you are,’ she grumbled, sitting up in the bed. ‘It’s only when I’m just about in my grave that you come to see me.’

  ‘I couldn’t see you last time I was home,’ I explained. ‘I was too busy.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as being too busy to see your kuia,’ Nani reproved. ‘Next time, make time. If you don’t I’ll cut you out of my will. I’ll give it all to Willie Jones, what do you think of that?’

  ‘Go right ahead,’ I answered. ‘Willie will need every cent to pay his fines so he doesn’t go to jail.’

  Willie was my cousin. When I was growing up I always thought that I was the only one Nani Miro talked to about getting an education. Ha, it was Willie who told me she talked to everybody, but I was the only one to take her seriously. Nani liked to spread her bets. That way, one of her cards was bound to do the trick.

  ‘Anyhow,’ I continued, ‘I heard Maka cleaned you out in your last game of poker!’

  ‘Who told you that?’ Nani scoffed. ‘You know, now that she’s old she’s gone colour blind. Can’t tell a heart from a spade.’

  She gave a big, triumphant grin. She was my Nani again. The Nani I knew.

  We talked for a long time. She wanted to know how I was getting on at university in Wellington. I told her I was doing really well with my studies, which was a lie, because I was seriously brainless and all the ambitions she held for me were rapidly going down the drain. She asked if I had a girlfriend so I made up more lies about who I was seeing and how pretty she was.

  ‘You teka,’ she said. ‘Who’d want to have you!’

  I brought up the subject of her returning to hospital.

  ‘Tama’s been talking to you,’ she grumbled. ‘Well, this is why I came home —’

  She showed me all her injection needles and pills.

  ‘I didn’t like all those strange nurses looking at my bum when they gave me those injections. I was so sick, mokopuna, I couldn’t even go to the lav. Better for Tama to give me my injections. Better for me to wet my own bed and not their hospital bed.’

  I played the piano for Nani. She loved Me he manu rere so I played it for her and we had a sing-along. Afterwards, she held my hands tightly in hers as if s
he didn’t want to let me go, and stared deep into my eyes.

  ‘It’s always the women who look after the land,’ she said, ‘but who will do it after I am gone?’

  When I finally left her I told her I would come back in the morning.

  But that night the koroua, Nani Tama, rang up. Dad answered the telephone and woke me.

  ‘Your whaea, Nani Miro, she’s dying.’

  We all rushed to Nani Miro’s house. It was already crowded with the other Waituhi families: the Tamateas, Tuparas, Waitaikis, everybody. All of Nani Miro’s mates were crowded close around her bed. Among them was Nani’s rival, Mrs Heta. Nani was lying very still. Then she looked up, saw Mrs Heta and whispered to her:

  ‘Maka … Maka tiko bum … I want a game of cards.’

  A pack of cards was found. Everyone sprang into action. The old ladies sat on the bed, began to gossip and, as usual, puff their clouds of smoke. Nani Tama suggested a game of poker in the living room, so all the men trooped in there to do some serious gambling. Wherever there was a table — in the kitchen, on the verandah, anywhere, games of cards started up. The kids played snap in the other bedrooms and, as the night progressed, so did the games, the laughter, the aroha. The house overflowed with card players, even onto the lawn outside Nani’s window.

  Suddenly, there was a commotion from Nani’s bedroom. We all looked to see what was happening. The women had been betting on who would win the best of ten games and Nani and Mrs Heta were neck and neck — and Mrs Heta was squabbling with Nani because it was Nani’s turn to deal.

  ‘Eee, Miro,’ Mrs Heta said, ‘don’t think that just because you can deal fast I’m not on to your tricks.’

  ‘Quit moaning and start playing,’ Nani answered. ‘Well?’

  ‘Dealing all the good cards to yourself,’ Mrs Heta muttered. ‘You cheat, Miro.’ And she made her googly eye reach far over to see Nani’s cards.

  ‘You think you can see, Maka tiko bum?’ Nani coughed. ‘You think you’re going to win this hand, eh? Well, eat your heart out and take that!’