3
This is Paraiti’s life and world. She is an agent of life, prolonging and optimising it. Paraiti’s knowledge, therefore, is of the treatment of the body not the spirit, though sometimes these two are intertwined.
But Paraiti does not live and practise at the higher level of a tohunga. She is not a mediator between the human world and the spiritual world. She does not heal mate atua, diseases of the gods; she has no competency in dealing with those sicknesses that are due to possession of the spirit. While she has known some very great priests — with skills in the spiritual, arcane and esoteric arts: prophecy, dream, sign, rehu, whakakitenga, makutu, moemoea and whiu — that is not her domain. Nor does she return spells onto those responsible for casting them.
Paraiti’s father was such a priest, a man of immense wisdom, whom the iwi consulted on all matters of importance because of his powers of divination. Indeed, it was as a priest that Te Teira had served the great prophet Te Kooti, and remained loyal to him to the very end; this was why the people of Te Kuiti had looked after Paraiti, and had taken them both in after he was released from prison. Te Teira loved to talk about the early days of the prophet’s victories. He used the language of the Old Testament, and likened Te Kooti’s exploits to the great exodus and the flight of the Israelites from the lands of Egypt into the Canaan. It was all metaphorical talk but Paraiti was moved by its grandeur and imagery. ‘In the end Te Kooti was pardoned,’ Te Teira told Paraiti as they sat in front of the fire in their kauta. ‘I will tell you how. The government wanted to run a railway line through the King country, and issued a general amnesty to all criminals, no matter what they had done, to secure the land. The prophet was saved by the iron horse!’ he laughed.
‘It was 1884 when that railway opened,’ he went on. ‘You and I were travelling to some hui or other, I can’t remember which one, but you were my right-hand man, do you remember? We came across some Ringatu boys bending over the rails listening. We got off our horses too and bent down and listened. And your eyes went big and wide and you said to me, “Papa, the rails are singing a strange waiata!” Then suddenly, around the corner came that iron horse, a huge ngarara, a monster, belching smoke and roaring at us. Our horses started to buck and bolt but, resolute in the face of the ngarara, you raised your rifle and fired a shot at it.’ Te Teira laughed. ‘I suppose you were still trying to protect your papa, ne?’
Paraiti’s shot did not bring the ngarara to the ground. But as it swayed and slithered past, she saw the many men and women who had been eaten by it, imprisoned in its intestines. She raised a tangi to them, a great lament. Of course, she had been mistaken. The passengers in the train were very much alive, dispersing into settlements — and the ngarara was just another monster eating up the land.
It was in Te Kuiti that Paraiti grew into womanhood. Although Te Teira would have wished for her to marry some kind farmer or fisherman of the tribe, raise children and live a happy life, those options were closed to her because of her kanohi wera, her burnt face. No matter that he was revered for his medical skills; even his great mana could not obtain a husband for her. She was twenty-four and already accustomed to rejection when, in a terrible moment of truth, she asked, ‘Father, what man, in the moment of ecstasy, would look upon my face and not wish it was someone else’s?’ Te Teira himself acknowledged that his daughter was destined to become a spinster, with no provider once he was gone.
Paraiti’s father had to go underground when the Tohunga Suppression Act was passed in 1908. The purpose of the Act was to replace tohunga, traditional Maori healers, with ‘modern medicine’. The politicians made a lot of noise about ‘charlatan’ tohunga, but the Act was primarily directed at Rua Kenana who, some say, succeeded Te Kooti as prophet. ‘As when the Pakeha pardoned Te Kooti,’ Te Teira said, ‘they brought in a law ostensibly for one thing when it was really for another.’
Te Teira had defied the Act by continuing to practise covertly. And he taught his daughter the arts of healing so that she could achieve economic independence as a functioning member of the iwi. In 1917, when Paraiti was forty-two, the Spanish influenza hit Maori settlements and the people were unable to get treatment from the Pakeha doctors. Paraiti joined her father in offering succour and support to the sick and dying in Te Kuiti. The irony was that the disease had been brought among the people by the Maori soldiers who had gone to fight in the Great War, on the other side of the world.
After the epidemic was over, Te Teira received a letter from a powerful kuia of Te Whanau a Kai on the East Coast, asking him to come and help her in improving the health of her people. Her name was Riripeti, and her persuasive powers were so great that, eventually, with the consent of the people of Te Kuiti, Te Teira accepted her offer. He migrated east with his daughter and they ended up in Waituhi. There Te Teira finished installing in Paraiti the safer knowledge — not the knowledge of the tohunga, but the knowledge of the healer. In particular, he bequeathed to her the rare skill of Maori massage, and the patience to massage deep beneath the skin and move muscles and bones and tissue to their proper places, should they be broken, torn or out of alignment.
And when he died in her arms of old age, four years ago, she was still massaging him and trying to keep his circulation going long after he became cold.
But Paraiti has a dilemma. As she closes her clinic in Ruatahuna for the day, her thoughts fly back to a request she received just before leaving Waituhi.
She was asked to take life, not to give it.
This is how it happened.
A week earlier, in the middle of packing for her annual trip, a thought popped into Paraiti’s head: ‘I think I’ll ride into Gisborne and go to the pictures.’ Just like that the thought came, and the more Paraiti pushed it away, the more it stuck in her mind. Truth to tell, she didn’t need an excuse to go, so she made one up: she would buy some gifts for all the ladies who would be helping at her clinics on her travels. Horiana wasn’t the only one, but for Horiana especially she would get her some of those Pakeha bloomers that would keep her nice and cool in the summer.
Paraiti got up at the crack of dawn, dressed in her town clothes, saddled Ataahua and set off for Gisborne. She stopped for a picnic lunch by the Taruheru River, then rode on to Gisborne and settled Ataahua in the municipal stables just across the Peel Street bridge. It was midday by the town clock when she joined the townsfolk on Gladstone Road.
Paraiti always came to Gisborne with some apprehension. Being among Pakeha was not natural for her; she felt she was crossing some great divide from one world to another. The slash of the scar across her face didn’t help either; it marked her out in some sinister way. Even though these were modern times, and Pakeha liked to say that Maori and Pakeha were one people now, there were still signs of division: there were the Pakeha parts of Gisborne, particularly the palatial houses along Waterside Drive, and then there were the narrow shanty streets where the Maori lived.
Steadying her nerves, she made her way to the Regent to see what film was on. She was delighted to see that Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush was showing. She bought a ticket at the booth.
Humming to herself, Paraiti looked at the town clock again and saw that she had an hour to wait before the film began — time enough to go shopping. As she crossed Gladstone Road to Harrison Esq. Haberdashery, the latest model Packard went by with two women in it. One was a young Pakeha woman with auburn hair, of considerable beauty, and the other was a middle-aged Maori woman, probably her maid. When the Maori woman saw Paraiti, she pointed her out to her mistress.
Paraiti entered Harrison’s and went over to look at the bolts of fabric. She felt she was in a magic land of laces, silks, wools, calicoes, twills and cottons. The colours were stunning — shimmering blues, glowing yellows and bright reds. A senior saleswoman appraised her as she came in and immediately approached her. ‘May I help you?’ she asked. There was no accompanying ‘Madam’ to her enquiry, but Paraiti’s self-confidence had grown — and she had been to Harrison’s before and she knew the kawa, the protocol:
1. Shop attendants were always supercilious but they were, sorry lady, only shop assistants, even if they were senior saleswomen.
2. She had as much right as anybody else to shop in Harrison’s.
3. Her money was as good as anybody else’s.
She unpinned her hat and placed it on the counter, claiming some territory. ‘Why, thank you,’ she said pleasantly, revealing her scar in order to intimidate the saleswoman. ‘I’d like to see that bolt of cloth and that one and that one,’ and she pointed to the ones that were highest in the stacks.
Meantime, Paraiti rummaged through some of the other fashionable material and accessories that were on display. By the time the saleswoman returned, she had made her selection: a variety of attractive lengths of fabric, bold, with lots of flash. She also selected a couple of pairs of bloomers with very risqué ruffles on the legs. Pleased with her purchases, Paraiti waited at the doorway for the final piece of kawa to be observed:
4. When the paying customer is ready to depart, the door is always opened for her.
In a happy mood, humming to herself, Paraiti made her way back to the Regent, window shopping on the way, and took her seat in the theatre. Unnoticed, the Maori maid, who had been watching Paraiti in the haberdashery, and had followed her back, took a seat a few rows back.
Paraiti loved nothing better than to sit in the dark where nobody could see her and get caught up in the fantasies on screen. She had seen Charlie Chaplin’s previous movie, The Kid, and hoped that The Gold Rush would be just as good — and it was. The audience in the Regent couldn’t stop laughing. Paraiti thought she would die — the tears were running down her face at the part where the starving man in the film kept looking at the little tramp and imagining seeing a nice juicy chicken. And she just about mimied herself when the little tramp was in the pivoting hut caught on the edge of a crevasse; the hut see-sawed whenever Charlie walked from one side to the other. At the end she wanted to clap and clap: Charlie Chaplin was the greatest film clown in the world. She was so glad that she had come into town.
But when she came out of the theatre into the mid-afternoon sun and saw the Maori maid standing in the sunlight like a dark presence, she felt as if somebody had just walked over her grave.
‘You are Paraiti?’ the maid asked. She was subservient, eyes downcast, her years weighing her down — but her words were full of purpose. ‘May I trouble you for your time? I have a mistress who needs a job done. If you accept the job, you will find the price to your liking.’
Although everything in her being shouted out, ‘Don’t do this, turn away’, Paraiti equivocated. She had always believed in fate, and it struck her that coming to Gisborne ‘just like that’ might not be coincidental. She found herself saying, ‘Kei te pai, all right. Let me drop my parcels off at the municipal stables and then I will give your mistress an hour of my time.’
That task accomplished, the Maori servant introduced herself. ‘My name is Maraea,’ she said. ‘My mistress is Mrs Rebecca Vickers. The Honourable Mr Vickers is currently in Europe on business. We are only recently arrived in Gisborne. Be good enough to follow me, but stay far enough back so that people do not know that we are together.’
Paraiti was immediately offended, but it was too late — she had already agreed to speak to Mrs Vickers. She followed Maraea into the Pakeha part of town. The houses on Waterside Drive, ranged along the river with willow trees greening along the banks, spoke of elegance and quality.
Maraea waved Paraiti to join her. ‘The Vickers’ residence is the fourth house along, the two-storey one with the rhododendron bushes and wrought-iron gate. When we arrive at the house I will go in and see if it is safe for my mistress to see you. Kindly do not approach until I signal to you with my handkerchief.’
‘What have I got myself into?’ Paraiti wondered. Increasingly irritated, she watched Maraea walk towards the house, disappear and, after a minute or so, return to the street and wave her handkerchief. Paraiti approached the house and was just about to enter through the gate when she heard Maraea whisper from the bushes: ‘Do not come in through the front entrance, fool. Go around to the side gate, which is where such folk as you and I must enter. I will open the back door for you.’
Paraiti continued to the side gate. She opened it and walked along the gravelled pathway. A Maori gardener at work in the garden tipped his hat to her. Maraea stood at the doorway to the kitchen.
‘Come in,’ she urged Paraiti. ‘Quickly now. And you,’ she said to the gardener, ‘Mrs Vickers is not pleased with the way you have trimmed the lawn. Do it again.’
Paraiti followed Maraea through a long corridor to the front of the house. The sun shone through the crystal glass of the front door. The entrance was panelled with polished wood and lined with red carpet. A tall clock ticked in an oak cabinet against one wall. A huge oval mirror hung on another wall. A small table with a visitors’ book and a vase of lilies stood in the curve of the stairway to the first floor. Hanging from the ceiling was a crystal chandelier.
‘Be kind enough to take off your hat,’ Maraea said.
She led Paraiti up the stairs and ushered her into a back sitting-room. ‘Mrs Vickers will see you soon.’
‘Come away from the window.’
Paraiti had been in the sitting room a good ten minutes before Mrs Vickers arrived. The room showed all the trappings and accoutrements of a prosperous Pakeha merchant. The green velvet curtains were tied back with gold tassels. Antique chairs fitted with gold damask cushions were arranged around small card tables; the room was no doubt used as an after-dinner smoking-room by the gentlemen, or a place where the ladies could congregate in the afternoons to chat over cards. To one side was a fireplace, with a beautiful chaise longue in front of it. The decorations had an Oriental look — as if the Honourable and Mrs Vickers had spent some time in the East — and on the mantel above the fireplace was a photograph of a smiling couple, a young wife and her husband, standing with an Indian potentate. Electric lights in decorative glass lampshades were set into the walls, and everywhere there were mirrors. Paraiti had gravitated to the window, and was looking out at the garden below.
Turning, she immediately became disoriented; the hairs prickled on the back of her neck. In all the mirrors a young woman was reflected — in her mid-twenties, with red hair, tall and slim, and wearing a beaded mauve dress. But which was the woman and which was her reflection? And how long had she been standing there?
On her guard, Paraiti watched as the woman approached her. She was pale, beautiful. Her hair had been tinted with henna and her skin was glazed to perfection; her eyes were green, flecked with gold, the irises large, mesmerising and open. Paraiti resisted her hypnotic gaze, and immediately the woman’s irises narrowed. Then she did something perfectly strange — seductive, almost. She cupped Paraiti’s chin, lifted her face and clinically observed and then touched the scar.
The act took Paraiti’s breath away. Nobody except Te Teira had ever been so intimate with her. ‘I was told you were ugly,’ the woman said in a clipped English accent, though not without sympathy. ‘But really, you are only burnt and scarred.’ She withdrew her hands, but the imprint of her fingers still scalded Paraiti’s skin. Then she turned, wandering through the room. ‘My name is Mrs Rebecca Vickers,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming. And if you have stolen anything while you have been alone in the room, it would be wise of you to put it back where it belongs before you leave.’
Paraiti bit back a sharp retort. She recognised the battle of wills that was going on, and there was nothing to stop her from leaving, except that there was something about the situation, that sense of fate again that restrained her; she would bide her time. She tried to put a background to the woman: an English girl of good family and upper-class breeding, married to a man of wealth who travelled the world; she had brought with her to New Zealand her societal expectations, including the customary control of a household run by servants. She regarded Paraiti as being in a similar position to her maid. But there was also a sense of calculation, as if she was trying to manoeuvre Paraiti into a position of subservience, even of compliance.
‘What might I help you with, Mrs Vickers?’ Paraiti asked. She saw that Maraea had come into the room with a small bowl of water, a handcloth and a large towel.
‘Thank you, Maraea,’ Mrs Vickers said. Casually, with great self-possession, she began to unbutton her dress; it fell to the floor. Her skin was whiter than white, and without blemish. Aware of her beauty, Mrs Vickers stepped out of the dress, but kept on her high heels. Although she was wearing a silk slip, Paraiti immediately saw what her artful dress had been hiding: Mrs Vickers was pregnant.
‘It’s very simple,’ Mrs Vickers said as she removed her underwear. ‘I am carrying a child. I don’t want it. I want you to get rid of it.’
Her directness stunned Paraiti. Mrs Vickers was clearly a woman accustomed to getting her way. Well, two could play at that game. She asked Mrs Vickers to lie on the chaise longue and began inspecting her. ‘When did you last menstruate? How many weeks have passed since then?’ she asked as she felt Mrs Vickers’ whare tangata — her house of birth — to ascertain the placement of the baby and the point the pregnancy had reached. The uterus had already grown to the height of the belly-button, and the skin was beginning to stretch. Paraiti concluded her inspection. Mrs Vickers liked to be direct, did she? Time then to be direct and push back.
‘You are a Pakeha,’ she began. ‘Why have you not gone to a doctor of your own kind?’
‘Of course I have consulted European doctors,’ Rebecca Vickers answered, ‘and much earlier than this, when I missed my period. Whatever they did to me did not work.’
‘Then why have you not had further consultations with them?’ Paraiti asked.
‘Do not presume that I haven’t done what you suggest,’ Mrs Vickers responded, ‘but even they failed again; they now tell me that I have gone beyond the point of no return. When Maraea saw you in the street today she thought you might offer me some hope. She told me that you Maori have ancient ways, and could get rid of it.’
‘If your doctors can’t perform your miracle for you,’ Paraiti flared, ‘don’t expect me to be able to. Oh yes, I know of the herbal strategies that can lead to the termination of the pregnancy, but they work only in the first nine weeks. Some healers are able to induce the abortion by the steam bathing method and a concoction of flax and supplejack root juices. But your baby is at least twenty-four weeks grown — too late for the introduction of herbs that will make your uterus cramp and break down, so that the baby can be emptied and expelled from the womb.’
Angrily, Mrs Vickers put on her dress again. ‘I knew this was a foolish notion, but Maraea told me that you were renowned for your clever hands and that, by manipulation, you could secure the result I seek.’
‘And you assumed I would do it just because you asked me?’ Paraiti’s voice overrode Mrs Vickers. ‘Why are you so intent on ridding yourself of your baby? Most women would be overjoyed to be a mother. A baby is the crown of any woman’s achievement.’
When she had been inspecting Mrs Vickers the baby had moved, cradling against Paraiti’s palms. And oh, Paraiti’s heart had gone out to it.
Mrs Vickers lost her temper. ‘You stupid woman,’ she raged. ‘That is only the case if the husband is the father. How long do you think my husband will keep me when he discovers I am pregnant with another man’s child?’
So that was it.
Mrs Vickers realised she had gone too far. She reached for a silver cigarette case, opened it and took out a cigarette. Maraea lit it for her. Then, coolly, ‘Are you sure there is nothing you can do for me?’ she asked, inhaling.
‘You are already too far gone,’ Paraiti answered. ‘You will have to carry the child to term.’
Mrs Vickers exhaled. Then, ‘Rip it from my womb,’ she said in a voice that chilled.
‘That would require you to be cut open,’ Paraiti flared. ‘It is too dangerous and you could die, along with the baby. Even if you survived you would be scarred and carry the evidence of the operation. Your husband would know that something had happened.’
‘I will pay you handsomely for your work. And for your silence.’
‘It is dirty, shameful work. No person would do it.’
‘What you mean is that you will not do it,’ Mrs Vickers said scornfully. ‘Well I will find somebody who is not as morally concerned as you are and, one way or another, I will be rid of this burden.’ The smoke from her cigarette curled in the air. ‘Maraea will pay you for your consultation. She will give you a cup of tea and cake before you leave.’
Maraea signed to Paraiti that the consultation was over. Just as Paraiti was leaving, she saw Mrs Vickers standing and tapping ash into an ashtray. Mrs Vickers’ reflection locked eyes with Paraiti, and the room filled with eyes from all the mirrors.
‘You doctors,’ Mrs Vickers said. ‘Pakeha or Maori, you’re all the same, kei te mimi ahau ki runga ki a koutou.’
Paraiti gasped. She looked closely at Mrs Vickers’ flawless skin and noted again the glaze so cleverly applied across her face. When she reached the kitchen she declined Maraea’s offer of tea and cake. She wanted to get away.
‘She will kill the baby,’ Maraea told her, ‘make no mistake about it. And if she kills her own self in doing it, well — if the baby is born, her life will be destroyed anyhow.’
You doctors, you’re all the same, I will urinate on all of you.
And Paraiti asked the question, even though she already knew the answer. ‘He Maori ia?’
‘Yes,’ Maraea answered. ‘She is Maori.’