‘This is why I am here, Maître.’
‘You no longer have a partnership with the rope,’ Jean-Luc said. ‘As soon as I switched off the lights and you cried out, “I won’t be able to see what I am doing”, I knew it.’
I looked at Thierry, not daring to breathe.
‘I was watching the rope and I could see the pressure you were putting on it, the way it trembled and shivered, as if it was carrying the weight of two people not one … And, to some extent, it is. The rope supports you, but it also supports the great expectations that you have of your performance. Thus you do your spectacular work but you expand the arabesque a little wider, you hold the lean-out a bit longer, you establish a different centre of gravity for the piston, you reach further in the hang, you delay the transition between the crucifixion and the dive, comprends? You are performing on technique, you are imposing on the good will of the rope. Before you know it, pouf, your timing has gone up in smoke, pouf, your technique goes into the danger zone, pouf, you are micro-managing your performance, pouf pouf pouf! No wonder the rest of your cast are bewildered, because they take their cues from you and, if you are even a few seconds out …’
‘I understand, Mâitre,’ Sernas answered.
‘Good,’ Jean-Luc said. ‘So my remedy is this. Return to Le Cirque du Monde. You will get through the season all right, but … once it is over, come back to me. We must find the heart of your performance, the essence, and offer it to the rope! What is it, Sernas? What is the histoire that the rope can lovingly embrace? The “you” which you can give the rope so that you and it can work in balance and harmony as you fly in the great and splendid darkness that is our world.’
Jean-Luc hugged Sernas. ‘Thierry will take you back to your hotel now. We will have another session tomorrow before you go back to Europe. Sleep well.’
I waited until Thierry and Sernas had left the gym.
‘Still here, Tupaea?’ Jean-Luc asked. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
But …
Can you see, now, why I did what I did?
I told Koro, Mum and Dad that I was quitting university. Of course they were all upset, especially Koro and Mum. ‘But you’ve only just started your studies,’ Koro said.
Mum turned to Dad. ‘This is what happens when you take care of your child when he’s coughing his lungs out. When he grows up, he throws it all away.’ Then she turned to me. ‘Oh, well, it’s your life.’
‘Yes, it is,’ I answered, holding my ground.
And Koro angrily asked, ‘How will you become a lawyer? How will you fulfil the dreams of your ancestor? You’re ruining your career.’
‘There are other ways,’ I said.
‘Like what, mokopuna?’ He was losing his temper.
I wasn’t sure yet. Oh, and don’t think that I couldn’t have made it in law: my grades were pretty good. Was I making the right decision?
‘I won’t have it, Little Tu!’ Koro shouted. He began to bang his walking stick on the floor in a temper. ‘I will not let you leave university.’ I looked at him tenderly. Oh, he’d never been afraid to resort to melodrama, using emotional blackmail. I knew his tricks inside out.
‘All my life you’ve taken it for granted that I would become what you wanted me to be,’ I said, as I kissed him on the forehead. ‘I only wish I could do that for you, but I can’t any longer.’
‘Don’t speak to your grandfather like that,’ Mum exclaimed.
‘You have to let me go now, Koro,’ I continued. ‘Trust me, and let me be who I want. Not what Mum wants. Not what you want. But what I want.’
‘And so you think you know what that is now, do you?’ he asked.
Come out, come out, wherever you are. ‘I think so,’ I answered.
‘Not good enough,’ he thundered.
‘All right then, Koro,’ I said. I took a deep breath. ‘I want to be my own navigator.’
For a moment there was silence. Then Dad gave a slight cough. ‘Well, Little Tu can’t be clearer than that, eh dear?’ he said to Mum.
POSTLUDE
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ONE YEAR LATER
I live in Marseilles now. The winter quarters of Le Cirque du Monde are on the outskirts of the city.
I’ve been training hard. Jean-Luc is my choreographer, and together we have created an aerial act. I’ve practised each element of the act, the combination of held postures and drops — arabesques, hip wrap knots, crucifixions, dives, lean-outs, pistons, windmills and miracle splits — over a thousand times, but it feels more like a million.
Koro has been staying with me.
Letting me go? Well, it helped that Uncle Tu-Bad finally made it to the end of the race. Koro has begun to talk to him again about Tupaea; he is the rightful heir. Even better, Koro’s planning to return to Uawa soon.
Not that I could rid myself entirely of Koro. Do you think Mum would have let me come over here without a chaperon? Get off the grass. And Koro had, of course, been bereft at the thought of my leaving New Zealand. ‘It was bad enough when your mother brought you to Wellington, but now you are going to France?’
He had acted as if we would never see each other again. In a moment of passion, I said to him, ‘Come with me, Koro.’
I really meant it. He’s my best friend. I’m glad he came.
On our trip over here I wanted to give Koro a surprise.
‘We’re stopping a few days in Tahiti,’ I told him.
The flight arrived around midnight, and as soon as we’d checked into our hotel, all Koro wanted to do was look at the starlit sky. ‘There they are, mokopuna,’ he said. ‘The directional stars and constellations still looking as they must have in Tupaea’s time.’ He was in the grip of deep emotion as he pointed out Matari’i, the Pleiades; Ana muri, Aldebaran; Ana mua, Antares; Te matau a Maui, the hook of Scorpio.
I knew he was thinking of his ancestor, for, you see, Tupaea never did get to England.
On the return home the Endeavour dropped anchor in Batavia. There, Cook set to repairing the vessel as well as allowing time for those crew who had scurvy to recover from it. But Batavia was an unhealthy city criss-crossed with canals filthy with litter and excrement and, all around, swamp filled with clouds of malaria-carrying Anopheles mosquitoes.
‘Some of the ill were kept on board,’ Koro said, ‘but others were carried onshore and put into tents. Nobody knew anything about malaria in those days and didn’t realise it was carried by the mosquitoes. Multiple bites made the sick get worse and they succumbed to the fever. Dysentery, from contaminated local water, also weakened them, and the ship’s surgeon himself was the first to die.
‘Aue, Tupaea and Taiata also must have been bitten. Some desperate and kindly attempts were made to find fresh fruits for them both, but it was too late. Taiata died, racked by fever and attacked by a cold and inflammation on his lungs. Tupaea was unconscious at the time and didn’t even know the boy had gone until a few days later. When he was told, Tupaea was inconsolable, crying out for him.’
A star fell from the highest heaven, Te Raituitai. Together, Koro and I watched it trailing across the night sky.
‘Can you imagine,’ Koro asked, ‘our ancestor bewailing his fate? He knew that he would be next to go. Who would mourn him and prepare him for the journey to Rohutu noanoa, the Tahitian paradise, to meet ’Oro after his death? Who would administer the last rites? Where was the grand temple where he would be surrounded by his relatives and friends? Who would come for his bones to take them back to Raiatea? How would they find him? When he did, indeed, succumb to death, he and Taiata were both buried on the island of Eadam.’