It’s horizontal over the arena now, and that menacing ghost image hovers on the other side.
The waka punches through the incendiary sun. The timbers are smouldering and the sails burst into flame as the ship falls through the blazing eye of Rangi. Descending slowly, its sails taut, the waka tips.
The crowd screams as it falls, ready to crush them. Their fear turns to relief as, all of a sudden the waka swings and begins to circle the arena. The gun ports open and from them come volley after volley of cannon fire, broadsides that deafen the audience.
The audience put their hands to their ears. Smoke, red-tinged, obscures the waka but …
There it is! Applause greets it as it settles into the centre of the arena.
It is the Endeavour.
Strobe lights hit the waka again and again. The image it presents is of one of power and domination. Submit to me, oh you who look upon me.
Silence falls. The smoke drifts away.
I’m standing on a platform high above the arena where the audience can’t see me. There’s room for only one person. But I can see the audience far below, the thousands who have come to today’s première.
It’s a strange life up here in the dark. You’re alone but the darkness is filled with expectation. Things can come alive up here. You can daydream. Let your imagination soar.
It is, indeed, a great and splendid darkness.
All these years, my ancestor had been waiting.
Come out, come out, wherever you are. Jean-Luc had helped me to find him. ‘It is not enough to achieve physical perfection. What is the essence, the personality that makes everything you do yours? It must come from your head and heart as well as your physique. From your histoire, too, mon petit! It will give you the grace and originality to triumph, the thing that only you, Tupaea, can do!’
Koro had been unconvinced and I had to show him. I took him to the gym. He watched in the darkness as I coiled and unwrapped myself.
‘To see you wrapped up like that … You looked like the baby in the incubator again with cords in your arms and down your throat. And now …’
The announcer cuts through the silence again.
‘In the southernmost part of the Maohi nation, the people gather to confront the goblin apparitions.’ Three carved Maori war canoes appear on the stage, confronting the shimmering ship. It is such a powerful moment, this first encounter of Maori with the invaders.
I settle my headdress. Among its feathers is the red feather that Koro gave me many years ago; it’s my lucky charm. I wait for the rainbow, the colour of black pearls glowing, through which I will slide down to the great god ship below.
‘But this time,’ the announcer continues, ‘the Maohi people do not need to worry. The God ’Oro has sent his emissary, Tupaea.’
‘Time to go to the rescue,’ Jean-Luc says into my face mike.
‘Count me down,’ I answer.
‘Ten, nine, eight, seven …’
What’s this? Some interference.
‘Six, five, four, three …’
Hello, Little Tu, are you there, over?
‘Two, one, and you’re on. Open your wings, Tupaea.’
They’ve been resting, relaxing. Now they begin to flex, and the wind is rushing up beneath them, and I lift.
The strobe lights hit me. I am the Arikirangi incarnate.
The rainbow bridge begins to glisten. Ancient voices call through the sound system. The audience gasps.
Nobody has ever negotiated the corde lisse from this enormous height before, but the rope and I are in partnership. Here in my own Te Raituitai, I look to my left at my arm outstretched and then to my right to the tips of the fingers.
I grasp the rope and take the first step into the dark air. From below, I know that my entrance is spectacular. All the spotlights catch me as I glitter gold in their glow …
All my life I’ve been searching for this perfection.
The air rushing into my lungs … and oh …
Then comes the sense of weightlessness and, yes, it is possible to defy gravity.
Up here, I’m in perfect suspension between heaven and earth, slowly twisting and turning and tumbling and unwrapping myself.
Glitter explodes like silver rain across the audience.
Ancient drums and conch shells raise fanfare after fanfare as I slowly descend the rainbow bridge to the Endeavour below. The audience applauds my beauty.
Hovering above the prow, I unroll at the horizontal, spinning, spinning, spinning down.
At the last minute I release the rope.
The audience screams.
Oh, the thrill of falling.
The screams turn to applause again as I alight on the prow of the Endeavour.
I bow to the three Maori waka.
I make a further bow to the audience and, in particular, to the place where my Koro must be sitting. I’m wearing a circular cap, like a woven helmet, and from it sprouts the tall headdress of beautiful red, yellow and black feathers. My body glistens with oil and around my midriff and thighs I wear a girdle of red feathers. A shoulder cape reaches down to the waist and is tipped with a fringe, this time of yellow feathers.
And then I begin to dance.
I was named after the man who was the captain of the ship called the Endeavour. He brought the God ’Oro to Aotearoa.
Can you see, Koro? Can you see?
My name is Tupaea.
Author Notes
A few years ago I saw a young Maori girl in a Porirua mall minding her small brother and two sisters. She was buying them an ice cream: one ice cream to share. I bought a second one for them and gave them some money so they could see a movie. She said that she would pay me back, and that one day she was going to own her own mall. I’m looking forward to meeting her again on that day.
Film buffs of 1940s films will immediately recognise the title of this story, which comes from the classic 1942 Warner Brothers film, Casablanca, produced by Hal B. Wallis, with a screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch, and directed by Michael Curtiz. The film starred Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid and Claude Rains.
‘When I Fall in Love’ is one of many songs composed by Victor Young. Lyrics reproduced here courtesy Alfred Music Publishing.
In 2007 the prize-winning and very successful playwright Albert Belz (Ngati Porou, Nga Puhi, Ngati Pokai) approached me for permission to use my first collection, Pounamu, Pounamu (1972), as the basis for a playscript. At the time Pounamu, Pounamu was the subject of another adaptation proposal, so I suggested to Albert that he should use my second collection, The New Net Goes Fishing (1976). He set to work on a play, Whero’s New Net, which expanded one of the main themes of the collection — the urban migration of Maori from the East Coast to Wellington — to a depiction of the New Zealand diaspora and the migration of Maori to London.
The play was premièred by Massive Theatre Company in Auckland in 2009. It was provocative and intriguing and it gave me an idea: Albert had turned my stories into a play and I thought it would be interesting to turn the play back into fiction; among his other plays are Awhi Tapu (2003), Yours Truly (2006), Te Karakia (2007) and the highly acclaimed Raising the Titanics (2010). My thanks are due to Albert, and James Kyle Wilson and Sam Scott of the Massive Theatre Company Ltd, for allowing me to use the script of Whero’s New Net as the basis for the novella.