The Luminaries (14 page)

There were a dozen-odd men upon the covered veranda of the Reserve Bank, pocketed in groups of three and four. The windows behind them were fogged pearl-grey. Balfour scanned the faces, squinting through the rain, but saw nobody he recognised. A ragged plume of smoke directed his gaze downward, to a figure
sitting
alone: a Maori man was squatting under the eave with his back against a piling. He was smoking a cigar.

His face was tattooed in a way that reminded Balfour of the wind patterns on a map. Two large swirls gave fullness to his cheeks, and spokes radiated upward from his brows to join his
hairline
. A pair of deep whorls on either side of his nostrils lent an almost prideful definition to his nose. His lips had been coloured blue. He was wearing serge trousers and an open-necked twill shirt, unbuttoned to the sternum; flat against the brown skin of his chest hung an enormous green pendant, shaped like an adze. He had almost finished his cigar, and as Balfour approached, he threw the butt into the thoroughfare, where it rolled down the camber of the road and then came to rest, still reeking, against the wet edge of the grass.

‘You’re that Maori fellow,’ said Balfour. ‘Crosbie Wells’s mate.’

The man moved his eyes to Balfour’s, but did not speak.

‘Give us your name again? Your name.’

‘
Ko
Te Rau Tauwhare toku ingoa.
’

‘Crikey,’ Balfour said. ‘Give us just the name part.’ He held his palms close together, to signify a small amount. ‘Just the name.’

‘Te Rau Tauwhare.’

‘Can’t say that either,’ Balfour said. He shook his head. ‘Well—what do your friends call you, then—your white-man friends? What did Crosbie call you?’

‘Te Rau.’

‘Not much better, is it?’ Balfour said. ‘I’d be a fool to try, wouldn’t I? How about I call you Ted? That’s a good British name for you. Short for Theodore or Edward—you can choose. Edward’s a nice name.’

Tauwhare did not respond.

‘I’m Thomas,’ Balfour said, placing his hand on his heart. ‘And you’re Ted.’ He leaned over and patted Tauwhare on the crown of his head. The man flinched, and Balfour, in surprise, quickly snatched back his hand and took a step backwards. Feeling foolish, he stuck out his leg and shoved both hands into the pockets of his vest.

‘Tamati,’ said Tauwhare.

‘Come again?’

‘In my tongue, your name is Tamati.’

‘Oh,’ Balfour said, very relieved. He took his hands out of his pockets, clapped them together, and then folded his arms. ‘You’ve got a bit of English—good!’

‘I have a great many English words,’ said Tauwhare. ‘I am told I speak your language very well.’

‘Crosbie teach you a bit of English, Ted?’

‘I taught
him,
’ said Tauwhare. ‘I taught
him
korero Maori! You say Thomas—I say Tamati. You say Crosbie—I say
korero mai
!’

He grinned, showing teeth that were very white and very square. Evidently he had made a joke of some kind, and so Balfour smiled back.

‘Never had a head for languages,’ he said, pulling his coat tighter
across his body. ‘If it’s not English, it’s Spanish—that’s what my old dad always said. Listen, though, Ted: I’m sorry about your mate. I’m sorry about Crosbie Wells.’

Tauwhare’s expression became sober at once. ‘
Hei
maumaharatanga
,
’ he said.

‘Yes, well,’ Balfour said, wishing that the other man would stop talking in his own tongue, ‘it was a d—n shame, is what it was. And now all this kerfuffle—all this bother, about the fortune and so forth—and his wife.’

He peered expectantly at Tauwhare, through the rain.

‘
He pounamu kakano rua,
’ said Te Rau Tauwhare. With his first two fingers he touched the pendant that hung around his neck. Perhaps it was a talisman of some kind, Balfour thought: they all had them, the Maori fellows. Tauwhare’s was almost the size of his hand, and polished to a shine; it was made of a dark green stone, clouded with bands of a lighter green, and was fitted to a braid that ran around Tauwhare’s neck, so that the narrow end of the adze sat high in the notch of his collarbone.

‘Say,’ Balfour said, opting for a shot in the dark, ‘Say, where were you when it happened, Ted? Where were you when Crosbie died?’

(Perhaps the Maori fellow could start him on his way; perhaps he knew something. It wouldn’t do to ask too many questions about the town, of course, for fear of attracting suspicion, but a Maori man was a much safer bet than most: his acquaintance was, most likely, very limited.)

Te Rau Tauwhare turned his dark eyes on Balfour, and
considered
him.

‘Do you understand the question?’ Balfour said.

‘I understand the question,’ Tauwhare said.

He understood that Balfour was asking about the death of Crosbie Wells, and yet had not been present at his funeral—that shameful excuse for a funeral, Tauwhare thought, with a flash of anger and disgust. He understood that Balfour had made only the most superficial show of sympathy, and had not even removed his hat. He understood that Balfour was looking to make a profit in some way, for he had a greedy look, in the way that men often did
when they saw a chance to receive something and give nothing in return. Yes, Tauwhare thought: he understood the question.

Te Rau Tauwhare was not quite thirty years of age. He was handsomely muscular, and carried himself with assurance and the tightly wound energy of youth; though not openly prideful, he never showed that he was impressed or intimidated by any other man. He possessed a deeply private arrogance, a bedrock of
self-certainty
that needed neither proof nor explication—for although he had a warrior’s reputation, and an honourable standing within his tribe, his self-conception had not been shaped by his
achievements
. He simply knew that his beauty and his strength were without compare; he simply knew that he was better than most other men.

This estimation did make Tauwhare anxious, however: he felt that it pointed to a spiritual dearth. He knew that any self-
reflexive
certainty was the hallmark of shallowness, and that valuation was no index of true worth—and yet he could not shake his
certainty
about himself. This worried him. He worried that he was only an ornament, a shell without meat, a hollow clam; he worried that his own self-estimation was a vain one. He therefore
apprenticed
himself to the spiritual life. He quested after the wisdom of his ancestors, so as to teach himself to doubt himself. As a monk seeks to transcend the lesser functions of his body, so did Te Rau Tauwhare seek to transcend this lesser function of his will—but a man cannot master his will without the expression of it. Tauwhare could never strike a balance between surrendering to his impulses, and fighting them.

The
iwi
to which Tauwhare belonged was Poutini Ngai Tahu, a people who had once commanded the entire western coast of the South Island, from the steep-sided fjords in the south to the palms and stony beaches in the far north. Six years ago the Crown had purchased this extensive tract of land for a sum of three hundred pounds—reserving for Poutini Ngai Tahu only the Arahura River, sections of its banks, and a small parcel of land at Mawhera, the mouth of the river Grey. The negotiations had at the time struck Poutini Ngai Tahu as unfair; now, six years later, they knew the
purchase to be patent theft. The thousands and thousands of
diggers
who had since flocked to the Coast in pursuit of gold had each purchased a prospector’s licence at a pound apiece, and land at a price of ten shillings per acre. That profit alone was considerable—but that was to say nothing of the value of the gold itself, hidden in the rivers and mingled in the sands, whose aggregate value was so colossal it had not yet been given a figure. Every time he thought about the wealth his people ought to have commanded, Tauwhare felt a swell of anger in his chest—an anger so bitter and tormented that it manifested as pain.

Thus it was to the Crown, and not to Poutini Ngai Tahu, that Crosbie Wells had paid his fifty pounds, when he purchased a
hundred
rolling acres at the eastern end of the Arahura Valley—an acreage that was thick with totara, a finely grained wood that answered well to a knife, and did not weather under salt or storm. Wells was pleased with his purchase. His two great loves were hard work and hard work’s reward—whisky, when he could get it, and gin when he could not. He built himself a one-roomed cottage overlooking the river, cleared a space for a garden, and began to build a timber mill.

Te Rau Tauwhare travelled up the Arahura Valley relatively
frequently
, for the reason that he was a hunter of
pounamu
, and the Arahura River was filled with that treasure: smooth, milky-grey stones that, when split, showed a glassy green interior, harder than steel. He was a competent carver, even, some said, an excellent one, but it was in sourcing the stone from the riverbed that he was truly and uniquely skilled.
Pounamu
was as dull and ordinary on the
exterior
as it was bright and iridescent within; Tauwhare, with his practised eye, did not need to scratch or split the stones at the
riverbank,
but carried them back to Mawhera untouched, so that they could be blessed and broken in the ceremonial way.

The acreage purchased by Crosbie Wells banked on to Poutini Ngai Tahu land—or, as we should properly say, banked onto the portion of land to which Poutini Ngai Tahu had been so recently confined. In any event, it was not long before Te Rau Tauwhare encountered Crosbie Wells—having been attracted by the sound of
Wells’s axe, ringing through the valley as he split kindling for his fire. Their acquaintance began cordially, and became frequent; over time Tauwhare began to call in at Crosbie Wells’s cottage each time he was near. Wells, it turned out, was an enthusiastic pupil of Maori life and lore—and so Tauwhare’s visits became a tradition.

Te Rau Tauwhare loved any chance to enlighten other men upon those qualities that best defined him, and never more than when his audience flattered those aspects of his person about which he cherished a deeply private doubt: namely, his
mauri
, his spirit, his religion, and his depth. Crosbie Wells, over the coming months, questioned Tauwhare relentlessly about his beliefs, as a man, and as a Maori man, and as a Maori man of Ngai Tahu allegiance. He confessed that Tauwhare was the first non-European with whom he had ever spoken; his curiosity, so expressed, had all the qualities of thirst. Tauwhare, it must be said, did not learn a great deal about Crosbie Wells during this time; the latter seldom spoke about his own past, and it was not Tauwhare’s habit to ask a great many questions. He considered Crosbie Wells a kindred spirit, however, and often told him so—for, like all fundamentally confident persons, Tauwhare was very happy to compare himself to others, intending all such comparisons as compliments of the most heartfelt kind.

On the morning after Crosbie Wells’s death Tauwhare arrived at his cottage with a gift of food, as was their custom—he supplied the meat, and Wells the spirits, an arrangement that satisfied both men. In the clear space before Wells’s cottage he met a cart,
departing
. Holding the reins was the Hokitika physician, Dr. Gillies; beside him sat the gaol-house chaplain, Cowell Devlin. Tauwhare did not know either of these men, but when his gaze moved to the cart, he saw a familiar pair of boots, and, beneath a folded
blanket
, a familiar form. Tauwhare gave a cry, and dropped his gift upon the ground in shock; the chaplain, taking pity on him,
suggested
that he might accompany his friend’s body back to Hokitika, where it was to be prepared for burial, and thereafter, interred. There was no room for Tauwhare on the driver’s seat, but if he wished it, he could sit on the rear tongue of the cart, so long as he remembered to keep his feet out of the way.

The hoteliers and shopkeepers stood in the doorways along Revell-street as the cart rattled into Hokitika and turned down the main road. Some trotted forward for a better view, peering up at Te Rau Tauwhare—who stared back, blank-faced, limp. One of his hands was loosely gripping Wells’s ankle. The man’s body rolled and juddered with each lurch of the cart. When they reached the Police Camp Tauwhare did not move. He sat waiting, still holding Wells’s ankle, while the other men conferred.

The Hokitika cooper had agreed to knock together a pine coffin, ready for the funeral, and to fashion a rounded wooden headstone on which he would paint Crosbie Wells’s name and the two dates that bounded his life. (Nobody was sure of the actual year of his birth, but the year 1809 had been inked upon the flyleaf of his Bible: this was a plausible birth date, for it would place Crosbie Wells at fifty-seven years of age, and it was this date that the cooper would inscribe on the dead man’s wooden headstone.) Until these two orders were completed, however, and until the grave was dug, the gaol’s governor had directed Crosbie Wells to be laid out on the floor of his private study at the Police Camp, with a muslin bed sheet between his body and the ground.

When the body was arranged with his hands folded across his chest, the gaoler ushered everyone from the room and pulled the door closed, causing the hallway to shiver. The interior walls of the gaoler’s house were made of patterned calico that had been stretched tight and tacked to the building’s frame, and when the timber creaked in the wind, or was disturbed by a heavy footfall or the sudden slam of a door, the walls all quivered and rippled, like the surface of a pool—so that, watching them tremble, one could not help but call to mind that two-inch space between the doubled cloth, that dead space around the framing, full of dust, and
patterned
by the moving shadows of the bodies in the room beyond.

Someone has to stay with him, Tauwhare insisted. Wells could not be left alone, lying on the floor, without even a flame burning in the room, with no one to watch over him, touch him, pray over him, pray for him, or sing. Tauwhare tried to explain the principles of the
tangi
—but they weren’t principles, they were rites, too sacred for explanation,
too sacred even to defend: they were simply the way things ought to be done, must be done. A spirit has not fully departed until the body is interred, he said. There are songs, and prayers … The gaoler
reprimanded
him, calling him a heathen. Tauwhare became angry. Somebody has to stay with him until the burial, he said. I will stay with him until the burial. Crosbie Wells was my friend and my brother. Crosbie Wells, the gaoler returned, was a white man, and unless a passing shadow has deceived me, certainly no brother of yours. The funeral will be on Tuesday morning; if you want to make yourself useful, you can lend a hand to the digging of his grave.