The Wives of Henry Oades (14 page)

“…But I’d move mountains to make you and Gertrude happy.”

“You don’t mean it,” she said. But she knew that he did.

“I do.”

“We barely know each other.”

He stroked Gertrude’s bald head. “I feel as though we do,” he said.

She liked him fine, gentle as he was, and she trusted him. But that was not saying she was even remotely in love with him. He couldn’t suppose that she was. Though what did love mean or matter at this stage, anyway? Just a bunch of heart-fluttery nonsense. She was hot and confused, on the verge of yet more useless tears. What else in God’s name was she to do?

His cheeks were flushed, his look hopeful. “Will you give it thought, madam?”

She whispered “yes,” glancing toward the stairs. The house was full of busybodies, the queen of whom, with her razor-sharp voice, was salty Mrs. Osgood herself.

Mr. Oades returned sleepy Gertrude to her arms. He stood, taking his hat and coat from the tree. “Will you send word? Either way?”

“Of course, Mr. Oades.”

They shook hands at the door, both smiling shyly.

That evening before bed she took it up with Francis, who rested inside his ornate jar on top of the chest of drawers. She swore he’d remain first in her heart always.

She married Mr. Oades the following week and moved to his farm, where a brand-new crib and highchair were waiting for Gertrude. It was a good-size house, with a spare room slated to become her sewing room. There was a garden, and a girl to help with the chores and the baby. Nancy found contentment eventually, and when she did, she took her new husband’s advice and didn’t despair.

North Island
1895

C
ANNIBALS
, every last one of them, the women no exception.”

The hyperbolic Mr. Wylie from Surrey, a man who shoe-blacked his whiskers, had claimed it of the Maori. Three years into their captivity, Margaret Oades still recalled his bluster.

They’d been in the social room after services. “The savage have a name for a human roast,” he’d said, lowering his voice to a stage whisper. “Long pig, they call it.”

“Ah, go on,” said someone else. “That was then.”

“They’ve come to know the Lord since,” said another.

“Not all of them,” Mr. Wylie said.

John had piped up. “Do they boil people alive, sir?”

Henry and Margaret had shushed him. Such an imagination, they murmured to each other. Such a brilliant curiosity. He gets it from you.

No, he most definitely gets it from
you
, Henry.

Later, alone with Henry, she’d asked, “There’s no truth to it, is there?”

Henry laughed. “Not to worry. You haven’t enough meat to make a decent roast.”

Heading toward the latrine pits this afternoon, Margaret thought about that silly conversation, imposing upon it meaning, a sign that her husband would be coming for them soon. He began, not for the first time, turning up everywhere.

That same night he appeared dressed in a set of old drawers, the set she’d mended the day they were taken. He sat at the edge of her sleeping mat and spoke in his normal tone, engaging her in an ordinary conversation. Her roses were doing splendidly, he distinctly said, but sorry to say the gardenias were on the small and shriveled side.

Two mornings later, while tending the crops, Margaret heard him calling her name. She took a demented half moment to mourn her appearance before charging across the field in the direction of his voice. Josephine, hoeing thirty feet away, called to her. “Mum!” The old humpbacked woman stepped into her path, wooden spade raised like a spear.
“Kaati!”
Stay. Motes of vivid green light danced in Margaret’s vision. She ducked to the side, with a laugh in her throat. Two of the nimble young ones were on her in the next instant, wrestling her back to work.

The hopelessness would set in soon enough, a long episode of it typically, followed by some semblance of acceptance, followed by more hopelessness, followed by yet another bout of arbitrary euphoria. Margaret recognized the periodic madness for what it was. She only regretted her ability to sustain it.

S
HE’D
KNOWN
Maori people in Wellington—not intimately, but well enough to discern profound differences between their tribes now. Several Maori families had attended church. One man in particular stood out in her memory. He sang in the choir, an angelic tenor, incapable, seemingly, of murder and enslavement.

Their captors were not Christians. The people were governed by various gods and by the promise of
Reinga
, a heavenly reward of a sort. Of tantamount importance were their
tapus—
taboos, more or less. All conduct was regulated by one
tapu
or another.

One cardinal
tapu
concerned property. A man’s belongings, particularly a chieftain’s belongings—his tools, his weapons, even the basket that held his food—were
tapu.
To come in contact with his personal property was to interfere with his
mana
and the
mana
of his family.
Mana
, as Margaret came to understand it, was a rather ethereal quality, critical to one’s success and happiness, but not to be depended upon. One might lose one’s
mana
, or be deserted by one’s
mana
, as she once observed.

When two sons of a young warrior died within days of each other, it was said that the man’s
mana
, his good fortune, had deserted him. The villagers were then free to pillage his house, which they did, taking everything of value, leaving him with a food basket and two sleeping mats.

To speak to certain people at critical times was also
tapu.
Not even his wife spoke to a man while he was having his facial tattoo, his
moko
, chiseled. Margaret never witnessed the actual surgery, but she’d glimpsed the crusty scabs often enough. The majority looked in need of a sugar tit afterward, or their mum’s own.

The
moko
was done in stages, the procedure beginning as boy turned to man, and taking years to complete. The forehead was carved first, the cheeks last. The pattern applied to the cheeks was unique to the individual. It became his family crest in a manner of speaking. The same pattern was then carved on his doorpost with great ceremony.

Margaret and the children were never in any danger of breaking the speaking
tapu
, for at no time did they speak first. As slaves, they were the lowest of the low. Margaret made the mistake of straying too close to the burial ground once and was chastised, but that was the worst of it to date. She might have been whipped that time if not for a Maori child with an old woman’s face. The wizened girl yanked on Margaret’s skirt in warning, shaking a fist and stamping her feet. The small theatrics made the girl
tapu
, though she did not remain so for long. She was absolved in a cleansing rite down by the river. Margaret did not understand it all fully, any more than she understood the quid pro quo of her own faith. One takes communion every single Sunday for thirty-odd years. One humbles herself, embraces every last dogmatic note, and no good comes of it, no help when one needs it most. That is not to say she did not continue to pray. She prayed constantly, babbling both to God and Henry.
Please come today.
The fervency might vary depending on the degree of desperation, but the words did not. She breathed the selfsame mantra all day, every day, never once letting up.
Please come today.

Escape was constantly on Margaret’s mind in the beginning. About a month into their captivity she discovered a rotting spot in the wooden fence surrounding the settlement. She quickly jabbed her fist while backs were turned, creating a hole, a thrilling accomplishment. Some days later, she buried a sharp digging stone close by, to be used when the time came. She inspected the hole every chance. Weeks went by without repair, telling her the damage had gone unnoticed. She’d been about to take John into her confidence when a slave boy was caught and killed.

The child could not have been more than twelve or thirteen. He lived with other Maori slaves, relatives, Margaret surmised, given the ardent degree of their mourning. The boy had attempted to scale the wall and was brought down with a greenstone
mere
, the simplest and deadliest of hand weapons. Margaret remained prepared to move swiftly, to gather the children and rush toward their rescuers, but only in her most delirious moments did she contemplate escape on their own after that—the risk was too great.

The days ran together. She and the children toiled hard and long, though no harder or longer than anyone else. Even the chief’s wives did their share. Except for the gravely ill, all souls worked, even the ancient.

She rose before dawn every day to help with the fire and the cooking of the morning meal. Normally there was plenty to eat. The tribe grew potatoes and
kumara
, a tasty enough sweet potato. There were eel and fish, delicious perch, which were dried and eaten with the fingers. The clams and mussels were eaten raw, though not by Margaret and her children after the first day or two. The Maori ate the shellfish putrid, until they were gone, with seemingly no ill effect. They also made cakes, horrible little indigestible lumps extracted from fern root. And there was an abundance of wild pig, so much, too much, pig.

She thought it cruel the sneaky way the men went about the pig hunt, starting out after dark. They set fires, smoking the resting pigs from thickets and caves, falling upon the startled animals with spears. Mind, these were not the familiar docile farm creatures, but hideous beasts, grotesque beyond imagination, particularly the boars with their deadly tusks. Margaret and Josephine were regularly assigned the task of preparing the roasting pit. A solid day of digging was required for a monster so large, another three to lay the stones and cook it properly.

John was eventually made to go on the hunt. He was nearly thirteen the first time, a man by tribal standards. He stayed out all night, returning the next morning with a limp, stinking of sour swine, filthy with wet blood and gore—the pig’s, John claimed, not his own. Margaret went straight to work washing him, picking coagulated matter from his hair and lashes.

“What were you made to do, precisely?”

“Run ahead of the pigs,” he said.

Goddamn them all to eternal hell for using her child as bait. A miracle brought him back alive. The blasted tribesmen had not allowed him to carry so much as a knife. “Turn your head, please.”

John calmly complied. As if dried viscera in his ears were an everyday event. “The sky was spectacular,” he said. “Before the fires were lit. In all my days I’ve never seen Betelgeuse as bright.”

“
All
your days indeed.”

He laughed, full of a peculiar energy. “The pigs go mad once the fires are started,” he said. “They come in a stampede all at once, making a shrieking racket. Some ran straight into the flames. The sows with their piglets, that’s who you have to look out for. They scream like women. You’ve never heard anything like it. I’d sooner take my chances with a boar. The men eat the liver, did you know? They slash open the pig’s belly and eat the steaming liver then and there.” John jerked, twisting his head. “You’re hurting me, Mum.”

“Sorry.” Margaret’s hands cramped with rage. “Were you made to eat some as well?”

“I wasn’t offered. They said I ran well, though. My
pakeha
legs are worthy.”

“Don’t tell me any more now, please. Lean forward so I might get at your neck.”

He was made to go time and time again. Margaret never became used to it.

A
T NIGHT
, weary as she was, Margaret faithfully schooled John, Josephine, Mim’s son Oscar, and, after a time, Martha. They were living together now, sharing a hut with four other slaves, scheming female Maori from a South Island tribe, newly arrived. John had an obvious favorite among them, a shy adolescent he nicknamed “Beadie,” because of her eyes Margaret supposed, but didn’t know for certain.

The three older women plotted and gossiped while she conducted class. They picked constantly at their nostrils, teeth, and toes. Margaret didn’t care a straw about them. At worst they were like mosquitoes, the very least of her problems.

The younger children enjoyed the stories, Aesop’s especially. Ironically, Oscar Bell’s favorite was
The Kid and the Wolf
, the story about a goat who is pursued by a hungry wolf. The goat tricks the wolf into playing his pipes, which attracts the hounds, who chase off the wolf. The tale taught how to outwit a formidable enemy, how to be clever in times of peril. But Oscar was only interested in a wolf playing pipes.

“Does the wolf stand on his hind legs to play?” he asked.

“I would think,” said Margaret, petting him.

“What sort of tune do you suppose he plays, Mum?”

He’d begun calling her “Mum” six months into their captivity. He never mentioned Mim anymore. Poor slow babe. Named for Mr. Wilde, no less. How unlike his quick-witted mother he was.

The stories came last, after French and English grammar, after sums and letters practiced in the dirt with a stick, and after etiquette, the curriculum of which would vary. They might practice the manipulation of knife and fork (employing a smaller stick) one night, street deportment the next. They could not stand without bending due to the low ceiling. Margaret had them playact while seated.

“Fancy yourselves strolling along a fashionable London street.”

They protested in English or French, shifting their eyes toward the chirruping, spitting Maori women huddled just a few feet away. The women often amused themselves by mimicking Margaret’s gestures, mocking the children, snickering away. Margaret kept them at it regardless, as pointless and mortifying as it may have struck John and Josephine.