“You’re fired!” he hissed, and pointed at the exit.
He was foaming at the mouth with pleasure, like lather in a washing machine. Stupid idiot, Paul thought with a shrug. As he collected his week’s check, he simply asked who had found him out: Gibson was too dumb for that.
“A customer,” replied the woman responsible for hiring and firing, laconically.
Paul paid for the stolen books and left the office of the Kmart where he’d worked for two years.
Outside, a storm was brewing.
Hana was waiting in the parking lot, leaning on the sides of an old faded-blue Dodge, her dress floating in the wind. Paul walked toward her.
“You look older,” he said by way of preamble.
“You’re not looking too good yourself.”
“Thanks to you. I’ve just lost my job.”
She folded her arms and leaned back against the car. “Does that bother you?”
“Oh, you know . . . ”
They looked at each other for a moment, deaf to the noises of the metal shopping carts being pushed into their slots.
“What about your school?
“The kohanga reo?” Hana said. “I’ve finished the course.”
“And?
“That’s it.”
She was thinking of something else. Paul was clenching his fists deep in his pockets. Hana’s body had filled out, and her breasts strained at her summer dress, bouquets of skin bursting to celebrate their reunion.
Drip.
Drip drip.
Drip drip drip drip.
It had started raining, big tropicals drops crashing down on the asphalt, sending everyone running for shelter. Paul didn’t move. His shirt was already soaking wet.
Hana opened the door of the car. “Get in.”
The cover was missing from the steering wheel, but the rest seemed to be in working order.
“It’s strange to meet again,” he said.
“Yes.”
They left Auckland, heading north. The rain beat down on the grimy windshield, and they could barely hear each other. In a detached tone, Hana asked him how he was, but Paul dodged the question. He told her he had left Red Hill when he turned eighteen, that he had never set foot there since, that he was living in a furnished room near the center, and that he didn’t give a damn what happened to him.
She accelerated when they reached the expressway.
“Where are we going?” he yelled through the noise.
“North.”
Hana was concentrating on the road, her face masklike and unfathomable. They drove at breakneck speed on the wet asphalt. The wind howled through the half-open windows, Paul smoked cigarette after cigarette, they passed Orewa and Waiwera and Pohuehue, the ash flew in the ashtray, Hana’s hair flew in the driving compartment, the fields stretched through the valleys, there was a smell of wet grass after a storm and the smell of her skin screaming at him.
The birds pecking at the asphalt barely deigned to move out of their way. They passed Kaiwaka, somnolent in the early afternoon. A cross wind shook the car. Hana drove without a word, her long half-Maori eyes glancing sidelong at him, as if checking milk on a stove. Their reunion might turn out to be nothing more than a tempest in a teapot.
Last stop before Australia, claimed the sign outside a truck stop.
Once covered in kauri trees, the northern peninsula stretched some sixty miles, as far as Cape Reinga and its flower-decked cliffs jutting out into the Pacific.
“Have you ever been here?” Hana asked.
“No, I don’t even have a car. How about you?”
She nodded.
They drove through a pine forest, passed a few weary motels. The only people who still lived in this remote region were a handful of farmers scattered over the verdant fields and a Maori tribe, the Te Kao. With all these sheep and cows slumped beneath the giant trees, these old-fashioned fences, and these horses lazily flicking their tails at the summer air, it was like being back in the days before the coming of the telegraph. He said that to her, and she smiled—just that, no more. Leaving the blacktop, they set off along the dirt road that led to the end of the peninsula.
Cape Reinga, where the currents of the Pacific met the Sea of Tasmania, raising thick waves that crashed against the sides of the land. Out of season, tourists were scarce.
“Come,” she said simply.
They left the car and walked as far as the promontory. A strong wind struck them at the foot of the lighthouse. Hana’s dress flew over her bronzed legs, and they both bent under the weight of the sea spray, which grew stronger as they approached the precipice. Cormorants hovered awkwardly in the sky, struggling against the elements. A handful of reefs showed on the surface, like knucklebones thrown at the foot of the cliff. Hana folded her arms and stared into the foam. Sucked forward by the wind, they had neared the abyss.
