“He was tortured before he was killed. I went to see his widow in Russell. Tukao received a tidy little backhander for the sale of the lands at Karikari Bay. Never heard of that, either?”
Pita Witkaire shook his head indifferently, still bent over the weeds.
Osborne turned toward the deserted marae. “The intertribal meeting is in two weeks’ time. Have you abandoned your cultural activities?”
“I’m retired.”
“Since when?”
“Since my wife died.”
The branches of the pine swayed over the grave, a simple marble stone with Wira’s name carved on it. For all his patriarchal airs and graces, Witkaire seemed more sad than anything else.
“What about the Maori school?” Osborne went on. “What about the hakas? Where are your dancers?”
“I told you, I’m retired. None of that is any of my business anymore.”
There was a smell of freshly cut grass, and an even stronger smell of lies.
Osborne approached the grave. “What about Hana?” he said. “She was a dancer too. Where is she?”
Witkaire looked straight at him, and his eyes were those of a man at bay. “I don’t know.”
“Impossible. She’s your granddaughter. You must know where she is.”
“I told you I don’t.”
“You’re lying. You were looking for her. too.”
With a pang in his heart, Osborne stubbed out his cigarette on the marble gravestone. Sensing danger, the old man straightened up. Osborne was standing right over him, his hands trembling.
“Where is she? Answer me!”
But Witkaire wasn’t afraid. He had become like iron. “Hana’s sick,” he said coldly. “She’s been sick for a long time. You lived near each other, you know all about that, don’t you?”
He was talking about the gang rape in the cellar. Osborne nodded, his jaw clenched.
“When she came to us after that tragedy,” Witkaire went on, “Hana was . . . ngakaukawa. A bitter heart. Her mana was in danger but my wife managed to care for her, to build her back up again. It was thanks to her that Hana was able to leave for Europe and pursue her studies. The money we gave her has nothing to do with any of this, you understand? Hana wanted to know the world of the pakehas the better to defend ours. That was what she said. And she was right. Unfortunately, her grandmother’s death changed everything.” His eyes had clouded over. “I’ve tried to take care of her, too, but I don’t have my wife’s skills.”
A shadow passed over the deserted marae. Osborne remembered Hana on the freighter after her grandmother’s funeral, the sadness and anger in her eyes. Wira had died after a long illness, but Hana had never told him what illness. But that wild gleam in her pupils must have come from somewhere.
“What did your wife die of?”
Witkaire didn’t reply, but his eyes flashed like two tracer bullets. He sighed deeply and turned toward the gravestone.
“For a Maori,” he said at last, “the earth is like a book. A book on which are written the names of the lakes, the rivers, the mountains. It’s the container of the most precious possession: all that makes up the mana, its strength and prestige. A Maori deprived of mana has no existence, no bearings, no turangawaewae, in other words no place where he can stand upright. It’s the earth that ensures the cohesion of the tribe. Without the earth that is his place to stand upright, a Maori also loses his own esteem, his pride, his identity. He loses his mana, and also his main financial resource.” In a suddenly clear voice he added, “The money they pay to compensate the Maori tribes doesn’t mean a thing, do you understand? Not a thing.”
A vibrant plea for an independent culture.
Osborne couldn’t find fault with it. The world was going to rack and ruin, but he didn’t care—he was no longer of this world. But Witkaire was sidestepping the issue.
“Is that why your wife died?” he said. “Because she had lost her land?”
“Yes,” Witkaire replied without batting an eyelid. “In losing her place of life, my wife lost her mana.”
“Just like Hana when Wira died,” Osborne went on. “It was her grandmother’s mana that kept her upright, not the land. Hana never lived there.”
Filtering through the thick branches, a ray of sunlight flooded the grave. A wave of heat rose to his face—he had just understood.
“The lands at Karikari Bay belonged to your tribe, didn’t they? Wira was an aristocrat, the senior member of the tribe, the guardian of the ancestral knowledge. When she found out that the lands of her ancestors had been sold to build a tourist complex, the grief was so great it killed her, didn’t it?”
Still Witkaire did not flinch, his jaws sealed like the grave at his feet. But tears welled in his eyes. Osborne smiled grimly—his life was passing in front of his eyes, full of stones.
“That’s why Tukao was killed,” he said, “because he handled the sale of the land at Karikari Bay. The site houses ancient Maori pas—you must know that. The lawyer was a member of your tribe but no one would tell me anything about him. Why not? Because he’s a kupapa, isn’t he? A traitor!” He was shaking.
“Tukao wasn’t a true Tainui,” Witkaire replied. “He belonged to a hapu, a subtribe.”
“Stop that bullshit,” Osborne burst out. “Tukao was tortured to death and then had a bone removed! Maoris are involved, Maoris wearing tattoos like the old followers of the cult of Hauhau!”
For the first time, Witkaire seemed surprised. “Such practices are no longer current.”
“That’s what I thought too, but then I met a guy named Tagaloa wearing mokos similar to those worn by the followers of the sect. The land at Karikari Bay houses old Maori pas which are right now being dynamited. The lawyer who set up the project wasn’t the only one to be murdered, so was the accountant for the construction company. You know that, don’t you?”
There was a gleam in the old man’s eyes. “No,” he said. “I don’t know anything. But some plots of the land you mention did in fact belong to my wife.”
Osborne gritted his teeth. That was why everyone was keeping quiet: Tukao had been a black sheep, he had arranged for the sale of lands that had belonged to the tribe for centuries, he had taken advantage of legal loopholes, the innocence of some and the greed of others, to buy the plots and combine them in one site. No one was sorry when he died, and silence was obligatory.
“Who killed Tukao?” he asked. “Zinzan Bee?”
