‘Please don’t misinterpret what I’m going to say.’ He paused and looked away. ‘I know you’re brighter than any of us, Pele, and that you’ve been brought up by your father to be honest and frank about your views …’ The more surprised she became, the more shocked she was. ‘… You are a very different and exceptional person, Pele. That is one of the reasons why I love you. But …’ He couldn’t continue, and she wasn’t going to help him. ‘But it is also the reason why I get annoyed with you.’ Looking directly at her, he said, ‘Pele, you must try not to keep making me look and feel inadequate and unintelligent in front of others.’

  ‘I don’t do that!’

  ‘See what I mean?’ he pleaded. ‘You’re angry even before you consider seriously what I’ve just said.’ He turned to leave. She held his arm.

  ‘Tavita, I’m sorry,’ she said in English.

  ‘See, every time you want to control our conversation you use English because you’re much better at it than me. Every time you use English when we’re with others you show how inadequate my English is.’

  It was incredible that he held these views about her and their relationship and had not told her before. ‘Tavita, I don’t do that — I don’t do it deliberately. It’s just the way you’re choosing to see it.’

  ‘Is there any other way for me to see it?’ he attacked. ‘That is the way most people, including many of my aiga, see it, Pele. Look at this trip. In all our negotiations and deals you’ve made Semisi and me look like idiots, in public. The ideas and plans have been yours — and you’ve said so in front of everyone. Pele, I resent your making me look less of a man in public. I resent the way you think I don’t know when you’re manipulating me to do what you want.’

  ‘So what do I do, Tavita? If I try to convey my ideas and views to you privately so you won’t look unmanly in public, you accuse me of being manipulative. When I voice my views publicly I’m again accused of that!’ He refused to answer. ‘So what do we do, Tavita? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Shit!’ he shouted in English. ‘Shit!’

  ‘Tavita, you’re the one who leads and runs our life and business. I may have the ideas but you have the qualities others respect and love. You trust people, you believe in them despite their awful failings and meanness, you’re not interested in making money for its own sake, you put the welfare and interests of our aiga and community before your own, and most precious of all …’ she started chortling. ‘… you’re insightful enough to realise that you love me and without me your life would be a misery!’ He swung around and started laughing. ‘Yeah, David, you not speak English better than me!’ she imitated his English. For once she didn’t care if people were watching as she grabbed him around the waist, hugged him and kissed him full on the mouth.

  She felt as if she were moving back into the skin she wore as the girl who’d fallen ill on Barker’s death and had been brought to Fagaloto for Lefatu to heal, as she jumped off the punt onto the beach and watched her feet imprinting themselves in the soggy sand.

  It was mid-morning and cool because the sun was hidden in cloud.

  She dawdled behind as the others hurried up the track. The pandanus leaves reflected the mellow morning light. There it was: the heady scent of ripe guava and pandanus fruit.

  She emerged from the vegetation and saw, up ahead through the rows of palms, their aiga’s fale. Tavita and the others were already seated around the main fale being served food. Lefatu’s husky laughter fondled Peleiupu’s hearing, and she tingled with happiness knowing that her aunt was alive and well. Lefatu was sitting with Iakopo sharing her foodmat. Opposite her were Lalaga and Mautu. No other elders. Ruta? Peleiupu searched again. She couldn’t see Ruta anywhere. Her feet refused to go forward. In the faleo’o were two people sitting beside someone lying in a stained mosquito net. The earth released her feet, Peleiupu started rushing to that net.

  ‘Ruta, Ruta!’ Peleiupu called, pulling up the side of the net.

  ‘I’m here, Pele!’ Ruta’s voice snatched at Peleiupu, who turned. There she was, right there outside the net. Thinner — older, much older — but beautiful, so beautiful in being alive. Her sister.

  Hugging each other, they cried and laughed and cried.

  ‘Have you two gone crazy?’ Semisi called from the faletele. ‘You sound crazy!’ The rest of their aiga laughed.

  ‘Bring us some food!’ Ruta called.

  A few minutes later as they ate, they talked and talked and talked as if they were conversing themselves into existence, into versions of themselves they’d missed over the past few years. Soon Lefatu and Lalaga joined them, and when they had finished serving the meal all the other women and girls joined them too. That night Tavita would ask her about what they, the women, had talked so animatedly, and she wouldn’t be able to recollect any details of it, but she’d never forget the intimate, blood-warm, renewing, reaffirming sound and feel of it all.

  Later that day Ruta took her through the village, telling her that twenty-six aiga members had died in the epidemic, and only about two-fifths of Fagaloto’s population had survived.

  Fagaloto looked and felt more alive than the other villages they had visited, with people repairing their homes, weeding their gardens, penning their pigs, cutting and burning the grass on the malae, and cleaning their church and communal pool. People smiled and greeted them as they walked through. Ruta attributed Fagaloto’s rapid recovery to Lefatu’s persistent, indomitable leadership after the leading matai had died.

  The only store, owned by a German firm, had closed down. Most of the family who ran it were dead, Ruta informed Peleiupu, who knew it wouldn’t reopen because all German businesses had been closed down by the New Zealand administration. Ruta agreed with Peleiupu to persuade Lefatu to let her build a store.

  On their return they found Mautu and Iakopo weeding around the faletele. Peleiupu cautioned their father about the heat, but he grinned and told them he was fitter than ever. ‘Here, I’m at peace,’ he added.

  ‘May we go to the pool later?’ Iakopo asked.

  ‘Yes, but only after we’ve weeded right around the fale. And if your mother and her sister help us, we’ll get it done quickly.’

  ‘Come on then, Mama and Ruta!’ Iakopo ordered.

  ‘What do we get out of it?’ Ruta asked. Iakopo glanced at his grandfather.

  ‘A visit to a secret and sacred place,’ Mautu replied. ‘I’m not saying any more until you two help us.’

  Within a silent, quick half hour they’d done the weeding and Iakopo was complaining about having to pile the weeds into his baskets and empty them into the sea.

  Because of the heat most people had retreated into their fale. Iakopo fetched Mautu’s bright red umbrella and sheltering him with it they went to the pool. A few young people were standing in the water, talking. They acknowledged them. Mautu washed his hands, face and head and retreated into the small poolside fale.

  Iakopo followed his mother up the bank and laughed as he pushed her into the water, and then dived in after her. Ruta lowered herself into the water. ‘Since we’ve been here, I’ve taken Iakopo to see all the important places of my childhood,’ Mautu said. ‘Lefatu has probably told Ruta about them already …’ As he talked Peleiupu floated, letting the cool grip of the water relax her. ‘Every place is made up of many layers of maps: physical maps imposed by different periods of settlement; historical maps of those people and periods; story maps; music and song maps; maps of suffering and joy and inspiration. My father knew most of the maps that are Fagaloto, and he told us about them …’ Peleiupu drifted into herself. ‘… Fagaloto is a small and unimportant place. But if you know its maps, it becomes a profound and complex place, a home in the present that contains all that was before. It is everything that was, is and will move with us until we die and we take different forms that will continue moving with the present …’

  Peleiupu told Iakopo it was time to leave the pool. He rushed up to the bank, did another dive and skimmed past her. ‘Nobody’s been listening to me!’ Mautu complained.

  ‘You know that’s not true, Papa!’ Ruta replied. She came out of the water, put up his umbrella and handed it to him. ‘Let’s go home and you can rest.’

  ‘Then you can take us to that place, Papa,’ Iakopo reminded him.

  ‘Don’t you ever forget anything?’ Mautu joked, tossing his grandson the towel.

  As they strolled home, with Mautu in the middle under his red umbrella, they took turns drying themselves with the one towel. ‘So you see,’ Mautu continued from where he’d left off at the pool, ‘this walk is a walk over, through and with all that was and still is.’

  ‘That’s too complicated an explanation of reality for me, Papa,’ Peleiupu teased him. ‘I run away from history and all those other maps.’

  ‘Yes, you confine yourself to the present, trading with it!’ Ruta parodied. Peleiupu was hurt by the truth of it. Since living in Fagaloto, Ruta had stripped away all but the essential about herself and her life. Whenever Peleiupu heaped gifts and material possessions on her she gave them away. An attentive listener who talked only when she had to, Ruta moved unelaborately, without embellishments or unnecessary gestures. ‘Papa, reality is one humorous story, isn’t it? A story about the Va-nimonimo giving birth to the Rocks and the Rocks mating with the Sea and begetting the …’ Ruta continued.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Iakopo complained.

  Mautu started guffawing. ‘Yes, nothing as real as the hungry belly!’ Peleiupu and Ruta laughed. Iakopo looked puzzled.

  ‘Or death, which nearly swallowed up all of us,’ Ruta whispered to Peleiupu. Before they entered the fale Lalaga chastised Mautu for keeping Iakopo out in the heat. She handed Iakopo a clean ie lavalava and told him to hurry up out of the sun. ‘What about me?’ Mautu complained. ‘He can take the sun, he’s young. My carcass can’t!’

  ‘You have a hide as thick as a buffalo’s!’ she replied.

  ‘What do you know about buffaloes?’ he quipped. She tossed him a dry ie lavalava and singlet.

  ‘When are we going?’ Iakopo asked him.

  ‘Going where?’ Lalaga asked.

  ‘Just to get some pineapples from Ruta’s plantation,’ Iakopo lied. Mautu had sworn them to secrecy.

  ‘You can come too, Lalaga,’ Mautu invited her. Peleiupu was surprised by that, but was glad her mother was to be included in what she anticipated was going to be a complex revelation.

  Peleiupu and Ruta went to the other end of the fale and changed. ‘What do you think he’s talking about?’ Peleiupu asked Ruta.

  ‘I don’t know. I know most of the maps he’s talking about. Lefatu has taught them to me. So I’m really curious, too.’

  Peleiupu was surprised when, instead of heading into the plantations and the rugged interior, Mautu started across the malae towards the eastern end of the village. The sun was still hidden behind the range, which was casting its shadow over the village. The track felt wet and gritty under her bare feet. Only a few chickens and pigs were about. Most fale were hunched in sleep, still. Past the church, Mautu turned to the track that led along the seashore, his right hand on Iakopo’s shoulder.

  Ruta and Peleiupu walked on either side of their mother. Peleiupu could tell from the spring in her mother’s step that she was excited too. It was getting hot already, so she was relieved they were not going into the bush. The slight breeze wafting in from the sea smelt faintly of decaying coral and fresh salt, and she could tell from the feeling in her bones that the tide was coming in.

  At the last fale, deserted since the epidemic and now collapsing around its centre post, Mautu turned left and took the track over lava into thick vegetation and Totoume Peninsula. Ruta and Lalaga hesitated. Peleiupu wanted to ask but didn’t. She couldn’t remember much about that time Lefatu had taken her and her sisters into the peninsula: most strongly she recalled the feeling of solemnity laced with fear, and Lefatu walking as if she hadn’t wanted to damage the ground she was walking on.

  The peninsula, made up of massive lava outcrops, was now covered with thick bush and tangled undergrowth. No one had ever been allowed to cut any of it. ‘Why is he taking us there?’ Lalaga asked.

  Ruta, who obviously knew the track well, entered it and the bush and, as she led, pushed aside the branches and shrubs, making it easier for their parents. It was dank and dark and thick with the smell of decaying leaves and vegetation. Soon they were wet from the dew, and Peleiupu’s ie lavalava felt like a second skin. Around them sounded the cooing of pigeons and the cries of manutagi, miti and segasegamo’u. Peleiupu peered up into the tangled canopy and glimpsed some of the birds.

  The track got steeper, more broken and strewn with boulders and rocks. Peleiupu started panting audibly, and envied Ruta and her mother who were fit, unflustered, unbothered by the steepness and difficulty of navigating boulders, rocks and gigantic tree roots. As they climbed, Peleiupu looked back, glimpsing the sea and the edge of the seashore. The tide was well in.

  At the top of the rise she leaned against the side of the trunk of a gigantic tamanu tree and sucked in air. ‘You all right?’ Ruta asked. Peleiupu nodded and noticed that Mautu and Iakopo had disappeared down the other side, which was free of trees and undergrowth. Palm trees had replaced the other vegetation.

  Peleiupu followed Ruta and Lalaga down the slope, holding on to shrubs and rocks to stop her from slipping.

  The palms thickened into a large grove where the air was dark and cool and hurt their lungs as they breathed it in. Then they were in the centre of the grove, a circular clearing with seven flat boulders spaced around its circumference. The floor of the clearing was covered with shredded white coral, black river pebbles and broken shells. Ahead on the centre boulder was seated Mautu, on the next boulder to his right, Iakopo. Niuafei, centre of the Atua Fatutapu, Peleiupu remembered. And she was suddenly tense, heart beating faster. She glanced at her mother who was obviously feeling the same.

  Ruta walked into the clearing, her feet clicking over the loose covering. She stopped at the centre, turned and beckoned them to enter. Because Ruta looked so secure and safe, Peleiupu accepted her invitation and went to her. Lalaga followed. Walled in by palm trees, Peleiupu felt as if she were in the calm eye of a whirlpool.

  ‘You’ve looked after it well,’ Mautu congratulated Ruta who sat down on the boulder to his left.

  ‘It is easy to do because most of our people dare not come here,’ Ruta explained. Lalaga sat down beside Iakopo. Mautu patted the place beside him on his boulder. Peleiupu took that.

  ‘Ruta knows everything — well, almost everything — about Niuafei,’ Mautu said. ‘And I’ve spent this week telling Iakopo about it.’ He paused. ‘But there’s an important part of it that I’ve never revealed to any of you. Lefatu and I were sworn to secrecy by our mother and our father’s sister.’ He rose awkwardly to his feet. Pointing his walking stick at the lava outcrops under the towering trees at the eastern edge of the clearing, he moved off towards them.

  The rays of the morning sun penetrated the vegetation and armoured him with a white luminosity. ‘Come on!’ he called. Ruta followed him. As Peleiupu followed, she found her son almost hugging her side. Lalaga stayed close to him.

  At the clearing’s edge Mautu pushed his walking stick into the thick undergrowth and pushed some of it aside. Ruta wrenched the branches off, revealing a narrow coral-covered path up to and through the outcrops. As Peleiupu entered, the cloying smell of decaying vegetation and damp earth clogged her nostrils. Moths and gnats scattered into the air as they moved deeper into shadow and the long, sad, watching silence.

  The path ended twenty paces in. Mautu stopped and pointed up into the gap between the lava outcrops. Ruta clambered up over the rocks and tangled tree roots, and stood between the outcrops. ‘Move forward four more paces,’ Mautu instructed her. She did so and was in the middle of the outcrops. She stretched out her arms and touched both sides. ‘What are you standing on?’

  She squatted down and, with both hands, dug up the loose surface. ‘Soil and loose pebbles and coral,’ she replied.

  ‘Dig further down,’ he called. Iakopo broke from Peleiupu’s side and, scrambling up to Ruta, dug with her. Ruta and Iakopo held up handfuls of shattered coral. ‘That is the place!’ he declared.

  Peleiupu joined Ruta and Iakopo and examined the floor between the outcrops. Just under the rich layer of decaying leaves and soil was a thick layer of coral turned bone-white by the rain leaching down through it. Lalaga joined them and helped clear off the covering until the whole coral layer was exposed to the brightening light.

  When Peleiupu looked down at her father, he was gazing up at them, with tears streaming down his face. ‘That is where he is buried,’ he announced. Peleiupu didn’t understand. ‘My father, Tuifolau Molimau, is buried there. Has Lefatu ever told you that, Ruta?’ She shook her head. Peleiupu stepped off her grandfather’s grave.

  ‘But what about the grave with the other aiga graves by the faletele?’ Lalaga asked.

  ‘My mother’s grave there is genuine, but my father is buried here. He made my mother and his sister Folofa’i promise to bury him here overlooking the centre of Niuafei.’

  They came down and sat around him. Ruta wiped away his tears. ‘They buried a coffin packed with sacks of sand beside the fale,’ he confessed. ‘My mother and Folofa’i took out his body at night when everyone was asleep, and hid it away until after his coffin was mourned and buried. Then, at night, they brought him here. They kept it a secret even from me — until the night before I went away to Salua to study for the ministry. Because I was ashamed of our pagan heritage, I didn’t tell anyone about it until now. I was also afraid of what would happen to me if I broke my promise to my mother.’ Lalaga edged closer to him. ‘I’m glad they buried him here, in the heart of our aiga of master navigators and Fatutapu. I’m glad.’

  ‘You’ve come home at last, Papa,’ Ruta consoled him.

  Lalaga held his arm. ‘We’ve all come home,’ she said. ‘I’ve been so condemning, Mautu, of the so-called pagan past of our people.’