Chapter 21

Aki

It was a year before I was able to get shore work again, another six months before Lani took employment on a trans-Pacific cargo ship.

Oriwia wrote to Chappy frequently. I would read the letters for him, translating from English into Māori. Although Oriwia could easily translate spoken Māori into English and write it down, she was unable to write the letters in her first language. She hadn’t been schooled in it. None of us had. We had never seen the written form of our language. If I wasn’t home, Ishy would translate the letters into Japanese. Though Chappy could speak English by then, he couldn’t read or write it. Ah, the fun we had with our languages.

They were newsy letters about the progress of their daughters, the health of Paa and the family, her work and business, the house and garden, the state of the roads, the railway and the government. I looked forward to these letters, which always ended by mentioning Chappy’s return. Chappy himself was silent on the matter.

‘Ah, love,’ said Ishy after reading one of Oriwia’s letters. ‘Love gave Chappy to me, now love will take him away to New Zealand at some far edge of the earth, just when I wanted to take him into my business.’

‘I’m not so sure that he’ll agree to go,’ I said.

On my mind was what Oriwia had said about love overriding everything (except if it came to her living in Hawai‘i). Was there more to Chappy’s silence than the belief that his presence among his family in Aotearoa would harm them?

It wasn’t the right way to ask but it seems to be the only way I know. ‘Do you still love your wife?’ I asked. There are times when Chappy can tolerate my manners, but this wasn’t one of them. He faced away from me, unmoving and silent for so long I thought he would ignore my question altogether. Did that mean he secretly wanted an end to his marriage? My stomach dropped to my feet as I thought of Oriwia, my sister; Chappy, the great love of her life.

‘Duty,’ he said, and walked away from me.

But what was I to make of his answer? It was no remedy to the fear that had settled in the empty space my gut had left behind.

‘One word, “duty”, is all I can get out of him,’ I said to Ishy. Ishy laughed, which in the mood I was in made me wish I was away at sea.

‘Ha, ha. He’s not like us cosmopolitan Japanese,’ he said. ‘No, no. Different talk. Different head.’

‘Look, he’s my brother …’

‘Your brother must look after his New Zealand father, look after his wife, look after his family, provide for them.’

‘He can do that at home.’