The Whale Rider Page 17

Nobody saw her slip away and enter the water. Nobody knew at all until she was halfway through the waves. Then the headlights and spotlights from the cars along the beach picked up her white dress and that little head bobbing up and down in the waves. As soon as I saw her, I knew it was Kahu.

‘Hey!’ I yelled. I pointed through the driving rain. Other spotlights began to catch her. In that white dress and white ribboned pigtails she was like a small puppy, trying to keep its head up. A wave would crash over her but somehow she would appear on the other side, gasping wide-eyed, and doing what looked like a cross between a dog-paddle and a breaststroke.

Instantly I ran through the waves. People said I acted like a maniac. I plunged into the sea.

If the whale lives, we live. These were the only words Kahu could think of.

We have lost our way of talking to whales.

The water was freezing, but not to worry. The waves were huge, but she could do this. The rain was like spears, but she could do this.

Every now and then she had to take a deep breath because sometimes the waves were like dumpers, slamming her down to the sandy bottom, but somehow she bobbed right back up like a cork. Now, the trouble was that the lights from the beach were dazzling her eyes, making it hard to see where she was going. Her neck was hurting with the constant looking up, but there, there, was the whale with the tattoo. She dog-paddled purposefully towards it. A wave smashed into her and she swallowed more sea water. She began to cough and tread water. Then she set her face with determination. As she approached the whale, she suddenly remembered what she should do.

‘That damn kid,’ I swore as I leapt into the surf. For one thing I was no hero and for another I was frightened by the heavy seas. Bathtubs were really the closest I ever liked to get to water and at least in a bath the water was hot. This wasn’t. It was cold enough to freeze a person. I knew, because I’d only just before been in it.

But I had to admire the kid. She’d always been pretty fearless. Now, here she was, swimming towards the whale. I wondered what on earth she expected to do.

I saw Porourangi running after Koro Apirana and Nanny Flowers to bring them back. Then the strangest thing happened. I heard Kahu’s high treble voice shouting something to the sea. She was singing to the whale. Telling it to acknowledge her coming.

‘Karanga mai, karanga mai, karanga mai.’ She raised her head and began to call to the whale.

The wind snatched at her words and flung them with the foam to smash in the wind.

Kahu tried again. ‘Oh sacred ancestor,’ she called. ‘I am coming to you. I am Kahu. Ko Kahutia Te Rangi ahau.’

The headlights and spotlights were dazzling upon the whale. It may have been the sudden light, or a cross-current, but the eye of the whale seemed to flicker. Then the whale appeared to be looking at the young girl swimming.

Ko Kahutia Te Rangi?

‘Kahu!’ I could hear Nanny Flowers screaming in the wind.

My boots were dragging me down. I had to stop and reach under to take them off. I lost valuable time, but better that than drown. The boots fell away into the broiling currents.

I looked up. I tried to see where Kahu was. The waves lifted me up and down.

‘Kahu, no,’ I cried.

She had reached the whale and was hanging onto its jaw. ‘Greetings, ancient one,’ Kahu said as she clung onto the whale’s jaw. ‘Greetings.’ She patted the whale and looking into its eye, said, ‘I have come to you.’

The swell lifted her up and propelled her away from the head of the whale. She choked with the water and tried to dog-paddle back to the whale’s eye.

‘Help me,’ she cried. ‘Ko Kahutia Te Rangi au. Ko Paikea.’

The whale shuddered at the words.

Ko Paikea?

By chance, Kahu felt the whale’s forward fin. Her fingers tightened quickly around it. She held on for dear life.

And the whale felt a surge of gladness which, as it mounted, became ripples of ecstasy, ever increasing. He began to communicate his joy to all parts of his body.

Out beyond the breakwater the herd suddenly became alert. With hope rising, they began to sing their encouragement to their leader.

‘Kahu, no,’ I cried again. I panicked and I lost sight of her, and I thought that she had been swept into the whale’s huge mouth. I was almost sick thinking about it, but then I remembered that Jonah had lived on in the belly of his whale. So, if necessary,
I would just have to go down this whale’s throat and pull Kahu right out. No whale was going to swallow our Kahu and get away with it.

The swell lifted me up again. With relief I saw that Kahu was okay. She was hanging onto the whale’s forward fin. For a moment I thought my imagination was playing tricks. Earlier, the whale had been lying on its left side. But now it was righting itself, rolling so that it was lying on its stomach.

Then I felt afraid that in the rolling Kahu would get squashed. No, she was still hanging onto the fin. I was really frightened though, because in the rolling Kahu had been lifted clear of the water and was now dangling on the side of the whale, like a small white ribbon.

The elderly female whales skirled their happiness through the sea. They listened as the pulsing strength of their leader manifested itself in stronger and stronger whalesong. They crooned tenderness back to him and then throbbed a communication to the younger males to assist their leader. The males arranged themselves in arrow formation to spear through the raging surf.

‘Greetings, sacred whale,’ Kahu whispered. She was cold and exhausted. She pressed her cheek to the whale’s side and kissed it. The skin felt like very smooth, slippery rubber.

Without really thinking about it, Kahu began to stroke the whale just behind the fin. It is my lord, the whale rider. She felt a tremor in the whale and a rippling under the skin. Suddenly she saw that indentations like footholds and handholds were appearing before her. She tested the footholds and they were firm. Although the wind was blowing fiercely she stepped away from the sheltering fin and began to climb. As she did so, she caught a sudden glimpse of her Koro Apirana and Nanny Flowers clustered with the others on the faraway beach.

I was too late. I saw Kahu climbing the side of the whale. A great wave bore me away from her. I yelled out to her, a despairing cry.

Kahu could climb no further. It is my lord, Kahutia Te Rangi. She saw the rippling skin of the whale forming a saddle with fleshy stirrups for her feet and pommels to grasp. She wiped her eyes and smoothed down her hair as she settled herself astride the whale. She heard a cry, like a moan in the wind.

I saw black shapes barrelling through the breakers. Just my luck, I thought. If I don’t drown I’ll get eaten.

Then I saw that the shapes were smaller whales of the herd, coming to assist their leader.

The searchlights were playing on Kahu astride the whale. She looked so small, so defenceless.

Quietly, Kahu began to weep. She wept because she was frightened. She wept because Paka would die if the whale died. She wept because she was lonely. She wept because she loved her baby sister and her father and Ana. She wept because Nanny Flowers wouldn’t have anyone to help her in the vegetable garden. She wept because Koro Apirana didn’t love her. And she also wept because she didn’t know what dying was like.

Then, screwing up her courage, she started to kick the whale as if it was a horse.

‘Let us go now,’ she shrilled.

The whale began to rise in the water.

‘Let us return to the sea,’ she cried.

Slowly, the whale began to turn to the open sea. Yes, my lord. As it did so, the younger whales came to push their leader into deeper water.

‘Let the people live,’ she ordered.

Together, the ancient whale and its escort began to swim into the deep ocean.

She was going, our Kahu. She was going into the deep ocean. I could hear her small piping voice in the darkness as she left us.

She was going with the whales into the sea and the rain. She was a small figure in a white dress, kicking at the whale as if it was a horse, her braids swinging in the rain. Then she was gone and we were left behind.

Ko Paikea, ko Paikea.