Transit of Venus by Rowan Metcalfe

Author:Rowan Metcalfe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Huia (NZ) Ltd

In my own dreams the white men were walking and talking. Their mysterious, measured voices told me things that I understood, but could not remember or translate when I woke. There was one, clothed in a robe of black which reached the ground, who always beckoned me to follow, and led me between long walls, turning now and then to encourage me on. To either side there were doorways which he opened, just as Mai had described to me, onto enclosed rooms, and in the rooms there was every type of toy and tool of the Popa’a, so many things that there would have been no room for anyone to stand. He explained everything in an unknown language as we went, opening door after door, until the last one. Behind that one was none other than Mai, standing wide armed, eyes staring, as when he had demonstrated the sacrifice of the white god’s son, nailed to a wooden cross. The door closed again. My guide had vanished.

There were other dream men whose behaviour was less mysterious, who pressed themselves against me, I against them, feeling their bodies beneath their strange clothes, they mine. How frustrated and disappointed I was when I awoke, grasping at nothing.

During the afternoons, while we oiled and perfumed ourselves for the evening, plucked the hairs from our bodies (that endless task), combed and arranged our hair, chose our decorations, I would be imagining the attentions of a white man. Many of the young ra’atira with whom we danced and flirted in the evenings would make suggestions to me. Sometimes I responded, if there was one who appealed to me, but often they had to accept my refusal. Other girls became attached to particular young men with whom they shared all the games of love. There was constant gossip and laughter about the men, all their attractions and defects were discussed, their skills as lovers compared in detail.

‘What about you, Mauatua?’ someone would turn to me and ask.

‘It is only a moment’s pleasure,’ I would reply, and this always caused so much merriment that sooner or later someone would ask me again. ‘You should ask him to go longer,’ someone would soon suggest.

‘You must be doing something wrong.’

Then the advice would begin to flow.

‘Grip firmly his testicles’

‘Seize hold of it and pull away before he comes.’

‘Make him drink nono juice.’

‘My lover has no need of such assistance,’ I assured them.

But speculation was a favourite pastime. First it must be the cookhouse servant, Tasted in Darkness. Then a visiting chief who had four wives with him. Next an old widower who, toothless as he was, was yet famous for enticing young girls to his sleeping mat.

Often I longed for Teraura’s tacit complicity. I dreamed of her too. Showers of printed white leaves fell around her as she held up a child with shining pale skin and curls the colour of turmeric dye. As she turned away he stared back over his shoulder at me. A man would take

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