THE EVERLASTING MIRACLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 264, 14 July 1944, Page 26

THE EVERLASTING MIRACLE

A SHORT STORY, written for ‘The Listener"

by

RODERICK

FINLAYSON

T Tidal Creek there was a young Maori called Monday Wiremu. Like most of the other boys of his gang, Monday was a hard case. He worked no more than he could help. He spent his time, and the other fellow’s money, gambling and drinking. "Eh, goodygoody all right for the pakeha,’’ said Monday. "This Maori boy means to have a good time." Monday had a girl over Wainui way. Maggie Peka was her name. He was tather off-hand about her. She didn’t get much of his money. He fancied it smart to treat women rough, as he. put it, Young Monday Wiremu was a hard case, and folk said he would live and die the same. % x * HEN, one night, he met the devil. ‘" 'That’s what he said. The boys said he was drunk or he wouldn’t have gone home alone late at night past the old boneyard. Monday said his horse shied: at something and threw him on his head. And

there was Old Nick;all right. Old Nick said to him, "Monday Wiremu, you get to hell out of this kind of thing. Monday, you go pray to God and do folk good. Don’t you forget, Monday Wiremu." Think what you like; Monday Wiremu was a changed man after that adventure. The sight of strong drink turned him sick. He said he hardly knew one card from another, and he couldn’t remember the name of one racehorse. He just yawned at the mention of such things. He didn’t go with the gang any more. The boys laughed at him. They strutted behind him singing, "Holy, holy, Monday!" But it was no use. He didn’t seem to mind. Worst of all, he wouldn’t go to see his sweetheart, Maggie Peka, out at Wainui any more. He said he was too busy trying to do good and heal the sick. He said you can’t do good and cure the sick and run after women. Well, he cured

Turi’s cough, and he did his best for Hemi’s old brindle cow that had the cough too. "That old cow is more grateful than a woman," said Monday. All this became a bit of a nuisance for Tupara, the local tohunga, that old cureall and fortune-teller. One day when Hoppy Crummer saw Tupara going by on his piebald nag he asked him what he thought of it. : "Hallo, Two-barrel," he said. "How do you like young, Monday doing all your doctoring for you?" "You see here, Hoppy," said Tupara, "Monday don’t know a damn thing. Go round saying Jesus love you. Where the money come from, eh?" And he went off, lamming the old piebald with a willow stick. "You wait. I fix him,’ he shouted over his shoulder. \ (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) "Ha, ha!" laughed Hoppy Crummer,. "If the Parson was honest I guess he would say the same. He don’t get much Maori cash in his collection plate now. All the Maoris are hot and strong for Monday. The new prophet they call him." * * " ONDAY WIREMU said perhaps the scoffers would open their eyes wide when he walked on the water. Monday said he would walk on the water just to show all those people. He fixed it for next Sunday at the Rapids. He, chose the Rapids because he had such a lot of faith. "Peter the fisherman walked in a mighty big storm," said Monday. "So I walk across the Rapids." The Rapids were wWhere the tide ripped around a headland on the upper reaches of Tidal Creek. Even a good swimmer" might drown there. Monday couldn’t swim. It seems that he was brought up by an aunt somewhere away inland. This news upset the Parson. He said that people couldn’t let a young man drown himself, and that it would be a great sin if someone else got drowned trying to save Monday. He said that he would preach against miracles next Sunday. The boys of Monday’s old gang, though, seemed to take the affair, differently from what you would have expected. They hardly ever made a joke of Monday now. They didn’t like the pakehas slinging off about Maori prophets. "The. pakeha haven’t got one damn prophet," they said. "The pakeha keep all the prophet packed away in the Bible and he don’t like it when the Maori have the real live prophet that come out in the open and do the proper miracle in front of everyone’s eyes, eh?" ‘Monday took no notice of anyone. He went about quietly and happily. When he met any of the boys at the store he said ordinary things like "How’s your uncle?" or "How the ginger-pop to-day?" ' * * Sunday morning people began to gather on the beach above the Rapids. By mid-morning there was a big crowd there, so many in fact that it was difficult at first to find Monday Wiremu. Monday stood with a few friends away from the crowd under a clump of cabbage-trees. It gave you a bit af a shock to see him dressed so gaily. It made you think of the seriousness of the occasion. Monday wore his cream tennis trousers with a green blazer and his panama hat. He had a pink carnation in his buttonhole, and he wiped his face with a large coloured silk handkerchief. The people on the beach didn’t take much notice of him. They made a picnic of it. You would have thought that walking on the waves was an everyday event. Everywhere you looked there were squajling kiddies and goory dogs and grey-headed old men with carved pipes and carved walking-sticks. There were fat women in white blouses and black skirts or red skirts or blue skirts, with Scarves over their heads. There were wagonettes, and buggies and drays, and horses of all kinds hitched to cabbagetrees. Some families were perched in the empty-shafted wagons or buggies in (continued on next page) ~-

SHORT STORY (continued from previous page)

order to have a better view. The flash boys and the pretty girls strolled past each other on the beach, in groups, going in opposite directions. The place buzzed with gossip. Tui Tinopai said that the Parson had sent for Constable Morris to come and stop what he called "this blasphemy." Tui said Constable Morris couldn’t find anything dealing with miracles in the Police Regulations and he didn’t want to make a fool of himself, So he was watching the proceedings through _field-glasses from the top of the cliffs, said Tui. And Ripi said that the school-kids were boasting about old Tupara putting a makutu curse on Monday. They saw red fires flickefing around his place all night. They kept well away. It’s goodbye and no God-bless-you if you get on the wrong side of a tohunga.® ° Ripi said that Tupara had just sent Hoho the half-wit pedalling like mad on a bike he pinched from outside the church. Hoho disappeared in the direction of Wainui. That was where Maggie Peka lived. Mrs. ‘Tamahana wondered’ what Maggie Peka thought of Monday giving her the good-bye for this sideshow sort of business. Presently Monday and his friends came down to the edge of the water and looked out over the swift-running tide. It looked a dreadful stretch of water to try to walk upon. The tide, rushing out, swept around the foot of a sheer rocky headland. You could see the whirlpools and the choppy places and the currents that sucked under the rocky ledges. The whole place seemed dark and terrible, and not at all like the sunny open waters of the bay. Monday prayed. That quietened the gossipy buzz and focused all attention on Monday. Then he spoke to the people about Peter the fisherman who walked on the waves, and about miracles, and how everyone soon would have faith to believe. Monday’s face shone and he spoke so feelingly that you were sure that God would give such a man power to. do anything. Everyone was carried away by Monday’s eloquence. After that it all seemed to happen in a few winks of the eye. There was a scraggy pohutukawa tree leaning out over the waves at the beginning of the bluff, hanging on to the cliff by a few twisty old roots. Monday walked to this tree, took hold of the overhanging branch, and lowered himself down to the swirling water till his féet just about touched its surface. His band of followers gathered round singing a triumphant sort of hymn. It looked very funny at first to see Monday in his best clothes with his panama hat and his buttonhole letting himself down into the sea. Then you listened to the singing and you remembered that he was going to walk on the water, not fall into the water. It made all the difference. ee * % SOME swear that they saw Monday walk on the waves. Perhaps "they were right. Things like miracles happen quickly, and you’re not used to seeing such extraordinary events. But as the singing ended, in thé middle of the breathless, hush as Monday poised himself on the tops of the waves just getting his shoes wet, there (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) was a commotion at the back of the crowd. Men and women and children jumped. hastily aside, and Maggie’ Peka pedalled furiously into the group on the Parson’s bike. She jumped from the machine and it took two or three women to stop her from throwing herself over the cliff. Hearing the commotion, Monday looked up. He took a long, long look. Every detail of that scene must have printed itself deep in his memory-the girl in her old blué dress, among all the finery af the others she was bare-legged and. hatless in an old faded dress. Her hair blew wildly in the wind, her strong legs and arms and her whole strong body strained to break away from the women; to leap into the sea to be with Monday. What her eyes were like only Monday could tell. He looked straight into her eyes. Monday Wiremu had just let go of the tree, and lots of people swore that he was walking on the water. But after that one long look at Maggie he seemed to shrug his shoulders and fall right through the water. He sank like a stone Women screamed and men shouted advice to one another, children began to cry and dogs to howl. People rushed here and there. All was confusion. But scarcely had Monday gone under the water and bobbed up again than a boat manned by some of the boys of the gang shot out from the shelter of the headland, where it had been waiting for this very moment, and fished Monday out of the sea. After that everyone was emphatic that Monday had walked on the water. If it hadn’t been for that Maggie Peka hussy he would have walked right to the other side they all agreed. They couldn’t do enough for Monday. They wanted to build him a meeting-house where he could preach and cure the sick. * * * ‘Fee funny thing, tho&gh, was that Monday didn’t want to be thought a prophet after that. "No," he insisted. "No good to call me the prophet. Monday Wiremu not the good saint, just the poor bad man." What he did want was to marry Maggie Peka. And he married her. "That the miracle," he tells his friends. "How a man want to put up with a girl like this all his life-that the miracle, eh? That the everlasting miracle." Old Tupara, who listens at a distance, just winks.