The Luminaries

urgent traffic in the streets, and Hokitika did not throng with its usual crowd. The few bedraggled men Balfour passed werehunched under the awnings of hotels, cupping their hands to keep their cigarettes alight. Even the horses had an air of grim surrender . They stood muzzled by the wet cones of their nosebags, unmoving in the torn muck of the road, and as he strode by they showed not even a flicker in the half-lidded slack of their eyes.
    As Balfour turned into Revell-street he met with such a lash of wind and rain that he was obliged to clamp his hat to his head with his hand. According to Saxby’s Weather Warnings, that dubious oracle published daily in the
West Coast Times
, the deluge would let up within a day or three—for Saxby was expansive in his predictions , and allowed himself a generous margin of error on either side of his guess. In truth the specifics of his column changed but rarely: downpour was as much a part of the Hokitika constitution as frost and sunburn had been in Otago, and red dust in the Victorian hills. Balfour quickened his pace, pulling his coat tighter around his body with his free hand.
    There were a dozen-odd men upon the covered veranda of the Reserve Bank, pocketed in groups of three and four. The windows behind them were fogged pearl-grey. Balfour scanned the faces, squinting through the rain, but saw nobody he recognised. A ragged plume of smoke directed his gaze downward, to a figure sitting alone: a Maori man was squatting under the eave with his back against a piling. He was smoking a cigar.
    His face was tattooed in a way that reminded Balfour of the wind patterns on a map. Two large swirls gave fullness to his cheeks, and spokes radiated upward from his brows to join his hairline . A pair of deep whorls on either side of his nostrils lent an almost prideful definition to his nose. His lips had been coloured blue. He was wearing serge trousers and an open-necked twill shirt, unbuttoned to the sternum; flat against the brown skin of his chest hung an enormous green pendant, shaped like an adze. He had almost finished his cigar, and as Balfour approached, he threw the butt into the thoroughfare, where it rolled down the camber of the road and then came to rest, still reeking, against the wet edge of the grass.
    ‘You’re that Maori fellow,’ said Balfour. ‘Crosbie Wells’s mate.’
    The man moved his eyes to Balfour’s, but did not speak.
    ‘Give us your name again? Your name.’
    ‘
Ko
Te Rau Tauwhare toku ingoa.
’
    ‘Crikey,’ Balfour said. ‘Give us just the name part.’ He held his palms close together, to signify a small amount. ‘Just the name.’
    ‘Te Rau Tauwhare.’
    ‘Can’t say that either,’ Balfour said. He shook his head. ‘Well—what do your friends call you, then—your white-man friends? What did Crosbie call you?’
    ‘Te Rau.’
    ‘Not much better, is it?’ Balfour said. ‘I’d be a fool to try, wouldn’t I? How about I call you Ted? That’s a good British name for you. Short for Theodore or Edward—you can choose. Edward’s a nice name.’
    Tauwhare did not respond.
    ‘I’m Thomas,’ Balfour said, placing his hand on his heart. ‘And you’re Ted.’ He leaned over and patted Tauwhare on the crown of his head. The man flinched, and Balfour, in surprise, quickly snatched back his hand and took a step backwards. Feeling foolish, he stuck out his leg and shoved both hands into the pockets of his vest.
    ‘Tamati,’ said Tauwhare.
    ‘Come again?’
    ‘In my tongue, your name is Tamati.’
    ‘Oh,’ Balfour said, very relieved. He took his hands out of his pockets, clapped them together, and then folded his arms. ‘You’ve got a bit of English—good!’
    ‘I have a great many English words,’ said Tauwhare. ‘I am told I speak your language very well.’
    ‘Crosbie teach you a bit of English, Ted?’
    ‘I taught
him,
’ said Tauwhare. ‘I taught
him
korero Maori! You say Thomas—I say Tamati. You say Crosbie—I say
korero mai
!’
    He grinned, showing teeth that were very white and very square. Evidently he had made a joke of some kind, and so Balfour smiled back.
    ‘Never had a head for languages,’ he said, pulling his coat tighteracross his body. ‘If it’s not English, it’s Spanish—that’s what my old dad always said. Listen, though, Ted: I’m sorry about your mate. I’m sorry about Crosbie Wells.’
    Tauwhare’s expression became sober at once. ‘
Hei
maumaharatanga ,
’ he said.
    ‘Yes,