The Pregnant Pause

The only excuse that I can make is that I was young and idealistic. Well!! Perhaps naïve too. It was the early sixties. The cold war loomed large. American involvement in Vietnam, although still small, was steadily increasing and Australia and New Zealand were being reminded of their ANZUS commitments. Kruschev had just had a go at moving missiles into Cuba. There was a real fear everywhere that the Americans and the Communists would go too far in their stupid brinkmanship: that someone would push that little red button. Life in the Northern Hemisphere would be snuffed out. The Southern Hemisphere too, probably, due to the fallout or the nuclear winter that must follow.

I was introduced to the Raven Report by a workmate. It was a weekly news-letter consisting of four typewritten pages run off on a Gestetener but it seemed to make sense: to be able to tie every move made by world leaders to some end-time prophecy.

Karl Raven lived in a nearby Auckland suburb and soon I was calling him Pastor, operating the Gestetener, and pressing copies of the Report into unwilling hands at bus stops. We were, as we thought, the only true believers who would be saved while everyone else, including the main-line denominations, were destroyed.

By our reckoning, destruction could only be a few years away. Survival meant withdrawing from the world and a commune in a remote area seemed to be the obvious answer. Communes were very fashionable at the time. We would develop a self-sufficient lifestyle, weave our own cloth, grow our own food, mill our own timber and grain, and all this without electricity or petroleum fuel. These would be unavailable when civilization collapsed. Horses would do our draft work and provide transport as they had done in the former times. We just accepted that the fall-out would somehow not fall on us.

I was not alone in being so stupid. We had teachers, an accountant, even a radio announcer, but I was the only one with any farming experience and I must admit that that was rather slight. They

THE PREGNANT PAUSE Page 2 were, every single one of them, city raised. Their views of the simple country life were in most cases entirely unrealistic.

We bought adjacent properties at Tutamoe, north of Dargaville. Ever since, I’ve wondered why but, at the time, it was not something that could be questioned. We believed that were God’s people and accepted that everything that was happening was of God’s leading. HE knew exactly what HE was doing.

For Tutamoe, you go up the Kaihu Valley to Maropiu, turn right, and wind your way up into the clouds. In those days there was no tar seal. The loose metal started at the Dargaville Borough boundary.

Both properties had been walked off which was not surprising. It was difficult country and distant from any services. It had failed to support two families but now, it was expected to provide for about forty people who had sold their houses and many of their possessions to effect the purchase: people who knew nothing about living rough, nothing about farming. And we believed that it would be so. This wilderness was going to blossom.

Two families with small children shared one of the farm houses while Karl and his wife Esme had the other. The rest of us would live in caravans until the barracks were built although the Hobson County was doing its best to see that the barracks were not built. Still, the Hobson County wasn’t going to be around for much longer. We could wait.

Those among us who were already caravan owners believed that they understood what caravan- living would entail and that they could put up with it in the short term. They were thinking of a level caravan bay with its caravan plug in a camping ground, solid paths, showers, flush toilets, waste disposal, and an ample water supply.

Tutamoe meant claiming the few reasonably level parking places on a first-come basis. It meant having to carry water. Something of a shock for those who had taken it for granted that water mains

THE PREGNANT PAUSE Page 3 and sewage pipes would run past the gate. The run-off from two house roofs and the pitiful output from the unreliable hydraulic ram was totally inadequate for forty people. It was pointless installing an electric pump. Soon there wouldn’t be any electricity. It was something that we would have to get used to. So that meant long-drops, wood-fired boilers, and primitive washing facilities, and, very soon, an endless sea of mud. We converted an implement shed into a temporary communal cookhouse and meeting place.

It is one thing to associate with people on a casual basis. A very different thing to live with them in a closed community. There were several that I could not stomach and I must say that I did try hard. In particular, there was Karl’s wife. In Auckland, Esme had come across as friendly and reasonable but it quickly became apparent that that had been a front that need not be maintained after everyboy was irrevocably committed. She now showed herself to be only happy when she found something to criticise. She was a Super-Christian who set impossible standards for other people. She gained her ascendancy because the rest of us would put up with just about anything to preserve the peace. We had no where else to go.

Karl might officially be our leader but Karl was in some ways only Esme’s consort. You would be working away and Esme would come up to you and she would say, “Now there is one thing I will never do…as you know…and that’s tell a brother what to do…but!..”And then she would proceed to do exactly that. It was, supposedly, only a suggestion but, if you didn’t immediately jump at the idea, she’d stamp off with a snort and an expressive shrug of the shoulders. Minutes later Karl would be at your side suggesting the very same thing. We liked Karl, felt a bit sorry for him really. We didn’t have the heart to tell him that his authority was being compromised: that he was showing himself to be Esme’s lap-dog. We began to refer to Esme as “Mother Superior’. Behind her back of course.

She believed herself ‘careful never to criticise anyone’. It wasn’t criticising to say,

THE PREGNANT PAUSE Page 4 “Someone…Someone around here. I won’t mention any names but someone….”, and then go on to make accusations against that mysterious person who, beyond doubt, was you the one she was talking to. It was useless to protest. To protest was an attack on her. She would become extremely upset. “Did I say it was you? How could you even think such a thing? And you call yourself a Christian! Some Christian I must say! Of course…. if the cap fits.” What else could you do but put your head down and mumble?

Something similar would happen at our evening get-together. We’d have a brief devotional session, discuss the work of the day and any problems arising, even grumble a bit at times. I wasn’t the only one who was having difficulty with others and occasionally a brother or a sister would get up and publically apologise to another.

Not Esme. When she stood up, she’d say, “Someone……..Someone…..They’ll know who I’m talking about,” and, during the long pause, she would glare about the room as if daring anyone to deny the truth of what she was going to say. In the absense of names, nobody could. But there would be a number of us wondering if we were the person that she had in mind.

Our contact with the outside world was kept to a minimum, no telephone, no radio, no television. We had to get used to doing without these things. We were discouraged from keeping in touch with friends and relatives who sadly, so we believed, would not be around much longer. The break would have to be made sometime. Better right away than when the crunch came. Looking back, I think the idea was to keep us firmly locked in.

But we did take the Northland Times to keep us informed of clearing sales and stock being put up at the Mangawhare saleyards. That gave me a few trips outside as I was supposed to be the farming and stock expert. Esme had more. Sometimes her buying trips lasted for days. She’d go off in the commune’s old Commer van and simply disappear. None of us dare ask where she;d got to and I

THE PREGNANT PAUSE Page 5 imagine that Karl wasn’t game to ask either.

The Loan and Mercantile had a line of in-calf heifers for one Friday’s sale and I was sent down to look them over and buy if they were within our price range. I rode down with Esme in the van. She had some buying mission of her own. I have no idea what it was. She dropped me off at the saleyards and the arrangement was that she would pick me up again around about four o’clock.

As it happened, I didn’t buy anything. The heifers had been advertised as a choice line but I didn’t think so. I couldn’t wander off anywhere else. It would be just my luck to have Esme turn up early. To give myself something to do, I gave a hand with loading stock back onto trucks and by three o’clock everyone else had gone. The place was deserted. I sat on the railings, watched the cars go past, and waited. Four o’clock came and went and so did five and six and seven. My stomach was doing a real moan by then. I’d only had enough money for a pie and a cup of tea. That had gone at lunchtime. I couldn’t ring to find out what had happened. Even if there’d been a phone available, I still wouldn’t have known where to ring. If I moved out of sight of the yard she’d probably turn up.

By eight o’clock I was more than hungry and I’d also had enough so I walked into town. Friday night was Dargaville’s shopping and picture night in those days. There were plenty of people about but, naturally, no-one that I knew. I asked my way to the cop shop and the cops were helpful as they usually are. They gave me something to eat and let me spend the night in the lock-up.

Early the next morning, after a free breakfast, I started out walking for home. Two lifts took me to Maropiu and after that it was down to my own two feet with a climb of more than 2,000 feet ahead of me. In the following hours, not a single car came in my direction. Not one! Except that is, just before the very last corner when Esme swept past with what looked like a friendly wave. For me, that was the finish. I had been having misgivings for some time, thinking that if God was with us things should be surely going a lot better than they were. The land was heart-breaking and would take a miracle to make it otherwise. As I mentioned, our building program was stalled by

THE PREGNANT PAUSE Page 6 Hobson County by-laws. Also, I believe, by a certain amount of religious bias in the council members. We were having a running battle with the council’s Health Inspector. And our group, supposedly an example of Christian co-operation and love, was developing more than its share of back-biting and becoming more and more a matriarchy.

Most important of all, I had come to have serious doubts about Karl and his claims to be a prophet. Among his re-directed mail was a great deal of literature written by the then-current crop of self-proclaimed American Prophets. I had come to wonder, just how much of the Raven Report had really been of Karl’s originality.If Karl wasn’t a prophet, what were we all doing there?

I am sure that some of the others were having doubts too but it was not the sort of thing that you could talk about openly. It would only be taken as a scurrilous attempt to subvert the faith and cause a big fuss.For those who had sold houses, given up careers and dragged their children away from schooling, it was a little bit too late to have such doubts anyway.

I had finally decided to leave but there was something that I must do first. It was several days before I stood up at the evening meeting and said that I wished to make an apology. I addressed myself directly to Karl and told him that I had sinned….Just that…And nothing more.

I continued standing, silent, seemingly embarrassed, as if I was having difficulty facing and admitting the the enormity of what I had done. I could feel the eager expectation that this aroused. One lesson that Esme had taught me well was the value of the dramatic pause. I simply stood there and soon it became obvious that I was prepared to look anywhere in but in Esme’s direction.

I could see the idea building in the minds of those facing me, belief that my sin must involve Esme. First one person and then another would make a covert glance in her direction. Then certainty began to develop. You could almost see them working it out : putting two and two together and getting five. Esme and I had gone off a few days previously and we had both stayed away overnight. I had gone with her supposedly to buy some heifers. But, where were those heifers? And

THE PREGNANT PAUSE Page 7 this business of me arriving ten minutes after Esme and claiming I’d spent the night in the cop shop, hitched rides to Maropiu and walked the rest of the way. We must take them for idiots. Had that been the case, I’d have had a few hard words to say about Esme. As it was, I’d gone out of my way to make excuses for her. ( I must admit that I’d done that deliberately.)

So it seemed clear that Esme had dropped me off just before the last corner to make things look right. Proof positive that we had something to hide. Otherwise, we’d have simply driven in together.

It was what they wanted to believe. Saint Esme had been found wanting and they secretly rejoiced at her fall. Everyone present had suffered from her tongue at one time or another. The glances became bold stares and Esme could not but be aware of them and the convictions that drove them. She sat there rigid faced and livid. But what else could she do? She knew better than most that there is no defence against the unspoken oblique accusation. Protestation is immediately seen as being absolute proof on the grounds that the truth hurts, or rather, being found out hurts. Silence serves no better. It means that one has no defence.

I doubt if anyone was putting any of the blame on me. I would be just an innocent victim. A callow youth taken advantage of. Esme was old enough to be my mother. I’m sure that in their mind’s eye they could see us registering as Mrs Smith and son.

I was still, as it appeared, wrestling with my conscience and my audience waited in expectation. Tension was reaching explosive levels. Feet were shuffling. There were whispers. Karl placed his hand on Esme’s knee, apparently to reassure her, and that was the trigger. She leaped to her feet, screaming, and began to pummel him.

I doubt if anyone saw me leave. My duffel bag was stashed just outside the door. The night was warm, the sky was unclouded with a full moon, and the road to Maropiu was all downhill.