Sinclair’s vision of bright watery Auckland also takes in the wonders of his garden, where he grows ‘guavas, feijoas, Chinese gooseberries, tamarillos, passionfruit, chokos, zucchinis, green peppers, aubergines, lemons, apples, cape gooseberries, tomatoes, peaches, nectarines, apples, sweetcorn, not to mention radishes and ordinary salad vegetables’. Not to mention he is so carried away with his abundance that he lists apples twice. And thus: ‘This is the first thing about Auckland. Life here is lavish. Nature is kind.’
But the authentic Auckland experience is also semi-industrial Stoddard Road and black Stoddard Creek. Zeb Mohammed, the sombre Pakistani proprietor of Khyber Foods and Spices, strolled behind his Stoddard Road shop to feed the ducks. He threw slices of white bread into the creek. ‘Quack,’ said the wretched fowl. Just then the roller doors of his store clattered open, revealing an indignant African wearing a purple smock and holding a sharp halal knife. A cloud of thick toxic smoke rose from a business three doors down – a petrol and diesel importer. ‘That’s not right,’ the African said. Zeb looked at the smoke, and watched it die down. He said, ‘It’s under control now.’
The meat counter at Khyber offers ox tongue and lamb’s feet; the shelves offer Babaji milk toast, Tuc salted biscuits, Al-Rabih fava beans, Priya green chilli pickle, Thums Up cola, and CTC tea. You couldn’t get liquor anywhere on Stoddard Road but you could get anything else your pure body desired. Next door to Khyber, on the window of Khaled Sab’s barbershop, a poster advertised the services of Dr Wasfy Shahin: ‘Dear brothers and sisters, I would like to bring to your kind notice that I have recently opened my own clinic and I have been doing circumcision with a latest technique.’
Khaled the barber, 48, came from Syria. His Stoddard Road neighbour, Khaled Barakat, 47, came from Egypt and operated the King Tut takeaway bar. He had two plastic tables and matching seats out the front. It was a great pleasure to pull up a chair, eat his $2 samosas, drink his $1.50 cups of sweet black CTC tea from India, and listen to him talk and joke.
‘In Egypt, I was in the middle of everywhere. In New Zealand, I am in the middle of nowhere.’ An excellent host, full of restless energy, smart, chatty, gentle, lascivious, he was very likely the most hilarious man on Stoddard Road. He was just as likely its only Muslim socialist. ‘In the circle of production,’ he said, ‘you can take out capital, you can take out everything, except one thing: you can’t take out the workers.’
Back in Cairo he worked as an accountant. His qualifications are no use here. The rent for King Tut was $1700 a month; he charged an Indian sari maker $90 a week for a small bedroom at the top of the narrow stairs. The takeaway bar was about the size of a school satchel. He didn’t have a complaining bone in his body. ‘Sitting out here,’ he said happily, ‘I feel like I’m in a cafe in Cairo.’ He stood up, and reappeared a few minutes later with a water pipe. He took a blast and then he said, ‘I feel like I’m a Kiwi when I go to Pak’nSave.’
Khaled stood and smiled in the doorway; Zeb, the Pakistani spice merchant, returned from the creek. A radio was tuned to The Breeze. The Eagles sang, ‘I guess every point of refuge has its price.’ Another man appeared – refugee Loia Mouhmod, 43. He made the delicious semolina squares sold at King Tut. ‘I am a Palestinian from Iraq,’ he said. He put it another way: ‘I am two problems.’ He had arrived earlier in the year on a refugee programme with his family of 25 – his wife and children, his parents, his brothers and their wives and children. Back in Iraq he sold men’s clothes. The shop was bombed. He lost everything. Now he wants to study English ‘and then I can get idea for a job’.
He stood with his two daughters, Rana, ten, and Shatha, seven. They were lovely quiet little girls. He said, ‘Everything is fine for my kids. They go to school, they learn English. We are safe, thanks to God.’ He talked about the day he arrived in New Zealand. ‘I come to the airport. I see my case worker waiting for me. You know what she said to me? She said, “Welcome to your new home.” I am so happy I want to cry. I feel this is my country.’
He opened his arms. He embraced Stoddard Road.
Wanganui, Whanganui
In Absentia
You asked people about the virtues of living in Wanganui and they said, ‘It’s close to Wellington.’ Even, incredibly, ‘It’s close to Palmerston North.’ Wanganui, the littlest and furthest city in the west, keen to affirm it was within reach of the apparent civilisation of Palmerston North. Wanganui, population 42,600 and disappearing – down 10.5 percent in six to nine year olds since the last census, down 12.3 percent in 20 to 29 year olds, 9.9 percent in 30 to 39 year olds. Wanganui, with its numerous empty and abandoned downtown buildings and lights out early in the suburbs, not at all a ghost town but ghostly, tenuous, desolate, very clean, touched by phobias – it felt like a city that wasn’t sure what to do with itself. Famously, it was a city that wasn’t sure what to call itself, Wanganui or Whanganui.
On a weekend in spring the argument was running hot. Four teenage bogan chumps had formed a protest on the main street, Victoria Avenue, to register their
