Aue, girl, eh, Materena thinks, don’t pay attention to boys, work hard at school, you’re almost there. Get your degree and then you can look around as much as you like. Pick the best one of the lot.
The following morning, Saturday, Materena is on a mission.
“Girl?”
“Oui, Mamie?” Leilani is combing her hair in front of the mirror.
“Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Non!” Leilani laughs that little laugh that says yes.
“Girl,” Materena says very seriously, “you can tell me if you have a boyfriend. I’m not going to get cranky, because it’s normal.”
“There’s no boyfriend.”
Okay then, since Leilani refuses to share the news, Materena is going to have to turn into a spy. The last time Materena peeped in her daughter’s diary four years ago, she read that Leilani wanted to be a nun. But let’s see now, eh? The hormones have arrived!
Here is that diary on the desk, wide open, that’s a good sign. It must mean Leilani doesn’t mind people reading it.
Materena, hands on her broom, ready to start brooming in case Leilani appears out of nowhere, begins to read.
“Eh?” she says out loud. “What’s this? This is not writing!” There’s a rectangle followed by a sun, another rectangle, a flower, a circle, a star, a square, and an exclamation mark. An exclamation mark means excitement, surprise, something you can’t believe is true, thinks Materena, non?
Another way for a mother to find out secrets about her children is to listen to them talk to their friends. The trick is to listen while looking like you’re not listening.
Materena, washing basket on her hip, strolls to the clothesline. Leilani and Vahine are lying on sarongs on the grass, but she doesn’t say a word. She’s so focused on her job. She puts the basket on the ground and, focusing, hangs the bedsheet first to hide behind it, all the while pretending she’s looking for pegs.
“Girlfriend, you’re sure we’re not going to die with your invention?”
“Non, girlfriend, it’s great for sweating.”
What’s going on? Materena asks herself. She peeps from behind the bedsheet. Leilani and Vahine are wrapping plastic sheets around their waists.
Aue! What is this? If Materena understands the situation correctly, the plastic sheets, combined with the heat of the sun, are supposed to make the girls melt. But what is there to melt? They’re so skinny as they are.
Materena goes back to her job and waits for the girls to start talking about things.
“Mamie!” Leilani calls out sweetly. “Are you going to be long?”
Materena calls back that she’s going to be as long as she has to because clothes should always be hung properly and not in a hurry.
“That’s what Maman’s personal assistant says too!” Vahine calls out.
Materena continues to explain the situation about hanging clothes. When you hang clothes properly, you don’t need to iron them for too long, but when you don’t hang clothes properly, you need to iron them for a while because the clothes are creased and . . .
After some time, the girls start talking, talking loud and clear, like they want the whole population to hear their conversation. They’re talking in a foreign language that is definitely not English. Even if Materena doesn’t understand that language apart from a few words of greeting, she can pick it up easily. When you have years of experience hearing the American tourists talk out loud in the middle of a street, in the middle of the market, in the truck, their language becomes familiar to your ears.
The language Leilani and Vahine are talking in sounds more like a made-up secret-code language. Every single word ends with o. And they’re laughing their head off, those two silly girls.
Materena knows very well the girls are talking in a secret-code language because she’s at the clothesline and they’re automatically suspecting her to be listening—as if she’s got nothing else better to do in her life. Materena hurries up with her job, shoving T-shirts and shorts onto the line. The secret-code language is getting on her system.
Every now and then she hears Vahine languidly pronounce the name of Materena’s eldest son, Tamatoa. Vahine is in love with Tamatoa and the less he’s interested in her, the more she wants him. It’s complicated.
Well anyway, there are no more clothes to hang. Materena marches back to the house, past the girls still going on in their charabia language.
“Eh,” she says, “I’m not a spy, you know, and keep your laughter down, Moana is asleep. Some people work at night.”
Later on Pito heads out of the house with his ukulele and his beer for a bit of practice under the sun, but at the sight of his daughter and her friend wrapped in plastic sheets, he quickly retreats back inside the house.
The girls are still outside hours later and Materena is getting worried. Sun goes to the head. Sweating too much is not good for the health.
“Eh, girls!” she calls out from the shutter. “You don’t think you’re brown enough? You don’t think you’ve sweated enough?”
“We’re nearly finished,” the girls call back.
“You want something to eat?”
“Not now!”
“Something to drink?”
“Not now!”
All right, then, since nobody is hungry or thirsty, Materena gets the ironing board and the iron out to iron Moana’s uniform. But first it’s time to wake him up. It’s twelve thirty.
The second Materena kisses her son on his forehead, he opens his beautiful green eyes, looks at his mama, and smiles.
“It’s twelve thirty, chéri,” Materena says, caressing her son’s hair.
Moana nods, sits on his bed, yawning, and stretches himself.
“When are you going to start having day shifts?” asks Materena. She feels so sorry for Moana. She doesn’t know about that apprenticeship he’s got, but it seems that an apprenticeship in a hotel means you’re a slave all night long. You work ten hours a day, you work seven days a week, and then you get paid next to zero. “I’m going to complain to the hotel,” Materena says.
“Mamie . . . I’m learning a lot of things at the hotel for when I have my restaurant.” After kissing his mother on her forehead, Moana goes and has his shower, while Materena finishes ironing his uniform.
“What are Leilani and Vahine doing?” Moana, out of the shower with his towel wrapped around his waist, asks.
“It’s to lose weight,” Materena says, shaking her head.
“Lose weight?” Moana asks, glancing at his mother. “They’re perfect as they are, they’re beautiful . . .” Moana’s voice trails off and just looking at his eyes it seems to Materena that Moana is openly admiring his sister’s best friend.
Materena says nothing. A long time later (more than one minute) Moana turns to his mother and takes his ironed uniform off her hands, all the while thanking her.
“No worries,” says Materena. “You’ve got money for the truck?”
“Oui.”
“The boss is going to drive you home?”
“Oui.” Moana waits for another question, but Materena has no more questions to ask. She knows what she wanted to know, and so Moana goes and gets ready for work.
Ah, and here’s her eldest son, all sweaty from his six-mile run and his workout at his friend’s gym. He’s in preparation for military service.
“Eh, Rambo,” Materena says, “where’s my kiss?”
“Mamie, I’m full of sweat,” Tamatoa replies.
“I don’t care!”
Tamatoa gives his mother a quick kiss on the forehead, looks out the shutter, shakes his head with disbelief, and asks, “What are these two crazy nonnettes doing?”
“It’s to lose weight,” Materena says, cackling. She adds with a wink how Vahine is so pretty, she’s like a porcelain doll, and plus she’s so nice. For a rich girl, Materena means. Looking at Vahine you wouldn’t know that her French father is a director of a company and that her mother was a former Miss Tahiti.
Vahine, sitting right up, turns to Tamatoa and listens attentively.
“Boys don’t like skinny girls!” he shouts.
“Boys don’t like skinny girls?” Materena asks.
Tamatoa gives his mother a strange look and heads for the bathroom to shower.
In the Confessional Box
Five days a week, here at the kitchen table, Mama George and Loma gossip about what they’ve seen with their own two eyes by the side of the road or outside the Chinese store or what they’ve heard with their own two ears, also by the side of the road or outside the Chinese store. But the weekend is different.
On Sundays, they gossip about what they’ve seen with their own two eyes and heard with their own two ears outside the church, after and before Mass.
And on Saturdays, confession day, Mama George and Loma talk about each relative who was in the confessional box for more than ten minutes.
And since only the priest can hear confessions, all Mama George and Loma can do is sit at the back of the church and time how long a relative has been in the confessional box. Loma is in charge of timing. The second the sinner walks into the confessional box she checks her watch, and the second that sinner walks out of the confessional box, she checks her watch again.
Then she leans over to her mother and whispers, “Seventeen minutes and forty-four seconds.” Or, “Eleven minutes and fifty-two seconds.” Or, “Two minutes and twenty-eight seconds.”
The mother nods. She’s in charge of checking how the relative walks into the confessional box and how the relative walks out of the confessional box. She looks at the body language and the facial expression, and when there are tears streaming down the sinner’s face, Mama George shakes her head with disapproval.
Anyway, that is what Mama George and Loma do on Saturday mornings. They play detectives in the church, where nobody can tell them to go away. They’ll be the first to admit that, unfortunately, their family is filled with sinners.
Now, when a woman is in the confessional box for more than ten minutes, Mama George and Loma declare she’s been up to no good. If the woman has a man, she’s seeing another man, and if she doesn’t have a man she’s seeing a married man.
And a young girl in the confessional box for more than ten minutes means there’s a boy on the horizon. Mama George and Loma have the strong belief that it doesn’t take ten minutes to confess you’ve talked bad about your mama, you gave her the evil look behind her back, you borrowed something from her without her permission. Sins like these are fine with the priest. He tells you, Don’t do this again, that’s not very nice, and sends you off with his absolution, his blessing, and a little smile.
Mortal sins, however, sins of the flesh, lust, young girls sneaking out of the shutter in the middle of the night to meet a lover, make the priest cranky like you wouldn’t believe. His absolution comes at a price: a ten-minute sermon.
The mother of a young girl confessing sins of the flesh must be immediately informed of the situation. It’s the rule and the regulation, according to Loma and Mama George.
Materena, about to cross the road on her way to visit her mother, has some information coming her way.
“Materena, Cousin! Materena, Cousin!”
This is the distinctive high-pitched voice of big-mouth Cousin Loma, and Materena hurries to cross the road.
Loma also hurries to cross the road. “Materena, Cousin!”
Materena quickens her steps, still pretending oblivion.
Loma starts to run. “Materena, Cousin!”
She’s now in front of Materena.
“Eh, Loma!” Materena exclaims, surprised. “Where are you off to?”
“Didn’t you hear me call out to you?” Loma asks, puffing.
“Non,” Materena replies innocently, “I was thinking about . . .”
But Loma is not interested in knowing what Materena was thinking about. She’s more interested in delivering information about Leilani’s recent fourteen-minute visit to the confessional box.
There, the information has been passed on to the mother of that naughty girl, who must be punished, and Loma waits for a reaction.
This is Materena’s reaction from the inside: What? Fourteen minutes in the confessional box! My girl tells the priest everything and she tells me zero! Is my girl still a virgin? Who’s the boy on the horizon?
This is Materena’s reaction from the outside: she looks into Loma’s eyes and sighs, all the while shaking her head. “Cousin.” Materena places a hand on her chest like she feels so sorry. “You don’t have anything better to do than time people in the confessional box?”
“Yes, I do!” Loma exclaims before stomping away.
Materena can now do one of two things. She can go home and question her daughter or she can go ahead and visit her mother.
Materena finds her mother in the garden pulling weeds.
“Eh, chérie!” Loana exclaims with joy. Loana is always happy when her daughter visits, even if the last time they saw each other was yesterday.
“How’s the health, Mamie?” Materena asks.
“Oh, the health is very good,” Loana answers, but she complains about her legs being a bit stiff when she gets up in the morning. Materena tells her mother that better the legs be stiff in the morning than something else more serious. The mother cackles, the daughter cackles, they look into each other’s eyes with love, and that completes their greeting ritual.
“How’s the house?” Materena asks.
“Oh, the house is fine, but it’s falling apart.”
“And the plants? How are they?”
“Oh, they’re growing, but they could do with a bit of rain. And how are you, girl? Everything is all right?”
“Oui, everything is all right, let me help you weed.”
“Oh non! The last time you helped me weed you pulled out my good grass. Just sit next to me and talk, my ears are opened.”
“Leilani was in the confessional box for fourteen minutes,” Materena says, making herself comfortable on the grass. “Loma told me.”
“Ah oui?” Loana says, cackling. “Loma was in the confessional box too? She was hiding behind the priest and counting the minutes? She had a chronometer in her hand?” Loana tells her daughter that being in the confessional box for more than ten minutes doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a confession happening. Sometimes people just want to talk to the priest because he’s got time to listen.
“I’ve got time to listen to my daughter!” Materena exclaims. “I always want to listen . . . You know me, Mamie, I love to listen to people . . . It’s Leilani who doesn’t want to tell me anything. I know we’ve had problems in the past, but we’re friends again. She can tell me anything.”
“Well,” says Loana, “lie next to your daughter in her bed and patiently wait until she talks to you.”
“Leilani?” Materena says absently as she’s chopping onions later on. “Did you go to confession today?”
“What?” Leilani turns to face her mother. “Me in the confessional box?” She laughs. “Are you crazy?”
“Ah, you didn’t confess?”
“I was with Rose,” Leilani says. “She was in the confessional box. I was waiting for her outside. Father Arthur would be the last to know about my affairs!”
“Don’t talk about Father Arthur like that!” Materena is cranky now. “He’s a very nice priest even if his ideas are from the seventeenth century, he’s interesting and . . .” All right, Materena thinks, that
’s enough talking about Father Arthur. But what about Rose, what was she doing in the confessional box for more than fourteen minutes? Should I tell Cousin Tapeta about this?
Eh, it’s not my onions, Materena decides.
Much later, comfortable in her daughter’s bed, Materena looks around.
Leilani’s desk is a mess, there’s paper everywhere (scrunched, torn, flat), pens, chewing-gum wrappers, and Materena wonders how her daughter does her homework in these conditions. Let’s not talk about the bookcase. The encyclopedias are not in alphabetical order, books are standing on top of one another, and what is that glass doing in the bookcase? There’s also a dirty spoon! And a packet of noodle soup! The map of the world on the wall is nice to look at—makes you realize the world is so big. That poster of rowers taken in a sunset is beautiful, it calms. Materena hasn’t seen it before, it must be new. And what’s with all these rocks everywhere? Is Leilani collecting them or what?
Aue, the poor plant in the corner is dying. When was the last time Leilani watered it? Materena makes a mental note to save it tomorrow.
Ah, Materena really loves Leilani’s words of wisdom on the walls.
When you feel down, think of something that makes you happy.
To die with a clear conscience is the only way to leave this world.
Don’t eat in front of people if you can’t share.
Give because it makes you feel good. If you get something back, good. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter.
Don’t visit people at eating times unless you’ve been invited.
Show respect to old people.
Show respect to all people.
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT AND MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Materena told Leilani all of these words of wisdom.
But the following words of wisdom come from the books Leilani has read or heard from other people (relatives and strangers).
Why worry about your beard when your head is about to be taken?
The truth is in the pudding.
Frangipani Page 14
