Frangipani

by Célestine Vaite

  “He did.”

  “He did, eh?” Materena says, shaking her head. Now she can see the type. He sounds like Monsieur Casanova, that one.

  “Mamie, he had to go back to France, you know,” explains Leilani. “To finish his studies.”

  “What does he do?” Materena can’t believe she forgot to ask this very important question. What the boyfriend does is always the first question mothers are supposed to ask.

  Well, he’s a dentist. Leilani explains that at the moment he’s working with a dentist in town, but he will be opening his own practice soon.

  “A dentist!” exclaims Materena. “How old was he when he finished school? Twelve?”

  “Seventeen, like I will be when I finish school.” Leilani goes on about how it’s the normal age to finish school when you don’t repeat classes. “And Hotu didn’t become a dentist for the money,” stresses Leilani.

  “Ah oui?” Materena can’t help being a bit skeptical. Everybody knows that people become dentists (and doctors) for the money. Anyway, that’s the general belief.

  Leilani continues about Hotu’s mission as a dentist: to educate people on the importance of looking after their teeth (because bad teeth affect health), and to donate several hours of his time each month to poor people who can’t afford a dentist and who badly need one. That’s why Hotu is taking lessons to perfect his Tahitian. He wants to be able to speak to people who can’t express themselves in the French language.

  “Ah, his Tahitian is not really good?” Materena asks.

  “Oh, he’s like me, you know. He gets by . . . he’s like many of us.”

  Materena nods in agreement.

  “He’s so wonderful.” Leilani sighs. “He really wants to give something back to the world, having had such a fortunate childhood. But I don’t think it’s the right time for me to be with him.”

  “All right, then.” Materena gives her daughter a long kiss on her forehead. She’s had enough of hearing about the dentist, since Leilani’s plan is to resist him. “Listen, girl,” says Materena, “forget about that boy, okay? Work hard at school. Get your degrees and a good job. Then, if the dentist is still free and you still feel strongly about him, don’t resist him anymore. But he sounds to me like a real nice person.”

  Now, Materena can say in all honesty that she has experience in a lot of departments. She knows, for example, how it feels to have Father Unknown written on a birth certificate. To be alone most of the nights, cook dinner for six in less than ten minutes, greet relatives so that they feel welcome, get rid of relatives so that their feelings don’t get hurt. Materena knows a lot of things about the everyday life, but she has no idea how it feels to love someone you have to resist. She’s never had to resist physical attraction.

  When she met Pito and fell head over heels in love with him, she didn’t stop to think if he was a good catch or if there was another, better specimen waiting for her on the horizon. She just ran to Pito with open arms and with 100 percent passion. Since then, she’s never looked at another man.

  Oh, Materena is not saying that when a good-looking man walks her way she closes her eyes, non. She looks, she admires the body and she admires the face, but that’s it.

  Materena has resisted a lot of things in her life, like she’s resisted telling her mother-in-law off to her face, hitting Pito on the head with the steel frying pan he gave her for one of her birthdays, slapping her big-mouth cousin Loma across the face . . . Let’s just say that Materena knows very well how hard resisting can be, and resisting physical attraction must be even harder. If Materena was in such a situation she’d avoid being in the whereabouts of the man she wants so bad but has to resist because he’s married, he’s a cousin, it’s not the right time.

  But her daughter’s plan of action is very different. In fact, Materena doesn’t really believe that Leilani is doing much resisting these days.

  Leilani is coming home later and later, and since Materena knows that the reason for her daughter’s lateness has got nothing to do with Leilani comforting her crying friend, she doesn’t need to ask all kinds of questions. She doesn’t need to ask, “How’s Vahine? Is she still crying over Tamatoa? Is she still going to send him a framed photograph of herself? Is she still thinking of tattooing Tamatoa’s initials on her hand?”

  Materena has to ask only one question, a very specific question, a question that requires a very specific answer—a yes or a no. And the question is, Did you resist today? That is the question Materena asks the very next day, the question she asks every day from then on.

  Did you resist today?

  And these are the answers Materena gets.

  “We just talked.”

  “I wasn’t with him, I was with Vahine.”

  “I wasn’t with him, I was with Rose.”

  “The truck ran out of petrol.”

  Ah, here’s Leilani coming home now, five minutes later than yesterday.

  “So, girl?” Materena asks. “Did you resist today?”

  “Stop asking me that question!” Leilani exclaims with a faint smirk.

  And Materena understands all that there is to understand.

  Hotu Viriatu

  If your daughter is thirty years old when she first gets a boyfriend, the relatives say, “Ah, finally! About time! It’s a miracle!” If your daughter is in her twenties, the relatives don’t say much. But when she’s not even seventeen years old, the relatives talk about it for days and days. They say somebody has got fire up her arse!

  Oh, they don’t say these very words to the mother. Say these very words to any mother and you’ll get a slap across the face, so the relatives just interrogate the mother. “I heard your beautiful daughter has got a boyfriend. And who is he? And where did your daughter meet him? And who’s the family? How old is he? Has he got a job?”

  Materena, about to go to the Chinese store, braces herself for the upcoming interrogation. She can’t hide forever. Plus, she much prefers to be interrogated on her way to the Chinese store, outside the Chinese store, inside the Chinese store, anywhere but in the whereabouts of her house. Because when the relatives are in the whereabouts of your house, they trick you. Before you know it, they’re inside your house. And before you know it, they’re sitting on the sofa in your living room.

  Now, Materena could just ignore the questions fired at her. She could say, “It’s none of your onions. Mind your own onions.” But the trouble with relatives, some of them, most of them, all of them, is that if they don’t get informed, they invent. They believe every word the big-mouth relative of the family—Cousin Loma, the one and only—says.

  If you want the truth to be known you’ve got to speak.

  Aue . . . might as well give the population what the population wants. Following is the information Materena is prepared to share today.

  Yes, her daughter has a boyfriend, and Materena much prefers this situation to another situation, like her daughter being at the mercy of different boys who are after only one thing. True, her daughter’s boyfriend is older than Leilani, but we’re talking about just six years here, not twenty.

  Leilani’s boyfriend’s name is Hotu Viriatu (he’s Catholic, he’s not from an enemy family, and he’s not a cousin). He’s very charming. He won Materena over in one second with that beautiful smile of his. His teeth are so white! What about the body! Ouf! What a fine specimen, that’s all Materena can say.

  He came to visit last night, but at least he called first to warn of his arrival, unlike many people Materena knows. Materena had plenty of time to hide the parts of the walls that had a bit of paint peeling off. She ignored Leilani and Pito making fun of her. Monsieur Dentist arrived not on his motorbike but in the silver BMW his father bought him when he came home with his degree. After the greetings, Pito asked Hotu to take him for a drive in his BMW. “Eh,” Pito said, “take the old man for a drive, okay?”

  “Pito!” Materena said under her breath. She was so embarrassed!

  “Sure,” Hotu said, “I�
�ll take you for a drive.”

  “You can fix my teeth too, eh?” Pito said, walking out of the house, winking at Materena just to annoy her more.

  Nevertheless, despite the embarrassing situation with Pito asking Hotu to fix all his teeth (free of charge, of course), it was fun last night. After the drive, Hotu talked to Materena about what a fine girl Leilani is. “She is so smart,” he said, “and I know where she gets her beauty from.” Immediately after this lovely compliment, Pito decided to challenge Hotu to an arm-wrestling competition.

  Pito won.

  He’s all muscles, Leilani’s boyfriend, from all the rowing he does. Pito hasn’t done any exercise in twenty years. So don’t go looking from midday to fourteen hours to put two and two together.

  Of course Hotu let Pito win, and he did this because he knows it’s a good idea to let the father of the house win. When the father of the house wins, he’s very happy. He’s not stupid, Leilani’s boyfriend.

  When he left, Pito tapped Leilani on the shoulder and said, “Eh, your boyfriend is too skinny. Tell him to eat a bit more.”

  As for Materena, she said, “What a nice boy!”

  Okay, who’s going to be the first relative to be asking Materena about her daughter’s boyfriend? The first relative who says something nasty is going to get it!

  Ah, here’s Cousin Mori sitting under the mango tree next to the petrol station, as per usual. But today, for some reason, Cousin Mori is not drinking, and he’s not playing his eternal accordion.

  “Iaorana, Cousin!” Materena calls out.

  Mori, waving and smiling, calls back, “Iaorana, Cousin!”

  Materena stops in front of Mori and waits for Mori to start questioning, but all she gets from him today is a perplexed look. Yes, Mori’s eyes are definitely saying, “Oui? And? Have you got something to say to me?” So Materena wishes her cousin a good day, he does the same, and off she goes.

  Ah, and who does Materena see in the distance, running toward her? Cousin Loma in flesh and bones, the relative who saw Leilani waiting at the petrol station for Hotu to arrive one night, and who in just one minute found out there was a boyfriend on the horizon. The relative who no doubt has been running all over the neighborhood informing the population and the coconut radio.

  “Cousin!” Loma’s smile is full of morbid curiosity. Her eyes are also full of morbid curiosity.

  “All is fine?” Materena casually asks as she greets Cousin Loma with light kisses on the cheeks.

  “Oui! Oui! Oui! All is fine!” Loma is so excited today. “So! Leilani has a boyfriend! I saw them yesterday, and he’s got a BMW? So Leilani has a boyfriend?”

  “Well, you saw him, so you know,” Materena says.

  “I can’t believe he’s a popa’a!”

  “Eh what?” Materena says. “What are you going on about?”

  “Ah, he’s not a popa’a?” Loma asks, confused. “It’s just that . . . he’s so white.”

  “Lots of Tahitians are white!”

  Loma does her I’m-not-so-sure-about-that look. When you’re a Tahitian, you’re brown, you’re not white. “Maybe there’s a white ancestor in his family,” Loma goes on.

  “Eh, Loma. We all have white ancestors, okay. If you want to see pure Tahitians, go back to the first century.” She can’t believe Loma mistook Hotu for a popa’a.

  Materena didn’t even see that Hotu was white. When he walked into the house all she saw was a good-looking young man with combed hair and cut fingernails. She also saw his crisp ironed pants and shirt and the white shoes he didn’t take off before walking into the house.

  She didn’t see that he was white.

  How could Hotu be white, anyway? He’s always in the sun! That Loma, Materena thinks. She needs glasses.

  “His name is Hotu Viriatu, does that name sound popa’a to you?” Materena asks.

  “Ah non, that name sounds very Tahitian . . . And how many sisters and brothers has he got?”

  “One sister.”

  “He’s not Tahitian.” Loma does her I’m-not-impressed look.

  “Eh, Loma,” Materena snaps, “must we have ten children to be Tahitian these days? I have three children, does this mean I’m not Tahitian? Or does this mean I know when to stop?”

  “He’s got a job, at least?” asks Loma the detective.

  Ah, here’s Cousin Giselle. Materena can sure do with a break from Cousin Loma’s stupid questions, and presently Cousin Giselle, with her big pregnant belly and her tribe of three children, is hurrying over.

  “Cousin Materena!”

  “Cousin Giselle!”

  The two cousins give each other big hugs and kisses.

  “You’re fine?”

  “I’m fine, Cousin,” Materena replies as one by one she kisses her cousin’s children, aged two to six.

  “So Leilani has a boyfriend?” Giselle asks.

  “Eh oui, what do you want, that’s life.”

  “Eh, eh,” Giselle says. Then, getting more teary by the second, she goes on about how it was like only yesterday that Leilani was born, and now she’s nearly seventeen years old, she’s a woman and she has a boyfriend.

  “Aue, love, eh,” she sighs. “It’s so wonderful, especially at the beginning . . . If only it stayed that way . . . the first kiss . . .” She stops to flick her two-year-old boy’s hand pulling at her dress.

  “Love?” Materena cackles. “You mean to say passion, Cousin.” Materena tells Giselle about that kiss Leilani and Hotu gave each other outside the house before he left. Materena didn’t mean to look, of course, she was just putting rubbish in the trash can, and she saw the lovers kiss as if one of them was about to leave for war and never return. That kiss just went on and on and on and on.

  “Oh, la-la!” Giselle exclaims. “Somebody has got fire up her . . . And he’s a popa’a?” Again, Materena rectifies the situation to Giselle. Then it’s Auntie Stella’s turn to be enlightened, and another auntie, and another cousin, and another cousin, and another cousin, and three mamas.

  Well, they’re all very pleased that Leilani’s boyfriend is a local and not a foreigner, like Rose’s Australian boyfriend, because foreigners always go back to their country and they don’t necessarily ask the woman to follow. Sometimes, of course, this is not a bad thing.

  Anyway, he’s a local, that’s one bit of information out of the way. What is his family name? His family name is Viriatu, he’s Catholic, he’s not from an enemy family, and there’s no connection whatsoever.

  And . . . has he got a job?

  He’s a dentist.

  “Ouh!” The relatives are so happy for Leilani. “Lucky girl,” they say.

  “Lucky us!” they shout. “He can fix our teeth for free!”

  And where did they meet, the relatives want to know.

  Ah, that’s another story altogether. They met in the truck, and usually Hotu never catches the truck since he has a motorbike and a car. But one particular morning he was driving his motorbike to work and it broke down. And so, for the first time in his life, Hotu Viriatu caught the truck.

  He stood by the side of the road and waved to the first truck that came his way. It was Papa Lucky-Luke’s truck, the truck locals never catch because Papa Lucky-Luke’s such a slow driver and he doesn’t play music in his truck.

  That’s the truck Leilani always catches, that way she can read on her way to school or write things down in her little notebook and she doesn’t have to listen to music she doesn’t like. She loves it that Papa Lucky-Luke’s truck is always empty.

  So anyway, Papa Lucky-Luke’s truck stopped and Hotu hopped in with his backpack, holding on to his helmet. Leilani didn’t even look up, she was so busy writing. This went on for minutes until Hotu, who’d been staring at Leilani, felt it was the right moment to say something.

  And so he said, “Are you writing your memoirs?”

  Leilani looked up. “Pardon?”

  “Are you writing your memoirs?”

  She laughed, he laughed, they
looked into each other’s eyes, and as we say, the rest is History with a capital H.

  The relatives agree that it’s an unusual way for two people to meet. There’s no story like that in the family. In the family people meet at the Chinese store, the snack, the church, the nightclub, they meet at the airport, as it happened with Rose and Matt. Matt was ordering a coffee at the Airport Café while waiting for the check-in line for the plane to Australia to be less busy. He’d been on a three-week visit to Tahiti, surfing. At the Airport Café, Matt and Rose met, and Matt didn’t catch his plane.

  All right, then, now that the population has been informed about Leilani’s boyfriend, the population can go on with their chores. But there’s one more thing Materena has to say.

  “Hotu is allergic to alcohol!” Materena is all smiles. She expects the relatives to share her delight. A Tahitian man who doesn’t drink? Are you crazy?

  But the relatives aren’t sharing Materena’s delight. Nobody is jumping up and down with joy and everybody has got a story about how when they met their man, he said he was allergic to alcohol. Apparently this is a very popular pick-up line.

  “Iaorana, princess . . . my name is . . . and I’m allergic to alcohol.” The relatives can’t believe Materena didn’t know about it.

  Getting Serious

  What can a mother do, Materena says to Cousin Rita, when her daughter is in love and all is new and wonderful? She can’t compare, she can’t preach, especially when she had a baby at nineteen years old.

  She just has to accept the situation.

  Like Vahine’s mother did when one of her relatives visited to say, “Eh, Cousin, do you know your daughter has joined a dancing group and that she’s leaving for France next week to pursue that boy she loves?”

  “What boy?” Vahine’s mother replied.

  “But Tamatoa Tehana! Don’t you know anything? Where have you been? At a conference again?”

  Like Tapeta did when an Australian surfer knocked on her door one sunny day holding his surfboard and said, in his broken French, “Is this the house of Rose?”

  Materena will just have to accept that her daughter wants to live with her boyfriend because she wants to be with him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Oui, it’s the big love between those two, they want to be an official couple. It’s not enough that they see each other every day, eh? They talk for hours about electrons and protons, chemistry and other complicated words, and Leilani does whatever Hotu says.