And here’s the story.
Yesterday afternoon at four o’clock, Leilani wanted to have Hotu’s baby.
By four twenty p.m. the same day, Leilani wanted to kill Hotu.
They were at his parents’ house so Hotu could replace two lightbulbs because Hotu’s father is away and Hotu’s mother can’t change lightbulbs.
As Hotu was unscrewing the lightbulbs, Leilani was standing near him, thinking, I love him so much I want to have his baby. Mamie can change lightbulbs by herself. What’s wrong with Constance?
As Hotu was screwing the new lightbulbs in, his mother said, “Why don’t you two stay for dinner? I’m all alone tonight.”
Hotu looked at Leilani, who said, “Sure,” thinking, I hope she cooks better than the last time we ate here. Mamie is a better cook than Constance. Hey, I’m a better cook than Constance!
But first Constance wanted to have a scotch on ice on the veranda.
So they all went to sit on the veranda overlooking the white-sanded beach, and Constance sighed, “What a beautiful day!” She went on talking about how she felt like having her garden landscaped, she wanted new plants, she wanted a couple of rocks here and there and she wanted a fountain. She spoke, staring at the ocean, about how her plants always died, and all the while Leilani was winking at Hotu and he was winking back at her. They didn’t have Constance’s dying plants in their mind, that was for sure.
Then Constance moved to the subject of her cleaner, whom she suspected of stealing food out of the freezer. “Chicken breasts just keep on disappearing,” she said. Anyway, Constance counted the chicken breasts today and so her cleaner was going to be in for a big surprise on Monday.
“Nobody steals from me,” Constance spat, “especially not a cleaner.”
At that precise moment, Leilani excused herself to go to the bathroom. She can’t stand Constance’s stories about her cleaner being a thief, her cleaner not putting things back where they belong. Constance insists on everything being in the same spot in her house in case she goes blind one day. For example, the salt shaker is on the left side of the pepper shaker and not the other way around. My cleaner did this, my cleaner did that, Constance went on. Every time Leilani is here, all Constance wants to do is put her cleaner down. And, of course, this really annoys Leilani, knowing many cleaners, including her own mother.
The bathroom is located at the front of the mansion, but Leilani didn’t get to the bathroom, she stopped instead in the living room to look at those damned enlarged and framed photos of Hotu with his famous ex-girlfriends.
She looked at these photos and thought, Why is Constance keeping them? What is she trying to tell me? This is the last time I’m coming here.
At that precise moment, Leilani heard Constance tell her son, “I’ve never said anything to you about your choice of girlfriends . . .”
Walking on tiptoes, Leilani moved closer to the veranda and hid behind the curtains. She listened even though her mother had told her many times never to listen to people talk when they don’t know you’re listening. It’s not proper, Materena has always said, it’s not proper and you might hear words that are going to cut you.
But Leilani just couldn’t help herself listening.
“You are a fool.” (Constance speaking.)
“Maman, that’s enough.” (Hotu speaking.)
“Do you realize what you are doing?” (Constance speaking.) “That girl already has your initials tattooed on her hand. Next, she’ll get herself pregnant. You’re blind. Look at all that you own. She has nothing. She is a nothing, her family lives in a fibro shack.”
“It’s a house.” (Hotu speaking.)
“It’s a fibro shack” (Constance correcting) “with potted plants to hide holes in the walls.”
Hotu cackled.
“Already she has her whole family getting you to fix their teeth for free!” (Constance exclaiming.)
What? (Leilani exclaiming in her head.) Hotu didn’t tell me any of this!
“What?” (Hotu laughing.) “Her whole family? Are you drunk already? I’ve only seen her grandmother, Mama Roti.”
Mama Roti! (Leilani exclaiming in her head.) How could you do this to me?
“When you marry the poor” (Constance sniggering) “you don’t go anywhere. The rich marry the rich, and the poor marry the poor. You’re a fool. Who is she? The daughter of a cleaner. Oh, I’m sorry, a professional cleaner. Because there is a big difference.” (Constance being sarcastic.)
Hotu laughed.
His mother joined in.
“Stop talking about that.” (Hotu speaking.) “Leilani will be here soon.”
Leilani tiptoed to the other side of the living room, crouching down and feeling like vomiting. Her vision was blurred and the thought that came into her mind right that moment was to go into the kitchen and get a big knife to stab mother and son. But she appealed to God instead to give her strength: God? I know I haven’t been to Mass lately, but watch me, feel my pain, give me a hand. In case you’ve forgotten me, I’m Materena’s daughter, she’s the relative who is nice to everybody. She’s a professional cleaner.
Soon after, Leilani felt much better. She stood up straight, smiled a big bright smile, and sang, “I’m back!”
Hotu was talking about plants by the time Leilani sat down next to him.
“Those ones will never pick up, Maman,” Hotu said, stroking Leilani on the arm. “You need plants that tolerate salt.”
This was what Leilani wanted to do to Hotu: bite his arm off and punch him in the face.
But instead she turned to him, winked, and leaned over to whisper in his ear, “I need my ration. I want to be on top of you.” Hotu turned to Leilani and showed her his beautiful white teeth.
Five minutes later they were riding home, having declined Constance’s invitation for dinner.
Fifteen minutes later, Leilani was on top of Hotu.
By ten o’clock that night, Leilani had done this three times, and Hotu collapsed in bed before having anything to eat.
This morning, Leilani got up at five thirty and wrote Hotu the following very short letter.
I don’t love you anymore. When I look at you it’s like I’m looking at a tree. My uncle Mori will get all my stuff this afternoon.
Then she sneaked out of the house and walked down the hill, stopping several times to ask herself, Am I overreacting? But how dare he let his mother mock my mother! Leilani kept on walking.
And now she’s here.
“I can’t believe that Mama Roti!” Materena exclaims. “What a nerve!” Materena goes on about how she made it clear to Pito and their relatives that they were not, under any circumstance, to ask Hotu to fix their teeth for free. “You want new teeth,” she told them all, “you pay, all right? Don’t you dare embarrass me.”
“Mamie?” says Leilani, cranky now. “Have you been listening to me?”
“Oui, of course,” Materena hurries to say, thinking, That Mama Roti! What a nerve! “Girl,” Materena continues, “people have been making fun of professional cleaners for centuries, I’m used to it, you know.”
“Well”—Leilani grinds her teeth—“I don’t like it.”
“Sure, I see what you’re saying, but people always mock mothers-in-law, you know, like I mock Mama Roti and Papi mocks my mother.”
“Oui, but there’s mocking and there’s mocking!” Leilani explains that it’s okay for her mother to mock Mama Roti about being so rude because she is so rude. It’s okay for her father to mock Mamie Loana for being a bit of a martyr because she is a bit of a martyr.
“Eh, oh,” Materena interrupts, “be careful what you say. My mother is not a martyr.”
“She is, Mamie, she’s always going on about how she can’t get white sand for her mother’s grave and if only she had a bit more money she’d go back to Rangiroa to get the sand herself. I’ve been hearing this ever since I was a child.”
“That’s not being a martyr! You can’t talk. Your mother didn’t die when you
were fourteen years old. You . . .” Materena stops talking. She’s not in the mood to fight about her mother today. “Chérie,” she continues tenderly, “don’t leave Hotu just because he laughed about me, okay? I don’t want to have this on my conscience. Leave him because you don’t want to settle down too young or because he’s too demanding, but don’t leave because he mocked me behind my back. You know . . . I can tell you now. It really annoyed me to see Hotu walk into my house with his shoes on.”
“Lots of people do that when they’re wearing shoes and not thongs.” Leilani gives her mother a cranky look.
“He chews his food for such a long time.”
“That’s the proper way to eat.”
The proper way, Materena thinks. Well, maybe it is, but it’s still very annoying for her to watch Hotu eat. So many times she nearly shouted to him, “But swallow!” Well anyway, it’s obvious to Materena that now is not the right moment to criticize Hotu, because Leilani is still in love with him. The mama can only criticize her daughter’s boyfriend or husband when he’s completely out of the picture. As far as Materena is concerned, Hotu is not completely out of the picture yet. There could be a reconciliation.
Ah, a motorbike is arriving right now, and there’s only one person Materena knows who owns a motorbike. Leilani springs to her feet and instructs her mother to tell Hotu that she’s not here.
“Girl, he knows you’re here. Where else could you have gone? Children always run back to their parents when they’re sad.”
“I don’t want to see him.”
“But you’ve got to explain the situation!”
“Why?”
“Why? So he knows never to make fun of cleaners ever again, that’s why . . . Stay right where you are, I’m going to tell him to come inside the house.” Materena opens the door.
Here’s Hotu without his helmet, without his shoes, and with so much suffering and anger in his eyes. Aue, Materena thinks. She hopes he’s not here to make a scene. She hopes she’s not going to have to call out to a cousin to get Hotu off the property. She hopes she’s not going to have to use the 100 percent steel frying pan to put some sense into Hotu’s head.
“Eh, Hotu!” Materena says. For the moment, she’s just going to act surprised.
She leans over to greet him as she always does, with a kiss on each cheek. But he puts his arms around her and squeezes her tight. She pats him affectionately on his back, hoping he’s not going to burst into tears on her.
After a while Hotu gently pulls away and asks to speak to Leilani.
“Come inside,” Materena says.
Non, he prefers to stay outside. Okay then, and so Materena goes and gets Leilani, in her bedroom now, on her bed. But Leilani is not coming out.
“Leilani, get up, hurry up, it’s an order.” Although Materena is semihappy that it’s over between Leilani and Hotu (if it is really over), she feels Hotu needs to know what he’s done. “When I look at you it’s like I’m looking at a tree” is, in Materena’s opinion, not a proper separation line. It’s too cruel.
“Get up.”
“Fine.” Leilani gets out of bed, stomps to the door with Materena following just in case Hotu decides to do something horrible, like put his big strong hands around Leilani’s small neck.
Leilani, facing Hotu and with her arms folded, asks him what he’s doing here.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” says Hotu.
“What do you mean, am I out of my fucking mind? It’s you who’s out of your fucking mind!”
“What the fuck did I do? What’s this note?” Hotu fumbles in the pocket of his jeans and reads it to Leilani. “Is this a game?” On and on the two of them go, and Materena can’t believe the language! She had no idea Leilani knew so many swear words. Plus, their voices are rising by the second and very soon there’s going to be a crowd.
“Children,” Materena says softly, “come inside the house.”
But Hotu is too busy screaming about how much effort he’s put into chasing Leilani. With all the other girls, they chased him. One even sent her father to him and he said, the father, “My daughter wants you. You’re taking her out to the restaurant tonight.” Another girl swam to the pontoon in front of his house and cried out for help, he was in the garden watering the plants. “Doesn’t this show you anything?” he screams.
A crowd is rapidly forming around the lovers. There’s nothing like a bit of cinema before breakfast and Mass. Meanwhile Hotu is still going on about how much he loves Leilani, how he was going to tattoo her initials on his hand, propose marriage . . .
Heads are shaking with disbelief in the crowd, meaning, Leilani, you’re such a coconut-head, breaking up with someone like him. Plus, he’s a dentist!
“Are you finished with your monologue?” Leilani interrupts.
“Just tell me what I’ve done! Tell me anything! But don’t lie to me that I’m a tree, because I don’t believe you!”
All eyes are now on Leilani. The truth is about to come out, like in detective movies when the mystery is revealed.
So here it is, for Hotu’s ears, for the crowd’s ears, for the whole world to hear.
“You mocked my mother!”
“Excuse me?” Hotu sounds very surprised to hear this.
Is this the reason? relatives gathered in the crowd ask each other. Everyone was expecting something bad, something cruel, like, Hotu slept with another woman.
“I mocked your mother?” Hotu asks, his eyes on Materena. And for the first time since knowing Hotu, Materena can now see that he is white.
Actually, he’s quite pale. It must be the shock.
“I mocked your mother?” Hotu asks again. “You’ve mocked my mother ever since you met her. It’s almost a full-time job for you.”
Hotu repeats (word for word) all the things Leilani has said to him about his mother. He even assumes Leilani’s facial mannerisms and gestures perfectly as he says:
“I’m sorry, but your mother really looks like a Christmas tree with all that jewelry she wears. She’s obviously not allergic to gold. She’s only allergic to work. She’s never worked in her whole life! What’s wrong with the woman?
“Your mother can’t change lightbulbs! I don’t believe this. What can she do?
“There’s something wrong with people who are always looking at themselves in the mirror. Your mother even looks at herself when she walks past shop windows! She’s a narcissist, all right.
“Why does your mother speak as if she was French? Is she ashamed to be Tahitian? But she looks so Tahitian, that’s what I don’t understand! Is she having an identity crisis?
“Has anyone ever told your mother that the reason plants die is because they never get watered? Your mother is buying plants every week! Hasn’t she cracked the code yet?
“Oh, your mother’s cleaner resigned? Well, I’m not surprised! Who wants to work for a woman like your mother? I’m sorry, but there’s something wrong with people who put other people down to get a kick. Your mother puts her cleaner down, she puts bank tellers down, salespeople, and she even puts nice old women selling flowers down. Your mother really needs to see a psychiatrist. Who will be carrying her coffin when she dies?
“Your mother only likes people if they’ve got a lot of money, even if she was a pauper herself until she caught your father. I’m not surprised she closes her eyes on your father’s infidelities. As long as she has his checkbook she doesn’t care.”
Eyes are popping out of people’s heads, and everyone is waiting for Hotu to go on with all that Leilani has said about his mother (especially the bit about her being a wronged woman), but he stops talking to look at Leilani, now very pale herself.
“Well,” she says after a while, and clearly embarrassed, “you mocked my mother too, so we’re equal.”
Leilani repeats (word for word) all the things Hotu has said (to her) about her mother:
“Your mother is constantly sweeping. I feel sorry for the broom! It never gets a minute of rest in
that house.” Then Leilani looks at Hotu fiercely in the eye.
He cracks up laughing.
She cracks up laughing too.
“Come on,” Hotu says, “let’s have a coffee at home and talk about things.”
Leilani doesn’t need to be persuaded, though she says, “All right, but only to talk.” After a quick kiss for her mother, she’s on that bike holding her boyfriend tight.
And nobody is surprised.
Every day there’s a couple separating in the neighborhood, there’s a woman throwing all of her man’s clothes out the window with the words, “It’s finished! Go back to your mother!”
Then a few hours later, that same woman is picking clothes off the ground and calling out, “Chéri!” And life continues, eh?
Well, it’s the same with Hotu and Leilani. Life continues. Hotu is extra nice to Materena, and Leilani does not speak to Hotu’s mother.
Leilani is so in love with her man that the day after finding out she’s passed her baccalaureate exam, she walked across the road from Hotu’s surgery to Dr. Bernard’s surgery to convince the sixty-five-year-old doctor, looking for an assistant/ receptionist, that she was fit to carry out such duties. Leilani passionately sang her assistant/ receptionist attributes. “I can write very fast, I have an excellent memory, and I never assume anything. I can take secrets to the grave and I scored twenty out of twenty on biology and chemistry tests in my baccalaureate. I’m ready to start on Monday.”
Dr. Bernard must have been impressed with Leilani’s speech, because he just said, “Well, I’ll see you on Monday, then.”
So now Leilani and Hotu work across the road from each other. They can wave to each other ten times a day.
They can go to work together on the motorbike, have lunch together on a bench in the park in Papeete, swim a few laps at the swimming pool after work . . . love each other till death do them part.
This morning, on her way home from the frame shop with Leilani’s baccalaureate certificate (enlarged and mounted in a gold frame), Materena stops outside Dr. Bernard’s surgery to look at her daughter.
Frangipani Page 20
