Frangipani

by Célestine Vaite

  Tapeta thinks about ringing Rose at the airport to inform her of the situation. But if Rose yells at her husband, he’s never going to speak to Tapeta again. Then, when she visits, he’s going to quickly grab baby Taina and refuse to let Tapeta hold her.

  Aue! Tapeta chases the negative thoughts out of her head and reminds herself that Matt is very intelligent and intelligent people just don’t do stupid things. After all, that Australian has spent four years at university.

  Tapeta is still walking when Cousin Mori appears in his car and toots the horn. Tapeta waves a distant wave meaning: Yes, I saw you, but don’t stop to talk to me. But Mori stops his car and gets out in a flash with the words, “Cousin! Rose’s baby is in the car!”

  “What?” Aue, here’s Taina, wrapped in the beautiful quilt her grandmother has made for her, sound asleep in her cane basket, her biberon by her side. Ah well, Tapeta thinks, Matt must have bumped into Mori and asked him to look after the baby for a couple of hours.

  But this is not how Mori got possession of the baby.

  Mori tells Tapeta he was driving his car to Taapuna for a drink at the bar there. He was a little bit thirsty, he got a craving for a beer. He parked his car next to a secondhand Toyota with racks on the roof because it was in a very good spot, it was in the shade of a tree.

  For a while, Mori looked at the people surfing Taapuna Break, thinking how crazy these people were. Taapuna Break is renowned for being very dangerous. You fall and you crack your skull open on the reef.

  When Mori finally got out of his car, he looked at that Toyota and saw that the window of the backseat was wound down and there was a quilt hanging down from the roof rack. Mori looked around and, since there were no witnesses, he peeped inside the car. He just had to know what was behind the quilt. It wasn’t to steal or anything like that, Mori stresses to Tapeta, he was just being curious. And so he peeped inside the car, saw a baby, and there and then he said to himself, But! This is Rose’s baby girl!

  Mori opened the door, grabbed the cane basket, and put it in his car, thinking that way he could keep an eye on the baby. He was going to wait for that Australian surfer, Mori guessed him to be surfing with all those crazy people out there, to tell him off for leaving his daughter in a car, but then Mori remembered he had something else to do. So he drove off with Taina in the car to give her to Tapeta.

  Tapeta looks at her cousin with affection. “Eh, eh, merci, Cousin.” But here, she gets thinking. She knows the baby in the cane basket is her granddaughter. She’s seen her granddaughter over one hundred times and she can recognize her granddaughter with her eyes closed, but Mori has only ever seen Rose’s daughter three times. And he was drunk all those three times and not just a little. Mori could have taken a baby that wasn’t Rose’s baby at all but another woman’s baby, and Mori could have found himself in very serious trouble. Prison, for example? Mori’s police record wouldn’t have helped. Caught stealing six times?

  “Mori,” Tapeta asks, “how did you know the baby was Rose’s baby?”

  “Because I knew, that’s all,” Mori says.

  “You’ve only seen Taina three times and each time you were drunk, and not a little.”

  That’s true, Mori admits, but the second he saw that baby, he repeats, the words “But! This is Rose’s baby girl!” came into his mind.

  Tapeta decides that Mori had spiritual guidance. The Virgin Mary, Understanding Woman, herself was right behind Mori as he fulfilled his very important mission. Perhaps it was because the Virgin Mary was pleased with Mori getting a painting of her image spray painted on the hood of his car. Or perhaps the Virgin Mary was honored with the way Rose’s husband had so beautifully painted her image on the hood of Mori’s car and so she saved his daughter, with Mori as her helper. Yes, Mori’s saving Taina had to have something to do with the Virgin Mary, and the Virgin Mary even made the little girl quiet because her cries could have attracted the attention of a mean person.

  Tapeta thanks the Virgin Mary, Understanding Woman, with all her heart.

  Meanwhile, back in Taapuna, Rose’s husband is paddling back to the shore as fast as he can, then he runs to the car and is about five yards away when he senses something is wrong. There is no quilt hanging from the roof rack. He runs faster, his heart beating with anxiety, he opens the door, sees that the cane basket along with the baby has disappeared, and, shouting, he runs to the other side of the car. He runs to all the other cars parked nearby and looks inside every single car. He pushes a big woman out of his way. He runs this way and he runs that way, all the while crying his eyes out. People start to think he’s a mad person. He falls down to his knees, puts his head in his hands, and cries out, “Oh God! Oh God!” Then he stands up, looks around to the people staring at him, and goes on running again. He runs and he runs, and eventually he runs into a police station.

  There, crying half in his language and half in French, he reports his daughter missing.

  This is the incredible story. And this is the reason Rose’s husband has decided to go back to his country, taking his wife and his daughter along with him.

  He said that he wants to go back to work, but all the relatives present here tonight to farewell Rose and Taina know Matt just can’t face another day being asked, “What on earth made you leave your six-week-old baby girl in a car? What have you got in your head? Rocks?”

  Right now, Rose’s beautiful daughter is in her auntie Leilani’s arms, with Uncle Hotu nearby, openly admiring his niece and his woman.

  On the other side of the room, Materena, listening to her cousin Tapeta’s moans, watches her son-in-law.

  She chuckles in her head and thinks, Here’s one who’s getting clucky.

  Leilani herself also looks like she’s getting clucky. Here she is, lovingly rubbing her nose against the baby’s nose . . .

  If someone had told Materena three years ago that her daughter was going to meet a really nice boy, marry him, and have children, she would have said, “I sure hope not! My daughter is going to go to university!”

  But we don’t own our children’s lives.

  At the airport the following day it’s crowded, of course. Sometimes you wonder if the airport is big enough to cater to the growing flow of people leaving and coming home. Tahitians have always been keen travelers. In the old days, they traveled in canoes, these days they travel in planes.

  The crowd at the departure gate is crying tears of sorrow and the crowd at the arrival gate is crying tears of joy. More than half of the crying crowd belongs to the Mahi family of Faa’a, mourning yet another child leaving the nest, another vahine following her man back to his country.

  But no child has ever left with a baby before, so the sorrow on this hot morning is tripled. The poor grandmother, Tapeta, is . . . there are no words to describe. It’s one thing to farewell a daughter you’ve raised, another to farewell a granddaughter you might never see again.

  “Aue, my heart is breaking,” Tapeta moans, bending down to inhale the sweet scent of her granddaughter’s feet. The baby girl is sound asleep in her mother’s arms.

  On the other side of the airport people are welcoming loved ones home.

  “Maeva, bienvenue!” they shout with arms outstretched, and Materena thinks about how she’ll be back at the airport next week for her daughter’s best friend, Vahine, who’s finally coming home thanks to Leilani and Moana paying her fare.

  Women Have Better Ears

  Ati is here to pick up Pito for a bit of fishing, but Pito is not home.

  “He’s out,” Materena informs Ati.

  “Where?” asks Ati.

  “Where? I don’t know, he’s gone walkabout.” Pito might have gone to visit his brother Tama, Materena thinks, because Pito said something last night about Tama having a bit of difficulty with their brother Frank at the moment . . . but she can’t be sure. All she knows is that Pito is not at home. He left about half an hour ago.

  “Ah,” says Ati, still standing at the door, looking like he wants t
o come inside the house, but Materena is not inviting him in. She doesn’t need the whole neighborhood to start gossiping. There are enough stories of wives getting on with their husband’s best friend going around. Not only that, but Materena really has nothing to say to Ati. They have nothing in common. They can’t talk about children, since Ati has none. They can’t talk about plants, since Ati has none. But Ati just won’t go away.

  “How’s your speedboat?” asks Materena finally. Ati’s speedboat just popped into her mind.

  “Looking good, I’m thinking of having it painted blue.”

  “Ah . . . blue is a nice color . . . And your mama? How is she?”

  “She’s fine, she plays bingo these days.”

  “Ahoui?”

  What now, Materena wonders, but to look into Ati’s brown eyes and feel a bit strange. Ati’s brown eyes are always getting him into trouble with women . . . And anyway, it’s not really wise to look into your husband’s best friend’s eyes for too long.

  Just as Materena is about to tell Ati that she was actually on her way to her mother’s house, Leilani appears. “Ouh ouh!”

  “Eh, Leilani!” Materena calls out, glad her daughter is visiting.

  Ati will simply have to leave now, but Leilani tells her uncle how happy she is to see him because there’s something she’d like to talk to him about—something really important.

  “Come in the house, Ati,” says Materena. What else can she do? Let Ati and Leilani talk outside? Non, it’s not done, so here’s some nice freshly squeezed lemonade.

  “Tonton,” Leilani fires away as soon as she’s at the kitchen table, “I’m really annoyed with that DJ you work with at Radio Tefana.” To prove her point Leilani does her little cranky eyes at her uncle.

  He takes a sip of his lemonade.

  “I’m actually thinking of lodging a complaint.”

  Ati takes another sip of his lemonade as Leilani talks about Radio Tefana, the radio that supports Independence, and also the radio that hires stupid people.

  “I’m not talking about you,” Leilani says, “I’m talking about the other DJ. He’s so . . .” Leilani shakes her head with anger.

  “I’m not a DJ,” says Ati. “I just play love songs. Tihoti is the DJ.”

  “Tihoti, oui, I’m talking about him, what is his last name?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m serious about lodging a complaint, and I’m also thinking of sending an article to Les Nouvelles. That big-mouth has got to be stopped!”

  “Since when do you listen to Radio Tefana?” Materena asks. This is news to her. Leilani’s first experience with Radio Tefana was four years ago. She’d called to give her opinion about all those people who call Radio Tefana to moan about the past, those acres of land Tahitian people have lost over gallons of wine, those days when they were called uneducated, ignorant savages. “Moan, moan, moan,” Leilani said. “Let’s move forward!” In Leilani’s world, people would light a candle instead of cursing the darkness. Anyway, Leilani called the radio and was cut off halfway through her passionate speech to make way for a Bob Marley song. Since then she’s vowed to have nothing to do with that radio—ever, until she dies. She must have changed her mind about that.

  But, so Leilani reminds her mother, she doesn’t want anything to do with that radio—ever, until she dies—however, she hears a lot about that stupid titoi in the waiting room at the surgery. She hears the shocking, degrading things he says on air about women.

  “What does he say?” Materena and Ati ask.

  What does this stupid man say on air, laughing his head off?

  Well, this:

  He says that he met a woman at a nightclub and went back to her house because she needed to be calmed down. The next morning, when the DJ woke up, he saw, among other ugly things men only see sober (so the DJ professed), that his lover had varicose veins on both her legs. He chewed his arm off and flew out the window.

  He says that when he’s stuck in the traffic in Papeete, he doesn’t curse the mayor, he doesn’t swear, he doesn’t beep his horn in frustration, non. He just looks at women and rates them from one to ten beers. A no-beer woman means that she’s very beautiful and that he could sleep with her sober. A ten-beer woman means that she’s one ugly woman and that he could sleep with her only if he was very drunk.

  He says that after a woman has a couple of kids, she’s ruined. A woman with something in her head is dangerous. A woman who talks too much is a bore. A woman with cracked hands is a turn-off. A woman with saggy titis reminds him of a cow.

  Materena’s jaw drops. “I’m going to punch that man in the face if he continues to talk like that about us!”

  “You’re not the only one who feels that way,” Leilani says, “but we need to do more than that, we must get him off the air.”

  She goes on about how talk-back radio DJs have certain responsibilities to abide by. They are in a powerful situation and should do something constructive with it, such as uplift people, educate them, reassure, entertain, but stupid jokes are really not necessary. Actually, it should be stipulated somewhere in DJs’ contracts that jokes must be funny, and only at the expense of the DJs themselves, not their listeners.

  “My role at the surgery,” Leilani continues, “is also about giving people, women especially, hope, to let them know that they’re still beautiful women even with distorted varicose veins or cracked hands or a breast lost to cancer. I can’t have someone like that titoi ruin all my good work. Is he actually aware that more women listen to the radio than men?”

  “Really?” Materena asks, interested.

  “Absolutely, ask Tonton.”

  “Really?” Materena asks, looking at Ati.

  The love-song DJ nods in agreement. “It’s true, the people who call me to request a love song are mostly women.”

  “But of course!” Leilani exclaims. “It’s proven that men watch TV and women listen to the radio.”

  “How come?” Materena is getting very interested in the discussion.

  “Well, because men sit on the couch, whereas women are busy running around cleaning or ironing or whatever, and they need music to make those chores less boring.”

  And with this statement Leilani bangs her fist on the table. “Tonton, do you know what your radio needs?”

  Before Ati has the chance to reply, Leilani shouts, “A woman!”

  “A woman,” Ati repeats.

  “What’s wrong with my idea?” Leilani snaps, her eyes firing bullets at her poor uncle.

  “Rien,” he hurries to say, “it’s just I never thought about that before.”

  “Well, start thinking, Tonton. I’m surprised that idiot is still alive, even more surprised that he still has a job. Who is he? The son of the boss? It’s not acceptable anymore, Tonton, to say degrading words about women, you know. Imagine that the stuff that idiot says on air is about your mother? Or your sister, Mamie, me, your goddaughter!”

  Silence falls as Ati, deep in thought, nods a slow nod, the nod that says, “I hear you.”

  “So?” Materena tells Ati, half-serious, half-laughing. “When are we going to hear a woman’s voice on your radio, eh? What are you all waiting for?”

  “Women have better ears anyway,” Leilani says.

  “Ah, true, women have better ears,” Materena confirms.

  “Women DJs would bring so much to Radio Tefana,” Leilani continues.

  “Ah oui, true.”

  “You’ve got to do something, Tonton.”

  “You’ve got to do something, Ati.”

  Poor Tonton Ati . . . he looks like he’s having trouble swallowing his spit.

  He must be regretting setting a foot in this house today, in which live two women rebelling for the same cause.

  Mama Teta’s New Business

  The whole population is talking about Mama Teta’s new business. Well, all the relatives, at least. Ninety-nine percent of them are saying, “That one, when is she going to stop thinking about businesses?
When you’re her age you’re supposed to just grow old peacefully!”

  But Materena believes in dreams. “Bon courage,” she tells Mama Teta outside the church.

  “Maururu, girl,” Mama Teta says, affectionately tapping her niece’s hand. “Luckily, we women know that word, courage.”

  “And what is your new business going to be?” Materena asks with interest. Nobody has bothered asking Mama Teta this. As soon as the relatives heard the words new business they shrieked, “What? A new business at your age?” And so Mama Teta told them nothing.

  “You’re not too busy?” Mama Teta asks. Auntie and niece sit on the church steps, where Mama Teta’s future business is revealed.

  “A nursing home.” Materena nods several times, meaning, Ah . . . I see. “And it’s going to be at your house?”

  “Oui, at my house,” Mama Teta confirms. “Oh, I know that my house isn’t a four-star hotel, but it’s a house. There’s a roof.” Her nursing home, she insists, is not going to be like the CAPA nursing home, where the old people sit on their bed waiting for the night to come because they’ve got nothing to do. Her nursing home (Mama Teta’s voice rises with excitement) is going to be a place for friendship and fun. Her old people will play cards, grow their own vegetables, bake their own bread, do talk-talk, laugh, and share experiences.

  “Mama Teta,” Materena exclaims, “your nursing home sounds like a good place!”

  Cackling, Mama Teta thanks her for the kind words about her new business but admits that selling it to her son Johno was another story.

  “Ah, he didn’t like that business?” Materena asks.

  “Well, let’s just say that he wasn’t too enchanted at first.” Mama Teta advises her niece that she did not ask Johno to come over to discuss her new business idea. He just turned up without any warning—which was nice, says Mama Teta, at least one of her sons remembered he’s got a mama. And she was glad it was Johno because Johno works at the Socredo Bank, he knows a bit about finance and everything. Mama Teta thought she wouldn’t mind his opinion.