Tiare in Bloom

by Célestine Vaite

  “You went to see Papi?” Pito asks.

  A nod meaning oui, a nostalgic smile meaning, I still miss Papi.

  Pito sighs: Me too.

  Their poor father couldn’t sit for two minutes without his woman yelling at him to go and do something. It seemed to Pito that his mother’s mission in life was to see sweat on Frank senior’s forehead twenty-four hours a day, it wasn’t enough that he had three jobs so that she could buy herself the beautiful things she felt she deserved.

  One morning a week after Pito’s circumcision, when a boy supposedly becomes a man, Pito told his father (springing to his feet at Mama Roti’s shout “Frank!”) to have a rest if he wanted.

  The father replied, “Son, all a man wants in life is peace.” Three months later he was dead.

  After his wake, Mama Roti put their mattress next to the coffin and lay there staring at her dead husband and crying her eyes out. She cried nonstop for two whole weeks. She sat at the kitchen table with her red wine and caressed her shiny new wedding ring, singing the praises of her Frank chéri who had married her on his hospital deathbed. “My love, come back to me,” Mama Roti lamented. “I’m the sky without stars, the tree without roots, the flower without petals.”

  Pito’s ears were hurting. For him, all of this was hypocrisy. His mother was just repeating words from a song.

  Pito digs a hand into the packet of chips his brother is holding out to him, thinking, what a miserable life his father had. Then again, maybe he was just one of those men who can’t function without a woman to issue commandments and instructions.

  “Huh?” says Frank, handing Pito the bottle of Coca-Cola.

  Pito takes a sip, relieved he hasn’t turned out like his father. Unlike his three brothers, who can’t fart without their wife’s permission. Ah true, he nods to himself, he can be proud. He fought hard to be where he is today as the man of the house.

  But did he really? Or did he just slip into this man’s act because Materena let him? Because . . . well, because she’s not the kind to shout and order people around like his mother.

  Now that the pakalolo is taking effect, Pito realizes quite clearly that Materena is everything his mother isn’t. To begin with, she’s a very good cook, and she’s tidy and neat. She smiles a lot, she’s patient . . . and she doesn’t judge people. She is, without exaggerating, the most loving person Pito has ever known in his whole life.

  Later, walking through the door of his house, spaced out a bit but very relaxed, Pito finds himself wishing his wife would yell at him for once. He wants to know what he’s done wrong.

  Love for a Man

  Materena bumps into Cousin Tapeta on her way into the Chinese store; Tapeta, holding breadsticks, on her way out.

  “Cousin! E aha te huru?” Two big kisses on the cheeks follow, with a big warm hug.

  “And how is our Rose in the country of kangaroos?” Today it’s Materena’s turn to begin the interrogation about the absent daughters.

  “Kangaroo, kangaroo,” Tapeta laughs. “I tell you one thing, Cousin, the only kangaroos Rose sees are on postcards and tea towels. Otherwise, my Rose is still walking around Sydney with baby Taina-Duke in a pram, hoping to bump into someone from the island.”

  “Ah oui? And?”

  “So far, because our Rose is counting, she’s bumped into twenty-five Maoris and twelve Samoans.”

  “Really? No Tahitians?”

  “All the Tahitians live in Tahiti or in France, my poor girl, eh? But the story I wanted to tell you today, Cousin, is that last Saturday Rose drove to the Fijian market to buy a breadfruit.”

  Materena cackles. Rose used to complain about the breadfruit diet, and Materena would tell her niece, “One day, Rose, you are going to love the breadfruit like your mama and I do.”

  Well, after years growing up complaining of the breadfruit diet (even if Tapeta has always gone to great lengths to vary the menu, alternating it from fried breadfruit to barbecued breadfruit to baked breadfruit, et cetera), Rose suddenly felt the urge to reconnect with the food of her childhood. Her stomach yearned for breadfruit. Her mouth could even taste the warm, soft flesh of cooked breadfruit when it melts on your tongue and you want to eat more even if you’re full.

  But when she finally got to the Fijian market after the three near-miss accidents (because, so Tapeta explains, they drive on the wrong side in Australia), Rose was very disappointed to see a yellow squashy thing that didn’t look like a breadfruit at all. In her experience as a Tahitian, breadfruit is green and firm, and it’s round like a little soccer ball or a big mango. It’s not yellow, and it doesn’t have a bizarre shape.

  She asked the shopkeeper, “Are you sure this is a breadfruit? It’s such a bizarre shape.” Next thing, the little Fijian man was yelling at Rose, “Of course this is a breadfruit! Do you think I don’t know what a breadfruit looks like?” In the end, Rose bought the yellow squashy thing, baked it, ate it, and spat it out. She’s not sure if the weird taste had something to do with cooking the breadfruit in an electric oven instead of gas, or if that breadfruit was just plain rotten. “What do you think, Cousin?” Tapeta asks.

  “I’m sure that breadfruit was fine, but it wasn’t to Rose’s taste because it wasn’t the same breadfruit she’s eaten all her life.”

  Tapeta nods knowingly. “Our breadfruit is special, eh?”

  “Ah oui, I think so.”

  “You know I’m saving for my daughter and granddaughter’s fares,” Tapeta continues. “Every payday I hide a few coins in a sock and I hide that sock in a paper bag and then I hide that paper bag in —” Tapeta stops. “This is a secret, okay, Cousin?”

  “Of course!”

  “I hide that paper bag under the mattress because if my good-for-nothing husband sees the money, it’s for sure he’s going to drink it.”

  “Why don’t you just put the money in a bank account?” Materena seriously suggests.

  Tapeta admits that so far she has saved only about two thousand francs and it isn’t much, considering that the plane ticket costs about three hundred thousand francs. However, it’s a start. “I don’t want my daughter and my granddaughter to be stuck in Australia because of a money problem,” she says. “If Rose wants to come home, she can. The money is my problem. Rose says to me, ‘Mamie, I love my husband.’ But Cousin,” Tapeta says, looking very concerned, “love doesn’t last.”

  “Hum.”

  “Love for a man, I mean,” Tapeta explains.

  “I understood you.”

  “I call to my daughter every day, and every night.” In her head, Tapeta asserts, not on the telephone. In her head and in her heart.

  “Maybe it’s best you stop calling, Cousin.” This is Materena’s piece of advice for the day. “Her life is in Australia now. Give Rose the chance to adapt.”

  Tapeta sighs, meaning, Oui, I know. “But I’m so worried, Cousin. My girl is all on her own there. She has no job, no money, she has nobody to help her with the baby, nobody to defend her. She’s at her husband’s mercy. He can do whatever he wants to her and she can’t say nothing.”

  “Cousin,” Materena says, putting a reassuring hand on Tapeta’s shoulder. “You know your Rose. She’s not the kind to let people walk all over her. When she doesn’t agree, she opens her mouth.”

  “Eh hia tamari’i . . .” Tapeta forces laughter. “And how is our Leilani in France?” It is Tapeta’s turn to show some interest.

  “Aue, same, Cousin. She feels lonely.”

  “She doesn’t have any friends?”

  “Oui, she has, but what she really wants is family.” Materena continues about Leilani growing up complaining that she had too many aunties, too many spies, too many ears, too many questions, but now Leilani wishes she had a few relatives living around the corner. Oh, Leilani wouldn’t appreciate them visiting every day, but it would be comforting knowing she had some cousins or aunties not too far away. She’d like to see Tamatoa more often too, but he’s very busy with his military commitments. Mat
erena won’t say a word about Tamatoa’s dancing disco moves in nightclubs, which Leilani reports to her. Tapeta might take her nephew’s hobby for something else.

  “Eh-eh.” Tears well in Tapeta’s eyes. “And Hotu?”

  “They have their pact.”

  The whole family knows about the don’t-call-don’t-write-don’t-visit-me pact between Leilani and Hotu.

  “Ah.” Tapeta nods knowingly. “It’s for the best. Leilani has her studies, she can have as many men as she wants when she gets her degree. Hotu isn’t the last man on Earth . . . but I’ve been thinking, Cousin.” Tapeta looks over her shoulders for a few seconds. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m only asking you because you know so many things . . . When someone dies overseas, how does the soul find its way back to the birth land? When I think about my daughter’s soul wandering and wandering for eternity and never making it home to Tahiti, I get so sad.”

  “Souls never get lost, Tapeta,” Materena says firmly. To reassure her cousin, Materena tells her the story of a Tahitian woman who was buried in Canada, her husband’s country, where she’d lived for fifty years.

  Three days after the funeral, her sister saw her in Tahiti — standing in the garden next to the kava tree where they used to play as children. The dead woman was wearing a bright yellow dress with her hair all beautiful and her face made up with lipstick, and looking so much younger than seventy years old. And she was smiling the smile we do when we know we’re in a good place.

  The sister called out, “Teuira is home! Teuira is home!” The whole family gathered to celebrate the safe return of Teuira’s soul back to the homeland. They got the ukuleles out, they sang and drank and ate. No expenses were spared. It was as if the woman had come home alive.

  When Materena finishes telling the story, tears are falling out of her eyes, and Tapeta, hiding her face behind her breadsticks, is crying her eyes out too.

  Meanwhile, people are walking in and out of the Chinese store, throwing the usual curious glances. As well as laughing and gossipping, women have been crying outside the Chinese store for centuries.

  Materena walks back to the house with her cooking oil, still feeling emotional from her discussion with Tapeta. She pictures herself trying to tell Pito what he has done to her, but when it comes to hurt (the kind that cuts deeply), Materena finds it hard to express herself. Most likely she’ll just burst into tears and Pito will laugh and say, “That’s the reason you’re not talking to me? I thought it was something serious.” Then Materena will slap Pito across the face and —

  And here he is, lying stoned on the couch like a zombie.

  Non. It’s definitely in that man’s interest that Materena doesn’t talk to him today. Putting her cooking oil away, Materena remembers a conversation she had with her mother a few days ago about how in her next life she might come back as a lesbian.

  And her mother said, “Why wait?”

  Ah, oui alors, why wait!

  Calling Out the Faithful

  The first time Materena asked Pito to accompany her to a nightclub — the Zizou Bar, where French militaires and Tahitian women get acquainted, and a special place for Materena because it’s where her parents met — Pito said, “I’m not putting my feet in that bloody bar.” So Materena had her first life experience in a nightclub with her cousin Mori and had a very good time, or so she told her husband when she came home at about ten o’clock.

  Well, tonight Materena is going out dancing again. Her soon-to-be-second experience in a nightclub is going to be at the Kikiriri, a nightclub open to all nationalities (especially to Chinese men with thick wallets, Pito knows this). Materena is not asking her husband to accompany her because, so she announced to her husband earlier, she’s going out with a copine.

  “Who?” Pito asks with sugar in his voice, ready for Materena to snap at him. She’s been doing a lot of this lately. He’s still waiting for that saying “After the storm there’s the good weather” to come true.

  But Materena doesn’t say a word as she slips into a dress Pito has never seen before. It must be new.

  “You bought a new dress?”

  “I’ve had this dress for five years!”

  “Ah.” Pito can’t believe he didn’t notice that green dress before, but it’s very hard for a man to keep track of his woman’s dresses. They have so many! Dresses with thick straps, thin straps, red dots, black dots, flowers, squares, drawings . . . You need a big memory to remember all of this. “Who’s your friend?” Pito asks again.

  “Tareva,” Materena replies nonchalantly, spraying eau de cologne on her wrists. “She’s from the radio station.”

  “She’s pretty?”

  “She likes to dance.”

  “Oui, but she’s pretty?”

  “It’s important that Tareva is pretty?” Materena snaps as she puts her shoes on, her favorite ones because they’re so comfortable.

  “You’re wearing those shoes?” Pito says to say something.

  “Oui, and so? They’re comfortable.”

  “They’re a bit old.”

  “People aren’t going to talk to my feet.” With this tired declaration and an approximate time for her return (ten o’clock), Materena makes an exit.

  Pito grabs himself a beer and wanders around the house like someone who has nothing to do. He stops in front of the framed wedding photograph proudly displayed on the wall in the living room. There’s him, his wife, their children, when they were younger.

  Pito goes to the fridge, opens a new beer, and continues his wandering. He inspects himself in front of the mirror (full front and both sides). “Not bad, my friend.” He does ten push-ups on his knuckles. “Not bad, my friend,” he smiles, rubbing his sore knuckles. He admires himself in the mirror again. “Hum . . . not bad at all.” He wanders around the house, thinking about this, that, his wife dancing in her new dress.

  Eh, Pito is going to call Ati, see what he’s up to. They might go for a little drive.

  Ati picks up his phone on the third ring. “A-llo.” He has his telephone voice on, a mix of mystery and sexiness, in case it is a woman calling.

  “It’s me,” Pito says. Purée — is that a hymn being sung in the background?

  “Eh, Pito, e aha te huru?”

  “What’s that noise? It’s coming from your apartment?”

  “Oui,” Ati says, resigned. “Mama organized a prayer night at my place.” Then speaking between his teeth he adds, “It’s to help me find a good wife. All my aunties are here, they’re driving me mad with their church songs.”

  “What’s a good wife these days?” Pito asks, forcing a laugh.

  But here’s Ati’s mama yelling out, “Ati! We’re not going to do all the singing by ourselves! It’s not us who need a wife!”

  “All right then, copain,” Pito says. “I’ll let you go back to your singing.”

  After a few words of encouragement, Pito stares at the telephone for a good moment, then returns to his wandering around the house, checking this and that, the spotless bathroom, the sparkling white fridge, and the potted plants hiding the holes in the walls . . . Pito turns around and around, goes to see the president . . . While he’s in the bathroom he might as well have his shower. Then he knots a towel around his waist and wanders some more.

  After a while, he starts imagining his wife dancing with a rich Chinese man (old, of course, and decrepit) and comparing him with her idiot husband who’s let her go out on her own, thinking she’s with a friend from work. She’s laughing too, throwing her head backwards to show the rich Chinese man her throat, and you know what it means when a woman shows a man her throat, eh? It means she wants to be nice to him, of course!

  “So? What do you do?” Materena could be asking her dancing partner right now, as they waltz around the dance floor, twirling this way, that way. “Oh,” the Chinese man casually replies, “I own ten pearl farms and two music shops.” Then Materena would give him her most charming smile, and he’d say, “That’s a cute dimple you have on your le
ft cheek —”

  Pito drags his feet to the bedroom, sits on the bed, and glances at the clothes for mass tomorrow, which Materena has ironed and neatly laid on the ironing board. My wife is so organized, Pito thinks with pride. He’s quite surprised to feel proud about this. Ironed clothes lying on the ironing board have never had this effect on him before, but here he is, proud and impressed. He lived with a chaotic and disorganized mother for eighteen years. That’s probably why.

  At ten o’clock precisely, Pito switches all the lights in the house off except in the kitchen. He lights a mosquito coil in the bedroom, hops into bed, and closes his eyes.

  He opens his eyes, he closes his eyes again, turns to his left, to his right, sits up, stays still like a statue for several minutes, gets out of bed.

  He switches the bedroom light on, grabs a comic from his comic box, hops back into bed, fluffs the pillows behind his back, makes himself comfortable, and looks at the pictures. Every now and then Pito has visions of his wife in bed with a Chinese man. Actually, non, a Tahitian man, a young and fit Tahitian man.

  Pito puts his comic down and stares at the wall. If anyone could see his aura right now, it would be glowing with question marks.

  Who is my wife with?

  Why does my wife look at me like she wants to give me slaps?

  Why, who, how . . . To stop the questions, Pito forces himself to think about family stories. Family stories are good to pass the time. There’s the story of his great-auntie Catherine, who left Tahiti as a young woman to follow her American husband back to his country and who came home an old woman and a widow. She spent her days raking the leaves, crying for her island that had changed so much, and calling out to her great-nieces and nephews to give her a kiss and a hug. But all the children would give the foreigner was an obedient forehead. She died not long after her return and was buried, as per her wishes, next to her twin brother, who had died at birth.