Breadfruit (34 page)

“Maybe it’s something I ate at the snack yesterday afternoon.”

“What did you eat at the snack yesterday afternoon?” Materena realizes that she’s asking a bit too many questions here.

“
Ah hia hia!
” Now Pito is very annoyed. “Do you think you’re a doctor or what? I’m going to see the doctor.” Pito needs to see the doctor
for the medical certificate.

“You’re going to see your doctor or my doctor?” asks Materena.

Pito gives Materena the
you’re asking me too many questions
look. “My doctor, of course. Why should I go and see your doctor? I’m happy with my doctor.”

“Your doctor. He’s only good at giving medical certificates.”

“Well, that’s why I’m happy with my doctor.” Pito goes on about how he only has to say to his doctor that he doesn’t feel
100 percent today for his doctor to say, “How many days off do you want, Pito?” Whereas, Materena’s doctor, he asks too many
questions, like he doesn’t believe that you’re too sick to go to work. Not many sick people go to see him. They’d rather wait
hours for the other doctor—the doctor who understands better.

“Call my work, okay?” Pito makes himself more comfortable in the bed. “Tell the secretary of the boss that I’m going to see
the doctor.”

“It’s you who’s going to call your work. I’m not calling anybody.”

“You can’t call on your way to work? What, it’s difficult to dial the number of my work?”

“Why can’t you call your work?”

“The sick don’t call the office,” Pito says. “Someone else has to call the office. Because if you call the office yourself,
it means you’re not really sick. The sick go to see the doctor.”

“I don’t like to talk to the secretary of the boss.” Materena gets out of the bed. There’s breakfast to prepare.

“You don’t have to
talk
to the secretary of the boss,” Pito says. “Just tell her, ‘Pito, he’s not coming to work today.’”

Materena lifts the quilt off the bed to fold it. “She asks too many questions. She likes to repeat, ‘What’s wrong with Pito?’
like she doesn’t believe me that you’re too sick to go to work. And, that woman, she’s got such an annoying nasal voice.”

“You don’t become the secretary of the boss because you’ve got a beautiful voice,” says Pito. He pulls the quilt back his
way, he’s not getting out of bed yet. “You just tell that woman you don’t know nothing. You just tell that woman that you’re
not the doctor. Yes, just say to the secretary of the boss, ‘When Pito comes to work, you can look at the medical certificate.’”

“I can’t leave the message with Josephine?”

“Josephine is not the secretary of the boss.”

“And what are you going to do all day?” Materena asks. And before Pito has a chance to answer that he’s going to do nothing
but rest all day long, she adds, “Don’t you go out fishing with Ati. You don’t want to get a suntan.”

And now, two days later, Pito, who just got home from work, tells Materena that he has an announcement to make.

Materena stops chopping the onions. “An announcement? A good announcement or a bad announcement?”

Pito gets a beer out of the fridge and sits at the kitchen table.

“What’s the announcement?” Materena is a bit worried. Pito savors his Hinano. “Pito?”

“Can I tell my story when I’m ready?” Pito says.

“Ah, because there’s a story to tell?” Now Materena is really worried. Usually when there’s a story to tell with an announcement,
it is a bad announcement. Usually.

“Just keep chopping your onions and listen,” Pito says.

“There’s a good ending to your story?” Materena wants to know now, but Pito wants to tell his story from the beginning, and
when he gets to the end of it, Materena will know what the announcement is all about.

But first Materena has to promise Pito that she won’t open her mouth during his storytelling, because every time she opens
her mouth when he’s telling a story, Pito loses the thread of the story.

Well, here is Pito’s story about what happened to him today at work.

“The boss wants to see you,” a colleague says to Pito.

“Why does he want to see me?” Pito asks.

The colleague shrugs, he doesn’t know why the boss wants to see Pito. He tells Pito the boss just said, “Get me Pito—immediately.”

That word,
immediately,
worries Pito. When the boss wants to see you—immediately—it means you’re in trouble, you’ve done something he doesn’t appreciate.
The last person the boss asked to see—immediately—got shoved through the door. Pito asks his colleague if he’s certain the
boss said “immediately.”

“
Oui,
the boss said ‘immediately.’”

The colleague advises Pito to report to the boss’s office—immediately—and Pito walks to his boss’s office—slowly. He thinks
about all the extra hours he’s worked for the company—at no extra charge. Ah yes, it happens that Pito is still at the cutting
machine past four o’clock.

Pito thinks about the sick days too.

He reminds himself that he’s entitled to sick days—you don’t get a bonus check if you never get sick. Pito is not the only
one who gets sick. Everyone gets sick—and Monday is a popular day to be too sick to work. Pito has never been sick on Mondays,
though. The boss gets suspicious when you’re sick that day—Pito is aware of that factor. Friday is not a good day to get sick
either. Pito is never sick on Fridays.

The time before the last time that Pito took a day off, he went ?222-178?shing with Ati and he got a bit sunburned. But he
worked twice as hard the following three days. He didn’t talk, he just concentrated on the machine.

Pito is about to knock on the door of his boss’s office, but he’s not ready to face the boss yet. Is he going to get shoved
through the door?

The last person who got shoved through the door didn’t really get shoved through the door. He got a serious warning and the
employee shoved himself through the door.

But Pito likes his job. It pays reasonably good money. He’s been working with the company for so many years he can’t imagine
himself doing anything else but cutting wood. He’s used to cutting wood and he’s used to the people with whom he works. His
colleagues, his mates.

And his uncle got him the job, thanks to his connection with the boss. Not the boss now—the boss before. And if Uncle was
alive today, he wouldn’t be too happy about Pito getting shoved through the door, because when you use your connections to
get a relative a job, that relative has to stay with the job until the retirement. That’s the price to pay when you can’t
get a job without a relative having to use his connections.

Pito is nervous now, he wipes the sweat off his forehead. Another time he had a sickie, the one before when he went fishing
with Ati, Pito went for a drink in town—with Ati.

Pito knocks. Two knocks.

“Come in!”

Pito opens the door and puts his head in the office. “Boss, you want to see me?”

“Sit down.” The boss is signing some papers.

Pito walks into the office and sits in the chair facing the boss. Pito looks at his boss in the eyes. You should always look
at your boss in the eyes. When you don’t look at your boss in the eyes, it means you’re hiding something.

“Do you like to work here?” The boss takes his glasses off.

“
Oui,
boss,” Pito replies.

He wants to tell his boss that if he didn’t like to work here, he would have got himself another job—he’s got connections,
he’s got lots of cousins everywhere. But Pito says nothing, he just makes sure to look at his boss in the eyes.

The boss smiles, he says, “Ah, ha.” He coughs, then he becomes silent and Pito expects to hear the words “It is with regret
. . .”

But the boss begins, “It is with joy . . .”

The boss tells Pito that he’s been nominated Employee of the Month, and Pito is so happy he shakes the hand of his boss. The
boss goes on about how he’s always watching his employees. Nothing—absolutely nothing—escapes his eyes and his ears. He knows
everything there is for him to know. He looks into Pito’s eyes and repeats the word—
everything.
Pito nods and for a split second his eyes wander to the ceiling, the glasses, the thick eyebrows of the boss, then back to
the eyes of his boss.

The sickie he took before he went with Ati to the pub, Pito went for a drink at the bar at the airport—with Ati.

Next time he’s going to take a day off—he’s going to stay inside the house, that’s for certain. It’s too risky being outside
when you’re supposed to be inside the house, in bed—resting. Did the boss see him at the bar at the airport?

Next time he takes a sickie, he’s going to make sure that he
is
sick.

“Anyway,” the boss says as he puts his glasses back on, “congratulations.”

He hopes Pito won’t make him regret his decision to have him nominated employee of this month.

“Okay, boss—thank you, boss.”

Pito tells his colleagues about the Employee of the Month nomination and they say, “Good for you, Pito.” It isn’t a cause
for a celebration at the bar. The nomination doesn’t come with a bonus check, Pito isn’t going to buy beers all round.

Pito goes back to the machine and works twice as fast.

And before leaving work, he goes to the front office to check his nomination form. The Employee of the Month nomination form
is displayed in the front office on a notice board. The words
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH
are typed in capital letters. His name is handwritten underneath—
Pito Tehana.

And Pito thinks about that nomination form in the truck on his way home. The Employee of the Month nomination system was introduced
three months ago, soon after the boss came back from a seminar. The boss held a special meeting in the canteen. He talked
about how they should all put their efforts together to ensure the company’s growth, because if the company does well—so will
they. The employees cheered, but when the boss announced that there would be no bonus check with the nomination, the employees
stopped cheering and shut their ears. What’s the use of an Employee of the Month nomination if there’s no francs to shout
your colleagues a few drinks at the bar?

Still, Pito is very happy about that nomination. It’s better than getting shoved through the door.

It is the end of Pito’s story and Pito looks at Materena, waiting for her reaction to the announcement.

“Employee of the Month!” Materena has been meaning to shout these words for the last five minutes. She gets Pito another beer.

“I tell you, Materena,” Pito says, “when my colleague said to me, ‘The boss wants to see you—immediately,’ I thought the boss
was going to tell me, ‘It is with regret . . .’”

“So, when there’s the word
immediately,
there’s
it’s with regret
after?”

“
Ah oui,
” Pito says. “But the boss said to me, ‘It is with joy . . .’”

“That’s very good your boss said to you, ‘It is with joy,’ and not, ‘It is with regret.’” Materena resumes the chopping of
the onions.

“Yes, that’s good,” Pito agrees.

“It’s a good job you’ve got, Pito,” Materena continues.

“I’m used to that job.”

“It’s like me with my job. The house of my boss is like my house. I’m used to cleaning her house. I know where everything
is.”

Materena lights the stove and puts the pot on the flame. She waits for the pot to get hot and she thinks about her man’s Employee
of the Month nomination. He’s a good employee when he’s at the machine—he must be. Yes, he’s a good employee when he’s in
the mood to work. And when you get a nomination—usually you get a promotion later on,
non?
There’s no reason why Pito can’t get to be a boss one day. Not the big boss with the big office, but the boss beneath that
boss. The second-in-charge boss. It’s good to have a nomination like that for the future. If Pito ever gets shoved through
the door, he can show the Employee of the Month nomination paper at his job interviews.

“And when the month is finished,” Materena asks, “what happens to your Employee of the Month nomination form? You get it?”

“
Non,
it goes in the company files.”

“You can’t get a copy?”

“There’s only one copy, and that copy goes in the company files.”

Materena puts oil in the pot, then she throws the onions in the pot. It’s silly Pito can’t get a copy of his nomination. What
if he wants to show it off to his family, what if he wants to put it in the family album?

An idea comes into Materena’s mind.

She’s going to photograph that nomination form.

It will be the proof.

The next day, on her way home, Materena stops by Pito’s work. It’s nice in the office, with the air-conditioning. The office
girl, Josephine, who answers the telephone, smiles when she sees Materena. “Eh, hello, Materena.”

“Eh, hello, Josephine.”

“How’s the kids?”

“Good. And, your Patrice, he’s still running like the wind?”

Patrice is Josephine’s son and Josephine mentioned to Materena two weeks ago that he had won the school running competition.

“That kid, he loves running, I tell you.” Josephine is all smiles.

“There’s other fast runners in your family?” asks Materena.

“Not in my family. But the father of my man, he was a bit of a runner in his days when he was a postman. In his days, postmen
didn’t ride Vespas, they ran.”

“Eh, Patrice got his running gift from his grandfather.”

“You think you can inherit things like this?”

“
Ah oui.
” Materena sounds very convincing. “It’s got to do with the shape of the legs. My cousin Lily, she used to be a champion runner,
and she got her speed from her father, who also used to be a champion runner.”

Josephine widens her eyes. “Now, that you’re talking. My man, he was a bit of a runner too.”

“
Ah oui?
”

“
Oui,
he’s got a few school medals.”

“Eh, you see? And, Patrice, he wants to be a professional runner?”

“He never told me.”