Tiare in Bloom (20 page)

This situation is making Pito lose his screws. He had a word about this to Materena tonight before she went to work, and she
said, “
Aue,
Pito, our son has just come home. Don’t worry, he’s going to be all right, at least he’s home every night to eat. He doesn’t
go to other people’s houses, and he doesn’t drink on the road. Give Tamatoa time to play a little.”

Time to play? He’s been playing all over Europe for months since his military service ended. And anyway, Pito didn’t have
time to play when he became a father. He walked straight from the delivery room into a job, so to speak. Ah, true, the day
his precious son came into the world, Pito became serious. He wasn’t dancing in nightclubs. He was slaving away at the factory
for eight hours a day!

Pito should have known better than complain to Materena about Tamatoa. As far as she’s concerned, he’s a very good son, bless
the day he was born, et cetera. After two years of listening to her tell him off on the phone (and to his photo in the living
room, the one of him in his military clothes) for taking so long to come home to meet his daughter, Tamatoa has turned into
a saint in his mother’s eyes because he’s here now. What’s more, he came home before Mother’s Day.

If only Materena could see her golden boy now, Pito thinks. They are in Papeete with Ati and his son to buy Mother’s Day gifts.

Pito glances to his two-year-old granddaughter fifteen feet away, wearing her brand-new red tennis shoes that match her red
dress and the red ribbons in her pigtails. Presently, she’s standing still next to her father, who came into her life less
than a week ago, her father who is too busy checking out the girls walking past to notice her brand-new shoes.

Her little voice says, “Eh, Papi, look at my shoes.” But the young man hears nothing, being now fascinated by a pack of schoolgirls
strolling by, firmly holding on to their precious textbooks. He whistles and calls out sweet words. “Eh, bella! Bellissima!”
The schoolgirls turn around and giggle, and next thing, the fit and handsome twenty-three-year-old young man wearing nothing
but a pair of faded jeans rolled at the bottom follows them, doing his robot walk. The schoolgirls turn around to look at
him and giggle some more.

“Tamatoa!” Pito calls out, thinking, Great, you send your son to military service so that he becomes a man, and they send
you back a clown. “Be careful of
bébé!
”

The father (too young to know better) walks back to his daughter, dragging his feet along, and doing his long face. For a
moment, he looks like he’s about to call something out to his father, something like what he told him last night and the night
before and the night before, and on the telephone many times.

“I didn’t ask for a child. Children should be with their mother. Miri is a bitch for abandoning her daughter like that. It’s
not enough to send toys and photos of herself with her Godzilla French boyfriend . . . He really doesn’t look Catholic, that
one. She should take her daughter to live with her in France. You and Mamie shouldn’t have legally adopted Tiare. Now Miri
thinks she doesn’t have responsibilities.” But one look at his father grinding his teeth and Tamatoa understands that it’s
not the time to make a scene.

“
Merde!
” Ati is losing his cool. Right in front of a pizzeria, and plus, it’s so hot today! Sweat is pouring off his forehead.

“
Copain, haere maru, haere papu;
go slow, go right.” This is Pito talking with his calm voice. How hard can it be to put a carriage together? But we’re not
talking about a cheap carriage that unfolds easily here, we’re talking about a science-fiction gadget, the top-of-the-line
carriage, imported from the USA. It cost Ati the eyes in his head. And today, one day before Mother’s Day, Ati will be getting
the mother of his child, Lily, something even better. As soon as he gets that
putain
carriage up.

Ati’s beautiful baby boy was conceived the very night his parents were guests at Materena and Pito’s table (where Ati greatly
impressed Lily with his historical knowledge) and made his entrance into the world eight months ago at the private clinic.

On that day, which Ati solemnly proclaimed to be the best day of his entire life, he had a serious talk with Lily. “Look,”
he said, “even if it didn’t work between us two, let’s agree to do the best by our son. He needs to grow up with both his
parents.”

She replied, “Okay, good. You can have your son three days a week, and I’ll have him for four.”

“What?” Ati had expected something a bit more full-time. “Are you serious?”

“Better not to complain,” Lily said sweetly. “Maybe you will only be having my son for two days.”

Pito told Ati not to worry too much, it’s not the best time to negotiate with a woman when she’s just given birth — of course,
Lily would soon realize that it is much more practical to raise a child when both parents are living under the same roof.
But Pito underestimated Lily’s top organizational skills. Within a week of Rautini’s birth, his mother’s very unusual arrangement
with his father was proving to be quite successful.

“
Merde!
” The carriage is tipped over, and two pairs of mystified eyes scan the bolts and the knobs,
purée de bonsoir,
who invented this stupid thing?

“Look at my shoes,” a little voice says again, trying to attract her papa’s attention.

But Tamatoa doesn’t care about that little girl’s shoes. He cares more about the brown girls walking by. Ah, he missed those
brown girls. French girls are beautiful but Tahitian girls are better. He’d forgotten. Tahitian girls don’t get cranky if
you mess up their hair. When he met Miri Makemo, he was in all honesty very taken by her, but it was the costume she was wearing
— the traditional grass skirt and the bra made out of coconut shells. She was like a fantasy in that gloomy street of Paris.
He was walking by, and she was in the street, smoking a cigarette after the show. And she called out, “Eh? You’re Tahitian?”

If she had been wearing normal clothes, jeans and a shirt, for example, Tamatoa wouldn’t have looked at her twice. But he
did, and now he’s getting punished for it. After the wild and passionate night they had together, she asked him where he was
from, and he,
stupido,
gave her his address in Tahiti.

When Pito looks up, there’s no sign of his son, and Tiare is showing off her new shoes to an old French man smoking a pipe,
shirt unbuttoned, and looking extremely interested in this little girl and her brand-new shoes.

“Tiare!” Pito’s booming voice is enough to wake up the dead.

The little girl immediately looks up at her grandfather. He gives her a nod his way, meaning,
haere mai,
come here right now, and the little girl, not one to disobey her grandfather when he’s cranky, hurries over to him.

“Go and wait in the car,” he says, giving the old Frenchman the look that fires bullets straight to the heart. The Frenchman
takes on a defensive expression as if to say, “But Monsieur, my intentions were honorable.” But you don’t argue with an overprotective
grandfather.

Now: back to that STUPID carriage.

“Why not just carry
bébé?
” Pito asks Ati.

“Lily wants —”

“Okay,” Pito interrupts. He’s not in the mood to hear about Lily’s instructions. These days whenever Ati expresses an opinion,
it is linked to Lily’s instructions. Let’s just say that becoming a father has done something to Ati’s head. He will do everything
the mother of his son says. Her wish is his command. She says, “When you take
bébé
out, make sure he’s in the carriage, you might carry him the wrong way and damage his spinal cord,” then so be it.

OUI!
Finally! The carriage unfolds, and a burst of applause congratulates the two men, who did not realize they had been entertaining
pizza eaters. “Bravo!” the crowd cheers.

All right, let’s go shopping for the mamas. Ati pushing the carriage with his son still sound asleep, his precious head and
tiny body protected from the sun by a net, Pito holding his granddaughter’s hand. A little voice says, “Grandpère, look at
my shoes.” And Pito says, “They’re very beautiful shoes.”

They walk into a shop that sells very reasonably priced gifts, cheap, actually. Pito’s Mother’s Day gift for his mama is a
pandanus bag. Ati’s choice is also a pandanus bag, but he hasn’t found Lily’s gift yet, he says.

“Lily isn’t your mother,” Pito reminds Ati.

“I just want to get Lily something small,” Ati says, walking towards a jewelry shop. “Something to show my gratitude for having
given me a son.”

“What if she had given you a daughter?” Pito asks, remembering how he felt when his first child was born and it was a boy.
Ah, he was so proud. Perhaps Ati feels the same way.

But Ati informs his best friend that had Lily given him a daughter instead of this beautiful healthy golden baby boy he so
adores, he would still be — forever, he insists — grateful, because a child is a child. Lily had to carry it, and push it
out, ruining her body. That’s a big sacrifice, Ati explains, for a woman to ruin her body like that.
Ah oui,
many men who have known Lily in her pre-baby days are mourning her statuesque body. It’s gone, they say . . . for eternity.

Well, Lily still looks good because she’s been addicted to the gym for years and years, and has already gone back to training.
It’s not the same, say the men, it’s not the same. But Pito would be the first to tell you that since giving birth, Lily has
never looked better. There’s a bit more flesh, Pito approves; she doesn’t look like Mr. Muscles anymore. He follows Ati into
the jeweler’s shop.

“
Bonjour.
” The middle-aged woman behind the glass counter immediately smells a buyer. “We have beautiful gold necklaces on special.
A great Mother’s Day gift for less than fifty thousand francs.”

“It’s not for my mother,” says Ati. “It’s for my wife.”

Pito raises an eyebrow.

“Oh.” The saleswoman’s smile is even bigger now. “Well, we have some beautiful pearl necklaces over there —” She leads Ati
to another section of the shop, to a locked cabinet, making sure to notice the sweet baby sleeping in the carriage he’s pushing,
and completely ignoring Tiare and her brand-new shoes. “A girl? A boy?” she asks, like she really cares.

“A boy.”

“Oh, he’s very handsome, how old is he?”

“Eight months.”

“Oh, he looks very alert.”

Sleeping babies don’t look alert, Pito thinks. They just look like sleeping babies!

But Ati, grinning with pride, confirms the saleswoman’s statement.
Oui,
his son is very alert for his age, even his doctor says so.

“And what would your budget be?” the saleswoman lowers her voice.

“How much for that one?” Ati has already made up his mind. His eyes are set on a black pearl necklace.

The saleswoman hurries to open the cabinet. She’d like Ati to feel the pearls first, their smoothness. “It’s like touching
silk,” she smiles.

Ati does what he’s told with Pito looking on and feeling a twinge of envy. Ha, he would have loved to give his wife (who
is
his wife) a necklace like that to . . . to thank her for having given him three children. A smart daughter studying medicine
in Paris, a son destined to be the greatest chef Tahiti has ever produced, and a son Pito used to adore.

Tamatoa is so . . . what would the correct word to use here be? Yes —
irresponsible.
For Tamatoa, life is about being a clown. For Pito, it’s about getting a job and fulfilling his duties as a father.

Now Ati would like to get a card because a pearl necklace by itself means nothing. He wants to write a few words of gratitude
to Lily for the golden boy she gave him. Pito nods, thinking, Maybe today your son is a golden boy, but let’s see in twenty-three
years. And speaking of which, here’s Tamatoa appearing out of nowhere.

“Where were you all?” he shouts, waving his arms in the air. “I’ve been looking for you all over the place!”

They sit on the bench and wait for Ati.

“Papi?” Tamatoa asks with a sweet voice. “Can I have some money for ice cream? For me and Tiare?”

Pito looks down at Tiare. “You want ice cream?”

Tiare nods, her eyes twinkling with delight, and so Pito gets his wallet out. “And I want the change, you hear?” he tells
his son.

“You want an ice cream too, Papi?” Tamatoa asks.

Pito shakes his head
non,
he doesn’t want an ice cream, but it’s nice of Tamatoa to ask, even if he’s not paying, that’s thoughtful.

Minutes later, waiting for Ati, who can’t make up his mind about that card, Pito hears his granddaughter giggle and looks
down to see what’s going on. Here she is, rubbing her chin on her vanilla ice cream like her father is doing so that she can
have a beard too, and those two are showing off their beards to each other, laughing their heads off. Pito cracks up laughing
too.

“Eh, Papi,” Tamatoa asks, “you got Mamie something? For Mother’s Day?”

“Your mother is not my mother,” Pito snaps, “she’s your mother. Are you getting your mother something?”

“Of course!” Seconds later, “Papi, can I have some money? I’m going to get Mamie a
cadeau.
”

Nodding in agreement, Pito gets his wallet out, and, pulling out the last banknote he has, says, “Spend the whole lot on your
mother.”

“The whole five thousand francs?” Tamatoa asks, just to make sure.

“Buy something nice.”

“And my maman?” a small voice says. “She doesn’t have a
cadeau.
”

“Your
maman,
” Tamatoa snaps, but one look from his father and he understands that he better shut it about Miri. “Come with Papa,” he says,
giving his hand to the little one, but the obedient granddaughter looks to her grandfather first to see if it’s fine. With
a smile, Pito gives Tiare his permission.

F
or Mother’s Day, Tamatoa composed a special dance show for his mother, which she absolutely loved. He also bought her (but
there was no mention about his using his father’s money) a child’s jewelry box, with a ballerina who starts dancing every
time you open the lid. It is the same jewelry box, so Materena swore, that she used to have as a child, but one of her mother’s
lovers’ children stole it. That jewelry box truly overshadowed the Mother’s Day gifts Materena received from her other two
children: a journal from Leilani and a bouquet of flowers from Moana.