Tiare in Bloom (8 page)

“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. Materena
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!

T
he 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 left 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.

Then there’s the story of another great-auntie, who didn’t know for two months that her only son, who joined the French army
during World War Two, had died fighting the Italians in Bir Akeim. For two months the great-auntie imagined her son alive
and breathing, a hero of the Egyptian desert, when in fact he had been struck in the first minute of the battle. She had to
get the official letter, the one filled with apologetic words, translated since she couldn’t read French. She couldn’t read
full stop. Despite the time lapse, the Tahitian soldier was given a proper farewell ceremony. It was a tricky situation —
a wake without a body — but Tahitians are well known for not letting anything get in the way of their prayers. The soldier’s
family prayed, sang, and called out to his soul to come home, back to his birth land, the
fenua.

And there’s the story of a great-uncle who . . .

At quarter to twelve Pito is on the phone to the Mamao Hospital’s emergency ward. He explains the situation to the nurse on
duty, how his wife went dancing with a friend and said that she’d be home by ten but she’s not home yet. He explains all of
this in a neutral voice. There’s no need for the nurse to start thinking he’s panicking.