Frangipani

by Célestine Vaite

  Another contraction comes up and Materena loses track of the conversation, too busy dealing with her suffering. “Aue!”

  The curtain is suddenly pulled open and a big mama midwife, smiling and introducing herself as Mary, walks in and closes the curtain behind her. She checks how everything is going and is very pleased to inform Materena that it is time to push. Grinding her teeth, Materena pushes and pushes, but nothing is coming out.

  “Push!” Mary the midwife commands.

  “That’s what I’m doing!” Materena growls.

  She pushes and pushes, she pushes and yells her head off for twenty excruciating minutes. But still nothing comes out.

  Mary thinks her hand will hurry things up. That hand (the whole lot) goes in and Materena shrieks so loud that the hand quickly retreats.

  “You’re not helping, mama,” Mary says.

  “Just take that baby out of me!”

  “Let’s calm ourselves, okay?” Mary, looking slightly worried now, commands, “Push. Come on, push . . . Give me that baby!”

  Materena pushes. Nothing happens.

  The curtain is pulled open, and what a relief it is for Materena to see Auntie Stella, long regarded as the best midwife on the island.

  “Auntie Stella,” Materena cries. “My baby doesn’t want to come out.”

  Stella kisses Materena’s forehead and tells her to be strong and not to worry. Then she begins her inspection and concludes that the only way for the baby to come out is for Materena to push standing up. Let gravity help. Stella frees Materena of the tubes and helps her get out of bed.

  At that precise moment, Pito walks in, red-eyed, with Materena’s packet of Twisties.

  “But!” Stella exclaims. “You’ve smoked paka, or what? Unbelievable! All you men are the same!” Materena is in too much pain to say anything. She feels like all her insides are going to fall out. But she can’t believe Pito bought her the red packet of Twisties when she asked for the green one.

  “Come here,” Stella orders Pito. “Make yourself useful and put that packet of Twisties on the bed, you idiot.”

  Pito puts the packet of Twisties on the bed.

  “Stand behind your woman.”

  Pito stands behind Materena.

  “Put your hands under her arms.”

  Pito puts his hands under Materena’s arms.

  “Hold her good!”

  Pito holds Materena good.

  “Mary . . . quick, grab a pillow and put it on the floor here,” Stella goes on with her orders. And to Materena she adds, “Next contraction, I want you to push real hard. Don’t stop until I tell you, okay? Don’t worry if you rip. Baby has got to come out now.”

  They all wait for the next contraction as Materena begs her baby to please come out. Then it comes, and Materena pushes with all her heart and soul and her baby daughter makes her entrance into the world upside down, with her mother’s hands underneath her head in case the baby falls, but there’s no need. Stella has it all under control. When the baby slides out, there she is with her hands open, ready to catch.

  Leilani Loana Rita Imelda comes into the world the week her cousin Rose is baptized and the week her older brother falls off the table and breaks his arm. She comes into the world frowning and with her eyes wide open.

  Auntie Stella, relieved that all is well, laughs and says, “Oh, but we have a thinker here. We have a professor.” Then, to Mary, she asks, “What’s the time?”

  It’s twenty-nine past eight precisely.

  And Materena cries out with joy, “Welcome into the world, girl!”

  There and then she feels that magical bond mothers feel when they see their child for the very first time. Materena gets back onto the bed with great difficulty while Stella holds the newborn and Pito follows Mary, keeping an eye on where he’s putting his feet. Materena can’t wait to embrace her beautiful, greased baby girl.

  At last, the newborn is placed on her mother’s belly. “My baby,” Materena cries out with joy. “My beautiful baby girl . . . look at all that hair you’ve got . . . my chérie . . . my friend.”

  “Eh well, that’s one very lucky baby,” Stella says as she cuts the umbilical cord.

  “Look at your daughter,” Materena tells Pito. “Look how beautiful she is.” Perhaps the paka is affecting Pito’s vision, but he really can’t see what Materena is seeing.

  Over the next few days Materena tries very hard to breast-feed her daughter, but there’s a problem with her breasts. They are hard like cement and swollen like grapefruit, with veins popping out everywhere along with lumps and cracks. Breast-feeding is a real torture, but Materena keeps on trying. She puts hot compresses on her breasts, and cabbage leaves, and she massages her breasts all day long.

  In the end, the hungry crying baby girl is offered a bottle, and the nurse on duty is pleased to see her drink it all in one go. After that first bottle, Leilani seals her lips real tight whenever Materena’s nipple comes near her mouth.

  Materena is so devastated. For her, breast-feeding is the reward that comes after the pain of the birth. Breast-feeding is what makes the mother and child get close, bond. She tells her mother that.

  Loana’s reply is a reprimand. “Stop talking nonsense . . . It’s not breast-feeding that makes a mother and her child bond. It’s everyday life.”

  The everyday day life Tahitian-style begins with the Welcome into the World rituals. So here is Materena, accompanied by her mother, introducing bébé Leilani to her relatives, and everyone has something gentil to say about Loana’s granddaughter, who came into the world upside down. That she has beautiful eyes, long legs, a wide nose, the only kind of nose to have when you’re a woman. Then it’s off to the cemetery to introduce the little one to the dead.

  After that, all Materena wants to do is rest, but she catches the truck to Punaauia instead to meet her mother-in-law so that she can introduce Pito’s daughter to the family. And what a pain Mama Roti is! Mama Roti is hopeless at introducing newborns. Instead of talking about her newborn granddaughter, she talks about herself. “Eh, Uncle, come and look at Pito’s daughter!” Then, next minute, “Uncle, I’ve got to do some tests for my eyesight tomorrow. Can you believe it! My doctor is saying I’m going blind!” Materena is so annoyed, even more annoyed to hear one of Mama Roti’s cousins comment on how Leilani is so small, that her granddaughter was so much bigger when she was born—81/2 pounds. You don’t make comparisons when a baby is being introduced to you! You just give compliments!

  That day Mama Roti gives Materena a lime tree to be Leilani’s tree, but Materena already chose Leilani’s tree, a beautiful frangipani tree, to be planted after the baptism next week along with Leilani’s placenta. Materena also chose Leilani’s baptism robe and the godparents (Ati and his girlfriend, Marieta, who left him two weeks later to marry a legionnaire).

  The night before the baptism Materena cuddles her baby all night long because Leilani is crying nonstop. It’s always like that before a baptism. The baby cries because the devil is cranky at the thought of losing another soul, and so he makes the baby cry. But it could be that Materena is really stressed tonight and her baby can feel it. Materena is stressed because her daughter’s baptism is heading toward a night of drinking, and Materena doesn’t want that. Just looking at Pito and his cousins drinking and joking around is making her heart twitch into a knot. Materena doesn’t mind drinking at weddings, but at baptisms, come on, where’s the civilization? Why do we have to drink every time there’s something to celebrate?

  Materena is so annoyed, but for her daughter’s sake (it’s enough that Leilani has to deal with the devil) she settles down. She wraps her baby tight in a cloth, holds her close to her heart, and recites prayers. Never carry baby with her head over your shoulder, looking out into darkness, because the devil is lurking around. Hold baby tight with her head buried in your chest.

  Hold baby tight and love your baby with all your mana, the power within you.

  The Encyclopedia

&nbs
p; The bathroom is scrubbed every day in Materena’s house because Materena can’t stand her bathroom dirty. Soap scum makes her cranky and so does hair in the bathroom drain, toothpaste smeared on the tap, grime around the tap rings . . . Well anyway, Materena scrubs her bathroom every day.

  She’s scrubbing, scrubbing really hard and wishing her twelve-year-old daughter, also scrubbing, would stop talking, but when your daughter helps you with the housework you don’t criticize. You just smile and nod, you answer her questions, or you say nothing because you don’t know what to say.

  “Mamie?” Leilani taps her mother’s hand. “Did you hear me?” She’s waiting for her mother to explain why it doesn’t snow in Tahiti, and once again, Materena will have to say that she doesn’t know.

  This is happening more and more these days. Let’s just say that Materena can’t keep up with Leilani’s complicated questions. Who started the French Revolution? What’s the medical term for the neck? There’s a limit to what Materena knows. People can’t know everything.

  Aue, Materena was much more comfortable with her daughter’s questions when they weren’t complicated: Who invented the broom? (A woman.) Is it true that eating charcoal makes the teeth white? (Absolutely not—brushing your teeth every day with toothpaste makes them white.) Who invented the rake? (A woman.) What time does the first star appear? (The first star appears at quarter past six.) Who invented the wheelbarrow? (A woman.) Is God a woman or a man? (God is everything that is beautiful.)

  Leilani used to say how clever her mother was, but these days Leilani doesn’t say this anymore. So, why doesn’t it snow in Tahiti? How would Materena know this? “Girl,” she sighs, “I don’t know why it doesn’t snow in Tahiti.”

  “Ah . . . I knew you wouldn’t.”

  “Why did you ask me, then, if you knew I didn’t know?” asks Materena, a bit cranky.

  “I just hoped you knew.”

  “Well, stop hoping. Ask me about the ancestors, the old days, cleaning tricks, budgeting, who’s who in the family album and at the cemetery, plants, words of wisdom Tahitian-style, traditions. Don’t ask me why it doesn’t snow in Tahiti. Ask your teacher.”

  “I do, but Madame always says, ‘That’s not what this lesson is about, Leilani.’” Leilani drops her scrubbing brush and stomps out of the bathroom complaining that she doesn’t know anybody who can answer her questions, and that all she gets is “Be quiet, Leilani.”

  Aue! Materena feels so guilty now. Here, she’s going to give her daughter a kiss . . . and some coins to get herself an ice block at the Chinese store. My poor girl, Materena thinks. She’s always stuck at home with me.

  Materena finds Leilani reading yesterday’s newspapers at the kitchen table, elbows on the table. “Girl?” Materena isn’t going to say anything about the elbows on the table, how it’s rude and everything. “You want to get yourself an ice block at the Chinese store?”

  “Non, I’m fine.”

  “You’re sure, chérie?” Materena kisses the top of Leilani’s head.

  “I’m just having a rest. I’ll come and help you again in a minute, okay?”

  “Non, just relax.”

  “Non, I want to help you,” Leilani insists.

  “All right, then . . . But don’t worry if you can’t help me, you help me enough as it is.” And with this Materena escapes to her bathroom and locks the door. Ah, what peace. Materena can sure do with a few minutes of silence.

  A few minutes later: “Mamie?” It’s Leilani calling again.

  “Oui.” Materena chuckles, thinking, Already?

  “There’s someone at the door.”

  “Who is it?” Materena steps out of the bathroom, scrubbing brush in hand.

  “It’s a woman with a briefcase.”

  “Eh hia.” Materena is annoyed. That woman at the door is here to sell her something, like perfumes, or to talk about religion, and Materena is in the mood for neither. “Tell that woman I’m not here.”

  “Mamie, just go and say good afternoon to her, I feel so sorry for her.” Leilani explains how she’s been watching from behind the curtains the woman door-knocking in the neighborhood. Two relatives closed their door on her, one relative opened the door and waved the woman away, and one relative walked out without a word and went on to water her plants.

  “What are you doing spying on the relatives?” cackles Materena. “It’s to give you ideas for your memoirs?”

  “I was just looking,” protests Leilani. “Mamie, the woman is waiting for you.”

  “She asked to speak to me?”

  “Non, she said, ‘Is your mother home?’”

  “And what did you say?”

  “I said, oui, my mother is home, she’s scrubbing the bathroom.”

  “Couldn’t you say I was asleep?” Materena puts her scrubbing brush down and rearranges her chignon and her pareu. “People should know we’re Catholics around here and that we’ve got no money,” Materena says, walking to the door. “You only have to look at the houses.”

  “Good afternoon,” Materena greets the Frenchwoman, who can’t be more than twenty years old and who looks a bit like a gypsy with her floral dress, sandals, and loose hair.

  “Oh, good afternoon, madame,” the young woman says with a rather strange yet beautiful accent.

  “Are you from France, girl?” Materena asks.

  “Oui, from Marseilles.” The young woman smiles.

  “Ah, Marseilles.” Materena nods knowingly.

  “Have you been to Marseilles?” The young woman asks Materena eagerly.

  “Girl, I’ve never been out of Tahiti in my whole life.” Materena laughs.

  “Where’s Marseilles?” asks Leilani.

  “It is in the south of France . . . I could show you on a map if you like.”

  Before Materena has the chance to tell the young woman not to worry about it and to go on with her mission, Leilani gives her consent. Yes, she’d like to see where Marseilles is on the map of France. In a flash an encyclopedia comes out of the woman’s briefcase as she explains that she always has an encyclopedia with her to show people what the encyclopedia set looks like. And it’s just by chance that she has volume 7, F-H, with her.

  “You sell encyclopedias?” Materena asks.

  In one breath the young woman confirms that she is selling encyclopedias, and there’s a promotion (a 20 percent reduction). She goes on about how much she loves encyclopedias, she’s had an encyclopedia set since she was eight years old, she’s on holiday in Tahiti (one of the most beautiful countries in the world), she arrived two days ago.

  Ouf, that’s a lot to spill in one go, Materena thinks. But how nice to say that Tahiti is one of the most beautiful countries in the world. “Come inside the house,” Materena says. “Let’s sit at the kitchen table.” The young woman doesn’t need to be asked twice. With one giant step she’s in the house before Materena can ask her (politely) to take her shoes off. It isn’t a Tahitian custom to take your shoes off before walking into a house, but it’s nice when you do, that way you don’t bring dirt into the house. Well anyway, it’s too late for Materena to tell that woman about shoes and everything. But for Leilani it isn’t. “You can’t come in the house with your shoes on,” she says, her eyes widening in stupefaction. “You’re going to put dirt on Mamie’s carpet.”

  The young woman, her face red with embarrassment, hurries back outside. She takes her shoes off and neatly places them next to the row of thongs by the door. “I’m very sorry,” she says. “I’ve just arrived, you see. I’m not aware of this country’s customs as yet.” Walking in, she adds, “Oh, it’s so lovely here.”

  “It’s comfortable, girl.” Materena smiles, relieved her house is very clean today. Materena’s house is always clean, but today it really shines. Everything has been dusted, there are no cobwebs on the ceiling and there is no fluff on the carpet.

  “Oh,” the woman exclaims, stopping right in front of the potted plant placed in the middle of the living room. “Is this a
real plant?” she asks, stroking the leaves. Before Materena can say, “Of course it’s a real plant!” the woman inquires if it is a Tahitian custom to place a potted plant in the middle of the living room.

  “Well,” Materena replies, “oui and non. In Tahiti, we believe that a potted plant —”

  “It’s to hide the missing carpet square.” Here, Leilani has informed the visitor. And right before her mother’s horrified eyes, she lifts the pot so that the visitor can see for herself, and explains that everybody does this in Tahiti. They use potted plants to hide missing carpet squares, holes in walls, anything.

  “I see.” The woman nods. “It’s a very intelligent way of doing things.” She walks to the wall to admire a quilt pinned to the wall. “Magnifique! Whoever made that quilt is talented. This quilt is truly a piece of art.” She goes on about the intensity of the bright flowers, the intricate patterns, the balance of it all, the use of geometry.

  “My mother made that quilt when I got married,” Materena says, caressing it tenderly.

  “Mamie is going to be wrapped in that quilt in her coffin,” Leilani adds.

  Materena gives her daughter a quick, cranky look. You don’t tell strangers stories that only concern the family! The woman looks to Materena. “Is this a custom in Tahiti?”

  “An old custom, girl. Not many people are wrapped in quilts when they’re dead these days, but I want to be wrapped in a quilt my mother made just for me because, you know, once you’re linked with your mother through the umbilical cord you’re linked for the eternity.”

  “These are such beautiful words, madame . . . I’m so honored to meet you.”

  Materena cackles, thinking this girl has got to be the best seller she’s ever met in her life. She is now looking at the framed photographs below the quilt, and Materena doesn’t mind. If photographs are on the wall it means it’s fine for people to look at them, you don’t need permission. You only need permission to look through a photo album.