Tiare in Bloom

by Célestine Vaite

  She’s terrified. Terrified, petrified, ready to start crying, wishing she could have shared her anxiety with Pito, but it’s best he knows nothing. Five more minutes to go — deep breath, Materena, and breathe slowly. Relax, it’s only a phone call. But now she’s thinking that perhaps she should have hired that detective she’s heard about from one of her listeners, to get a bit of information about Tom Delors first: what he does for a job and everything, if he’s mean, if he has children.

  Two more minutes . . . come on, Materena, pull yourself to-gether, no more procrastinating. Tiare is with her great-grandmother Loana and it’s not often you have the whole house to yourself for a few hours.

  Thirty seconds . . . one second, you’re on, Materena! Good luck, girl!

  And Materena grabs the phone and starts to dial, yelling in her head, “En avant!”

  A woman picks up the telephone after the first ring. “Allo oui?” She sounds very excited that somebody is calling her.

  Materena, who had expected the phone to ring at least three times is caught totally unprepared. After the euh and the ah embarrassed people do, Materena finally manages to spill her introduction line. “Good evening, Madame, my name is Materena and I’m calling from Tahiti and —”

  “Tahiti!” The woman doesn’t let Materena finish. “I’ve been to Tahiti, dear. It was a long time ago, now . . . let me think. I was seventeen years old . . . I’m eighty-six years old now.” The woman, whom Materena didn’t expect to be so old, goes on about her holidays in Tahiti, traveling with her parents. She loved every minute, every second of her Tahitian adventure. She remembers the red hibiscus hedges, chickens in trees, young girls walking, some holding breadsticks, others babies; barefoot children, women gathered outside the shop to talk and laugh. She remembers meeting so many people and how friendly they were! Always smiling.

  “Do people still smile as much in Tahiti?” the woman asks.

  “Oui, Madame, when they’re happy.”

  “Oh that’s very good.” And off the old woman goes again, reminiscing about the only holiday she’s ever had in her life. She got married not long after her expedition to Tahiti, she explains. She became a wife, and then she became a mother . . . there was the war of course, and then she became a grandmother, and now she’s a great-grandmother. She’s lived in the same town, the same street, and the same house for over sixty-five years.

  Now she’d like Materena to tell her something.

  “I’m listening, Madame,” says Materena.

  First of all the old woman reminds Materena of the custom back then for people leaving Tahiti to throw a flower wreath in the sea. “Is this still a custom?” she asks.

  Materena confirms that it is, when the people leave on a ship. “And what did your wreath do?”

  “It drifted back to shore, dear.”

  “It means that you will come back, Madame.”

  “Do you really believe it? But when will that be? I’m eighty-six years old, dear.”

  Materena tells the dear old woman that in fact she’s never left Tahiti since she still remembers Tahiti and the people and there’s no doubt in Materena’s mind that the Tahitian people she met still remember her too.

  “You know, Madame,” Materena says, “Tahitians never forget nice people like you. I’m sure the people you’ve met talked about you to their children and their children talked about you to their children, and on and on. So in a way you’re still with us.”

  “Oh, you’re such a treasure, dear.” The old woman continues her Tahitian tales, this time giving Materena little details, like how on a rainy day a very nice young man cut off a banana leaf for her to use as an umbrella. She talks and talks, and Materena, smiling, is now looking at the clock going ticktock, ticktock. But an old woman reminiscing cannot be interrupted. It’s rude, and plus, Materena is feeling so sorry for the old woman. Poor her, she thinks, that old woman must not talk to a lot of people.

  A whole hour passes before the old woman runs out of stories to share, and she’s now ready to ask Materena why she called her.

  Materena jumps on the occasion to explain her delicate situation.

  “Tom Delors,” the old woman whispers. “Let me think, dear . . . Non, I don’t know of a Tom Delors, I’m Tess Delors, but I was born Tess Many. Sorry, dear. The Delors are a big family, it is quite possible he’s a cousin of my late husband, but I’ve never had much to do with the Delors family, dear, I stuck with my own family, let me think —”

  Fifteen minutes later Tess Delors is sorry to say that she’s never heard of a Tom Delors, but she wishes Materena all the best, thanks her for her call, and invites Materena to visit her when she’s in France next time.

  The next person Materena speaks to, a man, says he’s also never heard of a Tom Delors but he would like to grab the wonderful opportunity of having a Tahitian on the other end of the line to discuss the nuclear experiments in Moruroa. He’s writing a paper on this issue. Unfortunately Materena can’t help him on this crucial subject, but wishes him good luck.

  The next person who picks up the phone is a child who tells Materena that she’s not allowed to speak to strangers when her mother is not home, the same as she’s not allowed to open the front door.

  Now Materena is speaking to a woman who accuses her of being her husband’s Tahitian mistress. “How dare you call my husband on this number,” she yells into her telephone.

  Materena’s denial, “I’m not your husband’s Tahitian mistress, I don’t even know your husband!” only makes the wife yell louder.

  “I recognize your uneducated accent, you bitch!” In the end Materena has to hang up on the wronged wife, all the while apologizing because she’s never hung up on anyone in her whole life (except on Tamatoa once). But she’s also never been insulted that way.

  Shaken, Materena decides to continue her calls next week. Actually, she might wait for another two weeks. It is emotionally draining to make calls like that, when you don’t know who is going to answer — a stranger, your father’s wife, your father’s other daughter.

  Or even your father himself, and if he’s going to say something like, “Yes, I know your father really well, why don’t you call him at this number,” and he gives you the phone number of the local dump. This is what happened to one of Materena’s listeners, who swore that subsequently her thirst to know her father has been quenched for life.

  How Friendship Strikes

  Staring at the list of fifty-two phone numbers (one of these being Tom Delors’ number, let’s hope), Pito asks himself if he truly was a good father, as Materena so kindly implied.

  He was hardly home. A good father is a father who wants to be with his family, n’est-ce pas? A good father doesn’t disappear three nights a week with his drinking copains, and he stays home during the weekend to spend time with the children he hardly saw during the week.

  Pito did the contrary. It’s like he was running away.

  He can’t even blame the wife, it’s not like she was a dragon or anything, she didn’t scream at him as soon as he came home from work. Materena’s famous cranky eyes were reserved for when Pito came home drunk, noisy, and empty-handed after a supposed weekend fishing expedition. Other than that, Pito always got the welcome-home-from-work face, apart of course from when Materena was fiu of him for some reason, but those days were extremely rare.

  Talk about luck, eh? Pito knows many men who come home from work to a bitch woman, a woman with her hands on her hips and cranky words flying out of her cranky mouth like diarrhea. His two brothers Tama and Viri, for example.

  Pito carefully puts the piece of paper away again next to the phone. And now, flicking through the photo album, he is hoping to catch glimpses of himself with his children, but all he sees is photo after photo after photo of Materena with her tribe.

  Here she is pregnant with Moana, hugging Leilani in her arms and with Tamatoa holding tight onto her sarong. Smiling like she’s having the best day of her life.

  In the next ph
oto, the strain is showing on her face. It’s not easy to have three children demanding your attention before mass . . . Ah, here’s a photo of Pito smiling with all his teeth, thumb up. He’s with Ati, the fishing gear is in the background, and they’re off their faces. It was back in those days when Ati was normal — before he signed the blue cross and made the sacred promise to God to stop drinking.

  Here’s Materena again, posing in her mother’s garden, hair plaited, a red hibiscus flower behind her right ear, and her three nicely combed children gathered close . . . Pito and Ati, smiling and off their faces . . . Pito and Ati (not off their faces) posing in front of the church for Leilani’s baptism, with Godfather Ati smiling with pride and Pito looking a bit bored.

  Pito looks up at his granddaughter playing nearby with a pen, flying it as if it were a plane, making broom, broom sounds, and happiness shoots through his veins straight to his heart.

  Back to the photo album. More pictures of Pito looking like he’d rather be somewhere else. What’s with the miserable face? Pito says to his younger self. Wake up, you idiot! He snaps the album shut and gets the pink album from the shelf, the one of Tiare. Ah, that’s much better. At least now Pito is showing his teeth a bit more, he’s snapped that bored look off, he’s the picture of a man content with his lot. Oui, Pito nods to himself, that’s right.

  He’s not saying that in his younger days he wasn’t content with his lot, non, but . . . eh, maybe I was young, that’s all. Pito puts the pink album away, stands silent for a while watching his granddaughter, still playing with her airplane pen. Tiare looks up and starts running towards him, flying her plane.

  “Don’t run with the pen,” Pito says. “You’re going to hurt yourself.” The child throws her arms around her grandfather’s leg, squeezes it tight for a moment, and goes back to her playing.

  Pito opens another family album, though he knows that this will only make him more miserable. Oui, more photos of him looking bored, more photos of him not being in the photos . . . and photo after photo of his youngest son looking so close to crying.

  Here he is, quivering lips and sooky eyes looking up to his father (oh miracle, Pito is in the photo!) looking down at him with disapproving eyes. For being a sook, no doubt. Pito was often telling his youngest son off for being a sook. “Stop being a girl!”

  He was prouder of Tamatoa. Tamatoa was tough, he never cried, he was already a man at eight years old. Or anyway, Pito mutters, as much of a man as he is now. Conneries! Why do we want our kids to grow up so quickly?

  Next minute, Pito is dialing Moana’s telephone number. He just feels like talking to his youngest son, and why not? Fathers don’t need a reason to talk to their children. It’s Saturday morning, and Pito is not at work. That’s a good enough reason.

  Moana picks up the phone after the fifth ring. “Oui?”

  “Moana, it’s Papi.”

  “Papi!” Moana sounds very surprised. Then worried. “Is Mamie all right?”

  “Oui, oui, she’s with your grandmother Loana . . . I’m calling to see how you are and everything.”

  A moment of hesitation. “Euh, I’m good.”

  “Ah, that’s good.” What else can I say? Pito thinks. Eh, he’s going to ask how Moana’s girlfriend is. Pito never acknowledges that girl. When Moana and Vahine became a couple, Pito was shocked. He remembers telling Moana, “There are so many girls out there, why her? Your older brother’s ex-girlfriend? It’s like eating leftovers! Plus, she’s so skinny!” But since the cake episode, Pito is now very fond of his daughter-in-law. Maybe it’s about time he shows it. “And how’s Vahine?” Pito asks.

  Another moment of hesitation. “She’s good.”

  “Ah, that’s good —” Pito’s voice breaks a little. “I’m very happy for you two.”

  “And Tiare?” It’s Moana’s turn to ask questions. “She’s fine?”

  “Oh, she’s a numero uno, that one,” Pito cackles and tells Moana about Tiare looking so cute when she puts her handkerchief over her mouth to cough. She coughed all day yesterday just so that she could use the handkerchief her great-grandmother Loana bought her, but she’s over that game now, she’s into flying pens.

  Father and son cackle aloud, forcing themselves a little until the cackle gradually dies down and it’s time to end the conversation. Pito has run out of stories to say and Moana isn’t asking questions, he’ll get the whole information from his mother later, when they will talk for half an hour at least. You can’t call your son for the first time and expect him to open up just because you’re ready.

  “Allez,” Pito says casually, though he’s shaking inside. “I’ll leave you.”

  “Thank you for calling, Papi.” Moana himself sounds emotional.

  “Ah,” Pito dismisses his sooky son with the back of his hand. “Okay, return to your oven.” Then he sits on the sofa, his head in his hands.

  When the telephone rings, Pito immediately picks it up, thinking it is Moana calling back to say something else. “Allo?”

  “Pito, e aha te huru?” says Ati.

  “Eh, copain!” Pito exclaims, thinking, how strange for Ati to call him on a Saturday. Ati never calls when he has his son with him, and it’s understood that Pito leaves Ati alone to be a papa.

  “What are you doing?” Ati asks.

  “I’m with Tiare, Materena is at her mother’s, they’re doing the genealogy tree, something like that.”

  “You want to come for a walk on the quay?”

  “A walk?”

  “Oui . . . with the kids. And Tamatoa? He’s home too?”

  “That one?” Pito snorts, cranky. “His head is between his legs. He’s gone until Tuesday — another married woman.”

  “Ah, married women,” Ati sighs with nostalgia.

  Ati gets his son out of the car and carries him — the Tahitian way, meaning like a pack of taro but with a bit more sensitivity, the sensitivity often found in grandfathers. Well, Ati could pass for a grandfather. He’s quite old, by Tahitian standards anyway, to be a first-time father.

  “What about the carriage?” Pito asks. “Lily isn’t going to —”

  “Lily does her things her way,” Ati snaps, “and I do my things my way.”

  Oh, Pito tells himself, I smell roses . . .

  “She’s a conne,” Ati explains, although he didn’t have to. Pito understood.

  The childhood friends walk on, mingling with the tourists strolling by, admiring the yachts anchored to the quay along with the paquebots.

  “Tonton,” a little voice says, “look at my shoes.”

  “They’re beautiful shoes, chérie,” Tonton Ati says.

  “I like my shoes. They’re RED!”

  Pito tenderly squeezes his granddaughter’s tiny hand, and looks at his friend, this man he’s known for more than thirty-seven years, who’s more like a brother to him than a friend.

  They met at school — where else would two boys not related to each other and not living in the same quartier meet? — they were seven years old. Ati was the new kid at school, fresh from the outer islands and, would you believe it, very shy. Within two days, he was the victim of bullies, until Pito, the kid with the three big brothers, stepped in and saved Ati’s face.

  From that day on, Pito Tehana and Ati Ramatui became an item, chasing girls in the schoolground, stealing lollies at the Chinese store, rolling lumpy cigarettes, losing their fathers in the same year, then their virginity, finding themselves tied to each other by hundreds and hundreds of sweet and sad memories. Friends for life.

  “You’re all right, Ati?” Pito asks, sensing trouble in the air.

  “I need to see my son more than three days a week.” Ati softly kisses the top of his son’s head. “If Lily wanted a father for her child only three days a week, she should have gotten herself a sailor . . . or a married man.”

  Ati continues on about his battle, his fierce battle, to be part of his son’s life seven days a week. He doesn’t want to be a part-time father, he says. Accor
ding to Ati, there’s no point having children if you’re only going to pop in and out of their lives Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and every second Saturday.

  “It’s better than nothing, copain,” Pito says.

  “Non, it’s frustrating, Lily can get enculée.”

  “Eh, copain,” Pito says, tapping his friend on the shoulder, “don’t talk about the mother of your son like that.”

  “I really want to be a good father, Pito,” Ati says.

  “You’re a better father than I was.” Admitting this is killing Pito, but sometimes you’ve got to be honest. Then, cackling, he adds without bitterness, “Since your son is born, I rarely see you. I should —”

  “Eh, Pito,” Ati whispers, nodding towards two old men sitting on the bench talking about . . . Well, seeing their enthusiastic gestures, they could be talking about the size of a very big fish or the width of a very big house, or perhaps the size of a very big woman’s arse. “That’s us in thirty years.”

  What Pito meant to say before Ati interrupted him was this: I should have been like you when my kids came.

  But he won’t say a word about this now, he’ll just take a moment to wipe away that tear that has sprung out of his left eye.

  Leilani’s Diagnosis

  The promenade with Ati has made Pito feel very bizarre. Perhaps he’s just tired. He’s never walked for that long before, forty-five minutes. He might have a nap, like Tiare. On second thought, he might call his daughter.

  A young man answers the telephone.

  “Can I speak to my daughter?” Pito asks, thinking, Who the hell are you?

  “Eh, Pito!” It is Hotu, the boyfriend. “E aha te huru?”

  “Eh, Hotu, maitai,” says Pito, then in his head: You’re there again? Weren’t you there only two months ago?

  “Leilani!” Pito hears Hotu call out.

  “Oui, chéri!” Pito hears his daughter call back.