Breadfruit

by Célestine Vaite

  “The family is fine back home?” Noelene takes Teva’s bag.

  “Petero died last week.”

  Noelene is shocked. She didn’t know Petero had died. If someone had taken the time to send her the news, she might have caught the plane—for the first time in her life—to be at her uncle Petero’s wake and funeral.

  “How did he die?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “It’s a good way to die,” Noelene says.

  More talk inside the house, but James joins his mates drinking under a mango tree, watching cars drive past.

  The house is clean and it smells of bleach. Teva guesses his auntie Noelene cleaned up the house good for him. When a relation from another village comes to visit Teva’s family, his mama goes crazy for hours making the house cleaner than clean, and nobody is allowed in the house until the relation arrives, and the relation always makes a comment about the house being clean.

  So, with respect, Teva says, “Your house is very clean, Auntie Noelene.”

  “You call this house clean?” Noelene admires her bleached walls.

  “Oui, Auntie, your house is very clean.” Teva knows that a compliment like this one has to be repeated.

  Noelene complains that usually the house is a bit cleaner, but she’s always so busy. She smiles and says, “You sleep in the living room until James’s two good-for-nothing friends remember they have a mother. I get so mad with James. He’s always inviting friends to stay at my house, and his friends don’t work! Who puts food in their mouth, eh? Me! I told James his two good-for-nothing friends have to go soon, before I throw them out myself. Are you hungry a bit?”

  Teva feels embarrassed. His mother never asks that kind of question. She just puts the food in front of you and eats with you. Teva is hungry, but if he says yes, she might think he is a good-for-nothing. If he says no, he’s going to stay hungry.

  “I’m not hungry, yet.”

  Noelene gets mad. “You’re telling me you don’t want to eat my food? Come. We go eat. My food is not special, but when Auntie Noelene gets her pay, I’m going to cook special food. Just for you.”

  Teva sits at the kitchen table and digs into the corned beef.

  “Why did you come here?” Noelene sighs, and rolls a cigarette. “There’s too many good-for-nothing people living in Tahiti … I hope you’re not going to turn into a good-for-nothing. Don’t you make me sorry we’re related, eh?”

  Teva nods.

  “If you don’t find a job soon, you’ll have to go home. When you wait for the job to fall out of the sky, you become a good-for-nothing nuisance.”

  Teva is glad James is calling out to him, and he gets up.

  “Remember what I told you.” Noelene grabs Teva by the hand. “If you don’t find a job soon, you go home. And don’t listen to those good-for-nothings drinking outside. And don’t you turn into a good-for-nothing on me. There’s enough good-for-nothings in my life.”

  Teva hurries outside.

  James waves to him. “What’re you doing? The beer is getting warm.”

  Teva sits next to James, who affectionately pats him on the shoulder. Then he addresses his assembly.

  “See him?”

  “Yeah… we see the kid.” James’s friends are already drunk.

  “He’s my cousin,” James says. “Make trouble with him and you’re going to be sorry. You’re going to talk like girls… no more balls… gone with my knife.” James pulls a hideous face and the drunken good-for-nothings lower their eyes.

  “Tell me, James, what is the kid doing here?” one of them asks.

  “Looking for work.” James takes a long slug of his Hinano.

  The assembly roars with laughter. “You mean your relation doesn’t know there’s a problem with the economy? Doesn’t know you need to have gone to university to sweep the road? What can you do, kid?”

  Teva shrugs. What can he do? Teva can do anything. Free dive down to the black coral, kill big sharks who would steal his fish, spot a school of fish a mile away, find his way back to the shore on dark, stormy nights. Teva from Rangiroa can do anything.

  The assembly is waiting for him to answer. Teva shrugs again. What can he do? It will take too long to tell.

  “You don’t know?” asks the assembly.

  James puts his hand in the air. “Leave him alone. This kid… he’s different from us. Maybe he’ll surprise us all. We used to be like him.”

  Then James hands his young relation a cold beer. Teva drinks slowly.

  “He drinks like a girl!” The whole assembly is laughing. “Men don’t sip, drink it in one go, boy! Can’t drink like a man . . . can’t be a man!”

  James puts an arm around his cousin. “First day here. He’ll change.”

  “Teva.” Materena takes her arm off her cousin’s shoulder. “A woman can only wait for so long, and you’ve been here for over two years now.”

  Teva nods and continues to cry.

  “You don’t think this is a sign for you to go home?” asks Materena.

  “What for?” Teva says between the tears. “Eh? What for? It’s too late now. Manuia is married, she belongs to someone else, she did this to hurt me, it’s her revenge.”

  “She got married because she was fiu of waiting for you,” Materena snaps. “What did you expect? For Manuia to wait for you all her life?” Then, tapping the crying young man on the shoulder, Materena advises him to get on with his life, beginning with getting himself a job and then going home to his close family.

  And with this advice, Materena leaves so her cousin can do some serious thinking—she has some shopping to do. And a bit of cleaning, and hopefully a bit of resting too, seeing that she has the day off today.

  The Electricity Man

  Materena is about to have an afternoon nap when she hears a whistle outside. Who’s that? she asks herself. She gets out of bed, pops her head out the shutter discreetly, and next minute, she’s rushing outside, panicking.

  Now, positioned in front of the electricity box, she’s asking the electricity man what on earth he is doing.

  He tells her he’s disconnecting her electricity.

  “You can’t disconnect my electricity,” Materena says, “are you crazy?”

  The electricity man explains to Materena that he’s not the boss of the company and his job is to disconnect the electricity when people don’t pay their account.

  “You didn’t pay your account—it shows on the computer, okay?”

  But it is not okay with Materena, and she’s still standing in front of the electricity box like a security guard. She doesn’t want her electricity cut off. Dallas is on the TV tonight and she never misses Dallas. She tells the electricity man she did not receive the disconnection notice.

  “You can’t cut my electricity.” Materena gives the electricity man a defiant look.

  The electricity man gives Materena a defiant look back. “You think I can’t cut your electricity just because you say ‘You can’t cut my electricity’? When you pay your account—in full—I come back and connect your electricity. Now move aside . . . I’ve got work to do.”

  But Materena is not going to move aside, and the only way for the electricity man to access the electricity box is to push her out of the way, but she is an angry woman, a big angry woman.

  “I always pay the electricity account as soon as I get the disconnection notice,” she says. “And I didn’t get the disconnection notice. When are you going to believe me, eh?”

  The electricity man laughs a forced laugh. “I could write a book about all the invented stories people tell me to make me stop disconnecting their electricity. You know, I tell those invented stories to my copains when we meet on Friday for a beer, and my copains always laugh. My mates like those invented stories. They say, ‘Eh, mate, how about a disconnection story for us tonight?’ but”—the electricity man widens his eyes—“but I’m FIU of those invented stories!”

  Materena widens her eyes too and replies, “I’m not telling yo
u an invented story. My story is nothing but the truth!”

  The electricity man points a finger at Materena. “You know what? When a call comes on my radio, I always pray no one is going to be home. But it seems to me that most people who don’t pay their account have nothing better to do than stay home to watch the TV, drink, sleep. Too busy to work.”

  Ah, he’s stepping out of line here. Materena narrows her eyes. “I work, but my boss was sick today and she didn’t need me cleaning her house. She gave me the day off. I work, okay?”

  The electricity man and Materena look into each other’s eyes.

  “Okay, I tell you why I didn’t pay my account,” Materena says. “I usually pick up my man’s pay on Friday afternoon. The girl at the office, she knows me well. She gives me the envelope and I sign the register, there’s no problem. But last Friday I had to visit my mamie, she was a bit sick. I went to show her the kids to make her a bit happy, you know? When I came home, it was past nine o’clock and my man was blind drunk. He got mad at me because there was nothing for him to eat. My man is a lazy bastard. I tried to tell him about the electricity account, but he got cranky, he doesn’t like me playing the boss. It’s his job to think about the electricity account. I told him, ‘Sure, you’re the boss, what about fixing the electricity account, eh?’ He went for me. I grabbed the kids and we ran to Mamie.”

  Materena’s story is a whole lot of inventing (since the electricity man refuses to believe that she didn’t receive the disconnection notice, which is true). She hopes the electricity man is going to feel sorry for her now. She really doesn’t want her electricity cut off—it’s a nuisance.

  Materena has had her electricity cut off twice. The first time it was because Pito drank his whole pay (that was before she started to pick up his pay) and Materena couldn’t bring herself to ask Loana for a loan, not wanting Loana to get cranky with Pito.

  The second time, it was also because Pito drank his whole pay (that was also before she started to pick up his pay) and Materena dared go ask Loana for a loan. She no longer cared if her mother got cranky with Pito. But her mother had gone away for the weekend to a religious retreat at Taravao, and Rita ended up lending Materena the money. Well, Rita didn’t really lend the money. She just saw the candles and gave Materena, who was breast-feeding Moana, ten thousand francs and said, “Here, that’s for my godson’s diapers.”

  Materena thinks maybe she should try to make the electricity man feel bad.

  “Eh, you don’t feel bad doing this to your own people?” she says.

  “Non, I don’t feel bad, and I told you I’m not the boss of the company. If I don’t do my job properly, I don’t have a job. It took me months and months to score this job. It’s a good job.”

  The electricity man unexpectedly pauses to ponder, leaving Materena time to get into the argument.

  “The other electricity man was better than you,” she says. “He understood my troubles. He told me: ‘No worries, woman, I give you a couple more days to get the money organized.’ I can get the money tomorrow. My mamie, she’s got piles of money at the Socredo. Tomorrow morning I’ll go talk to my mamie then I’ll come and see you at your company.”

  A bit of flattery doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t look like the electricity man is buying it.

  “Move,” he says.

  “I’m not moving,” Materena replies.

  The electricity man puts his right foot forward. “Move, I say.”

  Materena also puts her right foot forward. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  The electricity man puts his left foot forward.

  “Don’t even think about it.” Materena also puts her left foot forward.

  The electricity man pushes Materena out of the way.

  And Materena pushes the electricity man out of her way. “Don’t mess with me, young man.”

  The electricity man stares at Materena. “Move.”

  “Ah non.” Materena folds her arms, and her feet are firmly planted on the ground.

  The electricity man puts his hands up. “Okay then… don’t move… I’m going to write a special report about you and I’m going to give that special report to my boss… and you know what that means?”

  He doesn’t leave time for his difficult customer to answer.

  “It means you’re not going to be able to iron your dress for Sunday Mass ever again, because I’m going to make sure your account disappears from the computer. I have a friend who works in the computer department, it’s very easy to make names disappear. How do you think the company knows you haven’t paid your account, eh? Because of the computer! My friend is a computer expert, he clicks one button and fffrrrrr, you don’t exist. If I write the special report… no more electricity for you… even if you pay your account in full. Count how many candles you have to buy at the Chinese shop. Your house—the only house with candles. Think a bit. People are going to laugh at you… and what about your husband, eh? What is he going to say when I tell him it’s your fault he can’t have cold beers in the fridge?”

  “My husband!” Materena looks at the electricity man as if he’s just said something really absurd. “He’s not my husband. Would I marry someone who’s a lazy bastard?”

  “Eh, I don’t care if he’s not your husband,” the electricity man snaps. “I don’t care if he’s your lover, your secret admirer, all I care about is the electricity account and the disconnection. Move, and let me do my job, if you don’t want me to go and write that special report today.”

  Materena gives the electricity man a suspicious look.

  Can an electricity man write a special report? Isn’t this the job of the boss of the company? The job of the second-in-charge boss, even? Can an electricity man organize someone in the computer department? Candles for the rest of my life?

  Materena moves away from the electricity box. “All right, do your job. You don’t need to write a special report to the boss of the electricity company. And where’s my disconnection notice? I always pay as soon as I get the disconnection notice. It should be against the law to have your electricity cut off without a disconnection notice.”

  Materena goes inside the house and rushes to her bedroom to check her bill box, where she keeps her bills (electricity, school fees, rates); perhaps she did receive the disconnection notice, after all, but was so caught up with her wedding preparations that she forgot.

  Ah ha, and what’s this? An unopened envelope from the EDT? Materena rips it open, and there it is, the disconnection notice, in black-and-white, addressed to Mademoiselle Materena Mahi. Merde, now Materena feels like an idiot. She wonders if she should apologize to the electricity man… Actually, it might not be a good idea, he might use her apology against her later on.

  Materena rips up the disconnection notice and hears the electricity man start talking. She goes to the shutter and discreetly pops her head out.

  The electricity man is talking to Cousin Teva, and Materena listens to what he has to say.

  “Maybe I don’t look tough enough. When you look tough, when you’ve got muscles, people respect you. I’m skinny. I’m young.”

  “You’re not that skinny,” Teva says.

  “And that big woman, trying to flatter me,” the electricity man continues. “I know all about flattery. When you flatter it’s because you want something. Ah yes, there’s always a reason with flattery. When Suzie wants me to do something, she flatters me about my muscles or my eyes. And when she doesn’t want anything from me—well, I can wait for the flattery to come my way.

  “It’s not my fault ninety percent, perhaps even ninety-nine point nine percent, of people who don’t pay their electricity account are people like me. Tahitian. I rarely visit the popa’a houses, and when I do, it’s a misunderstanding between the man and his woman. The woman thought her man paid the account and the man thought his woman did. And then they pay the account and I reconnect the electricity and the popa’a apologize for the disturbance. The popa’a make me feel like I’m an
important person. A person you shouldn’t disturb.

  “But my own people—ah hia—they give me a hard time and expect special treatment. They swear on some ancestor’s head that they paid the electricity account in full. And when I ask to see the official receipt, they want to dong me. They swear on some ancestor’s head that the invented story is nothing but the truth. And when I ask them to swear on the Bible, they want to dong me.

  “My own people are the most difficult customers, ah oui. And the worst payers too.

  “The problem with Tahitian houses is that your relatives are free to come in and use the telephone, watch the TV for hours, eat everything in the fridge, drink all the Coca-Cola, use the washing machine, borrow clothes. It is an insult to lock your house. What if one of your relatives really needs to borrow something urgently? And then you’ve got no money to pay the bills.

  “The problem with Tahitian people is that we have too many relatives who don’t have a job, and just too many relatives.”

  Teva finally speaks. “It’s nice to have relatives.”

  “Sometimes,” the electricity man says, “not all the time… I’m finished here now, I’ve got eight more houses to go to. Wish me good luck.”

  “Good luck.”

  Materena waits for the electricity man to leave and then opens her door to Teva, standing still outside. “Cousin, what is it?” She’s not really in the mood for further discussion about the woman Teva wishes he had married.

  But the reason Teva is here is to thank Materena for her time before, and tell her that he’s feeling much better now, and that, oui, he will be going home to his family soon.

  That’s all he came to say.

  Colorful Imagination

  The electricity has been reconnected now and all is well for Materena—especially with her clever daughter Leilani coming home from school with a Colorful Imagination Class Merit Award. Leilani got that award for a story she wrote.