Breadfruit

by Célestine Vaite

  And now, sitting on the sofa, she’s got Pito’s ukulele and the scissors… but she can’t bring herself to cut the strings. Materena puts the ukulele back in the bedroom and goes back into the kitchen for something to eat and do while she waits for Pito.

  Pito comes home at about eleven o’clock, but there’s no radio.

  Materena springs to her feet. “Where’s my radio!”

  “Eh, calm yourself,” Pito says, “I’m going to find the titoi who stole your radio.”

  “My radio got stolen!” Materena can’t believe what she’s hearing. Well, yes, and here’s the story, which Pito swears to be true.

  “Why do you need to swear your story is true?”

  Because Pito knows Materena’s not going to believe his story.

  Pito went to his meeting, and his mates were really happy he brought Materena’s radio along. One of the mates had brought his brand-new tape of Bob Marley—the best of the best. And, thanks to Materena’s radio, the clan was able to listen to the best of the best of Bob Marley.

  After his fourth beer, Pito decided to hit the road, he wanted to sleep. It’d been a hard day at work. The mates were a bit upset at Pito leaving early, as they were really enjoying the best of the best of Bob Marley, but when a man has to go home, a man has to go home. But halfway to the house, Pito stopped by a tree to have a little bit of a lie-down, his legs just couldn’t keep on walking. He put the radio under his head to make it like a pillow and rested his eyes. But he fell into a very deep sleep, and while he was sleeping his very deep sleep, someone without a conscience took the radio from under his head and replaced it with a brick. Pito felt nothing.

  It’s only when he woke up that he found out about the replacement. At first, he thought his eyes were hallucinating. But then he realized it was truly a brick he was seeing and not the radio.

  So here he is, without the radio.

  Pito’s story sounds like a whole lot of inventing to Materena. She shouts at Pito that if something else happened to her radio, he better confess, because she doesn’t believe one word of that whole lot of inventing.

  But Pito swears his story is nothing but the truth. He swears it on his grandmother’s head. Materena has to believe Pito—you don’t swear on your beloved grandmother’s head if you’re telling a whole lot of inventing.

  “I told you not to take my radio,” Materena says, “and now look. I told you.”

  Materena is devastated. And at the same time relieved.

  That someone, he could have been worse than a someone without a conscience who robs the sleepers, he could have been an assassin. He could have smashed Pito’s head with the brick. Just the thought of it makes Materena shiver.

  “What’s this sleeping by the side of the road like you’ve got no house?” she says.

  Pito and Materena go to bed.

  It takes a while for Materena to fall asleep. She thinks about her radio. She’s had it for fourteen years. She’s sure going to miss her radio.

  My poor radio, eh.

  It is now three days since Materena’s radio was stolen, and here’s one in front of the Chinese store, next to a pandanus bag and a rolled mat. Materena walks past, and into the store. She takes a shopping basket from the bench, but… she’s going to check on that radio outside again.

  That radio looked a bit too familiar.

  Materena puts the basket back on the bench and goes outside. She stands about one yard away from the radio, she doesn’t want people to think that she’s plotting to steal it.

  That radio sure looks familiar.

  It’s the same size as Materena’s radio. Eh, it doesn’t mean it’s her radio. There are thousands of radios like hers floating around the island. But when you’ve been looking at something for fourteen years, you should be able to recognize it in a rapid second. And it seems to Materena that she’s recognizing her radio.

  Someone taps her on the shoulder, and Materena turns around. It’s her cousin Giselle. The cousins kiss each other on the cheeks.

  “What are you doing standing like a coconut tree?” asks Giselle.

  “See that radio there?” Materena says. “Next to the pandanus bag and the rolled mat?”

  Giselle glances at the radio and nods.

  “I think it’s my radio.”

  “Someone stole your radio?” Giselle is now looking at the radio with more interest.

  “Eh oui,” Materena sighs.

  “You’re sure it’s not a cousin who came into your house and borrowed it for a couple of days?”

  Materena briefs Giselle on the story.

  “Pito’s story,” Giselle says, “it’s not a whole lot of inventing?” Pito’s story sure sounds like a whole lot of inventing to Giselle.

  Why is Pito’s story so hard to believe? Materena asks herself. When Materena told Pito’s story to her mother, Loana said, “His story sounds like a whole lot of inventing to me.” Even with the bit of Pito’s swearing on his grandmother’s head that his story is nothing but the truth, Loana still said, “His story sounds like a whole lot of inventing to me.”

  Loana and Pito had words and now they’re not talking and Materena doesn’t like when her mother and her man pretend they don’t know each other. Pito said, “It’s fine with me if Loana never speaks to me again.” And Loana said, “It’s fine with me if I never speak to Pito again.”

  Materena really wishes Pito never took her radio to his meeting. Now look at the complications. Aue.

  “He swore on his grandmother’s head that the story was nothing but the truth,” Materena says to Giselle, thinking how much more suspicious other people are compared to her.

  “Ah well, if he swore on his grandmother’s head, his story must be true,” says Giselle doubtfully.

  “I’m just glad the person replaced my radio with the brick.”

  Giselle doesn’t understand, so Materena explains that the person could have smashed Pito’s head with the brick.

  “Ah oui,” Giselle says. “That would be horrible. You think that radio there is your radio?”

  “I think, but it’s not for sure.”

  “You didn’t write your name on your radio?”

  “Non.” It had never entered Materena’s mind to write her name on her radio. In fact, she doesn’t write her name on anything, except her budget book, but that’s a habit she got from school.

  Giselle shakes her head. “You should always write your name on your things.” Giselle confesses to Materena that she writes her name on every single thing she owns: her TV, her washing machine, her fridge, her thongs. Giselle even writes her name on her pareus.

  Last week, she couldn’t find her thongs—brand-new thongs too. She looked everywhere outside, she thought the dog might have taken them, but then she remembered that her dog doesn’t take thongs, she’s trained that dog since he was a puppy not to take thongs.

  She also remembered that dogs don’t take pairs of thongs, they just take one thong at a time.

  Giselle looked everywhere inside the house—no thongs. A few days later, she went to someone’s house with her mama for a prayer meeting. She took her shoes off at the door and placed them next to the other shoes and thongs, and then what did she see? Thongs that looked just like hers. She checked underneath the thongs, and there was her name, carved into each one. So she put her thongs in her bag. Now, if she hadn’t written her name, she’d still be wondering if those thongs really belonged to a person praying in the house.

  “There’s just too many cousins like James borrowing things without asking permission,” says Giselle. “So write your name on all your things.”

  Materena wishes she had written her name on her radio.

  Giselle asks Materena how long has she had that radio.

  “Fourteen years.”

  In Giselle’s opinion, when you have something for that long, you must be able to recognize it within a second.

  “You recognize your radio?” she asks.

  Materena looks at the radio. Tru
e, it looks really familiar, but she’s not 100 percent sure.

  “Ah oui, it’s difficult to be sure when there’s nothing to help you, like a missing button,” Giselle says. “What about scratches? There’s no scratches on your radio for you to check?”

  There are no scratches on Materena’s radio. She’s looked after it real well. Her radio is in perfect condition. In fact, when you look at it, you’d think it was brand-new—just out of the radio store.

  Ah, it’s a nuisance.

  But just a second, Materena is having an interesting thought. Her radio has been in the kitchen for years. Shouldn’t it smell of onions and garlic? She asks Giselle for her opinion.

  “Ah oui,” Giselle agrees. “I didn’t think about the odor. Well, go smell that radio.”

  Materena goes and smells the radio. Ah yes, it smells of onions and garlic.

  “So!” Giselle calls out. “It smells of onions and garlic!”

  “Ah yes. The odor is very strong. So, I take it?”

  “Well yes! What are you waiting for?”

  But Materena hesitates. What if she takes that radio and it isn’t actually her radio? That would be stealing. And what if the owner of that radio walks out of the shop just as Materena is picking up the radio? That would be embarrassing.

  Materena goes back to stand next to Giselle and focuses on the radio. “I’m just going to look at that radio for a little bit longer.”

  “All right, Materena,” Giselle says. “But I’ve got to go to the shop now. I’ve got a craving for gherkins. I think I’m pregnant again, but don’t put the news on the coconut radio, okay?”

  “Sure.” Materena hopes for Giselle that she’s not pregnant, it’s a bit too soon. Isidore Louis junior is only four months old.

  Materena is still staring at the radio when Giselle comes out of the shop with the biggest jar of gherkins.

  “You’re still here?” Giselle says.

  “Well oui.”

  “I’ve got to go home, Cousin. I’m busting to go to the toilet.”

  “Okay.” Materena kisses Giselle. She could tell Giselle to go to the pharmacy for a pregnancy kit, but when someone tells you not to put the news on the coconut radio, you’re supposed to forget the news as soon as that someone tells you about it.

  And Materena keeps on focusing on her radio, wondering when the person who owns the pandanus bag and the mat, but not necessarily the radio, is going to make an appearance.

  “Iaorana, Cousin.” It is Mori, with a case of empty beer bottles to be replaced with full ones at the shop. “What are you up to?”

  Materena smells Mori as she greets him to check that he’s not drunk. She doesn’t really want to hold a conversation with a drunk. But Mori isn’t drunk yet and so Materena informs Mori of the situation. Mori doesn’t make any comments at all about Pito’s story sounding like a whole lot of inventing. He just listens and nods.

  And now Mori’s got an idea. “I’m going to walk around the shop with the radio. If nobody says to me, ‘What are you doing with my radio?’ then you take it, Cousin.”

  Materena looks at Mori, with his Rastafarian hairstyle down his back and his homemade tattoos, especially that one of a green and red dragon spitting fire on his chest. Mori isn’t wearing a shirt.

  “Okay then, Mori. You go walk around the shop with that radio.” She sure doesn’t want to walk around the shop with that radio herself.

  So Mori nonchalantly picks up the radio, turns it on, changes the channel for some more upbeat reggae music, and disappears into the shop, the radio perched on his shoulder.

  And Materena waits. She can hear the blasting music.

  A few minutes later, Mori comes out of the shop.

  “Nobody asked you about that radio?” Materena asks.

  “Non. Here’s your radio, I’ve got to get my beer.”

  Materena is home now with her radio. She immediately writes her name on it and puts the radio where it belongs—on top of the fridge.

  She tells Pito the story about how she got her radio back and he laughs his head off.

  A Letter of Separation

  It’s many weeks since that time Materena nearly lost her radio forever. But on a sunny Saturday morning like now, when a beautiful love song comes on, she still gets a little feeling of relief that her radio came back to her.

  The love song that’s playing is one Materena hasn’t heard before. It’s about separation—how it’s difficult, but we must move on with our life, we must go on our way. It talks about hoping to remain good friends, and good luck to you.

  There is a paper on the kitchen table and a pen, so Materena writes down the lyrics because she likes that song a lot. And the chorus says,

  I’ve got to find myself,

  I can no longer live with you,

  I’ve got to find my wings . . .

  My wings of liberty.

  Later that day Materena visits Loana.

  In the meantime, Pito comes home. He sees the paper on the kitchen table. “What’s this?” He’s not really interested. He grabs himself a beer from the fridge and calls out to Materena, but she’s not responding and he guesses that she’s not home. He goes into the living room and makes himself comfortable on the sofa.

  It’s so quiet, he thinks. Just the way he likes it. The children are with Mama Roti for the day and for the night, and Pito is supposed to pick them up tomorrow morning, Sunday, before Sunday Mass. But where is Materena?

  “Where’s that Materena?” Pito asks out loud.

  It’s quarter past eleven and he’s hungry. Pito looks at the ceiling, but he’s too hungry to just lie down. He gets up and goes back into the kitchen. He opens the fridge and looks inside, but what he feels like right now is corned beef. He gets a can of corned beef from the pantry, opens it, and eats it straight out of the can. Pito looks at the paper on the table and thinks that perhaps Materena had to go somewhere and she’s left him a note. He grabs the paper and he nonchalantly reads the words.

  The room blackens and Pito feels like he’s just been hit with a hammer.

  What did I do? What did I do? What did I do?

  In Pito’s mind, this is a letter of separation. Materena wants her liberty, meaning she wants Pito out of the house, out of her life.

  What did I do? Is this because of the radio? That colorful shirt?

  Is this because I laughed at her when she tried to build that pond?

  So many questions flash upon Pito’s shocked mind, and he answers them one by one.

  It’s true that someone took the radio from underneath my head while I was sleeping. It’s hard to believe it, but it is true!

  I just couldn’t wear that shirt she bought me for my birthday. It’s just not my style.

  I didn’t help Materena build that pond, because you can’t build a pond with tiles. You need concrete.

  Pito reads the letter of separation again. There are always hints before a woman walks out on you, he thinks. Usually. One of his colleagues from work, he went home last month only to find an empty house. His woman was gone, just like that, no warning, no nothing. She took the children, she took the hi-fi system, and she took her bed too. One day Pito’s colleague had his woman cooking and cleaning for him, and the next day his mama had to take over.

  Pito buries his head in his hands, he wasn’t prepared for this. There’s a lump in his throat. It’s the same lump he felt when his father died. The same deep sorrow. That unbearable feeling that as of today, his life will never be the same again.

  The tears come and Pito lets them run on his face. He thinks of his colleague and how he tried to get his woman back. The colleague cried and begged, and his woman told him, “It’s too late for the crying. I’ve got someone else. Someone who loves me.”

  Pito’s tears are now choked sobs. But soon, anger replaces the sobbing. Pito is cranky now at Materena for wanting to separate from him. He thinks that she could have at least told him the news to his face. She tells him just about everything else to his f
ace. And he thinks that he’s a good man. He might be lazy every now and then—that’s because his mama always did everything for him—but at least he’s got a job.

  “And I let her pick up my pay! What else does she want?” Pito bangs his fist on the table. “And when she gave my bed to her cousin Mori, eh? She didn’t even ask for my opinion, and I didn’t complain. Well, I yelled at her, but I’m not complaining now. That new bed she bought from Conforama is better than my old bed; still, she should have asked me.”

  Pito is so cranky at Materena.

  “Plus, I gave her my bonus check! And what did she do with it? Eh, instead of buying me a little something, she gave the whole lot to her cousin Teva for him to tile the bathroom, and he did a shit job! You can see the concrete between the tiles. But I don’t complain, I say, ‘Eh, it’s good that my bonus check paid Teva’s fare back to Rangiroa!’”

  Pito storms out of the house with Materena’s letter of separation clutched in his hand.

  Materena is chatting away with Loana on the terrace when Pito appears at the gate. He waves to Materena, she waves to him, and Loana says, “What does he want again?”

  Well, Pito wants to talk to Materena, so Loana calls out to Pito, “Eh, come in, then, and don’t act like you don’t know how to open that gate.”

  But Pito wants to talk to Materena in private, so Materena goes to the gate. Loana gets to her feet for a better view of what is happening at the gate.

  Pito, speaking in a low voice, asks Materena if there is anything she has to announce to him right at this moment.

  Materena looks at his red face and the sweat on his forehead and wonders what the story is. She shrugs. Non.

  “There’s nothing you have to tell me right this moment?” Pito asks.

  He then goes on and on about how he would appreciate it if Materena revealed her plans to him right at this moment and not at the last minute.

  “What plans are you talking about, Pito?”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing I need to know right at this moment?” Pito looks deep into Materena’s eyes.