Tiare in Bloom (14 page)

“They don’t know us, that’s all,” Pito says, eyeing the kids now lining up along the road to take a good look at that car
they’ve never seen. He remembers doing the same thing when a car he didn’t know would drive into his
quartier.
He stared at the people in the car with suspicious eyes too. Once, he even showed them his angry fist — he just felt that
he had to. It was his way of telling these foreigners, “Don’t even think about coming here to make trouble for us. I’m going
to box your eyes.”

His
quartier
was much cleaner than this
quartier
here, though. In fact, this
quartier
is disgusting. Look at the dogs knocking the garbage bins over and nobody cares. There are dirty disposable diapers lying
everywhere, and rusty abandoned cars — that one looks like it has been set on fire. All around is filth. Pride does not live
in this neighborhood.

But Pito won’t get carried away being judgmental. His
quartier
doesn’t have what you call postcard houses either. To a foreigner’s eyes, Pito’s place, filled with fibro shacks, could also
seem like a ghetto where no-hopers live. It is only when you get to meet the people who live in those fibro shacks that you
realize that these people, far from being losers, have a strong sense of right and wrong.

“What are you doing in our
quartier?
” one of the children yells, before hurling a mango at Materena’s car. She hits the brakes as another child also lets go with
his mango.

“But!” Materena shrieks. Another mango follows.

“
But!
” Materena shrieks again, this time louder. “They’re going to put dents in my car! Pito, do something!”

He pokes his head out of the window and growls an angry growl. “Oi!”

That does the trick.

“Here’s the yellow house!” Materena exclaims, relieved. “And the dog, and the red truck . . . We’re here . . . and . . . Oh,
look at the men drinking under the tree, they don’t look very Catholic.” She parks the car, and turns the engine off. “I’m
glad you’re with me, Pito. Imagine if I was by myself.”

Pito gently taps Tiare’s bottom and gets out of the car. He stands straight, tall and proud. True, he is a man carrying a
baby, but it doesn’t mean he’s a
mahu.
He’s a man capable of knocking all your teeth out with one punch, so keep your distance and don’t judge him stupidly.

He nods a distant nod to the angry-looking men drinking under the tree. It is not a polite nod. It is not a please-be-kind-to-us-we’ve-come-in-peace
nod. It is a nod pure and simple, a nod that says, I see you and so?

The angry-looking men nod back. Their nod is not a polite nod either. It is not a we-are-very-pleased-to-welcome-you-people-to-our-humble-neighborhood
nod. It is a nod pure and simple, a nod that says, I see you too and so?

Materena is now by Pito’s side, and these two are quite a sight this Saturday morning in the Makemo
quartier.
Pito has never heard of this family before. It could be that they’re not even Tahitians.

Tahitians know the welcome-into-the-neighborhood protocol. These people are another kind altogether, or maybe they’re just
niakue,
Tahitian people who don’t have manners. There’s no
Iaorana,
just stares. It doesn’t seem to occur to any of these people to at least greet the baby who has lived in this neighborhood
for the first few months of her life.

What kind of people are these people? Even the four women busy washing clothes in buckets outside look bizarre. And what about
the babies crawling in the dirt? Where’s the pandanus mat?

“What do we do?” Materena asks Pito discreetly, smiling a faint smile at the women, who don’t smile back.

Just then a shriek pierces the air. It is a desperate shriek and it is coming from inside the house. It is the shriek of a
woman in trouble. A man yells an angry yell, and it is also coming from inside the house. It is the yell of a man who is in
control. The louder he yells, the more desperate the woman shrieks, and soon Pito understands that the woman is getting bashed
and nobody is running to her rescue. A child starts crying, and soon a naked two-year-old boy comes outside, wiping his eyes.
The yelling must have woken him up from his sleep. He sits by the door and sticks his fingers in his ears.

The man is still yelling. The woman is still shrieking. And the dog tied up to the tree howls. You can always rely on the
dogs to howl when there’s trouble in the neighborhood, they are the messengers when the human cries aren’t loud enough. Although
you wouldn’t think that was the case today.

Good dog, Pito thinks, nodding to the dog howling louder. Pito is expecting this family’s relatives to come sprawling out
of their houses soon, with women yelling, “
E aha te ra!
What’s this?” Ready to tear the basher to pieces, or at least do the pleas and threats until he stops.

This is rescue Tahitian-style, which Pito witnessed many times in his childhood. The women yell their heads off and a cranky
great-auntie comes running and shouting, “When will I have some peace in this world, eh? Plus, my legs hurt when I run!” And
to the basher, the old respected woman (she who makes beautiful quilts, rakes the leaves, and minds the grandchildren) will
say, “You make me ashamed. You’re making me want to curse you!”

But here, nobody comes and the colorful curtains are drawn closed. It’s a case of what we don’t see doesn’t concern us.

Pito holds Tiare in his arms tighter. The woman stops shrieking and starts to cry, sobs of great anguish and pain. The man
walks out of the house. He rubs his hands, spits on the ground, and joins his comrades drinking.

“Who are you?” he asks Pito, giving him the evil look. Then, recognizing the baby Pito is holding, he smiles. “Eh, that’s
Miri’s daughter, it’s Tiare.” He reaches out to the baby’s head, but Pito’s hand is much quicker, his grip firm and tight
on the man’s forearm.

The two men stare into each other’s eyes. The comrades stand on their feet ready to strike. The women washing outside gather
their flock and hurry inside the house, banging the door shut. Materena starts bawling her eyes out.

“Get in the car, woman.” This is an order from Pito.

Materena scurries back to the car and takes her position behind the wheel as Pito slowly lets go of the man’s arm. He turns
around and walks to the car. He can hear each one of his footsteps. He can feel the eyes on his back. He knows that a man
must never turn his back on his potential attackers, but sometimes a man simply cannot walk backwards. Pito opens the back
door of the car.

“Pito,” Materena tells him, “I can’t put the key in, my hands are shaking.”

“Get in the back,” Pito orders, and Materena scrambles into the backseat with her bundle of her precious baby granddaughter
still asleep. Pito makes himself comfortable behind the wheel, starts the engine, and puts his right foot on the accelerator,
getting out of this neighborhood as fast as he can without looking like he’s hurrying.

Driving confidently and slightly above the speed limit, Pito imagines himself growing up in this neighborhood. He wouldn’t
wish this on anyone, not even his worst enemy. His granddaughter? Don’t even think about it.

T
here’s a baby in Materena’s house — quick, let’s go and see if it’s true, maybe Loma made up the whole story to seem interesting
. . . though Mama Teta also swore she saw Materena in her car holding a baby. Pito was driving, and it’s not like Materena
to let someone who doesn’t have a driver’s license drive her car, especially with her in it. Driving a car without a permit
is against the law and Materena always keeps to the law. She must have been completely turned over by the baby she was holding.
That baby must be a very important baby, eh? Not just any baby.

Who is that baby?

Within less than an hour a crowd of curious relatives (all women) has gathered in Materena’s living room. As for the baby
girl, she’s sound asleep in Pito’s arms, while Materena is busy getting some refreshments. Barging into a relative’s house
is not considered polite at all, and certainly doesn’t justify freshly squeezed lemonade and Sao biscuits with jam; but then
again, today is no ordinary day.

Today is the kind of day people will talk about for years and years and years, a tree might even be planted to mark the event.
If refreshments are not served, you can be sure this will also be remembered, so here are your Saos, relatives. Materena has
even had to use a few of the plastic cups from her wedding more than ten years ago.

Drinking and nibbling, the relatives are comfortable on the floor, facing Pito and the baby, along with Materena’s mother,
sitting on the sofa. They know the story about Tiare being the alleged daughter of Materena and Pito’s eldest son — the unwanted
baby given away by the auntie because the mother went walkabout and the auntie has enough babies to look after. This valuable
information was passed on minutes ago.

“She looks a bit like us,” Mama Teta ventures.

“Oh,” Meme Agathe snorts, “it’s best not to trust appearances. My brother Thomas, he’s dead now, he had nine children but
three of them aren’t from him, they’re from the man who used to sweep the church and —”

“We don’t need to hear the whole story,” Meme Rarahu steps in, “your story has got nothing to do with the story here, learn
to listen. Sometimes I have the impression that your ears aren’t attached to your head because —”

The baby stirs, whining a soft whine, and silence immediately falls in the room. A few women who have been fanning themselves
stop in midaction.

“She has a dimple like me when she smiles,” Materena says, carrying on the conversation.

“Lots of babies come to the world with dimples,” her mother shrugs.

Heads nod. The matriarch has spoken. It is her duty after all to protect the inheritance of her present and future grandchildren,
the true ones, the certified, the proved. A few relatives think it’s a bit strange to hear Loana talk that way, though, she
having been a denied child and everything. You would think she’d have a bit more compassion.

“This is the first baby with a dimple I’ve seen.” There, Pito has just decided to voice his opinion. “In my life,” he adds,
to give his opinion more weight. The mother-in-law shoots him an irritated look. “In my
whole
life,” Pito clarifies.

Heads nod. True, the relatives are saying, dimples are extremely rare, a bit like twins, or a particular dot on a particular
spot. They’re the rarest — particular dots on particular spots — they’re almost sacred actually. God gives these dots, God
places them where it counts, God decides our fate.

It’s like when God gave Loana the face of her father, the face of the Mahi people, there was never any question about her
roots. She belonged to the Mahi clan.

But a dimple, eh? It has to be worth nearly as much.

“When is Tamatoa going to call?” Meme Agathe asks, noisily fanning herself with a blank sheet of paper.

“He’s going to call when he’s going to call,” Meme Rarahu fires back.

“I was only asking, I don’t know why you always —”

The baby stirs again.

“Every time you open your big mouth,” Meme Rarahu whispers, “you wake up the baby.”

“It’s you, you have the voice of a man.”

“What!” Meme Rarahu shrieks aloud.

The baby opens her beautiful brown eyes, stares at the curious eyes staring back, gurgles, and smiles up at Pito. Then, her
eyes rolling backwards, she falls back to sleep.

That did the trick.

“Oh,” the relatives sigh, smiling.

Opinions have now shifted. Poor baby, the women say. Imagine not being wanted like that, and by your own mother! Very soon,
a passionate discussion begins about all those unwanted babies growing up without love in their lives, what becomes of them?
Eh, they turn into cranky people, cranky and sad too, because in all honesty, eh, speaking from the heart here, being unwanted
would have to be the worst curse of all, worse than having no money, worse than having no roof over your head, because . .
.

Pito decides to put the little one to bed. When he comes back to the living room, the discussion sounds a bit more fiery,
voices have risen, and the two incorrigible old women, Meme Rarahu and Meme Agathe, are once more at each other’s throats.
These two shouldn’t be sitting next to each other, Pito thinks. He’d like to send one to that corner and one to the other,
but he’s never done anything like that before. Separate old women.

The telephone rings, and everyone jumps.

“
Allo,
” Pito says, grabbing the phone before anyone else can. “
Oui, oui,
” he tells the telephone operator, accepting the reverse charges.

“Mamie?” Tamatoa sounds worried.

Pito understands that Leilani must have exaggerated the urgency for Tamatoa to call home. Well, with Tamatoa, one has to exaggerate
a little to get some reaction.

“It’s Papi,” Pito says.

“Papi?” Tamatoa sounds even more worried now. “Everything’s fine?”

“You know a girl called Miri?” Pito won’t be going by four paths. It’s straight to the point.

“Miri Makemo?”

That wasn’t the answer Pito had hoped to hear.

“I can’t say that I
know
her,” Tamatoa continues, “but
oui,
a little bit, I guess, but” — Tamatoa’s voice drops to a murmur. In polite sign language Pito asks his wife’s relatives to
please be quiet, but they just go on ignoring him, and now Pito can hardly hear a word his son is saying, especially with
the cacophony in the background, the mother-in-law being the leader of the pack. The only quiet woman around here is Materena.
As usual, she’s the one to be polite, the one showing respect to people on the telephone.

“What did you say?” Pito asks his son. “Speak louder, I can’t hear.”

“I said, why are you asking if I know Miri?”

“Ah, I’m glad you’re asking, do you know that —” Pito turns to his rude relatives-in-law. “Eh!” he shouts. “
Mamu!
”