Tiare in Bloom (21 page)

But the real reason why Materena burst into tears when she unwrapped the newspapers from Tamatoa’s gift was that she had told
Tamatoa about that box when he was eight years old and he remembered. “
Aue!
” she cried, when she saw the gift. “You haven’t forgotten!” Next minute Materena was sobbing over her precious jewelry box
and going on about how she couldn’t believe that Tamatoa remembered the story. Meanwhile, Tamatoa was standing straight, and
looking very proud of himself. “Everything you tell me, Mamie,” he said, glancing at his father with triumph, “stays in my
head.”

Even Pito was moved. But looking at his son now, on the sofa (where else?), sucking on his near-empty bottle of beer, is making
Pito want to shake him. Pito takes another sip of Hinano to relax and keeps his eyes fixed on the TV screen instead. If he
were alone, he would be enjoying tonight’s movie about the kung fu master Bruce Lee, the man himself. But Pito’s heart is
too much in turmoil, and so he gets up.

“Papi,” Tamatoa says. “Can you get me another beer?”

“Get your own
putain
beer.” This is Pito’s answer in his head. But out loud he just grunts as he goes into the kitchen. Come on, Pito, he tells
himself, don’t be like that, he’s your son, he’s your flesh and bones, he’s your blood. He’s only just come home, and he makes
his daughter laugh. It’s better than nothing. Stop comparing yourself to him. Sighing, Pito opens the fridge and cracks open
a beer for his son.

“Here.”

“
Merci,
Papi.”

“Hum.” Pito goes back to the kitchen. He sits at the kitchen table, thinking maybe he should go and see his
copains.
He hasn’t seen them for a long time. Tonight could be the perfect opportunity to say, “
Eh, copains!
Long time no see, so what’s the news?” But Pito doesn’t trust Tamatoa to stay home and look after Tiare. One of
his
drinking friends might come to the house and invite Tamatoa out for a few drinks; or one of his dancing friends might call
to go out dancing and Tamatoa will be up in a flash, leaving his daughter behind because he’s a coconut head, and then the
house might catch on fire and then . . .

Eh, Pito is going to listen to Materena’s program for something to do. He’s listened to it a few times before and got quickly
bored or annoyed, but perhaps there’s something interesting tonight.

“Listen, Materena,” a woman is saying, “I hope you don’t mind me digressing from the subject, but I’d like to make a few points.”

“That’s all right, go ahead,” comes Materena’s warm, lovely voice.

“What I’d like to say is that in the old days, the very old days, men were the providers. They hunted fish to feed their women
and children. They hunted wild pigs, they climbed up coconut trees, it was the survival of the fittest. Then things started
to change. The bomb made an apparition in French Polynesia, I’m talking about the nuclear testing in Moruroa. Legionnaires
came by the thousands, it meant more shops, more restaurants, more hotels, more jobs, and women got out of their houses to
work.” The woman draws in a quick breath. “I’m not saying that this was bad,
non,
it’s very important for women to be financially independent, but men lost their place in the society. They were no longer
the providers. They lost their power, they lost their voice, and that is why men are so hopeless today. These days men are
most likely to be the ones who are unemployed, so the statistics say. They sit by the side of road drinking beer with their
so-called friends and wait for jobs to fall out of the sky.”

The caller, whom Pito is finding very interesting, goes on about how these men are draining their family’s resources because,
unlike in France, there’s no
chomage
in Tahiti. There’s no money coming from the government for food, but these men have still got to eat and who is going to
feed them? Their woman, their mother, their father, their sisters . . . Well, says the caller, this must stop. “Our society
is going backwards.”

Pito rubs his chin, thinking, Hmm, very interesting. What is the next caller going to say?

“
Aue,
too much blah-blah!” That’s what the next caller has to say. “Discipline is the key, 1, 2, 3! Let’s get our boys into sports,
because sports are the best way to learn discipline, discipline is the key, 1, 2, 3!” She insists that she doesn’t just mean
sports like soccer or boxing, but all kinds of activities, you could even include playing music or dancing as long as there’s
some training or practicing involved. But on the other hand, she says, having a job is really how we can get our boys to move
forward and be responsible. “When you don’t work for too long, you become a slob.”

Pito agrees with this one hundred percent. It happened to him. When you do nothing for too long, you wake up later and later
in the morning, and everything, getting out of bed included, becomes a chore.

Ah oui,
Pito remembers those distant days when he’d sleep until midday because he had nothing to get up for. He had just come home
from military service in France, where everything was organized, scheduled here, scheduled there, the adjutant yelling his
head off for no reason. Then Pito came home to a mother who was so relieved to see him alive and in good health that she spoiled
him rotten, cooking him his favorite dishes and slipping coins into his hand for beer. Pito was basking in this special treatment.

But it wasn’t long until his mother started to get agitated. “Get a job,” she’d say. “Get out of bed. Do something with your
life, I beg you, Pito.” But Pito was quite comfortable doing nothing. The more he slept, the more he felt like sleeping. He
had
zéro
energy. Even taking the garbage out for his mother was too much effort. When he was awake, it was to drink, and when he wasn’t
drinking, he wanted to sleep. In between playing with that girl from Faa’a, Materena Mahi.

But then Pito became a father and things changed like
that,
from one day to the next. One of his uncles came by and told him that he was now a man. “A boy doesn’t become a man when
he’s circumcised,” the uncle said. “A boy becomes a man when he becomes a father.” The uncle ordered Pito to get out of bed,
have a shower, and get dressed as if he were off to work. Pito’s mother hurried to iron her son’s wedding-and-funeral suit,
but the uncle said that he meant working clothes — clothes you don’t mind getting dirty.

By the following day, thanks to that uncle’s connections, Pito had a job. He’s still in that same job today.

“I must get my boy a job!” says Pito to himself. These aren’t just words in the wind. This is a committed Pito speaking.

The following morning, a job falls from the sky, and right where Pito works! Heifara quit, he’s gone walkabout with his new
woman and her three children, back to her island, Huahine. The colleagues are shocked, considering all the crying Heifara
has been doing lately.

His ex-wife has been found to have a lover, but Heifara cared more about his wife making it hard for him to see his daughters.
He couldn’t keep up with her rules. “You can have the children this weekend but only if you promise not to feed them junk
. . . You can have the children this weekend but only if you promise to take them swimming . . . You can have the children
only if you promise not to let them watch TV all day.” Et cetera et cetera, and now Heifara is going off to be a full-time
father to another man’s children. What a shock!

Well, Pito admits that it is sad for Heifara’s daughters, but what’s more on Pito’s mind right now is that there’s a job here
ready to be taken by the first person who asks. Pito wonders if he should go straight to the boss instead of talking to the
boss’s secretary — there’s a saying, if you want to ask something, go straight to God, don’t bother going through the angels
— but sometimes it’s okay to see the receptionist.

So here is Pito in the front office, a smile on his face, and feeling quite nervous.

“
Oui,
Pito,” Josephine, the receptionist, says, looking surprised to see him. Today isn’t payday.

Pito wishes he had spoken to Josephine a bit more over the years instead of just the usual hello–good-bye he does when picking
up his pay. He wishes he had asked her a little bit about her family and everything; that way, Josephine would be like a friend
today and Pito would feel a bit more comfortable with his request. He knows nothing about Josephine, except that she has a
husband, a son, and an answering machine.

“Pito?” Josephine asks again. “What is it? I’ve got work to do.”

Pito can’t ask her about her family today, it’s too late, so he throws himself into the water. “Are you going to put Heifara’s
job in the newspapers?”

“At this stage, it hasn’t been decided.”

“Ah.”

“Why?”

“It’s just that my eldest son is — ”

“Tamatoa?”

“You know my son?” Pito is pleasantly surprised.

“When Materena used to pick up your pay, we always talked about our children.” Then sighing, she adds, “I wish she was still
picking up your pay, I miss Materena . . .
Enfin,
you want the job for your son?”

“Well, if — ”

Josephine doesn’t let Pito finish his sentence about if it’s all right with the company, if she wouldn’t mind, if it’s possible
she could do something . . . She’s telling him that she’ll see what she can do. “He’s got a CV?” she asks.

“A what?”

“A curriculum vitae.” Josephine explains that it’s the done thing these days for potential employees to drop off a curriculum
vitae. “It’s like a story about the jobs a person has had, his experiences, his strengths, his knowledge . . . it’s a new
thing.”

Pito doesn’t know if his son has one of these but he’ll make sure that he gets one, and Tamatoa will drop it off at the office,
let’s say tomorrow?

“Okay, but it must be typed. The boss doesn’t like handwritten CVs.”

“Typed? Like on a typing machine?” asks Pito, slightly dumbfounded.

“
Oui,
” Josephine nods.

Pito doesn’t know anyone who has a typing machine. “I can’t just bring my son in for him to talk to the boss and see how he
is and everything and — ”

“The boss wants a CV, I’m sorry, Pito.” Josephine grabs files from her desk. She’s terminating the conversation. “You need
something else?” Something else like an advance.

“
Non,
it’s okay.
Maururu
for your help.”

What help? Pito asks himself once outside the office. How is Tamatoa going to get a typed CV by tomorrow? And what the hell
is his son going to put on his CV? What experiences? What knowledge? There will only be two lines. One line: military service.
One line: dancing stupid disco moves in nightclubs in Paris. Who is going to hire someone like that?

Pito could ask his brother Frank. Frank has a lot of connections. But Pito isn’t really enchanted by the idea of his son mixing
with Frank’s connections.

Aue
. . .
eh,
maybe Materena should be the one using her connections, she knows more people than Pito does. Or perhaps Pito is going to
ask his friend Ati for help. Ati knows a lot of people too.

There, it’s decided. Pito takes his place back behind the cutting machine. One thing is for sure — his son will be in a job
by the end of the month. Spit, swear, thank you, Jesus Christ.

Pito steps off the truck at the petrol station after a hard day at work and gives a slow nod to one of his relatives-in-law
walking by to the Chinese store, meaning,
Iaorana,
how are you? The woman gives him a frantic friendly wave and a smile. He shakes Mori’s hand on his way past the mango tree,
has a few words about this, that, the weather, and then keeps on walking.

And there is his beautiful little princess, sitting outside the house on a mat, waiting for her grandfather to come home from
work.

“Grandpère!” Tiare runs out to her grandfather with open arms.

“Eh, princess,
e aha te huru?
”

“
Maitai.
”

A big hug, a big squeeze, and Tiare hops on her grandfather’s back.

“Papa is at the house?” he asks.

“
Oui.
”

“He’s sleeping?”

“
Aita.
”

“What is he doing?”

“He’s with Grandmère.”

“What are they doing?”

“
Parau-parau.
”

“
E aha te parau-parau?
”

“I don’t know.”

Pito walks into the house and heads straight to the kitchen. Here’s Tamatoa and here’s Materena, both sitting at the kitchen
table, with an unopened bottle of champagne and four glasses, one already filled with water.

“Ah, you’re here!” Materena exclaims, kissing her husband on the cheeks. “Our son has some wonderful news for us,” she says,
with her see-I-told-you-not-to-stress-about-this voice.

“What’s the wonderful news?” Pito asks.

“First, let me pop the champagne,” Tamatoa says.

“Come on, then, pop your champagne” — that your mother paid for, Pito adds in his head.

And
pop!
Tamatoa fills his father’s glass, his mother’s glass, his glass, and pretends to fill his daughter’s glass. Let’s all raise
our glasses together, please. Let’s all have a toast. As for the news, here it is:
Mesdames et messieurs,
let me present to you the new member of the dancing group at Club 707.

“Eh!” Champagne flies out of Pito’s mouth. “What?”

Materena’s eyes are also popping out of her head. “Don’t you have to be a
raerae
to dance there?” she asks.

Her cousin-in-law Georgette is a dancer at Club 707 and she’s a
raerae,
she dances her sexy moves three nights a week for an audience made up mostly of women. And lonely old men sitting in the
dark.

“People are going to think you’re a
raerae,
” Pito says. He wouldn’t like this to happen to him. People mistaking him for a
raerae.
Can you imagine?

“Well,
I
know I’m not a
raerae,
” Tamatoa laughs. “
I
know that I love women.” Then, shaking his hips, he shouts, “All I care about is dancing!”