Tiare in Bloom (26 page)

“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.

S
taring 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 photo, 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. According 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.