Tiare in Bloom (9 page)

“Maybe she’s still dancing,” the nurse snaps, angry. “Your wife wouldn’t be the first woman to go out dancing at night and
come home the following morning. What’s her name?”

“Materena Tehana.”

“
Non,
she’s not on our list, call the hotels. Good-bye.”

Next morning, just as the first church bells are calling out to the faithful, reminding them all that mass is in half an hour,
so get ready, Materena walks in the door. Pito, sitting on the sofa, is straight onto her with a thousand questions, but she’s
got to get ready for mass, she says, quickly taking her green dress off and heading to the bathroom with a towel around her
body.

“Where did you go last night?” Pito asks, following her.

“I was with my
copine,
you’re not going to mass?”

“You were with your
copine
all night?”

“Well
oui!
And so?”

“And what did you two do?”

“It’s not your onions.” Materena closes the bathroom door on her husband and showers in record time while Pito puts on his
navy blue suit. Within five minutes, she’s out of the house in her pristine below-the-knees white church dress, running to
the church like a good Catholic woman, devoted wife and mother, with husband in tow.

“
Iaorana!
” the relatives cheer the couple outside the church. The kissing and the polite words go on for a minute and now Meme Agathe,
one of Mama Teta’s clients, can resume her monologue about how singing at mass soothes the soul. Meme Agathe insists that
she’s speaking from experience here, as a woman who has felt down in her life many, many times and who felt better as soon
as she started singing during mass.

“Oh
oui,
my Lord,” she whispers with devotion, “you can drink liters of wine, you can smoke all kinds of cigarettes, you can have
love affairs, but nothing beats singing at mass with the elders. When words of love, forgiveness, patience, hope, strength,
come out of your mouth, you are certain to experience a spiritual uplift. Light will knock your worries away, inundate your
soul, and you will get up, you will feel good from your head to your toes, you will —”

To everyone’s relief the second bell rings, inviting the faithful to come in right now, right this second, mass is about to
start.

“And you will shut your mouth,” Meme Rarahu snorts.

Men, women, and children rush in, dipping a finger into the blessed water in the huge clam by the door and crossing themselves
with their eyes closed, their heads slightly bent with respect.

Now Pito can take his usual seat at the back near the door with the men, but Materena unexpectedly takes his hand in hers
and leads him to where she sits.

The Mahi clan have their seats reserved in this beautiful church — it’s an unspoken agreement between this large extended
family and the other churchgoers, there’s no need to have their name engraved on the pews. It’s a known fact that the Mahi
clan helped build this church, selling tombola tickets, mapes, mangoes, banana cakes, ice to Eskimos.

This front right part of the church, facing the statue of the Virgin Mary, Understanding Woman, and the huge bouquet of flowers,
belongs to the Mahi clan, okay? The left side belongs to the Teutu family, except for the three front pews, which are for
the choristers. But the two back parts of the church are for everyone. Right out the back near the door is for people who
quietly sneak into the church half an hour after mass has started, or people who must sneak out of the church in the middle
of the service for a cigarette. And people like Pito who might feel the need to rest their eyes a little while the priest
passionately raves on with his sermon.

“Materena,” Pito says, sitting next to his wife. “I feel bizarre —”

“Shush,” someone behind says.

Pito turns to see who’s just told him to be quiet and meets the smiling eyes of Mama Teta, who puts a finger on her mouth
and winks. He looks to his left and meets the very serious eyes of his mother-in-law. On his right, the big eyes of Mama George
are saying, “What are you looking at me for?”

Sighing, Pito looks down at his shoes.

“Shush.”

Pito half turns but changes his mind, he’s not in the mood to look at eyes again.

Instead, he stares trancelike at his immaculate white shoes, his fingers, Jesus Christ half naked and nailed to the cross
with blood dribbling down his temples.

He remembers the Easter he understood that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, oh, the celebration in the neighborhood.
“Jesus Christ is resurrected! He’s risen from the dead!” And the aunties kissed each other like crazy, crying their eyes out
with joy. But Pito thought, It’s not possible, when you’re dead, you’re dead, you can’t be alive again.

He asked his mother for some explanation. She said, “Jesus Christ is resurrected full stop, there’s nothing to explain!”

The four musicians start jamming; it means the priest is on his way. When music was first introduced at mass, some of the
old people complained. “Eh, what’s this? Music in the church? What are we? Savages?” But the young people loved it. “Yeah!
Music! I’m going to church!” Anyway, for the record, since musicians have been part of mass, the church has been attracting
more followers.

It is now time to stand up to welcome Father Patrice, along with his helpers, and ten old women attack the first line of the
welcoming song. “
E te varua maitai . . . aroha mai ia tatou e
. . . O Lord, have pity on us.” Eyes closed, and a hand on their heart, these respectable elders who have loved once, twice,
sometimes three times, are begging the Lord for mercy.

But all Pito can think about is how his wife didn’t sleep in their marital bed last night. And the song singing in his ears
is — for some strange reason —
Je suis cocu mais content!
I’m cuckolded but happy! He glances over to his wife, singing away her faith with her hands clutched in prayer, a serene
and peaceful expression on her face, looking every bit the picture of a devout Christian woman who lives her life by the rules
of the Bible.

Pito narrows his suspicious eyes and turns his attention back to Jesus. He’s certainly not expecting Materena to be taking
Communion today, she didn’t have time to confess her sins from last night, and she’s not the kind to sin but still go on eating
the body of Christ so that people don’t ask themselves questions.

Many people do that, Pito knows. He himself has done this several times in his life, but his sins were little compared to
big sins like stealing or sleeping around. Actually, there was always only one sin: drinking more than the priest.

Pito expects a lot of people to be shocked when, instead of joining the Communion line, Materena will remained seated, her
head bowed in shame. But here she is, springing to her feet, a big, bright smile on her face, and joining the Communion line
with great enthusiasm. Pito should be relieved. Instead, he’s even more suspicious.

This is why, as soon as Pito and Materena are home from mass, he wants to jump on her.

“I need to do the test,” he says, his feverish hand fumbling to unzip Materena’s white armor.

“The test?” Materena snaps, slapping her husband’s hand. “What test are you talking about?”

“Well, the test!” Pito forces a laugh. “The test a husband does on his wife when she goes out to a nightclub and comes home
in the morning!”

Pito first heard about it many years ago in a bar somewhere in Paris, when he was doing military service. Apparently, a man
shouldn’t trust a woman’s eyes, as the eyes of a woman can easily lie (women are born comedians, the stranger told Pito),
but the test,
he-he,
it always speaks the truth. Basically, the man gets on top of his wife . . .

“Pito!” There’s no way Materena is doing that test. Looking at her husband with sad and wounded eyes, she asks, “That’s all
I am for you? A hole?”

“A hole?” Pito asks, shocked to hear his wife talk about herself like that. A hole? He’s heard of that expression many times
before, but it has always come out of men’s mouths and always referring to women of bad reputation. “Ah,” they’d say, “time
goes fast with her in bed, but she’s just a hole.”

“A
hole?
” Pito asks again.

“
Oui,
a hole . . . do you think a woman just wants a tetanus shot?”

“Materena.” Pito is still shocked. “You’re not a hole. You’re the mother of my children. You’re my wife.”

“Your wife?” Materena laughs, showing her husband her throat.

When a woman shows a man her throat this way, laughing like she’s mocking him, it means
tu peux toujours courir:
“In your dreams!”

A
ll right then, you people in the Kikiriri nightclub, make way for the two pretty
cousines, s’il vous plaît.
Materena and Lily look stunning in colorful
pareu
dresses (not too short, not too long) with thin straps, their hair loosely falling on their backs, a Tiare flower behind
the ear (the left one, meaning, I’m already taken).

There were meant to be three pretty
cousines
bursting into the nightclub, but Rita — tonight’s designated driver, having stopped drinking in her quest of falling pregnant
— pulled out at the last minute. She’d rather stay home with her man, watch TV, do normal things couples do, have a rest from
the intense two weeks they’ve just had making their baby.

So anyway, that is why there are only two
cousines
tonight.

Materena is wearing brand-new high-heel shoes, which Lily has kindly lent her. “You’re not going out in those old shoes,”
Lily said when she saw Materena’s comfortable sandals. “Not if you’re coming with me.” Materena certainly feels very privileged.
Lily never lends her shoes. In fact, Lily never lends anything.

The tiny dance floor is packed with couples languidly swaying to the sexy rhythm of the Tahitian band’s version of “Guantanamera.”
Some couples, sitting at tables in the dark, have already proceeded to the kissing stage. Other couples, also sitting at tables
but not in the dark, are staring into the whites of each other’s eyes — the bored way — in between furtive glances to the
lucky couples.

Enfin
. . . to the bar!

“You are driving, Materena,” Lily says to make sure the new designated driver hasn’t forgotten.

“You’re not going to drink too much, I hope,” Materena replies. “I don’t want to have to carry you to the car.”

“Eh, maybe I’m not going home with you?” Lily chuckles.

“Lily —”

Grinning, Lily turns to her cousin. “And if I meet Prince Charming tonight?”

“I thought you said your Prince Charming isn’t going to be at the nightclub?”

“Oh, maybe he’s here tonight, he was so bored at home.”

At the bar, a fifty-something Chinese man immediately offers to buy these pretty
mesdemoiselles
a drink.

“
Mesdames,
” Materena rectifies, digging for her purse in her bag. As far as she’s concerned, she’s paying for her drinks, okay? When
a man pays for a woman’s drink, she can expect expectations.
Non merci!
But Lily is already handing the barman a five-thousand-franc note, and before Materena can tell him what she’d like to drink
(a soda, please), she has a gin and tonic in her hands.

Standing and drinking their gin and tonics, the cousins watch the love movies unfolding on the dance floor. A few couples
are kissing shyly, while others are shoving tongues down each other’s throat. Feverish hands are going up and down on backs,
married hands entwining with single hands. All is permitted at this nightclub.

On the podium, the musicians are achieving their sole objective, which is to get the dance floor packed to the maximum. They
are five overweight Tahitian men, but everyone knows that when there’s music in the story, Tahitian women will be charmed
no matter what the musicians look like.

“Cousin,” Lily confesses in Materena’s ear, “my Prince Charming is a historian.”

“
Ah bon?
How do you know?”

“I went to a clairvoyant two weeks ago, and she told me that the man of my life is a historian. She saw my man in her crystal
ball. There were a lot of books around him.” Lily is talking about books thicker than the Bible here, not magazines.

“
Ah bon?
” And Materena bursts out laughing.

“Why are you laughing?”

“I don’t know!”

“You’re drunk already? With one drink!”

Materena looks into her glass.
Oups,
it’s empty. She better refill it. Two more gin and tonics, please! Another slow dance, more watching couples kiss on the
dance floor, this is getting very boring for Materena.

She scans the nightclub, remembering not to make eye contact with the men. When a woman makes eye contact with a man and he
raises his eyebrows or makes a slight movement with his head towards the dance floor, she is obliged to accept his invitation
to dance. Well,
non,
she’s not really obliged, but she’d better be diplomatic with her refusal. She can’t, for example, shake her head, meaning
thanks but no thanks, because if the man has issues, he’ll come straight to her. He might then start abusing her, tell her
that the reason she didn’t accept his polite invitation to dance is because she doesn’t like Tahitian men, or she’s a snob;
worse, a slut.

Lily has reminded Materena about these rules in the car on their way to the club. Plus, there’s always a cousin to tell a
nightclub story about how a real ugly
titoi
or a real old
titoi
insulted her because she refused to dance with him. So, the best way to refuse an invitation to dance is to pretend you didn’t
see the man raise his eyebrows, you didn’t see him make a slight head movement towards the dance floor, or you could just
rush to the toilets like it’s an emergency. Better yet, simply avoid eye contact at all costs, which is exactly what Materena
is doing.

In the meantime, here’s another gin and tonic, with Lily’s compliments, and Materena is beginning to feel the effect. Oh,
she’s been drunk before, but never with a live band of musicians playing a love song, a beautiful love song about how wonderful
it is to wake up next to your loved one and how mornings are truly made for kisses . . . Materena is feeling all funny and
missing Pito. Not the Pito she’s been so angry with for nearly two weeks because of his comment about her father not wanting
to meet her, not the Pito who’s been an insensitive
merde
for twenty-five years. It’s not that Pito Materena misses,
non.
It’s the Pito in between. The Pito she loved.