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  When baby Tamatoa has his nap Materena talks to her unborn daughter about herself. Well, for a start she likes to broom. When she’s cranky she brooms (rapidly), when she’s sad she brooms (slowly), when she’s lost she brooms (half rapidly and half slowly). The result is the same, though. The floor is clean and Materena is happy. She’s also happy when the garde-manger is full, when she gets a little compliment about her cooking; love, respect, a bit of rain now and then.

  She’s sad when people and animals die, someone she loves yells at her, money is low. She likes to listen to people talk and she doesn’t mind raking the leaves.

  She left school at fourteen years old and has been working ever since. She’s sold peanuts and lemonade at a football stadium, washed dishes in a restaurant, made sandwiches at a snack, where she met Pito, cleaned houses, and now she’s a housewife.

  She doesn’t have a coconut tree in her hand, that’s for sure. She’s not lazy. And she’s very proud to have been born a woman because women are the strongest creatures on Earth. And speaking of women, the two women Materena admires the most in life are her mother and her godmother, Imelda. Her favorite cousin is Rita. Her favorite color is blue. Her favorite singer is Gabilou. And she used to have a dog.

  Materena keeps on talking cheerfully as she makes her son’s bottle. He wakes up minutes later.

  “Your brother is awake,” she says out loud, walking to his room to get him. “Oh, la-la, he’s so cranky today! Can you hear him?” By the time Materena opens the door, Tamatoa, sitting upright, is yelling his head off.

  “But, chéri?” Materena cackles as she bends over to pick her son up. “What’s the matter? You had a little nightmare?” She gives him a big kiss on his head to reassure him, but the baby keeps on yelling.

  “What is it?” Materena asks, checking her son for mosquito bites on his arms. She finds none. She lifts his shirt. There are no bites. She puts baby Tamatoa back on the mattress and takes off his wet diaper. “There,” she sighs. “Feel much better now?”

  Tamatoa is still yelling his head off.

  “Oh,” Materena says. “Don’t panic, Mamie has got your bottle ready.”

  She hurries to the kitchen and takes Tamatoa’s bottle, being heated in a pot on the stove. She squeezes a bit of milk on the palm of her hand. “Look at what Mamie has got for you,” she sings, showing her son his bottle. But instead of smiling with relief, baby Tamatoa yells even louder. When Materena gives him the bottle, he throws it back at her. When she picks it up and puts the teat in Tamatoa’s mouth, he spits it out.

  “What’s the matter with you today?” she asks, thinking that the whole neighborhood must be wondering what she’s doing to her baby for him to yell like this. Materena picks him up and gently pats him on the bottom. “Good baby,” she says, and he buries his head in his mother’s chest and starts to sob.

  “But, chéri,” Materena whispers, “it’s not like you to cry like this. What’s wrong?” The baby, now whimpering, lifts his beautiful sad eyes to his mother and suddenly she thinks she understands the situation.

  She squeezes her baby tight. “I forbid you to cry for him, you hear? I forbid you. I’m all that you need.” And for the first time since Pito has left, Materena bursts into tears, her head falling onto her son’s shoulder, her heart beating with profound sorrow.

  Side by Side

  Even if your heart feels like it is being crucified you still have to wave to relatives.

  Materena, on her way to visit her mother from the Chinese store, carrying a bottle of cooking oil and a crucified heart, waves to her cousin Tapeta on the other side of the road. Tapeta waves back and hurries to cross the road as fast as her big pregnant belly allows her, all the while calling out, “Iaorana, Cousin! I need to ask you something!”

  Materena waits, hoping Tapeta’s request requires a simple yes-or-no answer. Her mother is waiting for the cooking oil to start frying fish for dinner.

  The two cousins embrace, gently tapping each other on the shoulder.

  “How’s baby?” asks Materena.

  “Oh, bébé Rose is fine,” Tapeta replies, rubbing her enormous belly, “but she’s getting heavy.”

  “Eh, eh.” Materena smiles, eyeing her cousin’s belly, thinking, How is that baby ever going to come out?

  Tapeta, mistaking Materena’s smile for a smile of envy, chuckles. “Eh! Don’t you get clucky on me now! You’ve got to wait until Tamatoa is two years old to get pregnant again, you don’t want your children to be too close. Don’t do what I’ve done three times!”

  Materena laughs a faint laugh, and she’s just about to excuse herself when Tapeta takes her hand and leads her to the shade of the mango tree near the petrol station. She needs to ask something, she says, and it won’t take too long, she promises.

  “Oui, because Mamie is waiting for her cooking oil,” Materena says.

  “Sure, five minutes. I just need a little advice, but first I have to tell you the full story.” When Tapeta, comfortable under the mango tree, says the full story, she means the full story—the story from the very beginning.

  “You know I had a brother,” Tapeta begins.

  “Oui, oui, he died before you were born.”

  “Correct, five years before I was born, and you know on which island he’s buried.”

  Aue, Materena thinks. She knows it’s an island far away, but which one is it? “Raiatea?” Materena says, hesitantly.

  “Apataki!”

  “Ah oui! Apataki . . . I don’t know why I said Raiatea.”

  “Well, you forgot where my mother is from, that’s all. Now, I hope you remember where she’s buried.”

  Yes, this Materena remembers. Tapeta’s mother is buried in the Faa’a cemetery, in the Mahi burial plot, underneath her husband, one grave up from Mama Jose’s grave and one grave down from Papa Penu’s grave. When it comes to the people buried in the Faa’a cemetery, Materena knows all the details. Even if by some horrible twist the names on the crosses were wiped out, Materena would still be able to tell you who’s buried here and who’s buried there.

  Tapeta gives Materena a big smile of gratitude, her eyes getting tearier by the second, and asks, “You know how my brother died, eh?”

  Materena, hoping she’s remembering correctly, tells Tapeta that her brother died in his sleep.

  Tapeta confirms this with a sad nod. “Eh oui,” she sighs. “Three months old. One day he was alive and the next . . . eh-eh, poor Mama.” Tapeta talks about how her mother carried the memory of her beautiful son in her heart right till the day she died. She had a lock of his hair in her pendant, his pillow on her bed, his baptism robe in a glass frame, his little white shoes in her sewing box. “She could never love me like she loved him,” Tapeta says, her head down. “I suffered, you know . . . the alive can’t compete with the dead.”

  “Cousin.” Materena takes Tapeta’s hand in hers. “Don’t think about stories like that when you’re pregnant, it’s not good.”

  “I know, but bloody Mama came into my dream last night! I’ve been calling out to Mama for years, but she never came. She just bloody ignored me. And then last night, just like that, she decides to visit me. She comes into my dream to tell me she wants to be next to her son.”

  “Aue.” Materena has goose bumps.

  “She says this to me,” Tapeta continues, shaking her head with disbelief, “but she doesn’t give me instructions. It’s up to me to guess who has to be moved! Who do I dig out, eh? Mama? Private as she was? I don’t think she’s going to be too happy having people going through her bones. I move my brother, then? But he’s already been moved once. I don’t want my little brother to be disturbed again.”

  “Really? Your brother has already been moved?”

  “Ah, you didn’t know?” Tapeta informs Materena that her parents, Reri and Julien, were in Makatea working in the nickel mine when her brother died, so the boy was buried there. But two years later, when they returned to Apataki, Reri took her son along even though it w
as, at the time, against the law that says you can’t move a dead body for fifty years. The mama furiously dug the little coffin out in the middle of the night, all the while muttering, “I’m not leaving my son behind.”

  Years later, the husband decided to come back to Tahiti, and Reri was prepared to do the same thing, but he said, “What for? We’re going home to Apataki soon. Your island is my island.”

  God decided otherwise.

  “I understand that Mama wants to be next to her son,” Tapeta tells Materena. “She only had him for three months when he was alive, so it’s normal she wants him for hundreds of years dead. I understand, I’m a mother too.”

  Silent tears roll down Materena’s cheeks. Materena also understands, but it doesn’t mean she knows whom Tapeta should move. Part of Materena thinks the baby should be moved so that he can be with both his parents, and part of Materena thinks the mother should be moved so she can be with all her family. But then Tapeta won’t be able to visit her mother every Saturday as she’s been doing for years. Ah, it’s a shame Auntie Reri wasn’t more specific in the dream. What about Uncle Julien?

  “Have you asked your father for advice?” Materena asks.

  “He’s a man,” Tapeta snorts. “You don’t talk about babies to men. You talk about the gas bottle and the lawn, not babies.”

  Materena sighs a long, sad sigh. She would probably have laughed at Tapeta’s comment if her man hadn’t abandoned her with one son born and one daughter on the way. She would have said, “Ah, you’re right, Cousin, men are hopeless with babies. All they know is how to make them, eh?” Materena and Tapeta would have had a good chuckle. But right now, Materena is crying.

  “Cousin?” Tapeta looks at Materena closely. “Ah well, it’s a sad story, I’m sorry I told you about it. But don’t worry, I’m going to see Mama at the cemetery today and ask her to give me a few more details next time.” Tapeta explains that her mother has always been vague anyway. When Tapeta would ask her mother where the soap was, she’d say, “There.” If Tapeta had the bad luck to ask, “There? Where?” she’d earn herself a hand on the back. “She’s never been able to tell me things as they are,” Tapeta says. “It’s about time she learns.”

  And with this Tapeta apologizes to her cousin for having kept her for too long.

  One Step Forward

  Pito has been gone for eighteen days now. It’s time to get up and move on.

  To give herself strength Materena thinks about Auntie Antoinette, the mother of Rita, Materena’s favorite cousin. Antoinette fell on the ground and cried her eyes out when her husband went to get the newspaper and didn’t come back for days. But when Antoinette’s sister, Mama George, saw him at the market with another woman (they were holding hands and kissing like crazy people) and told the whole population, Antoinette stopped crying.

  After she stopped crying, Antoinette shoved all of her ex-husband’s things (shirts, shaving brush, ties, thongs, shorts, etc.) into a box and left it by the side of the road with a note saying Free, Please Take. The box was gone within seconds. She then painted the doors in her house blue, took down the white curtains her ex-husband had insisted on, and replaced them with colorful curtains as her sister Teresia had told her to do years ago. She bought a vase and made a bouquet of flowers for the first time in her life. Before, when Antoinette had seen a bouquet of flowers in a vase, she’d say, “Eh well, poor flowers, I wouldn’t like to be you.” For Antoinette, at the time, anyway, flowers were for the earth and not for the vase. But now she displayed her bouquet of flowers in the living room for everyone to see, facing the front door so that the first thing she’d see when she opened it would be her beautiful bouquet. Antoinette got up after her fall and moved on with her life.

  Materena intends to do this, but she’s not having Father Unknown written on her daughter’s birth certificate. That’s the only reason Materena has to see Pito. She doesn’t care if there’s another woman on Pito’s horizon. It isn’t going to change the situation.

  Materena admits to her daughter in the womb that she’s a bit worried about being a single mother. When she smells Pito’s pillow her heart aches, it is a crucifix for her. But women are real strong creatures, she assures the baby, they can survive anything—flood, fatigue, separation, single parenthood. They’re tough.

  So her man has abandoned her and their baby son, Tamatoa, and, yes, she’s heartbroken. But it doesn’t mean she’s going to lie on the ground for days and days. It’s time to get up and march on! For some reason, Materena suddenly feels very strong. It’s like someone is whispering into her ears, “Eh, don’t worry, everything is going to be all right.”

  The previous week Materena had been prepared to go and see Pito at his work to say sorry and ask him to come home, kiss him and hold him tight. She got all dressed up. But a voice inside her head shouted, “Materena, don’t you dare do that! If Pito loves you he’ll come back. Let him show you what he really feels for you.” To resist the temptation Materena raked the leaves, she needed to do that, there were yellow breadfruit leaves all over the place, and no dignified Tahitian would have leaves rotting away in the garden. Leaves must be raked and then burned, which is exactly what Materena did. The smoke did her good, it was like she was burning the past, moving on. After that, she planted a tamarind tree, she marked the day, the day when she got up and walked.

  “Men . . . they’re such cons,” Materena goes on to her daughter. But all the same there’s no need to turn into a man hater like Auntie Antoinette.

  Even all these years after losing her man, every day Auntie Antoinette has a reason to exclaim, “Ah, men! They’re such cons!” If she sees a man walking in front with a woman following a few steps behind, she’ll say, “Watch that con, he has to walk in front, he has to show to the whole population that he’s the king, that it’s him who decides.” She never thinks that maybe the man is walking in front because his woman told him off last night. That she screamed at him that he was an idiot and that she should have listened to her mother. Maybe the man and the woman don’t even know each other.

  A man and a woman have eight children, Auntie Antoinette declares how the man is an animal, how he forced his woman and all she wanted to do was sleep. What a con! A man falls asleep during Mass, what a con, continue to live in obscurity.

  Never complain to Auntie Antoinette about your man. She’ll only say to you, “Well, it’s you who’s the idiot. What are you doing with him? What have you got in your head? Rocks?”

  Materena is determined not to turn into a man hater. She knows that not all men are cons. Materena certainly hopes that she and Pito will remain good friends. It’s important for the children.

  That is what she told Pito’s best friend, Ati, when he came to visit yesterday after having been away for a month in the islands. He’s the only person who knows that Pito has left (and for a question of pay). Ati was so cranky with Pito. When he visited her he said, “Materena, Pito is blind, he doesn’t know what he’s got.” Then Ati took Materena in his arms and held her tight. A bit too tight, Materena thought, and who knows what would have happened if Tamatoa hadn’t started to cry.

  Before Ati left, he told Materena that he was going to visit her again later on in the evening, but Materena told him it was better that he didn’t. She didn’t want people to start talking. She had to tell the family about Pito and everything first.

  Aue, Materena says to her baby. She can’t keep lying to the family that Pito is looking after his sick mama. Sooner or later the relatives are going to put two and two together, smell the rat, start talking, investigate, hold meetings outside the Chinese store and whisper to one another. As soon as Materena walks past they’ll talk louder about a curry recipe, wave to her and call out, “Eh, Cousin! You’re fine? Pito’s mama is still sick?” Later on, with Materena far away enough, the investigation will continue. “Like I was saying to you,” they’ll whisper.

  Materena is well aware of this. She’s not Tahitian for nothing.

  Oh
, it’s not as if her relatives are after a juicy story because they’re so bored. But they want to know where they stand. They’re getting a bit sick of calling out to Materena to see if Pito’s mama is fine, not counting the fact that they’re by now very concerned for Mama Roti.

  There will be many shocked relatives when Materena confesses the truth, how Pito left for a question of pay. How he left because he didn’t want his mates at work to make fun of him. So many relatives have said to Pito, “Ah, Pito . . . the day Materena packs your bags and sends you back to your mama, I’m not going to be surprised.”

  But here, he packed his bags himself and took off. He disappeared.

  As for Mama Roti, she’s in very good health.

  It’s time to inform the population, starting with her mother, although Materena suspects her mother already knows the situation. Loana has been around a few times lately, bringing boxes of food along. She’s also slept over twice. She said, “Ah, it’s so nice for me to have a bit of company, it’s so much better than to listen to that guy with the nice voice talk on the radio.” Loana went on about how some mothers can’t live with their children once they’ve moved out, but she could, and easily too. Materena feels the same way about this, but she’d still rather live with the father of her children than her mother.

  Well anyway, it’s time to tell the truth.

  But first Materena is going to put Pito’s Akim comics in the trash along with his toothbrush and his old things. Then she’s going to move the sofa to where the wardrobe is and move the wardrobe to where the sofa is. No need to change the curtains, they’re already colorful. Materena would never have white curtains, they get dirty too easily. As for a bouquet of flowers . . . well, there’s a plant. It’s been there from day one in this house, and Materena likes to see it the moment she opens the front door, and so she intends to leave it as it is because it’s not good to move plants around. If they’re happy where they are, leave them alone. She might replace the linoleum with carpet. But first, she must see Pito.