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  Materena puts her pen down and thanks her mother for all her wonderful ideas.

  Loana gets up. “If my ideas are so wonderful, how come you’re not writing them down? Aue, you write your letter yourself. I’ve got plants to water.”

  By nine o’clock that night Materena is still searching for her first line.

  The first line in a letter is as important as the first line in a story. In Materena’s experience as a listener, when people tell her stories, the first line can make her think, I can’t wait to hear the rest of the story, or, What am I going to cook for dinner tonight? Then again, Materena knows many stories that start with a weak line only to become wonderful stories later on. You never know with stories.

  But when you’re writing a letter for a job you really want, you’ve got to instantly win over the person reading it. When you’re writing a letter for a job you really want, you’ve got to be prepared to spend hours and hours on it.

  Materena wants that job. She can clean with her eyes closed and she doesn’t mind the two-year contract. A two-year contract means she won’t get fired the day she goes into labor. It means Madame Colette Dumonnier understands that when a woman has a baby, she can’t work for at least two weeks because she’s got to recuperate from the birth and take care of all the Tahitian Welcome into the World rituals. Madame Colette Dumonnier is also going to understand that Materena will be taking her newborn to work for a few months.

  If Madame Colette Dumonnier understands all of this, Materena really doesn’t mind having a two-year contract with that woman.

  Pito lets Materena collect his pay these days, but when your man lets you collect his pay, he expects to eat what he likes to eat. He expects to have razor blades available when he shaves. He expects, expects, expects. And when you buy yourself a tiny little thing, like a pair of cheap plastic earrings, you worry he’s going to be cranky with you, he’s going to ask you how much the earrings cost, etc., etc. It’s quite nerve-racking spoiling yourself even a little with the money your man lets you have. Well anyway, for Materena it is. She’d like to be able to buy things without feeling guilty: lavender-scented soaps, a two-sided vinyl tablecloth reduced by 50 percent, and so forth.

  Work is health, that song says. No work, eat stones.

  Okay then, first line. The first line has to make Madame Colette Dumonnier exclaim, “I don’t need to interview twenty-five people, I’ve found my professional cleaner!”

  Materena thinks and thinks . . . She’s thinking so much she gives herself a headache. It is now nine thirty. How hard is it to come up with a line that has less than ten words? You stupid, Materena tells herself as she gets up. She grabs the broom. She’s got to do something with her hands to help her think clearly. She brooms, mops, scrubs the bathroom, wipes the kitchen walls . . . she rearranges the garde-manger.

  It is twenty to one in the morning when, finally, the line Materena has been searching for comes into her mind. All excited, Materena sits back at the kitchen table and writes: “I’ve been cleaning houses since I was eight years old to help my mother.” That first line, the magical line, unleashes the rest of the letter. Materena writes away furiously. She’s going to check the spelling later on.

  She writes that people can eat off her mother’s floor. She says how the cleaning of a house always starts from the top and not the bottom, how a professional cleaner must be able to keep secrets because she’s bound to see things, find things, hear things, things that don’t concern anyone else but the boss. She writes that she’s six months pregnant and all is well with her and the baby.

  Once she’s satisfied with her words Materena checks the spelling and writes a clean copy. And another. And another. Until she’s finally happy her letter is as perfect as she can possibly make it.

  Next morning, Materena kisses the envelope containing the very important letter before posting it with the words, “Okay, letter, off you go. Good luck.”

  The waiting begins . . . One day, two days, four. A whole week. Each day when the postman approaches, Materena’s heart starts to go thump-thump with hope. When the postman walks past her house Materena’s heart goes thump-thump with dejection.

  By the second week Materena is sure Madame Colette Dumonnier threw her letter in the trash the second she read it because it was so stupid. She didn’t care that you could eat off Materena’s mother’s floor.

  Loana says, “It’s God’s plan for you not to work at that woman’s house. God always has a plan.”

  This isn’t making Materena feel any better. She’s thinking, If I can’t even get an interview for a cleaning job, what am I good for?

  Just as Materena is about to give up on Madame Colette Dumonnier, the postman slides a letter under the door. Materena shrieks with delight, does a little dance with her son, rubs her belly, and tells her daughter, “Eh, girl? Guess what? Mamie has got an interview!” She smells the letter, waves it in the air, she puts the letter on the kitchen table and looks at it for a while.

  What if Madame Colette Dumonnier has written to say thank you, but no thank you?

  Ouh, that is the last time Materena is applying for a job in writing! She much prefers the usual system. You stand in a line with all the applicants, you talk to the woman who wants a cleaner, you get told on the spot if you have the job or not. There’s no waiting in agony.

  Materena has applied for a position as a cleaner three times that way and she was successful three times. For some reason Frenchwomen like the look of her. They like the fact that she dresses like a cleaner. She doesn’t wear short dresses and makeup. She doesn’t look like a cleaner who steals rich husbands.

  One of Materena’s bosses went back to her country, one boss moved to another island, and the other cried when Materena resigned so that she could be a full-time mother.

  Materena opens the envelope, sighing with anxiety.

  Inside is a two-page letter. Materena wonders what Madame Colette Dumonnier has to tell her. She glances at the messy writing, the words crossed out with a line, the spelling mistakes, the exclamation marks. She reads that Madame Colette Dumonnier has been in Tahiti for six months and she still doesn’t understand this island! The last time Madame Colette Dumonnier needed a plumber she had to wait four days!

  Many people here shouldn’t be holding a driver’s license! she continues. Not many people here wear shoes! The cemeteries are rather splendid! Many people here go to church! Women here have a lot of children! Men here drink a lot! The sound of the ukulele is rather nice! The mosquitoes here are very vicious! It is very hot here!

  Anyway, she also writes that Materena was the only person who responded to the ad. And since Madame Colette Dumonnier is only days from going into labor with her first child, Materena’s got the job. Congratulations. The address is . . . See you on Monday.

  There won’t be any contract, as Madame Colette Dumonnier is not sure she’ll last that long on this strange island.

  The Everyday Life

  Materena’s baby was expected to arrive in this world two weeks ago, but she doesn’t want to come out of her mother’s belly yet. Materena isn’t too worried. Some babies arrive before the due date, like Tapeta’s daughter Rose, some babies arrive right on time, like Madame Colette’s son, Marc, and some babies arrive after the due date.

  Loana doesn’t feel too happy about her granddaughter’s delayed arrival. She is panicking. She visits Materena every day to see how things are and to ask, “Can you feel the baby kicking?”

  She’s here again tonight, on her way to a prayer meeting, to see how things are and to ask, “Can you feel the baby kicking?”

  Tonight for some reason the baby is sound asleep. To reassure her mother, Materena shakes her belly a little and gently taps on it several times. The baby kicks Materena in the ribs, stopping Materena’s breath for a few seconds, and Loana sighs with relief. Before she leaves, though, Loana makes Materena promise to go and see the doctor the next day to check that all is fine with the baby. “You don’t want the bab
y to be strangled by the umbilical cord,” she says.

  The next day Materena goes to see her doctor, because a promise to her mother is sacred.

  He’s very busy, says the doctor’s secretary. The best he can do is to see Materena in four days. Materena thanks the doctor’s secretary and walks out of the office, but five steps later she stops to think. No, it doesn’t suit her to see the doctor in four days, she wants to see him today. Materena has always accepted whatever appointments her doctor’s secretary has given her, but not this time.

  She marches back to the doctor’s office and, adopting a pitiful air, she asks for an earlier appointment.

  The doctor’s secretary sighs. “Are you having contractions?” she asks.

  “Non,” admits Materena sweetly, so as not to aggravate the doctor’s secretary. Everybody knows that if you want an appointment with the doctor when it suits you, you better be nice to the woman who makes the appointments. Materena explains how she’s very worried about the umbilical cord strangling her baby. Another sigh from the doctor’s secretary. “Well, how about tomorrow morning at seven o’clock? Dr. Marshall is very busy.”

  This is more suitable for Materena. “Eh, eh, merci beaucoup,” she says. “Tomorrow is good.”

  At seven o’clock in the morning precisely, on Wednesday the twenty-sixth of July, Materena is in the doctor’s waiting room with Loana, who has Materena’s suitcase for the hospital just in case there’s going to be an emergency. Loana also has with her the coconut for Materena to drink from to make the baby slide out with ease.

  The waiting room is already filled with patients: three pregnant women, two old men, and seven young men after a medical certificate.

  At twenty past nine, Dr. Marshall is finally free to see Materena. He takes her pulse, he listens to her heartbeat and to the baby’s heartbeat, then gently taps Materena’s belly several times, reads Materena’s medical card, does some calculations on a piece of paper. Then he looks into Materena’s eyes and says, “Give me one minute.” He grabs his telephone and dials. Materena turns her head the other way so that Dr. Marshall doesn’t think she’s listening.

  She opens her ears.

  Dr. Marshall is talking and talking, and Materena understands in between the medical charabia words that she’s going to the hospital. Dr. Marshall puts the telephone down and tells her that they are going to activate the birth.

  Well, doctors know best. But she does ask her doctor if there will be a problem with the umbilical cord strangling her baby. Dr. Marshall starts to chuckle, but when he sees Materena’s very serious face he puts his serious face back on. “Non,” he says. “I’m not anticipating any problems.”

  When Materena tells her mother of Dr. Marshall’s decision, Loana gets cranky. “See now! Lucky I told you to go and see Doctor! Aue, children, eh! We think that when they’re grown up we don’t have to worry anymore, but the worrying never stops!”

  Loana thinks they are going to the hospital in the ambulance, and when she finds out that there is no ambulance, she gets crankier. “And how are we supposed to go the hospital? On foot?”

  After two trucks and forty stairs to the maternity ward, Materena, with her mother carrying the suitcase, rings the labor room’s buzzer, and the nurse tells her to wait in the corridor. Sitting on the bench directly opposite the labor room, Loana starts to cry as she holds her daughter’s hand, stroking it lovingly. “Be strong, girl . . . you’re a woman . . . we’re strong.”

  It is about eleven o’clock. To make the minutes go faster Materena and Loana talk. They talk about this and that: Materena’s being born with swollen eyelids on a concrete table with Auntie Stella bending Loana to make the baby come out; Loana’s being born with slanted eyes in a bamboo hut . . . They talk and talk, and meanwhile the minutes turn into an hour.

  They stop talking to look at a young pregnant girl doing the hundred steps with her mother by her side. Then the door of the labor room opens and out walks a nurse wheeling a mother and her newborn, and they hear the screams from behind the door: the screams of suffering, the moans, the screams of joy.

  At two o’clock Loana says out loud, “Eh well, we could die in this hospital and no one would come!”

  At half past two, Loana rushes over to the nurse wheeling another mother and her newborn out of the labor room. “Nurse?” she says. “My daughter has been here since eleven o’clock, she’s here to have her birth activated, and she hasn’t eaten anything since this morning.”

  “It’s not our fault everybody decided to give birth today!” the nurse snaps. “They all went to the same party, or what?” And she hurries away with her squeaky shoes, pushing that wheelchair.

  Loana, hands on her hips, shoots her in the back with her cranky eyes.

  Not long after, another nurse walks out of the labor room, but this time with an empty wheelchair. Materena hurries to that nurse to explain the story about the umbilical cord. The nurse, smiling with compassion, replies, “Don’t worry, you’re next.”

  An excited Loana hurries to the telephone to call the family: Pito at work, Mama Roti at her cousin’s, Cousin Rita, who is looking after Tamatoa, an auntie and another auntie, and a few favorite cousins.

  Little by little the relatives arrive and get comfortable on the bench and on the ground and they joke around to make the pregnant woman laugh, to give her strength before she goes into the labor room. But when the minutes turn into another hour, everybody gets tired of joking around and laughing and everybody becomes silent. Mama Roti and her cousin get the cards out.

  Another hour passes and another, and at about five thirty Pito takes off with one of his cousins to get some breadsticks and cheese for the family.

  “And you, chérie?” Pito asks Materena. “You want something special?”

  “Oui, please.”

  Materena wants a packet of Twisties, the green ones.

  “The green ones?” says Pito, puzzled.

  “Oui, the chicken-flavored ones, you see? Not the red packet, the green one.”

  As soon as he disappears, a nurse walks out of the labor room with a notepad and calls out, “Materena Mahi!”

  The relatives start to cry, wishing Materena good luck. Loana runs to get Pito, hoping to catch him in time, as Materena follows the nurse into the labor room, feeling very anxious now. It’s not the same when you walk into the labor room in pain, then you can’t wait to start pushing. When you walk into the labor room not in pain, you ask yourself, What are they going to do to me?

  Materena is made to lie down on the bed in one of the delivery rooms. In the delivery room on the left side of the curtain, a woman is yelling her head off, but in the other delivery room, on the right, a woman is asking the midwife (in between pushing) if she’s earning good money.

  Materena takes a deep breath, trying to distract herself by remembering all the traditional Tahitian rules about giving birth.

  First rule: no shouting as you push the baby into the world, because when you shout the baby inside gets frightened, and it’s not wise to be born frightened. It’s enough that one second the baby is in his mama’s belly and it’s dark and comfortable and warm, and next minute he’s in this strange place he doesn’t know. And the light is hurting his eyes, he can’t breathe, and it’s cold.

  Second rule: no crying out loud as you push the baby into the world, because when you cry out loud, the baby about to be born gets all sad, and it’s not wise to be born sad. The baby is going to be a crying-for-no-reason baby, and then that baby is going to grow into a crying-for-no-reason person. And when you’re a crying-for-no-reason person and you’re a woman, life is just going to be one misery after the next. One little pain, and that’s it, you’ll cry your eyes out. It’s much better for you to be a woman who cries only for big pains.

  Third rule: no cursing and screaming words of insult as you push your baby into the world, because when you curse and scream words of insult, the baby inside gets all cranky, and it’s not wise to be born cranky. That ba
by is going to be a cranky-for-no-reason baby, and then that baby is going to grow into a cranky-for-no-reason person.

  Materena is trying to remember all these rules while a nurse, all smiling and friendly, puts a drip into her arm. For a long while after the drip is inserted nothing happens, and Materena is starting to get really bored until, at last, she gets a contraction. She’s so happy! At least something is happening. The next contraction is a bit more painful, but it is still comfortable. Within an hour the contractions are so painful that Materena is moaning, “Aue! When is this going to stop?”

  Three times she calls out to the nurse that she is ready to push and three times the nurse says, “You’ve got a long way to go yet,” and poor Materena is left all alone to deal with her suffering.

  And what suffering, eh? Materena feels like smacking her cousin Tapeta, who told her, “Don’t worry, giving birth gets easier and easier with each child.”

  Easier!

  “Aue!” Materena yells. By now, Materena is in too much pain to follow the traditional Tahitian rules about giving birth. In between contractions, she tries to get out of bed, but her head is spinning, not counting the tubes and everything. She falls back on the bed, moaning, with a fist shoved in her mouth as another contraction comes on and goes on and on and on. Materena feels like eating her hand. Right that moment she would give anything to have one leg (both legs) amputated instead of this torture. Even to have all her teeth taken out with pliers would be a pleasure. Her whole body tenses, her legs tremble, until at last the contraction eases up and Materena sighs with relief, though she knows that everything is going to start up all over again in less than thirty seconds.

  “She’s having a baby girl,” Materena hears a woman say. “Girls hurt their mother from the day they come into the world. It’s like that. I can talk because I’ve got six girls . . . Girls are a curse, trust me.”

  “Oui, she’s having a girl, all right,” another woman is saying. “It’s more painful to push girls into the world because they don’t want to be born. They resist. They know what they’re in for in this world of miseries.”