Frangipani (22 page)

Pito won.

He’s all muscles, Leilani’s boyfriend, from all the rowing he does. Pito hasn’t done any exercise in twenty years. So don’t go looking from midday to fourteen hours to put two and two together.

Of course Hotu let Pito win, and he did this because he knows it’s a good idea to let the father of the house win. When the father of the house wins, he’s very happy. He’s not stupid, Leilani’s boyfriend.

When he left, Pito tapped Leilani on the shoulder and said, “Eh, your boyfriend is too skinny. Tell him to eat a bit more.”

As for Materena, she said, “What a nice boy!”

Okay, who’s going to be the first relative to be asking Materena about her daughter’s boyfriend? The first relative who says something nasty is going to get it!

Ah, here’s Cousin Mori sitting under the mango tree next to the petrol station, as per usual. But today, for some reason, Cousin Mori is not drinking, and he’s not playing his eternal accordion.

“
Iaorana,
Cousin!” Materena calls out.

Mori, waving and smiling, calls back, “
Iaorana,
Cousin!”

Materena stops in front of Mori and waits for Mori to start questioning, but all she gets from him today is a perplexed look. Yes, Mori’s eyes are definitely saying, “
Oui?
And? Have you got something to say to me?” So Materena wishes her cousin a good day, he does the same, and off she goes.

Ah, and who does Materena see in the distance, running toward her? Cousin Loma in flesh and bones, the relative who saw Leilani waiting at the petrol station for Hotu to arrive one night, and who in just one minute found out there was a boyfriend on the horizon. The relative who no doubt has been running all over the neighborhood informing the population and the coconut radio.

“Cousin!” Loma’s smile is full of morbid curiosity. Her eyes are also full of morbid curiosity.

“All is fine?” Materena casually asks as she greets Cousin Loma with light kisses on the cheeks.

“
Oui! Oui! Oui!
All is fine!” Loma is so excited today. “So! Leilani has a boyfriend! I saw them yesterday, and he’s got a BMW? So Leilani has a boyfriend?”

“Well, you saw him, so you know,” Materena says.

“I can’t believe he’s a
popa’a!
”

“Eh what?” Materena says. “What are you going on about?”

“Ah, he’s not a
popa’a
?” Loma asks, confused. “It’s just that . . . he’s so white.”

“Lots of Tahitians are white!”

Loma does her I’m-not-so-sure-about-that look. When you’re a Tahitian, you’re brown, you’re not white. “Maybe there’s a white ancestor in his family,” Loma goes on.

“Eh, Loma. We all have white ancestors, okay. If you want to see pure Tahitians, go back to the first century.” She can’t believe Loma mistook Hotu for a
popa’a.

Materena didn’t even see that Hotu was white. When he walked into the house all she saw was a good-looking young man with combed hair and cut fingernails. She also saw his crisp ironed pants and shirt and the white shoes he didn’t take off before walking into the house.

She didn’t see that he was white.

How could Hotu be white, anyway? He’s always in the sun! That Loma, Materena thinks. She needs glasses.

“His name is Hotu Viriatu, does that name sound
popa’a
to you?” Materena asks.

“
Ah non,
that name sounds very Tahitian . . . And how many sisters and brothers has he got?”

“One sister.”

“He’s not Tahitian.” Loma does her I’m-not-impressed look.

“Eh, Loma,” Materena snaps, “must we have ten children to be Tahitian these days? I have three children, does this mean I’m not Tahitian? Or does this mean I know when to stop?”

“He’s got a job, at least?” asks Loma the detective.

Ah, here’s Cousin Giselle. Materena can sure do with a break from Cousin Loma’s stupid questions, and presently Cousin Giselle, with her big pregnant belly and her tribe of three children, is hurrying over.

“Cousin Materena!”

“Cousin Giselle!”

The two cousins give each other big hugs and kisses.

“You’re fine?”

“I’m fine, Cousin,” Materena replies as one by one she kisses her cousin’s children, aged two to six.

“So Leilani has a boyfriend?” Giselle asks.

“
Eh oui,
what do you want, that’s life.”

“Eh, eh,” Giselle says. Then, getting more teary by the second, she goes on about how it was like only yesterday that Leilani was born, and now she’s nearly seventeen years old, she’s a woman and she has a boyfriend.

“
Aue,
love, eh,” she sighs. “It’s so wonderful, especially at the beginning . . . If only it stayed that way . . . the first kiss . . .” She stops to flick her two-year-old boy’s hand pulling at her dress.

“Love?” Materena cackles. “You mean to say passion, Cousin.” Materena tells Giselle about that kiss Leilani and Hotu gave each other outside the house before he left. Materena didn’t mean to look, of course, she was just putting rubbish in the trash can, and she saw the lovers kiss as if one of them was about to leave for war and never return. That kiss just went on and on and on and on.

“
Oh, la-la!
” Giselle exclaims. “Somebody has got fire up her . . . And he’s a
popa’a?
” Again, Materena rectifies the situation to Giselle. Then it’s Auntie Stella’s turn to be enlightened, and another auntie, and another cousin, and another cousin, and another cousin, and three mamas.

Well, they’re all very pleased that Leilani’s boyfriend is a local and not a foreigner, like Rose’s Australian boyfriend, because foreigners always go back to their country and they don’t necessarily ask the woman to follow. Sometimes, of course, this is not a bad thing.

Anyway, he’s a local, that’s one bit of information out of the way. What is his family name? His family name is Viriatu, he’s Catholic, he’s not from an enemy family, and there’s no connection whatsoever.

And . . . has he got a job?

He’s a dentist.

“
Ouh!
” The relatives are so happy for Leilani. “Lucky girl,” they say.

“Lucky us!” they shout. “He can fix our teeth for free!”

And where did they meet, the relatives want to know.

Ah, that’s another story altogether. They met in the truck, and usually Hotu never catches the truck since he has a motorbike and a car. But one particular morning he was driving his motorbike to work and it broke down. And so, for the first time in his life, Hotu Viriatu caught the truck.

He stood by the side of the road and waved to the first truck that came his way. It was Papa Lucky-Luke’s truck, the truck locals never catch because Papa Lucky-Luke’s such a slow driver and he doesn’t play music in his truck.

That’s the truck Leilani always catches, that way she can read on her way to school or write things down in her little notebook and she doesn’t have to listen to music she doesn’t like. She loves it that Papa Lucky-Luke’s truck is always empty.

So anyway, Papa Lucky-Luke’s truck stopped and Hotu hopped in with his backpack, holding on to his helmet. Leilani didn’t even look up, she was so busy writing. This went on for minutes until Hotu, who’d been staring at Leilani, felt it was the right moment to say something.

And so he said, “Are you writing your memoirs?”

Leilani looked up. “Pardon?”

“Are you writing your memoirs?”

She laughed, he laughed, they looked into each other’s eyes, and as we say, the rest is History with a capital
H.

The relatives agree that it’s an unusual way for two people to meet. There’s no story like that in the family. In the family people meet at the Chinese store, the snack, the church, the nightclub, they meet at the airport, as it happened with Rose and Matt. Matt was ordering a coffee at the Airport Café while waiting for the check-in line for the plane to Australia to be less busy. He’d been on a three-week visit to Tahiti, surfing. At the Airport Café, Matt and Rose met, and Matt didn’t catch his plane.

All right, then, now that the population has been informed about Leilani’s boyfriend, the population can go on with their chores. But there’s one more thing Materena has to say.

“Hotu is allergic to alcohol!” Materena is all smiles. She expects the relatives to share her delight. A Tahitian man who doesn’t drink? Are you crazy?

But the relatives aren’t sharing Materena’s delight. Nobody is jumping up and down with joy and everybody has got a story about how when they met their man, he said he was allergic to alcohol. Apparently this is a very popular pick-up line.

“
Iaorana,
princess . . . my name is . . . and I’m allergic to alcohol.” The relatives can’t believe Materena didn’t know about it.

Getting Serious

W
hat can a mother do, Materena says to Cousin Rita, when her daughter is in love and all is new and wonderful? She can’t compare, she can’t preach, especially when she had a baby at nineteen years old.

She just has to accept the situation.

Like Vahine’s mother did when one of her relatives visited to say, “Eh, Cousin, do you know your daughter has joined a dancing group and that she’s leaving for France next week to pursue that boy she loves?”

“What boy?” Vahine’s mother replied.

“But Tamatoa Tehana! Don’t you know anything? Where have you been? At a conference again?”

Like Tapeta did when an Australian surfer knocked on her door one sunny day holding his surfboard and said, in his broken French, “Is this the house of Rose?”

Materena will just have to accept that her daughter wants to live with her boyfriend because she wants to be with him twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Oui,
it’s the big love between those two, they want to be an official couple. It’s not enough that they see each other every day, eh? They talk for hours about electrons and protons, chemistry and other complicated words, and Leilani does whatever Hotu says.

Materena dropped her broom when Leilani said, “Guess what we did this weekend?” Materena thought Leilani and Hotu were spending the weekend at Hotu’s parents’ weekender in Vairao. Instead they rowed from Tahiti to Moorea together.

Materena dropped her broom when Leilani told her, “Guess where Hotu and I slept in Moorea?” Materena guessed that Leilani and Hotu stayed at the Club Med. But Leilani and Hotu slept on the beach under the stars, like in the old days.

And what’s with the massages?

Last time Materena stood behind the closed door to Leilani’s bedroom to catch a tiny bit of the “biology tuition,” she heard Leilani say, “What am I massaging now? Quick, give me the medical word or I’m stopping! All right, here’s an easy one for you. What am I massaging now?” When Hotu cackled, “My reproductive organ?” Materena hurried away.

Another time, Moana knocked on Leilani’s bedroom door to offer the lovebirds some almond cookies he’d just baked, and Hotu opened the door wearing Leilani’s underpants around his head.

Plus, those two are always laughing their heads off.

Two weeks ago (Leilani’s bedroom was half-open) Materena saw Leilani and Hotu sitting on the floor, holding each other by the chin and singing, “I hold you, you hold me by the goatee beard, the first one who laughs gets a slap.”

This is an old Tahitian nursery rhyme. Materena went on spying to see who would be the first one to laugh. After half a minute, Hotu burst out laughing and said, “You’re crazy, I’m marrying you.”

But last week, in the middle of the night, Leilani shouted, “Not until I have a job!” Pito, watching TV, and Materena, ironing sheets, looked up and waited for the continuation. But there was no continuation, just a complete silence followed by Hotu’s faint cackle. So Pito and Materena went back to what they were doing.

Then, three days ago, Materena was putting something in Tamatoa and Moana’s bedroom when she heard Leilani shriek, “I can’t go on, it’s hurting me!” And then Materena heard Hotu say, “Just a little bit more . . . come on, you can do it.” Poor Leilani was moaning like she was in real pain! Moaning like she was giving birth, actually. What is going on in that room? Materena asked herself. Some kind of torture? After two seconds of reflection, Materena’s mind was made up. She stomped over and put her hand on the doorknob, took a big breath, then changed her mind when she heard Leilani tell Hotu that she had no idea how weak her belly muscles were, and how she’ll definitely aim to do fifty sit-ups every day from now on. Ah, Materena thought, relieved.

And last time . . . Well anyway, what can a mother do when her daughter wants to be with her boyfriend twenty-four hours a day?

She can tell her daughter to wait a little, have fun, go to the cinema, plan your future, finish school, you only have three months left. But the daughter is most likely to say, “It’s my life, you had a baby at nineteen years old. And it’s not as if I’m leaving school.”

Aue.
Materena sighs. She’s sure all of this is Hotu’s idea. He thinks he owns Leilani just because she tattooed his initials on her hand two days ago. When Materena saw that tattoo, she went mad. She yelled at Leilani, who yelled back, and they had their first big argument in two years. Pito, who was watching a kung-fu movie, told them both to shut up.

Aue.
Materena sighs again. Here, she’s going to have another Coca-Cola that Cousin Rita has brought along with her today. And here, she’s going to have some chips Cousin Rita has also brought along with her today. She’s feeling so sad. Just thinking about Leilani not living here in this house anymore is terrible. But then, thinks Materena, the house will definitely be more relaxed. Materena won’t be on edge whenever Leilani drops her study to follow Hotu and his plans to rediscover their island, which he missed for five years when he was stuck in France.

Aue,
children, eh . . . they give you tears.

One son leaves for another country, another son says he’s going to Bora-Bora to be chef at a hotel there, and now it’s the daughter’s turn to leave. What do I do to my children? Materena asks herself. They can’t wait to leave me, or what?

Aue,
Materena is so sad, but she can’t go on doing her long face with her cousin visiting and sitting right next to her at the kitchen table.