Breadfruit (26 page)

The bad
tupapa’u
do worse tricks. They come into your head. They make you scared. They want you to do strange things.

“Pito, stop whistling!” Materena is ordering him.

“Materena, you just concentrate on your fridge.” Pito flicks a page of his comic.

Wandering spirits come to you even if you don’t whistle, but when you whistle it’s more guaranteed that they will come pay
you a visit. They can talk to you too.

Materena remembers when she was about eight years old. She was helping her mother make a
tifaifai
quilt when a foul smell penetrated the living room.

Loana stopped stitching and looked around. “Go your way,” she said. “I didn’t invite you into my house.”

The
tupapa’u
didn’t go away when Loana stood up and faced the wall.

“What?” Loana rolled her hands into fists. “What do you dare tell me? This is not my land? Speak up, I can’t hear you!”

Materena gripped the quilt, scared; her mother looked like she was possessed.

“I’m Mahi blood! This land belongs to me! My father is Apoto Mahi!” Loana was yelling by then.

Materena wanted to go get the crucifix, she knew
tupapa’u
couldn’t stand the sight of Jesus Christ nailed to the cross, but she was too scared to make a movement.

Loana went to open the door and, pointing outside, she said, very calmly, “Leave now or I will curse you—you will wander for
the eternity. You will never see the face of God.”

Cold air rushed behind Materena’s neck—then the door slammed. Loana got back to her quilt.

“Girl,” she said, “don’t you worry—he’s gone.”

Materena shivers. Pito’s whistling is even louder now.

“Pito—please stop whistling.” Materena is begging him.

She tells him the story about her mother and the
tupapa’u.
Pito just laughs. In his opinion Loana had a bit too much to drink that night and had a hallucination.

Materena tells him the story about the beef legs. Pito laughs even more. In his opinion, that story is fabricated—it’s a story
mothers tell their children when they muck around too much at night. “I’m going to call the beef legs.” Pito heard that sentence
a few times from his mother. But she never called the beef legs, since there’s no beef legs to respond to the calling.

In Pito’s opinion,
tupapa’u
don’t exist. They are in the imagination. When you’re dead, you’re dead—you become ashes, it’s finished.

“And what about my cousin Mori when he saw a hairy man come out of a grave as he was walking past the cemetery one night .
. . ?” Materena is beginning to feel a bit cold.

Pito laughs again.

“And the white lady who hitchhikes by the side of the road and sometimes she comes into your car without you even stopping—you
look into the rearview mirror and there she is, on the backseat, smiling at you?” This is another one of Mori’s stories. By
now Materena’s really got the shivers.

Again Pito laughs. “Your cousin Mori, he’s the king of invented stories.”

Pito goes on about how he’s been in a car many times at night and the only people he’s seen hitchhiking were hoodlums.

Pito whistles a happy tune and shakes his shoulders.

Materena goes back to her defrosting. “Keep whistling, Pito. But don’t say I didn’t warn you that a wandering spirit will
come pay you a visit.”

Then an idea comes into Materena’s mind. “Pito.”

Pito looks up because Materena is now whispering and only two seconds ago she was almost shouting.

Materena drops the sponge. Her eyes are wide open, like she’s afraid. “Pito… look behind you, there’s… there’s .
. .”

At that precise moment, a ten-pound breadfruit crashes onto the tin roof, and cold air (from the open fridge) penetrates Materena’s
skin.

She jumps on Pito. Pito falls off the chair. And Materena and Pito are on the floor.

“You stupid bitch woman!” Pito is all pale now. “What were you trying to do? Scare me?”

T
hat Pito, Materena says in her head, walking to the Chinese store. He likes to think he’s so tough, but he’s not tough at
all, he’s afraid of geckos, he’s afraid of
tupapa’u
. . .

Materena can see Pito’s face again. He was so pale! Ah, if she were to put the news on the coconut radio, there would be laughing
all over the place. It would be her revenge for all the bad things Pito did to her… like proposing to her when he didn’t
mean it.

Bastard. If Materena were mean… but she’s not, this is the problem. She’s tempted to spill the bucket, though, bumping
into Cousin Mori and other cousins… And here’s Cousin Teva.

Drinking alone, with his head down. That is very different.

Materena walks up to him. “Teva,” she says, “are you all right?”

He’s holding a picture of a young woman. The young woman looks very serious as she grates a coconut.

“It’s Manuia,” Teva says.

“Ah. She looks strong.” Materena has heard about Manuia and how Teva was going to marry her.

“Manuia got married last month.” Teva starts to cry. “Mama sent me the news.”

Materena puts a reassuring arm on Teva’s shoulder. She’s got mixed emotions. She feels sorry for him, but she also thinks
that he deserves to cry. He’s come to Tahiti with plans and done nothing about them.

This is the story of Teva’s arrival in Tahiti as Loana told it to Materena.

He is seventeen and leaving his island for the first time.

He’s leaving Rangiroa for Tahiti, where people can earn lots of money—easily.

Many of his relatives have gone before him and they are all doing fine. None of them have come home, because they are doing
so well. But he will, in two years. He has a plan. Work very hard, very long hours, save most of his pay, then come home in
five years’ time and start a business taking tourists spearfishing on the new speedboat he can afford to buy. And, of course,
marry Manuia from the village and have beautiful children with her.

He promises his mother these things. She says, “Son, once you taste life in Tahiti, you’re not going to want this slow, simple
life in Rangiroa. You’re not going to want to be a fisherman.”

And now he is going aboard the
Temehani,
which will take him to Tahiti. He watches his mother, his father, his sisters and brothers, standing on the quay, waving.
He waves back until he can’t see them anymore.

He waves for a long time.

Then Teva sits on the deck and hides his face in his hands.

Cousin James picks Teva up in Tahiti. Teva hardly recognizes James at first. James has a big gut, a wild beard, and messy
hair. He used to have iron muscles from hunting big fish. He used to look clean and healthy. Now he’s a slob. Teva looks at
the tattoo on James’s arm. It is a tattoo of a heart and the heart is pierced with an arrow and Teva wants to laugh, but he
knows that it isn’t a good idea to laugh at James’s tattoo.

They kiss and hug. Then they walk toward a rusty old Peugeot.

“Is this your car?” asks Teva.

James raises his eyebrows. It means, of course it’s my car, what do you think, that I don’t have a car? Do I look like someone
who doesn’t have a car to you? Of course it’s my car, and it’s a good car.

Teva is surprised about James’s car. The rumor in the village was that James had a new red Honda that could speed faster than
Liu Song’s speedboat.

It takes a while to make the old Peugeot start. Then the car propels itself forward, rattling and squeaking as it goes. Teva
wants to laugh, but he knows it’s not a good idea to laugh at James’s rusty Peugeot. And, plus, James is older, so he needs
to show a bit of respect.

“What have you got in that bag?” James asks.

“Clothes.”

“You’ve got nice ones for going out… for hunting good-looking women?” asks James, looking at a woman waiting to cross
the road.

“I’m here to work, Cousin.” Teva is serious.

Cousin James laughs a mocking laugh. “Work! There’s no work here! Who told you there’s work here! The economy is stuffed,
Cousin. You know a bit about the economy?”

Teva admits that he doesn’t know one bit about the economy.

“Well, I’m telling you, Cousin, the economy’s stuffed.”

“You work?” asks Teva.

“When it suits me.” James furiously toots his horn at the car in front, which is moving too slowly. “Get off the fucking road!”
he yells as he accelerates to pass the white Fiat.

Teva looks at the woman who is driving the Fiat, her chest pressed to the steering wheel like she can’t see the road, and
he feels quite uncomfortable, because the woman is a mama and back home you just don’t yell at the mamas. Only the papas can
yell at the mamas—not the young people.

James looks at the driver of the Fiat too as he passes. “
Putain,
it’s Mama Teta! What is she doing on the road? She’s a bloody public danger.”

Then James passes a truck and Teva is holding on to his seat.

“I don’t like people bossing me around.” James continues the discussion about work. “I won’t eat nobody’s merde. Give me two
million francs… give me five million francs, I’ll still refuse. Got my pride. What about you? You eat merde if your boss
asks you?”

“
Non.
”

“Good,” James says. “Don’t make me sorry we’re related.”

Teva looks out the car window and thinks about Rangiroa.

Finally they arrive at Noelene’s house. Her house needs two coats of paint, at least—the place is a wreck. As soon as Teva
gets out of the car, big Mama Noelene smothers him with kisses. And then she cries for the whole neighborhood to hear, “
Aue,
welcome… welcome to my home… welcome, my nephew from Rangiroa!”

Teva says, “Thank you, Auntie.”

When Teva’s mother asked Noelene about him staying with her, Noelene promptly sent a message back:
Your son is my blood. He can stay at my house. I have a big house.

“The family is fine back home?” Noelene takes Teva’s bag.

“Petero died last week.”

Noelene is shocked. She didn’t know Petero had died. If someone had taken the time to send her the news, she might have caught
the plane—for the first time in her life—to be at her uncle Petero’s wake and funeral.

“How did he die?”

“Sleeping.”

“It’s a good way to die,” Noelene says.

More talk inside the house, but James joins his mates drinking under a mango tree, watching cars drive past.

The house is clean and it smells of bleach. Teva guesses his auntie Noelene cleaned up the house good for him. When a relation
from another village comes to visit Teva’s family, his mama goes crazy for hours making the house cleaner than clean, and
nobody is allowed in the house until the relation arrives, and the relation always makes a comment about the house being clean.

So, with respect, Teva says, “Your house is very clean, Auntie Noelene.”

“You call this house clean?” Noelene admires her bleached walls.

“
Oui,
Auntie, your house is very clean.” Teva knows that a compliment like this one has to be repeated.

Noelene complains that usually the house is a bit cleaner, but she’s always so busy. She smiles and says, “You sleep in the
living room until James’s two good-for-nothing friends remember they have a mother. I get so mad with James. He’s always inviting
friends to stay at my house, and his friends don’t work! Who puts food in their mouth, eh? Me! I told James his two good-for-nothing
friends have to go soon, before I throw them out myself. Are you hungry a bit?”

Teva feels embarrassed. His mother never asks that kind of question. She just puts the food in front of you and eats with
you. Teva is hungry, but if he says yes, she might think he is a good-for-nothing. If he says no, he’s going to stay hungry.

“I’m not hungry, yet.”

Noelene gets mad. “You’re telling me you don’t want to eat my food? Come. We go eat. My food is not special, but when Auntie
Noelene gets her pay, I’m going to cook special food. Just for you.”

Teva sits at the kitchen table and digs into the corned beef.

“Why did you come here?” Noelene sighs, and rolls a cigarette. “There’s too many good-for-nothing people living in Tahiti
… I hope you’re not going to turn into a good-for-nothing. Don’t you make me sorry we’re related, eh?”

Teva nods.

“If you don’t find a job soon, you’ll have to go home. When you wait for the job to fall out of the sky, you become a good-for-nothing
nuisance.”

Teva is glad James is calling out to him, and he gets up.

“Remember what I told you.” Noelene grabs Teva by the hand. “If you don’t find a job soon, you go home. And don’t listen to
those good-for-nothings drinking outside. And don’t you turn into a good-for-nothing on me. There’s enough good-for-nothings
in my life.”

Teva hurries outside.

James waves to him. “What’re you doing? The beer is getting warm.”

Teva sits next to James, who affectionately pats him on the shoulder. Then he addresses his assembly.

“See him?”

“Yeah… we see the kid.” James’s friends are already drunk.

“He’s my cousin,” James says. “Make trouble with him and you’re going to be sorry. You’re going to talk like girls… no
more balls… gone with my knife.” James pulls a hideous face and the drunken good-for-nothings lower their eyes.

“Tell me, James, what is the kid doing here?” one of them asks.

“Looking for work.” James takes a long slug of his Hinano.

The assembly roars with laughter. “You mean your relation doesn’t know there’s a problem with the economy? Doesn’t know you
need to have gone to university to sweep the road? What can you do, kid?”

Teva shrugs. What can he do? Teva can do anything. Free dive down to the black coral, kill big sharks who would steal his
fish, spot a school of fish a mile away, find his way back to the shore on dark, stormy nights. Teva from Rangiroa can do
anything.

The assembly is waiting for him to answer. Teva shrugs again. What can he do? It will take too long to tell.

“You don’t know?” asks the assembly.