Breadfruit (3 page)

That was the end of the meeting. Loana got to her feet and commanded Materena to do the same.

At that precise moment, Pito appeared. He looked at Materena, he looked at Loana, and then he looked at his mother. She explained
the situation, and Pito didn’t shout with joy, like they do in the movies.

“Ah, it’s you, Pito.” Loana looked at him up and down like she didn’t think much of him. “Well, now you know that you got
my girl pregnant, and good day to you two people.”

Materena didn’t go to the frangipani tree that night or the following night, or the next, but she waited for Pito to come
and see her. And every single day, Loana said, “Girl, waiting for a man is like waiting for a chicken to have teeth.”

When Pito came over a week later to ask Materena to move in with him, Loana informed him that her daughter was going nowhere.
She was staying right where she was.

“With respect,” Pito said, “I’m talking to Materena, not you.”

“Do I look like a mother who doesn’t care about her daughter?” Loana snapped.

Pito and Loana then both stared at Materena for a comment, and Materena felt like the tomato between the lettuce and the cucumber.

“You two talk,” Loana said to Materena. “I’m going out the back. But if you decide to leave this house, don’t expect me to
help you pack.”

Pito sat next to Materena on the sofa. Materena longed for him to take her in his arms, but she could see that he was
chamboulé
by the situation. So they talked about their living arrangement, with Materena saying that she couldn’t leave her mother
and Pito saying that he couldn’t leave his mother.

After a while, Pito stood up to leave, saying, “I’ll just come to visit you.”

Pito was there when Materena got her first contractions, at nine thirty in the morning. He ran to catch the truck home to
get his mama and they both came back with a cousin, who drove Materena and Loana to the hospital.

When they got to the hospital, a nurse led Materena to the delivery room for an examination. Pito, his mama, and Loana sat
on the bench in the corridor. Hours later, after Loana had inquired several times about her daughter, a nurse finally came
to inform them that the baby was definitely coming today.

“You better go to Materena,” Loana said to Pito.

“No, it’s okay, she’ll be fine,” he replied.

Mama Roti decided to agree with her son. “In my day, men just stayed outside.”

“Yes,” Loana snapped. “In your day… but we’re not in your day now.”

Loana commanded Pito to go to Materena, because a man should see these things.

“It’s fine,” Pito insisted.

But a nurse came to get Pito because Materena wanted him to see the baby come out.

So Pito saw his son being born, turning green every time the midwife yelled, “Push, girl. Push like you’re doing a big caca.
Push!” And when Materena moaned, “
Ah hia hia,
it’s hurting,” he didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

Tamatoa was born at eighteen past two in the afternoon and when Pito held his son in his arms, he cried his eyes out and said
to Materena, “You’re my woman.”

One week later, Pito got a job at a timber yard, packed his bags, and moved in with Materena.

All was well the first few days, but it soon became apparent to Materena that Pito and Loana would never get along, because
both wanted to be the boss of the baby.

Pito would rock Tamatoa to sleep his way and Loana would say to him, “You don’t rock a baby that way. Heavens, boy, I can
see you’ve never rocked a baby before. Don’t you know that your rocking could cause damage to my grandson?”

Loana would pick up Tamatoa every time he cried and Pito would say to her, “Let that baby cry a little, eh? That’s his only
exercise. You’re going to turn my son into a fairy.”

On and on and on.

Every single day.

For months.

Pito kept telling Materena that her mother was a bossy colonel. And Loana kept telling Materena that Pito was just a typical
man.

Materena finishes scrubbing the oven. Pito and Materena have been together for nearly thirteen years. She is still a professional
cleaner and she likes her job. Pito, he still works at the timber yard and he doesn’t like his job, though he’s happy to have
a job. They have their own house now.

Pito and Materena, they get along well, but there are days when Pito gives Materena ideas of murder. She can hear him snoring
now.

She tidies up, checks that the gas is off, and goes to kiss her children good night.

She always does this before she goes to bed.

She kisses her daughter, Leilani, on the forehead very lightly, as Leilani wakes up easily.

“What’s the time, Mamie?” Leilani asks.

“Go back to sleep, girl.” Leilani lives in fear of missing the truck to school. She checks her alarm clock every night before
going to bed. She’s ten years old.

And now Materena is in her boys’ room. The boys sleep on mattresses because they want to. Materena bends down and kisses the
eldest child of the family, Tamatoa. He doesn’t even stir. He’ll be twelve in three months, and some days he thinks he’s the
boss of the house.

Materena’s youngest child, eight-year-old Moana, is on the floor. Materena picks him up and puts him back on his mattress.
He’s very light—or perhaps she’s just got strong arms. She thought she was having a girl when she was pregnant with him.

She did the needle test, like with all her children. You put a thread through a needle and hold the needle above the belly
button. If the needle swings from left to right, the baby is a boy. If the needle swings around, the baby is a girl. And the
needle swung around, so Materena named her unborn baby girl Loana, after her mother. But then a boy was born instead and Materena
substituted an M for the L and the name became Moana—“ocean.”

And now Materena is going to bed.

The lights go out in the little plywood house—behind the petrol station, close to the airport, the church, the cemetery, and
the Chinese shop.

Pito is still snoring and Materena gives him a gentle shove. Pito stirs and mutters. Usually she pinches him on the nose or
smacks him on the head. Not all the time, but usually. Materena cuddles up to Pito. She can’t believe that marriage proposal.
In all the years they’ve been together, they’ve never discussed marriage. Tonight’s marriage proposal is certainly a big surprise,
but Materena reminds herself that Pito was drunk, which means that the proposal was only a whole lot of wind. Which is fine
with her. The children don’t hassle them to get married. Materena is Mamie and Pito is Papi, and that’s enough. Pito’s mother,
Mama Roti, doesn’t mind her son not being Materena’s husband. And Materena’s mother, Loana, doesn’t put pressure on Materena
to regularize her situation with Pito.

Everybody is quite content with the situation.

But Materena gets thinking about being married. Thinking it would be nice.

She feels her naked hands and pictures a gold band on her finger. She sees that framed wedding certificate displayed on the
wall in the living room. She hears herself tell people, “It’s me, Madame Tehana.”

Being a madame, eh yes, Materena wouldn’t mind. She’s been called madame many times, but only by the
popa’a,
and it embarrasses her a little, since she’s not a madame. It’s like falsifying her identity. The Polynesian people, they
call her mama or
vahine.
Her cousins call her Materena or Cousin.

Materena starts thinking about a wedding ceremony. Pito could wear his navy wedding-and-funeral suit. Materena knows him—he’ll
want to take it off as soon as they get back from the church for something more comfortable, like his ripped T-shirt.

Materena isn’t fussy about her wedding dress, as long as it’s new.

Materena is getting excited. . . .

S
o excited she can’t sleep. She knows it’s a bit silly to get excited about Pito’s drunken marriage proposal, but she’s thinking
that perhaps he really meant it, because some people need beer in them to dare talk about serious matters. What about that
dream she had yesterday? Materena is now trying to analyze it. She was getting married to the man in the movie and Pito barged
into the church on a horse and rescued her!

Materena kisses Pito on the neck and presses her body against his. Usually when she does this and he’s asleep, he wakes up
and jumps on her. But he’s drunk, so he just stays still like a statue.

Materena thinks about what her mother would say if she announced that she was getting married.

Loana might say, “About time that Pito decided to marry you, after all you’ve done for him.”

Or, “Are you sure you want to marry Pito now? You don’t want to wait until you two are older?”

Or, “
Oish,
what is a marriage worth?”

Or even, “I’ve never told you that the day of your marriage would be the happiest day of your life!”

Loana has told Materena often about a marriage proposal she received when she was seventeen years old. The young man’s name
was Auguste.

It was only a few months ago that Loana told Materena how she had seen Auguste for the very first time since she refused his
marriage proposal. Loana instantly recognized him. He was tall and lean, but the hair was gray.

He was walking past the post office and Loana said she was about to call out, “Eh, Auguste, are you fine?” but she changed
her mind at the last second.

What do you say to a man who tried to commit suicide for you thirty-five years ago?

So, Loana said, she just watched Auguste walk on, a well-dressed man carrying a briefcase—a man of business, or a professor,
perhaps. And Loana felt strange. This is the story of the marriage proposal Loana got from Auguste.

After her mother died, Loana went to live with a distant auntie and her Irish husband. The auntie and her husband were devoted
churchgoers. Well, Auntie was the devoted churchgoer and her husband had to follow her or Auntie would get into a bad mood
with him.

They went to Mass at Sainte Thérèse, and Auntie made Loana join the church choir because in her opinion Loana had a magnificent
voice and a girl who sings for God is bound to catch a good husband—at the church. Auntie hadn’t met her husband at the church,
but he was a good catch anyhow. She was fortunate.

So Loana sang in the church choir every Sunday morning.

One Sunday, Auguste and his family began to attend the Mass at Sainte Thérèse—they’d previously gone to the cathedral.

Auguste fell in love with Loana at first sight. Every Sunday he would sit in the front row of the church and just admire her.
Loana didn’t notice him, being too busy concentrating on the songs.

One day, right after Mass, Auguste’s mother approached Loana’s auntie. She wanted a bit of information about Loana, and Auntie
said, “Ah, my niece, she’s a very good girl. She goes to Mass every Sunday—she’s not the fooling-around kind of girl.” The
two women spoke for a while and embraced each other good-bye like they knew each other well.

The following Sunday, Auguste and Loana were formally introduced to each other.

And for five Sundays, they did chitchat after the Mass.

One day on the way home from church, Auntie, winking and giggling, said to Loana, “You caught a very good fish, girl.”

Soon there was a marriage proposal, and the answer the auntie expected was, of course, a yes, because Auguste was from a very
respectable family, with a great future ahead of him as a schoolteacher. He was also a devoted churchgoer, and, what’s more,
he had a good-looking face and irreproachable manners. Irreproachable.

Auntie said to Loana, “Think about that marriage proposal, girl. Think about it seriously.”

In the meantime, it was organized that the young man could come to visit. Auntie set the time and date.

Auguste arrived at six o’clock precisely, as commanded by Auntie—he came with a potted plant for Auntie. Auntie was greatly
surprised by the gift.

They sat at the kitchen table: Auguste and Auntie on one side and Loana on the other. The Irish uncle was very busy with a
bottle of whisky out the back.

Auguste came again the following day, and the following, and the day after that. Two weeks passed in this way. Then he demanded
an answer. Auntie confessed to Loana that the marriage would give her peace of mind.

“I’m not young, girl,” she said. “I could die any day.”

Auntie wanted to die knowing Loana would be well looked after, with a roof over her head, food on the table, and a good, hardworking
husband.

Loana accepted the marriage proposal.

Auguste fell to his knees and said to Loana, “I swear to you that I will make you a happy woman.”

But one night as Loana sat thinking on the verandah, she realized that she didn’t want to be Auguste’s wife. She felt nothing
for him and she knew that you were supposed to feel something for the man you were going to marry. Loana knew, for instance,
that when Auntie met Gordon for the first time, she said to herself, “That man, he’s for me. I want that man!”

Loana told Auntie of her decision not to marry Auguste.

“I can’t force you, girl, but you’re making a great mistake,” Auntie said, disappointed. “One day you’re going to regret it.
Well, you tell Auguste. I wash my hands.”

Auguste cried when Loana told him, he fell on his knees, he begged, he threatened to kill himself.

The next morning, Auguste tried to hang himself. Luckily, the neighbor who was outside feeding his dog saw him. He jumped
over the fence, but by the time he got to the breadfruit tree, Auguste was on the ground—alive. The branch had broken. He
wasn’t meant to die that day.

Auguste’s mother was so devastated that she sent her son away to France.

Loana and Auntie and her husband had to change churches. It was too much to bear to be sitting in the same church as the mother
of that poor seventeen-year-old boy who’d tried to commit suicide for Loana.

Auntie didn’t make Loana join the choir at the new church.