Breadfruit (4 page)

Aue
… Loana told Materena how she felt bad about it for months. Then she fell in love and she was glad that she didn’t marry
that Auguste. Then her heart got broken and she wished she had married that Auguste. Then she fell in love again.

Loana loved many times, and two of her lovers gave her children. One was a French
militaire
who went back to his country and the other a Tahitian who went back to his wife.

Loana says she’s through with men now and content with her life. She goes wherever she wants to, no need for authorization,
a leave pass, nobody pestering her, asking where are you going, how long are you going to be, who are you going with
patati patata
. . .

Not that she goes anywhere. She likes to stay home.

But when she feels like sleeping on the mat in the living room, well, she sleeps on the mat in the living room, and when she
wants to stay awake, well, she watches the TV or she listens to the music on the radio.

She’s alone but free.

Aue,
life, it’s simple.

But there are days when she thinks it would be nice to have somebody.

Materena rolls to the other side of the bed. It’s too hot to be hugging Pito. And, plus, the alcohol smell on Pito is a bit
too strong. Materena tells herself that she should get some sleep, even if she’s not going to work tomorrow, Saturday. But
the marriage proposal is in her head. She keeps hearing Pito say, “Marry me.”

Marry me.

Go to sleep, Materena, she tells herself.

B
ut she can’t.

Materena knows that there will be a crowd at her wedding, because she’s got hundreds of cousins—and her cousins, they like
to go to baptisms, Communions, confirmations, weddings, birthdays, even if they’re not invited.

And when an uninvited guest comes to your party, you can’t say, “And what are you doing here? I didn’t invite you. Go back
to your house.” That is not the proper thing to do. One day, you might need that particular cousin. Uninvited cousins always
come with food and drinks, though, and that is a good thing, so it is fine with Materena if they come to her wedding.

But the guests, they will get an invitation—like pregnant Cousin Giselle, Cousin Mori, Cousin Tepua, Auntie Stella—and Rita
will be matron of honor, because she’s Materena’s favorite cousin.

Then Mama Teta will drive Materena to the church and around Papeete, Cousin Moeata will make the wedding cake, which will
be chocolate, of course, and Cousin Georgette, professional DJ, will ensure that there will be dancing songs for everyone
from the young to the old.

Materena thinks how it’s a shame a mother can’t walk her daughter down the aisle. For the hundredth time in her life, she
wonders what would have happened if her father hadn’t gone back to his country.

His name was Tom Delors. He came to Tahiti to do military service. He was eighteen years old when he met Loana, who was also
eighteen. Tom and Loana met at the Zizou Bar, in Papeete, the bar where the French military men and the local women make contact.

Loana was chatting away with her girlfriend at the bar when Tom invited her for a dance. She accepted the invitation because
she was in the mood for a dance and Tom had a good-looking face. She certainly wasn’t going to spend the whole night chatting
away with her girlfriend!

Loana and Tom danced all night long, with brief moments of rest in between when they would have a little chat and a whisky
Coca. At the end of the night, they arranged a rendezvous for the following Saturday because they really liked each other.
Loana thought Tom was a great dancer as well as being funny. Tom was captivated by Loana’s exotic beauty—the long black hair
and the short thin-strapped local pareu dress.

Within three months of their first meeting, Loana and Tom were living together in a bungalow at Arue with three other couples—military
men and Tahitian women.

Loana’s elder sister was ashamed that Loana was messing around with a
popa’a
—worse, a
militaire.
In those days, local women who messed around with
militaire popa’a
had a bad reputation. They were called easy women, sluts—desperate for a ticket to France. But Loana wasn’t desperate for
a ticket to France—she just loved her Tom.

When Tom was away on a mission at an outer island, Loana would go out dancing with her woman friends for something to do,
but it was rare. Tom didn’t appreciate it. He was the jealous type, Materena’s father.

“Tom, eh,” Loana would say to him, “it’s you I love.”

Eh yes, she loved him real bad. And he was good to her.

They were together for six months before they separated.

It was quite silly, their separation.

That day, they were having guests to dinner and Loana had made a special effort to cook chicken—chicken split peas.

When the chicken was served, Tom said, “You don’t cook chicken like this.” A few of the guests went on about how Loana’s chicken
split peas were delicious. But Tom insisted that the chicken was really awful. Humiliated by Tom’s rudeness, Loana threw a
plate at him. He ducked and laughed. But before he could make it up to her, Loana packed her bags and one of the guests drove
her to her sister’s house on his Vespa.

Now, there was a possibility the chicken
was
awful, as Loana wasn’t the good cook she is today. But, still, as far as Materena is concerned, when you love somebody, you
don’t criticize their cooking and you don’t criticize the person you love in front of a whole bunch of people.

Loana waited for Tom to come say pardon to her and she was going to say pardon to him. And then they would get together again.

But he never came.

Loana was devastated. And three weeks pregnant, though she didn’t know it.

When Loana realized that there was a seed in her belly, she cried her eyes out. Her sister said, “I warned you against those
people. Now look at you. What name are you going to put on that child’s birth certificate, eh? It’s going to be a bastard.
Give it up for adoption. You’ve got no money, you’ve got no job, you’ve got no papers—you’ve got nothing. I told you. But
you had to go shame yourself with a
popa’a
like there’s not enough local men for you to choose from.”

Every time Loana cooks chicken split peas she thinks about Tom and their silly separation.

Materena too—every time she cooks chicken split peas, she thinks about Tom and Loana and their silly separation.

Materena was eight years old when she first saw her birth certificate and, on it, Father Unknown. She asked her mother, “You
don’t know who my father is?”

Loana got cranky. “What,” she said, “do you think I would open my legs for a man I don’t know? Of course I know the man who
planted you.”

Materena wanted a bit more information, but all Loana was prepared to reveal then was the man’s nationality. “He’s a
popa’a
—final point.”

Materena was fifteen years old when she got to hear the whole story, and she cried because it felt strange for her to know
about her father.

She doesn’t have a photograph of him. There used to be a photograph of him in a swimming costume at the beach, but one of
Loana’s lovers tore it to pieces because he was jealous. Loana must have told him how she’d loved Tom real bad.

According to Loana, Materena has Tom’s almond-shaped brown eyes, and the dimple on her left cheek belongs to him too.

Materena closes her eyes, and when she opens them, it is Saturday morning.

The first thought that springs to her mind is about her wedding and how she will keep it quiet for a while. Materena doesn’t
want her wedding to turn into a family circus, with relatives stressing her out regarding seating arrangements, etc. A wedding
shouldn’t be about giving the bride stress, it should be a celebration. A new beginning.

K
eeping a wedding a secret is like keeping any kind of secret. It’s not complicated. Basically, when you bump into a relative,
you bite your tongue for a few seconds and hurry to make small conversation. So far, in the space of half a day, Materena
has bumped into six relatives and told them nothing of her secret plan. When they asked her, “So, what’s the news?” she replied—with
her normal voice—“There’s no news, Cousin. It’s still the same, and how’s everything with you?”

Now, however, with her mother visiting, Materena is very tempted to exclaim, “Eh, Mamie! You’re never going to guess! Pito
asked for my hand!” But Materena bites her tongue instead.

Loana only meant to drop in at Materena’s house for five minutes (she was on her way home from a prayer meeting), but she
ends up cuddling with her grandchildren on the sofa, and they watch
Inspector Gadget
on the TV. After the movie the children go to bed, and, since Pito has gone walkabout with his friend Ati, Loana decides
to stay longer and keep her daughter company.

“Pito and Ati, they’re like a married couple,” says Loana. Materena chuckles as she gets her mother a glass of red wine.

They talk about plants, the funny weather, the traffic jam, menopause, and Loana drinks her glass of wine.

And now Loana is going to talk about her mother, Kika, because she feels like talking about her mother, and Materena is going
to listen.

Tonight isn’t the first time that Loana has felt like talking about her mother, but tonight is the first time that Loana feels
like recording herself talking about her mother. Materena takes down the radio from the top of the fridge and goes into her
bedroom for batteries and a blank tape. Now the radio is on the kitchen table and Materena is waiting for her mother’s signal
to press the record button.

But first Loana wants a bit more wine. Materena gets the small flagon of red wine from the fridge and refills her mother’s
glass. Loana drinks. There are tears rolling down her cheeks already. Just thinking about her mother makes Loana cry.

Loana loved her mama—Materena knows this.

It’s not unusual for Loana to go to the cemetery for a little talk with her mother any time of the day, even in the middle
of the night. “I’m going to see Mama,” Loana will say, and off she’ll go and come back hours later. Some nights, Loana sleeps
on her mother’s grave.

There’s no more wine in the glass.

“Ready?” Materena’s finger is on the button. Loana nods and Materena presses record.

After a few minutes, Loana finally begins.

“We are at the church and it’s the Communion. I can’t go and eat the body of Christ because I’m only five and I haven’t done
my Communion yet. I stay seated and I look at the people lining up for the body of Christ. Mama too stays seated. She can’t
eat the body of Christ because she’s living with a man who’s not her husband. Her husband, my father, he ran away to Tahiti
with another woman, and Mama had to get another man to help her in the copra plantation. Mama isn’t looking at the people
lining up for the body of Christ, she’s looking at her hands. Then she looks over to my stepfather, who’s sitting on the other
aisle. Men and women sat in different aisles in the church those days. My stepfather seems to be looking at his hands too,
but his eyes are closed, he’s tired.

“I want to go to the toilet and it is night. The bathroom is far away from the house, past the pigsty, in the coconut plantation.
I tell myself, Wait for the day, wait for the day, but I can’t wait for the day. Mama is sleeping and I wake her up.

“I say, ‘Mama, my belly is hurting.’ She says, ‘
Ah hia,
’ and I think that Mama isn’t going to get out of bed, but she does. She holds my hand as we walk to the toilet, and I’m not
afraid. I feel protected.

“Another time we are at Otepipi Isle, picking limes, but I get bored of picking the limes, I want to wander around. I wander
around, then I step on something. I look down and I see three skulls. They are a bit covered by the grass, but I can see the
skulls. I scream. Next second, my mama is by my side. There are scratches on her arms because she ran through the lime plantation.
Mama hits me. Then she hugs me. I tell her about the skulls. She says, ‘Be more afraid of the living.’”

Loana wants a refill. She drinks it in one gulp and continues.

“It’s a while later and I’m coming up for my confirmation. We are sitting under the
tau
tree. Mama is looking for lice in my hair. There are no lice in my hair but Mama just has to keep her hands busy. She asks
me questions and I answer. When the answer is correct, she says nothing. When the answer is wrong, she thumps me on the head
or pulls a hair. It’s a great shame to fail the confirmation test and Kika doesn’t want any more shame than what her husband
gave her when he ran off with another woman. I pass the confirmation test and Mama kisses me on the forehead. She says, ‘You
made me very proud today.’”

Loana wants another refill, but she doesn’t drink it. She just holds the glass.

“Mama is leaving for Tahiti to go visit my older sister, and my stepfather is going back to his island to visit his relatives.
Mama’s very good friend, Teva’s grandmother, is going to look after me. Mama is very happy. She hums. She counts the coins
in the milk container she’s saved, money from working the copra plantation. Mama is going to buy my sister new dresses and
I get jealous because I only have two dresses and they’re old. I’m also jealous because Mama doesn’t want to take me with
her to Tahiti.

“I cry when she gets on the schooner, and she turns her back to me. And Teva’s grandmother scolds me. She says, ‘Stop your
crying.’ She tells me it’s safer for me to stay here because Kika will surely die if that
titoi
ever used the law to steal me like he stole my sister. I miss my mama. I think, What if she doesn’t come back? Teva’s grandmother
is a really nice woman, but she’s not Mama.

“When Mama comes back I run to her. She doesn’t hold me and she kisses my forehead like it’s an obligation. It’s like she’s
not happy to see me. So I go hide in the bush. I hide there for a long time. Mama calls me and I don’t answer. She calls me
again and I answer, ‘Yeah!’ She comes after me with the broom and beats me. Teva’s grandmother runs to save me. Mama tells
her good friend to mind her own business. And the good friend shouts, ‘It’s not Loana’s fault that
titoi
Tahitian husband of yours wants to divorce you!’”