Telesa - The Covenant Keeper (4 page)

“Aunty, this uniform is hideous. Who dreamed up this color combination?”

She only pursed her lips at me as she took our purchases to the counter. “Samoa College is the oldest and finest high school in the country. Young people are proud to wear these colors. And they try their best not to disgrace them.”

O-kaaaay. I repeated what was fast becoming my Samoa mantra.
Leila, breathe. Be polite. You’re a guest. Be nice. Be patient. Be quiet!

I tried hard to sound meek. “Yes Aunty Matile. I will try very hard not to disgrace the uniform or you and Uncle Tuala.” She looked at me suspiciously as if she could read the falseness hidden in my words and I struggled to keep a straight face that spoke only of reticence and humility.

“Harrumph, well then. Let’s get going. Tuala will be wanting to get back to the house in time for the rugby game that’s coming on this afternoon. Come along, I think we have everything.”

Laden with uniforms we made our way back to the car and the short drive home. Passing a cemetery where frangipani trees dropped their petals on moss-covered graves had me thinking, and, back at the house, once the shopping was all safely stowed away and Matile was preparing dinner, I took the moment to ask her for directions. To my mother’s grave.

The silence was ominous. Both Tuala and Matile froze and looked at each other. My gaze went to first one and then the other, waiting for the answer. Uncle Tuala spoke first.

“Your mother is a sensitive topic in this house. Your aunty does not like to speak of her.”

“Oh. I see.” But I didn’t. The woman was my mother, surely I of all people had every right to ask where her grave was? I persisted. “I’m sorry if it’s painful for you, Aunty. If you could just tell me where I can find her grave, I can get myself there?”

Aunty Matile turned her back on me and vigorously stirred the pot on the stove, throwing her answer over her shoulder. “Your mother is not buried in town. Now let us talk of something else.”

I took a deep breath. “The main reason I came to Samoa is so that I could learn as much as possible about my mother. My dad didn’t tell me a lot about her. I’ve never even seen a photo of her.” I quickened with excitement. “Do you have some pictures of her I could look at, please? It would mean so much to me to be able to know what she looked like.”

Matile dropped the pot she was holding. It fell with a crash, splattering boiled taro everywhere and bringing Tuala abruptly to his feet.

“Matile! Are you alright?”

Matile was trembling as she shook her fist at me. “Leila, no more questions about that woman. No more.”

My confusion made me ignore the warnings. “Why not? I don’t understand? What’s wrong with talking about my mother?”

“That woman is – was – none of your business.” was her taut reply.

“How can you say that? I’m her daughter, she was my mother. How dare you tell me she’s none of my business?”

“You are too Westernized, too
palagi
to understand. You are too
palagi
to show respect to us, your elders? To us who have taken you in when your own
palagi
grandmother cannot handle you anymore?!
Tapuni lou gutu
. Shut your mouth now.” Aunty Matile’s tirade abruptly halted as Tuala moved to place a warning hand on her shoulder. He squeezed her arm gently before turning to me.

“As long as you are staying here in our home, you will speak with respect to your aunt. You will show
fa’aaloalo
to us, your family. And you will accept that there are some things we do not speak of. Ever. This is a God-fearing house. This land does not belong to the spirits and myths of the past. We are Christians and we will not have anything to do with such beliefs here.”

 I turned and fled to my room, unwilling for anyone to see me dissolve in a tearful emotional mess. All the while though, questions screamed in my mind.

I don’t get it. I want to know about my mother – what does that have to do with his stupid spirits and myths? What the hell is he going on about? I came to this awful place to find my family, to find out about my mother and instead I’m stuck in a house where they won’t even allow me to talk about her?

For the first time, I considered the dreadful possibility that coming to Samoa had been a huge mistake. Exhausted from the emotional rollercoaster ride of only my first day in my new home, I fell asleep clutching a picture of my dad. The one person who had loved me. Laughed with me. And left me. I had never felt so alone in my life.

* * * *

The rest of the weekend passed in subdued politeness. Matile and Tuala said no more about the confrontation in the kitchen and I followed their lead, maintaining a distant civility as they took me to church with them, introducing me to people as their niece, “here for a very short visit from America.” Church was followed by a sumptuous lunch expansive enough for at least ten more people, and I did the dishes before going to my room to surf the net, sending a silent prayer of thanks for Grandmother Folger’s forced gift. I shuddered to think how I was going to survive my stay in this house without a lifeline to the outside world. And so it was with unusual niceness that I drafted an email to Grandmother, telling her about my Samoan experience so far. I left out the part about my disagreement with my new relatives though. Grandmother had never tried to hide her distaste for my Samoan mother and I had a feeling she would be right on the same page as Aunty Matile and Uncle Tuala.

As I lay in bed late on Sunday, I could see the southern sky splayed in all its majestic diamond glory from my window but my heart was a million miles away. In Potomac. Where my dad was buried. Not for the first time in the past eight months, I cried myself to sleep. Would I ever stop hurting this much for my dad?

Chapter Two

Monday morning dawned fresh and clear with a light sprinkle of hot rain. I lay for a while in bed just listening to the sounds of life outside my window. Dogs barked, growling at passers-by on the dusty front road. Birds – so many birds chattered in the lush richness of the backyard. A cat yowled in protest as someone threw a splash of water from the cook house in the neighbor’s back yard. A bus roared past, gears grinding, wooden seats rattling. Children laughed as they walked by the roadside on their way to school.

School. I sat bolt upright. That’s right. It was my first day at school in Samoa. I grimaced with disgust at the school uniform hanging next to the bed. Ugh. Could it get any more outrageous? Oh well. I didn’t want to be late on my first day so I had to swallow my revolt and dress quickly. School started early in this country. I had to be there at 7:30 for assembly – or so Aunty Matile had informed me.

Breakfast was the usual. Hunks of hot bread with slabs of butter melting onto the plate. A pot of thick, sweet
kokosamoa
that burned the tongue. Licking the butter drips off my fingers, I mused – no wonder Samoans were overweight and built like football players. If they ate carbs like this every day. Hmm … I would have to do something about making changes to the household diet if I wanted to stay the same size. Because this hot bread and
koko
thing was way too tempting to refuse every morning. Grabbing another piece of bread to savor in the car, I made sure to thank Aunty Matile for breakfast and wish her a ‘lovely day’ – and was rewarded by a fleeting smile from the usually sour-faced old woman.

Uncle Tuala was giving me a ride to school – at least until I figured out the bus routes myself. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to do that since apparently there was no regular bus schedule … or any printed timetables … or even proper bus stops.

“So, how do people catch the bus to school on time?” I asked, thoroughly puzzled.

“Oh, you just look out for the right bus on the road and when you see it coming you wave at it and it stops. Then when the bus goes past where you want to go, you pull the wire and it stops.”

“How can I be sure it will go where I want it to?”

“Because. Everyone knows the way the bus goes. There’s not many different roads you know, Leila.”

Okay. So catching buses would be one thing to add to my list of ‘what to learn if you want to live in this country.’ In the meantime, I would be suitably grateful to Uncle Tuala for taking me to school. Unbidden, a memory flashed of my car at home. The thoroughly-unlike-me, red Mazda Miata that Dad had bought for my last birthday. Completely shocking me. And terrifying me. How was I supposed to hold my head up high driving such an obviously wannabe preppy car? But he had insisted. Taking me for driving lessons on deserted roads so I could get used to it. Blasting the stereo with his country songs and deliberately embarrassing me by singing along to the music. Especially whenever we had pulled up next to cars with boys in them and Randy Travis soulful voice warbled through the trees.

“Oh Dad, puh-leeeze stop that. You’re killing me here! You really don’t want me to have a social life at all do you? You want everyone at school to think I’m totally ridiculous … with a country singing dad singing off key AND driving a pukey cheerleader car.”

I’d hated that car. But oh how I had sobbed when I sold it. Stood at the car lot and sobbed as if my heart would break. Sobbed so hard the dealer looked worried and offered me more money in an attempt to console me.

“Here little lady, you want a better offer for it? Don’t cry, I can go up a little if you want.”

His awkward attempts to comfort only adding to my grief. “No thank you, I don’t want more money. I want …” I wanted my dad to come back. I wanted him alive so badly that it hurt to think about him. To whisper his name.

My sigh was so heartfelt that Uncle Tuala looked over at me with concern. “You look nice in your uniform. I’m sure you will like this school. It’s the best one in Samoa.” Forced cheerfulness was nothing new to me.
Heck, I wrote the book on it
.

“I’m sure it will be great, Uncle. Thanks. I’m only here for a short while anyways. Only until I get what I came for. Until I find out about my umm, about my heritage, you know? That kind of stuff is important for a young woman to discover.”

Uncle Tuala ignored the almost-reference to matters better left unspoken and focused on swerving to avoid a three-legged dog strolling in the middle of the road. I felt an insane urge to giggle. It reminded me of Harry Potter and He-Who-Must-Not-be-Named – this whole forbidden topic of my mother. It was ridiculous.

No. Standing at the front entrance of my new school I realized ‘
ridiculous
’ was the absolute contrast of Samoa College with Washington Girls – my old school back home. Was it possible to find a more different place of learning in the world no, make that in this solar system?! I stood and tried not to gape at the crowds of teenagers walking through the front gate, resplendent in their blaring sunrise colors. Even the huge cement walls lining the entrance were painted orange and yellow. Just in case you missed the turn-off in the dark, perhaps? A sloping driveway lined with coconut palms led to the main building – a double-storey block of classrooms. On the right of the drive was a traditional Samoan
fale
with groups of students leaning on its wooden posts. There was so much color it hurt my eyes. Scarlet hibiscus bushes dotted the campus. Clumps of yellow leaves swayed in the morning breeze. Boys with no shirts on chased a rugby ball on the green fields to the left, sweat glistening already on brown skin and lean muscle.

Boys. There was something else you didn’t see at my old school back home. Half-naked boys. Hot, sweaty boys with dark eyes and loud shouts of laughter. I smiled against my will as I imagined what my uptight grandmother would make of
that!
I almost laughed out loud as I then thought of the reaction of girls back home if they could see this. A private all-girls school in the heart of D.C that catered for the daughters of the rich and richer – certainly didn’t get many shirtless Polynesian males running around the campus. Shaking my head at the thought, I gripped my backpack a bit tighter and made my way through the front gates. I reminded myself that having to endure boys in the same classroom would probably be the least of my worries as I tried to adjust to a new school in an alien place.

Uncle’s directions to the office were easy to follow. Seeing as how there were only three buildings in the entire school and one of them said OFFICE. Finding the office was one thing. Getting someone to help me with a class schedule was a totally different story. A frazzled-looking woman with hair pulled back so tight she probably gave herself headaches told me to “sit there and wait for the Principal. He’s busy right now.”

Nobody paid the slightest attention to me as I perched on a bench outside the staffroom. I looked around, interested in finding clues about this, the supposed ‘number one school in Samoa.’ It certainly didn’t look like much. Paint peeled from the corridor walls. There were no window panes – just chain link wire all along the length of the hall. Better for catching the breeze in this humidity I guessed. But not so great at keeping out the rain I thought, noting the slick puddles of water from the morning showers. The staffroom doors were wide open. A set of shabby tables dominated the room with an odd assortment of broken chairs arranged around them. Open shelves overflowed with textbooks and planners, here and there a chipped coffee mug.

The raucous clang of the bell halted my inspection. Great, now I would be late to my first class, wherever it was, and stick out even more. Where was the Principal? And wasn’t there anyone else in this place who could give me a timetable for goodness sake? I stood and walked to the window hoping to catch a glimpse of someone, anyone who looked vaguely Principal-like.

The entire student body seemed to be gathering for an assembly at the head of the long driveway. I had to admit the sea of orange and yellow wasn’t
that
bad. It was kind of eye catching and complemented well the fiery colors of a sunny morning in ‘paradise.’ I observed with interest that select senior students rather than teachers seemed to be in charge of the assembly. Staff stood in a row in front of the school and waited until everyone was settled and quiet. A short stocky girl with thick braids down her back, led the school in a hymn. The singing was beautiful – unlike anything I had heard back home. A prayer followed the song and then the girl relinquished her spot to a boy who strode forward with confident ease. I was puzzled – surely he couldn’t be a student? He was tall and broad, built like some kind of body builder – his yellow shirt doing little to disguise his finely toned physique. With his back to me though, I couldn’t make out his features. He spoke at length to the school – I caught fragments on the morning breeze “
reminder about school code of conduct…a reputation to uphold
” He had everyone’s rapt attention – it was obvious he held a position of some authority. Even from this distance I was impressed by his assurance and poise with speaking to such a large crowd of his peers. There was no hesitation or nervousness in his demeanour.
Hmm, definitely not your average loopy teenage boy.