Tiare in Bloom (16 page)

“I can be the godfather?” Pito asks, just to make sure he understood properly.

“Indeed you can.”

“This Sunday?”

The priest gives Pito the oh-you’re-pushy-aren’t-you look.

Pito looks back with his well-you-know-it-is-the-squeaky-wheel-that-gets-things-done look. He’s lived in Tahiti all his life.
He knows the ritual.

“This Sunday,” the priest confirms, chuckling.

Despite the very (
very,
VERY) short notice, the Tehana tribe have managed to pull magic tricks out of their pandanus hats. Today is no ordinary baptism,
though. It isn’t, for example, the baptism of a niece’s ninth child. It is the baptism of Pito’s FIRST grandchild; what’s
more, with Pito as the GODFATHER!

Oui,
you can say that the last twenty-four hours have been very hectic in the Tehana
quartier,
women running all over the place like chickens without a head. This is a great day, with the pride of at last having a ceremony
for Pito in their church. All of the other ceremonies related to Pito and his tribe took place in Faa’a but now, for once,
the Mahi tribe will be the guests. They will be the ones feeling a bit embarrassed having second servings and relieving themselves
on other people’s toilets.

So there is a flurry of cooking, cleaning, and making the house pretty, because with that many guests expected, all bathrooms
in the
quartier
will be visited. The only thing they didn’t have to worry about is the cake.

And here they are, two large Tahitian families gathered in Punaauia for the baptism of Tiare Makemo, soon to be Tiare Tehana.
Women from both clans are eyeing each other, smiling little forced polite smiles, uttering polite sentences. “It’s a beautiful
day to be baptized, eh, Mama Teta?” “That is a nice hat you’re wearing, Loana.” “You’ve lost a lot of weight, Rita.” “Giselle!
Is this a new haircut?”

And many relatives from both clans would like to hold the little one in her frilly white dress before she gets purified, but
there is only one person the child wants and it’s her soon-to-be godfather.

Even later on, with food and drinks galore and relatives by the hundreds, the godfather is still the only one who can hold
the newly baptized child without making her cry. So far, one hundred and twenty relatives, the godmother, and Pito’s three
sisters-in-law included have tried to carry the baptized baby girl and share a moment, even a brief one, in her new journey
as an innocent and pure child. But the child only wants the strong arms of her
parrain
who fought so hard to get her baptized today.

It is now time to cut the cake — there is no party without a cake — and here it is being carried out to the table of honor
in the skinny arms of the baptized baby’s Auntie Vahine. Everyone goes silent with fear that the woman with the so-thin arms
might drop the cake.

The silence is also one of profound admiration before that beautiful cake, decorated with icing of Tiare Tahiti flowers all
around the borders and with the name TIARE written in the middle. Everyone agrees that Moana’s handwriting is the handwriting
of someone who writes a lot. It is so elegant and confident.

The young woman carefully puts the cake on the table beside the magnificent bouquet of flowers with the banner that reads
WELCOME BéBé TIARE! WITH ALL OUR LOVE, AUNTIE LEILANI AND PAPA,
although everyone knows that the baby’s father, Tamatoa, had nothing to do with it. Leilani was the one who called the florist
in Tahiti and paid for that bouquet with her credit card.

Vahine rubs her sore, skinny arms and exclaims aloud in her little-girl voice, “
Ouf!
I was so scared I’d drop the cake!” Laughter erupts in the crowd. She isn’t the only one relieved that the cake is still
in one piece.

“I’d like to say a few words before the godparents cut the cake,” Vahine goes on, smiling to her father- and mother-in-law.
They smile back — as far as they’re concerned, Vahine will be part of their family forever, no matter what happens with their
son. She flew from Bora-Bora especially to deliver the cake. That is worth more than words. It’s a ticket for life into Moana’s
family.

“My fiancé, Moana, was up at three o’clock this morning to make this beautiful cake for our niece. He’s sorry that he couldn’t
be with us on this very important day but he’s catering for the mayor’s daughter’s wedding —” Vahine pauses for a moment while
her fiancé’s relatives nod and look at one another, meaning, The mayor’s daughter’s wedding?
Wow!
She continues, “But Moana is with us in spirit, and . . . well, let’s cut the cake.”

But first there are many relatives, at least those in the proud possession of a camera, who would like to take a picture of
that amazing cake.

So,
click, click, click
and
click;
meanwhile, Pito’s guest of honor, Father Sebastian — squeezed between Mama Roti and Auntie Philomena — is flicking a peanut
in the air and expertly catching it in his mouth.

This is a trick you learn in prison. Everyone knows that.

M
ost godfathers get to go home after the baptism of the baby and carry on with their lives until the next church ceremony,
which is the Communion, when the eight-year-old child finally tastes the body of Christ he’s heard so much about from his
older cousins. But Pito is not just the god-father. He is also the grandfather. And the guardian. He has three responsibilities:

1. to ensure that his goddaughter fulfills her requirements as a Catholic

2. to cuddle his granddaughter and pass on stories about the old days

3. to feed the little one, put clothes on her back, give her a roof over her head, and all the rest of it

Any normal man would panic at having three responsibilities at once, not to mention ongoing from one day to the next! Pito
is a normal man and he’s panicking, don’t you worry about that. Even more tonight, because Materena is off to work and he’s
expected to mind the baby, because, well, he’s the godfather, he’s the grandfather, and he’s the guardian, and Materena didn’t
want to ask her mother for help. Apparently Loana is getting old, what’s more, she is very busy with her prayer meetings.
So Pito has to stay home. Materena didn’t give him a choice, she didn’t order him to stay home either. She just stated the
facts — without her martyr face.

Pito doesn’t mind it much tonight, he never does anything on Mondays except watch TV and recuperate from the weekend. But
what about tomorrow? How is he going to attend his nocturnal meetings with his
copains?
What about Wednesday and Thursday, eh? And what about Friday! How is he going to get to the bar to celebrate payday and the
end of the week with his colleagues? These meetings are the only pleasures Pito has in life, on top of fishing, promenading
in his best friend’s speedboat, and of course doing sexy loving with his wife. When she’ll be in the mood — which is hopefully
soon.

“I hope it’s not going to be in the next century,” Pito, sitting on the sofa watching TV, mutters as he gulps his beer. He
glances at his granddaughter, comfortable next to him, and she gives him one of her irresistible smiles.

“You smile a lot, eh? You were born smiling or what?”

The baby girl kicks her legs to show the old man how thrilled she is to be with him.

“When do you sleep, eh?” Pito asks. “It’s nearly nine o’clock.”

Another sweet smile. You would think that with all that she’s probably been through, she’d be doing her miserable face. Pito
gently taps his granddaughter’s feet to show her, well, that he’s not cranky with her, since it’s not her fault. She was just
born to a woman who was too young to have children and a man who doesn’t live in the country. What can a baby do about that,
eh?
Rien.

But how cute Tiare is, how could anyone resist this baby girl? She is . . . ah . . . she’s something. She’s definitely part
of the family, there’s no denying the resemblance with her grandmother Materena, she’s a Mahi for sure, and a Tehana too,
a little. Let’s hope she doesn’t inherit any of the Mahi women’s craziness. Anyway, there’s no more beer left, so Pito gets
to his feet to get himself another one from the fridge. He hasn’t even walked three steps when Tiare starts whimpering.

“I’m coming back,” Pito says. “It’s not like I’m going off to war.”

Tiare is now wailing. It isn’t a piercing wail, the wail that Pito’s children used to drive Pito crazy, so crazy he’d put
his hands on his ears and tell himself, “It’s not my child who is wailing, it’s the neighbors’.” Tiare’s wail is like a pleading
wail, a lost little wail that says, Please don’t leave me. Pito hurries to the fridge, cracks his beer open on the edge of
the table, and is back on the sofa in record time.

“I’m here,” he says.

Tiare, sniffing, gives the old man an accusing look.

“Ah, now I’m in trouble, eh?”

The baby looks away and sighs.

“I only disappeared for thirty seconds,” Pito justifies himself, “less than a minute!” Pito is about to continue, when he
remembers that he’s talking to a baby. “Why am I talking to this baby like she can understand?” he says out loud. Shaking
his head with his eyes back on the TV, Pito chuckles, “
Copain?
You’re starting to act like a bloody woman.”

Pito never understood women talking to babies as if they could understand, and Materena did this a lot, even when their babies
were only a few days old. “Oh, I see that you’re awake,” she’d say. “Did you have a nice dream?” One day Pito, who was a bit
confused with the whole talking-to-babies issue, asked his mother if she talked to him when he was a baby. “I only talk to
people who understand what I’m saying” was Mama Roti’s answer. “I don’t talk to babies and I don’t talk to dogs. I don’t talk
to statues either.”

Pito cackles and throws a furtive glance at Tiare to see if she’s asleep, but she’s still awake, and sulking.

“You’re practicing already for when you grow up?” Pito asks. He taps himself on the forehead and says, “Stop talking like
she can understand!”

Minutes later. “You’re still cranky with Papi?”

Minutes later. “Come here, you.” And with this, Pito takes the baby into his arms and gently taps her on the bottom. She looks
up to him with her big, sooky brown eyes and Pito goes warm inside. He can’t remember melting that way with his own children.
In fact, he can’t remember holding them that way. When his children were babies, Materena was always in the whereabouts, and
she’d give him the baby to hold only to take the baby back seconds later because . . . why? Well, maybe she didn’t trust him.
She thought he’d drop
her
precious baby on the ground; or maybe she just wanted to hold her babies herself.

Leaving him with a baby like that would never have happened twenty years ago. Materena would have organized her mother to
come over to babysit, or she would have asked an auntie. Better yet, Materena would have gratefully accepted her cousin Rita’s
kind offer to look after Tiare while Materena was at work.

But although Materena is fine with Rita coming around during the day in her lunch break to hold the baby for a few moments
— to help her conceive — she decided that tonight Pito would be in charge. Plus, Materena walked out of the house, without
even making a fuss or giving him one thousand recommendations. She just walked out smiling and said, “I’ll see you two when
I come back.”

There was a day a long time ago, Tamatoa was about three years old, Leilani was just a baby, and Materena had to go somewhere
for a few hours. That day, for some reason, Materena decided to let Pito mind the children but she gave him such a long list
of things to do and things not to do (such as not feeding her beloved son chicken wings because he might choke) that Pito
got very annoyed. He told Materena off, she did her long face, Pito yelled at her, she grabbed her children and fled to her
mother’s. Pito copped cranky looks from his mother-in-law for weeks.

But here he is fully in charge. He looks down at his granddaughter, and her big brown eyes are staring at him like he’s the
most important person in the whole universe.

“
Dodo
soon, okay?” he says, feeling pretty tired himself. Actually he might go to bed now. “Okay,
dodo.
” He carries Tiare to her auntie’s bedroom. The mattress has been moved to the floor and is covered with fluffy teddy bears
the baby’s relatives from Faa’a and Punaauia gave her on her baptism. Pito brushes the fluffy things off the mattress with
his hand. How many teddy bears can a baby play with? And what’s with the teddy bears anyway? People didn’t give babies teddy
bears back in his day. But now it seems that the world has gone bear mad.

Pito gently places Tiare on the bed — faceup. That is the only recommendation Materena gave Pito: until the baby is six months
old, it should always sleep faceup. She gave him that recommendation at the baptism and explained why. It made sense to Pito,
and when things make sense to Pito, he follows through.

“
Allez,
princess;
dodo.
” He pulls her quilt over her body. “Sleep well, I see you tomorrow morning.” He softly kisses her on the forehead, switches
the light off, and walks out. She whimpers and Pito stops dead in his tracks and waits. She stops and so he takes another
step, and she starts whimpering again. He stops walking — she stops whimpering. He takes another step and she starts up again
and doesn’t stop.

He’s back in the room, she stops whimpering. Growling, Pito lies on the floor next to the mattress with his hand lovingly
resting on the baby and counts one to ten to pass the time. Ten to twenty, twenty to thirty, thirty to forty . . . three hundred
and seventy-five. Pito can stop counting. He can hear his granddaughter’s regular breathing. She’s asleep.

But just in case, Pito lies still and waits for a few more minutes.

Standing at the door, Materena looks at her husband fast asleep on the floor. “
Eh-eh,
” she whispers tenderly, a hand on her heart, with tears welling in her eyes. Many things in this world move Materena. Babies,
children, love songs, love movies, sunsets, kindness, flowers, prayers . . . the list goes on. It isn’t difficult to move
a sensitive woman to tears. But a man sleeping on the floor, his hand lovingly resting on a baby, is guaranteed to give a
sensitive woman like Materena more tears and emotions, especially when she loves that baby very much. And despite the real
fact that only four weeks ago she was seriously thinking of divorcing that man there, now on the floor looking so adorable.