Authors: Célestine Vaite
“Sure.” Pito isn’t tired anymore. “I won’t be long,” he says to Materena.
Materena, smiling, waves Pito away.
I
t is nine o’clock the following morning. Materena is walking past the church on her way home from the Chinese store, and there’s
a wedding going on there. Materena goes up to the church and peers through the louvers.
The bride is young and beautiful. Her wedding dress must have cost a lot, there’s about twenty yards of lace and she’s veiled.
These days a veil doesn’t mean virginity, of course. Her mother probably insisted on it.
The young woman whispers into the microphone her sacred vows to love, cherish, and obey the man standing beside her. The priest
pronounces the two people husband and wife. Before God, before the law, before him. Husband and wife give each other a shy
kiss, no doubt they’ll get more passionate later on. Holding hands, and walking slow steps, they make their way out of the
church. Most of the women in the congregation are dabbing their eyes. One woman sitting at the front cries loud tears—the
bride’s mother, for certain.
Petals of roses and grains of rice greet the newly wed couple outside.
Materena thinks she should probably go home now. Pito will be waiting impatiently for his hangover cure of roast-beef slices
and lemonade, and, besides, she’s wearing an old pareu and an oversize T-shirt, and people are starting to give her strange
looks.
But the church is a public place and she’s not being a nuisance. She just wants to see the married couple drive off in their
bridal car.
“Materena! Materena, girl!”
Materena looks at the woman sitting at the steering wheel of the bridal car. “Eh!” she calls out, recognizing Mama Teta under
the makeup. “It’s you, the driver?”
“What’s happening with the friend of your boss?” Mama Teta calls back. “What’s taking so long? Is she still getting married,
or has she pissed her man off?”
Materena can’t believe Mama Teta’s language sometimes. “The marriage is for very soon!” she calls.
The bride and the groom make their way to the bridal car, and Mama Teta is back in business. She toots the horn and the crowd
cheers.
Materena waves good-bye to the happy couple, thinking, Soon it’s going to be Pito and me in that bridal car.
Last night, after Ati told Materena about his desire to get married, she got really fired up about the wedding. She fell asleep
thinking, Ati, he just
can’t
get married before Pito.
Materena hurries home. As soon as she gets there, she’s going to say to Pito: “When do you want to go to church to marry me?”
She’ll get the date and then she’ll advise everyone of her marriage, starting with her mother.
Pito is not pleased she took so long to go to the store. “Did you go to France for that lemonade?”
Materena laughs. “
Ah hia hia,
stop your complaining.”
Pito’s on the sofa resting his eyes, a wet towel on his forehead—his head is sore. Materena tends to him lovingly, pouring
his lemonade and serving him his beef slices.
Materena looks at Pito, who’s hammering into the beef slices.
“Pito.” Her voice is so tender.
“Don’t ask me to do anything,” Pito growls.
Materena suggests that she make him an omelette. She knows Pito is always very hungry after a night on the booze. She also
knows that it is no use to talk about serious matters with Pito when he’s hungry and with a hangover.
“
Ah oui,
okay, thanks,” Pito says.
Materena’s in the kitchen beating the eggs for Pito’s omelette when the bridal horn sounds again in the distance. She stops
beating the eggs, smiles, and says, “Happiness to you two.”
Pito’s comment is loud and clear. “You bloody fools! Go hang yourselves!”
He goes on about how marriage is not for him: “Marriage—it’s the rope around the neck,” he grumbles.
The rope around the neck! Materena shouts in her head. This is what marriage means to you? The rope around the neck?
Materena, very angry now, cooks the omelette and eats it herself, thinking, The day I want that wedding, Pito better marry
me! The day I want that ring on my finger and that marriage certificate on my wall, I’m not going to take no for an answer!
And the children can pay for a wedding reception for their hardworking mother. I deserve a reception at the hotel by the beach—with
a live band.
Pito calls out to Materena, “Eh, what’s happening with that omelette? Did you go to the farm to get the eggs?”
Materena finishes the omelette and gets up.
“Materena!”
She washes the plate.
“Materena, darling!”
“Ah…
mamu.
” Materena goes outside to rake some leaves.
M
aterena is still outside raking the leaves (angrily, so angrily that the children are staying out of her way, quietly playing
marbles) when she feels Rita calling out to her: Materena, Cousin!
Go to the telephone booth! I desperately need to talk to you!
Rita’s call is strong, very strong, and sad too. This is definitely not a happy calling. Materena puts her rake down. Sometimes
you’ve got to put your own trouble aside. Materena hurries inside the house.
“Where’s my omelette,
chérie?
” asks Pito, still resting his eyes on the sofa.
Materena fires a cranky look at Pito, gets her purse, and changes her T-shirt, and she’s off to the telephone booth.
There’s a young man in the telephone booth, and Materena sits on the curb and waits. Ten minutes later, the young man is still
talking and Materena is starting to get annoyed. Always when you need to make an urgent call, she thinks, there’s somebody
in the telephone booth. Materena gets up to stand by the telephone booth. That way the young man will know she also needs
to use the telephone. The young man looks at Materena and turns his back to her.
He puts more coins in.
Materena opens the door. “Are you going to be long? I need to call my cousin, it’s urgent.”
The young man turns around. “I’m talking to my girlfriend!”
“How long are you two going to talk for?” Materena is asking nicely so that the young man won’t think that she’s trying to
kick him out of the telephone booth.
The young man looks like he can’t believe his ears. “Why? You own the telephone?”
“Just give me an approximate time,” Materena replies, keeping calm.
“I’m going to talk until I’m sick of talking!”
And the young man says to his girlfriend, “There are some people in this world. No respect for the people who are on the telephone.”
The young man closes the door on Materena.
Materena realizes that there is no point in waiting for the telephone to be available, because when a young man talks to his
girlfriend, the conversation can go on for hours. Why don’t they just meet somewhere to talk? thinks Materena, and stomps
off.
Materena hurries to the airport, where there is more than one telephone booth available, and she’s remembering that movie
she saw on the TV a few weeks ago.
The movie began with a man who had a gun in his mouth, about to pull the trigger, but the telephone rang. The man looked at
the telephone and waited for the ringing to stop so that he could concentrate on killing himself. But the telephone rang and
rang and rang. The man couldn’t stand the ringing any longer. He answered with the gun still in his mouth.
It was an ex-girlfriend from a long time ago, calling him for help. “Please help me find my son,” she said. “He’s seventeen
years old soon and he ran away.”
The man said, “Excuse me? Who am I talking to?” The woman gave her name and the man immediately remembered her.
“He’s your son too,” the woman cried. “I beg you to help me.”
The man who had wanted to commit suicide took the gun out of his mouth and put it on the desk.
Materena is all puffed when she gets to the airport, but there’s no time to catch her breath. She immediately barges into
a telephone booth and dials Rita’s number, but Rita is not answering. Rita’s telephone is still ringing when Materena remembers
the code. Rita came up with the code about three months ago. When Materena calls Rita, she must let the telephone ring three
times, then hang up. She must do this twice in a row and then Rita will know it is Materena calling her.
Coco has a code too. A few people have a code, like Lily and Georgette, but Rita’s mama and Rita’s boss, they don’t have a
code.
Materena calls Rita using the code and Rita answers her telephone.
“’Allo, Materena.” Rita sounds a bit sad.
“Rita, is everything okay with you?” All kinds of ideas come into Materena’s mind. Rita’s got cancer. Rita lost her job.
“I’m not fine, Cousin. We bumped into Coco’s ex last week,” Rita says.
“Okay, Cousin.” Materena puts more coins in. “Tell me the story.”
Last week, Rita and Coco stopped in town to look for Coco’s mama’s birthday gift, and they were supposed to just go to the
Chinese store for a little bit of shopping. Rita and Coco were walking hand in hand when a woman marching past called out,
“Eh, Coco! It’s you?” And Coco exclaimed, “Eh, Sylvie! Are you fine?” And Rita got all tense because she knows about that
Sylvie.
Sylvie opened her arms to Coco and gave him two big sloppy kisses on the cheeks. And to Rita she gave a cold “how are you,”
all the while looking at Rita up and down. Rita was really annoyed that she was only wearing a pareu and an oversize T-shirt.
She wished she was wearing her best clothes.
Rita gave Sylvie a cold “how are you” back and looked at her up and down too. She was really annoyed to see that Sylvie was
wearing her best clothes and makeup, and nice shoes. That show-off bitch, she thought. If she was wearing an old pareu like
me, she would have zoomed past—no stopping.
Sylvie was an ex-girlfriend of Coco, but not just any kind of ex-girlfriend. Coco and that woman had intended to get married,
or so Coco’s mama told Rita one day.
Sylvie lived with Coco for six months, and, according to Coco’s mama, Coco and Sylvie were very good together. They never
had arguments, they laughed, they joked around, and Coco’s mama was happy because Sylvie made her son happy. And, plus, Sylvie
was a good girl.
Yes, there was talk about marriage at the church.
But one morning, Sylvie packed her bags and disappeared, no good-bye, no nothing. When Coco’s mama left the house to go to
the Chinese store, Sylvie and Coco were talking in the living room, and by the time she came back, which was several hours
later, as she bumped into three cousins on the way home, there was no more Sylvie.
Coco’s mama thought Sylvie had gone to visit her mama. And when Coco told her the news, it was a real disappointment for her.
She tried to get an explanation from Coco because, to her mind, people didn’t separate just like that. There had to be some
fighting, some arguing, some tears, before the end. But every time she interrogated Coco, he would snap at her, “Ask me again
and I swear I’m going to pack my bags too.”
Coco was devastated. He lost his appetite for two whole weeks. He watched the TV, and when the movie was funny he didn’t laugh,
and when the movie was sad, he sobbed.
Now here was that Sylvie in the flesh, chatting with Coco while Rita stood still like a coconut tree, smiling and not smiling.
Sylvie briefed Coco about her life since their separation. She’d been a dancer touring the world, married a wealthy American,
divorced the wealthy American, moved to France and lived there for two years, then decided to get back to the
fenua
for a little while before heading off to Honolulu.
Coco nodded and smiled, and Rita felt like smacking him for that nod, that smile, and these big eyes staring at Sylvie’s breasts,
popping out of her décolleté.
Then Sylvie had to show off to Rita that she knew Coco very well.
“And you’re still sleeping on the left side of the bed?” “And you’re still trying to count the stars at night?” “You still
like having your hair braided?” At each of Coco’s affirmative answers, Sylvie exclaimed, “You’re still sleeping on the left
side of the bed!” “You’re still trying to count the stars at night!” “You still like having your hair braided!”
Rita’s ears were ringing and she clicked her tongue. And when Rita clicks her tongue, it means someone is getting on her system,
and if that someone doesn’t disappear real soon, Rita is going to do something irrational. So Coco said, “All right, then,
Sylvie. We’ve got to go now.”
Again Sylvie gave Coco two sloppy kisses and held on to him like he was her man, like the past was the present. She closed
her eyes and dreamed, so Rita concluded, about the time when she was Coco’s woman. Then she hurried away and soon disappeared.
Of course Rita wasn’t in the mood to keep searching for Coco’s mama’s birthday gift (she wasn’t in the mood in the first place,
but after Coco’s chitchat with Sylvie, she was even less in the mood). What Rita wanted to do was go home, shampoo her hair,
massage her body with oil, and put on her best dress and a bit of rouge on her cheeks and lots of rouge on her lips.
Rita realizes that the past is the past and some part of the past is allowed to remain secret, but she really wanted to know
why Sylvie left Coco. He mustn’t have done anything bad to her, because if he had, Sylvie would have walked straight past
him, her head held up high like she’d never known him in her entire life. But she jumped on him, she looked at him with .
. . with loving eyes.
Rita wanted to make inquiries about Coco’s separation from Sylvie. Why did Sylvie pack her bags? Why did she leave him?
But Rita waited for after dinner to dare inquire, because after dinner Coco is relaxed, he’s willing to answer any questions.
So right after dinner, as Coco was enjoying his vanilla ice cream, she inquired.
And Coco said, “We just left each other.”
And Rita wondered if there was any regret in Coco’s heart. She wanted to ask him, “And do you regret?” But it’s best to avoid
asking such questions. Rita had to bite her tongue and concentrate on the ice cream on her plate.