TIARE
by Celestine Hitiura Vaite

Set on the idyllic Tahitian coastline with strong French influences, Vaite’s third novel in the Materena series promises warmth, humour and delight. That by itself should be enough, but Vaite adds to this merry melange, a smattering of the local lingo, charming French dialogue, quirky personalities and a quaint people. The concoction is exotic but strangely comforting, with foreign flavours complimenting a familiar taste.

Like the first two novels in the series, the story and the setting revolves around Materena Tehana, the middle aged, soft spoken woman who carries her wisdom with a quite dignity. She is the quintessential Tahitian woman as Vaite would have us believe and yet, she is different because for all her demeanour she shields a sensitive heart. She runs a successful radio show; she is an agony aunt to her callers and an agony aunt, a favourite aunt and a grand aunt even, for her lovable, idiosyncratic and passionate extended family. The sensitivity finds a balance in Materena’s husband Pito Tehana. Pito Tehana is someone you love and often times indulge as one would, a boorish cousin, a favourite uncle or a bumbling nephew. He is a good man, we will give him that. You cannot but feel for him as he grapples with Materena’s family and Materena herself, but you shake your head at his very evident lack of sensitivity.

In many ways Tiare’s story is the story of Pito’s journey, his journey may revolve around Materena but she is by no means the destination or the culmination of his travels. Pito and Materena are the main actors on this stage but lending them able support are a gamut of cousins and aunties or Mamas as Pito calls them. These Mamas come in all shapes and sizes and personalities. There is Pito’s Mama, the self styled martyr, the woman who has no issues with her apron strings because she is not planning to untie them anytime soon. Her sons are the pride of her existence but she is not about to confess to her pride, non-merci and that is that. There is Materena’s Mama Loana who carries her adoration for the French soldier who loved her and left her, like a cross won in a medal. She will not talk of him but she will not hear anything against him either. Time is a missing dimension is Mama Loana’s love story, she is firmly in the present but a walk down memory lane is never too far away.

Pito’s and Materena’s children Leilani, Tamatoa, and Moana are Materena’s works of art, Materena has tried to instill a sense of right and wrong in them and she is good Mama, willing to give her children a road map so that they can figure out the way. She has a kind word and a pat on the back for them but Materena will not shy of a kick on the backside if that is what the situation demands.

Every story and especially one that appears placid on the surface, usually has a missing piece. The missing piece in Materena’s story is her quest to meet her father, the elusive, almost mythical Tom Delores. France is across the oceans but the idea of a reunion has been lying dormant in Materana’s heart as she cooks, cleans, loves and gets on the business of living in her Tahitian landscape. It is a quest, a quiet obsession almost but Materena cannot bring herself to admit how important it is to know who her father is. And when she does, Pito with his heart in the right place, attempts to solve the problem in his typical fashion: he merely pretends it doesn’t exist.

“Why would your father want to know you?” he asks Materena and as years of hidden resentment burst to the fore, Materena receives her biggest wake up call. Firstly she needs to find closure about her father and secondly Pito Tehana, though Materena is not too happy accepting this, has crossed the limit with his complete lack of perception. What Pito doesn’t know and what we learn along the way is that there exists a fine line, a breaking point for even the most stable of relationships. The line exists all the time, often the love in the relationship keeps us from looking at it but sometimes a moment will come when you realize that you could step over to the other side effortlessly, because there isn’t much left to go on. What Pito also doesn’t know that Materena’s sulking is not her usual one, she could let go of him now and she would be able to live with it.

And so, when the other side beckons, Materena lets down her hair, quite literally at that and takes off to the pub, the nightclub and to her mother’s. Pito struggles to comprehend her behaviour, hangs out with his copains, his mates and tries to win this game with Materena where he doesn’t even know the rules. His partner in all kinds of misery is his schoolmate Ati. They have walked the line together, Ati and Pito, they have gone from boyhood to adolescence to manhood and they have been witnesses to the transformation that each man has undergone. They read each other like a book and they sigh when they realize what they are reading. Ati would like to settle down and have a family because a man can only play for so long and he is the oldest player and he has nothing to show for it.

Pito has his own stories to follow, if Materena won’t talk to him, he will venture out on his own, thank you very much. He is a Tehana and if the Mahi woman won’t give him the time of the day, he will reset his clocks and start again. He knows his wife’s family don’t think too much of him and for that matter neither does most of his side of the family but he plans to go out, rent a house maybe or even gain the affections of the available ladies at the bar. Pito Tehana is about to embark on a new chapter of his life as soon as he figured out how.

Luckily for Pito, fate intervenes and he doesn’t have to plan on changing his life. He returns home one evening, still undecided about his future and he meets not his wife but the grandmother of his grand daughter Tiare. Being grandparents hadn’t figured on Materena and Pito’s immediate list of things to do. But being Tahitian is not just about the pristine beaches, the boat rides on hot, sultry afternoons, the French influences, the local landscape merging seamlessly with the cosmopolitan world outside. Materena knows and Pito accepts that life on the island runs with an unsaid, unspoken but omnipresent set of rules that form the backbone of the Tahitian way of life.

So Pito and Materena will share their last morsel, they will respect and remember the dead and they will, come what may, belong to a family in every sense of the term. They may sigh over the annoying Mamas that roam the island and make every family affair their own but they will willingly, be part of the tribe that shapes them. They will despair over the unsolicited advice that the extended family will dole out with abandon but they will know deep in their heart that the ties of blood are the ties that bind.

And so if the baby girl has fallen out of the sky, if her father refuses to believe that a one night stand with a passing dancer created a permanent memory in the form of little Tiare, Pito and Materena will honour and love and protect the relationship thrust upon them. While Materena has forever been the strength, the grace and the backbone of the family, Pito’s journey begins when he discovers that love has visited him again in the form of Tiare. Through Tiare, Pito learns to watch the night sky again through her sleepy eyes, he learns to count with her little hands and he learns that her smile is his biggest armour. In an age of indifference and lack of purpose, Pito Tehana learns that for his granddaughter he is a hero and to her tiny world, never you mind how the relatives judge you, he is indispensable.

They grow up together, the child whose parents refuse to be around her and the man who sees his wife, his manhood and his relationships through her nascent and wonders-struck eyes. Introspecting over the journey of parenthood that was, is the first step for a grandparent and Pito sees the missing hours, the incomplete stories and finally the empty nest for the first time as Materena sees it.

With Tiare changing the very foundations of Pito’s life, can he undo the follies of the past and lead Materena back across the break-up line into their own backyard so that they can pick up on where they left off? And more importantly, will Materena be a witness to a transformation that we have applauded from the sidelines all along or has Pito walked a path of no return?

Vaite builds up a worthy ending to the book and does her characters justice. Every character is fleshed out in detail, their whims and their nuances adding a delightful backdrop to what is in essence a warm love story albeit the champagne and the roses.
Her language is delicious if a little quaint. She mixes the native Tahitian dialect and French phrases with ease. The English spoken by the characters has its own flavour but Vaite keeps it from being too jarring or distracting. The humour is gentle, it will make you smile, perhaps chuckle but there is no slapstick, laugh out aloud pantomime. Vaite tends to repeat her phrases and sequences to drive a point home or to bring out the irony in a situation; perhaps this is an influence of the native strong hold over English.

The story is not particularly ground breaking but Vaite writes with a quiet conviction, her respect for the land of her ancestors and her acceptance of the values that have shaped her and hence Materena, are clearly evident. She writes of the values that define a Tahitian and her analysis of acquiescence about the genes and the ethnicities that shape us indicate that for all our differences in customs and manner, the same values and morals define us on a global scale.

Tiare and Pito’s journey could very well be anyone’s journey. The road is not particularly arduous but the bends have to be negotiated, and as in most cases, life is a package deal. There is the good and the bad, and the good outweighs the bad if you give it enough time. And at the end of the day, when you are home and there is a dinner cooking in the kitchen and someone who has been a witness to your life knows your punch lines, you know that life has many tricks up its sleeve and it is time to accept that coming home can be as good as setting out to travel. Life comes full circle; sometimes all you can do is follow the tides.

   About Vaijayanti Joshi                                                        
Vaijayanti Joshi was born in India and migrated to Australia 7 years ago. A software engineer by profession, she is a writer by temperament. She is an active member of the local Indian community and maintains an interest in the similarities between disparate cultures and ethnic diversities. She is an avid reader and writes short stories, poetry and opinion pieces for a few online publications. She is very interested in theatre and performing arts and does amateur theatre whenever she gets a chance.

She lives with her family in Adelaide, South Australia.