Free Tiare in Bloom by Célestine Vaite

word about Tamatoa’s dancing disco moves in nightclubs, which Leilani reports to her. Tapeta might take her nephew’s
     hobby for something else.
    “
Eh-eh.
” Tears well in Tapeta’s eyes. “And Hotu?”
    “They have their pact.”
    The whole family knows about the don’t-call-don’t-write-don’t-visit-me pact between Leilani and Hotu.
    “Ah.” Tapeta nods knowingly. “It’s for the best. Leilani has her studies, she can have as many men as she wants when she gets
     her degree. Hotu isn’t the last man on Earth . . . but I’ve been thinking, Cousin.” Tapeta looks over her shoulders for a
     few seconds. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m only asking you because you know so many things . . . When someone dies overseas, how
     does the soul find its way back to the birth land? When I think about my daughter’s soul wandering and wandering for eternity
     and never making it home to Tahiti, I get so sad.”
    “Souls never get lost, Tapeta,” Materena says firmly. To reassure her cousin, Materena tells her the story of a Tahitian woman
     who was buried in Canada, her husband’s country, where she’d lived for fifty years.
    Three days after the funeral, her sister saw her in Tahiti — standing in the garden next to the kava tree where they used
     to play as children. The dead woman was wearing a bright yellow dress with her hair all beautiful and her face made up with
     lipstick, and looking so much younger than seventy years old. And she was smiling the smile we do when we know we’re in a
     good place.
    The sister called out, “Teuira is home! Teuira is home!” The whole family gathered to celebrate the safe return of Teuira’s
     soul back to the homeland. They got the ukuleles out, they sang and drank and ate. No expenses were spared. It was as if the
     woman had come home alive.
    When Materena finishes telling the story, tears are falling out of her eyes, and Tapeta, hiding her face behind her breadsticks,
     is crying her eyes out too.
    Meanwhile, people are walking in and out of the Chinese store, throwing the usual curious glances. As well as laughing and
     gossipping, women have been crying outside the Chinese store for centuries.
    Materena walks back to the house with her cooking oil, still feeling emotional from her discussion with Tapeta. She pictures
     herself trying to tell Pito what he has done to her, but when it comes to hurt (the kind that cuts deeply), Materena finds
     it hard to express herself. Most likely she’ll just burst into tears and Pito will laugh and say, “That’s the reason you’re
     not talking to me? I thought it was something serious.” Then Materena will slap Pito across the face and —
    And here he is, lying stoned on the couch like a zombie.
    Non.
It’s definitely in that man’s interest that Materena doesn’t talk to him today. Putting her cooking oil away, Materena remembers
     a conversation she had with her mother a few days ago about how in her next life she might come back as a lesbian.
    And her mother said, “Why wait?”
    Ah,
oui alors,
why wait!

Calling Out the Faithful
    T he first time Materena asked Pito to accompany her to a nightclub — the Zizou Bar, where French
militaires
and Tahitian women get acquainted, and a special place for Materena because it’s where her parents met — Pito said, “I’m
     not putting my feet in that bloody bar.” So Materena had her first life experience in a nightclub with her cousin Mori and
     had a very good time, or so she told her husband when she came home at about ten o’clock.
    Well, tonight Materena is going out dancing again. Her soon-to-be-second experience in a nightclub is going to be at the Kikiriri,
     a nightclub open to all nationalities (especially to Chinese men with thick wallets, Pito knows this). Materena is not asking
     her husband to accompany her because, so she announced to her husband earlier, she’s going out with a
copine.
    “Who?” Pito asks with sugar in his voice, ready for Materena