Mango Blood (eBook)

Maryvonne Fent (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
480 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-6861-5 (ISBN)

Infos

(Literary fiction) Set in 1959, Mango Blood is a coming of age story about Minouche, a passionate Parisian girl who follows Stefan, her Polish lover, to India. But will what started as a dream come true withstand the pressures of Stefan's desire for control, and Minouche's realization that classical Indian dancing is not the right choice for her? After they get married and settle in Madras, Minouche delights and thrives in the romance of South India's rich cultural environment. On a grant to study Indian dancing, she joins a famous dance academy, but despite her best efforts, she must accept that Bharata Natyam is beyond her physical abilities. Disappointed by her failure, Stefan, who fancied her as a dancer, is increasingly judgmental and controlling, and his single-minded focus on Hindu philosophy further drives a wedge between them. Missing the support of her mother and friends, Minouche struggles to maintain the independence she grew up with. Finally overcoming her fears of damaging her marriage, she defies Stefan by leaving the dance program to pursue a degree in Indian music, her new-found passion. Meanwhile, following her heart, she befriends Laila, a young woman confined to her parents' house by age-old prejudices and the shame inflicted on her after being raped by British soldiers fourteen years earlier. Minouche hopes to lure her out of her confinement to start a new life in post-Independence India, which she perceives as increasingly more modern and open-minded to women. Unfortunately for Minouche, Laila's father, an old-school Brahmin, is her music teacher, and involving herself in his family affairs to help emancipate his daughter might cost Minouche the music degree she eagerly seeks.

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(Literary fiction) In a sequel to "e;The 35 Dowry"e;, set in 1959 Paris, France, "e;Mango Blood"e; continues the coming of age story about Minouche, a passionate but impoverished Parisian girl who follows Stefan, her stateless Polish lover, to India. But will what started as a dream come true withstand the pressures of Stefan's desire for control, and Minouche's realization that classical Indian dancing is not the right choice for her? After they get married and settle in Madras, Minouche delights and thrives in the romance of South India's rich cultural environment. On a grant to study Indian dancing, she joins a famous dance academy, but despite her best efforts, she must accept that Bharata Natyam is beyond her physical abilities. Disappointed by her failure, Stefan, who fancied her as a dancer, is increasingly judgmental and controlling, and his single-minded focus on Hindu philosophy further drives a wedge between them. Missing the support of her mother and friends, Minouche struggles to maintain the independence she grew up with. Finally overcoming her fears of damaging her marriage, she defies Stefan by leaving the dance program to pursue a degree in Indian music, her new-found passion. Meanwhile, following her heart, she befriends Laila, a young woman confined to her parents' house by age-old prejudices and the shame inflicted on her after being raped by British soldiers fourteen years earlier. Minouche hopes to lure her out of her confinement to start a new life in post-Independence India, which she perceives as increasingly more modern and open-minded to women. Unfortunately for Minouche, Laila's father, an old-school Brahmin, is her music teacher, and involving herself in his family affairs to help emancipate his daughter might cost Minouche the music degree she eagerly seeks.

Textauszug

Chapter Two

JUL 27, 1959

The muted sound of an efficient air-conditioner purring like a sated cat seeped into my dreams. I rolled onto my back beneath the brocaded coverlet, stretched my arms over my head, and slowly opened my eyes. Under the high ceiling, ornate moldings framed soft white walls. To my right, long gold drapes hung slightly parted along tall French windows. Early sunlight bouncing off a metallic object caught my eye. A ring. A golden ring. On my finger. My wedding ring. At the sight of it my heart quickened. I caressed it and felt my lips stretch into a smile as I remembered. I was in the honeymoon suite of the Arjun Hotel. Next to my head, the still warm pillow was empty, but I could hear the stream of a shower in the next room. I fantasized about embracing Stefan’s lean and tanned body under the cascading water, but decided against it. The bed was too soft and comfortable to leave it just yet. Pulling myself up to sit against a fat satin pillow, I breathed in the spicy scent of the red roses sitting in a vase on the nightstand, and gave thanks for the day I had met Stefan, just a year ago. He was the reason my life had changed from sharing a room with my mother in a small family pension in Paris, to waking up in this first-class hotel in Bombay.

After six months of planning and penny-pinching in Paris to save enough money for a third-class seafare passage, I had arrived in Bombay, exultant but broke, with 35¢ in my pocket and no assurance Stefan would be waiting for me. But he had been there to greet me, eager to introduce me to the country he had chosen to undertake his spiritual awakening. For me, it was a dream come true, seeing that from the moment he’d left Paris, all I wanted was to be reunited with him. But still I was stunned when, shortly after I disembarked, he told me that we were to get married.

I’m not sure he would have come to that decision on his own, but on the advice of Miss Petit and Maurice, his seasoned and experienced Bombay hosts, Stefan had realized that it was the right thing to do, as the Indian campus we were heading to didn’t allow unmarried couples to live together. I had readily agreed. I hadn’t traveled thousands of kilometers to sneak into his room at night to sleep in his arms. And because I had spent the last of my savings on the ship bringing me here, I found the idea of being married quite reassuring, for if the grant I’d applied for to study Indian dancing and Theater Arts didn’t materialize, I would depend on Stefan to support me. I was grateful that money wouldn’t be an issue for him as it had been for me most of my life. And on learning that traditional wedding arrangements in India usually depended on hefty financial transactions, I couldn’t help but laugh when Maurice joked that Stefan had married me for my 35¢ dowry.

I let out a sigh of satisfaction. As kind and generous as our hosts had been, escaping to this hotel to finally be alone with Stefan had been delicious. After living apart for six long months, we needed that time and privacy to rediscover our chemistry and abandon ourselves, not only to pleasure, but to the sharing of the dreams and spiritual aspirations that had brought Stefan and me together.

When he walked into the room wrapped in a long white towel and bent over to kiss me, I pulled on the plush cloth intending to get him back in bed, but he playfully wriggled out of my grasp and reminded me that Maurice and Miss Petit expected us for breakfast in an hour. I wasn’t hungry for breakfast. I was hungry for him, but I obediently slid off the soft, springy bed and headed to the shower. To save time, I skipped washing my hair, quickly dried myself, and slipped on my dress.

Though I was eager to discover Madras and the campus where we would live, I was disappointed to leave Bombay so soon. “Do we really need to leave today?” Bombay was this great city the travel guides called the doorway to India. There were so many monuments erected in praise of different cultures, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Parsee, Jain, and of course British. I wanted to see them all and could have stayed in this hotel for days, enjoying sex by night and sightseeing by day, but Stefan had a frown on his face when he answered. “Look, I have to get back to Madras. I’ve already been gone ten days. I’ll need to catch up with Professor Mahadevan’s lectures. And I have to move us to larger quarters. The single room studio I’m renting is too small for the both of us.”

“You’re right, of course,” I said, brightly. I didn’t want to start our married life with nagging. “But could we come back here during our vacation?”

“Why not?” He opened the wardrobe, pulled out a light pair of pants and a shirt, and started to dress. “You’ll see. Between the regular holidays and the mysterious astrological forecasts that close down schools for days at a time, we’ll get a lot of extra time to travel. But right now, we need to keep our breakfast appointment and catch our train to go home.”

Home. His home. A home I hadn’t yet seen.

We gathered the few items of toiletries we had brought with us in an overnight bag. I took a last look at the elegant room while Stefan commandeered a valet to call for a taxi. Minutes later we headed out to Miss Petit’s house on Malabar Hill.

On arriving, we were welcomed with some teasing and much laughter from the servants as they served us a simple breakfast of Darjeeling tea, toast and marmalade. Even Maurice and Miss Petit had grins on their faces. In their aging world, the rare presence of a newly married couple was cause for celebration.

Packing Stefan’s suitcase took hardly any time, and off we went, dashing to the train station to catch the twelve o’clock Madras Express after thanking everyone and reassuring Babula, their adopted daughter, that we would visit again. Maurice, as always, was generous with advice. And I felt tears come to my eyes when Miss Petit took my hands in hers, and assured me that we now were family. In my mind, her words evoked an image of tiny root tendrils spreading under my feet. Could it be that, possibly, I had started to belong in India? I didn’t know what Madras would be like, but the warm shield of our friends’ affection, added to Stefan’s ring on my finger, told me I could board that train with trust in myself and in the world.

When Maurice first warned me that there were no such things as short train trips in India, I hadn’t believed him. I had not counted on cities being half a continent apart, but I had now been on the train for three hours, and Madras was still a night and a day away. To my surprise, the train was very comfortable, maybe due to the fact that, after India’s Independence in ’47, the railway network built by the British had remained well managed. The first-class accommodations Stefan had booked for us was as good as a five-star hotel and made me feel like an international fashion model on location.

We had a small but entirely private compartment to ourselves. Its aged and polished cherry-wood paneling gave it a lived-in appearance. It was homey, a small nest inside the long and grimy iron horse we had boarded. Above the deep and comfortable leather seat that ran the length of one of the walls were two stacked sleeping berths, outfitted with linen, blankets, and pillows. A small table was anchored to the floor. I was thrilled to discover we wouldn’t have to walk the length of the train to find a toilet, as our compartment was equipped with an individual W.C. and a shower. To top it off, an impeccably dressed and turbaned steward—an obvious leftover from British colonial grandeur—was assigned to cater to our every need, any time, night or day.

But what I loved most about our compartment was that it offered us privacy, something I had quickly become aware was hard to come by in India. Dressed native style in loose white cotton pants and a thin kurta that revealed his tanned chest and neck, Stefan was sitting on the padded leather bench by the window. Legs crossed under him in perfect lotus fashion, he was at peace, lost in The First and Last Freedom, a book by J. Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher. It was the same book he had been plunged into in Paris, as he waited for me at the rank entrance of a metro station or the breezy terrace of a café.

Looking at him now, a wave of desire knocked the breath out of me. I recalled how, not so long ago, anticipation of sex had lit me up and lingered on me like a shimmering coat, making my heart drum in my chest as we hurried, arm in arm, to his tiny mansard overlooking the sooty roofs of the Quartier Latin. It was the only place where we could make love as we were too poor to afford a hotel room. On approaching the old porte-cochere to his apartment building, we would lengthen our stride. The familiar smell of old wax was our ambrosia as we climbed the worn staircase, two steps at a time, to his unmade bed. But why reminisce about the past? Was I not alone with him on a train, with fantasies of wild sex on the Orient Express?

I was stepping out of the bathroom when there was a knock on the door, and Stefan looked up from his book. “Minouche, get the door. I ordered coffee for you while you were in there.”

It wasn’t what I’d had in mind when I’d gone to freshen up and brush my teeth, but I was ready to jump through hoops for a good cup of coffee. So, I unlocked the smooth sliding...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.11.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-6861-6 / 1667868616
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-6861-5 / 9781667868615