America, Who Are You?: A Story of Adventure and Survival

America,

Who Are You?

A Story of Adventure and Survival

Anima Armstrong

America, Who Are You?

A Story of Adventure and Survival

Copyright © 2011 Anima Armstrong

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-0130-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-0129-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011961286

Printed in the United States of America

Abbott Press rev. date: 12/08/2011

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 1

MADAGASCAR

The forest is awaking slowly. The sound of a bird in flight breaks the silence with a flap of wings: Tropical humidity permeates everything and covers a world full of sensual smells and barely audible sounds. A light vapour coming from the Indian Ocean settles on the residence of the governor of that province: a home with high roofs covering under its eaves a long shady veranda which encircles the house with a belt of wrought iron. The wide rectangular windows with gauzy curtains allow a faint breeze to enter. Sylvie’s room is in semi darkness: a small child, her soft light brown hair streaked with red hues sleeps: a tiny suntanned foot emerges from the sheets, The whole bed looks like a floating cloud, the net: a bridal veil, corolla of a beautiful flower rests its round shape all the way to the floor holding insects from the night clinging to its porous knitting. The geckos (colourful lizards) are welcome for they devour scorpions, ants and mosquitoes. They stick to the ceiling with their padded webbed feet.

An arm: golden and slender pulls Sylvie out of her dreams: Rasaf the Hova woman with her Asiatic mystery and languor takes Sylvie out of her bed and prods her gently toward the tilled shower. Everything seems out of time and space… almost surreal. Slowly the day enters the room full of coloured dots resembling the flower petals outside in the surrounding gardens.

Beyond the park Asia and Africa are present: wide steps made for rice paddies escalading the hills and further out the sea of sugar canes sways under the trade winds one can smell the aroma of coffee and vanilla.

Asia is present through its Malay population who came to these shores eons of years ago on outrigger canoes across the ocean like the Polynesians whose sounds in their mutual languages resemble each other: their name is the Hovas, Another group are the Betsimisarakas brought by force by the Arabs during the slave trades. Then we have Indus from India and Chinese merchants who live along the coastline.

In the thirties as the colonial empire was still in its apogee: Animism and Christianity intermingled with Islamic and Buddhist’s beliefs. Away further there is the forest home of lemurs and rare species of flora and fauna: tsetse flies and sleeping sickness, intestinal disorders of different types abound brought on by parasites: one boils everything, cleanliness is the best way to deter ailments along with quinine which helps some, yet in that era many died victims of the environment. Inside the house shinning clear and neat there is an illusion of security.

Rasaf pulls Sylvie out of the shower and dries her off: She dresses her in a white dress with matching sandals. The two walk down to the dining room hand in hand. There Arabella, Marc and Andrew are lazing about between their milk and toasts. They seem indifferent to Sylvie’s arrival and she knows well enough, as she eats quietly and slowly at the corner of the table that she does not belong to that group, Athena their mother: tall for that era overcame the Spanish flue (really a plague in 1918) at the end of ww1, through her good genes, strength of character and pure pluck and luck.

Two years after her daughter Arabella’s birth she caught tuberculosis in Africa from poorly boiled milk while staying in one of thesesafari’s treks where the Europeans would spend the night during their African travels. Athena had to leave the family for a two year’s stay in a sanatorium, no cure was known at the time, many died but Athena had overcome with her strong will to live, her good genes, strength of character and pure luck and pluck and love of life. She returned to Madagascar minus one lung. In spite of it, Sylvie was conceived and came into the world as a healthy baby girl: Pierre her father overcome by joy gave her a name in private Nikki for victory in Greek (he was a scholar raised by Jesuits): Greek and Latin were a must in those days) Arabella the older sister took it as a slap in the face: She had been the princess to the whole family, she was proud and self- absorbed: she hated Sylvie in a cruel fashion.

While Athena their mother played bridge and Rasaf was elsewhere she threw Silvie out of her crib. For years Silvie had a reoccurring nightmare of falling helplessly through space she would wake up her heart beating like a drum covered with sweat a bad omen for the future.

The monsoon came down violently pouring the whole sky unto the island: constant thunder and lightning had literally bombarded them for weeks without a drop of water, a very stressful experience then the skies opened and the deluge began. On the other side of the ocean the same event was taking place, India was awash with it: breathing was difficult, the humidity unbearable.

Sylvie broke out in a thousand small pimples full of puss and Rasaf scratched her in order to release the torment leaving her body like a scab. Pierre demanded to be removed with his family to the high plateaus of the island in a place called Antsirabe where the weather was mild.

In this small spa of a city Silvie recovered and became pink again. The new home looked to the children like a castle  . . . the red earth brought out the whiteness of the house (Madagascar is also called the red island). The garden had streams, flower beds and ponds, the trade winds blew across the high plateaus with a divine softness. Sylvie learned to live with her best friend: her inner life. She loved the garden with its gravel paths, flower beds and tropical trees. She built an armada of ships made with wide fruit pits as skiffs, the mast being a twig and sails were petals fastened to the small masts. The flotilla ran down a stream and would as life navigate in order to circumvent rock islands, archipelagos built by Sylvie. The ships would finally arrive in a cove. A few hapless ants became passengers running around their small craft with an agitated anxiety which Sylvie ignored feeling that ants were too small to know. The child was very involved with her ships and navigation. At nap time, she would throw herself backward on a wide hammock looking at clouds rushing through on trade winds. All around her the banana trees and large ferns drinking from the wet moss covered earth luxuriated. They stretched their leaves in the sun. Life was sweet. She was alone yet never felt lonely for she had a best friend: her inner life. Education was part of it: a tutor came and taught the children all the rudiments of writing, reading and early mathematics as well as history, geography… . etc.

Chapter 2

LEAVING PARADISE

There had been many discussions at night on the veranda, still full of the day’s warmth, the breeze felt soft and wrapped itself around people and things like a satin cloth full of smells from tropical flowers.

Victoria the grandmother, sat high and straight in her black dress a bit turn of the century with a tight small waist, dark stones shone in the ripples of her satin dress. Her face was extremely fine with high cheek bones and dark eyes a bit slanted giving her an Eurasian look. The oval was perfect and the nose small and straight was giving harmony to the whole face held on a slender neck: she was truly beautiful and resembled a small alabaster statue: she looked intensely at Tristan her husband the love of her life as he stood in the centre of the veranda. He was the patriarch: fairly tall and a bit worn by his long safaris in Africa where he was known as a superb hunter; He had come there as a very young man with his young bride sent by the government in order to establish silk factories in India as well as in Madagascar. They had met in those circles Victoria’s parents having the same trade. Silk makers: their families were established many generations ago since the silk roads to China had been opened and the road to silk meandered through northern Iran to Italy and came to the old Lugdunum of the Romans, now the stately city of Lyon: the Roman passage to Western Europe. They had kept that youthful love relationship alive through the years. Where Victoria had ignored her children’s in order to follow Tristan: they had stayed in private schools until the age of twenty: they wore scars from that lack of parenting and Athena wore her pain well hidden yet present in her large pale green eyes. She sat demure and silent: a tall woman for that era: She kept her shoulders slightly bent as if refusing to be tall: especially in view of the fact that her husband Pierre was a bit shorter. Athena’s fingers were long and perfectly formed and a large stone made of diamonds and emeralds shone on her finger. Pierre the son in law and father of Sylvie stood often next to Tristan and they spoke as equals.

The two men: one the intellectual from the great schools of Europe and Tristan the brilliant doer, pragmatist who held his ancestor’s empire intact even though far away from home.

So while the children slept it was decided that the dye was cast Europe was on the horizons of their lives, they would have to leave their beautiful island where life had been so gentle, removed from the real world: almost another world. They spoke Malagasy and had a mutual love with the Malays; yes it was a hard necessary decision.

They felt that Madagascar would no longer be on the path of their lives.

Chapter 3

TRAVELS TO EUROPE

Athena, Pierre and the children travelled to Tamatave in order to catch the liner to Europe. Victoria and Tristan were to meet them in Marseilles. The whole village came to the train station in order to say good bye They wore their lambas (a white toga ) handsome and sad : Pierre had spoken their language