Twenty-three-year-old Anna is mesmerized when she meets thirty-one-year-old Edmund, a medical student attending a university in Budapest, Hungary. While Anna sees nothing wrong with her relationship with Edmund, her parents and others are critical of her dating a black man from Kenya. In this lead story in a collection of seven, "Love Me Black or Love Me White" describes the hypocrisy of the communist regime as well as the world seeing only skin color instead of human beings. The stories in Love Me Black or Love Me White are charged with contemporary interest-human dignity in an indifferent world as seen through the eyes of author Agnes Arany. Based on real events, each story takes place in a different country. "Violations" originated from Arany's experiences as an interpreter in the Soviet Union and witnessing the roots of Communism. "Wives are Best When Thrashed," "The Old Hindu" and "Palm Branch and Typhoon" arose from her personal observations while traveling abroad. A keen observer of the reality around her, Arany harbors sympathy for the world's downtrodden and explores these issues in this collection. Love Me Black or Love Me White describes the world as she sees it and demonstrates that life itself is the best storyteller.
Love Me Black or Love Me White
By Agnes G. Arany-MakkaiiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Agnes G. Arany-Makkai
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4401-1625-4Contents
Love Me Black or Love Me White.....................1Wives Are Best When Thrashed.......................105Violations.........................................129Father Theo........................................181The Old Hindu......................................199Palm Branch and Typhoon............................217Clean, Cleaner, Cleanest...........................225About the Author...................................231
Chapter One
Love Me Black or Love Me White
After the last patient of the day said good-bye and left, he unhooked the stethoscope from his neck and carefully locked it up in its metal case.
The house servant handed him a large manila envelope. "Mbwana, the postman just brought this."
"Registered," the doctor said as he glanced at him in acknowledgement. "Thank you, Ogabe."
"It's nothing," the servant said modestly, straightening up a little and nodding.
The years had rolled past Ogabe without his ever having learned to read or to write. "That sort of thing is not for me," he would say when the subject came up, and yet there was nothing he was prouder of than that he was in fact able to write, slowly and in big, staggering characters, the letters of his name.
"How thick the envelope is! I wonder what it could be?" The doctor turned it over. Air Mail-the white letters stood out against the dark blue background. He glanced again at the return address: Anna Owens, New York. "Who could it be?" Anna, yes. He knew an Anna once, but not with that last name, and not in that place. Perhaps it is not even for me, it occured to him. The envelope was addressed by hand, all in uppercase letters.
"An elegant hand." He brought the envelope closer to his eyes. He found the way the cursive letters were joined together attractive, particularly in the words Kenya, Africa.
"But who could this Anna Owens be?" There could be no mistake; this letter had been addressed to him. With the envelope in hand, he walked over and sat down in his favorite spot, under the wild fig tree.
"I brought your coffee, mbwana." Ogabe appeared, carefully balancing a brimming mug.
"Put it right here," the doctor said, indicating a spot next to him on the bench. He blew on the steaming liquid and sipped delicately.
"Anna? That was so long ago." He closed his eyes. "We were so young."
The slightly bitter taste of the coffee also transported him back there.
"Keep it down!" He glanced up at the gray parrots quarreling on the branch above him. The birds continued their squawking, nipping at each other's white crests. At the foot of the garden, behind the banana palm, there flourished a carpet of fire; long-stemmed matookas were blooming there, the ubiquitous signature flowers of the Luos. Above the spiny leaves, their large, tousled, flame-colored heads met. "That will do." He squinted up again at the parrots. Between the leaves a tiny patch of sky shone through. "Anna's eyes were blue too." He meditated a moment, then his glance fell on his veined hand resting on the envelope. He withdrew the bundle of papers it contained and began to read:
"How tightly they are holding on to each other! And the time is flying merciless," worries an elderly woman at Budapest airport and glances at her wristwatch. "The earth will not stop turning even for their sakes, still ..."
She turns away tactfully, as some old, half-forgotten memory tugs at her.
A few passengers are waiting in line already behind the young couple when the armed security guard calls out, "Next!" in the quiet but firm voice of those used to being obeyed.
"We'll miss the flight because of them," frets an old gentleman at the head of the line just behind them, aggressively leaning on his cane.
Anna extricates herself from the embrace, letting her hand slide down the man's arm, her fingers seeking his, then letting go as Edmund takes a step towards the gate beyond which she cannot follow. He hands his passport to the officer behind the counter and looks back at her with that sweet smile that had always accompanied his nickname for her: "ndovuling." Surely, the corner of his mouth moved, did it not? Surely, he was mouthing it, saying it silently to himself. A hand reaches out and Edmund takes his passport. Then he turns around and starts walking. His hair, with its million tiny interlocking ringlets, appears unusually lusterless under the neon lights.
"How handsome he is!" Anna's eyes follow him. The dark gray suit he bought for his graduation from medical school drapes over his shoulders without a trace of a wrinkle. Anna is keeping her eyes glued to the back of his neck, where the tiny curling ringlets stab at her with the memory of the countless passionate embraces that must, she realizes with a sharp rush of adrenalin, from this moment on remain only a deep-sown seed of hope.
Suddenly she is aware of an awful pressure in her chest that is crushing everything inside her body. It closes down the air passages, and she has to fight spasmodically for breath. Gathering all her strength, she takes one step forward-as though she could free herself by this-and as she battles with her own body, two half-formed words erupt from her suffocating chest: "My son!" The voice is choked, alien, but the pressure in her ribcage instantly ceases.
Edmund can no longer hear her words. At the end of the corridor he turns, his face convulsing into a smile, then vanishes behind the partition. Anna gazes after him, drained. She continues to stare at the wall as though her glance were capable of transmuting it into clear glass.
Perhaps ...
She remains there standing, waiting. When she realizes that she is asking for the impossible, that there is nothing left to wait for, she slowly creeps across the black-and-white tiles of the floor, like an eliminated chess piece, and totters out of the airport terminal building.
The bus into the city is idling in front against the curb, rumbling metallically and spitting sooty black puffs into the July sunlight. The odor of tar emanating from the floor combines with the stink of carbon dioxide; sharp particles of dust are swept in through the open window. Anna collapses into a seat and drags the window at her side shut. The muggy heat draws moist, sticky stripes on her thighs where they are visible under her short skirt. As she shifts her weight, the vinyl seat hisses beneath her. Suddenly she realizes that in Edmund's life it will now be eternally summer-hot, never-ending summer.
Only on that one single sky-embracing mountain, Mount ... what was it? ... Kilimanjaro. Only there is there ever snow. She recalls the photograph she saw in a tourist brochure as she wipes the perspiration from around her nose with the back of her hand.
Through the window, the suburbs crowd into her field of vision with their neglected houses and blistering, peeling walls. Even the flowerbeds lining the front of the houses look dusty in the swirling breeze. At one stop, squash vines creep over the crumbling soil of a garden; stretching through the wire fence, they are heading for the sidewalk with foot-long strides, although what awaits them there is only the tar melting in the heat and discarded cigarette butts. At the rim of the capital city, the prefabricated buildings spread the monotony of their cubiform...
