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Gem adventure of the Swiss twins. ( Novel ).
© |
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y June
26, 1988. |
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The
plane landed early – something extremely rare on |
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the AirMad
line
serving Tananarive. |
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Mrs. Nory was standing
on the
airport's tarmac, |
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right
next to a gendarme. |
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Her son, her brother the
airport's
director, and some |
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vague
relationship accompanied
her. |
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She
welcomed her daughter Tina coming back from Italy. The
nine years she had spent there, |
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had
metamorphosed the young
lady, she almost became vazaha. "foreigner, in Madagascar |
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language." |
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Tina
caught the stair's metallic fence. Her
blue dress was floating in the overheated air,
sweeping |
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the
black tarmac. She saw some familiar
silhouettes far away. The young woman showed a |
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movement of retreat, perhaps, her
diploma of chemist engineer, acquired recently, would help her |
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blur the
vindication of the assistance who
came here to
meet her, she thought
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John
and Alain followed the lady. She had met the twins during their stop over in
Rome and
got |
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acquainted
with them.
This
meeting was not
fortuitous, because it was her mother who arranged |
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it. |
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Readjusting
her scarf, Mrs. Nory moved on. - I see her, she is not in a hurry to go
down, she said. |
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The
lady did not take of her black glasses to kiss her daughter. This coldness intrigued Alain. |
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And,
Tina introduced her new friends, the precious stone experts, waited
impatiently in |
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Tananarive. |
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Alain noticed a certain ambiguity and even some condescension from the
clever
lady with her |
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daughter. |
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Then,
both vazaha precipitated towards a wooden shelf. They filled in the
immigration
forms. |
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Details
on their origin, the goal of their visit, the exact sums imported was
explicitly asked to them, |
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and
a police officer gave them a lined sheet to be made plug to each hotel in
which they would |
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go down. |
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Charged
of cumbersome parcels, Alain painfully cut through the crowd. |
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The
twins separately took seat in two cars brought
here
to pick up
them. John
went up in the
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roomy
BMW with the mother. And
the prodigal
girl
took
seat right
next to Alain,
in the Peugeot. |
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Driving
fast, compressed against the door, Alain noticed a black Mercedes coming
in opposite |
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direction. |
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This is my uncle, the president of the national assembly, shouted Tina,
She then
added that the
man |
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- a famous reverend - had
the habit to harp virulent Marxists sermons to his flocks. |
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The hearse color
limousine disappeared behind enormous billboards marking out
the road of the dike... |
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y
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To the Terminus! Ordered John
to
the taxi driver. |
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The
hotel Terminus was located at the center town, opposite to the railway
station at the corner |
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of
the Independence Avenue. |
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Large
house plants decorated the hall. It
was a building of the purest colonial style. |
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Inside,
the
atmosphere of the Twenties was perpetuated. A
large staircase
of brown wood |
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led to
the
rooms, the employees - flexible and trained - waxed it several times a day. |
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The
owner, an old and little vulgar settler, directed her staff with an
iron hands. |
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By derision, the
employees called her "tara shambo", as the Madagascans named
former colonists |
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who were too late to take the last boat to the
decolonization
. Mrs. Morlan - her real name - |
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was everywhere at the same time.
Like a sheepdog, she was ready to bark her sheep at the |
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least prank. It should
be said that the staff had of it the attitude. Always dressed
in white |
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immaculate blouses, it had kept this subjected position which
characterized the relationship |
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that
natives had with their Masters during colonial times. |
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All
were
bare
footed.
Their
miserable wages guarantee calm and rest to the establishment's |
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customers. |
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A
porter ran into the lobby. He relieved the
twins of their two larger bags and invited them to follow |
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him. John,
climbing the stairs, slipped on the soaped steps. He hung up again himself to the fence. |
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–
This is Holiday one ice, he launched to his brother desperately
trying
to
follow the guide. |
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You know, Al, it'll be necessary that you call Coco without too much
delay, he recommend,
as if |
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this hitch
had shake his meninx. |
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Coco
was not a parrot and even less a vazaha!
In Madagascar, one called everyone by his first |
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name
and even more readily by his small name... |
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