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Tears well up in my eyes. I feel like I’m hiding somewhere, like a nine-year-old Raj. Meanwhile, I check the map to see where Mapou is, and then Beau-Bassin. I discover that trams run through this city today.

Mauritius—it’s so far away. Yet in Nathacha Appanah’s novel “The Last Brother” it comes close to me. Red, acidic dust from the soil, a rain monster and a flood from a waterfall, rotten mangoes, sugary water, a dark green forest with camphor trees through which Raj and David run. The images and emotions linger with me.

This is the story of the extraordinary, short-lived friendship between two boys: an Indo-Mauritian, Raj, from a poor family, and a Jewish orphan, David. Naivety, laughter, spontaneity, faith, and the magic of childhood mingle with violence, loss, illness, escape, and the gravity of the situation. And amidst all this, the lush, exotic nature and multiethnicity of Mauritius.

“I laughed and cried simultaneously, seeing the red bird on David’s blond head, his frightened expression, hearing my mother’s laughter, and realizing that the brothers almost took that laughter with them into the abyss.”

The author tells the story from the perspective of a nine-year-old boy living in Mauritius, unaware that World War II was raging in Europe. She, also knew nothing about it. Therefore, she decided to unhidde an important historical fact in her book, which she learned by chance in her 20′.

In the first half of the 1940s, the British interned 1,500 Jews in Mauritius. These people from Europe attempted to reach Haifa by ship. But they were stopped and treated as illegal refugees by the British authorities.

In Mauritius, they were put in the prison of in Beau Bassin, with no clear plan for their future. During these five years of exile, 128 of them died. They are buried in the Saint Martin Cemetery in Beau Bassin, where is now the Jewish Detainees Memorial & Information Centre.

Little David sings songs in Yiddish. He marvels at the flowers. Is there any light in such a beautiful and yet profoundly sad novel? Remembering those we’ve lost.

This is the second book of Mauritian literature I couldn’t put down. I wouldn’t have known about it if it weren’t for Daria Danuta Lisiecka’s program “Wyczytane do biały” / Read Until White. Daria presents many extraordinary books in it. And now I’m waiting for more translations of Nathacha Appanach’s books. Or maybe I’ll start reading them in English.

And because literature has taken me on the real road more than once, maybe I’ll start packing my suitcase, too.

Title photo made by Florian Giorgio.