I’m very impressed with the number of “IDs” made in Cafe Society based on vague sketchy descriptions, even of songs with no lyrics or artists provided, just a year, a genre and a gist.
So here’s something that I’ve been trying to remember for the past 2 years or so, maybe someone can help me? It has been beyond my Google or Amazon search keyword skills to find.
25 years ago, when I was 10 or so (the older I get, the more all my elementary school memories seem like “I was 10 or so”), I read a children’s book that has remained with me lo these many years. In retrospect it is probably because of the theme of separated twins (I lost an identical twin brother at birth), but it was a pretty good story on its own. It was a library book, so I returned it after reading it a few times, and by the time I thought to look for it again I had forgotten the title and author.
It was a fictional account of the Haitian Revolution, as told through the eyes of a pair of identical twin boys. Despite being born into slavery, their mother raises them with a sense of dignity and pride, telling them that their father “had been a prince in Dahomey.”
Early on in the story the brothers are separated in an escape attempt. One makes it to the mountains, where he falls in with a group of hidden runaways. The other is caught, and branded as a punishment.
Separately, both of them become involved in the revolutionary struggle. At one point, someone who has been with the still-captive boy meets the brother in the mountains, and tells him that he looks just like his twin, except for the brand. Out of shame in escaping where his brother did not, he takes a hot iron and brands himself as well.
A red-haired Scotsman shows up (I forget with which brother) to help their cause, and there is some kind of linguistic coincidence that he takes as a good omen when the African(?) nickname he is given Ti’Nan Ogoun (or somesuch), descriptive of his red hair, is similar to the Gaelic Tir naNog, a paradise land of sorts. (As a subsequent reader of much SF/Fantasy I would become well acquainted with Tir naNog references… This is memorable as the first one I came across.)
The story flips back and forth between the two brothers’ viewpoints. At the end, the brothers see each other on opposite sides of a ravine. Unable to come together, they wave in the mirror image of each other. And they leap for joy.
