The meaning of Mangoes

Some things are so simple, they defy translation. A glance. A sigh. The way someone slices fruit for you in silence and lays it on a plate without a word. And sometimes, it's not the words we misunderstand, but the meanings we load into them — the histories, the hurts, the assumptions we didn't know we carried. This is a story about a mango. And something far less sweet.

It began with a mango.

Not just any mango, but a perfectly ripe Alphonso — golden-orange skin blushing red at the tip, velvet-soft to the touch, and aromatic enough to halt conversation mid-sentence.

It sat between them like a bright jewel on the chipped enamel plate. She’d bought it from the local market that morning in Zanzibar, the vendor promising it was “the sweetest one of the bunch,” and she believed him. How could she not? The man had smiled with all his teeth and cupped the fruit like it was a baby bird.

Now it was 3 p.m., and they were back in his small flat, the fan creaking above them, the air rich with heat and the coming rain. Jamila sat cross-legged on the floor, knife in hand, slicing the mango into two golden cheeks. She held one out to him.

“Mango?” she asked in Swahili.

David hesitated. He knew the word. They’d been sleeping together for a month, and by now, he’d learned a few basics: “asante,” “samahani,” “pole pole,” and, of course, “mango.” It was the first word she’d taught him, laughing when he’d said it like the English “man-go.”

But instead of reaching for it, he stared at the slice, then at her. Something about her tone made him pause.

“Mango?” he repeated, unsure now.

“Yes.” She smiled. “This one… special.”

She passed it to him like a peace offering. He took it, biting into the flesh too enthusiastically, the juice running down his chin. She laughed.

“You eat like a child.”

“Well, you picked the mango,” he said, wiping his chin. “So maybe that’s your fault.”

That was the moment. A simple tease, meant to be funny. But something shifted in her expression — a flicker, quick but unmistakable.

“What did you say?”

He shrugged. “Just a joke.”

Jamila sat back, lips pressed tight. “You think it’s my fault?”

“No, no,” he said quickly. “I meant… not serious. Like, because you gave me the mango — and I ate it like a child — so it’s... I don’t know.” He gave a helpless laugh. “It doesn’t translate, maybe.”

She was quiet. The fan creaked above them.

David looked down at the mango cheek in his hand. The bite mark looked like a wound.

Jamila stood, walking to the window. Rain had started to fall — big, loud drops on the tin roof. He waited, unsure of what had gone wrong.

“We don’t joke like that here,” she said finally.

“Like what?”

“About fault. About who causes what. That’s not funny.”

David stood too, suddenly hot and clumsy in the small room. “I wasn’t blaming you. I was just… joking. You know? Light.”

She turned to him. “In Swahili, if you say something is someone’s fault, even as a joke, it’s like saying they are careless. That they caused harm.”

He opened his mouth, closed it. He hadn’t meant harm. Not with mangoes. Not with her.

They stood in silence, the rain softening outside.

That night, they didn’t make love. She turned away from him in bed, her back stiff and her breaths too even. And David lay awake, wondering how something so sweet could go so wrong.

—

The next morning, she was gone.

Not just from the bed — but from the flat entirely. Her few belongings remained, folded and precise: scarf, sandals, a dog-eared book of Rumi poems in both English and Swahili. But no note. No message.

He waited until noon. Then one. By three, he couldn’t bear the waiting anymore.

He walked through the winding streets of Stone Town, checking the café where she worked, the beach where they’d swum, the alley with the acrobats where she once kissed him against a wall and told him his Swahili was “terrible but cute.”

No sign of her.

He returned home, the mango pit still on the plate.

—

Days passed. Then a week. His visa was running out.

He packed his things in silence, rehearsing what he’d say to her if she returned: how sorry he was, how small the joke had been, how big the misunderstanding.

How sometimes love gets lost in translation too.

At the airport, he checked his phone one last time. Nothing.

He boarded the plane.

—

A year later, in London, David sat in a dusty café near Camden Market, trying to read a new translation of Rumi. It wasn’t working. The words felt foreign, even in English. He sipped his coffee and stared out the window, watching a man sell mangoes off a cart.

Something pulled at him.

He walked outside, approached the vendor.

“How much?” he asked, nodding at the fruit.

The vendor smiled. “Two pounds.”

David picked one up. It was soft. Sweet. Just ripe.

“I used to know someone who said mangoes were special,” he said absently, more to himself.

The vendor nodded. “They are. In some places, mango means more than fruit. It can mean joy. Or temptation. Or even memory.”

David blinked. “Where did you hear that?”

“I’m from Kenya. My grandmother used to say, ‘A mango remembers the hand that picked it.’”

He paid for the mango, cradling it in his palm. He walked through the market, past incense stalls and secondhand clothes, until he reached the canal.

He sat on the edge, peeled the mango with his fingers, and bit into it.

The juice ran down his chin.

This time, he let it.

He then carried it home, holding it gently in both hands as if it might bruise under the weight of memory. In his kitchen, he sliced it carefully, the way she had taught him — not all the way through, but enough to open its golden cheeks like wings. He didn’t eat it right away. Instead, he placed it on a plate and sat in silence, letting the scent fill the room. It wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t forgiveness. But it was something — a small act of remembering, and maybe, in a quiet, translated way, of love.

End