The Sound of Language

by Amulya Malladi

  “Why would she do that?” Gunnar asked.

  “To get money out of you, to blackmail you,” Peter said in exasperation. “These people are depraved. See what they are capable of? They fly airplanes into buildings. They kill people in the name of rehgion.

  Gunnar looked at Peter as if he had gone mad. “Are you saying this Afghan girl is a terrorist?”

  “She could be,” Peter said. “You can't trust them. The coalition government of Radikale Venstre and Socialdemokratiet allowed too many immigrants into Denmark—now, with the new government, things are getting better. Immigrants don't get jobs, they don't learn Danish, they wear their stupid clothes … what? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Gunnar was shaking his head. He used to think the same way. Hell, he had voted for the Danish People's Party, commonly known as the anti-immigrant party. He had supported the party for their policies regarding care for the retired people. The fact that they passed laws to stop immigration into Denmark hadn't concerned him.

  “You feel the same way,” Peter said. “Admit it: every time you see one of those women dressed up like that you think it is strange too.”

  He used to, maybe still did, but this Afghan girl didn't wear those strange clothes. And did clothes change the person beneath?

  “She seems like a nice girl,” Gunnar said quietly.

  “What was Christina thinking? This is crazy,” Peter said.

  “I don't think so,” Gunnar said quietly.

  He enjoyed having the Afghan girl in his house. He liked her silent company and he was enjoying teaching her about the bees. She was full of questions and even though she didn't seem to understand what he was saying half the time, it was a pleasure to have someone to talk to about bees. With Anna it was different because she knew as much as he did and he wasn't the teacher. They were more like competitors. With the Afghan girl there was no competition. But he couldn't tell this to Peter, he would laugh at Gunnar.

  “If people like you and me won't help these immigrants then they will never learn Danish and never be able to get jobs,” Gunnar said.

  “They should not be here in the first place,” Peter said. “Denmark is for Danes—”

  “Your grandmother was German,” Gunnar interrupted.

  “She was from Flensburg, she was almost Danish,” Peter said.

  “No, she was German. She didn't even speak Danish until after your father was born,” Gunnar said with satisfaction.

  “That was different,” Peter said. “She was European. You should think again about letting her come into your house. What if she steals something?”

  “So now she is not just a terrorist, she is also a thief?” Gunnar asked.

  “Anna would not have liked this,” Peter said.

  “Anna would have been happy to help this Afghan girl,” Gunnar said firmly. “You don't know anything about Anna if you think she would have begrudged someone the opportunity to make a new life.”

  Peter was taken aback. “I don't understand why you're being so difficult about this,” he said wearily.

  Gunnar realized that neither did he.

  “She is just some dark-skinned girl looking for a handout,” Peter continued. “Get her out of your house before she does any permanent damage. That refugee girl is nothing but trouble; I can tell you that now. That girl —”

  “Her name is Raihana,” Gunnar cut him off, suddenly aware that he knew her name but never thought of her as Raihana. He always thought of her as the Afghan girl.

  “What?” Peter asked, confused.

  “You keep saying Afghan girl and refugee, but she has a name, Peter. It's Raihana,” Gunnar said.

  Raihana wanted to go back to the bees but she was scared of them and worried that the Danish man was angry with her about being bitten. Layla and Kabir had been frantic when they saw the sting and had even taken her to the doctor in Skive. The doctor had examined her, given her some antihistamine tablets, and had assured her there was nothing to worry about. Raihana never took the medication and watched the swelling on her cheek with fascination.

  “At least now you must quit this nonsense,” Khala Soofia said when the women were preparing dinner two nights after the incident. “Good girls do not go about getting stung by bees like this.”

  Both Layla and Raihana looked at Khala Soofia in bewilderment. What nonsense was the old bat spouting?

  “My Deena never got stung by bees,” she continued.

  “Your Deena never worked with bees,” Raihana said, annoyed by the woman's constant showing off about her daughter who lived all the way in America. Layla and Kabir and her Afghan friends took care of Khala Soofia, went shopping for her, cooked for her and her husband when she was sick, but Deena was so much better than them. If Deena was so great why on earth had she not visited her mother in five years?

  “My Deena is too smart to have to — ”

  “Your Deena, your Deena,” Layla said in irritation. “You know, Khala, all we hear is how wonderful she is but she doesn't even write often to her own parents and doesn't care that they live alone in some foreign country. If my children treated me like that I wouldn't think they were so wonderful.”

  Raihana wanted to hug Layla in gratitude. Finally someone had spoken up against the old lady. No one had ever said anything of this nature to Khala Soofia. But Layla had had enough. Raihana was struggling to do something with her life and instead of encouraging her everyone seemed to want to pull her down.

  “My daughter is not disrespectful like you,” Khala Soofia said, enraged.

  “Then you should be with her at her home,” Layla said.

  “But she doesn't want you either,” Raihana said and immediately regretted it. Why couldn't she allow this poor old woman to have her fantasies? She knew what Khala was doing. Raihana was doing the same in many ways, pretending everything was fine and getting on with life, always expecting that everything would work out when she had ample proof that nothing worked out, not the way you hoped.

  “I am leaving.” Khala rose from the chair in the kitchen. Her large frame seemed suddenly weary. Layla and Raihana stood up as well, abandoning the vegetables they were chopping at the dining table. “This is a dishonorable house and you are shameful women,” Khala added with tears in her eyes.

  They didn't make a move to stop her, but they both felt ashamed as soon as they heard the front door close behind Khala.

  “We were not right to insult to her like that,” Raihana said. “She's our elder.”

  “She is,” Layla said with a sigh. “But enough is enough. How can we respect her when she doesn't respect us?”

  “I know,” Raihana said. But knowing that Khala was in the wrong didn't make what they had done right either. “I'll make badava kheer for her.”

  “With lots of saffron,” Layla said.

  “And we'll go there tomorrow and apologize.”

  “Yes,” Layla said unhappily. “I'm just tired of everyone going on and on about your praktik. And I'm not really sorry about what I said. It was all true anyway. But I didn't like hurting her.”

  Raihana grinned mischievously. “Did you see her face when you said your Deena, your Deena?”

  “Yes,” Layla said, grinning back.

  “Maybe now she'll stop telling us how wonderful Deena is and how terrible we are in comparison,” Raihana said.

  “And maybe now she'll stop complaining about your praktik,” Layla said.

  If Khala Soofia had been critical about the bee sting, Christina assured Raihana that it was a badge of honor. Sylvia Hoffmann also asked questions about the sting and said that she was very impressed with how quickly Raihana was learning Danish and believed it was because of her praktik.

  Wahida wasn't so generous.

  “This is what happens to whores,” she said loudly in Danish. Later she had explained to the class that she hadn't meant to say whore but fallen woman. But the explanation came too late, as many of the students in the class were upset by what Wahida said.r />
  Marika, the girl from Bosnia who sat with Raihana, and Suzi, a dark girl from Mozambique, told Wahida it was insulting to call Raihana a luder.

  “It is my wish,” Wahida responded.

  “Then you are stupid,” Suzi said, rubbing her seven-month-pregnant belly.

  “What shit you talk,” Marika said. “She got stung by a bee and you say she is a luder? You're mad.”

  “She must have done bad thing, that is why bee stung her,” Wahida responded.

  Raihana felt a surge of gratitude for Marika and Suzi. They had always supported her praktik, which they thought was much better than theirs, bottling marinated herrings in the nearby factory in Glyngøre.

  Afghans like Khala Soofia and Wahida made Raihana even more adamant about continuing to work for the Danish man. This stubbornness was new to her. In the past she had easily molded, not caring so much about what was right, only what was easy. Aamir hadn't been like that. He had fought the Taliban the best he could.

  In the early 1990s, at the beginning of the Taliban regime, there had been a sort of relief that there was some law and order in the country, but that quickly turned bitter when the shariah was enforced.

  As bad as life became for many Afghans, Raihana's life, which had revolved around home and family, didn't change much. She had to wear a burkha and Raihana accepted it without protest. There were worse things, she decided. But Aamir had been furious, and he'd started going to underground meetings with his friends who were preparing to fight for democracy and equal rights for women. He had continued to teach science and math against the Taliban laws even after he was arrested for it. He was let out from prison after being beaten and threatened. Raihana had raised bail money by selling his old truck.

  Going to prison had made Aamir angrier, while Raihana grew afraid. She didn't want to fight anyone, she told Aamir. She just wanted to live a quiet life without getting into trouble. She and Aamir argued about his continued underground meetings—and now he was dead for what he had believed in. If she now wore a hi jab and abaya and behaved like a good Afghan girl as the Afghans like Khala Soofia and Wahida wanted her to, Aamir's death would become meaningless.

  When she looked through the eyes of her mind into her heart, she saw hope that Aamir was still alive. She cradled the hope that suddenly he'd be here in Denmark.

  In the evenings when she, Layla, and Kabir watched Hindi movies her eyes filled with tears.

  “Aamir and I saw this on video at a friend's house, with the volume low so that no one would know,” she whispered once.

  She never talked about Aamir, let alone discussed such a trivial part of their lives together. Layla and Kabir waited for her to say more but she didn't.

  “It's a good movie,” Kabir said finally. “So, was Aamir a Raj Kapoor fan too?”

  Raihana nodded. “His favorite movie was Mera Naam joker.” She didn't say anything after that and Layla and Kabir didn't press her.

  “Peter called us and we just had to come,” Maria said, her eyes darting around the house, searching for evidence of that Afghan girl her father-in-law had hired. “This is a stupid idea, you know that don't you?

  Brian, who was six, sternly said, “Don't call Bedstefar stupid.”

  “This has nothing to do with you, go out and play with Johanna,” Maria said.

  “Stop sending them away from me all the time,” Gunnar said, grabbing his grandson in a fireman's lift, which made Brian laugh out loud. “I want to spend time with my grandchildren.”

  “First we have to talk,” Maria called out after Gunnar, but he was already running outside with a hysterically laughing Brian. “Lars, why don't you say something?” Maria asked her husband.

  “What do you want me to say?” Lars asked, walking toward the television to catch a game of soccer, any game of soccer. Lars's way of dealing with his wife and her problems with his father was to watch soccer. It was easier when his mother was alive because she had been the perfect buffer between Maria and his father; but now, as bad as he felt for Gunnar, he couldn't help him. His far would just have to learn to tune Maria out.

  That night after the kids were asleep, Maria started the discussion again while the three of them sat in the living room drinking coffee. The television was turned on but Maria had muted the sound when it became obvious that Gunnar was not going to listen to her unless she made him.

  “You know if you really need help, I can take some vacation for maybe one or two weeks and stay here with you,” Maria suggested. “Brian and Johanna love being here.”

  “Not that you're not welcome, but I'd rather just have the kids here and …” Gunnar fell silent midsentence. He didn't know if he could take care of the kids all by himself. He and Anna always had the kids over for a week in the summer, for long weekends in May, during the potato break in the fall, and any other time that Maria and Lars needed babysitters.

  Brian and Johanna came with them and the bees to the west coast where Gunnar and Anna left colonies every year to make heather honey. Anna would pack a picnic basket and after lunch Gunnar would drive the children to the vast sandy beaches.

  Gunnar loved playing with the kids and reading them stories but he didn't bathe them or brush their teeth or change their diapers or take them to the bathroom or put them to sleep. Anna did that. Now with Anna gone … could he manage the kids on his own? He knew he couldn't. He was barely taking care of himself. And that realization filled him with self-revulsion. He couldn't take care of his grandchildren without her; could anything be more pathetic?

  “Yes, leave Brian and Johanna with me,” he said. He would take care of his grandchildren; he would take care of his grandchildren without Anna.

  Maria ignored Gunnar and looked at Lars sternly, nudging him. “Far, Maria is worried and …,” Lars began, but his heart wasn't in it. He really was not interested in discussing some Afghan woman and what she was doing in his father's house. His father was a grown man and Lars, unlike Maria, didn't believe in interfering in his life.

  “Your friend … what's his name, Jonas, he's married to a foreigner, you don't have a problem with that,” Gunnar said.

  “She's Norwegian, Gunnar,” Maria cried out.

  “Still a foreigner,” Gunnar said. “And I'm not married to this girl. She just comes for a few hours, cleans the garage, helps with the bees. She wired frames for me. And last week she helped while I checked on the bees.”

  “How old is she?” Maria asked, her arms folded across her chest, her tone that of schoolteacher to belligerent student.

  “I don't know,” Gunnar said and then added, “about twenty-two or twenty-three, I really don't know and I don't care.”

  “You know what people think, don't you?” Maria said.

  Gunnar looked at her blankly.

  “The rumor is that something is going on between you two,” Maria said with satisfaction.

  “Maria,” Lars protested. “Nothing is going on between Far and that Afghan girl and no one in their right mind would think that. It's pure nonsense.”

  Gunnar agreed; the notion that he and Raihana were having a relationship was pure nonsense. But Skive was a small city where everyone knew everyone and everyone's business. It had been endearing to Anna, though Gunnar could have done without people finding out the exact day on which they ran out of beer, bought new furniture, installed their satellite, mowed their lawn …

  “Look, Maria, this is not such a big deal, so don't make it one. It is nothing. She barely speaks Danish and can't understand what I say half the time. There is no chance of a relationship,” Gunnar said.

  “Gunnar…,” Maria began and then fell silent when Lars started to talk about the upcoming wedding of Troels, one of Gunnar's nephews.

  And as they talked about Troels and his wedding in Esbjerg, the coastal city in southern Jylland, Gunnar wondered how people could even imagine that he, an old dried-up man, could have anything remotely sexual to do with a girl as young as Raihana. It was disgusting.

  EIGH
T

  ENTRY FROM ANNA'S DIARY

  A Year of Keeping Bees

  10 JUNE 1980

  Today I saw some bees kick out another bee that was trying to enter their hive. I was quite impressed. If a bee doesn't smell like the queen bee, guard bees will not let the bee into the hive. They do this because robber bees are everywhere.

  Robber bees rob. If you are trying to feed a new or weak colony that has other strong colonies nearby, there is a good chance the weak colony will get killed by robber bees that come to loot and pillage if there are no strong guard bees to stop them.

  ”Smager godt?” Raihana asked nervously.

  Gunnar dipped the naan in the spicy lamb curry again and chewed slowly. “It's excellent,” he said with a smile.

  Raihana smiled too. She had been nervous as she packed her lunch with the leftover curry and naan from the night before. She did it in secret so that Layla would not know. Layla left at six in the morning for the supermarket on Tuesdays. It was the only day she worked the morning shift and Raihana had chosen that day to bring food for Gunnar.

  The previous week Raihana had brought the leftover lamb curry with pita bread for lunch to the Danish man's house on a whim. In a rare moment of conversation not about bees, the Danish man had said that he could smell garlic in the kitchen and asked her what she'd had for lunch. Raihana told him it was a lamb dish and he replied that it smelled very interesting. Raihana then decided to bring some Afghan food for him, so that he could taste the interesting smell.

  Usually Raihana made herself a white bread sandwich as she could not eat the popular Danish rye bread, rugbrød. Layla bought chicken and roast beef cold cuts from the supermarket and they made sandwiches for their madpakke, lunch pack. Sometimes they made pita sandwiches with leftover lamb or chicken curry, but only if they didn't have bread and cold cuts in the fridge. The pita sandwiches were messy and Layla thought they should eat like Danes because that would help them integrate into the Danish society faster.