The Sound of Language

by Amulya Malladi

  They went through ten of the colonies on the morning that Raihana packed lunch for herself and Gunnar. They added new frames and new boxes for colonies to grow. They cleaned up the dead bees from the base of the colonies. And they checked all the colonies for new larvae and diseases. All the colonies were doing well, except one where the bees were not producing much brood.

  When they decided to break for lunch, Raihana asked the Danish man if he would like to eat some Afghan food. He seemed surprised, but he agreed. Raihana was surprised herself that she'd had the courage to ask. Layla had told her that Danes weren't interested in the Afghan culture, their food, or their lives. Danes just wanted the foreigners to learn Danish, find jobs, and stop taking money from their government. But the Danish man had taught her so much and Raihana wanted to give something back.

  “We have drink with honey,” she said and opened her Thermos. “It is called shumlay.”

  “Shumlay,” Gunnar said, rolling the word around his mouth.

  Shumlay was a traditional drink Pashtuns made. Raihana hadn't drunk it in a long time. But it seemed like the perfect drink for the Danish man because it was made with honey.

  Raihana mixed a glass for him with the yogurt mixture she got from home, some ice cubes, and the liquid acacia honey.

  “Try,” she said, excited.

  He didn't seem so sure. He sniffed and then looked uncomfortable. “What's in it?” he asked.

  “Green chiles, coriander, cumin, and …,” Raihana said nervously.

  He looked even more nervous than she.

  “And honey,” Raihana added hopefully.

  He sniffed the shumlay again and took a tentative sip. He nodded appreciatively and then drank some more.

  “Excellent,” he said and poured a second glass.

  “We will make it with our honey after the first harvest,” Gunnar said.

  In the four months since she started Danish classes, Raihana's Danish had gotten better. She comprehended more and more, and the language didn't seem as distant now.

  Layla said she was envious of how quickly Raihana was picking up Danish. Raihana wasn't sure what there was to envy. She had passed her module 2 exam just the week before. The exam hadn't been hard, but she had spent all her evenings poring through grammar books, checking and rechecking words with her Danish-to-Dari dictionary. She hadn't told the Danish man about the exam. But she told him after she passed. He congratulated her but Raihana could see that he didn't understand the achievement, not really.

  Christina was full of praise and so was Sylvia Hoffmann. They were both convinced that it was Raihana's unorthodox praktik that had taught her Danish so quickly. For Raihana, passing the exam meant she was more comfortable with the language.

  Still, she wasn't comfortable speaking in Danish beyond the confines of the language school and the praktik. In the supermarket she still stuttered, stammered, and sometimes ended up gesticulating to explain.

  As her fear of Danish subsided, so did her fear of bees. Getting stung had made her less afraid instead of more. It had hurt but not too much and not for that long.

  She continued to wear a protective suit as she and Gunnar worked with the bees. But now there was a new fear, the anxiety of being watched. Every time she and the Danish man worked in the backyard Raihana could feel the eyes of the neighborhood on them. Cars slowed down on the street when she sat in the garage and people peered into the Danish man's garden to catch a glimpse of her.

  Some of the neighbors came to visit the Danish man while she was there. She usually stayed in the garage then, away from their curiosity. But sometimes she got caught and her heart all but leaped out of her chest. She felt she was on display, as if she were doing something wrong. A part of her wondered if the other Afghans were right, if it was somehow wrong for her to be here with a strange man in his house. But she was having fun; for the first time in a very long time she was excited about something and despite the doubts she found herself willing to take the risk, to come to the Danish man and his bees.

  “Gunnar, how are you doing?” one of the neighbors, a portly woman who wore unflattering black shorts and a red tank top, called out while Raihana and Gunnar worked in the backyard one day.

  It was unusually hot for late April. For Raihana, the sun and summer held another promise, the promise of honey. The Danish man had said that soon they would harvest and Raihana could hardly wait. She loved to read about harvesting in the black leather notebook, of which she understood more and more now.

  “Good, good, Ulla,” he said, looking up at her, but Raihana could see he was irritated.

  “So, we should reserve our jars of honey now,” Ulla said.

  “Sure, sure, always honey for you,” the Danish man said casually. He looked uncomfortable when she crossed her yard into his.

  She stood by the table they used to place supplies, both her hands behind her back as if she were doing an inspection.

  Raihana didn't like her. She looked mean. The skin on her face wobbled while she talked and she stared at Raihana even when she spoke to the Danish man. Raihana hated the perusal of her face and clothes. She hated that this woman could just openly watch Raihana, accusations written on her face.

  “So, do you know everything about bees now?” Ulla asked.

  Raihana took a deep breath, not wanting to panic. What if she couldn't answer? Could this woman file a report at the Integration Centre saying that Raihana had not learned any Danish or anything about bees? Would they throw her out of the country and send her back to Afghanistan because she couldn't answer this woman?

  Her mind raced with images of being told by Sylvia Hoffmann that she wouldn't be allowed to attend class anymore, of being told that she had to leave Denmark and …

  “She knows,” Gunnar said.

  The woman kept waiting for Raihana to speak but Raihana's throat was closed up and the Danish words refused to come out.

  “Jeg ved nok,” she finally managed to say. “I know enough,” she repeated and added, “enough to help.”

  “Ah,” the woman said, clearly not impressed, and then started talking to Gunnar again. She spoke fast and even if she hadn't Raihana would have had trouble understanding. She couldn't hear past the anxiety pulsing inside her.

  Propelled by a need to prove her knowledge of beekeeping, Raihana did something she had never done by herself. She walked over to one of the boxes and started checking the frames. She wanted to ask the Danish man if the colony needed more room, but she didn't want to stop and ask and maybe even sound foolish to the woman. So she looked through the frames again.

  Three were full of brood, which was good. It meant the colony was growing. She walked up purposefully to the table where the woman and the Danish man were standing to get three empty frames.

  She added the frames to the box and then looked for the queen bee as he had taught her to do. She placed the queen bee excluder on top of the frames, closed the box, and secured the lid with a metal clip.

  Then she stepped away from the colony to admire her handiwork. Just for a moment she was so caught up in what she was doing she had forgotten about the woman and the Danish man. They were both watching her. The woman was looking at her and the Danish man was smiling.

  He didn't say that she had done a good job until the woman left. He understood, Raihana thought, he understood that she needed that woman to think that she worked like this with the bees all the time, that she knew what she was doing.

  Christina had never liked Maria. She hadn't understood how Anna could stand her, this woman Lars had made the mistake of marrying. She reeked of gossip and malicious curiosity.

  Lars had been such a wonderful boy and then she had sunk her claws in and he would never been the same again. He seemed more distant than ever and spent all his time in front of the television or with the kids.

  But Anna had seemed to love Maria. She told Christina that she loved Maria because Lars loved her and that was enough for Anna. She then confessed that she had ne
ver felt that Julie was her daughter—Julie had always been more Gunnar's than hers—but Lars, he had been hers. And even if he'd married the fattest, ugliest, and rudest woman in the world, Anna would love Lars's wife. To push Lars's wife away was the same as pushing him away and that she wouldn't do.

  Christina knew why Maria had shown up at Christina and Ole's house on Sunday afternoon with a frail-looking Shell gas station flowerpot. Christina and Maria sat in the garden by the greenhouse while Ole worked on their vast herb garden.

  How Maria felt about immigrants was not a secret. During various parties she and Maria had carried on heated discussions about foreigners, especially refugees, in Denmark. Maria thought they should all be thrown out, while Christina believed that the homogeneous Danish society needed foreigners and their knowledge, skills, and perspective to grow as a culture. The time for holding on to one people, one nation was long past. The world was becoming smaller and in a country the size of Denmark where interaction with other countries was vital to sustain the economy, there simply was no choice.

  But Maria was one of those people who had voted against Denmark even joining the EU and was adamant about not joining the euro countries either. She thought that if Denmark started using the euro it would allow stronger countries like France and Germany to dictate Denmark's economic policy. And Danes would lose their excellent social welfare system.

  Maria didn't like Christina or her job, so it wasn't surprising to Christina that Maria definitely did not like the fact that Christina had convinced Gunnar to hire an Afghan refugee.

  The conversation started out innocuously enough, with both of them drinking coffee and snacking on homemade butter cookies. But soon enough Maria told Christina that she didn't approve of the Afghan girl working in Gunnar's house.

  “We don't know anything about their kind of people,” Maria said sweetly enough as Christina lit a cigarette. “I mean, I won't feel comfortable leaving my children there if she's there.”

  “She's there for only a few hours three days a week,” Christina said blowing out tiny smoke rings. “She's helping Gunnar and he's helping her. She's learning Danish very quickly.”

  “But why should Gunnar help her learn Danish? Isn't that your job?” Maria asked, the sweetness leaving her voice.

  “It's the society's job,” Christina said. “Look, Maria, until she came he was just sitting at home drinking and smoking and living in filth. Now he's working with the bees. He's not mourning Anna the same way as he was.”

  “So now that she's there he's not going to miss Anna?” Maria asked. “Why, what is she doing for him? Or should I ask what is she doing with him?”

  Christina crushed her half-smoked cigarette. “She's a young and innocent woman who has been through hell worse than you and I can imagine. She deserves our compassion and our help, not innuendo like this.”

  “It's not me, it's everyone who is talking,” Maria said, undaunted. “I spoke to fat Ulla who lives next door and she thinks something is going on. The Afghan girl spends a lot of time inside the house with Gunnar.”

  “So what?” Christina said, though she was nervous about Raihana spending time inside Gunnar's house. This could cause problems, not just for Gunnar but for Raihana. If the Afghan community found out they would be furious. Christina knew from the whispers at school that there was already pressure for Raihana to wear a hi jab and abaya and find another praktik. But whenever Christina asked Raihana how it was going, she always replied it was good and asked for more help in reading Anna's bee journal. Christina was amazed that Gunnar had let her keep it, but also pleased that he had.

  “So what? What does she do inside? Gunnar says that she cleans but… I don't like it,” Maria said.

  “You don't have to like it,” Christina said. “As long as Gunnar and Raihana have no problem with their arrangement, it's none of your business or mine.”

  “If Anna was there she would never allow it,” Maria said bitterly.

  “Anna would be happy to help someone in need,” Christina said. For all her flaws, Anna had not been spiteful. She had a big heart.

  “Anna always thought you were a little crazy to help these people,” Maria said. “She told me she thought you were being foolish letting immigrants inside your home.”

  Christina felt a chill run through her. “Anna respected my work.”

  Maria laughed scornfully. “No, she didn't. She thought that only Danes should live in Denmark. I knew her better than you did.”

  Christina sighed. It could be true, couldn't it? But how could Anna have hidden that for the past fifteen years? No, Christina thought, she would not let Maria poison her memories of Anna.

  “It doesn't matter what Anna would have thought, Maria. Anna is dead,” Christina said.

  NINE

  ENTRY FROM ANNA'S DIARY

  A Year of Keeping Bees

  16 JUNE 1980

  The bees know when they need a new queen. The old queen gets ready to die and a new queen takes her place.

  A new queen bee is being made in one of my colonies. It is remarkable to watch. The worker bees feed a batch of larvae royal jelly, and then they pick the larva that will become queen bee and continue to feed that one royal jelly. The one that gets royal jelly becomes the queen bee. It seems almost democratic.

  Royal jelly is secreted by the heads of young workers and used to feed the baby bees until they develop to the desired rank. If a queen is needed, the larva receives only royal jelly as its food source, so that she becomes sexually mature and has the fully developed ovaries needed to lay more eggs for the hive.

  We have a new queen in one of Gunnar's colonies. Usually queens are easy to spot, but this time we couldn't find her easily. After smoking the bees and frantic searching, we found her. Gunnar pulled her out and put her in a small container. I painted the bee's back yellow as this is a queen from 1980 while Gunnar added a new frame to the colony.

  Some beekeepers name their queen bees; Gunnar and I decided not to. You get too attached and then when they die you feel bad. I am averse to getting too attached, especially to animals. A long time ago we had a dog and after the dog died we never got another one. With bees it is easier as there are so many of them and they usually live just six weeks. The queens are special though and live longer, so I do my best to keep an emotional distance from them.

  Raihana didn't want to go to the party. She was worried there would be Afghans who knew about her praktik, who disapproved of it and would be rude to her. Layla thought she was being foolish and self-conscious.

  Layla and Kabir had done nothing but talk about the wedding in the city of Viborg for days. One of the Afghan families there was spending a lot of money to marry off their son.

  Kabir knew the father of the groom, Elias, because they drove together to Hamburg to buy Afghan spices, Indian movies, and CDs. Layla didn't like Elias's wife, Najeeba, much because she acted too high and mighty.

  “Her husband has his own kiosk and she behaves as if he owns the world. Makes hot dogs for people, touches all that pig's meat and we are supposed to think he is so great,” Layla said as she cleaned Shahrukh's nose for the fifteenth time since they had gotten into the car. She and Shahrukh were sitting in the back while Raihana sat in the front with Kabir, half turned so that she could talk to Layla.

  “You behave yourself there, Shahrukh,” Layla said to her son and then turned to Raihana. “One engagement party last year Najeeba tells me that Shahrukh seems too badly behaved. He was ten months old; he cried a little. What, her children didn't cry when they were little?”

  “Elias is a good chap,” Kabir said. “Just like me, eats and drinks and makes merry.”

  “Just like you he's not a good Musalman,” Layla said, but there was no heat in her words.

  For the occasion Layla wore her prettiest hi jab. The scarf and abaya were midnight blue embroidered with golden thread. Underneath the abaya she wore a red- and-yellow salwar-kameez. She had insisted that Raihana dress up as well.
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br />   “Widow or not you have to dress well. Our reputation is at stake,” Layla had said when Raihana told her she was worried what people would think if she wore something flashy. Finally she had relented and borrowed Layla's maroon-and-silver salwar-kameez with a shiny silver dupatta that had maroon tassels.

  “A good friend of mine will be there too,” Kabir said.

  “Who is he?” Raihana asked as Layla hummed, something she did when she was nervous.

  “A friend,” Kabir said. “He is this close to getting citizenship … any day now,” he added, putting his thumb and forefinger together.

  “He works in a factory on Mors,” Layla said.

  “Mors is close to Skive, just twenty minutes,” Kabir said. “It's an island. But you don't need to take a ferry because there is a bridge.”

  “He works for a factory that manufactures stoves, cast-iron stoves,” Layla continued. “He earns good money.”

  “Almost twenty thousand kroner a month,” Kabir said. “He has a wife in Pakistan, in Karachi. She lives there with her parents. He has two children and they live with their mother.”

  Raihana nodded as understanding dawned. They were trying to find her a husband. “How old is he?” she asked quietly.

  “Just thirty-eight,” Kabir said. “A little older than me.”

  “And he wants to marry again?” Raihana asked.

  Layla cleared her throat. “It would be a good match.”

  Raihana stared out the window at the Danish countryside pass by. She slowly turned back to face her hosts. “I can't marry anyone,” she told them. “I… I am not sure if Aamir is dead and … I…”

  “What do you mean you're not sure?” Layla asked.

  “I … I …,” Raihana stammered. “I can't marry anyone,” she finally said. “Please, I just can't.”

  “I can find out if he's still alive in Afghanistan,” Kabir said, his tone clear that he didn't think Aamir was alive.

  Raihana wanted to say that she didn't want to know, that as long as she didn't know she could pretend he was still alive.