The Sound of Language

by Amulya Malladi

  “Of course you can,” Maria shot back. “If Brian or Johanna behaves poorly it's my fault. I will be to blame.”

  “You and Lars,” Gunnar said.

  “Of course Lars will be to blame as well.”

  “Sometimes I think you think the children are only yours,” Gunnar teased.

  “Sometimes I do,” she replied.

  Anders and his friends were whispering and laughing. People shushed them, but they continued. Finally, when Gunnar could barely hear the ceremony over the noise from the boys, Annette turned to them.

  “Anders, you and your friends can either keep silent or take your show outside the church,” she said. Her voice immediately silenced the boys. “I personally would prefer if you left the church, though I know your parents and your brother will be disappointed. But it's up to you.”

  The boys snickered a little but kept quiet. Marianne and Mogens looked thoroughly embarrassed, as did Anker.

  Once the ceremony ended, Lars drove Maria, Gunnar, and the kids to the reception in a function hall a little way outside Skive.

  There must have been a hundred people there, children, parents, couples with no children, babies, friends, family, and three boys with shaved heads. The boys were drinking a lot of beer. They sat at a table with others but they seemed isolated, talking in loud whispers.

  “That boy needs to be talked to,” Lars said angrily. “Have you seen his tattoo?”

  Søren Gade, a neighbor who was also sitting at Gunnar's table, was disgusted as well. “I don't know when Anders went from being a decent boy to this. How could his parents allow it?”

  “What can Mogens and Marianne do?” Søren's wife, Perniile, said. “Anders got the tattoo last week in Århus. Marianne didn't notice it until yesterday.”

  “Thomas says that no one talks to these boys in school. Thomas and Anders used to be friends, they went to børnehave together, but the kindergarten days are behind us,” Søren said. “These boys are out of control.”

  Marianne came by their table then, her rail-thin body in a white pantsuit and her lips set in a plastic smile. “We will eat soon,” she said. “How are you, Gunnar?” She took Gunnar's right hand into both of hers. “I miss Anna so much.”

  Gunnar nodded. “So do I, every day.”

  The topic at the table turned to bees once Marianne left. The hot topic was a recent and unprecedented theft.

  “How are the bees this season? Did you hear about the bees that were stolen in Esbjerg?” Perniile asked.

  It was the worst kind of scandal. Someone had stolen forty bee colonies over the Easter weekend. It had never happened before. No one stole colonies.

  “Maybe it was just a onetime thing,” Gunnar said.

  But Gunnar knew the beekeeping community was concerned. Only those who were comfortable with bees would be able to steal them, which meant that there was a thief among them.

  Perniile patted Gunnar's hand. “Yes, let's hope it doesn't happen again.”

  · · ·

  The party officially began with a speech from Mogens, who thanked everyone for being there. Then, as was tradition, the band started to play. The lyrics of all the songs that would be sung during the party were placed next to the place cards on the tables. The first was a traditional Danish song and everyone held hands and swayed to the music as they sang.

  Anker's aunt had written a song for him, which Maria confided had actually been bought from an experienced songwriter.

  “They paid an insane amount of money for this and the gifts they got Anker…,” Maria said.

  Annette came by and shook hands with Gunnar and Maria. Annette always found some time to spend with Gunnar during such events.

  “Good you put those boys in their place,” Maria said.

  Annette just smiled.

  Maria waved to an acquaintance, made her excuses, and walked off to speak with a large woman in a gray dress.

  “It breaks my heart that he's behaving like this,” Annette said. “I have seen teenagers do crazy things and move on. I did crazy stuff too, but they seem malicious.”

  “He's just a boy, he'll get over it,” Gunnar said.

  “I have met neo-Nazis,” Annette told him. “Anders is going in the wrong direction.”

  “Nah,” Gunnar said. “It's just a fashion, saying that Hitler was cool…”

  “Maybe,” Annette said. “I have heard a rumor that you have a young Afghan girl helping you with your bees.”

  Gunnar was surprised Annette knew so much. But Skive was a small town and news traveled quickly.

  “Raihana. She has to do a praktik while she goes to the language school and Christina thought it would help her learn Danish faster,” Gunnar explained.

  “That's wonderful,” Annette said.

  “You really think so?” “Yes, absolutely,” Annette said.

  “I'm glad, because not everyone has been this supportive,” Gunnar said.

  “People take time to adjust to new situations,” Annette said.

  The first course was Danish soup, beef or chicken bouillon with small meatballs, dumplings, and bits of carrots, celery, and leeks.

  The main course was pork roast, leg of lamb, roasted potatoes, a green bean dish, a mixed green salad, mint jelly, caramelized new potatoes, pickled cucumbers, and brown sauce. Fresh bread was laid out fancifully on the buffet table.

  As the reception progressed, Gunnar felt bereft without Anna by his side. He hadn't been to a party like this since Anna died. Maria and Lars were mingling with friends and even though people stopped by and spoke to him, he felt lonely.

  He saw Mogens stand by the bar, looking slightly drunk, and Gunnar decided to join him instead of sitting on his own sulking. He got himself a beer at the bar and nodded to Mogens.

  Mogens gestured toward the boys with his half-filled beer bottle. “Did Lars ever run wild?” he asked.

  Gunnar nodded. “There were times when he didn't come home until the next morning. Anna and I would sit up scared shitless.”

  “Now they all have cell phones,” Mogens said. “Still, I can't get in touch with Anders. He got a tattoo. A swastika.”

  Gunnar didn't say anything.

  “He's reading books about Hitler and getting these strange magazines from America,” Mogens said. “German newsletters come in the mail all the time. The boy barely talks to us,” he continued. “Anker asked me if we are the superior race and I asked what nonsense was that and he said Anders told him.”

  Gunnar continued to nurse his beer.

  “I talked to Anders and told him he was wrong and he said ‘fuck off to me,” Mogens said, his eyes filling with tears. “To have your children talk to you like that… what should we do?”

  Gunnar had no idea. Anna would know, he thought. She would be able to give advice. Gunnar almost started to look for her among the guests, but Anna wasn't there.

  “What the hell should I do, Gunnar?” Mogens asked again, staring at his son.

  “You should get him away from those boys,” Gunnar found himself saying. He never had an opinion, never shared his thoughts, but here he was handing out parental advice. Anna raised the kids; he had just been a spectator. What the hell did he know?

  “Where will he go?” Mogens demanded.

  “Anywhere. Don't you have a brother in Canada? Send him there for a while,” Gunnar said.

  “Maybe for the summer that would be best. If he's here with them all day every day, he is going to end up wasting his life,” Mogens said, appearing to really like the idea.

  “Sounds good,” Gunnar said.

  “I'll talk to my brother,” Mogens said. “Yeah, that's what we'll do. That's a good idea, Gunnar.”

  Gunnar was relieved that Mogens hadn't laughed at his suggestion.

  Once dessert was served —rhubarb and apple pies with fresh cream as well as chocolate cakes and petits fours—the party started to get livelier. The band was playing traditional Danish party music and the dance floor was full. But the three ba
ld boys sat with beers in their hands, their sneaker-shod feet on the table, staining the white tablecloth.

  Still feeling triumphant, Gunnar decided to talk to the boys. It was really none of his business and he wasn't the type to get involved but maybe he could help these boys. They were just sixteen; they just needed some firm conversation.

  “Hello, Anders,” Gunnar said and Anders looked up at Gunnar.

  He nodded at him before remembering his friends and rolling his eyes to show that he wasn't really acknowledging this grown-up.

  “How are you?” Gunnar asked.

  “Fine,” Anders said.

  “Looking forward to summer holidays?”

  “Sure, whatever,” Anders said, turning away.

  Gunnar felt foolish trying to talk to these boys. It was humiliating that he had thought he somehow could make a difference, change the boys, like he was some hotshot.

  Gunnar, slowly, went back to his table.

  “What were you talking to them about?” Maria asked as he sat down.

  Brian was sleeping on her lap while Johanna had curled up on a bench next to them, covered with a blanket.

  “Nothing,” Gunnar said sheepishly. He shouldn't have gone and talked to them. What was he thinking?

  “Marianne regrets making Anders come,” Maria whispered. “The boys have done nothing but make noise and drink.”

  Gunnar zoned her out. He was tired of talking about Anders and his friends. Anders was Mogens and Marianne's problem, not his, and he didn't want to be dragged into it anymore.

  He sat quietly and wished he could curl up on the bench like Johanna and go to sleep.

  TWELVE

  ENTRY FROM ANNA'S DIARY

  A Year of Keeping Bees

  10 JULY 1980

  Honeybees have been known to fly over fourteen kilometers from their nests in search of pollen and nectar. It's amazing how much territory they must cover to fill our jars with honey. The work of a bee is physically strenuous and dangerous. Leaving the safety of the honeybee nest is risky for the forager bees that collect nectar and pollen. Wind currents and raindrops can blow the little bees off course. Birds, lizards, robber flies, and spiders can prey on the hapless forager bee. Most forager bees leave their nest four to eight times a day. What brave little bees!

  They didn't bother her, not much, but Raihana knew they were there. They spoke loudly whenever Raihana bicycled by them and she felt they were yelling at her.

  There were three boys, all with their heads shaved, probably fifteen or sixteen years old. They lived on the street before Gunnar's and sat on the cement bench on the curb smoking cigarettes and drinking beer.

  They never came near her but the boys made her uncomfortable. She knew boys like these, had seen their cockiness, the hard glint in their eyes. Just because these boys were white didn't mean they were any different from the many young men she had seen in Afghanistan wearing bandoliers across their chests, carrying Kalashnikovs in their hands and hatred in their hearts.

  She always bicycled a little faster by the Danish boys.

  With every passing day Raihana found she could speak with Gunnar even more. The other day she had told him about the wedding she had attended in Viborg but didn't mention anything about Rafeeq. She hadn't seen him since the wedding. It would have been nice to confide in Gunnar about her worries for the future to ask if he thought she should get married and stop clambering to hope that Aamir was alive? But they weren't that close yet.

  A part of her wanted to not marry, to have a job and live alone, like so many Danish women did. Another part of her knew that wasn't possible—Afghan women had husbands and children. And she did want to marry and have children, didn't she?

  None of the Afghans would understand her dilemma; they would just say that she should get married and get on with her life. Who could she talk to besides Afghans? She couldn't talk to Christina. They only talked about Danish, the bees and Anna's leather-bound black book, and verbs and tenses. They didn't talk about personal things.

  “Can I work as a beekeeper?” Raihana asked Gunnar as they sat outside in the backyard one afternoon. It was a sunny day and like most Danes, Gunnar wanted to soak in as much of it as he could.

  “Most beekeepers are like me, hobby beekeepers,” he said. “But there are professional beekeepers as well. Do you want to work with bees?”

  “That is what I know.”

  “What did you do in Afghanistan?” Gunnar asked.

  “Nothing,” Raihana said quietly. Nothing at all. She stayed home and she had liked it. Now she couldn't imagine staying at home and just taking care of a house and a husband. Even Layla couldn't imagine it anymore. In the beginning Layla had complained that she had to work in this country, now she appreciated it. Raihana liked leaving the house. She looked forward to getting a real job and earning a real living. She looked forward to that very much.

  “Did you have an okay life there?” Gunnar asked.

  Raihana didn't know what to say. “Okay,” she replied after a moment.

  It had been an okay life. Maybe at times it was not so okay, especially at the end, but others had gone through much worse. She had met a woman at the refugee camp who was raped by several men and now her family refused to accept her. She had met little children with missing limbs and men dying of gangrene. She had seen humanity stripped away by soulless men. She had seen families abandon their so-called loved ones in the name of the Koran. Compared with those people, her life had turned out okay.

  “Was it difficult to live under the Taliban?”

  Raihana rose from her chair. “More for my husband than me.”

  Gunnar didn't ask any more questions about Afghanistan, which Raihana liked. She didn't like talking about those days. She didn't even like to think about them. When Kabir talked about Afghanistan, he invariably talked only about the good times. He had erased his memories of the Taliban, the executions in the football stadiums, the relentless fear. He didn't talk about friends who had been taken to prison and released months later with a part of their spirit missing if not parts of their body. He didn't talk about loved ones who were killed.

  But Raihana's memory didn't work like that. Raihana remembered and remembered well. Kabir could talk about the good times back home, but Raihana knew that now the good times would have to be here, in this white country with its strange language and people. Though not everyone was strange. She had started to like Gunnar, understand him. He was not Afghan and he didn't seem to be interested in prying into her personal matters.

  “The first harvest will be next week,” Gunnar said. “We will make honey next week.”

  “Will we use machine in room to get honey?” Raihana asked, glad that he had stopped talking about the Taliban.

  “Yes,” Gunnar said. “You should take some home with you for the family you live with.”

  “Do bees get angry when we take honey?” Raihana asked.

  “Yes,” Gunnar said.

  They were silent for a while and then Gunnar asked her something he had been thinking about. “What do you do when you are not in language school or here?”

  Raihana gave him a blank look, which meant that she had not quite understood him.

  “Hvad laver du när du ikke er her eller I sprogskolen?” Gunnar tried again, slowly this time.

  She got it the second time. It was a strange question. “I see movies with Layla,” she said off the top of her head.

  “What movies?”

  “Hindi movies from India,” Raihana said and then grinned. “Songs and dancing is in the movies.”

  “How do you get them here in Denmark?” Gunnar asked.

  She told him that Kabir got the movies for them from Hamburg and even from the Skive library.

  “Bibliotek?” Gunnar asked, surprised.

  “Yes, the library,” Raihana said. “The movies … they come with Danish words… Danish translation.”

  “Danish subtitles,” Gunnar said.

  “Ja, Dansk undert
ekst,” Raihana repeated.

  “I would like to see a movie with song and dance in it,” Gunnar said.

  Raihana smiled. “You will?”

  When Gunnar nodded she seemed excited. “I bring a video … for movie?”

  They agreed that the next week she would bring one of her favorite Hindi movies. Gunnar wasn't sure if they were going to watch the movie together or if she intended for him to watch it alone but it was too much trouble to get his confusion across in Danish, so he decided to just wait and see.

  Layla didn't think that the Danish man would like a Hindi movie. Not everyone could appreciate the dialogue, the nuances, the acting, the songs, and the dancing. Whenever they tried to watch an English movie, Layla didn't particularly like it and believed if the Danish man watched those kinds of movies he wouldn't like a good Hindi film.

  Kabir didn't think Raihana should be getting so friendly with the Danish man, and didn't care much if he liked Hindi movies or not. “Are you going to watch the movie with him?” he asked.

  Raihana didn't know. Gunnar hadn't said anything and she wondered if maybe he wanted to watch the movie alone.

  “Do you think Rafeeq will mind?” Layla asked suddenly.

  “What has any of this got to do with Rafeeq?” Raihana asked. Rafeeq wasn't her husband yet. He wasn't her fiancé yet. Rafeeq had no demands upon her. She had only met him once.

  “He is a prospect and … don't get all upset,” Layla said.

  Since the wedding in Viborg, both Kabir and Layla had made veiled insinuations that Rafeeq was somehow part of her life. The man seemed nice enough. He was almost a Danish citizen and made a decent salary. She would be financially comfortable with him. And if this was Afghanistan, Raihana knew she wouldn't even have a choice. She would have to marry the man placed in front of her. But she was not in Afghanistan, she was in Denmark, and here she could say no to the man placed in front of her, if she wished.

  Thankfully, Kabir was not like other Afghan men. He had not asked Raihana to do as he wished. Instead he had told her that she could stay in his house for as long as she wanted and should marry Rafeeq or anyone else only if she wanted to. He always treated her with respect.