Kabir looked as if he wanted to say something, but he decided against it and drove away.
The fragile friendship that Raihana and Gunnar had established in the past few months seemed to have dissipated. Gunnar was acutely aware of being white, a Dane, like the boys who had hurt Raihana.
They went inside the house and Raihana put her lunch box in the fridge before going to the garage.
Gunnar followed her and pointed toward the honey extractor. “This is what brings the honey out of the honeycombs,” he said.
He showed her how to put the frames filled with honey into the honey extractor. He then pressed a button, which started the extractor; the frames rotated within the machine and honey oozed out, coming out of a nozzle at the bottom of the machine.
They made five buckets of honey from the frames they had collected from the colonies the day before.
“We stir the honey, that makes it creamy and light,” he explained. He wasn't sure if she understood. Usually she asked questions, but for the first time she was completely silent.
Christina carne to visit while Raihana was at Gunnar's house. She had just found out about what had happened.
Gunnar was relieved to see Christina. He was having a difficult time speaking with Raihana. She seemed to have lost her exuberance and it was such a shame. After all that she had seen in her home country, she had lost her laughter here, in his country where she was supposed to be safe.
“I am scared,” Raihana confessed to Christina when they sat alone on Gunnar's veranda. “This not happen here.”
“No,” Christina nodded. “But things like this happen everywhere.”
Christina always spoke slowly and clearly; Raihana liked that about her.
“I can't tell you how I feel,” Raihana said suddenly. “I don't have enough Danish.”
Christina smiled. “You will.”
“Kabir wants me to stop coming here,” Raihana told Christina.
“I know,” she said. “He talked to me today at the school. I told him that this could happen anywhere —it didn't happen to you because you come to Gunnar's house.”
“It happened because I'm Afghan,” Raihana said.
“No, it happened because those boys are foolish,” Christina said.
Gunnar set coffee cups and a pot of coffee on the table in the veranda. Their outdoor furniture was beautiful, made of teak, in traditional Danish style. Gunnar had not wanted to spend a lot of money but Anna was adamant they buy Trip Trap, the most expensive outdoor furniture. They had lived with white plastic chairs and tables for many, many years, saving up to buy the teak wooden ones. They finally had bought a set three years before Anna died.
It was nice wooden furniture but Gunnar had seen similar ones in Bilka that cost a quarter of what these had. But Anna had been stubborn. Every time Gunnar sat on the chairs now, he smiled, a part of him less wounded by Anna's loss.
Gunnar joined them for coffee at Christina's insistence.
“When the honey is ready, you should take some jars home with you,” Gunnar said because he didn't know what else to say. Honey was safe. “The honey is really yours too.”
Raihana smiled shyly.
She looked so forlorn that Gunnar said, “Don't worry about those boys anymore,” even though he had promised himself that he would try and keep her mind off the incident. But as they sat under Anna's green parasol, on her Trip Trap furniture where Gunnar could clearly see Raihana's bruises and the fear in her eyes, he realized how ridiculous it was. Of course he would have to talk about the incident. He couldn't just wish it away.
“Are Maria and the kids coming for the heather honey week?” Christina asked.
“Yes,” Gunnar said, “I think so. She hasn't said they aren't.”
Christina looked at Raihana. “Every year Gunnar and his wife took some of the colonies to the west coast and left them there to make heather honey.”
Raihana seemed to take some time to understand what Christina said.
Gunnar cleared his throat. “We go to the beach where heather grows, and we leave some colonies there, so the bees can make honey from the heather.”
“I read it in your wife's book,” she said. “Put bees near bushes and they only take heather nectar. I read it.”
“Yes, yes,” Christina said. “Gunnar's daughter-in-law, Maria?”
“Yes,” Raihana said and then added, “I meet her.” She didn't add that she didn't like Maria, and Maria didn't like her.
“She comes with her children and they go to the beach for a day to leave the bees,” Christina said.
“How long you bees leave there?” Raihana asked.
“About four to six weeks and we have made very good honey,” Gunnar said.
“Maybe you, Kabir, and Layla would like to join Gunnar and his family,” Christina said, smiling at Gunnar.
If Gunnar was surprised it didn't show. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Fine idea, Christina.”
Raihana understood what Christina had said but wondered if she had been mistaken.
“It'll be after the school closes,” Christina said. “You should go; Layla and Kabir will like it very much. Their son can play with Maria's kids.”
No, Raihana thought, she had not misunderstood. Christina wanted Raihana, Layla, Kabir, and Shahrukh to meet with Gunnar and his family. Like they were friends?
Raihana's first instinct was to refuse. Kabir would never agree and neither would Layla.
“It'll be fun,” Gunnar said. “I can meet your family and you can meet my son, Lars.”
Raihana bit her tongue. Gunnar seemed so excited about the prospect that she didn't have the heart to say no, not right away. She would later on, she thought. She would not ask Layla and Kabir, there was no point—she knew their answer.
“No rush,” Gunnar said. “We go in two weeks.”
At around four o'clock Kabir came and picked up Raihana. He didn't wait for her to call but just drove up to Gunnar's house. He spoke to Christina for a few minutes, said a quick hello to Gunnar, and then hustled Raihana into the car.
“I think you shouldn't come here during the summer holidays. We'll find you another praktik,” Kabir said. “I don't like that man.”
“Why?” Raihana asked.
“He seems like one of those frauds. One thing on the outside and another on the inside,” Kabir said.
“What does that mean?” Raihana asked, feeling defensive.
“He says he'll take those boys to the police but he really won't; it's all talk,” Kabir said.
“No, it isn't,” Raihana protested. “He's going to the police.”
“Whatever,” Kabir said. “These people, they think we should only clean their houses and supermarkets, that we aren't good for anything else.”
“That's not true,” Raihana said.
“Why do you defend him? He makes you clean things in his house, doesn't he? Don't you wash his clothes and dishes and clean floors?” Kabir demanded, driving faster.
“I do it because I want to,” Raihana said. “And he doesn't think I'm a servant.”
“Why? Because he saw a movie with you? And ate samboosas with you?” Kabir asked.
Raihana sighed. “No, because he is kind and talks to me with respect. Because he invites you and Layla and Shahrukh and me to come with him and his family to his summer house by the beach in July.”
Kabir didn't say anything for a moment. “He was just being polite; he is the type who will say anything to sound like a nice — ”
“No,” Raihana interrupted. “How can you be so bitter about these people? You live here, Kabir, in this country and — ”
“What? You think they want us here? They hate us. See what they did to you? Why don't you get it? They don't want us here.” Kabir was all but yelling as he pulled into the narrow driveway between the house and the garden hedge.
“Then why do you want to live here? Why do you want to stay here?” Raihana asked.
“Because I can't go back home, because I
am a refugee and no one wants me,” Kabir said, his eyes bright with tears.
Raihana took a deep breath. “We are creatures of desperate times; you feel you have nowhere to go and I feel I have no future, no further life. I have to marry or … there is no option for me. And now this. I don't know what to do. But, Kabir, that is not the fault of all the people here. This country has been good to us.”
“But what about the people who don't want us here? What about those boys who threw stones at you? What about them?”
Raihana put her hand on Kabir's. “Not all of them are like those boys. Not all of them want to hurt us. You keep saying that the people here judge you because you are Muslim; because of the acts of a few terrorists, the entire following of Islam is now suspect, isn't that what you say? And you're doing the same thing, judging all Danes by the acts of those three boys.”
Kabir let go of the steering wheel. “I know, I know, not all Danes want us dead …”
“Gunnar is a decent man,” Raihana said.
“He really invited us to go to the beach with his family?”
“Yes,” Raihana said and smiled. “They make heather honey there.”
“Heather honey?”
“I'll tell you and Layla all about it,” Raihana said. “I read about it in that leather notebook that Gunnar's wife wrote in. Her name was Anna.”
The last day of language school was sunny. Just the day before it had rained with thunder and lightning, but as it was with summer rain, the clouds vanished into thin air and the sky looked like it had never seen a dark cloud before.
Christina was taking the class to Mønsted to celebrate the last day of school. The Mønsted limestone caves were supposed to be beautiful and the temperature inside was quite low, so everyone was advised to dress for winter.
It was a half-hour drive from the school, and after the trip to Mønsted, Christina was taking all of them to her house for lunch.
As soon as they walked inside the large entrance the chill seeped through.
“Very beautiful,” Suzi said as they leaned over a small pool of water and saw the reflection of the limestone formations on the other side lit up with hidden lightbulbs.
“I've come here four times before,” Olena complained. “Every time my relatives come to visit us from Kiev we bring them here. I know that show by heart.”
They walked into crevices and on strange paths, got stuck at one place because one of the girls, Noor from Iran, was six months’ pregnant and couldn't go up and down as easily as the others.
Raihana found a quiet place by the theater and stared at the still waters in front of her. The limestone caves were hundreds of years old and had in the past been used to mine limestone to build churches. Raihana could smell the faint odor of cheese.
“It smells funny here,” Raihana said to Olena, who came and sat next to her.
“They make cheese here; the temperature and moisture is supposed to be good for the cheese,” Olena said. “And it stinks because of it.”
Raihana didn't like Danish cheese. She had tasted blue cheese once when they had samples on top of rye bread at the supermarket. Layla had warned her against it but she was so curious she couldn't stop herself.
“The blue part is fungus,” Layla told her afterward and Raihana had felt like throwing up.
But Raihana liked the soft feta she and Layla often used in salads. It didn't smell like the inside of the limestone caves and wasn't bitter.
Raihana's and Olena's reflection were still in the water and Raihana could see the bruises on her face. The bruises might have been uncomfortable but they saved her from giving an answer to Rafeeq before he left for Pakistan. No one would press her into saying yes or no to marriage while she was recovering from the attack. But he would be back in three weeks and she would have to give an answer then.
“Pretty, isn't it?” Olena said, looking at their reflection.
“Yes,” Raihana said.
“Do your wounds still hurt?” Olena asked.
“No,” Raihana said. “But I know they are there.”
“Yes,” Olena said and nodded. “That's the scary part, isn't it?”
They didn't say anything for a while.
“Sometimes I wish I had stayed back in Afghanistan. I don't feel safer here anymore—and at least in Kabul I was prepared for the violence,” Raihana said.
“My parents live in fear all the time,” Olena said. “They had safety and security during the terrible communism days. They knew they would always have a job. But since democracy has come to Ukraine, nothing is for sure.”
Olena's Danish was at about the same level as Raihana's and they managed to communicate quite well.
“They want things to go back to the way they were, so that they can be safe again,” Olena continued. “But those were horrible times. We had no freedom to do what we wanted. We couldn't get the education we wanted. We couldn't go on vacation where we felt like. But they want those days back—because they don't want change. No matter the insecurities, I don't want to go back.”
“You're right, in Denmark things will never be as bad as Afghanistan,” Raihana said.
Olena nodded. “No, never that bad.”
They all agreed Christina's house, a refurbished farmhouse, was gorgeous, but the large garden was truly stunning. There was even a fountain and flowers of all kinds, roses in all colors. The vegetable garden was rich with peas, lettuce, sunflowers, and pumpkins. There was a greenhouse where chiles, tomatoes, and other vines grew. Two metal chairs and a table, painted in white, were in the greenhouse and Raihana imagined it would be nice to sit there on a sunny winter day, soaking in the warmth without being stung by the bitter cold.
Christina also had a huge herb garden with several types of mint, coriander, sage, rosemary, citron melisse, and some other herbs that Raihana had never heard of.
“It isn't easy but it's very satisfying,” Christina said when Olena asked how they managed to do all the work in the garden. “We work together but he is the botanist, not me.”
A husband did help. Raihana wondered what Rafeeq would say if she told him that she wanted to travel and have a pretty house, that these things were important to her. Would he care? Was he even supposed to? Shouldn't she just be happy someone wanted to marry her? The house was decorated with things from all over the world. Christina and her husband liked to travel and they had masks from Africa, dolls from Russia, carpets from Turkey. Raihana wished she could have Christina's life. She wished she could travel and have a house like this. She wished she could have a garden so bright and beautiful.
They had lunch on the terrace. Christina served bread with roast beef, chicken, and smoked salmon, as well as some cheese she'd picked up from Mønsted. They drank strawberry juice and talked about their plans for the summer holidays. Olena was going to Venice in Italy. She told them that she had always wanted to go there and since she and her husband had not had a real honeymoon when they married last year, this was their honeymoon. Christina was going to France, some place called Provence, where she and her husband had rented a villa with some friends.
It sounded very strange and very exotic. Raihana knew no one in France and she had no idea what Provence was. She didn't know how to garden. She knew nothing about the life Christina had. If she married Rafeeq would she get a chance to go to places like Provence and buy masks from China? She didn't know a single Afghan in Denmark who went on vacation to a strange place just to see it. Afghans only visited family on vacation, and usually ended up going to Pakistan.
As they drove back to the language school, Raihana felt like a complete failure. She couldn't even drive a car, like Olena and Christina. She would never travel like Olena and Christina, go on vacations to exotic places. Once she married Rafeeq and had children, what would their lives be like? They would probably go to Pakistan for vacation and then come right back to Denmark.
What kind of life would that be for her children? Would they have the opportunity to go to France and Ven
ice?
Maybe she should ask Rafeeq a few more questions before she said yes. She could find out what he liked to do when he wasn't working and how he wanted to raise their children. No, that wouldn't be right, she told herself. Rafeeq would think it was an insult that she was asking so many questions before saying yes. If he was a Danish man, maybe the questions wouldn't bother him, but an Afghan man, he just wanted a quick answer. Already, she was trying his patience by waiting so long to say yes.
She'd just say no then. She'd tell him she couldn't marry him. And then next time someone was interested, she could ask all the right questions in the beginning.
Even as she made that decision, fear bloomed inside her. What if no one ever asked to marry her again?
FIFTEEN
ENTRY FROM ANNA'S DIARY
A Year of Keeping Bees
22 JULY 1980
Mite infestation is rampant in the wild and in apiaries. Beekeepers are always looking for advanced medical means to protect their bees from mites, but wild bees may be facing extinction because of the mites.
Mites move from one bee to another when the bees touch each other. Bees are very social creatures, and not just within their colonies. They meet up with strange bees on flowers and touch in greeting for a split second, just enough time for a pregnant female parasitic mite to change mounts and ride to a new destination.
Apoliti betjent, police officer, picked Anders up at school and drove him to the police station in a Ford Mondeo, nearly a week after the stone-throwing incident.
Mogens, Marianne, Gunnar, and Jon Vittrup, the police inspector, were waiting for them in Jon's office. The sun poured straight through the windows and the white curtains didn't do much to curtail the heat. Jon had a small table fan creaking away on his desk, but it didn't actually help with the heat either.
Gunnar had been to the police station to get his driver's license, the kids’ driver's licenses, their passports—for so many things. But he had always stood outside the main offices, at the counter, right by the glass door leading into the building. He had never been in the inner sanctum on the first floor. The police station also had a jail in the back that could accommodate fifteen to twenty prisoners at one time. Right now it was empty, Jon said, but he joked they usually got some action on Friday nights.
The Sound of Language Page 17