The Last Beekeeper

by Siya Turabi

  ‘Hassan.’ His mother looked up and gasped.

  The shapes tumbled back into the cloth.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘Not long,’ he said.

  He came closer and saw the cloudiness in her eyes beginning to come back.

  ‘Are you using the black honey?’ he asked her.

  ‘There’s not much there. I don’t want to use it all.’

  He bit his lips.

  ‘I’m going to the shrine,’ she said.

  ‘You went there yesterday.’

  ‘I need to pray.’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘My eyes are getting worse.’

  She gathered her belongings. It was only a second, but her lips twisted into a mixture of hate and sadness. She had to be thinking of Baba.

  He followed her down the aisle. Looks of pity peered from behind the weaving machines. He made his neck look shorter by scrunching his shoulders, by bobbing his head back and then forwards; his nose became a beak that pecked at the looms, on the cloth and in the air. He was a square-headed raven. It worked. The women broke out into laughter.

  ‘Why are they laughing?’ his mother asked, turning around.

  ‘I’m only playing, Amma, only playing.’ He ran a few steps to catch up with her.

  Playfulness left him as they walked through the door. Her eyes were getting worse and he still hadn’t been to the forest.

  At the shrine, people and vultures were taking their turns to feed and Hassan looked for Baba’s face. The poets were the first to stand up from the daily meal and make their way to the sunken circular stone area to sit on the rim of steps. Ansari Saab was one of them. A poet raised his hand and a line of spontaneous verse rolled out.

  ‘Wah, wah,’ said the other poets, their heads lifting, tilting, or swaying.

  Ansari Saab called him over with his hand. Ansari Saab’s monocle was gone now and there was no handkerchief in his waistcoat, which seemed more frayed even though it had only been a week – not even that – since Baba had left. As Hassan sat down next to Ansari Saab, he almost expected his father to start a poem or gently push him forwards into the circle.

  ‘Beta,’ Ansari Saab said. The sound of the word son was soft. ‘Do you want to give us a poem?’

  ‘No,’ Hassan said.

  Ansari Saab never gave up.

  ‘You know, despite everything, your father was one of us. A lover of life, of creation.’

  What did he mean, despite everything?

  ‘Why did they come after him? Did they say?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Wherever he is, he must be careful.’

  ‘Baba can look after himself.’

  ‘The new government has stricter laws. Harder ones. Even Mir Saab can’t change them. They’ve already banned alcohol. They’re banning different traditions now. He must be careful.’

  ‘He’ll come back,’ Hassan said, ‘before the floods.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have spoken the way he did. He displeased the one that gives him his living and he has no chance then against the really dangerous ones – the government. They’re just hungry to use him to serve their purpose. That’s why they went after him.’

  ‘How do you know it was the government that came after my father?’

  The poet scowled and for a second looked confused. ‘Your father needs to come back, make a public apology to Mir Saab, say he was wrong. Both sides will back off that way and he can get on with his life.’ The poet leant in closer towards Hassan. ‘You know, you’re like a son to me. It’s a dangerous time. The government wants spies. They don’t care about what else is happening. Gangs are getting stronger. Young men are being made to sell guns and drugs for their profit. Everybody’s tied in it together except Mir Saab, and he’s the one your father chose to challenge.’ Ansari Saab looked around the shrine. ‘I worry about you,’ he said. ‘Your father’s made you a target now.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t. He only wanted people to speak up about Mir Saab’s new law.’

  ‘He should have known the government would use that against him.’

  ‘But it was Mir Saab’s guards, not the government’s that came for him.’

  A few people turned towards them. Ansari Saab looked surprised for a second but then laughed out loud as if he’d just heard Hassan say something funny. It worked. They turned back to the poetry.

  ‘Pakistan is in between countries and in between their battles,’ Ansari Saab was whispering now. ‘Between old and new rules. I can only see more chaos and stricter control ahead. Anybody who speaks out has to be careful.’

  Hassan wanted to ask him more about it but at that moment he spotted his mother coming out of the wooden doors of the shrine. She walked towards them with a new energy in her steps.

  ‘Someone said your father’s been seen,’ the poet spoke fast.

  ‘Where?’ Hassan’s heart nearly stopped.

  ‘In one of the villages. With a group of travellers. Musicians, poets, a band.’

  ‘Who saw him?’

  ‘I know nothing more. Tell no one.’ Ansari Saab bowed to Hassan’s mother as she reached them.

  Hassan stood up and walked away from the circle of poets with his mother. So, Baba had escaped. He might even be here, watching him.

  ‘The pir said I should pray with these.’ His mother held up her wrist with a new string of beads wrapped around it. Her face was soft; something good must have come out of the meeting with the pir. ‘He gave me a prayer to say too, but I can’t tell anyone, not even you.’

  Hassan tried to stop a laugh, but it was too late. His mother had seen it.

  ‘You don’t like the pir,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t trust him.’

  ‘He’s the representative of the saint.’

  To Hassan, the pir was a man who sat in the shade most of the day as people brought him plates of biryani and creamy desserts.

  ‘He can say anything he likes and people believe him.’

  ‘You sound like your father.’ She was about to say more when one of their neighbours arrived at his mother’s side.

  ‘Did he help you? Did the pir help you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, he gave me these.’

  The woman grasped his mother’s hand and held it close to her heart as if the beads were some kind of prize. ‘Let’s walk home together.’

  ‘Will you walk with us, Hassan?’ his mother asked.

  ‘No, I’ll stay here.’

  ‘Don’t be too late. Kulsoom’s coming,’ she said, walking away.

  Hassan rolled his eyes, making an internal decision to be late.

  His mother glanced back, and said, ‘The only thing that will help my eyes now is prayer.’

  The vultures left their perches and circled above. Their numbers had grown since Mir Saab’s law banning people from entering the forest. The animals were growing braver. He thought back to the deer that he and Baba had dragged to the reeds. Ansari Saab had said that his father had been seen. That meant it wouldn’t be too long now before his father sent him a message. There was a dull ache in his chest; he wanted to see his father again.

  He shielded his eyes from the sun as he watched the black bodies of the vultures streak the sky. The moon was already visible and the sun on the opposite side of the sky had its warm evening glow. One of the vultures dived to the ground. The others hovered and watched for a few seconds before they too joined it. They chomped at the scraps of meat. No one paid them any attention.

  Hassan looked around; nobody was paying him any attention either but he still went to stand in a shady corner by the wall of the shrine before he took the small piece of honeycomb out of his pocket. He wanted to feel the humming again; it made him feel closer to Baba. Baba had said he needed to go to the forest again, to find the black honey nests. But how could he do this without his father’s help?

  Hassan sat down on the cool stone. The screeches of the vultures faded away. The poets were at their circle now; the man in the ce
ntre stood next to the drummer and was reading poetry. His mouth moved but there was no sound.

  The trees of the forest rose in Hassan’s mind. The trees that stood in a circle around a clearing. The beekeeper must have made room for them, these acacia trees that carried those special nests. Little by little, the nest and the bees came into focus. The journey to them was a long way from the forest edge. And even if he did find those trees again, how could he climb them alone?

  He took a deep breath in and sighed. The smell of wax and honey was at his nose again. It made him feel dizzy. The beekeeper’s face appeared in his mind; it blurred in and out of his vision. The humming he had been hearing for a few months now was creeping into his head. The beekeeper’s face dissolved and more images jumped out, one after the other: the honeycomb rising in the black honey to the top of the jar, the shining rims of his mother’s eyes. Pictures flowed into each other until they dissolved into the constant sound of humming. There was that taste of black honey, its crumbling sweetness. He had to go back to the forest for his mother’s eyes.

  He opened his eyes and slowly, he began to sit up straight. Yes, there was a way. He would start by looking for the beekeeper. Hassan remembered the black cloud of bees around the man. The beekeeper could work with those bees. If the beekeeper were on his side, then Hassan could do this.

  The stone floor was cold under him again. The area around erupted with the sound of laughter; children were running around playing. The humming in his head grew quieter and he knew what he had to do. The beekeeper. He had to find the beekeeper.

  Hassan left the shrine, this time in the direction of the forest. Some of the vultures left too, their day over.

  Chapter Seven

  Dark fields melted into sandy flatlands. Villagers loved to tell stories about the forest coming to life as the sun set. Hassan didn’t believe any of them but it did feel as if lone palm trees were watching as he passed. Mighty banyans with roots like giant spider legs whispered to each other. The trunks of tall sumbul trees extended outwards like the blades of fans and looked ready to spin. Were they worried for him? It was all superstition but jinns were said to hide behind every bush.

  He ran past the house of lepers that stood further along the track until he reached the river and walked along its bank. It was hardly a stream now, before the rains. Hopefully it would be a good flood this year. The land needed it.

  The grit in his sandals rubbed his feet and he sat down by the rushes to take his sandals off and shake out the stones. At that moment a car with blacked-out windows came along the track from the direction of the forest. It was Mir Saab’s car. The small flag on its bonnet barely moved as it went past. Hassan froze. The car turned at the bottom of the hill before it started its ascent, round and round the winding road. It reached the turrets of the old fort at the top where it waited for the iron gates to open and then drove through. Hassan stood up and carried on, looking around in case there was another car, this time with guards.

  At the forest edge, he stopped again. There was still enough light to search for a good hour but he was held back by some imaginary line. His mother’s voice rang in his head. ‘The forest is too dangerous.’

  He shouted into the curtain of thick darkness, ‘I’m here!’

  No reply.

  A lone black bee darted through the air. It danced around his face.

  The smell of wax and honey. Yes, it was that same smell, again. A light touch on his shoulder. The beekeeper? He turned. Nothing. He turned back to the forest and the pictures of the fire were in his head. Trees were burning, the flames crackled. A cloud of bees, their roar. Fire and bees. He covered his eyes with his hands until the vision disappeared and only trees stood in front of him again. He wanted his father now; he couldn’t do this without him. He turned and ran; his body was on fire, along the track wrapped in moonlight. He ran along the river bank, past the dark house, lit up just enough by candlelight for him to see the shadows of lepers or ghosts.

  Trees whispered, ‘The beekeeper is not real.’

  Empty fields screamed, ‘You lawbreaker!’

  Factories stood like great white boulders, about to come alive in the moonlight.

  He ran until he reached the boundaries of the shrine. He stepped onto the stone floor, panting hard.

  His head was full. Bees, honey, wax. Black cloud rising. How would he find the beekeeper? Why didn’t Baba send him a message? It had been a week already and Baba could have done it by now. Perhaps he thought it was too dangerous. Hassan tiptoed further in, unnoticed by the crowd and stood at the edge of the circle of poets. Ansari Saab wasn’t around but Hassan decided to sit down anyway with the poets. It was the full-moon night; the poetry would calm him down, and the music.

  ‘Move up.’

  It was Sami.

  ‘I thought I wouldn’t see you here,’ he said, making room for her next to him on the step.

  ‘I heard what happened to your father.’

  He shrugged; he didn’t want to speak about it.

  ‘You know, I hope he’s careful.’

  ‘You sound like one of the old ones.’

  ‘Well, don’t you want him back?’

  ‘Yes, I do, but no one can keep him quiet.’

  ‘He needs to learn to keep quiet.’

  ‘How do you know? Nothing’s ever happened to you.’

  He regretted saying that. He turned to say sorry but she was looking straight ahead at the fire, her eyes unblinking. He watched the light of the flames make her face glow.

  ‘My father will be all right. He’ll find another job,’ she said.

  ‘I didn’t mean…’

  He was afraid she was about to leave but she just stared at the fire. More musicians came to sit next to the drummer. Poets lifted their coconuts in approval. Men and women laughed as the flute began to play, a slow melody that built up.

  ‘I don’t need your help,’ Sami said.

  Her voice was quiet and he could hardly hear her. He opened his mouth to reply but didn’t know what to say. Laughter crackled behind his back, out of tune with the music. Hassan turned to see the three boys looming over them.

  The tall one joined them from nowhere. ‘Knocked any more buckets over?’ he said.

  Hassan kept looking ahead.

  ‘What are you doing with her?’

  The other boys laughed and joined in.

  ‘The two of you going to get together now?’

  ‘Both your fathers will go to prison.’

  One of the boys, the smaller one, began to play with Sami’s hair. Hassan hit out but the boy grabbed Sami.

  ‘Leave her alone!’ Hassan screamed. He tore at the boy but the tall one was at him, pulling at his waistcoat, tearing it off.

  The thin smile danced around with it and Hassan lunged towards him. He had to get it back. The boy threw it to another boy. Hassan was running from one to the other until he stood face to face with the thin smile.

  ‘What’s so precious about this?’ The smile reeked of spirit.

  In the corner of his eye, Hassan saw one of the poets free Sami from the grips of the boy who held her. His eyes and ears were white hot and his chest pounded. He tried to grab his waistcoat but the tall boy held on. Hassan pulled him to the ground and both of them rolled on the stone floor, but the boy held on tight. Too tight. Fists and feet beat his body, but there was no pain.

  The roar of the bees from the jungle was inside him, filling him with a new power. His fingers clenched around the waistcoat and held on until the boy’s hands opened. He had it and he was up in a second, ready to run.

  ‘What are you doing?’ a man shouted. It was the warden with a few people standing behind him, some of them poets and others too who had come to watch.

  ‘He started it,’ the thin smile said, still on the floor.

  ‘It’s all his fault,’ another boy said.

  ‘Fighting in a holy place,’ a woman hissed.

  ‘He’s like his father,’ a man shouted.

/>   Hassan’s face throbbed. Pain was creeping up his arms and legs and there was a taste in his mouth, cold and hot, the taste of ink and oranges, his own blood.

  ‘All of you leave and don’t come back,’ shouted the warden.

  ‘But we come here every day.’ The thin one was up now.

  ‘Not anymore,’ the warden said.

  ‘It was his fault.’

  ‘I don’t care. All of you are banned.’ The warden shooed them away to the edges of the shrine. The boys left first and Hassan turned to find Sami. She was at the back with the poet who had rescued her, looking straight towards him.

  ‘I need to speak to her,’ he said to the warden.

  ‘No, you don’t. You’re banned too.’ The warden pointed to the track.

  The boys had vanished and Hassan was careful to stay in the shadows of the trees as he hurried back down the track. He didn’t stop when he got to the gates and he didn’t turn around until he reached the edge of the village where the streets narrowed and the buildings were low. The sounds of animals and children reassured him. He opened the door of his house and stepped inside.

  They were sitting on a sheet laid over the bamboo leaves that covered the dry mud floor when Hassan entered. The only light came from an oil burner placed on a table in the corner. Everything was spotless; his mother had cleaned for Kulsoom. There was not much to clean anymore. The walls, where Baba’s pictures used to hang, were bare. The shelves were empty; Baba had taken the tools – the smoker, his wax-cutting knife. His mother had thrown away the rest – a few small jars for honey and Baba’s trinkets from his journeys along the river. Hassan headed for his room but, even in the dim light, the tears in his mother’s eyes shone and he stopped.

  Kulsoom was staring at him. The two sisters were so different. Everything about Kulsoom was neat; her hair was oiled and smoothed down over her scalp and formed into a tight plait. He wanted to say she was pretty but he had never seen her smile, and where his mother was warm and soft despite the hard thinness of her body, Kulsoom was brittle. He did not think anybody had hugged her ever, and if they did, her boniness might hurt.