by Siya Turabi
‘What happened?’ Kulsoom’s voice was quiet and cool. Hassan touched his face. The blood was already hardening.
‘It’s nothing.’ He started towards his room again. He did not want to give Kulsoom anything to talk about.
‘Beta,’ his mother said.
His whole body hurt; he wanted to hide but he knew what his mother was thinking. Kulsoom was the only person in their family who visited anymore.
‘Something’s happened that’s important for us. For you.’
‘What?’ He stood and faced them both.
‘It’s about Karachi. That girl who took your scholarship…’
‘I gave it to her.’
‘She told the teacher what happened.’
‘She shouldn’t have done that. She needs to get out too.’
‘It’s too late. You’re the new winner.’
For the first time in weeks, his mother looked happy. ‘You know Kulsoom is now Mir Saab’s wife’s personal maid.’
‘I’m going back with Begum Saab in the morning by plane to Karachi,’ Kulsoom said.
‘Kulsoom spoke with her about you. There’s a train ticket for you.’
‘Mir Saab sent those guards for Baba.’
‘We’re not certain of that,’ his mother said.
He wanted to shout at them. How dare they? But his head was hurting and he held his jaw. His mother glanced at Kulsoom and then back at him. Was there something else? His mother turned to Kulsoom again as if she guessed Hassan’s thoughts; she cleared her throat, about to say something, but Kulsoom shook her head.
‘I’ve arranged for your train ticket,’ Kulsoom said.
‘You want me to become a servant?’
‘You know Mir Saab doesn’t allow children to work. You’ll go to school in Karachi. That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it, to study more?’
‘I can go to school here.’
His mother turned around to face him. Her eyes, once beautiful, were glazed with worry. It was Kulsoom who spoke.
‘The train ticket is on the table. Mir Saab’s been very generous. He’s offered you a scholarship for your education in Karachi. He wants to meet you, the new scholar,’ Kulsoom said. ‘And now Begum Saab says you can come early. I suggested this. It would help you settle in, get away from… all of this.’
Kulsoom was winning. Heat brimmed under Hassan’s scalp.
‘Amma, your eyes,’ he said. ‘I’ll find the black honey first.’ He thought he saw hope on his mother’s face.
‘You, what can you do about her eyes?’ Kulsoom raised her hand. It flopped down.
To Hassan, that flop was like a switch, an electric current, sharper than the one that buzzed through the generator after a power cut. Anger ripped through his feet and he turned his back on them both; one whom he loved dearly and one whom he now hated.
He climbed the steps in the courtyard onto the roof and looked up at the sky. Kulsoom was trying to destroy everything he had.
There was barking below in the street. It was the stray dog that had become his friend. He broke off pieces of chapati that he always carried in his pocket and threw them from the edge of the roof. The dog’s tail wagged as he munched on the bread. He thought of Sami. This was what she had been trying to tell him before those boys… The front door shut downstairs and his mother was climbing the steps. She stood beside him and they looked up together. The stars lay dense and thick over the village like a chiffon veil.
‘Why did the boys attack you?’ she asked.
‘They tried to take my waistcoat. It had the honeycomb in it.’
‘Your father caused a fire when he found that.’
He wanted to tell her that Baba had been seen but the words would not come out; it might be a false hope.
‘That honey helped your eyes.’
‘This scholarship is your chance,’ she said.
‘To do what?’
‘To get out of here. It’s what you’ve wanted for years.’
‘Not like this.’
It had been his dream to leave Harikaya, to study, to become a professional, to help his parents. But not like this, not in the household of the man who had made his father run away. His mother must have begged Kulsoom to ask Begum Saab to take him in early.
‘I won’t leave you,’ he said. The night air was still warm but he shivered. ‘I’ll find the beekeeper.’
‘Don’t make up stories; the villagers already think you’re…’ Her eyes opened wide; her lips scrunched up.
‘I’m what?’
‘Your father was always telling stories. It became too dangerous.’
‘To speak the truth?’
‘I can’t keep you here anymore, not on my own. My eyes are getting worse.’
‘The black honey can help you.’
She left him and he sat down on the floor. From here on the roof, he could see the land: the irrigation channels that Mir Saab had set up, the factories that he owned, the school that he had started. But behind all this order, there was chaos in Harikaya. Men lined up behind the boundary wall for the drink that kept them awake all night and made them fight. Women walked with heavy shoulders, exhausted after working to grow enough food and bring back enough money to buy medicines.
He let his gaze travel to the distant flatlands and dark hints of trees, the beginnings of the forest. He would go there again tomorrow and this time he’d go further. He would go every day until he found the beekeeper. And then he’d be free to leave. Not before. And not to Mir Saab. He would make his own way. Another thought dropped into his head. Even if he found the beekeeper and he did help him, what then? In the end, it was in the hands of the bees.
The dog’s low growls from below made him sit up. Voices. The sounds grew louder. Nearer now, shouting.
It was those boys, heading towards the house. He crashed down the steps, threw himself inside, and locked the front door. The barking was fierce outside, growing louder. He ran around the house and fastened every shutter.
His mother’s body rose easily under the touch of his hand. She picked up her glasses and the lit candle as if in a slow-motion dream that only added to Hassan’s panic. He led her by the arm to the centre of the main room.
‘What have you done now?’ she asked, her eyes shining like metal, reflecting the glint of the old bolt on the door.
They clung to each other in the middle of the room as the voices arrived at the front of the house. The barking died down.
‘What are they doing?’ his mother said.
That taste of ink and oranges was in his mouth again, though the blood on his lips was dry. There was a yelp and all was quiet. Feet scraped outside the front door for a minute. Then a thud. Was that laughter? His mother stumbled and shrieked. The footsteps ran away. Moments passed before either moved, not daring to imagine the cause behind the thud. Hassan opened the door and saw the dog was lying on the ground. It was still breathing but there was blood on its back.
‘They kicked it,’ he said, kneeling beside the dog. ‘You were protecting us.’
Something lay next to the dog. It was a small doll, smaller than the palm of his hand, dressed in black clothes, with a mop of black woollen hair. Its body was laced with fine needles. A curse, made by the hands of the woman who had warned him.
‘That’s you,’ his mother said. She stooped and picked up the doll and threw it down the street, like last time. ‘There’s nothing left for you here.’
It took only minutes to pack his bag. A shirt, trousers, pyjamas, a towel. The piece of honeycomb in its pouch was in his waistcoat pocket. When he was ready, he stood at the door with the bag over his shoulder.
‘You need this for the train,’ his mother said, ‘Your ID card.’
He slipped the small card into the inner pocket of his bag. It was a floppy small thing that belonged to his father. His mother stepped out and he bent to pick up the dog. He carried it to the end of the street where Sami lived and stood under her bedroom window. His mother waited a
few feet away. The shutter of the window was slightly open and he heard movement inside.
‘Sami,’ he whispered.
The front door opened and there she was.
‘I need to leave,’ he said. ‘They’ve hurt the dog.’
‘Those boys?’
‘Yes, but I think it’s bigger than that. Can you look after him?’
He placed the dog in her outstretched arms. Before he turned to leave, he had one last thing to say. ‘Thank you,’
‘It was never mine in the first place,’ she said.
He didn’t know what to say.
‘I don’t know when I’ll see you again,’ she whispered.
Mother and son walked in the darkness to the station. They would make the last night train to Karachi.
‘I’ll come back,’ he said, ‘to find the beekeeper.’
‘There’ll be lots to learn there,’ Amma replied.
The touch of steel that her words carried pricked his throat.
In the train, he went to stand at the window. There was no glass and she took his hand through the frame.
‘Promise me you’ll never talk about your father to Mir Saab. Or this plan to find the beekeeper.’
A whistle blew and her hand tightened around his. ‘Come back for the Eid holidays with Kulsoom. Mir Saab’s family comes back then,’ she said.
‘But that’s more than six weeks away. The floods will come sooner.’
A horn blasted from somewhere behind her.
‘I’ll bring you the honey.’
‘The doctor told me I have two months at the most before I’m blind.’
He stumbled and his own voice trembled. ‘I’ll come back before the rains, and find the beekeeper, Amma. I promise.’
The train was moving and she let go. He leant out through the open frame of the carriage.
‘You’ll see. I’ll bring the black honey to you. It’ll cure your eyes.’
He bent his neck and waved hard as his mother became smaller. The train tracks curved out of the station and she was lost in the rising dust. He sat down. The carriage was full of people, busy with themselves. He let the bag drop to the ground. The engine roared as the train chugged onwards but he could only hear her last words: she could go blind in two months.
The wall of the train was cool on Hassan’s back. His breathing grew heavy and his eyelids struggled with sleep. The beekeeper’s face came into his mind; his dark skin glowed and he stood in the middle of a circle of golden trees. The train jerked and Hassan opened his eyes again.
The wind outside blew fine dust on his face and the old trees stood firm like great-grandfathers in inky blue jungles that stretched for miles. The forests gave way to villages bordered by banyan trees, their branches curling to the ground, hiding men and women who made them their homes. Did the beekeeper live under a tree, or did he have a house? He’d come back soon before the floods and find him. For now, he would begin this new life, do what they all wanted.
The bench under him was hard. Perhaps going to Karachi was the right thing to do. If he went to school in Karachi, he could become what he wanted and help Amma too. Baba couldn’t argue with that. He thought of those guards and a shudder moved through him. He couldn’t stay in Harikaya now anyway. He’d go to Karachi, show his face to the mir and be an ideal new scholar. Then he’d find a way back before school started. Kulsoom would help him. She had to. Amma was her sister after all. Hassan’s breath quickened. Something grew certain in him. His father was going to come home when the rains came.
Dawn turned into daylight and he was still awake as the train rattled past larger settlements. The train was delayed by a breakdown around noon and he stood in disbelief for hours watching the men make repairs. Passengers spent the time chasing shadows made by the carriages. Once the train got going again, there were more hold-ups because of cattle moving across the tracks.
It was already evening when trees and villages transformed into the great desert plains of the lower Sindh. He had learnt about these at school. He caught an hour, or maybe more, of sleep before the outlines of buildings in the darkening sky of Karachi filled the window frame. The train made its way through ramshackle dwellings until it stopped, in its grand, old centre, like a hive swarming with workers and drones. No sign of the queen.
At the station, Kulsoom took his bag and said, ‘We’ve been waiting for hours.’
Hassan was pleased to see Ali Noor, a familiar face from the village. Ali Noor carried his bag to the car.
‘Don’t get used to this kind of service,’ he said with a wink.
Ali Noor drove past the railroad fence and the car wove its way through Karachi’s hyperactive traffic – cars, trucks, donkeys, carts, buses, and amped-up motorcycles carrying families of four or more. Bicycles flew past and cyclists tried to look through the darkened windows of the car. Hassan ducked, but even with their faces close to the glass, they saw nothing.
The muscles of Kulsoom’s face were tight; her eyes looked like shiny raisins whenever she looked at him. She bit her lower lip and rubbed her hands as if she were cold. His mother must have spoken to her. He imagined his mother standing in the village square at the public telephone, alone, her voice shaking. She would have returned, made chapatis for herself, and sat alone in an empty house.
‘Khala, when did Mir Saab arrive?’ He called her Aunty. The word felt unfamiliar to him. Ali Noor replied for her. ‘Last night.’
The car slowed down. A boy came close to the car; he must have been the same age as Hassan. His hair was like straw, dried by the sun, and he looked like he was sleepwalking. Kulsoom pushed a coin into Hassan’s hand.
‘Give this to him.’
The skin of the boy’s hand was rough. He walked away but then dropped the coin and bent down to grab it in the middle of traffic that veered off to either side of him like flowing water round a pebble. He banged the bonnet of a rickshaw that swerved too close.
There was courage here on the faces of the people who lived and worked on these streets. The dogs were different too. Tougher, going about their business in twos or threes. Life, with all its beauty, all its shades, but how did they get through the nights? Hassan stopped his thoughts there; he didn’t even know what was going to happen to him. There was no question that he would be fed and sheltered in the world to which he was going now but this other world, here before him, was never far away for him, a villager. He only had to make one mistake and he could fall.
Even Kulsoom’s grimness was soothing at that moment. He sat back, relieved to be in a car, to have a destination. He opened the window and stuck his hand out to feel the air. It felt more humid than the dry heat of Harikaya and made his hair stick to his skin. And there was something else that added to all of this, a new smell. It had to be the sea. He breathed it in.
The city went on forever. They drove past open shops, built in the last thirty years. Colonial façades lined wider roads like old giants with flaking and fading skin. Balconies, domes, minarets, spires, and woodwork spoke of better days, when Karachi was a much smaller town – a coastal habitat, a playground for nobility, fishermen, farmers, and fairies alike. That was before the separation. He had learnt about that too. People had flocked into stories of freedom in the new country. Old stories were squeezed into forgotten suitcases left in the shadows of their new lives.
‘Tomorrow, Begum Saab’s niece comes from London,’ Kulsoom said to Ali Noor. She turned back to Hassan. ‘Mir Saab’s been very good to you. Meet him and then keep out of his way.’
Ali Noor looked at him in the mirror but Hassan looked away, out onto the road again.
Part Two
Karachi
Sindh Province, Pakistan
Chapter Eight
Hassan lay on his bed made out of bamboo, with his sheet up to his chin, opposite a window and daylight. He must have slept through the night because his eyelids opened now to morning life: the cries of a baby in another room, the creaks of a water pump, an outside tap splashing
water in short bursts. And then he heard clanking music.
There was a knock on the door. He lay on his elbows. Kulsoom stood in the doorway with clothes hanging over her right arm. In Harikaya, his mother never came into his room.
‘Please don’t come into my room until I say you can,’ he said.
‘Why not?’ She was inside before he could get up.
‘This is not normal,’ he said.
‘Your mother has always allowed you too much. That is not normal.’
‘My mother has never had much to allow.’
She came closer to the bed as if she was about to hand him the clothes.
‘What’s that music?’ Hassan asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘That horrible music, can’t you hear it?’
‘The traffic?’
The music fell apart into car horns, the brakes of buses, and speeding engines.
‘Does music sound like that now in Harikaya?’ Kulsoom asked.
He tipped his head back, stopping himself from smiling. ‘Look, I have to get back to the forests. Baba is probably there waiting for me.’
‘He’s disappeared again and you think he’ll be waiting for you.’
‘He hasn’t disappeared. It was those…’ He stopped. There was too much satisfaction on her face.
‘The scholarship can blow away in seconds if they find out about your father. Here, Begum Saab gave you these.’
He sat up and reached out his hand to take the clothes but she held onto them, coming closer and standing tall over him.
‘You be careful,’ she said. ‘You’ll be going back for the Eid holidays when we all go back. Before that you’ll stay here and start school,’ she continued, her voice softer now. ‘Make sure you stay low, out of their way. They’ve been good to let you come so early.’
‘The holidays begin in over six weeks. And school doesn’t start for another three weeks. I can go and come back after Mir Saab sees me,’ he said.