by Siya Turabi
Before he could think of a reply, she said, ‘Your mother and I have never been lucky with our men.’ The skin on her face creased into fine lines and she walked away.
He hated her at that moment.
Outside again, the air was thick, and not enough. He needed air and wind and space. The sun beat down on his body, dripping with sweat; he had to shade his eyes with his hands. The gates were open and the guards were hot and drowsy in the shade of the wall. They only glanced in his direction. He followed the same path through the shrubs around the wall, grateful for the shade of the trees. Past the forgotten swimming pool and the ghosts of Maryam’s stories that made him feel better for a second, but he didn’t stop until he was at the edge of the clearing.
He could hear only the sound of crows. They were watching from the trees at the edges of the clearing. He stopped in the middle. His clothes were soaked with sweat, but he stayed where he was because it was there again: the smell of wax and honey and the face of the beekeeper.
He climbed the steps. The doors of the masjid were heavy but they opened with ease. Light fell from behind him onto the floor of a small chamber with six pillars, positioned in each of the corners. Air came through openings that lined the tops of the walls under the dome. It was a six-sided cave, a honeybee cell for a human.
The sound of humming reached him. He closed the door and walked into the darkness to a pillar on the other side. The volume of the humming changed: a human body was in their space. His body. The sound peaked, the bees’ interest steady and clear.
The pillar was a support for his back until his eyes could see outlines and then more. Six openings were at the top of each of the six walls, and above the walls was a ledge. The dome rested on the ledge and rose up to a small, flat hexagon at its highest point. The tiles on the walls and pillars were positioned like spirals, round and round, smaller and smaller to simulate the effect of being inside a cone. They rose up the wall in waves to meet at the top of the dome at the central hexagon. Was this like the inside of a hive?
The sound of humming became low and steady, softening his body. Then he found it, the source of the sound: a lump, a nest, hanging from the curve above the ledge. Bits of wax combs glowed amber behind a thick coating of bees. The walls of the combs grew down in soft, endless waves, like upside-down mountains.
The whole mass of bees came into focus. A few bees hovered a little way from the nest while a few more broke away. All around the nest was a mass of steady activity. Bees came into the space through the openings; they were workers returning home, some of them loaded with nectar. Baba had said that was for feeding the young and building the comb. Sound reached down and wrapped his body in an invisible blanket.
And then the picture changed again, blurring into a black blob. Seconds, minutes, perhaps even hours passed as the sight and sound of bees held him tight in this ebb and flow between one big mass and the separate bees. Their humming, its highs and lows, was the switch; the bees had full control over what he saw of them.
This was a temple of sound, the humming rose now, spiralling upwards along the walls. It swept down towards him, then it was inside him. This chamber was an extension of their nest. The humming vibrated in his head, in his arms, in his torso and legs. His eyes closed under the weight of the sound and he had a vision of wax cells, stacked around him with an overall order and symmetry – unending rows of cells. Could it be that he was actually in their nest? The humming was deafening, closer, as if he was one amongst a thousand bees. He became part of their world, and, even though he could not see them, they had to be here.
Then it happened. A feeling stronger than any words could have prepared him for. Joy. A flash of light lasted for less than a second but it was long enough for him to see the cells, and they were all gold. Shining gold joy, and he was part of it. Some of the cells were closed and some open.
But there was no time to think, to doubt, or to ask. He wanted to go further but an invisible force stopped him, blocking any movement. The humming grew quiet; a growled warning shot past him. Its sound alone was enough to block his way, and it was stronger than any wall.
He opened his eyes and the chamber came back into focus. Light poured in from the openings in the dome and the bees were humming above in the nest.
But just the memory of the inside of the nest was enough. For now. Hassan’s loneliness gave way to a deep, spacious stillness. That golden fluid power that he had been allowed to see and hear was part of a truth greater than him, greater than anything he had heard or thought of before.
He might have been with the bees for hours, but outside again, the sun hadn’t moved much. Its light was like fire and he ran into the shade of the trees and stopped in front of one with large roots like the toes of giant elephants. He settled himself in between two of these roots and spread his arms on each one of them as if he were on one of Mir Saab’s armchairs.
He had just been inside their inner world. They had shown him what was happening in there. Baba had told him that eggs grew inside those closed hexagonal cells. The queen laid them. Baba’s poem came back to him.
Workers, drones, and queen.
Time in the cave was different for each.
Time obeyed the law of numbers.
Twenty-one days for workers, twenty-four for drones, and sixteen for the queen.
Workers, drones, and queen.
The caves were their cells. The number of days for each was the time it took for the workers, drones and the queen to emerge.
Baba seemed closer now after what had just happened. Kulsoom was wrong about him. There had been good times before his father left – his father dancing in colourful clothes, beating the drum, reciting his poetry. He had made music from ordinary objects he picked up, even the clay bowls that children played with. Baba had made an instrument for Hassan out of a pumpkin once. He had attached it to a wooden rod with two strings made of steel and played a soft tune with words from one of his poems. Amma had listened when Baba played that tune. That instrument was gone now, but there was no time to think about that. The world of the bees and their light had been a brief taste. He wanted more.
Hassan went to pick up the water for dinner.
‘It’s good you’re becoming friends with the family,’ the cook said. ‘Just be careful.’
What was he trying to say with that? Hassan went to fetch a jug from the shelf, reaching out to it with both hands.
‘You’ll never be one of them.’
‘I don’t want to be.’
The cook put down the knife in his hand; its metal blade was coated with wet green leaves. Coriander. The smell was sweet.
‘Your father had a strong character, just like you.’
Hassan stayed where he was. This man did know his father.
‘Once he made a decision, there was no going back,’ the cook said.
Hassan could lose nothing by listening.
‘He was taken from you too soon, wasn’t he?’
‘He’s coming back.’ Hassan bit his lip but stayed still.
‘He was a good man. Wouldn’t hurt anyone.’
‘Were you friends?’
‘Yes, I told you that.’ The cook looked hurt. He picked up a wooden spoon and dipped it into the pot and stirred. ‘What are you hoping for, then, from the family?’ he asked, still leaning over the steaming curry.
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on. No need to hide anything from me.’ The cook smiled as if he had been saving something special for Hassan. ‘I heard that your father was sighted.’
Hassan froze.
‘Who did you hear that from?’
‘No one.’
Hassan shrugged, just as he’d seen villagers do when they talked about the dry weather or the smelly sewers. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘What can we do?’
‘You know, I can help you.’
‘To do what?’
‘Look, you want to get back to Harikaya. You said it yourself.’
‘So?’
‘The rains haven’t started yet.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I had word from the village. I asked someone to send me a telegram. You have a little time.’
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Just like your father. Always suspicious.’ The cook tapped the wooden spoon on the sides of the metal pan. The sound was sharp. ‘There are plenty of ways to make money. Pay for your ticket back.’
‘I’m not interested.’ Hassan stayed where he was with the jug in his hands.
The cook put the spoon down and faced Hassan, ‘Do you want to make a deal?’
The cook was almost friendly now, softer. Hassan backed away.
‘I can arrange your trip back to Harikaya if you do something for me, a small errand.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Nothing hard. Just give me information about what you see when you’re with Mir Saab. It’ll be easy. They like you.’
‘No.’
‘It’ll be easy. Just tell me what he says. What he likes, or doesn’t like. What views he has.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re a curious one, aren’t you? Don’t worry about that. Look, think about it. If you help me, I’ll help you. Our kind, we need to survive. What else do you have?’
It was difficult to get through the heavy door flaps with the jug and glasses on the tray.
The cook was there before Hassan could turn around. He held one of the flaps open for him. ‘Let me help you,’ he said.
Hassan slipped backwards through the door.
That calmness from the temple was gone now and Hassan wanted it back. He did want something from the family but it was not what the cook thought. The tray rattled in his hands. If helping the cook was the only way to save his mother’s eyes, then what else was there to do? The door of the living room was closed. Footsteps and voices entered the hall; it was Maryam.
‘I’m curious about you,’ she said, opening the door for him.
‘Don’t be.’ He stopped himself.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Maryam walked around him, almost skipping, ‘Don’t tell me, I’ll guess.’
He waited for her to guess his thoughts. That he was wasting his time here, that she would go back to London and everything would continue just as it always did for her. That Amina and Zain would forget about him as soon as she was gone. That Mir Saab had sent the guards and he could never forgive him.
‘Are you thinking about the bees?’
He made a slight nod.
‘Told you I could read minds,’ she laughed. ‘Come on.’
Her words irritated him. He was tired of all this pretending. He left the tray on the smaller dining table in the living room and they walked towards the voices.
The study was filled with activity. Amina and Zain sat on the chairs, reading. Two young women sat on the floor. They were from the village and talked to each other in Sindhi. Around them must have been ten reels of film. One of the women was holding her hands up, her fingers looping the thin, plastic film that the other one was winding onto a reel. They finished off and started to pile the reels into boxes.
‘Everyone, come and sit on the carpet.’ Mir Saab pulled down the screen in front of the shutters. I’ll switch the projector on,’ he said.
The machine rattled and chugged. The silhouette of the golden hive rose onto the screen in the bottom right corner. The reel on one side of the projector began to spin, its film flowing onto the empty ring. The film started.
Harikaya. The fort from below, the view from the winding road leading up to the fort. The village wall, the well. An old film in black and white with no sound; Hassan didn’t want it to end.
From the top of the hill, the camera swept across the landscape to the shrine, standing alone at the beginning of the flatlands, and then to the factories.
‘My father was the cameraman,’ Mir Saab said.
A new scene with trees and gardens that went on forever in the background. The camera zoomed in to focus on a box. No, a clay pot, like one used by the villagers for water with a hole in its lid. There was nothing for seconds until a bee crawled out of the hole onto the lid. Another one joined it. Two or three more moved out, and then back in. A hand lifted the lid, a strong hand with veins that stood out, and the camera moved back to show the rest of the body and the face of the man.
‘Is that the old beekeeper?’ Maryam asked.
Even with the camera on him, his face remained still and stern, the way Hassan remembered this man’s son.
‘Yes, he brought the bees for my birthday,’ Mir Saab said.
‘Where was his son?’ Hassan asked.
‘In the forests. He never left. He was always busy with the bees,’ Mir Saab said, ‘and climbing trees.’
The camera moved forwards, looking down onto the swarm of bees.
‘That colony moved to an arch in the fort,’ Mir Saab said. ‘I wish I had a film of that.’
The door flew open; it was Begum Saab. ‘Amina, Zain—’ Her words stopped in mid-air as her eyes landed on the two women on the floor with boxes around them and reels of film still in their hands. Begum Saab looked like she had just lost at cricket and she didn’t like it.
‘The tutor. Five minutes,’ she said. A shadow crossed her face as she glanced at Mir Saab and left.
Hassan saw the silhouette of the golden hive on the screen as it shot up again.
‘There are far fewer of those black bees left today than there were twenty years ago,’ Mir Saab said.
‘Even the rains are coming at different times of the year.’ Hassan remembered his father’s words.
‘You’ve noticed that, have you?’
Hassan shrugged. ‘It’s hard not to.’
Mir Saab sat down on the chair and picked up his pencil. Soon, he was lost with his back to them. He had drawings of nests and tree tops in his hands and he was speaking to himself, ‘That’s where I’ll find it.’
‘Look what I’ve found,’ Maryam said, putting her hand on Hassan’s wrist.
His whole body stiffened. She had a large book in her hands with a bee on its front cover. The picture was blown up, larger than his hand and the bee’s glossy oval-shaped eyes on either side of its head stared at him. The three small middle eyes were like tiny black hills in a forest of hair at the top of its head.
On the first page was the queen with a long yellow and black body, lined with fine hair. What would it be like to be touched by those hairs? The antennae were long, and poked out of either side of her head. Her wings were drawn close to her abdomen. Everything about this creature was perfection.
‘The female workers are smaller than the male drones,’ Maryam said.
She turned the page. A man was climbing a tree with his bare hands.
‘That’s what my father did,’ Hassan said.
‘I’m curious about that,’ she said. ‘Was he a beekeeper?’
‘No, but he went—’ Hassan bit his lip. He needed to find a way out of this. ‘Mir Saab, are Pakistani bees the same as English bees?’ he asked.
‘Pakistani bees are different from all the rest. They’re the “in-betweeners”.’ Mir Saab spoke without turning around.
Hassan wanted to ask him what he meant but Maryam was quicker. ‘In between what?’
‘East and West,’ Mir Saab said. ‘But the black honeybees, or Apis dorsata, they’re unique and quite rare.’ He picked up the picture he had been studying. ‘About two centimetres long and ferocious, but with good reason.’
‘Why?’ Hassan asked.
‘To guard their honey. It’s said to be very healing, and hard to get.’ Mir Saab’s lips sank as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. ‘There was someone only a short while ago. A honey hunter who caused a fire.’
‘He wasn’t a honey—’ Hassan caught his breath. He glanced at Maryam; he had slipped again.
‘What happened to that honey hunter?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Mir Saab said, scratching his chin.
‘Hassan, what’s wrong?’ Maryam said. ‘Are you worried?’
‘It’s nothing, Bibi,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking about the forests. They must be beautiful.’
‘That’s why I keep the people out,’ Mir Saab said, ‘for the sake of the animals.’
Or was it to keep the black honey to himself? Hassan bit his lip. He stopped himself from clenching his fists. These people had no idea. Mir Saab created a law without thinking about the rights of the villagers.
‘And to keep the jinn out,’ Zain said, getting up. ‘Come on, Amina.’
‘The jinn?’ Mir Saab laughed. ‘That’s what the villagers think.’
‘I don’t think that,’ Hassan said, his voice quiet.
‘I think we have some in the house,’ Zain said at the door before they left.
‘Nonsense,’ Mir Saab said. He turned to Hassan. ‘And your father. He was a poet?’
‘Yes.’
‘So, he understands the laws of nature.’
What did Mir Saab mean by this? It had to be some kind of trick.
‘Where is he now?’
‘He left Harikaya.’
‘Why?
‘To visit friends in another town.’
Mir Saab turned back to the drawings and picked up his pencil. Maryam went to stand by him, her elbow on the desk and her head in one hand. She sifted through them with her other hand, her thick curls falling around her shoulders in no order. ‘That’s the beekeeper’s father.’ She held up the picture – a drawing in pencil of his face and neck. ‘If his son is still in the forest, that would make him…’
Mir Saab lifted his head.
‘The last beekeeper,’ she said.
‘Do you think he’s still alive?’ Hassan asked. He had to find out what Mir Saab knew.
‘Baba never found him,’ Zain said.
‘That doesn’t mean he’s not there,’ Mir Saab said. ‘I found his house again a while ago.’
‘Where?’ Zain asked.
‘Deep in the forests. Very different to when his father was alive.’
‘What does it look like?’ Hassan asked.
Mir Saab shook his head; that treasure was not for sharing.