by Siya Turabi
‘What’s this called?’ Maryam asked him.
The shiny, sticky doughball looked so good. ‘Gulab jamun,’ he said without looking up.
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘I do.’
‘Have mine,’ she said. ‘Too sweet for me.’
How could she not like gulab jamun? He covered this perfect ball of syrup with the napkin before he put it in his waistcoat pocket.
‘It’s hard to be different, isn’t it?’ she asked.
So, she had understood. The mischief that made her dark eyes shine was gone and she looked tired, as if she had been on a long journey.
‘Yes,’ he said.
Amina came up to them with a handful of petals. ‘To throw on the bride.’
‘Where is she?’ Maryam looked round.
‘This is Karachi. Everyone’s at least an hour late,’ Amina said.
Maryam took Hassan by the elbow to the edge of the red carpet. Everybody leant forwards to stare at the entrance. Finally, the bride appeared in red and gold, with two women on either side of her, each holding one side of a thick book above her head. The bride walked down the carpet like a box on wheels under heavy silks.
‘Why isn’t she smiling?’ Maryam whispered, looking in the direction of the entrance.
‘Because she’s getting married,’ Amina replied.
‘But that’s supposed to make her happy.’
‘The bride never smiles,’ Zain said.
Words flew into the air from the people around them.
‘The silk of her dress is from their estate,’ came a woman’s high-pitched voice.
‘Sindhi Textile,’ said another.
‘Supporting the cause,’ a man’s voice added.
‘I thought he said he was a communist.’
‘A socialist.’
‘He doesn’t behave much like a socialist.’
As the bride passed, people clapped. Near the stage, Mir Saab was in deep discussion with the Prime Minister. Neither bothered to turn to watch the bride walking up to the groom. They didn’t even look when garland after garland was laid over the shoulders of the bride and groom until they were buried under roses.
‘Can they breathe?’ Maryam asked.
The crowd spread out again to sit or stand around the tables. Rose petals were scattered on the floor and Maryam raced to scoop them up. She came up to Hassan with her face buried in her hands.
‘Smell them, Hassan,’ she said. Their scent seeped into his head. He saw his mother, the stars in Harikaya, and the view of the fort on the way to the factories. The fields and the forests. Yes, he was a poor villager, but none of the people here had those pictures in their heads.
‘My mother crushes these at home for perfume,’ he said.
‘What’s wrong with your mother’s eyes?’ she asked.
The glass on the board flew across his mind. She had remembered.
‘The doctor calls it glaucoma.’
Maryam nodded, and he went on, ‘The medicine isn’t working.’
‘You already knew about the black honey when Mir Saab was talking about it, didn’t you?’ she asked. ‘Can it help your mother’s eyes?’
‘Yes.’
She had pieced it all together. ‘Why were you able to calm the bees?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘And your father, where is he?’
He shook his head. ‘All I know is that my mother will go blind if I don’t get back home before the floods and find the beekeeper.’
‘Why don’t you go back?’
‘It’s not that easy.’
They stood in an invisible bubble together until a voice shot through from behind.
‘Come and meet the Prime Minister.’ It was Begum Saab.
As they got nearer, a twitch in the corner of Mir Saab’s lips appeared from nowhere. His eyes hung like heavy clouds; he looked old.
The Prime Minister was shaking his head with a smile stuck on his face. ‘Living proof that nationalisation is a good idea. Give the resources back to the common people, I say,’ he said, pointing at Hassan’s waistcoat. ‘Surely, you believe in people and equality.’ The Prime Minister took a puff of his cigar.
‘Of course. That’s why it’s important to be careful. Look at the other industries that have been made public,’ Mir Saab said.
‘Are you saying I’m not doing a good job?’ the Prime Minister asked, puffing faster on his cigar.
The thin man with the monocle approached and, with a quick bow and a few steps, this man moved forwards and Mir Saab backed away.
Hassan stepped forward, a companion for Mir Saab. Mir Saab raised his hand; he had had enough and he turned to leave.
Hassan trailed behind the others, his cheeks burning even though everyone was looking at Mir Saab, not at him. Mir Saab walked fast, alone on the carpet, a river of red. The crowd fell away at his every step.
Everyone was quiet on the journey back. The streets were a distant, silent screen now. The guards stood to attention like frogs with bloated chests as the cars rolled past them. Once inside, in the living room, Begum Saab lay on the large sofa, propped up by several cushions. She flicked her rosary beads over and over. Her fingers moved fast; prayers joined with the beads which raced with her lips which blew out prayers like kisses. She stopped, whispered a longer prayer, closed her eyes and, holding the tassel at the top of the beads, moved her hand up and down along the beads until her prayer stopped and she gripped a bead. She then counted the beads in threes back to the tassel.
‘It’s not good,’ she said.
‘What did you ask?’ Amina asked her.
Begum Saab just looked towards the closed door of the study and carried on turning the beads.
‘What’s your mother doing?’ Maryam asked.
‘The beads,’ Amina said, ‘she gets answers from them.’
The study door opened and Mir Saab came out. ‘We shouldn’t have gone,’ he said. ‘It’s even worse now.’ He sat down with his fists clenched. ‘They’ll go ahead with the bill. They’re determined to turn my factories into state property.’
‘We thought he’d change his mind,’ Begum Saab said.
‘Change his mind? Change the mind of a feudal ruler who’s kept his own lands but thinks it’s all right to plunder everyone else’s now that he’s Prime Minister?’ Mir Saab’s voice was louder, but it was sadness, not anger that the words carried. ‘He’s always wanted what’s mine. Ever since we were children.’ Mir Saab put his head in his hands, ‘He’ll close the factories down, just to spite me. How can I look my people in the eye if that happens?’
The speaking stopped but the leftover silence pounded the room like a drill.
Outside, there was another power cut in the city but it was too late for candles now. The sound of the generator soared above the traffic as Hassan washed under the tap and found his way through the darkness to the balcony outside his room. There were only a few stars here, unlike in Harikaya where they hung so thick that sometimes he thought he could pluck one out of the sky with his fingers.
Inside, the sound of snores from the other rooms made him feel safe. He placed the gulab jamun wrapped in the napkin on the window sill inside his room. His hands still smelt of rose petals.
They reminded him of his mother. That was a job that the villagers did in this month; they made garlands of rose heads, piles and piles in silver trays for the platform where the speakers sat. If the factories got into the wrong hands, his mother…
What would happen to her?
He refused to think about that. It couldn’t happen.
He checked for the honeycomb under his pillow; it was safe. He took off his clothes and lay down in bed but it was hot without the fan. He got up and opened the door, being careful to close it again because of the mosquitos.
Out on the balcony, the movement of a point of light from below caught his attention.
Someone stood behind the floating amber point.
It was
too dark to see who it was until the clouds shifted and a bright full moon lit the courtyard. It was the cook, and he was smoking and looking straight up at Hassan.
Hassan’s hands stuck to the top of the balcony wall. The clouds started to cover the moon again and the cook gave a faint nod, before his body faded. The point of light moved up and down a few times, until it flew to the ground and the cook walked to the gates and vanished.
The cook’s words from before the wedding came to him: ‘You’re walking a dangerous path.’ Hassan went back inside and huddled in bed; he was so far from home.
He thought back to that morning when his father had leant on his shoulder on the way back from the forest. Labourers had seen them but why would any of them care? And then he remembered there had been someone, as they approached the shrine, someone sauntering along, in no hurry. Tall, and thin, with his hair tied back and a cigarette in his mouth. Hassan felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. The cook. The honey dealer. They were the same man.
The cook must have seen the smoke above the trees even if the beekeeper had put it out. He must have told Mir Saab’s guards. Hassan wanted to go out and yell at the cook from the balcony but he stopped himself. He had to get back home. If he had to do an errand for the cook, would that be so bad? Baba had sold honey to him, after all. He heard his mother’s words: ‘That man is dangerous.’ Ansari Saab had talked about him too. And the cook had told the guards; it must have been him.
But Hassan was desperate. His mother didn’t have much time and the floods would start in a few weeks, three, four at the most.
Hassan nestled deeper under his sheet. For now, he had to pretend he suspected nothing about who the cook was or what he might have done. He reached for the comb. He thought of the beekeeper, then of Maryam. He felt his eyelids closing; sleep numbed him.
Chapter Fifteen
The moon was framed by the open shutters when Hassan woke to noises in his room. A crow again. It looked like the same one as before. It hammered the window frame with its beak and tore at the mosquito mesh. The bird stopped when there was a hole big enough for its grey beak to poke through but it could not reach what it wanted – the gulab jamun from the wedding.
The crow and Hassan looked at each other.
Hassan got out of bed and, keeping his eye on the bird, picked up the camera from the chair. He tiptoed to the window. The bird looked back at him with a curious look. It was then that Hassan noticed a white mark on the right side of its head.
‘Here you are.’ He unwrapped the gulab jamun and crumbled a piece, holding it within the bird’s reach. It stared at him while he lifted his camera. The crow and the gulab jamun were in the frame and something else.
The square of paper, still folded up. The boat plans.
He had forgotten to tell Mir Saab that he had them. He took the paper between his fingers, keeping the camera on the bird. The crow started to pick at the crumbs. This was the moment.
‘Got you.’
He pressed the button. The paper dropped to the floor.
Outside, the water pump creaked as cold water splashed on his squatting, naked body. Finally clean and fresh, he dried himself off. He thought of the wedding. Maryam knew everything now except that his father had been the honey hunter. Or had she worked that out too?
Nobody was around as he went over to the gates; the guards were playing cards and their sleepy comments were dotted by quiet laughter. He loitered by the wall, unnoticed by them. Their sameness and satisfaction… he wished he had that. A figure made its way down the track from the main gate; it was too far away for him to see who it was but he recognised the walk and the tall, thin body. When the cook was about halfway down, Hassan slipped behind the wall, but with the top of his head and eyes peering round. The cook was coming nearer and so he slid further behind the thick creeper on the inside of the wall. The cook walked past him into the courtyard, stopped, and took out a cigarette. His dusty clothes stuck to his body as if he had been walking the streets all night. He looked thin and tired even though his hair was still neat. He blew smoke out of his mouth and headed for the servants’ building.
There was still another hour before the house woke up. Hassan left through the gates, went past the guards, around the wall, and stopped to empty his sandals one by one, leaning with his hand against the wall. The sand was already warm on his toes.
That was when he saw the hole – more of a large crack in the wall. It was covered by weeds and probably just big enough to heave himself through.
An oval black eye. One on each side of a head. A million dots turned into three small eyes in the middle of the head. Two antennae, covered in fine black hair, moved closer. The antennae grew bigger. Hairs touched him. The long body of the bee came into view. Its outline shimmered and merged with Hassan’s own centre. He was being absorbed into the body of the bee and taken into their nest once again.
Fine outlines of open cells were above him, all lined up in a row. Each cell was the texture of light. Row upon row of empty hexagons made up the wax walls, stretching out into infinity.
Some of the cells were incomplete; some broken and some broke off into space. It was a building site, the border of a great city. He could sense the activity of invisible bees moving deep in between the walls. His senses moved or floated along, taking him deeper.
Behind him was the sudden beating of wings and moving shadows of what could only be bees. He turned again and again. There must be hundreds of them: workers not ready to show themselves to him. Or was he just not ready to see?
He moved through corridors, both open and closed. Winding pathways. Flashes and blobs of light darted about like last time, only more distant. The bees were sending messages. The temperature became warmer in one area and the flashes more urgent. His presence here was questionable. He turned around and wandered through dark tunnels. The energy of industry was all around him and it carried him. The sound of humming was a motor. But there was something else now; a feeling. He was being watched.
The walls of hexagons came to an end and before him was a gap. Darkness was all around, and then, suddenly, flashes were everywhere, like stars in the night. A platform made out of light appeared in the space and a bee flew in and landed on the platform. Its appearance must have been the signal for more bees to gather and watch this incomer. The space grew brighter and the humming was steady but excited.
The bee in the centre, the incomer, started to follow an invisible path of a figure of eight on the platform, its body vibrating as it moved. Then it stopped and traced an invisible line that cut the two circles.
The line pointed in the direction of the sun. Somehow Hassan remembered this. The bee then wiggled and spun, and then stopped, at an angle to the line. It was showing them the direction of the flowers from which it had just come. The angle the bee’s body made from the central line was the direction in which the other bees should travel to find the flowers. This was the waggle dance his father had told him about. This area was a welcoming platform, a dancefloor. Some bees left the area, in search of the flowers. He too wanted to follow, wanted to be one of them, but instead, he found himself on the floor of the masjid, in his body again. He wanted to be in the nest more than anything now. Maryam had talked about love but this was different. The love between lovers ended. This could not. He just knew it. But a love equal to the one that was in the hive, how could he ever find that?
And yet, somehow, he knew what it would mean to find that kind of love. It would mean the death of everything he knew. There was no way he could do that. Surely the bees did not expect that? When he found the beekeeper, perhaps he would ask him to get the black honey for him. They liked the beekeeper. They trusted him already. His love had to match theirs.
Hassan sat, waiting for the others to come for breakfast as Mir Saab paced the living room. Dark rings hung under Mir Saab’s eyes. Begum Saab’s beads lay in an abandoned pile on the couch and the room felt airless even though the shutters were open. The bees and their
dance seemed far away.
Mir Saab ushered him into the study and opened the box of golden sticks. ‘Come on then, make yourself useful.’
Hassan took a stick, and then another. He laid them on the surface of the table, slotting them together. Both of them worked, quietly, side by side for several minutes.
‘The code acts through our hands when we do this,’ Mir Saab said.
‘Did you make the wall in the masjid look like spirals because of the code?’ This was a risk but Hassan had to take it. Small steps to the question about going home that he had to ask.
‘You’ve been in there?’ Mir Saab stopped with his hand in mid-air, a small golden stick between his fingers. At that moment, the sunlight burst through again; it had been stuck all this time behind a rare, stray cloud. The large hive structure was lit up, its shape reflected in Mir Saab’s glasses as tiny sparks of light. ‘Were the bees in there?’
‘Yes.’
Mir Saab continued joining sticks together. The familiar shape was unfolding, growing into a small hexagonal ball. He picked it up in both hands and held it out to the sunlight. Hassan had finished his structure. He also held it up to shine in the sunbeam.
Mir Saab pointed to the sticks. ‘More. I want a larger hive this time.’
They carried on together. So much was in his head. His father. The bees. The beekeeper. All the lies he was telling. No, not lies; he was just keeping secrets. Necessary secrets. Building this hive, next to the man who made his father disappear, was calming. He would have laughed if he had been told this would happen when he first came to Karachi. And the bees… that was even stranger, yet it didn’t actually seem strange. He continued to slot the sticks together.
‘The bees, they make these structures without thinking. Their whole lives are products of the instructions,’ Mir Saab said.
Hassan’s hand slipped and he knocked a stick against the small half-made egg. It wobbled but did not collapse.