by Siya Turabi
‘Your mother will think we haven’t been treating you well,’ Begum Saab said as she left the room.
‘When will you see her?’ Maryam asked once they’d all finished.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, putting down his knife and fork. He was getting used to eating with them now but he still preferred hands. Before he could say any more, Mir Saab got up and headed for his study; he waved to them to follow.
The door creaked as they went in. Mir Saab went to the bookshelf and stopped at the section full of his notebooks. He came back with one that was frayed at the corners. He turned the yellowing pages of ink drawings.
‘Have you seen all of those birds in the forest, Baba?’ Zain asked.
Mir Saab nodded. ‘There it is, the honeyguide. Very rare. The old beekeeper taught me the honeybird whistle.’
Mir Saab lifted his jaw, pursed his lips, and whistled. Softly at first, though the sound was shrill and echoed in Hassan’s eardrums. The whistle became louder, until everyone put their hands to their ears and Mir Saab stopped.
‘It led me to bees’ nests, up in trees and in mounds on the forest floor,’ he said. ‘It didn’t lead me to the current beekeeper as I’d hoped, but I still broke a little earth off a mound to say thank-you to the bird.’
Begum Saab was at the door. The tutor had arrived and Maryam, Zain, and Amina went for their lessons. Hassan was left alone with Mir Saab. This was his chance to change the mir’s mind.
‘I saw a queen and drones outside the masjid.’
‘The nuptial dance?’
Hassan nodded. ‘I think it was a queen from another nest, not the one in the masjid.’
‘So, you went again,’ Mir Saab said. There was no judgement in his voice. ‘This means that the hive in the masjid may be ready to swarm soon. There will be grown ones in there keen for more space.’
‘Yes.’ Hassan was desperate.
Mir Saab put the notebook back on the shelf and stood in the middle of the room.
This man, the Mir of Harikaya, the man who looked down from the fort and made new laws like others made bread, shared the same love of bees as Hassan’s father. The man who had sent the guards after Baba shared so much with him. One day, Mir Saab and Baba would meet. And when they did, Mir Saab might understand that the forest fire was an accident. A foolish accident.
It was time to say what he needed to say. ‘I know the bees will be swarming in Harikaya later than here,’ he said. ‘I need to get back to the forests before the floods.’
‘Too dangerous.’ Mir Saab was shaking his heard. ‘I’ve said that already. We can go for Eid.’
‘Mir Saab, that’s too late. I need to go back now.’
‘Prayers,’ Mir Saab said, as if he hadn’t heard. He headed towards the door at the far end of the room.
Hassan had been blocked. If there had been less anger inside him, he might have used his clenched fist to swipe at all the papers on the table. But his anger wanted to break the hexagonal shapes, to scream and throw them at the window.
Instead, he dug his nails deeper into his palms. He walked out into the courtyard. It was darker now but he made out Ali Noor coming through the gates, hurrying towards the car with the car keys in his hand. Hassan quickened his steps and met the driver just as he opened the car door.
‘Take me to the station,’ he said.
‘What?’ Ali Noor straightened up.
‘I need to get to the station.’
‘I have a task to do for Begum Saab.’
Ali Noor put his hand on Hassan’s shoulder but Hassan drew back.
‘I would help if I could.’
‘Please.’
‘It’s dangerous out there. You know I come from the same place as you. I’ve heard about your mother. We all have.’
There was no pity in his face, just an openness.
‘You have to accept it.’ His voice was kind. ‘Wait till Eid. I’ll make sure you see your mother then. I’ll drive you personally. How about that?’
‘It’ll be too late.’ Hassan turned. He didn’t want Ali Noor to see the tears.
That night on the balcony, Hassan looked out on a half moon. He thought of Harikaya. When he got there, he’d slip away to the jungle unnoticed. He rested his hands on the balcony wall to steady himself and took a deep breath in. Baba was watching the stars too, he just knew it.
He went into his room and lay down on the bed. He must have fallen asleep in his clothes because when he awoke it was still dark, and he felt the longing to be with the bees in the masjid was growing. He closed his eyes and heard humming. The moonlight bathed his eyelids and the beekeeper’s face appeared in his mind. The humming was steady. The bees were calling. The sound grew louder and louder until he covered his ears with his hands.
What was he thinking? It was the middle of the night. At that moment, a bee entered his room and Hassan bolted upright. It must have come in through the hole in the mosquito mesh. The bee’s humming was steady but getting faster. It hovered at the end of the bed at first but made its way forward, filling the room with its sound.
The bee came closer, so close now that Hassan stared at its face, its antennae and its black eyes framed by golden hair. This was a worker, come to find him. The bee darted one way and the other, just an inch or so from his body. He stood up and opened his bedroom door but the bee stayed inside. It circled under the fan and moved back towards the window but didn’t leave. Hassan went out onto the balcony and the bee and the humming vanished.
Downstairs, the bee was there again, waiting. Hassan started forward to leave through the main gates but stopped. It was still too dark; the guards might stop him. Instead, he slipped behind the trunks at the back of the servants’ building, and was through the hole in seconds.
Snakes and lizards came out at night. Out here, alone in the moonlight, with the trees before him, he had a choice: to answer the call or go back. He ran into the forest, leaves brushing against his ankles. He stumbled once or twice but he got up and ran hard, a wild animal through the trees. He was free.
The masjid with the crescent moon at its head looked like a form from another planet, like a temple that could take off. It was the home of the bees. Inside, he bolted the door behind him. It was dark and he felt his way to his usual pillar and sat down. A bee landed on his finger – from nowhere – and when it launched into the air again, it was followed by a thread of light like silver shots of electricity in the dark. The bee came close to Hassan’s face, close enough for him to see the three tiny eyes at the top of its head between its two larger eyes.
Tremors. He felt tremors in the darkness and he was no longer on the stone floor. Instead, he was inside their nest and he could see with a new vision. The cell walls were vibrating like piano keys played by the bees’ feet. He moved on between the walls. Previously empty cells were now closed white ones, with curved lids for the male drones or flat lids for the smaller female workers. They were brimming with life, yet to be born. More tremors, this time louder, but there were patterns to the tremors as if the bees were sending messages from one part of the hive to another through its very framework.
He arrived at a place where he felt the touch of air and the brush of wings. A bee flew in, landing on the dancefloor. He was here again. The bee brought with her the scent of flowers from the outside; purple and blue, the colours of that scent, danced in dappled light on the hexagons. Another bee came down and landed next to the first one who opened her mouth and kissed this second bee. Chewed nectar was being transferred from one mouth to another. Two bees kissing.
The receiver bee continued with the chewing and stirring of the nectar in her mouth now. Once she had finished, more bees flew in to watch and the nectar was transferred to yet another mouth and then finally into an empty cell in the comb wall. The cell was then covered with a thin, transparent thread that came out of the bee’s body like the weave emerging from his mother’s loom.
More bees came in with their cargo and nectar was passed from m
outh to mouth. Nectar was chewed. Nectar was stirred. Mouths kissed and nectar was dropped into the empty cells. It was a production line, efficient and steady. Smacked kisses. A steady rhythm. Tap, tap, tap. Like the stonemasons in Harikaya tapping with silver hammers. Tap, tap, tap.
He was back in human shape, neat and compact on the floor. There was a taste of honey in his mouth. Why was all this happening? The bees had allowed him in once more, to be part of them, and in there, everything seemed familiar and new at the same time. He didn’t know what that might be or if it was all his imagination, but it was as if the bees were preparing him for something. He still had a lot to prove to the bees but he was becoming more and more sure that he belonged with them, that he was one with many. Yes, he was human, but in their world; his body, his name, his memories were left behind. It was just him, without form. And he liked that feeling.
He opened the door of the masjid to early morning birdsong and stood at the top of the steps. He had been in the nest for a long time, absorbed in their comings and goings.
Humming rang out from behind him. The door of the masjid was still open. He jumped back and held the edge of the door in his hand as he listened. The humming was strong and steady; he breathed in the fragrance of the hive. What had just happened had brought the flowers into the hive. The flowers were part of them, separate but part of their body; their nest and the bees made love to the flowers. The bees had allowed him to watch and learn. They were carriers of nectar, builders of cities, weavers of homes, and they were also his teachers who turned the flower’s gift into gold.
Hassan closed the door with care. The world of people was different. Greed and politics were different. There was no harmony there. The knowledge of the bees seemed far away.
He stopped on the top step. There was no sound from inside the hive now. The traffic was far away but he heard it now, faint but always there. He took another step down.
He had to get home to see his mother and to find the bees in the forest in Harikaya. The errand for the cook was the only way.
Chapter Seventeen
Hassan came to a halt in the dining room. An unknown smell was emanating from the living room, and it wasn’t breakfast. The smell was fragile at first but steadily increased in strength until it stuck in Hassan’s nostrils. Someone was smoking, but the smell was more acidic than usual, like flowers and buffalo dung mixed together. Mir Saab didn’t smoke. Guests only smoked in the drawing room. Mir Saab’s mother was arriving in the afternoon so hopefully the smell would go by then. He put his hands to his nose as he was about to sneeze.
Sounds of chatter came down the stairs and Maryam, Zain, and Amina approached the doorway that led to the living room from the hall, but their voices came to a halt at the door like a record forced to stop. The three of them disappeared inside the room without seeing him. He hesitated for a moment and then followed.
‘George, pass me the lighter. The cigar’s gone out again. This thing’s hardly worth smoking.’
It had to be Mir Saab’s mother. She must have arrived early. The accent wasn’t as English as Mir Saab’s, but only his mother called him George, in honour of the then King of England who had visited the family after Mir Saab’s birth in a place called Brighton. Hassan took a few steps through the door. He had heard all about it in history lessons and here it was, living history, right in front of him.
‘It’s far too early to make conversation,’ she said to Zain and Amina and then, to Maryam, she said, ‘Hello.’
They were her eager audience but Hassan started to retrace his steps very slowly, hoping that no one would notice him by the time he was at the door again.
A sound distracted his concentration and he looked in the direction of Mir Saab’s mother who was now holding a glass bottle and sucking at a drinking straw. The cigar was resting on the rim of the ashtray, smoking on its own. She looked up and her lips seemed stuck in the shape of a circle that fitted perfectly around the straw. Hassan kept his mouth tightly shut. She was looking straight at him with big, dark eyes, outlined with black liner and made darker by the creamy whiteness of her powdered face and deep-red-painted lips. All of it was framed by jet-black hair tied back loosely so that spiral curls hung like earrings behind her ears. Her real earrings hung even lower and shone in the light like her necklace. Hassan wanted to make himself invisible but the cigar smoke had dried his throat and he coughed instead.
‘Who’s this?’ she asked.
‘This is Hassan, Mother.’
‘Who?’ she repeated.
‘He’s a nephew of one of the staff,’ Mir Saab said.
‘You’re always so kind to people, George.’
Hassan longed to be back in the masjid. He had washed before he came down for breakfast but he wished he had put on the wedding clothes again. Mir Saab’s mother was like a queen.
‘This boy is quite different,’ Mir Saab whispered.
Maryam nodded in the direction of the sofa. ‘Come and sit with us,’ she said to him. He was careful not to sit on her long shirt. Amina and Zain came to sit next to him.
‘It’s so humid here, George. Hyderabad was cooler. Better for my bones,’ Mir Saab’s mother said.
‘Our house is on a hill over there. Much fresher and it has lovely gardens,’ Mir Saab said.
‘The Nizam’s wife joins me sometimes.’
That name was in his history book too: the Nizam of Hyderabad, one of India’s richest men before the two countries divided.
‘Have they changed much?’ Mir Saab asked.
‘The Nizam’s hardly at home these days.’
‘I meant the gardens.’
‘Oh, the trees have grown. Nothing like here though.’
‘You should try planting English oaks,’ Mir Saab said.
His mother laughed. ‘It’ll be like foggy London on an autumn day.’
Her laughter faded away and she turned to Mir Saab. ‘You should come back with me to India, George. Bring the family.’
Mir Saab only sighed and went to the chest to take out the roll of drawings of the boat. He flattened them out on the coffee table.
‘Still planning your escape route, I see,’ his mother said.
Hassan leant forwards to see what Mir Saab would add to the ship today.
‘The more I see the greed and envy to which you’re subject, the more I think the boat’s a good idea,’ she said.
‘I’m worried about the water levels and the animals,’ Mir Saab said.
‘And your beloved forests.’
‘The government’s making trouble again,’ Mir Saab said.
Mir Saab’s mother took a long inhalation of her cigar. ‘What is it this time?’
‘The factories.’
‘What?’ Smoke erupted from her mouth. ‘Your father should have been stronger.’
‘Father did his best to keep Harikaya independent,’ Mir Saab said, as if reciting from a book he’d read a thousand times. ‘The state was too big to be stuck in the middle of the new country.’ Mir Saab bit his lower lip and looked down at the boat plans.
‘I do wish you’d stayed the ruler,’ his mother said.
‘Those days have gone, Mother. War or merge into the new state: that was the choice I was faced with.’
‘You were only eighteen when your father died,’ Mir Saab’s mother said.
The cigar was smoking on its own again. The smell seemed sweeter now, more bearable.
‘The school principal told me in the middle of the night that he was dying,’ Mir Saab said.
‘And you left immediately.’
‘On the ship for three weeks.’
Everyone in the region had been given a small bowl made out of the local stone when Mir Saab had been crowned the new mir. Hassan’s mother still had it somewhere.
‘I was too late; Father died before I got back,’ Mir Saab said.
Mir Saab’s mother sucked on the straw again. ‘And now you’re just a symbol.’
Mir Saab looked down at the ship. He
took up his pencil and started to draw.
Mir Saab’s mother turned to Maryam. ‘You have such pretty eyes. Take your glasses off for a moment, will you?’
Maryam obeyed.
‘Yes, I was right; they’re beautiful,’ Mir Saab’s mother said.
Hassan glanced towards Maryam. Her eyes were big but that was all.
‘She should use the forest honey so she won’t need glasses.’
‘Hassan’s going to look for it,’ Maryam said.
The others stopped playing to listen.
‘Why are you going to look for it?’ Mir Saab’s mother’s eyes grew wide.
‘I’m going to look for the beekeeper. He’ll help me find the black honey for my mother’s eyes,’ Hassan said. ‘She’ll lose her sight if I don’t.’
She put down her glass and said, ‘My husband and son met the current beekeeper’s father a few times. They were both touched by his magic.’
‘When are you going?’ said Maryam.
‘If Mir Saab allows it’—Hassan looked at Mir Saab—‘I could go before I start school here in Karachi.’
‘There’s a new law now.’ Mir Saab’s voice was quiet.
‘So?’ his mother said.
‘I can’t allow a child to go honey hunting. It’s dangerous enough for the adults. That’s why I passed the law. The forest is forbidden.’ He sounded irritated, as if he had had this conversation with himself a thousand times.
Mir Saab’s mother huffed. ‘That’s not the real reason.’ She lit another cigar. ‘The trouble is, George, you’ve become jaded.’
‘What do you mean, Mother?’
She sighed. ‘It all changed when you started school. If only you’d found the beekeeper again.’
‘I tried.’
‘I know.’ Her voice was kinder now. ‘The truth is, he didn’t want you to find him.’