The Last Beekeeper

by Siya Turabi

  Mir Saab’s body began to sag.

  ‘You wanted to protect the forest, make it grow – the most important thing in the world for you. But there was also a part of you that doesn’t want anyone else to find him, isn’t there?’

  Mir Saab looked too weak to argue with her.

  ‘The bees,’ he said. ‘They never forgave me.’

  ‘That’s what you believed,’ she said. ‘And as revenge you stopped believing in them. In their medicine.’

  ‘Mother, that’s not…’

  His mother waved her hand as if to signal that any protest was useless. ‘That boy, who has come because you chose to help a poor village boy, has come to help you.’

  Mir Saab was staring at the floor. Hassan felt his heartbeat start to race.

  ‘He has the same hunger in his eyes as you had, George,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to let him try, at least. Let him go.’

  Maryam stood up. ‘If he goes, I want to go too.’

  ‘Why don’t you all go?’ His mother looked serious.

  Mir Saab slowly started to look up.

  ‘All right.’

  Hassan couldn’t believe it. There was a rush of blood to his head. He wanted to go over to Mir Saab and take his hand.

  ‘Mir Saab, thank you,’ he said. ‘I will find the beekeeper.’

  Mir Saab was scratching his head. ‘We will all go back, on one condition. Hassan must go to find him alone.’

  There was a hush.

  ‘If he allows you to find him, then the rest will follow,’ Mir Saab said.

  ‘When will we go, Mir Saab?’ Hassan asked.

  ‘In a few days. Yes, we’ll all go in a few days by plane.’

  ‘We have to come back before I go back to London in twelve days,’ Maryam said.

  Mir Saab’s mother raised her glass and looked straight at Hassan. ‘Well, that’s a good result, isn’t it?’

  Hassan could breathe freely again. Things would be all right. Amma’s eyes would be all right. There was a warm glow in his chest that was getting stronger. He decided to be this woman’s loyal admirer for the rest of his life.

  ‘I hope you do better than he did in the forests,’ she said, nodding in Mir Saab’s direction.

  Everyone laughed and Mir Saab’s mother looked at her son for a few moments and sighed.

  ‘He’s different, George; that’s what you meant, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mir Saab said.

  Nothing more was said for a few moments until Mir Saab’s mother clapped her hands. ‘I want to play bridge,’ she almost shouted.

  ‘Now we can stay up all night,’ Zain said.

  ‘And watch films too,’ Amina added.

  The night was lost to play. Maryam, Zain, and Amina – and even Hassan – stayed up with her, watching films, playing bridge, and laughing as she smoked cigars and drank whisky. Not even Begum Saab had authority over Mir Saab’s mother. Mir Saab stayed around her for most of the time, except when he was praying or sleeping.

  ‘Stay a while, a few weeks or months,’ he said to her in the morning as they all went to sleep for a few hours.

  Afternoon came with no reply to this request. Mir Saab waited like a child by his mother’s side.

  And she talked to Hassan as much as she did to the others.

  ‘Special eyes,’ she said to him.

  She didn’t say any more and they picked up their cards again, but Hassan could only think of his promise to his mother. Maryam tapped his shoulder and said, without moving her head, ‘Your turn.’

  His attention was back on the cards.

  ‘You two are friends,’ Mir Saab’s mother said.

  The smile that passed on her lips showed Hassan that she thought there was nothing wrong in that. And there was nothing wrong with it. He smiled back at her.

  Mir Saab’s mother picked up her glass and went for her lighter. ‘My son lived away from his parents too.’

  Hassan wanted to say that Mir Saab had been further away from his parents than he was, but he stopped when he saw Mir Saab’s mother’s face. Did his own mother look like that when she thought of him?

  The next day she gave her son an answer: ‘I would stay, George, but it’s too humid here.’

  Late in the afternoon, she said goodbye to each of them in turn in the hall and when she got to Hassan, she took his chin and held his head high. ‘It won’t be easy in the forests,’ she said.

  At the door, Hassan had to look away when Mir Saab’s mother took her son’s hand and Mir Saab became the small boy again left at school in England. They all followed her out to the car. She turned around at the car door and hesitated. Hassan held his breath, but she got in, lowered her window and blew her son a kiss. Mir Saab stepped back into the house.

  The car drove through the first set of gates. The leader of the show had gone and a great space had opened up in her absence. Hassan raised his chin a little higher even though he wanted to cry. The previous night and this afternoon had been like a dream, no, a film, and the ending brought Hassan back to earth. He would never forget her.

  He shielded his eyes in the haze of the sun. He had been here for what seemed like an eternity now. He felt a longing to be with the bees again. He wanted to feel them again, to feel their love. It was Maryam who touched his elbow when the others had left and it was she who guided him back into the shade.

  ‘I’ll meet you at the other side of the wall,’ she said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Hassan crawled through the hole in the wall to see Maryam standing under a tree. She had beat him there. A bee flew into her face and she brushed it away, jumping to the side. Hassan stopped himself from laughing.

  ‘I’ve been dying to speak to you about the bees,’ she said. ‘I still don’t get it.’

  ‘It’s hard for me to understand too,’ he said.

  ‘Not everyone’s like you.’

  ‘I’m not special.’

  ‘Then what makes you able to do what you can?’ she asked, a small frown on her face.

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of the house while they’re making the preparations.’

  He glanced sideways at Maryam. Her curls bounced. Her glasses were always smudged but she didn’t care, and her eyes were awake to everything around her. They walked side by side on the path that he knew so well by now. She wasn’t just ‘the girl’, as the cook had called her. But she was also not the kind of girl Hassan would want. He thought of Sami. Harikaya was far away now; too much had happened. The truth was, he didn’t want anyone. No, that kind of thing wasn’t for him. Maryam looked at him, her mouth curled up with mischief.

  ‘Let’s race,’ she said, ‘up to the old pool.’

  Hassan followed her; it was a close finish.

  ‘I won,’ she crowed.

  Hassan laughed, still out of breath. They both leant on the wall.

  ‘Are you seeing your stories?’ he asked.

  ‘Not mine, yours.’

  His eyes roamed the tiles on the floor of the pool. Underneath the leaves were whole, broken, and chipped pieces.

  ‘I’m seeing you when you were little with your father,’ she said.

  Hassan leant further over the edge, his heart beating fast.

  ‘Did he tell you about the black honey?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a loudness to her silence. He looked over to her.

  ‘The stories help me feel less alone,’ she said.

  ‘In London?’

  ‘At school.’

  The sun was hot now but they stayed there, both of them holding onto the edge. They squinted at the tiles together until a cloud passed overhead.

  ‘It’s so quiet here; the house and the city are so far away,’ she said.

  ‘In Harikaya, when it’s quiet the crickets sound very loud.’

  ‘I can’t wait to go there.’

  A few car horns sounded in the distance but apart from that even the crows were qui
et for a minute or two. Hassan thought about the trip back. Mir Saab had to fix a date soon.

  ‘They’re making preparations in the house,’ Maryam said.

  ‘What are the preparations for?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t you know? It’s the birthday of a holy person from the olden times,’ she said. ‘He was twelve when he disappeared.’ Maryam thought for a few moments. ‘They say he gave a talk and walked into a cave and was never seen again.’

  Hassan pictured the boy walking with his back to the people into the entrance of the dark cave.

  ‘Was this a cave with no ending?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  ‘Is he in this country?’

  ‘No, silly, he’s everywhere. Like a spirit.’

  ‘Do you think his body just vanished?’ he asked.

  ‘I think he must have turned invisible. Look, I’m invisible.’ She started to walk away. ‘I’m going to hide.’

  ‘I’ll count,’ he said.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Her footsteps were moving away and he turned in time to see some tall leafy bushes wave and then he started to count. He looked down at the pool again. All its stories had gone now and without them, it was nothing more than an old pool with smashed tiles and weeds on its floor. But losing stories made room for new ones. The masjid had lost its old story to become the temple of the bees.

  A crow screeched. It sounded like a scream and Hassan counted out loud, ‘Ninety-nine, one hundred.’ There was no sound from Maryam.

  ‘I’m coming!’ he shouted. He ran into the forest, moving branches and leaves as he went. ‘Maryam, where are you?’ He stopped trampling the ground to listen but it was taking too long. He walked in circles for minutes, his heart racing more after every turn he made. ‘If this is a joke, please stop now.’

  Had she left? Was she hurt? Thickets and thorns scratched his ankles and feet but he walked on, sweeping bushes aside. ‘Mar…y…am!’ He wanted to shout more, wanted to tell her that he wanted her back now.

  Suddenly, she jumped out from behind the leaves, like a ghost from another world. He wanted to rush up to her, to check she was all right but he stopped himself, a mere foot away from her. Her voice was quiet and she was watching him closely. The longing to touch her stopped his breath for a second, but the longing was only on his side. She was calm. Too calm. He didn’t know what to do with the leftovers of the feeling that hung around his chest.

  ‘I was playing,’ she said.

  He dared not look at her face.

  ‘You have a lot to think about, don’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’ He let the longing dissolve; it was pointless here.

  ‘Have you been to the jungles of Harikaya before?’ she asked.

  He thought quickly. ‘I can’t remember,’ he swallowed. It was the closest to not lying that he could think of.

  ‘So you might have been when you were younger?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s getting dark, Hassan.’

  They started to head back.

  ‘I’m going back to London on the fourteenth of September. That’s twelve days away,’ she said. ‘That’ll make my uncle hurry up. You’ll be in the forests soon.’

  ‘When will you come back?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Why not? The question pricked him inside. He thought of Harikaya – the days spent wandering the streets on his own ever since his father had left. All those times when he had tried to look like he was going somewhere, doing something, to stop people noticing his aloneness. They walked, he and Maryam, in the fading light, side by side. And now she was leaving too.

  ‘You’d go into the forests in Harikaya on your own, wouldn’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It would be nice, though, to…’ she said, grasping his elbow, making him stop. Her eyes sparkled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘To see you do it.’

  ‘If I can do it.’

  ‘Will you go again as soon as we get there?’

  ‘I have to get back there. I have no other choice. My mother’s eyes…’

  She clapped her hands. ‘Ha, I knew it! So, you’ve been there already. Why didn’t you get the black honey then?’

  She had tricked him, but that was all right. He was too happy that he was going back.

  ‘I’ll explain one day. It’s a long story.’

  They had reached the wall of the house again. She carried on while he went around the back and slipped through the hole. By the time they were together again in the courtyard, the sun had nearly set. They stood by the wall of the servants’ quarters. She was panting; she must have walked fast through the darkness. He wished he didn’t have to leave her to go round the wall by herself.

  Just then, a man came out of the open gate that led to the back of the building. It was the cook, whispering something under his breath. He hadn’t seen them and Maryam was looking in the direction of the house.

  A woman came through the gate behind the cook; she was hurried, with bare feet and loose hair. ‘Wait!’ she said.

  Hassan took a sharp breath. It was Kulsoom. She hadn’t seen them in the shadows but Maryam saw her now. Hassan put his hand over his mouth to signal to Maryam to keep quiet. Kulsoom had her back to them as she gave up the chase and the cook walked away. She walked to the washing line in the corner and began to take the washing down, her mouth snapping and growling curses as she did so. The swearing became louder. She barked until her throat was dry and then she gulped. The gulp broke into a sob from somewhere so deep and dark that Hassan walked away. Shock squeezed his chest.

  He waved his hand for Maryam to follow, but Kulsoom must have heard their footsteps and her sobs shut down. Hassan turned in time to see the gate click; she was gone.

  As soon as they entered the house, the activity cooled his head.

  ‘You’ll stay awake the whole night,’ Amina said as she passed them in the hall, carrying matches.

  Hassan followed Amina and Zain and Maryam up the stairs and into a candlelit world.

  They walked from room to room until they settled in the prayer room. They waited to see if spirits would appear as they were said to on this night. Hassan was drawn in, even though it was all new for him. They huddled together as Zain told stories, full of heroes and adventures. The candlelight became the normal light that night, for their bright eyes reflected each other’s faces. Flames danced with the wings of night creatures that watched and listened too.

  After several stories, Maryam spoke.

  ‘Maybe he’s here,’ she said. ‘I saw a light.’

  Was it just her eyes? No, he thought he’d seen the light too. But later, Maryam changed her mind.

  ‘They were just shadows,’ she said. ‘It must have been a trick of the light.’

  Battles with eyelids started in the early hours. Sleep gathered force in the room, but Hassan watched the walls while the others slept and the candles shrank. It was like in the city of bees, in the hive, except that there the magic was all over and around him and in him and he forgot who he was and how to think or doubt.

  In the morning, he woke to the sound of footsteps and creaking doors. His dreams had been full of shadows and hidden lights.

  ‘Begum Saab wants to take you all to the bazaar to buy some clothes,’ Muhammed said. ‘Hassan, you too.’

  They shot up, still charged with the presence of magic and went to eat and prepare themselves. As Hassan got dressed, he thought of Kulsoom’s sob. It made him cold. One thing was now clear; he understood why the cook knew so much.

  The bazaar was packed even though it was morning time. They entered the indoor market that sprawled like a miniature city with unending aisles lined by stalls, both large and small and packed with cloth, furniture, bangles, and food. The driver stood behind their group, ready with a note or coin every time someone stretched out a hand.

  Hassan had never seen anything like this but every time he lifted his camera, someone stopped r
ight in front of him to haggle with a stallholder. A fortune teller sat cross-legged on a mat and a woman went to sit in front of him, holding out her palm while her family peered over her shoulder to hear her future. Hassan walked on with his camera ready. People shouted, fighting with numbers as buyers and sellers arrived at their final price. Everyone wanted to be the winner. They passed a man with glassy eyes who squatted over a basket. In it was a coiled fat snake. He raised his camera. At last, a picture.

  The others stopped in front of a stall stacked with bangles. The shopkeeper stood behind a mix of different colours.

  ‘I like those,’ Maryam said, pointing at the yellow glass ones.

  ‘Try them on,’ Zain said.

  Her hands squeezed through them like rubber.

  There were too many pictures that needed to be taken for Hassan to stay in one place. He took a few steps away from the others. He saw families talking, people cutting through on their way to work, a few men dressed as women, children shouting and playing amongst the hustle and bustle.

  Hassan scanned their faces. His gaze landed on a profile. It took him a few seconds until he was sure. It was him. It was the cook, standing at the bottom of the lane, his head jumping from person to person as if looking for someone. He started to move away, holding onto his shoulder bag as he walked. Hassan followed, keeping a few yards behind, weaving through the people.

  The cook was looking around at the stalls, the vendors, and the goods as if all this was new to him. He stopped to look at a stall which was more like a shop, with glass-fronted cabinets containing jewellery. He pointed at a chain but the shopkeeper shook his head. He was not going to open the cabinet for the cook. The cook kept on pointing, but the shopkeeper waved his hands. The cook looked around and Hassan ducked to the side of a stall. Copper and brass pots and kettles hung all around, shielding him.

  The cook began to argue with the shopkeeper, both their voices rising above the general din, until the man opened the case and the cook picked up the chain. He held it close to his eyes and looked as if he was going to eat it. He gave it back to the shopkeeper and pointed at another piece.