by Siya Turabi
The stallholder came to stand next to Hassan and stopped to look too.
‘Do you know him?’ Hassan asked.
‘He comes here sometimes,’ the man said, using a duster to swipe at the hanging kettles.
‘What does he do?’ asked Hassan.
‘Nothing much, looks at the jewellery, buys a piece now and again. Why?’
‘Oh, no reason. I don’t know him.’
The cook was already slipping away, weaving through the people crowding around the huge open gates of the market. Hassan followed, almost running to keep up until, not far from the gates, the cook stopped in front of a pair of glass doors that led to a small hotel. Hassan stood diagonally across from him in a doorway. The cook was facing away from Hassan as he took out a cigarette and lit it. People went in and out, past the smoking cook who took out a folded piece of paper from his bag and opened it up. Hassan squinted. It was Mir Saab’s plans for the ship. Hassan raised his camera and pressed the button.
His first instinct was to run up and grab the paper but a man and woman approached, stopping a few metres away. The cook nodded and they came closer. Without any words, the cook handed the man the paper and, in exchange, took a bundle of rupees. Hassan took another picture. The man and woman turned and hurried across the road. They got into a rickshaw that sped off to the end of the street and turned a corner to join the city traffic on the main road. The cook stood for a few seconds, his smile hardly visible but definitely there. He walked off in the direction of the rickshaw, his steps slower this time, before he dissolved into the city too.
Hassan returned to the others, slipping behind Maryam, Amina, and Zain.
‘Hassan, you look tired,’ Maryam said, as she turned to him.
‘I like those,’ he said, pointing to the bangles that Amina was carrying. It worked; they looked away again.
So many things were churning inside his head. The bundle of money. The ship plans. He had to let Mir Saab know. But the cook would find out and tell Mir Saab who his father was. The bangles shone and glinted; the voices around him blurred and were replaced by the sound of dogs barking on the street outside his house. He pictured his father jumping over the back wall. Hassan held onto his camera more tightly. There was only one thing to do. He had to speak to the cook himself.
Begum Saab joined them with Ali Noor by her side, loaded with bundles of silk on his outstretched arms. ‘They call me Aunty now, not Bibi anymore. Do I look that old?’ she asked, shaking her head.
Chapter Nineteen
Back at the house, Hassan ate lunch with one thought in his mind. He finished before the others and excused himself from the table, avoiding eye contact with Maryam. He walked through the dining room, then the passageway, and pushed through the door flaps of the kitchen to stand in the middle of the room. His arms were folded under the camera which still hung at the end of the strap around his neck. The cook turned to him from the pots on the stove as if he were greeting an old friend.
‘So, you’ve had a think, have you?’ he said, stirring the pot and dropping the lid with a crash on the worktop. ‘I knew you’d see sense.’
‘Yes, I’ve been thinking,’ Hassan said.
‘They want Chinese food this evening.’ The cook continued stirring.
‘I’m not working for you.’
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want to know more. What do you sell?’
‘Are you trying to trick me? If you try anything, I’ll get Mir Saab on your father before you can pick up your broken teeth.’
‘What information do you sell and who are you selling it to besides the newspapers?’ Hassan asked, sweating. The cook came nearer to him with the long wooden spoon in his hand but Hassan didn’t move. He could feel the heat coming from the cook’s body.
‘You think you can come in and talk to me like that, do you? You think you’re one of them now, better than me. You’re wrong. You’ll never change who you are.’
The cook sprayed water from his mouth as he spoke but Hassan stayed where he was.
‘Your father thought he could do better too than what he was. He went to work at the newspaper in Harikaya. Thought he was special. Got ideas of equality. What rubbish. He was nothing more than a drunken loser. Both of you are nothing but losers. I’ll tell them you gave me the information. You’ll never go back now.’
The kitchen doors flapped. It was Kulsoom.
‘Come to help, have you?’ the cook asked her.
She scowled. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, looking from the cook to Hassan.
‘We were just talking,’ the cook said. His arm stretched out to stroke her cheek. She jerked back. The cook wobbled but steadied his legs.
‘Where were you last night?’ she asked him.
The cook grew bigger and a darkness passed over him. He took a step towards Kulsoom. Food dripped off the spoon in his hand. Hassan’s whole body hardened and his fingers tightened around the camera.
‘Enough.’ The cook waved the spoon. ‘As long as I come back, what’s it to you?
‘Tell me where you go,’ she said.
With one shove of his free arm, the cook sent Kulsoom to the floor. Hassan rushed between them and received the blow meant for her. His ear drum rang like a siren and his jaw screamed but he held onto his camera with both hands.
‘Get out of here, you son of a bitch!’ the cook shouted at him. ‘You’re as bad as your father. That bastard.’
Kulsoom was standing up, holding onto Hassan. Her hands were hot on his shoulders. She pulled him away and screamed at the cook, ‘Leave him alone!’ It was a raw, desperate scream at some wild animal about to spring. She pushed Hassan through the door, following him to the dining room.
‘Hassan, he’s a dangerous man. Stay away,’ she whispered once they were in the dining room.
Hassan felt blood on his face. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were…?’
She looked up at him; her eyes were haunted. ‘Go now,’ she said.
‘I’m going to get him,’ Hassan said. He ran through the hall and out of the door, ripping his sleeve on the handle. He was powered by a heartbeat that set his body on fire. The hot sun made him raise his arm to his face. His sleeve was ripped and his mouth was wet. That taste again. Ink and oranges. Blood. He made for the gates. Exhausted, he leant against the wall out of sight of the snoring guards.
Where are you? a voice whispered in his mind. He put his hand in his mouth so he would not scream from the pain in his jaw. Where are you? He thought of the beekeeper and his father. His eyelids drooped. His knees were weak. ‘Where are you?’ The voice was clear now and loud; it was outside his head. There was a blur of noise around him, warm bodies; he was surrounded by the others.
‘Where were you, Hassan?’ Maryam asked him. ‘What’s happened. Your face, it’s bleeding.’
‘I fell,’ he said, straightening up against the wall.
‘That must have been some fall.’
They gave him water and he drank most of it. It was cold. It eased the pain and he found he could stand without the aid of the wall. He washed his face with the rest of the water and spat out blood. He had no memory of them walking to the pool.
‘I can manage,’ he said, when Zain took his elbow.
Zain picked up a stick and pretended to draw it out of a sheath in his belt. He used it to draw an imaginary circle on the sandy ground around Hassan. Then, he drew a line that pushed out and away from the circle.
‘A path for you,’ he said to Hassan. ‘Walk, kind sir, for you are free.’
Hassan took a slow step forwards and Maryam and Amina followed along the line.
‘Bend on one knee, Hassan.’ Zain spoke in an American accent now, copied from the films. Hassan let Zain place the stick on his head.
‘My sword makes you a Knight of Bee City.’
Hassan stood up and Zain handed the sword to Maryam.
‘You may draw the first shape,’ he said to her.
Maryam drew a
hexagon as big as the circle.
‘Please step inside the bee’s cell,’ Maryam said to Hassan. ‘You’ve set forth on a magic island. The power of darkness comes to you, Knight of Bee City. You will walk alone through the forest, day and night, with no fear.’
‘As King of Bee City, I command you, Amina,’ Zain continued, ‘to draw your shape.’
Maryam then handed the stick to Amina who stepped forwards.
‘This is the perfect hexagon,’ Amina said.
They all spoke with solemn voices.
‘Your horse waits outside. But only after the magic shapes are finished, can you go and do your duty,’ Zain said to Hassan, ‘to find the beekeeper and serve the Queen. Now you must draw the perfect hexagon around me. It is your first test as a Knight of Bee City.’
Hassan stepped out of his circle and drew another hexagon. The corners of his hexagon overlapped with Maryam’s.
‘It’s the code,’ Zain said.
‘What code?’ Hassan asked.
‘The code for magic identification,’ Zain replied with a dark tone in his voice. ‘Each of us is one of these hexagon shapes.’
Maryam took the stick again and drew another hexagon and then Amina. Zain followed.
‘A comb,’ Hassan said.
‘The link between us and the key to Bee City,’ Zain said.
‘This magic identification is our entry to Bee City,’ Maryam said.
Hassan poked a spot in each small hexagon. ‘The first stage is nearly over. The young bees are growing.’
‘What’s the second stage?’ asked Amina.
‘That comes when Hassan goes to the forest,’ Maryam said.
‘Now we’ll go and find water; the lake is near.’ Zain jammed the stick into the ground below the hexagons. He closed his eyes and concentrated. ‘The lake will reveal itself to us when we’re ready. But first, there’s a lot to do.’
Hassan closed his eyes and imagined a lake, a large one surrounded by trees, by the forest. When he opened his eyes, they were all in shadow; the light had disappeared behind a rare cloud.
‘Come on, the first task is to ask for guidance; we need to know the direction of the lake,’ Zain said.
‘The beekeeper will live near water,’ Maryam said.
‘Draw circles and hexagons everywhere. Find your swords and make the cells,’ Zain said. ‘Work for guidance.’
They made more overlapping hexagons, working hard for guidance until the cloud disappeared and they felt the heat.
‘We need to go back. Mother will be doing the gathering soon,’ Amina said in her usual voice again.
‘We’ll come again,’ Zain said, ‘tomorrow, to find the lake together.’
It was perhaps the use by Zain of the word together that triggered a flash. Whatever it was, a path of electricity was set in motion through Hassan’s brain. The others set off into the forest but Hassan hung back with the shape, his stick in his hand and the dust still settling around him. Only Maryam turned her head and stopped but he was stuck. Her form became hazy and turned into a shadow, coming towards him and stopping on the edge of his hexagon. Hassan stabbed his stick into the ground and leant on it but the images in his head didn’t stop. The cook’s arm, raised above him. The wooden spoon growing bigger. Smash. The pain. His mind cracked.
Hassan held his stick in the air and saw a body on the floor. The cook. He raised the stick higher with both hands and brought it down in one swoop on that body.
‘Die! Die! Die! Die! Die!’
The word wouldn’t stop.
‘Die! Die! Die! Die!’
‘Hassan!’ It was Maryam’s voice. But his was louder, so loud that it broke through to him and he stopped. The earth below him was covered in holes, holes coming closer, so near his face now… Hassan fell to the ground. A hand was on his shoulder. It touched the outer shell of his mind. Through the dirt, the blood, and the tears, he saw Maryam’s face.
Chapter Twenty
The family ate dinner earlier than usual that evening, still tired from the previous night. Maryam’s gaze was following him. She looked as if she had a million questions but he had no answers, not yet.
‘That was quite a fall you took on the stairs,’ Mir Saab said.
Hassan raised his hand to cover the bruises. Mir Saab had his drawings in front of him at the dining table and was trying to draw but after a minute he muttered to himself – something about the factories and charity – and got up to pace the room. Then Mir Saab stopped at the table, drew something on the boat drawing, and started to walk around the room again. It kept happening until, finally, Mir Saab sat down and picked up the newspaper, still neatly folded on the tray that Muhammed always brought in the morning. Mir Saab froze as he read. On the front page of the newspaper was a photo of him. His eyes shone with disbelief, moving over the article; he let the newspaper drop to the floor.
‘What’s happened?’ Zain asked, picking up the newspaper. He read the headline out loud: ‘“The Mir of Harikaya’s Plan to Build an Ark”.’ He read on. ‘The mir has a passion for animal life. It has been reported that the mir favours animals above humans.’
‘The government’s eaten my dream.’ Mir Saab covered his head with his hands.
Zain continued reading, ‘“This kind of fantasy-driven attitude in today’s society is dangerous. We, the government, are now working to take over the responsibility of the factories of Harikaya for this reason, to safeguard the people who work there.”’
‘Tell the police,’ Zain shouted, throwing the newspaper on the table.
‘What can they do?’ Mir Saab had tears in his eyes.
The government had trapped him again, stamping on his dream. No, they had stamped on him. Breakfast sat on the table untouched.
‘I give up,’ Mir Saab said.
‘Baba, no, you must fight back.’ Zain stood up.
‘Fight back?’ Mir Saab said. ‘I’m not entering into a war with gossip columnists or the government.’
‘Who do you think leaked the news, Baba?’ Amina asked.
‘It could have been one of the servants,’ Zain said.
Hassan’s jaw hurt now even more. He excused himself and left the room.
‘You didn’t tell me what happened to your face.’ It was Maryam at the bottom of the stairs. She had followed him.
‘I fell.’
‘Tell me the truth.’
‘Maryam.’ Her name sounded out of place amongst his hard thoughts and he stopped. ‘Not now.’
Hassan ran up to the first floor, round the landing, and up the second flight, past the room where they had evoked the jinn and round again to the floor where the attic rooms were. He climbed the few steps to the door to the roof. It was bolted and only opened with some difficulty, creaking and breaking through a heap of cobwebs as it did so. The air was cooler outside now.
He wasted no time walking over to the generator which buzzed quietly in the middle of the roof. He walked all the way around until he found what he was looking for – a flap. He opened it and there was a small space, cool and dark and big enough for his camera. He took off his waistcoat with the comb in the pocket and wrapped the camera in it before he placed it in the space. It was not visible even if someone lifted the flap and it was safer here than in his room.
He tiptoed down to the bottom step and turned the corner behind the banister. ‘Maryam, you’re still here.’
‘Where have you been?’ she asked.
‘On the roof. I was looking for something.’
When his father had come back from his adventures and his mother asked him where he’d been, Hassan had learnt then that the best way to lie was to tell a part truth.
‘What happened to you, Hassan?’ Maryam was not satisfied as easily as his mother had been.
‘Maryam, I can’t tell you. Not yet,’ he said. ‘There’s some business I need to finish now.’
‘What?
‘I can’t tell you that either,’ he said. ‘I have to ask you for one thing.’
Maryam nodded.
‘I’ll need somewhere to hide.’
‘Who from?’ She grabbed his wrist.
‘The cook.’
‘Why?’
‘Please trust me,’ he said.
Maryam’s face was so familiar now. He wanted to trust her too. It was hard to believe she would be leaving soon. She let go of his arm.
Hassan left Maryam and went down to the kitchen. Quick steps. Determined stride, in case he changed his mind. The cook was alone in the backyard, sitting in front of a fire with a metal mug in his hands. Smells of fried food hung about the place. The cook was startled to see him.
‘The prodigal son returns for more,’ he said. ‘Enjoy your dinner?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said. About us working together.’
The cook continued looking at the fire and drank from the mug. The liquid splashed as he brought it down again.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Hassan asked.
‘What made you see sense?’ the cook asked.
The cook seemed to be laughing behind his words but Hassan had to go on.
‘I’m not one of them. I never will be. Our types have to do what we can,’ Hassan said.
‘How do I know you’re not setting me up?’
‘I know what you’d do if I was.’ So far it was working.
The cook stood up. ‘Meet me when the sun has set at the main gates by the road,’ he said.
‘What are we going to do?’
‘I’ll show you how I work. If you pass that test, I’ll show you more. I’ll tell you where your precious father is.’
Hassan kept his face calm. He couldn’t leave without asking one more question.
‘Why do you hate my father so much?’
The cook’s eyes betrayed the bitterness inside him.
‘Why do you love him so much? He still hasn’t been in touch with you.’
‘That’s because…’
‘He doesn’t care.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I’ll tell you after you help me.’