by Siya Turabi
He squeezed his eyes shut to wait for the collision. The squeals and grunts were loud, a fire rushing between the trees.
‘Aaaah,’ he screamed, rocking backwards.
He opened his eyes. The hog had just missed him and was moving away. He dropped the log, jumping back as it fell by his feet.
This was enough. He had to head back now. Snakes came out at night. A line of low-flying parrots screeched above him as he checked the compass. His legs ached but he marched down a path with thickets, trampled earlier by his own feet, until he came to another small clearing.
Small animals like wild dogs were digging their long teeth into a carcass which looked like the bloody remains of a long mongoose, fresh and still largely intact. Jackals, sharing a feast. They spotted him, flesh hanging from their mouths. They wouldn’t hurt him; they already had food. He edged around them, searching for a stick just in case. They were smaller than the hog; he could manage them but his heart beat fast even when he was well away and back under the canopy of leaves.
Something was there, and he pulled back behind a tree. A deer with a white face and antlers like antennae looked up and stared, its head turned at a right angle to its body.
‘I’m here to find the beekeeper,’ Hassan whispered to the deer.
The deer continued to stare. Hassan went closer. The deer blinked. Hassan blinked. Another step. The deer didn’t move.
He was barely a couple of feet away from the animal now, its muscles flexing and its breathing steady. His own breathing slowed down too and when the deer leapt, he followed. The deer ran with playful steps. They zigzagged together through the forest until the deer stopped, waiting for him. Not for long. It leapt into the air again and Hassan ran with it.
Stopping and starting, he followed it deeper into the forest. Scrambling and leaping and stopping, the deer was leading him somewhere.
He had to watch and anticipate; the deer’s next move was Hassan’s entire focus. Ready, alert. His arms, his legs, his senses. He could do it. It worked, and he kept up through bushes, bramble, and trees, young and old, thick and thin. Until the deer suddenly slipped away. It had let him keep up, tricked him into believing he had a chance but there had never been any chance.
He was panting and he bent over to catch his breath. The animals, the beekeeper, the forest, and most of all the bees, were playing with him, with his life. He scrunched his face and fists and shook them in the sky until his arms hurt and he sat down on a log.
A bee hovered by a blue flower, silent. Other bees also fell quiet, each near a flower. All took a deep breath in together and then each one dived into the centre of a flower. Nothing was more important. Each came out again loaded with nectar and pollen. Some of the bees took off back to their homes. Smaller bees worked on, slower than the others, new to the searching work and the language of colour. Others stayed behind because they wanted more. Each of them was part of a greater whole, all pieces in the jigsaw, as Baba had said.
All the bees grew heavier and, more and more took off on their journey back. Mir Saab had said the bees always took the most direct route back home to the nest. There was one bee in particular, new and slow, weighed down by pollen. Hassan waited for a pause in its humming.
‘One, two, three,’ he counted, ‘four…’ He was ready to run. ‘Now—’
He stopped.
The sound of breathing, steady but loud, came through the trees. A giant bulk of a figure shuffled forwards into view. Hassan dashed behind a clump of bushes.
‘Who’s there?’ the voice echoed off the trees.
Hassan couldn’t move. Opposite him, the form started to break up into separate parts: a dead wild boar strapped to a log, carried on the shoulders of a man, was placed on the ground. Drips of dark boar blood formed a path onto the dusty floor behind him.
The beekeeper.
Hassan had waited so long for this moment and now it had come and he was hiding behind a bush. The beekeeper stood still in the centre of the trees a few metres away. His eyes were like flames, the same amber colour as Hassan remembered. He stood up to face the man.
‘What are you doing here?’ the beekeeper asked.
His voice was a low growl. It made Hassan think of sand cats and dark endless caves.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Hassan said.
The beekeeper stayed still for several seconds. There were still the lines and creases in the skin of his face but his hair seemed longer, even more matted and darker.
The beekeeper’s face hardened.
‘They let my father take a little last time. It worked on Amma’s eyes. Please, I need to take her more…’
‘Even I don’t touch their honey. Why should you?’ It was a simple question.
‘I won’t take more than they give me. I’ll be careful, but I can’t do it by myself.’
‘You,’ the beekeeper said, ‘you were with your father. The fire.’ There was a deep recognition in his eyes that told Hassan that there was something more to it than that one meeting. The beekeeper was somehow showing Hassan that the visions he had had when he needed this man – when he needed to communicate with the bees – had been real.
‘I need to find the black honey,’ Hassan said, ‘for my mother’s eyes…’
The beekeeper took a deep breath in and shook his head.
‘Please… I stayed in Mir Saab’s house in Karachi. There were bees there.’
‘Mir Saab?’
Hassan had said the important words. There was a faint smile on the beekeeper’s face and a flicker of recognition before his head turned to the boar on the ground. He picked up the hog, held it with both hands on each side and swept it over his head, back onto his shoulders. ‘I found this one dead.’ With his hands placed on the log and the great hairy boar behind his head, he began to walk.
‘Come with me. Tell me your story.’
They walked through the undergrowth until they reached the watering hole on a dry path that Hassan had not seen the first time. The vultures saw the beekeeper and didn’t stir.
‘Sit,’ the beekeeper said, pointing at a low fallen log. He placed the hog on the ground. ‘For the vultures,’ he said, ‘and then the jackal and the hyenas.’
The beekeeper was still, looking straight ahead as if he could see through the trees beyond the pond.
‘Were you waiting for me?’ Hassan asked.
‘You’re asking the right questions.’
‘I’m Hassan. What’s your name?’ Hassan asked him.
‘I forgot my name long ago,’ he laughed. ‘Call me beekeeper’.
‘I only have a few days left to find the honey,’ Hassan said.
‘And your father?’
‘He had to leave.’
It must have been the way the beekeeper asked the question – or was it his silence? Or was it the unending birdsong behind them or the stink of death that lay in front of them that made Hassan’s tears drop?
‘It was my fault,’ Hassan said.
‘How?’
‘I asked him to go to the forests.’
‘Why?’
‘For my mother’s eyes and because I was curious.’
‘Curiosity isn’t a sin.’
The rhythm of the beekeeper’s breath was like the drum beat at the shrine, regular and constant.
‘That man made the guards threaten my father.’ Hassan’s chest tightened. ‘They told my father they’d kill me if he came back.’
He didn’t hide his tears in the middle of this ancient forest; there was no need. Ants paused in their work; songbirds listened to this melody of human sadness. Even the munching of the hogs grew softer as they felt the air chime with this release.
The beekeeper said nothing to comfort him. His presence was enough.
‘I’ll climb the tree like Baba did,’ Hassan said. ‘Please help me find it.’
‘It’s time to leave,’ the beekeeper said.
‘Leave?’ Hassan was trembling. ‘It’s still only afternoon. What if my
mother goes blind?’ Everything had been a waste of time – all those hours and hours in the masjid and this day in the forest. ‘It’s all useless.’ His voice was breaking and a sob stuck in his throat.
‘The bees have to agree. It’s your will or theirs.’
‘I’m running out of time.’
The beekeeper came nearer, placing a hand on Hassan’s shoulder. A stillness spread through his body.
‘You expect me to say everything will be all right. That you can stay and the bees will obey.’ The beekeeper shrugged. ‘Let’s see what happens. If it’s their will, the bees will teach you.’
There was nothing more to say. They walked back together in silence, but inside Hassan’s mind the question played over and over again: What if it’s too late?
The beekeeper stood up and raised his head to the trees around him. ‘Come back tomorrow, after sunrise. I’ll meet you where the vultures drink.’
Hassan had another question before he left. ‘How can I get the bees to agree?’
‘You can’t. The bees agree very rarely. They let your father take some and that was a good sign. You can only try.’ The beekeeper sighed. ‘But for them to agree involves a sacrifice.’
‘What kind of sacrifice?’
‘Service. Your service.’
‘Mir Saab wanted to give it,’ Hassan said.
‘He had another service to give. A service to his people.’
‘And what if I can’t give this service?’ Hassan was thinking of Maryam. A great longing rose up in him that surprised him. He shuddered. ‘Why do you stay away from humans?’
‘I stay here to fulfil my service,’ the beekeeper said.
‘And to learn their secret?’
‘Secret?’ The beekeeper laughed. ‘There is no great secret. You’ll learn one day.’
For a second Hassan was too stunned to say anything – and yet, somehow, here in the jungle, faced with the man who had been in his mind so much, the idea of there being no secret seemed to make sense. But how could he think that? Mir Saab and his father had made this secret their passion. And here was this man throwing their dream away.
‘Why did you never let Mir Saab find you?’
‘His service to the bees was meant to come in other ways. Meeting me would have confused him.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Who I am is not important,’ he said. ‘What’s important is that we are here.’
The beekeeper only answered the questions he chose to answer.
‘Until tomorrow.’ The beekeeper raised his hand to his heart and headed off, gliding through the forest.
Hassan felt his hunger now. Baba had told him of hyenas in the forest that came out if they were hungry. Hassan began to run. He panted but he didn’t stop. The compass was becoming like a trusted old friend. After an hour he reached a different exit point, the same path he had walked with his father. As he emerged, he discovered that the sky was still bright; it was probably still only late afternoon, by the angle of the sun. Time was different in the forest. It expanded and shrank at the same time. It no longer had any meaning.
His legs were heavy all the way up the road to the fort. He slipped through the small door in the main gates, opened by a guard who hardly looked up. In the courtyard a servant rushed past. They didn’t talk to him up here, the in-betweener.
Hassan didn’t knock when he went to the library. Mir Saab had finished his prayers and was kneeling on his mat.
‘The beekeeper said—’ Hassan began.
‘You found the beekeeper!’ he exclaimed in wonder.
For a few moments Mir Saab looked into space as if a thousand images were running through his mind.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hassan’s whole body ached but he made it to the dining area where Maryam and Amina were finishing their meal.
‘You’re back already,’ Maryam said. She stood up and went over to him, taking him by the arm and guiding him to the table. ‘Have you had a chance to think about London yet?’ She gave his arm a secret squeeze on the way.
He shook his head.
‘We’re all going to my little house in the jungle soon,’ Amina said.
‘But you’re not an adult yet. How do you have a house? Is it your dowry from Mir Saab?’
They both laughed at him.
‘Dowries are so old-fashioned, Hassan. I’m not a vill—’ Amina bit at her lip.
Maryam stopped and her hand fell away from his arm.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘Yes, you’re not a villager and I am.’ It didn’t matter anymore. He was different and that was that.
This time, he guided Maryam to the table. It felt easy to be close to her.
‘Baba gave the house to me as a birthday gift,’ Amina said, her voice more serious now. ‘He liked the idea of it being in the jungle. Will you come with us, Hassan?’
‘I’m ready,’ Hassan said.
‘Some of the clan are coming for tea first,’ Amina said. ‘They wrote the leaflets for us.’
It was then that he noticed a pile of leaflets, each about the size of a book with neat Sindhi writing.
‘Hassan can give them out at the gathering this evening with me,’ Maryam said.
Amina picked one up. She translated the text. ‘“The factories are in danger. We need to march peacefully for our right to keep them open. This is your chance to have your voice heard. We will meet together after the festivities on the twenty-seventh of Sha’ban.” That’s the fifteenth of September.’
‘I’ll be gone by then,’ Maryam said. Hassan could feel her gaze on him. It followed him as he moved to sit down.
‘They’ll be here soon.’ Amina put the leaflet back.
‘They live in the towers around the fort,’ Maryam said. ‘I thought the towers were used to watch for invading elephants,’ she said, taking a biscuit and passing it to Hassan. He put all of it in his mouth at once.
‘That was two hundred years ago,’ Amina said.
The distant family came in, one by one in a line, each wearing a chiffon scarf hanging loosely over her hair and smiling and giggling like schoolgirls without a teacher. Once seated, the head of the line said, ‘Dupattas off.’
They removed their scarves and all of them smiled until one of them screamed, ‘There’s a boy in the room!’
Hassan nearly choked on a biscuit – his third.
Elbows bumped into other elbows as chiffon was flung back over hair. Giggles squeezed through multi-coloured veils. Heads were lowered and raised again to sneak a look at him.
‘Why are they…?’ Maryam began.
‘Whenever there’s a boy…’ Amina said.
Hassan started to cough. ‘I’ll wait in the library.’ He picked up a leaflet and waved at them before he slipped through the door, dodging the shower of giggles behind him.
Mir Saab was busy with his books at his desk. ‘I thought you would have all left by now,’ he said.
‘Soon,’ Hassan said.
Mir Saab got up and went to a cabinet. He took out a thick book and came to stand next to Hassan.
‘Look out for the goshawk. They’re around at this time,’ he said. ‘There, that’s it.’
Hassan took the book in both hands. The bird looked like an eagle, but smaller. It had a lightly striped chest and a darker striped tail. Its long claws grasped onto a thin branch and its face had the same proud stare as an eagle. Its wings hung on either side of its chest like a dark cloak.
‘They see everything up there in the sky.’ Mir Saab took the book and slapped its covers shut. ‘I never forgave myself for making the wrong choice.’
‘You had to follow the path you did so that you could do your duty to the people.’
‘Yes, I had to stay in a world of systems and society.’ There was a scowl on Mir Saab’s face.
‘But the bees’ world is a world of systems and society too,’ Hassan said.
‘Systems that are millions of years old. They’re in harmony with nature, with i
ts flow, with life around it. Humans are like children who think nature is there to serve them.’
‘But it’s the other way around,’ Hassan said. ‘That’s what the beekeeper said.’
The scowl on Mir Saab’s face disappeared. He looked like a boy again, the one that had made the decision many years ago. Or had the decision been made for him?
It was different for Hassan. The decision was his to make. The bees and his mother or Maryam and a new life. Perhaps it was easier than he thought. A life with Maryam would be easier than in Pakistan, even easier than in Karachi. That was why everyone wanted to go to London, wasn’t it? People became richer. They travelled where they wanted. They were safer. People from Harikaya wept when they tried and failed to go to London. He could study there, earn more and help his mother more. He’d pay back Maryam’s mother one day too.
He could help the bees from there. The beekeeper talked about service to the bees. The bees served each other. He could serve them by studying, being successful. He laughed out loud at that. It was him who needed their help now and they were taking their time.
‘What?’ Mir Saab said.
Both of them broke away from their own thoughts.
‘Maryam and I have a plan.’
‘Yes?’
He took out a leaflet and showed it to Mir Saab.
‘Just be aware that there will be spies amongst the crowd.’
Ali Noor was steering with all his strength around as many potholes as possible, but the road became steeper, narrower, and bumpier as they came off the main track and went through the fields and into the beginnings of the forest. Hassan held onto the railing at the back of the jeep as he bounced one more time off the seat.
‘This is the land around the house,’ Amina said.
They drove past wildlife that was normally left in peace. Ducks waded through tall reeds that stood in marshes. Beautiful birds posed on grassy verges that led into the jungle, some with spindly legs.