The Last Beekeeper

by Siya Turabi

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Hassan had spent the night on the roof with his mother but he still hadn’t told her about Baba. He wanted to now but his mother seemed so fragile on the bed. He had to bring back the hive for her first. He left his house and met Maryam on the terrace. She was getting ready to leave for her flight to Karachi at noon that day.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at Karachi Airport. Remember your passport,’ Maryam said.

  She came closer to him, a question in her eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’re really coming. You know if you don’t like it, you can come back. Your ticket will be ready for you at…’

  ‘I’m not coming, Maryam.’

  ‘What’s happened?’

  He swallowed. ‘In the end, it was the bees who decided.’

  He couldn’t tell her about his father. The echoes of that scream had not left him. They never would. A voice came from the courtyard. It was Amina’s.

  Maryam seemed smaller now, but she stood tall. ‘I understand, Hassan. Will you come to the airport to say goodbye?’

  ‘I’ll get the honey first and then I’ll come.’

  She looked worried.

  ‘The bees will let me have it today. They will.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you there.’ She tried to smile. ‘You chose the bees in the end.’

  ‘Maryam, I…’

  ‘I thought you’d be able to do both.’ Her lips trembled. ‘And your mother too. I’ve been selfish.’

  ‘No.’ He took her hand. ‘We wanted to be with each other.’

  ‘I still do.’

  ‘It wasn’t my choice, Maryam. In the end, the bees made the decision.’

  Amina shouted again. Her voice was nearer this time.

  ‘Get the plane to Karachi. Ask Ali Noor to take you to the airport as soon as you’re ready.’

  ‘I’ll be there, Maryam. I promise.’

  She nodded. ‘The bees knew all along, Hassan. They chose you because you are the last beekeeper.’

  They hugged each other until Amina came and then she left him on the terrace, turning around one more time before she went through the arch and ran to the car. He headed to the gates, the space behind him full with invisible stories. Maryam’s voice, her presence, her soft body. He closed his eyes.

  ‘I don’t know how long this will take,’ Hassan said to Ali Noor before he went into the forest. The driver stayed by the side of the jeep.

  Hassan sensed the bees stirring from far away. Like him, they were preparing themselves for their journey to a new home, wherever it was. When he arrived at the tree, the beekeeper was sitting on a log holding a long stick that he was chipping at with his knife. The log hive on the ground was still empty. Hassan sighed and went over to sit by him.

  ‘They haven’t swarmed,’ Hassan said.

  The beekeeper lifted the stick and pointed upwards. Hassan nearly fell backwards when he saw it. A brown and golden beard was hanging from a tree branch, hardly moving. There were very small shivers and a quiet humming.

  ‘They’re preparing to swarm,’ Hassan said.

  The swarm had voted yes. The first stage of swarming had been reached. The beekeeper sat with Hassan and they watched and listened as the bees made their final decision.

  ‘It’s time to climb the tree if you want the honey,’ the beekeeper said.

  Hassan got to about a foot below the nest when he was gasping for breath and had to stop. He tried again but the force against him coming down from the nest was getting stronger. He wanted to give up. Baba had lost the battle too.

  ‘Stop fighting,’ the beekeeper said from below in a clear voice.

  Hassan could barely open his eyes but he moved a few inches further up the tree. His breathing became deeper. The force floated over his skin. It was not against him; it was against his fighting. Fighting for everything. Fighting to stop himself sinking.

  The force was stronger than him but he let the sound lead him. It bathed him, entered him and guided him closer to them, making him and the bees one. The force from the nest that had stopped him was now lifting him. Their will was with his will. He felt lighter.

  He went higher. The bees were fewer now that half of them had left the nest and he asked the ones that were remaining if he could use the smoker. The humming grew calmer and he took the smoker out of the bag over his shoulder. Smoke that smelt of forest flowers spread over the bees and they moved away from the hanging moons of wax. He brought out Baba’s pocket knife, his knife now, and cut a piece of the honeycomb. This would do for his mother for now. He climbed down into what seemed like a heavier world on the ground.

  The beekeeper nodded and Hassan placed the honeycomb in a jar in the bag and put the bag on the ground. He sat on the log again with the beekeeper and waited.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Hassan asked.

  ‘You tell me.’

  Hassan looked straight up at the bees hanging from the branch.

  ‘One of the bees is moving. I see her; she’s beating her wings and moving from side to side. She’s hovering near the others, telling them something.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She’s telling them that she’s about to leave.’

  Hassan saw the bee head downwards to the hive on the ground. He held his breath. Another bee joined her, and then another.

  ‘A few bees are exploring the log hive,’ Hassan said, ‘and now they’re on their way up again.’

  The returning bees danced outside the cluster and they all listened, shivering in a glorious golden-brown wave.

  ‘They’re thinking about the hive,’ Hassan said.

  As soon as he had said this, some of the bees started to separate from the cluster as if they were waking up. More woke up and the humming grew louder. The whole swarm pulsed again. Hassan remembered what Mir Saab had said. The bees shivered to become warm again. It was a sign that they were about to make their decision. The beard formation started to grow longer and thinner.

  ‘They’ve chosen,’ the beekeeper said.

  ‘They’re rising. They’re rising in the air,’ Hassan said.

  The bees slowly became a spiralling cloud, undulating upwards as if this show were especially for Hassan and the beekeeper.

  The bees paused for a moment, and then, as one heartbeat, the swarm leapt into the air and time stood still. Silence wrapped itself around Hassan as he watched the bees, together as one body, dive like a bird into their new home.

  Hassan wanted to shout a thousand thanks but all he could do was watch as the bees explored the insides of the log hive. They covered the outsides too in hills and troughs, made up of a mass of single bodies. He felt an urge to wade his hand through them as he would through grains of sand but it was enough to watch. Each bee moved in unison with the whole mass. A stream of bees went in and out of the hole cut in the log by the beekeeper. It was no bigger than his thumb. He watched and forgot time. Thoughts fell apart in his head. It was just as Baba had said. Nature will speak when you listen. It was as if he had always been here with this constant humming from the timeless bees. Nothing was important anymore. Things, success, travel, becoming anything. They all made up a great big, fragile tower stuck together by lies that tumbled down now into an invisible pot to be stirred and transformed. Everything dissolved for him and he was left with a simple knowing. His and the bees’. A knowing that needed to go nowhere and did not change. He let out a laugh.

  ‘I’ve been looking at this the wrong way,’ he said. ‘It’s not about me. It’s about nature unfolding its own truth.’

  The beekeeper showed no surprise.

  ‘Please ask the bees if they will come with me much further than they thought,’ Hassan said.

  The beekeeper bent down and whispered to the bees in the hive on the ground. He closed the door of the hive with a wooden latch. There was still a small hole for bees to come in and out. The beekeeper gave a slight nod before he picked up the hive and handed it carefully to Hassan. It fitted neatly in Hassan’s arms, not much bigger
than the width of his shoulders.

  ‘Amma won’t need this hive now. I’ll bring her fresh honey from the nest,’ Hassan said. ‘I’ll be back. First, I have to deliver this.’

  Hassan walked with the hive and the jar of honey to the jeep. Ali Noor’s eyes widened as he opened the door at the back for Hassan to climb in while holding the hive level. At his mother’s house, his heart was pounding. He left the hive in the jeep and went inside the house with his bag. His mother was inside in the main room. She looked up when he came in.

  ‘Hassan?’

  ‘I brought you the honey.’

  ‘I knew you would.’

  He put the jar of honey on the table and went to get a stick from the shelf – the same stick she had used when Baba had brought the black honey back.

  He opened the jar. ‘Take this.’ He gave her the stick, its tip coated with the dark honey.

  His mother dabbed her little finger into it and touched the rims of her eyes.

  ‘My eyes feel cool,’ she said.

  There was little time. Hassan closed the jar and kissed his mother’s cheek. ‘I need to go now but I’ll be back tomorrow,’ he said.

  Before they left Harikaya, Hassan had one final task. He ran to the study where he found Mir Saab.

  ‘Maryam wanted some black honey for her eyes. With a small hive, she’ll have a constant supply. A letter from you for the airline could make it work.’

  Mir Saab took a minute or so to grasp what Hassan had told him.

  ‘It’s worth a try. Why not?’ Mir Saab wrote on headed paper. ‘They might be able to find a cupboard to keep it in on the plane. I’ll call some bee friends in London to let them know there’ll be a special delivery. Good thing Maryam has a very large garden. Here, take this too.’ Mir Saab took a card out of his drawer. ‘My airport pass.’

  Hassan sat in the back of the jeep, with the hive on his lap, his arms holding it steady. There was no time to think; the train left soon. That alone seemed a small miracle, or was this an example of how nature unfolded its everyday magic? Images flicked through his mind. The bees, the beekeeper, Mir Saab, his mother. And Sami – he would ask Mir Saab to pass on his scholarship to her.

  His home was here in Harikaya. In the forest.

  Hassan thought about the days he had spent away from home – this was a new life.

  Workers, drones or queen.

  And all because the bees listened to the stars,

  Which listened to the sun,

  Which heard the queen speak.

  Yes, this was all how it should be. This hive sitting on his lap, over which he was so watchful, was his gift for Maryam. The black honeybees had agreed.

  ‘Keep the hive closed,’ Ali Noor said as they climbed the steps onto the train. They had missed the plane and this was the only train back to Karachi. Ali Noor was nervous. They took their seats on the bench at the end of a carriage with no glass in the windows. It was still empty apart from a young woman who sat at the opposite end. She stared at the hive in silence. Her red dupatta hung over her shoulders and her hair blew out to the side as the train chugged slowly out of Harikaya.

  Karachi was miles and miles away. More passengers entered the carriage at the next stop, a small town beyond the forests. Some of them left the carriage as soon as they saw the hive to jump off the train and onto other carriages or climb up to the roof. The ones that stayed stared as they took their seats. Soon, many eyes, big and small, young and old, male and female, gazed together. Some of them whispered to each other but the humming was quiet and steady and even the most nervous of the passengers grew used to it.

  Hassan handled the hive as if it were a sleeping baby. He kept his arms loose so the hive could gently move in time with the rhythm of the train. He would show Maryam how to do this when he got to the airport. The bees would disturb nobody and she could put them in her garden in London. The humming carried on and soon the whole carriage was taken over by a lull as the train made its way across the land. Ali Noor was relaxed too and stared out of the window at the trees and the rivers and the villages.

  Everyone was under a magical spell that wore off each time a passenger arrived at his or her stop, when they shook themselves as if waking up and looked around to see if anybody had noticed how the bees had taken them away from themselves.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  A horn blasted. The train entered into the open arms of Karachi train station. He hadn’t slept the whole night and they were late. Things were different here. Hassan walked as fast as he could through the people all around him. It was hard not to disturb the bees. Ali Noor hurried to the exit to find a taxi, one that would fit them all in.

  ‘What’s the time?’ Hassan asked.

  Ali Noor checked his watch again but didn’t reply until they were in the quieter and wider roads that led to the airport. ‘We have forty-five minutes before she leaves.’

  It was very close. The hive would make it easier to say goodbye to Maryam. She could keep it at the bottom of her garden. She wouldn’t have to do anything. Mir Saab’s bee friends in London would help her. If she took just a little honey, the bees would look after themselves. He looked out of the window and felt the bees stirring close to his chest. What he was giving her was part of himself.

  Ali Noor waved Mir Saab’s letter and airport pass everywhere they went in the airport.

  ‘We need to take this to a passenger,’ he told the people at passport control. ‘She’s leaving soon. The airline is expecting us.’

  The pass worked like a miracle. A man with a large phone in his hand left the desk and walked with them. ‘We might make it before they close the door,’ Ali Noor said.

  The hive was becoming heavier and the bees were restless. It was hard to keep up with the others but Hassan pushed himself, harder and harder. He walked through staring faces, across shiny floors, past people shouting down telephones perched on desks and past shops with bright lights until they reached a hall with glass walls and he saw the plane. Maryam’s plane. The room was empty.

  ‘The doors are closed,’ a woman said behind another desk. She wore the same uniform as the man. Another woman joined her and then another. They all wore the same clothes.

  ‘Please open the door. I need to see my friend,’ Hassan said. He asked ten times, but nobody was listening.

  They were staring at the hive.

  ‘How on earth did he bring that this far?’ one asked her colleague. They finally left him and Ali Noor alone to look at the plane through the window. Maryam was on that plane and it was moving, backing up before it turned and taxied along a paved section.

  ‘She’s on the runway,’ Ali Noor said.

  The plane stopped and then started again, faster and faster now until it rose into the sky.

  Something touched his arm. Ali Noor’s hand.

  ‘Come, Hassan. Let’s go back to Harikaya.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  You bring the sound that never dies.

  Carried on thin notes through reed, skin, and string.

  These words of Baba’s poem came to him as he walked through the forest back to the tree with the black honeybees. It didn’t matter if the beekeeper was not there. For the first time in his life, time did not matter. There was tomorrow and the day after that. Countless tomorrows to spend here in the forest with the beekeeper and the bees. He had been so close to leaving all of this.

  He walked over the bracken and the muddy puddles, through bush and along moist paths. The sounds of the forest welcomed him. The humming of the black bees in his arms grew quieter. They knew they were going home. Perhaps they had known all along that they would come back. Just as he was doing now. Coming home. He had been trying so hard. It had never been necessary to make a choice between three loves. In the end it had been down to where he had been most needed, and that was with the bees and Amma. In truth, it was him who needed them more.

  He stopped by the lake. Its water levels had risen. It had been raining here in Harikay
a and soon the forests would be out of bounds. When the rains were over, he would come back and see the beekeeper every day and live with Amma.

  Ducks flew down to the pond for water before the hogs arrived. Deer crept forward too and the geese flew up, flapping and screeching.

  Maryam would have laughed at that.

  She would have arrived at her home by now.

  He felt a sharp pang in his chest.

  They had stood together in front of an empty space full of potential on the brink of two cultures merging. Hers and his. So many had gone before him on the path that Maryam had offered him. A jasmine-winding path that bridged new worlds of culture.

  Going to Karachi, meeting Mir Saab and Maryam and all that had happened to him, had been a passageway, through which the old forms of his life had been unhooked from his very being; the old stories had fallen apart. He smiled to himself and walked to find the beekeeper by the tree where the black honeybees nested.

  ‘They were waiting,’ the beekeeper said.

  Hassan stood in the middle of the clearing opposite his father’s grave. A stone slab had been placed at the head of the grave. The beekeeper must have put it there while he was travelling to Karachi. Words floated into his mind over the humming from the nest.

  Only those who truly know the honey’s worth may receive it.

  For they only listen to the ones who love them.

  And for this love, the bees reveal their secret.

  Baba was part of everything now – part of the intelligence behind all life. Hassan waited in case more words came. He only heard drops of rain on the leaves of the low-lying bushes – quiet drops without a constant rhythm, like the words he was waiting for – nothing he could hold onto with his will. No more words came and he lay the small hive down in front of the slab. This colony would find their home whether on the ground or higher up. He looked towards the nest in the treetop, at the dark humming mass.