Little Bee

The two sisters lay still and quiet till sunset. Then they crept down the sand to wash their feet in the surf. The salt stung in their cuts but they did not cry out. It was sensible of them to keep quiet. The men chasing them might have given up, or they might not. The trouble was, the sisters had seen what had been done to their village. There weren’t supposed to be any survivors to tell the story. The men were hunting down the fleeing women and children and burying their bodies under branches and rocks.

Back undercover, the girls bound each other’s feet in fresh green leaves and they waited for the dawn. It was not cold, but they hadn’t eaten for two days. They shivered. Monkeys screamed under the moon.

I still think about the two sisters there, shivering through the night. While I watch them in my mind, again and again, small pink crabs follow the thin smell of blood to the place where their feet recently stood in the shore break, but they do not find anything dead there yet. The soft pink crabs make hard little clicking noises under the bright white stars. One by one, they dig themselves back into the sand to wait.

I wish my brain did not fill in the frightful details like this. I wish I was a woman who cared deeply about shoes and concealer. I wish I was not the sort of woman who ended up sitting at her kitchen table listening to a refugee girl talking about her awful fear of the dawn.

The way Little Bee told it, at sunrise there was a white mist hanging thick in the jungle and spilling out over the sand. The sisters watched a white couple walking up the beach. The language they spoke was the official language of Little Bee’s country, but these were the first whites she had seen. She and Kindness watched them from behind a stand of palms. They drew back when the couple came level with their hiding place. The whites stopped to look out at the sea.

“Listen to that surf, Andrew,” the white woman said. “It’s so unbelievably peaceful here.”

“I’m still a bit scared, frankly. We should go back inside the hotel compound.”

The white woman smiled. “Compounds are made for stepping outside. I was scared of you, the first time I met you.”

“Course you were. Big Irish hunk of love like me. We’re savages, don’t you know.”

“Barbarians.”

“Vagabonds.”

“Cunts.”

“Oh come on now, dear, that’s just your mother talking.”

The white woman laughed, and pulled herself close to the man’s body. She kissed him on the cheek.

“I love you, Andrew. I’m pleased we came away. I’m so sorry I let you down. It won’t happen again.”

“Really?”

“Really. I don’t love Lawrence. How could I? Let’s make a fresh start, hmm?”

On the beach, the white man smiled. In the shadows, Little Bee cupped her hand over Kindness’s ear. She whispered: What is a cunt? Kindness looked back at her, and rolled her eyes. Right down there, girl, right close to your vagabond. Little Bee bit her hand so she wouldn’t giggle.

But then the sisters heard dogs. They could hear everything, because there was a cool morning breeze, a land breeze that carried all sounds. The dogs were still a long way off, but the sisters heard them barking. Kindness grabbed Little Bee’s arm. Down on the beach, the white woman looked up at the jungle.

“Oh listen, Andrew,” she said. “Dogs!”

“Probably the local lads are hunting. Must be plenty to catch in this jungle.”

“Still, I wouldn’t have thought they’d use dogs.”

“So what in the hell did you think they’d use?”

The white woman shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Elephants?”

The white man laughed. “You insufferable English,” he said. “The empire’s still alive for you, isn’t it? You only need to close your eyes.”

Now a soldier came running up the beach from the direction the white couple had come. He was panting. He wore olive-green trousers and a light gray vest dark with sweat. He had military boots on, and they were heavy with damp sand. He had a rifle slung on his back, and the barrel was swinging at the sky.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” the white man said. “Here comes that doofus of a guard again.”

“He’s only doing his job.”

“Yeah, but can’t they let us do our own thing even for one minute?”

“Oh, relax. The holiday was free, remember? We were never going to have it all our own way.”

The guard came level with the white couple and he stopped. He was coughing. He had his hands on his knees.

“Please, mister, missus,” he said. “Sorry please to come back to hotel compound.”

“But why?” the white woman said. “We were just going for a walk along the beach.”

“It is not safe missus,” the guard said. “Not safe for you and mister. Sorry boss.”

“But why?” said the white man. “What is actually the problem?”

“No problem,” said the guard. “Here is very good place. Very good. But all tourist must stay please in hotel compound.”