Little Bee

Unseen in the jungle, the dogs were barking louder now. The sisters could hear the shouts of the men running with them. Kindness was trembling. The two sisters held each other. Now one of the dogs howled and the others joined in. In the hiding place there was a splashing on the dry leaves and a smell of urine-the reality of Kindness’s fear. Little Bee looked into her eyes. It didn’t look as if her sister was even seeing her.

Down on the beach the white man was saying, “Is this about money?”

And the guard was saying, “No mister.”

The guard stood up straight and looked into the jungle where the noise of the dogs was. He unslung his rifle. Little Bee saw the way he held it. He took the safety catch off and he reached down to check the magazine. Two magazines-I remember that myself-bound back-to-back with blue insulation tape.

The white man said, “Oh don’t give us the big performance. Just tell us how much you want. Come on. My wife is sick to the gills of being cooped up in that fuckin compound. What will you take to let us go for a walk on our own? One dollar?”

The guard shook his head. He wasn’t looking at the white man. He was watching a flock of red birds flying up from the jungle, two hundred yards away.

“No dollar,” the guard said.

“Ten dollars, then,” the white woman said.

“Oh for the love of god, Sarah,” the white man said. “That is way too much. That’s a week’s wages here.”

“Don’t be such a tight-arse,” the white woman said. “What’s ten dollars to us? It’s nice to be able to do something for these people. God knows they have little enough.”

“Well, look then, five dollars,” the white man said.

The guard was watching the treetops. One hundred and fifty yards away, up a shallow gully, the tips of the palm ferns were twitching.

“You come back with me now,” the guard said. “Hotel compound is best for you.”

“Listen,” the white man said. “I’m sorry if we offended you by offering money and I respect you for not taking it. But I have my editor telling me what’s best for me fifty-one weeks of the year. I didn’t come here to have anyone edit my holiday.”

The guard lifted the muzzle of his gun. He fired three shots in the air, just above the white man’s head. The barking of the dogs and the yelling of the men stopped for a moment. Then they started up again, louder. The white couple stood very still. Their mouths were open. They were struck, perhaps, by the bullets that had missed them.

“Please, mister and missus,” the guard said. “Trouble is come here. You do not know my country.”

The sisters heard the thwack of machetes clearing a path. Kindness grabbed Little Bee’s hand and pulled her to her feet. The two sisters walked out of the cover of the jungle and onto the sand. Holding hands, they stood there looking up at the white man and the white woman-Andrew, and me-in hope and expectation. I suppose there was nothing else in the developing world they could do.

They stood on the sand, clutching each other, keeping themselves upright on their failing legs. Kindness straining her head to watch for the approaching dogs, but Little Bee looking steadily at me, ignoring Andrew, ignoring the guard.

“Please missus,” she said, “take us to the hotel compound with you.”

The guard looked at her, then he looked back up at the jungle. He shook his head.

“Hotel compound is for tourist,” he said. “Not for you girls.”

“Please,” said Little Bee, looking directly at me. “Bad men are hunting us. They will kill us.”

She spoke to me as a woman, knowing I would understand. But I didn’t understand. Three days earlier, just before we left for Heathrow, I had been standing on a bare concrete slab in our garden, asking Andrew exactly when the hell he planned to build his bloody glasshouse there. That was the biggest issue in my life-that glasshouse, or the lack of it. That absent glasshouse, and all other structures past and future that might helpfully be erected in the larger emotional absence between me and my husband. I was a modern woman and disappointment was something I understood better than fear. The hunters would kill her? My stomach lurched, but my mind still asserted it was just a figure of speech.

“Oh for goodness’ sake,” I said. “You’re a child. Why would anyone want to kill you?”

Little Bee looked back at me and she said, “Because we saw them killing everyone else.”

I opened my mouth but Andrew spoke first. I think he was suffering the same intellectual jet lag. As if our hearts had now arrived on the beach but our minds were still hours behind. Andrew’s eyes were terrified but his voice said, “This is fuckin bullshit. This is a classic Nigeria scam. Come on, we’re going back to the hotel.”

Andrew started to pull me back along the beach. I went with him, twisting my head to look back at the sisters. The guard followed behind us. He walked backward and aimed his gun at the jungle. Little Bee followed with Kindness, ten yards behind.

The guard said, “You girls stop following us.”