Little Bee

“Why? Why didn’t you come out? Couldn’t you see how worried we all were?”

My son looked forlornly at the ground. “ Lawrence and Bee was all cross and they wasn’t playing with me. So I went into mine bat cave.”

“Oh Charlie. Mummy’s been so confused. So terribly silly and selfish. I promise you, Charlie, I’ll never be so silly again. You’re my whole world, you know that? I’ll never forget that again. Do you know how much you mean to me?”

Charlie blinked at me, sensing an opportunity.

“Can I have an ice cream?” he said.

I hugged my son. I felt his warm, sleepy breath on my neck, and through the thin gray fabric of his costume I felt the gentle, insistent pressure of the bones beneath his skin.

I looked up at Lawrence and I said, Thank you.

eleven

THE POLICEMEN CAME AFTER five minutes. There were three of them. They came slowly, in a silver car with bright blue and orange stripes along the sides and a long bar of lights on the roof. They pushed through the crowds on the walkway and they stopped beside the steps that led down to the sand. They got out of the car and they put on their hats. They were wearing white short-sleeved shirts and thick black vests with a black-and-white checkered stripe. The vests had many pockets, and in them there were batons and radios and handcuffs and other things I could not guess the names of. I was thinking, Charlie would like this. These policemen have more gadgets than Batman.

If I was telling this story to the girls from back home, I would have to explain to them that the policemen of the United Kingdom did not carry guns.

– Weh! No pistol?

– No pistol.

– Weh! That is one topsy-turvy kingdom, where the girls can show their bobbis but the police cannot show their guns.

And I would have to nod and tell them again, Much of my life in that country was lived in such confusion.

The policemen slammed the police-car doors behind them: thunk. I shivered. When you are a refugee, you learn to pay attention to doors. When they are open; when they are closed; the particular sound they make; the side of them that you are on. I wanted to run. Instead I held my hands out to the policemen. I said, Here is the place.

One of the policemen came close while the other two ran down the steps. The policeman who came, he was not much older than me I think. He was tall, with orange hair under his hat. I tried to smile at him, but I couldn’t. My heart was beating, beating. I was scared that my Queen’s English would fail me. Then the most wonderful thing happened. The policeman’s radio buzzed and crackled and a voice came from it, and the voice said: THE CHILD HAS BEEN FOUND. I gave a smile like the sun, but the policeman did not. My smile faded.

If this policeman began to suspect me, he could call the immigration people. Then one of them would click a button on their computer and mark a check box on my file and I would be deported. I would be dead, but no one would have fired any bullets. I realized, this is why the police do not carry guns. In a civilized country, they kill you with a click. The killing is done far away, at the heart of the kingdom in a building full of computers and coffee cups.

I stared at the policeman. He did not have a cruel face. He did not have a kind face either. He was young and he was pale and there were no lines on his face. He was nothing yet. He looked like an egg. This policeman, if he opened the door of the police car and made me get inside, then to him it was only the inside of a car he was showing me. But I would see things he could not see in it. I would see the bright red dust on the seats. I would see the old dried cassava tops that had blown into the foot wells. I would see the white skull on the dashboard and the jungle plants growing through the rusted cracks in the floor and bursting through the broken windscreen. For me, that car door would swing open and I would step out of England and straight back into the troubles of my country. This is what they mean when they say, It is a small world these days.

The policeman looked at me with no expression.

“What is your relationship to the person who was reported as missing?”

“It is not important.”

“It’s procedure, madam.”

He took a step toward me and I stepped back, I could not help myself.

“You seem unusually nervous of me, madam.”

He said this very calmly, looking into my eyes all the time.

“Your name,” he said. “Now.”

I stood up as straight and tall as I could, and I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again I looked at the policeman very coldly and I spoke with the voice of Queen Elizabeth the Second.

“How dare you?” I said.

It almost, almost worked. The policeman took half a step back, as if I had hit him. He looked down at the ground and he blushed, just for one second. But then I saw the strength come back into his face.

That is when I ran.