Little Bee

Charlie and me, we came together halfway between the rocky point and the soldiers. I knelt and I held out my arms to him. His face was twisted with terror and I held him while he cried against my chest. I waited for the soldiers to come and get me, but they did not. The leader stood there and he watched, and I saw the way he slung his rifle back on his shoulder and lifted his hand to scratch his head again. I saw Sarah, with her hands behind her head, pulling at her hair and screaming to be let go while one of the soldiers restrained her.

After a long time Charlie stopped sobbing and he turned his face up toward mine. I peeled back his Batman mask a little, so I could see his face, and he smiled at me. I smiled back at him, in that moment that the soldiers’ leader gave me, that one minute of dignity he offered me as one human being to another before he sent his men across the hard sand to fetch me. Here it was then, finally: the quietest part of the late afternoon. I smiled down at Charlie, and I understood that he would be free now even if I would not. In this way the life that was in me would find its home in him now. It was not a sad feeling. I felt my heart take off lightly like a butterfly and I thought, yes, this is it, something has survived in me, something that does not need to run anymore, because it is worth more than all the money in the world and its currency, its true home, is the living. And not just the living in this particular country or in that particular country, but the secret, irresistible heart of the living. I smiled back at Charlie and I knew that the hopes of this whole human world could fit inside one soul. This is a good trick. This is called, globalization.

“Everything will be alright for you, Charlie,” I said.

But Charlie was not listening—already he was giggling and kicking and struggling to be put down. He stared over my shoulder at the local children, still playing in the shore break around the rocky point.

“Let me go! Let me go!”

I shook my head. “No Charlie. It is a very hot day. You cannot run around in your costume like that or you will boil, I am telling you, and then you will be no good to us at all to fight the baddies. Take off your Batman costume, right now, and then you will just be yourself and you can go to cool off in the sea.”

“No!”

“Please Charlie, you must. It is for your health.”

Charlie shook his head. I stood him in the sand and I knelt down beside him and I whispered in his ear.

“Charlie,” I said, “do you remember when I promised you, if you took off your costume, that I would tell you my real name?”

Charlie nodded.

“So do you still want to know my real name?”

Charlie tilted his head to one side so that both of the ears of his mask flopped over. Then he tilted it to the other side. Then finally he looked straight at me.

“What is yours real name?” he whispered.

I smiled. “My name is Udo.”

“Ooh-doh?”

“That is it. Udo means, peace. Do you know what peace is, Charlie?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Peace is a time when people can tell each other their real names.”

Charlie grinned. I looked over his shoulder. The soldiers were walking across the sand toward us now. They were walking slowly, with their rifles in their hands pointing down at the sand, and while the soldiers walked, the waves rolled in to the beach and crashed upon the sand one by one at this final end of their journey. The waves rolled and rolled and there was no end to the power of them, cold enough to wake a young girl from dreams, loud enough to tell and retell the future. I bent my head and I kissed Charlie on the forehead. He stared at me.

“Udo?” he said.

“Yes Charlie?”

“I is going to take off mine Batman costume now.”

The soldiers were almost on us now.

“Hurry then, Charlie,” I whispered.