Little Bee

Poor Charlie. They had made him take off his Batman costume—that was what had started it. They had made him take it off because he had urinated in it. They wanted him to be clean, but Charlie did not want to be clean. He preferred to be stinking in his black mask and cape than to smell fresh in the white cotton overall they had put him in. His face was red and dirty with poster paint and tears. He was howling with rage. When anyone came near him he hit at them, with his small fists banging into their knees. He bit and he scratched and he screamed. He stood with his back pressed into the corner. He faced out into the room and he screamed, NO NO NO NO NO!

Sarah went up to him. She knelt down so her face was close to his. She said, Oh darling. Charlie stopped shouting. He looked at Sarah. His bottom lip trembled. Then his jaw became firm again. He leaned toward his mother, and he spat. He said, GO AWAY I WANT MY DADDY!

They were making the other children sit cross-legged on the floor, in the far corner of the room. They were having story time. The other children were facing away from Charlie’s corner, but they kept wriggling around to look over their shoulders with pale, scared faces. A woman was reading them the story. She wore blue jeans and white trainers and a turquoise sweatshirt. She was saying, and Max tamed them by the trick of TURN AROUND AND FACE FRONT, CAITLIN by the trick of staring straight into their eyes and saying EMMA, PLEASE CONCENTRATE, JAMES, STOP WHISPERING of staring straight into their eyes and saying WILL YOU FACE FRONT, OLLIE, THERE’S NOTHING GOING ON BEHIND YOU.

Sarah knelt on the floor and she wiped Charlie’s spit off her cheek. She was crying. She was holding her arms out to Charlie. Charlie turned around and hid his face in the corner. The woman reading the story was saying, be still.

I went toward Sarah. The play leader gave me a look which meant, I told you to stay by the door. I gave her a look back which meant, How dare you? It was a very good look. I learned it from Queen Elizabeth the Second, on the back of the British five-pound note. The play leader took one step back and I went up to Sarah. I touched her on the shoulder.

Sarah looked up at me.

“Oh god,” she said. “Poor Charlie, I don’t know what to do.”

“What do you normally do when he is like this?”

“I cope. I always cope. Oh god, Bee, I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’ve forgotten how to cope.”

Sarah covered her face with her hands. The play leader took her away and sat her down.

I went into the corner with Charlie. I stood next to him and I turned my face into the corner too. I did not look at him, I looked at the bricks and I did not say anything. I am good at looking at bricks and not saying anything. In the immigration detention center I did it for two years, and that is my record.

I was thinking what I would do in that nursery room, if the men came suddenly. It was not an easy room, I am telling you. For example, there was nothing to cut yourself with. All the scissors were made of plastic and their ends were round and soft. If I suddenly needed to kill myself in that room, I did not know how I was going to do it.

After a long time Charlie looked up at me. “What is you doing?” he said.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I am thinking how to escape from this place.”

Silence. Charlie sighed. “They tooked mine Batman costume.”

“Why did they do that?”

“Because of why I done a wee in my Batman costume.”

I knelt down and looked into Charlie’s eyes. “We are the same, you and me. I spent two years in a place like this. They make us do the things we do not want. Does it make you cross?”

Charlie nodded.

I said, “It makes me cross too.”

From behind us I could hear that the rest of the nursery was going back to its own business. Children were talking and shouting again, and the women were helping and laughing and scolding. In our corner, Charlie looked at the ground.

“I want mine daddy,” he said.

“Your daddy is dead, Charlie. Do you know what this means?”

“Yes. In heaven.”

“Yes.”

“Where’s heaven?”

“It is a place like this. Like a nursery, or a detention center, or a strange country far away. He wants to come home to you, but he can’t. Your daddy is like my daddy.”

“Oh. Is yours daddy dead too?”

“Yes Charlie. My daddy is dead and my mummy is dead and my sister is dead too. All of them are dead.”

“Why?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “The baddies got them, Charlie.”