Little Bee

Charlie twisted his hands together and bent down to pick up a small scrap of red paper from the floor. He tore at it, and he put it on his tongue to see how it tasted, and then it got stuck on his fingers because of the dampness. He held his tongue between his teeth so he could concentrate on peeling the paper off his fingers. Then he looked up.

“Is you sad like me?”

I made my face go into a smile. “Do I look sad, Charlie?”

Charlie looked at me. I tickled him under his arms and he started to laugh.

“Do we look sad, Charlie? Hey? You and me? Are we sad now?”

Charlie was laughing and wriggling finally, so I pulled him close to me and I looked in his eyes. “We are not going to be sad, Charlie. Not you and me. Especially not you, Charlie, because you are the luckiest boy in the world. You know why this is?”

“Why?”

“Because you have a mama, Charlie, and she loves you, and that is something, no?”

I gave Charlie a little push toward his mother and he ran to her. He buried his face against her dress and they hugged each other. Sarah was crying and smiling at the same time. She was speaking into Charlie’s ear, saying Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. Then Charlie’s voice came, and it was muffled against his mother’s dress. He said, I’m NOT Charlie, Mummy, I’m Batman.

Sarah looked at me over Charlie’s shoulder and she just said, Thank you, not making any sound but just moving her lips.

We walked home from the nursery with Charlie swinging between us. The day was beautiful. The sun was hot and the air was buzzing with bees and the scent of flowers was everywhere. Beside the pavement there were the front gardens of the houses, full of soft colors. It was hard not to be full of hope.

“I think I shall teach you the names of all of the English flowers,” said Sarah. “This is fuchsia, and this is a rose, and this is honeysuckle. What? What are you smiling about?”

“There are no goats. That is why you have all these beautiful flowers.”

“There were goats, in your village?”

“Yes, and they ate all the flowers.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Do not be sorry. We ate all the goats.”

Sarah frowned. “Still,” she said. “I think I’d rather have honeysuckle.”

“One day I will take you where I come from and you will eat only cassava for a week and then you will tell me if you would rather have honeysuckle or goat.”

Sarah smiled and leaned over to smell the honeysuckle blossom. Now I saw that she was crying again.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Sarah. “I can’t seem to stop. Oh look at me, I’m all over the place.”

Charlie looked up at his mother and I rubbed the top of his head to show him everything was okay. We started to walk again. Sarah blew her nose on a tissue. She said, “How long am I going to be like this, do you suppose?”

“It was one year for me, after they killed my sister.”

“Before you could think straight again?”

“Before I could think at all. At first I was just running, running, running—getting away from where it happened, you know? Then there was the detention center. It was very bad. It is not possible to think clearly in there. You have not committed a crime, so all you can think of is, When will I be let out? But they tell you nothing. After a month, six months, you start to think, Maybe I will grow old in here. Maybe I will die here. Maybe I am already dead. For the first year all I could think about was killing myself. When everyone else is dead, sometimes you think it would be easier to join them, you know? But you have to move on. Move on, move on, they tell you. As if you are stubborn. As if you are chewing on their flowers like a goat. Move on, move on. At five P.M. they tell you to move on and at six P.M. they lock you back in your cell.”

“Didn’t they give you any help at all in that place?”

I sighed.

“They tried to help us, you know? There were some good people. Psychiatrists, volunteers. But there was only so much they could do for us in there. One of the psychiatrists, she said to me, Psychiatry in this place is like serving an in-flight meal in the middle of a plane crash. If I wanted to make you well, as a doctor, I should be giving you a parachute, not a cheese-and-pickle sandwich. To be well in your mind you have first to be free, you see?”

Sarah pressed the tissue into the corners of her eyes. “I’m not sure it’s easier out here, Bee.”

“But I will help you.”

Sarah smiled. “You’re sixteen years old, Bee. You’re a refugee. You’re an orphan, for god’s sake. I’m the one who ought to be helping you.”

I pulled on Sarah’s shoulder to stop her. I took her left hand and I held it up to her. Charlie stood and looked up at us with big eyes.