Little Bee (15 page)

He
turned to the other hunters and spread his arms.

“Not
his affair,
him
say.
Him
say,
this is black-man business.
Ha ha ha ha!”

The
hunters laughed. They slapped one another on the back and the dogs started to
circle us. When the killer turned back, his face was serious.

“First
time I hear white man say my business not his business. You got our gold. You
got our oil. What is wrong with our girls?”

“Nothing,”
said poor Andrew. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Are
you a racist?”

Rassist,
was how he pronounced the word.

“No, of course not.”

The
killer stared at Andrew. “Well?” he said. “You want to save these girls,
mister?”

Andrew
coughed. I watched him. My husband’s hands twitched—his strong, fine hands I
had often watched, gripping coffees, clicking across keyboards, making
deadlines.
My husband, who had filed his Sunday column from
the departure lounge of the airport the previous day, down to the wire as
usual.
I’d been scanning it for typos when they called our flight. The
last paragraph went:
We are a self-interested society. How
will our children learn to put others before themselves if we do not?

“Well?”
said the killer. “You want to save them?”

Andrew
looked down at his hands. He stood like that for a long time. Above us,
seabirds circled and called to one another in that agonized way they have. I
tried to stop my legs from shaking.

“Please,”
I said. “If you will let us take the girls with us, then we will do whatever
you want. Let us all go back to the compound, please, and we will give you
anything.
Money, medicine, anything.”

The
killer made a high, shrill yelp and a shiver shook his whole body. He giggled,
and a dribble of blood escaped through his neat white teeth to splash down onto
the dirty green nylon of his tracksuit top.

“You
think I care bout that stuff?” he said. “You don’t see this hole in my neck? I
am dead in two days. You think I care bout money and medicine?”

“So
what do you want?” Andrew said.

The
killer moved his machete from his right hand to his left. He raised his right
hand with the middle finger extended. He held it, shaking, one inch from
Andrew’s face and he said, “White
man been
giving me
this finger all my life. Today you can give it me to keep. Now cut off your
middle finger, mister, and give it me.”

Andrew
flinched and he shook his head and he curled his hands into balls. He folded
the thumbs over the fingers. The killer took his machete by the blade and he
held the handle out to my husband.

“Do
it,” he said. “Chop chop. Give me your finger and I will give you the girls.”

A long pause.

“What
if I don’t?”

“Then
you are free to go. But first you will hear the noises these children make
dying. You ever hear a girl dying slow?”

“No.”

The
killer closed his eyes and shook his head, unhurriedly.

“It
is nasty music,” he said. “You will not forget. Maybe one day you will wake up
in Kingston-upon-Thames and you will understand you lost more than your
finger.”

Little
Bee was crying now. Kindness held her hand.

“Do
not be afraid,” she said. “If they kill us today we will eat bread tonight with
Jesus.”

The
killer snapped open his eyes and he stared at Andrew and he said, “Please,
mister. I am not a savage. I do not want to kill these girls.”

Andrew
reached out his hand and he took the killer’s machete. There was blood on the
handle, the guard’s blood. Andrew looked across at me. I stepped over to him
and I put my hand on his chest, gently. I was crying.

“Oh Andrew.
I think you have to do it.”

“I
can’t.”

“It’s
just a finger.”

“We
didn’t do anything wrong. We were just walking down the beach.”

“Just
a finger, Andrew, and then we’ll walk back again.”

Andrew
sank to his knees in the sand. He said, “I can’t believe this is happening.” He
looked at the machete blade and he scraped it on the sand to clean it. He put
his left hand on the sand, palm up, and he folded all the fingers except the
middle one. Then he held up the machete in his right hand, but he didn’t bring
it down. He said, “How do we know he won’t kill the girls anyway, Sarah, after
I’ve done it?”

“You’ll
know you did what you could.”

“I
could get AIDS from this blade. I could die.”

“I’ll
be with you. I’m so proud of you.”

It
was quiet on the beach. Seabirds hung low in the hot blue sky, without flapping
their wings, upheld on the sea breeze. The rhythm of the surf was unchanged,
although the interval between one wave and the next seemed infinite. I watched
with the girls and the men and the bloodied dogs to see what my husband would
do, and it seemed in that moment that we were all the same, just creatures in
nature hanging without any great effort upon the vast warm wind of events that
were greater than us.

Andrew
screamed, then, and he chopped down with the machete. The blade made a whipping
sound in the hot air. Then it sliced down into the sand. It was really quite
far from his hand.

“I
won’t do it,” he said. “This is just fuckin bullshit. I don’t believe he’ll let
the girls go. Look at him. He’s just going to kill them whatever.”

Andrew
stood, and he left the machete in the sand. I looked at him, and that is when I
stopped feeling. I realized I was no longer scared. And I wasn’t angry with
Andrew. When I looked at him I hardly saw a man anymore. I thought we would all
be killed now, and it worried me much less than I would have expected. It
troubled me that we had never got around to building the glasshouse at the end
of our garden. A sensible thought occurred to me:
How lucky
I am to have two healthy parents who will take good care of Charlie.

The
killer sighed and he shrugged and he said, “Okay, mister made his choice.
Now, mister, run back home to England.
You can tell them you
came to Africa and you met a real savage.”

When
the killer turned away, I dropped to my knees. I looked straight at Little Bee.
She saw what the killer did not see. She saw the white woman put her own left
hand down on the hard sand, and she saw her pick up the machete, and she saw
her chop off her middle finger with one simple chop, like a girl topping a
carrot, neatly, on a quiet Surrey Saturday, between gymkhana and lunch. She saw
her drop the machete and rock back on her heels, holding her hand. I suppose
the white woman looked just amazed.

“Oh,”
I think I said.
“Oh, oh, oh.”

The
killer spun round and he saw me with the blood welling through my closed fist. On
the sand in front of me, there was my finger lying. The finger looked silly and
naked. I was embarrassed for it. The killer’s eyes went wide.

“Oh
fuck, oh fuck,” Andrew said. “Oh what the fuck have you done, Sarah? What the
fuck have you done?”

He
knelt down and he hugged me to him but I pushed him away with my good hand. There
was mucus streaming from my mouth and nose.

“It
hurts, Andrew. It hurts, you
shit.
”

The
killer nodded. He reached down and he picked up my dead finger. He pointed it
at Little Bee.

“You
will live,” he said. “The missus has paid for your life.”

Then
he pointed my finger at Kindness.

“But
you will die, little one,” he said. “The mister would not pay for you. And my
boys, you know, they must have their taste of blood.”

Kindness
gripped Little Bee’s hand. She held her head up.

“I
am not afraid,” she said. “The Lord is my shepherd.”

The
killer sighed.

“Then
he is a vain and careless shepherd,” he said.

Then—and
it was louder than the surf—there was the sound of my husband sobbing.

Two
years later, sitting at my table in Kingston-upon-Thames, I found I could still
hear it. I stared down at my damaged hand, spread palm down on the blue
tablecloth.

Little
Bee had fallen asleep on the sofa, with her G&T untouched by her side. I
realized I couldn’t remember the point at which she had stopped telling the
story and I had picked up remembering it. I stood up from the kitchen table to
fix myself another drink. There were no lemons, so I made do with a little
squirt of plasticky juice from the Jif lemon in the fridge. When I picked up my
glass, the ice cubes rattled uncontrollably. The G&T tasted vile but it
gave me courage. I picked up the phone and dialed the number of the man I
suppose I must call my
lover,
although that word
rather makes me squirm.

I
realized it was the second time I’d phoned Lawrence that day. I’d been trying
not to. I’d lasted almost a whole week, since Andrew died. It was the longest
I’d been faithful to my husband in years.

“Sarah?
Is that you?”

Lawrence’s
voice was a whisper. My throat tightened. I found that I couldn’t reply
straightaway.

“Sarah?
I’ve been thinking about you all day. Was it horrible? You should have let me
come to the funeral.”

I
swallowed. “It would have been inappropriate.”

“Oh Sarah, who would have known?”

“I
would have known, Lawrence. My conscience is about all I’ve got left.”

Silence.
His slow breath over the
phone.
“It’s okay to still love Andrew, you know. It’s okay with me,
anyway.”

“You
think I still love him?”

“I’m
suggesting it. In case it helps.”

I
laughed—an almost inaudible exhalation of air.

“Everybody’s
trying to help me today. Even Charlie went to bed without the slightest fuss.”

“It’s
normal that people want to help. You’re suffering.”

“Insufferable,
is what I am. It amazes me that people like you still care about me.”

“You’re
being hard on yourself.”

“Am
I? I saw my husband’s coffin today, being shunted about on rollers. When are
you going to take a look at yourself, if not on a day like this?”

“Mmm,”
said Lawrence.

“Not
many men would cut off a finger, would they Lawrence?”

“What?
No. I definitely don’t think I would.”

My
throat burned.

“I
expected too much of Andrew, didn’t I? Not just on the beach. I expected too
much of life.”

A long silence.

“What
did you expect of me?” said Lawrence.

The
question caught me unprepared and there was anger in his voice. My phone hand
trembled.

“You’re
using the past tense,” I said. “I wish you wouldn’t.”

“No?”

“No.
Please, no.”

“Oh.
I thought that’s what this call was about. I was thinking,
That’s
why she didn’t ask me to
the funeral.
Because this is the way you’d do, isn’t it, if you broke up
with me? There’d be a preamble where you reminded me what a difficult person
you are, and then you’d prove it.”

“Please,
Lawrence. That’s horrible.”

“Oh
God, I know. I’m sorry.”

“Please
don’t be angry with me. I’m phoning to ask your advice.”

A pause.
Then a laugh down the phone.
Not bitter, but bleak.

“You
don’t ask for advice, Sarah.”

“No?”

“No.
Not ever. Not about things that matter, anyway. You ask whether your tights
look right with your shoes. You ask which bracelet suits your wrist. You’re not
asking for input. You’re asking your admirers to prove they’re paying
attention.”

“Am
I really that bad?”

“Actually
you’re worse. Because if I do ever tell you gold looks nice with your skin, you
make a special point of wearing silver.”

“Do
I? I never even noticed. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t
be. I love that you don’t even notice. There are plenty of women who care what
one thinks of their jewelry.”

I
swirled my G&T and took a careful sip.

“You’re
trying to make me feel better about myself, aren’t you?”

“I’m
just saying you’re not the kind of woman you meet every day.”

“And
that’s praise, is it?”

“It’s
relative praise, yes. Now stop fishing.”

I
smiled, for the first time in a week I think.

“We’ve
never talked like this before, have we?” I said. “Talked honestly, I mean.”