Chris Cleave - Little Bee

“For me asylum interview? You wanna know what I tole him?”

“Yes.”

Yevette shrugged.

“I tole him if he arrange to get me release from dat place, he can do what he want wid me.”

“I don’t understand.”

Yevette rolled her eyes.

“Well thank de lord de Home Office man was a lil bit smarter dan yu, Bug. Yu nivver notice dey interview rooms didn’t have no windows? Me swear to yu, dat man’s ooman mus of kept her legs cross for de las ten year, de way he took me up on me offer. An it wasn’t jus on de one day, mind. It took de man four interviews fore he was certain me papers was in order, yu know what I’m sayin?”

I stroked her hand.

“Oh Yevette.”

“It was nuthin, Bug. Compare to what dey do to me, if I be sent back to Jamaica? Nuthin.”

Yevette smiled at me. The tears flowed from the corners of her eyes and around the curve of her cheek. I started to wipe her tears away and then I started crying as well, so Yevette had to wipe my tears too. It was funny, because we could not stop crying. Yevette started laughing, and then I was laughing too, and the more we laughed the more we could not stop crying, until we made so much noise that the sari girl hissed at us to shush so we would not disturb the woman with no name, who was making crazy talk to herself in some language.

“Oh, look at de state of us, Bug. What we gonna do wid ourselves?”

“I do not know. You really think you were released because of what you did with the Home Office man?”

“Me know it, Bug. De man even tole me de date.”

“But he didn’t give you your papers?”

“Uh-uh. No papers. Him say dere a limit to his powah, yu see what I’m sayin? He be tickin one little box on de computer to tell dem officers to let us free, him can jus say, Me hand slipped. But approvin de asylum application? Dat’s a diffren story.”

“So you’re illegal now?”

Yevette nodded.

“Yu an me both, Bug. Yu an me an dem other two also. All four of us gettin let out cos of what I done fo de Home Office man.”

“Why all four of us, Yevette?”

“Him say it look suspicious on im, if it just be me gettin let go.”

“How did he choose the rest of us?”

Yevette shrugged.

“Close is eyes and stick a pin in de list, I dunno.”

I shook my head and looked down.

“What?” said Yevette. “Yu no like it, Bug? Yu girls should uh preshie -ate what I done fo yu.”

“But we can’t do anything without papers, Yevette. Don’t you see? If we had stayed, if we had gone through the proper procedure, maybe they would have released us with papers.”

“Uh-uh, Bug, uh-uh. It don’t work like dat. Not for pipple from Jamaica, an not for pipple from Nye- Jirrya neither. Get dis into yore head, darlin: dere is only one place where de proper procedure ends, an dat is de-por-tay-SHUN.”

She tapped the syllables out on my forehead with the palm of her hand, and then she smiled at me.

“If dey deport us, we gonna be killed when we get back home. Right? Dis way at leas we got a chance, darlin, yu better believe it.”

“But we can’t work if we are illegal, Yevette. We can’t earn money. We can’t live.”

Yevette shrugged.

“Yu can’t live if yu dead, neither. Yu probly too smart to get dat.”

I sighed and I shook my head. Yevette grinned.

“Dat’s what I like to see,” she said. “A young ting like yu being rill-istic. Now, lissen. Yu tink dese English people yu know could help us?”

I looked down at the driver’s license.

“I do not know.”

“But yu don’t know no one else, huh?”

“No.”

“An what we gonna do when we get dere, if I come wid yu?”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could find work, somewhere where they do not ask us for papers.”

“Easy fo yu. Yu smart, yu talk nice. Plenty work fo a girl like yu.”

“You talk nice too, Yevette.”

“Me talk like a ooman who swallowed a ooman who talk nice. Me dumb, yu nuh see it?”

“You are not dumb, Yevette. All of us who have got this far, all of us who have survived-how can we be dumb? Dumb could not come this far, I am telling you.”

Yevette leaned in toward me and whispered.

“Are you sirius ? Yu no see de way Sari Girl start gigglin at dat taxi back dere?”

“Okay. Maybe Sari Girl is not very clever. But she is prettier than all of us.”

Yevette made her eyes big and snatched her see-though bag closer to her body.

“Dat hurts, Bug. How dare yu say she de prettiest? Me was gonna share me pineapple slice wid yu, but now yu on ya own, darlin.”

I giggled, and Yevette smiled and rubbed the top of my head.

Then we turned around very fast because there was a scream from the girl with no name. She was standing on her bed and she held her bag of documents against her chest with both hands, and she started to scream again.

“Make them stop coming! They will kill us all, you girls do not understand!”

Yevette stood up and walked over to her. She looked up at the girl with no name. The hens pecked and clucked around Yevette’s flip-flops.

“Lissen darlin. Dese ain’t mens commin to kill yu, I tole yu before. Dese is chickens. Dey is more scared of us dan we is of dem. Look yu!”

Yevette put her head down and ran into a group of hens. There was a great explosion of flapping wings and flying feathers, and the hens were jumping up onto the mattresses, and the girl with no name was screaming and screaming and kicking at the hens with her Dunlop Green Flash trainers. Suddenly she stopped screaming and pointed. I could not see where she was pointing because there were hen feathers everywhere, falling down in the bright beams of sunshine from the skylights. Her pointing finger was trembling and she was whispering, Look! Look! My child!

All of us girls were looking, but when the feathers finished falling there was nothing there. The girl with no name, she was just smiling at a bright beam of sunlight on the clean gray-painted floor. There were tears falling from her eyes. My child, she said, and she held her arms outstretched toward the beam of light. I watched her fingers trembling.

I looked at Yevette and the sari girl. The sari girl looked down at the floor. Yevette shrugged at me. I looked back at the girl with no name and I spoke to her.

“What is your child’s name?”

The girl with no name smiled. Her face shone.

“This is Aabirah. She is my youngest. Isn’t she beautiful?”

I looked at the place she was looking.

“Yes. She is lovely.”

I looked at Yevette and made my eyes wide at her.

“Isn’t she lovely, Yevette?”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. She a rill heartbrekka. What yu say yu callin her?”

“Aabirah.”

“Dat’s nice. Lissen, Aa-BI-rah, why don’t yu come wid me, an help me chase de fowls outta dis barn?”

And so Yevette and the sari girl and the youngest daughter of the girl with no name, they started chasing the hens out of the building. Me, I sat and held the hand of the girl with no name. I said, Your daughter is very helpful. Look how she chases those hens. The girl with no name, she was smiling. I was smiling too. I think it was nice for both of us that she had her daughter back.

If I was telling this story to the girls from back home, then one of the new words I would have to explain to them is efficiency. We refugees are very efficient. We do not have the things we need-our children, for example-and so we are clever at making things stretch a little further. Just see what that girl with no name could make out of one little patch of sunlight. Or look how the sari girl could fit the entire color of yellow into one empty see-through plastic bag.