Chris Cleave - Little Bee

And I was looking very hard at these people, because this is how it was with them: the boy’s father had dark skin, darker even than my own, and the boy’s mother was a white woman. They were holding hands and smiling at their boy, whose skin was light brown. It was the color of the man and the woman joined in happiness. It was such a good color that tears came into my eyes. I would not even try to explain this to the girls from back home because they would not believe it. If I told them that there were in this city children that were born of black and white parents, holding hands in the street and smiling with pride, they would only shake their heads and say, Little miss been-to is making up her tales again.

But I saw it with my eyes. I saw the boy finally reach the big black box where the lizard man was hiding, and I saw him stretching up on his toes to release the coin he was holding in his fist, and I saw the coin tumbling through the bright blue sky with the sunshine flashing upon it and the Queen of England’s face upon the coin-with her lips moving and saying Good Lord, we appear to be falling-and I saw the lizard man spring up out of his box and the boy run away giggling and screaming, and I saw his mother and his father lift him up, and I saw the three of them hugging one another tight and laughing while the crowd looked and laughed with them. This I saw with my own eyes, and when I looked around the crowd I saw that there was more of it. There were people in that crowd, and strolling along the walkway, from all of the different colors and nationalities of the earth. There were more races even than I recognized from the detention center. I stood with my back against the railings and my mouth open and I watched them walking past, more and more of them. And then I realized it. I said to myself, Little Bee, there is no them. This endless procession of people, walking along beside this great river, these people are you.

All that time in the detention center I was trapped by walls, and all those days living at Sarah’s house in a street full of white faces, I was trapped because I knew I could never go unnoticed. But now I understood that at last I could disappear into the human race, like Yevette chose to do, as simply as a bee vanishes into the hive. I did not even tell my feet to do it: they were full of joy and they took the first step all on their own.

And then they stopped. I thought, Little Bee, you have tried this before. You ran away, but your troubles traveled with you. How will you stop them from finding you this time? How will you stop them from shrieking in the night?

So I took a step back and I leaned against the railings again, to think. The sun was pleasant on the back of my neck. Lawrence was pointing out something to Charlie. Those columns on the bridge, he was saying. See how the water swirls around them?

On the walkway in front of me, the crowd kept coming. The adults were all walking but many of the children were gliding. There were children with scooters, children with bicycles, children with wheels hidden in their shoes. I smiled at a beautiful woman with brightly colored clothes. Mothers were calling out their children’s names-strong names like Sophie and Joshua and Jack-names with protecting magic.

And I thought to myself: that is it. My troubles will find me very easily in this town of stone and iron if I keep my foolish name that I chose at the edge of the jungle. So I will take a name that suits this city instead. I will blend in and I will wear a bright smile and colorful clothes and I will forget all about Charlie and Sarah and Lawrence and Andrew. With my new name, I will not even belong in Little Bee’s story anymore. Her story will end like this: One hot day in early summer Little Bee awoke weary from her troubles and she traveled to the banks of a great river in the company of three sorcerers-a boy with the powers of a bat, a good sorceress who once saved her life on purpose, and a bad sorcerer. And as the three enchanters gazed upon the mighty river, Little Bee turned away and spoke some magic words to herself, and when the others turned around Little Bee had flown away, and when they searched for her she had gone, and there was nothing to tell that the young girl had ever existed in this world except for a man’s large Hawaiian shirt that the good sorceress would wash and iron and fold at the back of a drawer because she would never be able to bear to throw it away.

I smiled as I looked into the great crowd of people passing by, and my feet started again to take the first steps to join them. I smiled even brighter when I felt the strength of those steps. All the power of the city was flowing up through the warm stones beneath my feet and entering my body. Yes, I thought. This is the moment. Even for a girl like me, then, there comes a day when she can stop surviving and start living.

To survive, you have to look good or talk good. But to end your story well-here is the truth-you have to talk yourself out of it.

After six steps I was inside the crowd, getting pushed this way and that way. I did not mind and I did not look back. I let myself be taken along by this river of human souls that flowed beside the water. I was happy. I smelled the mud on the banks of the river and the dust of the gray pigeons’ wings and the flat dry smell of the ancient stone buildings and the hot breath of cigarettes and chewing gum that floated through the crowd. Everyone was talking and shouting in all the languages they had carried with them to release in that place, and the words mingled in the London air which understood them all. I listened very carefully to the sound of the city and I wondered what name it would whisper me to call myself.

The crowd took me up onto a bridge and I started to cross it. It was good to watch the passenger boats pass out of sight underneath my feet, with the people relaxing in their chairs, and the bald tops of the old men’s heads turning pink in the sun, and the children shouting under the bridge to hear the echoes of their voices, and the tourist guide on the boat’s loudspeakers booming out, WELCOME WILLKOMMEN BIENVENUE BENVENUTO BIENVENIDO À LONDRES.

Near the middle of the bridge there was a boy selling magazines. He had a shaved head and a sliver ring in his nose, like a bull, and a green coat with a fur hood even though it was so hot, and he had light brown skin and he smiled when he saw me staring at him.

“What?” he said.

I smiled back. “Nothing.”

“Big Issue?” he said.

“No,” I said, “I am going to be fine now, I think.”

The boy laughed. “No! I mean, do you want to buy one of these?” He spoke slowly and he held up a magazine. “See? It’s called, the Big Issue.”

I giggled and I bit the side of my hand because I was embarrassed.

“Sorry,” I said. “I am new in this town.”

The boy nodded. “Me too,” he said. “What’s your name?”

I looked behind him at the huge city rising out of the river, mighty and illuminated. Then I looked back in the boy’s eyes.

“My name is London Sunshine.”

The boy grinned. “What kind of a name is that?”

“It is the kind of name that starts off heavy but ends up light.”

The boy blinked at me, and the next moment we were both laughing together. This was a good trick. In this moment I very nearly named myself back to life.

But while I was laughing I looked back across the river, and my eyes fell on something they could not look away from. Sarah and Charlie and Lawrence were still there, standing at the railings, talking and looking out over the river. They had not seen me, but I could not stop looking at them. The smile disappeared from my face.

“What’s wrong?” said the magazine-seller boy.