The Sound of Language (15 page)

Their posture and their gaze were challenging. One boy played with another stone, throwing it up in the air and then catching it. They made no move to help her.

What should she do? Raihana was suddenly scared.

Nothing. There was nothing she could do. There were three boys, stronger and meaner than she. And they had only thrown a stone; it wasn't a bullet.

She pushed her bicycle out of the ditch and then climbed out herself. The bicycle handle was twisted; she could not ride home. Tears pricked her eyes but she didn't shed them; she wouldn't give those hooligans the satisfaction.

Raihana went back to Gunnar's house, which was a few minutes away, with as much dignity as she could. Her palm was bruised and mixed with the mud and water on her clothes was her blood.

Gunnar was standing in his front yard pruning a rosebush when she got there.

“What happened?” he called, running toward her.

And the tears rolled down her cheeks, quick and fast. She stood there, sobbing loudly, holding on to the twisted handle of her bicycle.

Gunnar's hands shook as he removed her stiff hands from the bicycle handle and took her inside. He wasn't sure what to do so he went out to the backyard and hollered for fat Ulla. He had seen her earlier and knew she was home.

Ulla came running. Gunnar told her Raihana had been in an accident and she needed help getting cleaned up. He was afraid to clean her wounds because he didn't know how. He had kissed Julie's and Lars's hurts but he had never cleaned them. Anna had.

“Oh poor girl,” Ulla said and got a wet towel and started wiping Raihana's face and hands.

Raihana continued to cry, unable to stop now that she was safe again.

“We need bandages, salve, and water,” Ulla said. “Do you have any of Julie's clothes at home?” she asked Gunnar.

It took awhile for Raihana to stop crying. The damage wasn't so bad. The pink blouse would have to be thrown out along with her brown pants. Skin had peeled off her elbow and upper arm. Ulla cleaned the wounds the best she could and gently applied a salve on them.

Raihana had more cuts and bruises on her feet and her sandals were a lost cause. The straps on both shoes had torn off.

“Where did you fall down?” Ulla asked. Raihana was sitting at the dining table, her eyes red, wearing a black pair of pants and white shirt that belonged to Julie.

“By Frederiksvej,” Raihana said. “The boys threw a stone at me.” She pointed to her temple where there was a small but deep gash Ulla had also administered to.

“What boys?” Gunnar asked, though he had a sick suspicion he knew which boys she was talking about.

“The boys with no hair,” Raihana said.

Ulla sighed. “Anders and his friends.”

“Why they do this?” Raihana asked.

“Because they are bad boys,” Ulla said. “Hurting a girl like that. Gunnar, you need to talk with Marianne and Mogens. Those boys can't go around throwing stones at people.”

Gunnar nodded. “No they cannot.”

“My bicycle be okay? I have no money for making it better,” Raihana said. The tears she had managed to stem threatened to roll back again.

“It's okay,” Gunnar said. “You can use Julie's old bicycle. It's in the back room. And I'll take care of your bicycle.”

Raihana stared at him. She couldn't understand him, could barely hear him over the tears that were threatening to flow again.

“Okay,” she said uneasily.

Ulla patted her shoulder. “Don't ride back today. Gunnar can drive you in the car.”

The woman's behavior confused Raihana. Just a few weeks ago she had been hostile and now she was cleaning her wounds and being nice to her.

Once Raihana had had a cup of tea and was not crying anymore, Gunnar strapped Julie's bicycle to the back of his car and then walked up to Ulla.

“Tak,”
he said to Ulla.

“You think they hit her with a stone because she's a foreigner?” Ulla whispered.

Gunnar didn't respond.

“It isn't right that we have so many foreigners in Denmark but that doesn't mean you throw stones at them,” she said. “Poor girl, she's so frightened.”

“Yes,” Gunnar said. “She deserves better.”

Kabir was waiting for Raihana outside. She had called his cell phone, before leaving Gunnar's house, to let him know she would be home late and that she had fallen off her bicycle. She didn't tell him about the boys with no hair or the stone.

Kabir had asked if she wanted him to come and pick her up but by then Gunnar had told her he would take her and Raihana didn't want to insult him by refusing his help. She was also scared of telling him about the boys. If he knew, he might not let her go back to Gunnar's house and work with the bees.

“Don't tell about boys to Kabir,” Raihana said to Gunnar as soon as she saw Kabir waiting outside, his face tense.

“Why not?” Gunnar asked.

“Then he will say no to me to come back to your house,” Raihana said. “And I want to learn harvest.”

Gunnar didn't want to lie, but neither did he want Raihana to miss the harvest.

As they walked toward him, Kabir smiled tightly at Gunnar and asked Raihana if she was okay. “Go in, Layla has tea waiting for you,” he said in Dari.

“The bicycle,” Raihana said, pointing to Gunnar's daughter's bicycle in the back.

“I will get it,” Kabir said.

Raihana thanked Gunnar and went inside, relieved not to have to answer Kabir's questions in front of Gunnar.

“What happened?” Kabir asked once Raihana was inside the house.

For a moment Gunnar thought he would lie but he couldn't. Wouldn't her family be even more upset if they found out later that he had lied? Wouldn't they think he was protecting these boys because they were Danish?

“There are some boys in the neighborhood. They threw a stone at her and she fell into a ditch,” Gunnar said. “My neighbor, a woman, cleaned her up and gave her clothes. They are my daughter's.”

“Boys?” Kabir asked. “What kind of boys?”

Kabir had some fine Danish, Gunnar thought. Of course, there was an accent, but he was fluent in the language.

“They are … they are just boys,” Gunnar said uncomfortably. What could he say? That they were racist teenagers?

“Are they boys who shave their hair?” Kabir asked. He saw the look of surprise on Gunnar's face and added, “We used to have a few who came by and screamed at us, piss-faced drunk.”

“These boys are young, foolish. We have known the family for years. I'll talk to them and we will settle this.”

“We'll talk to the police,” Kabir said.

Gunnar put his hand on Kabir's arm. “You have every right to be angry but please, let me talk to the family first.”

Kabir jerked Gunnar's hand away. “I'm not interested in protecting Danish boys for their foolishness. I want to make sure they don't hurt another Muslim woman again.”

“What they did was very wrong,” Gunnar said. “I promise, I'll make sure—”

“Raihana will not be back to your house. She will find another
praktik,”
Kabir said firmly.

“It is harvesttime,” he said. “Please, just for this week. I will drop her off and pick her up if you feel it isn't safe for her to bicycle.”

“Why do you care? If you need someone to help you, I'm sure you can find — ”

“No, no,” Gunnar said. “She wants to learn about the harvest. She has worked so hard all season, it would be … sad if she couldn't enjoy the fruit of her labors.”

Kabir turned to see Layla and Raihana staring down from the upstairs bedroom window.

“Just this week,” Kabir said tightly. “No more than this week.”

Gunnar nodded. “Let me talk to the parents and then I'll come with you to the police if they don't do anything. Okay? Can you give me your phone number? I'll call you as soon as I know more.” Gunnar pulled out a notepad and from the glove compartment of his car and gave it to Kabir.

Kabir didn't say anything, just wrote a number on the notepad and returned it to Gunnar. He didn't trust Gunnar.

It was an unfamiliar reaction for Gunnar. He had always been a good guy, trusted and liked. No one had ever looked at him with the distrust in this man's eyes.

FOURTEEN
ENTRY FROM ANNA'S DIARY
A Year of Keeping Bees

20 JULY 1980

I can hardly wait for harvest.

I love to watch the frames spin in the extractor and see the honey pour out of them. I love to stir the honey in buckets. Nothing is more exciting than harvesttime.

We don't sell our honey. We eat it ourselves and give it away as gifts. We feel it would be wrong to sell the honey and make money off the hard work of the bees.

G
unnar didn't know how to broach the subject with Marianne and Mogens, so he called Julie for advice.

“You mean you haven't talked to them yet?” Julie said in exasperation. “I'd have gone over right away and kicked that boy's butt.”

The impulse had been there, but Gunnar had spent a lifetime curbing impulses. He wasn't a man who did things impulsively. It wasn't his age; even when he was young he was careful.

“What do I say?” Gunnar asked.

“Tell them they have a monster impersonating as their son,” Julie snapped and then sighed. “I babysat for Anders. He used to tell me he would marry me.”

“We gave them your crib,” Gunnar said sadly. “Kabir said he wanted to go to the police.”

“That would be the best,
Far,”
Julie said. “It looks like this is out of Mogens and Marianne's control.”

Gunnar didn't say anything and Julie continued.

“Stuff like this happened here too after 9/11. A colleague told me that an Indian friend with a beard got beaten up in the United States. He's not even Muslim but they thought he was. And in London they burned down a store owned by Iranians.”

“But that's London and the United States. In Skive things like this aren't supposed to happen,” Gunnar said. “Skive is safe.”

“Nowhere is safe anymore,” Julie said.

“You're right. If children of decent people are throwing stones at immigrants, no one is safe.”

“You should tell Mogens and Marianne that if they won't talk to him and if Anders does not apologize to Raihana, then Kabir will go to the police and you'll go with him,” Julie said.

“That was what I was thinking,” Gunnar said.

They spoke some more about Maria and Lars, and Julie told him about a man she was dating. Gunnar got the sense that he was probably much older than she was and she was embarrassed. Anna would have demanded Julie tell them everything, but Gunnar couldn't do that. He respected Julie's privacy and he would wait until she was ready.

That night Gunnar talked to Anna for the first time since she died. He had heard of people speaking to their dead spouses and had always thought they were prime candidates for the mental hospital, but that night as he lay in bed, his mind full of confusion, he did what came naturally.

“What should I do?” he asked the ceiling and then turned to face Anna's picture by his bedside table.

Anna was wearing a dark chiffon dress and she was smiling; the picture had been taken at Lars's wedding.

“That man, Kabir, he distrusts me, he thinks I am out to get him,” he said. “I don't know what to do about that. I don't know what to do about Anders.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and then opened them again.

“You don't know what to do either?” he said and then sighed.

Mogens and Marianne surprised Gunnar.

“Yes,” Mogens said, “you should go to the police.”

Gunnar gaped at him for a moment and then looked at Marianne. They were in Marianne and Mogens's living room, which Marianne had painted pink last year. The curtains were pink lace and the furniture was dark wood and pink fabric. It was a terrible room, made for dolls not grown-ups.

“Yes, you should,” Marianne said, confirming that both she and her husband had gone mad. “Maybe that'll straighten him out. He stole beer from the kiosk by the train station, the one Johnny runs. He came and told us and we gave him the money. When we told Anders we'd given Johnny money, he said we should increase his allowance so he doesn't have to steal.”

“Those friends of his,” Mogens said. “This started with them. Before that Anders was a good boy. These boys come from nowhere, they're going nowhere, and they're taking Anders with them.”

“What do their parents say?” Gunnar asked, wondering how any parents would allow such behavior.

Mogens looked disgusted. “Karsten's father left when he was a baby and his mother is on welfare … Drinks beer, smokes cigarettes, and watches television all day. Totally useless! Henrik's parents say nothing is wrong and that if he wants to voice his opinion against the people corrupting our country that is his right.”

“So they're no help,” Gunnar said, almost to himself.

“Henrik's father is against immigrants. Very Dansk Folkeparti, you know what I mean?” Mogens said.

Marianne started to cry. “How is the girl?” she asked, wiping her eyes.

“Like I said, just scraped up a little, but she is scared. I would be too. I don't know if she'll come next week,” Gunnar said.

“File a complaint,” Mogens said. “We'll just have to deal…”

“We can't file a police complaint and ruin Anders's life,” Gunnar said, growing annoyed at how helpless they seemed. This was their son, they needed to pull their socks up and get to work fixing his life.

“What should we do?” Marianne asked him desperately.

“I don't know,” Gunnar said in exasperation. How come he was supposed to have the answers? He was no parenting expert.

“We're so lost,” Mogens said wearily.

“Maybe we can talk to the police and see if we can find a way for them to talk to the boys without it being official,” Gunnar suggested, though he had no idea if this was possible.

Mogens brightened. “Let me call Inspector Jon, he's an acquaintance, maybe he can talk some sense into these kids. Scare them a little?”

“You should be there, Gunnar,” Marianne said. “You should be there when the police talk to him. He will be even more scared if he thinks you have filed a complaint.”

“No, no,” Gunnar said. “Look …”

“Please,” Marianne pleaded. “It'll be a great help.”

“Yes, please,” Mogens said desperately.

Gunnar reluctantly consented.

He phoned Kabir as soon as he got home and told him what Mogens and Marianne and he himself had agreed to do. Kabir thanked Gunnar for calling and asked him to make sure Raihana was safe when she came to work in his house.

·   ·   ·

The familiar taste of fear filled her mouth again. Since she had left Afghanistan the fear had been disappearing. The refugee camp was worlds better than Kabul but had been no picnic and being a single woman with no male protection had left her open to innuendo, marriage proposals, and men who wished to have sex with her. Once she came to Denmark she had felt safe. There were no men with guns on the street, and no screaming at people like they were cattle. Most important she was free to live the life she wanted. And now a stone against her forehead had changed everything. If someone had thrown a stone at her in Kabul, she would have thought nothing of it. She would have considered herself lucky that it had been just a stone. But here, in pristine Denmark, the wound seemed uglier than it would have in Kabul.

“You don't have to go,” Kabir said. They were sitting in the living room after a very quiet dinner.

“Actually, I'd prefer it if you didn't go to the Danish man's house anymore,” Kabir added.

She'd only gotten hurt that afternoon and by nighttime her wounds were throbbing and Raihana was exhausted by thinking about the incident again and again. She kept running it through her mind. What if the stone had been bigger? What if there had been a car coming and had hit her? What if … ?

“Just go to school and back home, there's no need to go to that man's house in between,” Kabir said.

“But if she doesn't go back to the bees, Kabir, they win,” Layla said suddenly. “She should go and show that she isn't scared. You should take her to show that she has protection and that we're not scared. This is our home too, Kabir, we can't let some stupid boys run us out.”

Raihana looked up at Layla in surprise, just as Kabir did.

“We don't have to show anyone anything,” Kabir snapped.

“Yes we do,” Layla said. She looked at Shahrukh, who was sleeping on Kabir's lap. “For his sake we need to show them that we're not scared. You want your son to be attacked like this too? We fight this now.”

“And how do we fight it?”

“By not changing our lives,” Layla said. “Raihana?”

“I agree with Layla,” Raihana said. “I'm scared and I don't want to bicycle to Gunnar's house, but Layla is right, I need to go because I can't be scared, not here too.”

Kabir looked at the women in disbelief. “This is why I want to go home.”

“In Afghanistan that could have been a bullet and she would be dead,” Layla said. “And remember, Kabir, not all Danes are like these boys.”

“Yes they are,” Kabir said.

“No, Kabir,” Raihana said immediately. “Gunnar is not. You saw him.”

“He said he would take those boys to the police, if he does, we'll see,” Kabir said.

“Gunnar's taking them to the police?” Raihana asked.

“He called my mobile while I was out for a smoke,” Kabir said. “One of the boys’ parents asked him to talk to the police. It won't be an official complaint, but he hopes that it'll scare them to be taken to the police station and questioned. I'm not sure what will come of it.”

“So it's settled then,” Layla said, sighing in relief. “But what about tomorrow? How will she get to the Danish man's house?”

“I will drive her,” Kabir said.

That night, as Raihana lay awake, fear clutching her belly, she knew she was a coward. She was not ready, she thought, not ready at all to face those boys again. What would they do this time?

Raihana went to class the next day, even though Layla had told her it would be okay if she didn't. Wahida looked at her bruises with aversion, clearly thinking, I told you, didn't I.

Of course news like this spread like wildfire in the small immigrant community in Skive. There was a certain amount of panic among the Muslims, but most of them were also aware that the mischief was perpetrated by three teenage boys. This was most likely a random incident, not a deep conspiracy to hurt them.

That first class after the attack, Raihana sat next to Tatjana, a very quiet girl. Tatjana rarely spoke to anyone and during breaks rushed outside to smoke cigarettes she carried in a blue leather purse. She wore tight jeans, equally tight blouses, and big boots. In the summer she replaced the big boots with leather sandals and the tight blouses had shorter sleeves. She spoke Danish with a strange accent and her voice was heavy, almost like a man's, and she seemed very sure of herself.

Tatjana was from Bosnia; Raihana had learned that in her first class when Christina made everyone tell their names, where they came from, where they lived, and how long they had been in Denmark.

“Jeg header Tatjana.”
My name is Tatjana.

“Jeg kommer fra Bosnia.”
I come from Bosnia.

“Jeg bor i Skive.”
I live in Skive.

“Jeg har voeret i Danmark i to år.”
I have been in Denmark for two years.

Raihana didn't know much about Bosnia, except that there had been a war there and there were refugees from Bosnia in Denmark.

Raihana was a little intimidated by Tatjana and usually sat with Suzi. But Suzi was sick at home as was Christina. Casper, another teacher, was teaching them today and he had joined his class with Raihana's. Raihana was painfully aware that all eyes were watching her bruises.

“A big stone, eh? How big? This big?” Sohaila had asked, measuring the imagined stone with her hands.

“Not that big,” Raihana said. She didn't want to think about the stone. Sohaila had cornered her outside the bathroom before the classes began.

“Horrible things are happening here,” Sohaila continued. “You know, they think all Muslims are terrorists.”

Raihana looked forlornly at the bathroom.

“So, you're not going back there for your ridiculous
praktik
are you? It always sounded like a bad idea and now we know, eh?” Sohaila said, her eyes glittering.

“Why shouldn't I continue my
praktik?
I get paid for my work and if I want to get a job with a beekeeper, I need to go there,” Raihana said defiantly.

Sohaila's eyes all but popped out.

“I heard Rafeeq has made a proposal. Then why are you talking about working, you stupid girl,” Sohaila said angrily. “You don't wear a
hijab
, okay, I don't either and that's fine. But not marry? And work? What's going on with you?”

Raihana felt the bile rise in her throat. “I just want to do something.”

“Then get married, plenty to do,” Sohaila advised. “You think we go to class because we want to learn Danish and get jobs? We come here because if we don't they will cut off our welfare checks.”

“Well that may be true for you, but I want to learn the language,” Raihana said. “Now if you'll move a little, I need to use the bathroom.”

The class was devoted to verbs again and Raihana didn't feel any better about how the day was turning out. Verbs were hard.

“I heard some boys threw a stone at you,” Tatjana said at the start of the first break.

Raihana nearly jumped out of her chair.

“Is that how you got hurt?” she asked.

Raihana nodded.

“For pokker!”
Tatjana cursed in Danish.” Are you scared?” she went on, looking Raihana in the eye.

“Yes,” Raihana admitted.

“My husband was killed in Bosnia,” she said, turning her head toward the window. “Died in the war. Never saw the body.”

How could two women from different parts of the world have gone through the same thing?

Raihana's eyes filled with tears. “They took my husband away and … killed him in prison,” she said. It was the first time she had told anyone what had happened to Aamir.

“Children?”

“I lost baby in belly when I ran from Kabul to Pakistan.” The words slipped out so easily. She could not explain how she could tell Tatjana, a perfect stranger, something she had not even told Layla. Maybe it was because Tatjana had also lost a husband, maybe it was because Tatjana had posed the question so matter-of-factly—maybe it was time for her to accept what had happened and that was why the truth had finally found a way out of her heart.