Little Bee

Policemen arrive five minutes after Lawrence finds Charlie. Little Bee describes them in detail; they “have more gadgets than Batman” (240). Little Bee reflects on her confusion that they did not carry guns: “Much of my life in that country,” she would explain to the girls at home, “was lived in such confusion” (240). Little Bee remembers feeling like she “wanted to run” (240), but instead she greeted the policemen.

She “was scared that [her] Queen’s English” (240) would not work. Even after the policemen hear that Charlie was found, Little Bee still worries that the policemen will turn back to her. If made to climb into the police car, she “would step out of England and straight back into the troubles of [her] country” (241). In this way, she thinks, it really “is a small world these days” (241).

One of the policemen notices how nervous Little Bee is. She resists telling him; finally, she says: “How dare you?” (242) and runs away. He catches her immediately, without any long or dramatic chase. As he questions her in the back of the car, she knows “it was all over” (243). When she explains that her name is Little Bee, the policeman calls for backup; Little Bee is “probably a nutter” (243). They take her away in a barred van.

That night, Sarah and Lawrence visit Little Bee. Charlie is with them, asleep, a sight that makes Little Bee cry with happiness. Outside the cell, she can hear Lawrence arguing with the police to send her back to Sarah’s home. Inside the cell, Little Bee admits that she “was there when Andrew killed himself” and that, if she had tried harder, she thinks she “could have saved him” (244). After a long silence, Sarah admits that if she “had tried harder,” she thinks she “could have saved Andrew too” (245).

Immigration officers take Little Bee away early in the morning. They handcuff her to the seat and marvel at her English. They explain to her that she is “a drain on resources” and that she doesn’t “belong” (245) in England. To belong, they explain, she would have to “share [their] values” (246).

Eventually, they bring her to Heathrow. In a holding room, where she and some others, all wearing handcuffs, await their planes, she thinks she sees Yevette. Briefly, she is joyful. Eventually, however, she grows fearful. On the airplane, she has a guard, who removes her handcuffs. Although he says he does not like the job, Little Bee does not believe him: He “should do a different job” (248) if he does not like this one. He explains that with Polish newcomers, he cannot get a laboring job; he scoffs, knowing that he is chaperoning girls who are “more employable” (248) than he is. He explains how he, and the Dutch company he works for, make money off of these repatriations. It is, he explains, “the global economy” (249).

Little Bee is afraid, at first, of the airplane’s sound. Then, she realizes “that for a few hours [she] was not in anyone’s country” (249). After looking out the window for a while, she turns to see Sarah and Charlie in the aisle. They “couldn’t let [her] go back alone” (250). They talk and embrace. Sarah explains the story Andrew left behind, which is better than a note.

Sarah does not leave Little Bee’s side at the airport, when the military police greet her. She explains that she is “a British journalist” and that she “will report” (251) anything they do to Little Bee. For two weeks, Sarah and Charlie stay with Little Bee at a hotel in Abuja. From the balcony, Little Bee watches the city lights: “[She] did not know such a thing existed in [her] country” (252).

Little Bee tries to persuade Sarah not to seek more stories. But Sarah explains that their problem now is only that they have just Little Bee’s story: “As soon as [they] have one hundred stories,” Little Bee “will be strong” (253). They can regain power when they “can show that what happened to [her] village happened to a hundred villages” (253). This was what Andrew hoped to do, to save girls like Little Bee.

After Sarah’s explanation, Little Bee decides that she wants “to be part of [her] country’s story” (254). But before they begin, Little Bee tells her about Andrew’s death in full.

First, Sarah bribes the military police outside the hotel with large sums of money. Then, Little Bee and Sarah can spend the day on the streets. Little Bee earns the trust of people who would not speak with a foreign journalist, and then they share their stories. She discovers “there were a lot of us” in the country “who had seen things” (254) they weren’t supposed to. They traveled the roads “in an old white Peugeot, just like the one that [Little Bee’s] father used to have” (255).

One night, Little Bee dreams of her sister. She asks Sarah to take her to the ocean, and so Sarah drives the policemen with more money and they travel there overnight. At the beach, she explains to Sarah her internal practice of imagining communicating her experiences: “How would I explain these things to the girls back home?” (256). Sarah wants to know how she would explain them, but Little Bee explains that she wouldn’t. On that day at the beach, she decides to say “good-bye to all that” because she and Sarah “are the girls back home now” (256). She thanks Sarah for saving her.

Sarah asks Little Bee if she wants to pursue papers to move to England, but Little Bee hesitates. Instead, she dreams that Sarah and Charlie will stay with her in Nigeria. When she wakes from dreaming, the heat and the wind takes her over: She feels “inconsequential,” like she is just part of the particles of sand, but it is “pleasant to know that there is nothing to be done” (259).

Suddenly, Sarah grows panicked because soldiers are walking up the beach. Their weapons stand out, even though they are far away. “This,” Little Bee thinks, “is how the future rode out to meet me in my country” (260). They will obviously, Sarah notes, be looking for a white woman and a white boy. She tells Little Bee to join the group of women further down the beach, with whom she will blend in. Charlie is afraid, but Sarah explains to him that she hasn’t “done enough to save” (261) Little Bee yet.

From afar, Little Bee and the other women with whom she hides watch the soldiers yell at Sarah. They point a gun at her, at which point Charlie starts to run. Most of the soldiers laugh, but the leader swings his gun and begins to shoot at Charlie. Little Bee, terrified, runs toward the boy. As the soldiers walk to her, Little Bee finds comfort in knowing that Charlie will be safe, “that the hopes of this whole human world could fit inside one soul” (264). This, she thinks, is globalization.

Little Bee tells Charlie her real name: Udo, meaning peace. Peace, she explains, “is a time when people can tell each other their real names” (265). At this, Charlie decides to take off his Batman costume. Everyone marvels at his small white body. He runs to play with the other children as the soldiers approach. Watching them play, she “laughed and laughed and laughed until the sound of the sea was drowned” (266).