Little Bee

The day after the funeral, Little Bee remembers waking up, disoriented, in Sarah’s home. She describes the home in detail, as if describing it to the girls in her village back home. She anticipates their many questions, and she feels that “this is the real reason why no one tells us Africans anything” (127). It is “a place beyond the end of the world” (127).

Little Bee addresses her audience, which is, she recognizes, full of “sophisticated people” (128) who do not see the complexity of their own world. She drank tea for the first time at Sarah’s house, even though her own country exported tea and she herself stowed away on a tea ship for “three weeks and five thousand miles” (128) to arrive in England.

That morning, over tea, Sarah pushes Little Bee to tell her story. She explains that the men led her and her sister to a broken boat on the beach after Andrew and Sarah returned to the compound. While Little Bee hid under the boat, the hunter/soldiers raped her sister; she describes all of the sounds that she heard as they did so. After telling the story for a while, Little Bee looks up at Sarah, who is ghastly and shaking.

Little Bee does not want to hurt Sarah by telling more of the story, but she continues; she “could not stop talking because now [she] had started,” and “we cannot choose where to start and stop” (131). After the rape, she hears her “sister’s bones being broken one by one” (131). All that remained of her “were the parts that could not be eaten” (132).

Through the slats, Little Bee remembers, she watched the leader of the soldiers begin to swim. The other soldiers left. So, she retells, she emerges from the boat and wades through the water toward the compound. She watches the birds pick at the guard’s body, and then she finds Andrew’s wallet; she takes the business card and driver’s license, and then she hides in the jungle.

Little Bee remembers that, when a military van from the compound arrives, it is playing “One” by U2. She asks Sarah if it is crazy that people from her village, and across the country, loved U2. She remembers that people were “killing everyone else and listening to the same music” (134). After they leave, Little Bee decided that she was afraid of the soldiers, and so she walked in the opposite direction, past where her sister was killed, to a port where she stowed away on a ship with a British flag.

Little Bee and Sarah sit in silence at this point in the story. Charlie wakes up and emerges in the kitchen; he asks his mother why she is crying, and she collapses onto the table. Sarah explains that she “is crying because of something [she] has been trying not to think about” (136). Little Bee leaves the mother and child alone, and when she rejoins Sarah later, neither woman knows what to say.

Sarah invites Little Bee to stay with the family. She insists that Little Bee will be safe from trouble there, but Little Bee responds that “trouble is like an ocean” that “covers two thirds of the world” (138). Inside, Little Bee shifts her attention to deciding where and how she can commit suicide at Sarah’s house. She covers up her interior thoughts by talking about her village.

When Charlie’s nursery calls Sarah to come pick him up, she automatically dials Andrew’s number. After she recognizes the mistake, in shock, she asks Little Bee to delete his phone number. She has never used a mobile phone, and she thinks that it will be a difficult task. Little Bee is shocked by how easy it is.

The two women go to the nursery together, after Little Bee has changed into a borrowed dress, “the prettiest thing [she] had ever worn” (141). They discover that “what had started” Charlie’s troubles that day was the nursery forcing him to take off his Batman, which he had urinated in; “Charlie did not want to be clean” (142). As Charlie screams for his father, Sarah, crying, tries to comfort him.

Little Bee calmly stands beside Charlie, looking out of the room with him, until he starts a conversation. She explains that they “are the same,” that they’ve both spent time in places that “make [them] do the things [they] do not want” (143). She also explains to Charlie that, like hers, his father is dead. They are both sad, but they “are not going to be sad” (145). Little Bee reminds him that he is lucky because he has a loving mother; at this, he runs to embrace Sarah.

Sarah asks Little Bee how long it will take for her to feel okay again. Little Bee tells Sarah about the detention center and explains that about a year passed before she could calm herself. Sarah catches herself, shocked that she is not the one helping Little Bee, but Little Bee reminds Sarah that Sarah saved her life. She also explains to Charlie that his mother saved her, like a superhero.

Little Bee says that, although “someday, the men will come,” in the interim she will live with Sarah “as if [she] were [her] mother” (148). Overwhelmed, Sarah asks for some time to think through this arrangement, which feels serious to her. They walk home in silence and drink tea again. Little Bee wonders “if it would be the last time” (149). But eventually, Sarah decides that they should help one another: “[M]aybe,” she says, “it is time to be serious” (149). 

Sarah pins the start of the “serious times” (150) about a year earlier, when she first met Lawrence. She “wasn’t looking for serious” and had “felt like showing off [her] wings” after “emerging from the introverted, chrysalid stage of early motherhood” (150), yet she finds herself doing the opposite.

She had decided to take on an article on her own, partly as an example to the young journalists at her magazine. Trying to focus, she thought about the “optimistic” mood she wants her article to uphold in the face of the gloom Andrew’s articles had taken on. The two had fought about the seriousness of his articles just before she arrived at the country’s Home Office to interview her subject. In the lobby, Sarah recognized that she was there “entirely to make a point to Andrew” (152).

That day was when she met Lawrence. After he points out her bad mood, she apologizes, noting his relaxed tone and his attractive demeanor. When she asks him what is wrong with Britain, he says that he’s “the wrong man” (153) to ask, which is why he is in the press office, not fixing any of the problems. Lawrence explains that he is only there to connect her to other people, to guide her through the busyness of the offices. Sarah feels Lawrence’s “protective hand on the small of [her] back” (154).

After a few minutes in chaos after a major resignation, Lawrence explains that he will need to reschedule her interviews. He needs to write the letter explaining his department’s “deep regret” (155) at the official’s departure. Both Lawrence and Sarah recognize that their conversation is too casual, is hinting at an affair. They try to turn back to Sarah’s article, of which Lawrence has become the subject.

Lawrence continues his self-deprecation, but Sarah explains that he seems “too nice to be such a loser” (158). He comments on her beauty. They talk as he types his letter; both are shocked by the office’s apparent celebration behind Lawrence’s door. Quickly, Lawrence turns the conversation to Andrew, about whom Sarah was complaining. Eventually, their conversation stops and the two have sex.

Soon after, Lawrence finishes his letter, and Andrew calls. His voicemail says that he has been commissioned to write about “the home secretary’s downfall,” but Sarah sees it as announcement of “the change in [their] way of life” (160). She gently puts down the phone as Lawrence says: “I’d really like to see you again” (160).

With Andrew at work so often, their affair picked up, Sarah recalls. It was intended to be “just a merciful interruption,” in which she “gave [herself] completely to Lawrence” (161) in a way she hadn’t with Andrew. She “started to adore Lawrence” (161), a full escape from Andrew.

She began to attend parties again. Eventually, she ran into Andrew—Lawrence introduced the couple—where he was “crumpled and red-eyed from the office” (162). Andrew knew about the affair immediately; that night they stood in their garden, where Sarah wanted him to build a glass house, and “talked about saving [their] marriage” (163).

Andrew flew to Ireland to drink with his brother, while Sarah stayed at home. Charlie started nursery school, and the house was quiet. Being Charlie’s mother was now “the one thing [she] can be proud of” (164). Lawrence offers to come over, but Sarah rebuffs him; to protect Charlie, she thought, she needed to keep “distance between [herself] and Lawrence” (165).

When Charlie cries upon pickup from nursery and asks for his father, Sarah calls Andrew and asks him to come home because Charlie wants him. Andrew is hurt that it is for Charlie, not for herself, that he is supposed to return. At this moment, they decide to travel to Nigeria on holiday. The “[s]erious times […] rolled in” and began to “hang” (167) over them.

These serious times, Sarah explains to Little Bee, have followed her around. Together, she thinks, they can both try to move on. She enthusiastically shares her plan for Little Bee’s citizenship while trying to wrangle Charlie, who is playing under the table.

Later that day, Lawrence arrives at the house. It is his first time there; he is not sure he has the right address. He asks if Little Bee is “legal,” but Sarah responds: “I don’t think I give a shit” (170). Lawrence holds back because with even “the slightest doubt,” he “could be sacked” (170) for entering the house. So Sarah tells him not to. But he persists, explaining that “it’d be nice if [he] loved [his] wife and it’d be super if [he] didn’t work for the forces of darkness” (170).

Sarah lets Lawrence inside, where he meets Charlie, introduced to him as Batman. Lawrence also meets Little Bee. He worries about her, knowing what he knows from the Home Office. Sarah recoils, feeling as if Lawrence is asking her “to choose between [Lawrence] and her” (173). He insists that there is a logical end point to charity.

Lawrence almost leaves to stay in a hotel, not in Birmingham like he told his wife, but eventually he stays. The two have sex “on the bed [Sarah] used to share with Andrew” (175). Comparatively, sex with Lawrence feels light, but “the presence of Andrew” (176) dampens the mood. That night, it feels “too light” (176).

She also admits that her mind is elsewhere, on what she has to do. Lawrence grows frustrated; he asks is she’s “going to find time for us again, one of these days” (177). Although he wonders why she can’t “just not give a shit,” he admits that he is “glad [Sarah is] not one of them” (177). Still, he explains, he thinks that Sarah does not know how difficult her plan to find legal safety for Little Bee will be.