Little Bee

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  Praise for New York Times Bestseller Little Bee

  *Shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award*

  *New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice*

  *Indie Next pick for February 2009*

  *Santa Monica Citywide Reads selection 2010*

  *Read St. Louis Contemporary Fiction selection for 2010*

  *SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE*

  “Little Bee will blow you away.… In restrained, diamond-hard prose, Cleave alternates between these two characters’ points of view as he pulls the threads of their dark—but often funny—story tight. What unfolds between them… is both surprising and inevitable, thoroughly satisfying if also heartrending.”

  —The Washington Post

  “[An] immensely readable and moving second novel… Cleave uses his emotionally charged narrative to challenge his readers’ conceptions of civility, of ethical choice. … The character and voice of Little Bee reveal Cleave at his finest. … An affecting story of human triumph.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “One of the most vividly memorable and provocative characters in recent contemporary fiction. In Chris Cleave’s heartwarming and heartbreaking Little Bee… the tone veers quickly between humor and horror, a very dark, biting humor to be sure, but usually skating along a thin blade of irony, the kind to make you laugh with a little grimace. … The shift in perspective when we finally learn of Little Bee’s experience that fateful day on the beach is viscerally stunning and would be nearly impossible to bear had we not known of Little Bee’s strength and resilience. Cleave paces the story beautifully, lacing it with wit, compassion, and, even at the darkest moments, a searing ray of hope.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “Cleave has a Zola-esque ability to write big, and deeply. … Cleave makes the reader think about political issues and care about his characters.”

  —USA Today

  “Every now and then, you come across a character in a book whose personality is so salient and whose story carries such devastating emotional force it’s as if she becomes a fixed part of your consciousness. So it is with the charmingly named title character in Chris Cleave’s brilliant and unforgettable Little Bee… sequined with lustrous turns of phrase, spanning two continents and driven by real-life global concerns. … What elevates this novel even further is Cleave’s forceful call for all of us, the floating masses of a globalized, socially isolating modern world, to look after one other.”

  —The Seattle Times

  “Utterly enthralling page-turner… Novelist Cleave does a brilliant job of making both characters not only believable but memorable. … These compelling voices grip the reader’s heart and do not let go even after the book’s hyper-tense final page. Little Bee is a harrowing and heartening marvel of a novel.”

  —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

  “Cleave deftly moves the plot between a desolate stretch of Nigerian beach and the home in an upscale London suburb… [and he] invests poignancy and grace into the unspeakable atrocities that occur throughout the African continent in the name of oil exploration. … Heartbreaking one moment, quirky and charming the next, Little Bee will draw you in on the first page and linger in the mind long after the last chapter is closed.”

  —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Electric… Please don’t fear a dull, worthy novel with a message—this is a suspenseful tale of two women survivors.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Little Bee is a loud shout of talent.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  “Stunning.”

  —People (Four Stars and a People Pick)

  “The voice that speaks from the first page of Chris Cleave’s Little Bee is one you might never have heard—the voice of a smart, wary, heartsick immigrant scarred by the terrors of her past. … Read this urgent and wryly funny novel for its insights into simple humanity, the force that can disarm fear.”

  —O Magazine

  “Book clubs in search of the next Kite Runner need look no further than this astonishing, flawless novel. … Cleave (Incendiary) effortlessly moves between alternating viewpoints with lucid, poignant prose and the occasional lighter note. A tension-filled dramatic ending and plenty of moral dilemmas add up to a satisfying, emotional read.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “Cleave is a nerves-of-steel storyteller of stealthy power, and this is a novel as resplendent and menacing as life itself.”

  —Booklist (starred review)

  “A psychologically charged story of grief, globalization and an unlikely friendship… Cleave’s narrative pulses with portentous, nearly spectral energy.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Beautifully staged… Cleave has a sharp cinematic eye.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Little Bee is a smart, topical novel about notions of community and family and about various kinds of violence, including the violence engendered by neglect. It’s also about the insular versus the global. … Cleave’s book asks us to step outside our own tidy borders, let the world in and embrace our own and others’ humanity.”

  —The Kansas City Star

  “This is an amazing book—beautifully written with a unique insight into the mind of a genocide victim. … Deeply moving, sad, hopeful, painful and inspiring—this bittersweet book is worth your time.”

  —Boulder Daily Camera (Colorado)

  “The charge, then: buy this book. Resist opening it until you are ready to start reading, for once you begin you’ll find yourself unable to stop. … Prepare yourself for Cleave’s poignancy, his control, and the pathos he so effortlessly evinces. Expect astonishment, for this is a work inspiring in depth and style; a work that alters perceptions.”

  —Bookslut

  “Little Bee will amaze and delight you, and break your heart. It’s one of the finest books I’ve read in years, from its lyrical opening lines to its surprising end. … If I were still a bookseller, I’d sell Little Bee with a money-back guarantee.”

  —Shelf Awareness.com

  “Cleave has created a true page-turner, one that leaves the reader asking for more even after the final pages have been read. This is a book not to be missed.”

  —Belleville Intelligencer (Ontario, Canada)

  “Besides sharp, witty dialogue, an emotionally charged plot and the vivid characters’ ethical struggles, Little Bee delivers a timely challenge to reinvigorate our notions of civilised decency.”

  —The Independent (UK)

  “An ambitious and fearless gallop from the jungles of Africa via a shocking encounter on a Nigerian beach to the media offices of London and domesticity in leafy suburbia. … Cleave immerses the reader in the worlds of his characters with an unshakable confidence.”

  —The Guardian (UK)

  “Searingly eloquent.”

  —Daily Mail (UK)

  “It would be a disservice to give away the powerful conclusion of this absorbing and gutsy story, which deals convincingly with ethical and personal accountability.”

  —Oxford Times (UK)

  ALSO BY CHRIS CLEAVE

  Incendiary

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either
are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2008 by Chris Cleave

  Originally published in Great Britain in 2008 by Sceptre, an imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Paperbacks Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Simon & Schuster trade paperback edition February 2010

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  Designed by Jill Putorti

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Cleave, Chris.

  Little Bee / Chris Cleave.—1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.

  p. cm.

  “Originally published in Great Britain in 2008 by Sceptre, an imprint

  of Hodder & Stoughton.”

  1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Nigerians—England—Fiction. 3. Identity (Psychology)—

  Fiction. 4. Emigration and immigration—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6103.L43L58 2009 2008030689

  823’.92—dc22

  ISBN 978-1-4165-8963-1

  ISBN 978-1-4165-8964-8 (pbk)

  ISBN 978-1-4165-9383-6 (ebook)

  For Joseph

  Britain is proud of its tradition of providing a safe haven for people fleeting [sic] persecution and conflict.

  —from Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship (UK Home Office, 2005)

  little

  bee

  MOST DAYS I WISH I was a British pound coin instead of an African girl. Everyone would be pleased to see me coming. Maybe I would visit with you for the weekend and then suddenly, because I am fickle like that, I would visit with the man from the corner shop instead—but you would not be sad because you would be eating a cinnamon bun, or drinking a cold Coca-Cola from the can, and you would never think of me again. We would be happy, like lovers who met on holiday and forgot each other’s names.

  A pound coin can go wherever it thinks it will be safest. It can cross deserts and oceans and leave the sound of gunfire and the bitter smell of burning thatch behind. When it feels warm and secure it will turn around and smile at you, the way my big sister Nkiruka used to smile at the men in our village in the short summer after she was a girl but before she was really a woman, and certainly before the evening my mother took her to a quiet place for a serious talk.

  Of course a pound coin can be serious too. It can disguise itself as power, or property, and there is nothing more serious when you are a girl who has neither. You must try to catch the pound, and trap it in your pocket, so that it cannot reach a safe country unless it takes you with it. But a pound has all the tricks of a sorcerer. When pursued I have seen it shed its tail like a lizard so that you are left holding only pence. And when you finally go to seize it, the British pound can perform the greatest magic of all, and this is to transform itself into not one, but two, identical green American dollar bills. Your fingers will close on empty air, I am telling you.

  How I would love to be a British pound. A pound is free to travel to safety, and we are free to watch it go. This is the human triumph. This is called, globalization. A girl like me gets stopped at immigration, but a pound can leap the turnstiles, and dodge the tackles of those big men with their uniform caps, and jump straight into a waiting airport taxi. Where to, sir? Western Civilization, my good man, and make it snappy.

  See how nicely a British pound coin talks? It speaks with the voice of Queen Elizabeth the Second of England. Her face is stamped upon it, and sometimes when I look very closely I can see her lips moving. I hold her up to my ear. What is she saying? Put me down this minute, young lady, or I shall call my guards.

  If the Queen spoke to you in such a voice, do you suppose it would be possible to disobey? I have read that the people around her—even kings and prime ministers—they find their bodies responding to her orders before their brains can even think why not. Let me tell you, it is not the crown and the scepter that have this effect. Me, I could pin a tiara on my short fuzzy hair, and I could hold up a scepter in one hand, like this, and police officers would still walk up to me in their big shoes and say, Love the ensemble, madam, now let’s have a quick look at your ID, shall we? No, it is not the Queen’s crown and scepter that rule in your land. It is her grammar and her voice. That is why it is desirable to speak the way she does. That way you can say to police officers, in a voice as clear as the Cullinan diamond, My goodness, how dare you?

  I am only alive at all because I learned the Queen’s English. Maybe you are thinking, that isn’t so hard. After all, English is the official language of my country, Nigeria. Yes, but the trouble is that back home we speak it so much better than you. To talk the Queen’s English, I had to forget all the best tricks of my mother tongue. For example, the Queen could never say, There was plenty wahala, that girl done use her bottom power to engage my number one son and anyone could see she would end in the bad bush. Instead the Queen must say, My late daughter-in-law used her feminine charms to become engaged to my heir, and one might have foreseen that it wouldn’t end well. It is all a little sad, don’t you think? Learning the Queen’s English is like scrubbing off the bright red varnish from your toenails, the morning after a dance. It takes a long time and there is always a little bit left at the end, a stain of red along the growing edges to remind you of the good time you had. So, you can see that learning came slowly to me. On the other hand, I had plenty of time. I learned your language in an immigration detention center, in Essex, in the southeastern part of the United Kingdom. Two years, they locked me in there. Time was all I had.

  But why did I go to all the trouble? It is because of what some of the older girls explained to me: to survive, you must look good or talk even better. The plain ones and the silent ones, it seems their paperwork is never in order. You say, they get repatriated. We say, sent home early. Like your country is a children’s party—something too wonderful to last forever. But the pretty ones and the talkative ones, we are allowed to stay. In this way your country becomes lively and more beautiful.

  I will tell you what happened when they let me out of the immigration detention center. The detention officer put a voucher in my hand, a transport voucher, and he said I could telephone for a cab. I said, Thank you sir, may God move with grace in your life and bring joy into your heart and prosperity upon your loved ones. The officer pointed his eyes at the ceiling, like there was something very interesting up there, and he said, Jesus. Then he pointed his finger down the corridor and he said, There is the telephone.

  So, I stood in the queue for the telephone. I was thinking, I went over the top with thanking that detention officer. The Queen would merely have said, Thank you, and left it like that. Actually, the Queen would have told the detention officer to call for the damn taxi himself, or she would have him shot and his head separated from his body and displayed on the railings in front of the Tower of London. I was realizing, right there, that it was one thing to learn the Queen’s English from books and newspapers in my detention cell, and quite another thing to actually speak the language with the English. I was angry with myself. I was thinking, You cannot afford to go around making mistakes like that, girl. If you talk like a savage who learned her English on the boat, the men are going to find you out and send
you straight back home. That’s what I was thinking.

  There were three girls in the queue in front of me. They let all us girls out on the same day. It was Friday. It was a bright sunny morning in May. The corridor was dirty but it smelled clean. That is a good trick. Bleach, is how they do that.

  The detention officer sat behind his desk. He was not watching us girls. He was reading a newspaper. It was spread out on his desk. It was not one of the newspapers I learned to speak your language from—The Times or the Telegraph or The Guardian. No, this newspaper was not for people like you and me. There was a white girl in the newspaper photo and she was topless. You know what I mean when I say this, because it is your language we are speaking. But if I was telling this story to my big sister Nkiruka and the other girls from my village back home then I would have to stop, right here, and explain to them: topless does not mean, the lady in the newspaper did not have an upper body. It means, she was not wearing any garments on her upper body. You see the difference?

  —Wait. Not even a brassiere?

  —Not even a brassiere.

  —Weh!

  And then I would start my story again, but those girls back home, they would whisper between them. They would giggle behind their hands. Then, just as I was getting back to my story about the morning they let me out of the immigration detention center, those girls would interrupt me again. Nkiruka would say, Listen, okay? Listen. Just so we are clear. This girl in the newspaper photo. She was a prostitute, yes? A night fighter? Did she look down at the ground from shame?

  —No, she did not look down at the ground from shame. She looked right in the camera and smiled.

  —What, in the newspaper?

  —Yes.

  —Then is it not shameful in Great Britain, to show your bobbis in the newspaper?

  —No. It is not shameful. The boys like it and there is no shame. Otherwise the topless girls would not smile like that, do you see?