The Honey Thief Read Online Free PDF

told. He walked to his grandfather and placed his hand on the old man’s chest above the heart. Then he left the house and walked about outside for an hour and more, and longer still.

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    The Honey Thief
    Ahmad Hussein was a perwerrish dahenda, a beekeeper, a maker of honey. This is a craft honoured amongst the Hazara since honey is the prince of foods and the process by which it is made is one of the marvels of the world. It is the bees who make the honey, not beekeepers, but to know where to place your hives, and when, is the first lesson of making the bees work for you. Ahmad Hussein knew exactly where to place his hives and a great deal more. People said, ‘The bees work for Ahmad Hussein as if he were their king.’ And this was true. Ahmad Hussein was not an ordinary person. Bees obeyed him. Animals obeyed him. Sheep and goats obeyed him. He was honoured by the Hazara, but even strangers who were not Hazara respected Ahmad Hussein. When they saw his eyes, they knew that he was close to God in some way, and if they had thought of doing him harm they would change their minds.
    Ahmad Hussein worked alone, but once in so many years he took on an apprentice and trained him in the craft. He had trained two of his own sons, but one had died of poliomyelitis at the age of twenty, and the other, who had shown even greater promise, had married into a family of tinsmiths and now made his living in a workshop far from the mountain pastures.
    It happened that Ahmad Hussein was ready for an apprentice in the spring of Esmail Behishti’s death and he chose Abbas from amongst the many boys who asked him to train them. He chose Abbas as a mark of respect for Esmail, who had been his friend and was once his master, and also because he knew that the boy was grieving. Kindness had come Ahmad Hussein’s way in the person of Esmail, and because of that, he had some kindness to spare for this boy who had loved Esmail.
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    Ahmad Hussein’s bees lived their lives in special boxes of white and blue, known as sanduqe assal . He had many places for the hives, some of them a great distance apart, and in each place one hundred boxes stood amongst the grass and the wildflowers. I have said that it was one of Ahmad Hussein’s gifts that he knew where to place his hives. Such a skill is not uncommon, but it was rare for a beekeeper to take as much time as Ahmad Hussein in choosing a site. He did not say, ‘I will place the boxes in the field,’ and leave it at that, as Abbas came to know when he walked the fields with Ahmad Hussein in the first days of his apprenticeship. Ahmad Hussein strode down each side of the field and across from one corner to another. Often he would stop and think.
    ‘Why have we stopped here, Abbas?’ he once asked the boy, and Abbas said, ‘Sir, I cannot guess.’ It was Abbas’ habit to address Ahmad Hussein as ‘Sir’ whenever he was asked a question. Ahmad Hussein did not say, ‘Relax, call me by my name,’ for he knew that the boy would find that difficult for a time. He also knew that Abbas was concentrating more on his grandfather than on beekeeping. But that would change, too.
    Ahmad Hussein looked about left and right, behind, ahead. He looked at the sky. He looked at the grass. Then he said, ‘Abbas, what do you think of this field?’
    Abbas said, ‘It’s a good field.’
    ‘Yes, but is it the right field, little brother?’
    ‘Yes, it is surely the right field.’
    ‘But is this the right place in the right field?’
    ‘Yes, it is surely the right place in the right field.’
    ‘Should we have a look at another field?’
    ‘No, this is the right one, Sir.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Why is it the right one?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Then will we look at other places?’
    ‘Sir, I can’t say.’
    ‘Abbas, I have a question for you. The question is this: can a bee catch a cold?’
    Abbas smiled. ‘Can a bee catch a cold? No. It is impossible, Sir.’
    ‘It is not