The Beekeeper - from the collection: 'Night Flight from Marabar'

by Karen Overman-Edmiston

The Beekeeper

  By K. Overman-Edmiston

  Copyright 2010 K. Overman-Edmiston

  All rights reserved.

  The Beekeeper is the first story from the collection Night Flight from Marabar.

  Paperback print edition (ISBN 9780646369693) published by Crumplestone Press

  PO Box 6546, East Perth

  Western Australia 6892

  *****************

  The Beekeeper

  Just at the edge of hearing, a mere vibration. Then barely audible, it spilt into a drone. The Beekeeper walked steadily down the slope to his hives. Thirty or more in three rows nestled into the gentle incline at the edge of his property. A sunny spot, sheltered from the wind.

  The sun was warm on his back as he walked towards the first of his hives. He hummed to himself a chant whose provenance was an Italian monastery of the fifteenth century. He hummed it with the pleasure of one who, you might have thought, had heard it fresh from the hand of the composer five centuries beforehand.

  The gauze that hung about the broad-brimmed rim of his hat fell across his eyes and on to his shoulders. As he peered through, the gauze added a deeper hue to the cerulean blue at the edge of his land. The Mediterranean began where his land dropped away. The next landfall, Egypt.

  He lived on a small island, Kythera, that hung from the tip of the Pelopponese. It was Greek shot through with the influence of successive invaders - Byzantine, Venetian, Turkish, Algerian, French, English. Each wave had left its mark and moved on, leaving the island and its inhabitants stubbornly Greek.

  The Beekeeper’s home was one of a small number of houses in the Venetian architectural style. Pastel salmon shades with a hint of terracotta. Essentially geometric, as the Greek style, but Italianate in the sloping roof and ornate frieze work. Time had reduced the frieze colours to sun-faded blues and ochres that rested beneath the curved terracotta tiles of the roof. A gentle slant, a curve here and there, showed an inclination towards the western rather than eastern side of the Adriatic.

  Visitors to his home could be forgiven for believing themselves in a small private gallery. A series of Byzantine icons lined the white-washed walls. The cynosure was the Virgin and Child with the searing blue eyes. All the reds, golds and blues of Constantinople filled the images. The Mother of God a study in gentleness: tenderness in the incline of her head towards her Son. Her eyes clear, steady, compassionate.

  Upon mahogany sideboards stood pieces of Cycladic statuary. One was a sitting figure whose despair was palpable in his posture. Bowed head lowered to his knees, arms encircling his folded legs and his misery. The centuries-old figure demonstrated that loneliness is monopolized by no particular culture or era. In another, a man and woman hold a child, their joy expressed in the elevation of the smaller central figure. To the right of this collection stood two black figure vases, teasing the notion of elegance to its outer reaches. Black actions against a terracotta world.

  All these objects, each authentic, were housed in a home without locks. Where could a thief hide with stolen goods? How to make an escape before their loss was noticed? The limitations of stealing on an island.

  Little wonder the Beekeeper gave the appearance of being at ease within the confines of his land. He did not appear to trouble those living around him, and they did not trouble him. The islanders spoke of his solitariness, the fact that he would be a complete recluse if it were not for his hired hand, Mavro. The two made an odd, vaguely sympathetic pair. The villagers, often curious to the point of prurience, simply commented and moved on. Their own comings and goings, shifting alliances and feuds, crowded out those on the periphery of village life.

  The Beekeeper did not join in the round of community activities, the dances, wine festivals, and processions, but he occasionally attended the church services at Estavromenos. This was the fourteenth century church in the island’s capital of Hora. He would quietly enter through the side door at the rear of the tiny church and sit at the back, behind the women. He never went to the front of the church where the men stood during a service. He sat breathing in the incense given off in soft heady puffs by the movement of the thurible, and listening to the deep intoning: of the priest. These acted in counterpoint to the piping chants of the children as they made their way through the liturgy.

  He did not stand at any point during the service. He simply sat, his head lowered, eyes occasionally wandering languidly, appreciatively through the haze of incense and candle smoke to the icons of the church. These icons were covered in the patina of innumerable invisible kisses given by the congregation on entering the church. These pictures were the focus of their hopes, their fears, and their hurts. He studied the icons, tried to intuit their meanings, to immerse himself in the mysteries around him. He sat, a closed vessel, peering out at the rituals surrounding him.

  Mavro sat beside him, but always an empty seat between them, a mark of respect for employer by employee. Mavro was the whitest point in the church. With his white hair and alabaster skin, only the faintest blue of his eyes saved him from being completely without colour. His age could have been anything from twenty to forty. No-one knew exactly, not even Mavro himself. He spoke a Greek patois with few connecting words, and he rarely made eye contact when he spoke to others. His loyalty to the Beekeeper, however, was fierce. So long had he been in the Beekeeper’s employ, that he often carried out an action before it was requested.

  The Beekeeper never stayed for the entire service. Always, seconds before he rose, Mavro would be at the door holding it open. Their simpatithekos was unnerving. Mavro was deemed simple-minded and the Beekeeper seen as compassionate for providing care and giving him employment.

  But today the Beekeeper was out in the open air. It was late spring with all its attendant pleasures. The air was ripe with pollen and the bees industrious to the point of exhaustion. The island was garlanded with flowers. It was warm, not searing as it could be in July and August, and the wind teased the already tenuous clouds. Sunlight bounced off stone walls and bee-hives. The Beekeeper slipped between the shafts of light, blurring all edges with his bee smoker.

  Gently he lifted the latch on one of the hives, and checked the activity inside. The smoke had deceived the bees into thinking there was a fire. Bees fear fire. In panic, and to save the hoard, they would begin eating as much of the honey as possible in case the hive had to be deserted. As they were diverted, they did not resist the Beekeeper's intrusion. He peered into the hive.

  ‘Yes,’ he murmured appreciatively, then moved on to another, trailing his clouds of dusty smoke.

  Bees can be trained to visit certain types of plant. His bees were trained to two flowers. One was thyme, which is characteristic of Kytherian honey, and the second was a flower whose name he told no-one, not even Mavro. The Beekeeper’s process for ‘fixing’ the bees was simple. Some of the colony’s population became scout bees. These scouts would forage over a range of flowers. When they found the crop with the highest pollen or nectar content they fixed upon this species. They would then return to the colony and pass the information on to the other bees.

  This, the Beekeeper had watched innumerable times. The bees communicated information through a very precise dance, and by passing a sample of the nectar on to the other bees. The entire ritual looked like a dance followed by a light kiss.

  The dance involved movements on the comb surface. Distance was-conveyed by the number of movements made by the scout’s abdomen while crossing the circle. The more movemen
ts the greater the distance. The bees would carry out this exercise at night too, if necessary. They would simply dance at angles calibrated to the sun on the other side of the world.

  The Beekeeper never tired of watching this miracle of communication. He knew the bees navigated using the spherical nature of the earth and its magnetic field. He knew the bees had done so, long before mankind had accepted the earth as round.

  And so, by placing various colonies close to the crops of his choice and out of range of others whose flavour he did not choose, the Beekeeper could set the flavour of his honey. Imprint the crop, scent, flavour of your choice - and the bee is fixed for life. The blend of honey produced by the Beekeeper was second to none in the world.

  ***

  The Beekeeper knew that honey capped in beeswax could keep indefinitely. Edible honeycomb was found in the tombs of the Pharaohs. Tombs that had been sealed for over three thousand years.

  ***

  As part of his collection, the Beekeeper had an Egyptian stone tablet. Hieroglyphics carved over three and a half thousand years ago into the stone, depicted beekeeping methods of the ancient Egyptians. One method was to set adrift barges loaded with hives. The barges would drift northwards on seasonal floodwaters, towards the Mediterranean. As they moved along their course carrying their fertile cargo, the bees would pollinate the flowers and crops lining the river and return the pollen to the hives. Gradually the hives would be filled with honey, the increasing weight pushing the barge lower into the Nile waters. When a mark etched on the side of the vessel had been reached, it meant the hives were full and the honey ready for collection. This entire methodology was laid out in precise curved carvings upon stone.

  The Beekeeper had the lozenge set upon a cushion of red silk

  ***

  After checking a number of hives, the Beekeeper retired to his villa to sleep. The sun hung warm and drowsy in the sky as he closed the door behind him, discarded his garments and made for the cool of his rooms.

  It was the custom for the islanders to sleep between the hours of two o’clock and five o'clock every day. They would slip back into the shade of their homes, close the shutters, sleep and dream.

  For six centuries the Beekeeper had taken to his bed at this hour, ever since he had been a young man. He had not been born on Kythera, but rather in Venice. He had come to Kythera as a youth, part of the administration of the Venetian state that had annexed the island some years before. Well-educated but poor, he was a child of an old but now reduced Venetian family. He, like the generation before him, had to secure employment. The family home - the last vestige of wealth - would be left to his older brother at the death of their father. The civil service was a perfect choice for a younger son. Perfect for the conditions into which he had been born.

  Within a year of his arrival on the island, the terrible bargain had been struck. One evening; at a taverna he had fallen into conversation with an old man. The man had made him an offer: more wealth than he could use in several lifetimes, and a life as long as he wished it to be. A life as long as it took him to persuade one thousand individuals to lease him their soul. Not for a lifetime, not even for a decade, but simply for one year. In return he could promise them, and deliver, anything they wished.

  If he wanted an extremely long life, said the old man, he could collect the one thousand leases slowly. If he wanted a shorter life - all the more sweet for the indulgences he required - he could collect the leases at a quicker rate. The flexibility was there. The decision was his to make.

  ‘Remember,’ said the old man, ‘you are not stealing their souls, you are simply leasing them for one year; they will not be tampered with. The soul will be returned to them intact at the end of a twelvemonth period.’

  The young man did not stop to consider the consequences.

  ‘Done,’ he said and shook the hand of the old man.

  At that moment, far, far away one thousand sheets of parchment were placed on a shelf of black granite. In two stolid reams, wrapped up in red silk ribbon. Squared and set; the bargain was sealed.

  And now, six centuries later he merely wanted release. He had long since given away most of his wealth, keeping only those items that held meaning to him. No matter how many lifetimes lived, there is only so much one can spend, only so many appetites one can satiate, only so many possessions one needs to acquire. To possess whatever one wants is to value nothing, to relish little.

  At first he had thought it ridiculously easy to persuade those whose scent of need he had picked up, to lease him their souls for one year, in exchange for gifts, for power, for the answer to their dreams. He had encountered no-one whose price had been too high. He had not had one refusal. Even those most timid at the prospect had their fears allayed by the fact that the lease of their soul was for one year only. One year is a trifle, they reasoned, in the duration of an immortal soul. Of what would happen if they died during that period, they asked nothing.

  The Beekeeper now wanted only two things: a refusal to his offer, and release. He did not want to live forever. However, a sub-clause of the offer he had accepted stipulated there was to be no release from the compact until he had successfully persuaded one thousand individuals to lease him their souls for one year. Not a soul less, not a day less. The bargain could not be broken, would not be met, until the target was reached. His field of harvest was circumscribed by the shores of the island. And while no-one had refused, he had first to pick up that scent of need. But such a distilled desperate need was uncommon. And so, while negotiating the lease was relatively easy, picking up a scent of need so great, so strong, was rare.

  Therefore, he endured. Admittedly, many of those with whom he carried out business were greedy or venal, but others were well-intentioned and he had brought people together and overseen acts of kindness. But among all that desperate need he had not once encountered a refusal to his offer. He had soon become jaded, soon lost interest in the task before him.

  He prayed for release when life had gone on too long, cajoled, then finally demanded release. All to no avail. A bargain had been struck and for centuries now, he had simply endured. He enjoyed his bees, their industry, activity, and their purpose. On occasion he had enjoyed the requests made of him by lessees but, mostly he just endured a life too long in the living.

  In six centuries, the Beekeeper had secured the lease of three hundred and thirty-two souls. A little over one soul in every two years. At this rate he would have at least another twelve hundred years to live. Unendurable thought.

  ***

  Father Zeothus got up from his knees, moved away from his prayers and stood at the window. Always at the window looking at the world through glass. So easy to believe the theories, the beautiful, liberating ideologies. So hard to live the day-to-day. To actually live the minute to minute mundanities; the goings-without, the not-alloweds, the not-quite-alives. Being a priest set one apart, made it harder to get close to another human being. Not being able to share one’s deepest doubts with another person; to share frailties with someone as frail as yourself - someone who is not divine.

  ‘Do You ever get lonely, my Father in heaven?’ he whispered, looking beyond the clouds.

  Father Zeothus was an only child. Only child of an only mother. His father had died when he was three. He was not sure if the vague images he had of his father were his own, or if they had been sown in his memory by his mother.

  ‘Do you remember, Adonis, when your father held you up to touch one of the caryatids, do you remember, up on the hill?’ she whispered to him, her eyes burning.

  Too frightened not to remember, the child nodded and his mother, appeased, slipped back to her wine. Within minutes she could be roaring abuse or singing heartily, the child never knew which way she would turn. It mattered little. Her good humour was often as terrifying to the shy boy as her rage. Full of life, self-pity and drama the mother both deeply impress
ed and repulsed the boy. She could dominate and bully those around her and, next minute, shower them with unstinting generosity. She was a wealthy woman and therefore beyond correction. She was unpredictable and profoundly theatrical, characteristics that defined the child. He utterly rejected the first, and wholly embraced the second. He became a priest.

  The only time in his life he contradicted the wishes of his mother was when he slipped off to theological college. He had killed her, she stormed, disappointed her, she raged, robbed her of grandchildren. But she survived.

  She wrote a letter to the head of the college explaining in detail why her son was constitutionally unsuited for the priesthood. When this was ignored, she demanded a response from the Archbishop in Athens. When no response came, she set about hounding the son. This served to make his fight and his vocation, all the more confirmed.

  A four-dimensional gargoyle, she made her son believe - absolutely - in heaven and hell. Inch by inch he made his life more predictable. He fled from chaos and fear, to order and fear. He replaced her desperate energy with a profound sense of mystery. He replaced her zest for life with an elegant and restrained sense of the theatrical. His access to costume, lighting, a universal drama, was assured. He became, in time, a Greek Orthodox Priest. Father to a congregation. And to these people he gave order, reassurance, comfort, sanctuary, mystery, spur to their faith, buttress to their hopes and tradition. And what he had received savagely with crushing pressure from his mother, he passed on to his congregation as tempered and unconditional love. He became, in a very short time, that rare thing - a genuine holy man.

  As a man, however, he remained an only child. He was subject to vague illnesses, and liked to be pampered with special foods cooked in special ways. He said this was to cater for his delicate stomach and not because of any taste for the exotic. He was eager to be centre of attention, and he liked to have his own way. The man remained basically the same as the child, but he had learnt to modify. He had learned what to reject, what to accept, what situations to avoid, and how to prolong that which he enjoyed. All within the glorious predictability of his church and his religion. He was a blessed man, but a lonely man.