The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees

by Serge Quadruppani

  “To be totally honest, we’re on his side, even if we don’t always approve of his methods,” Stefano added.

  Massimo stood up and walked over to the coffee machine behind the desk next to the store’s entrance.

  “Coffee?” he offered.

  “Gladly.”

  There was a pause, which Simona took advantage of to mull things over. A short while before, as they were turning off of the highway and onto the driveway to headquarters, the prosecutor had let her know that he’d received several phone calls during the drive down the dirt road.

  “First of all,” he had announced, “Berisha is out of the woods. The doctors are keeping him in isolation for the time being, but they say we’ll be able to question him tomorrow. Secondly, the man who destroyed Minoncelli’s apiary before being shot down by a large-caliber bullet has been identified: a certain Danela, also a beekeeper. Calabonda will have his men gather as much information on him as possible. I’ll have that report this evening, along with Pasquano’s report on the autopsies of Bertolazzi and Danela. Then we’ll be able to take stock of the situation. The last piece of news is that there are television crews stationed outside of the Pinerolo court building and in front of your hotel. There’s no doubt that they’re waiting for you. What would you like to do, come to the court building with me? I can give you an office to use. Or if you’d rather go back to your hotel, I can ask the maresciallo to send you two or three men to keep the pack at bay.”

  “I think I’ll go do a bit of sightseeing around Torre Pellice instead,” she had answered. And now, here she was, on the verge of tasting the Gnone brothers’ excellent coffee, trying to draw a connection between the initiatives of a multinational corporation, the theft of her gun with the intent of killing an engineer, the destruction of Minoncelli’s apiaries, colony collapse disorder . . .

  “But is it for real, this business about microchips being affixed to bees?” she asked after a somewhat oversweetened sip.

  Stefano set his cup down and shifted his body in the large armchair where so many excellent authors on book tours had placed their behinds.

  “Technically, I think it’s feasible, with nanotechnology. If you’d like,” he added, pointing toward the back of the store, “we have everything you need to read up on the subject right here.”

  “Do the two of you think there could be some relationship . . . ?”

  Massimo smiled. “You’re the police officer, aren’t you?”

  Stefano looked at his watch, and Simona hastened to say, “Just one or two more questions, then you’ll be able to reopen the store. What do you think of Felice, the reporter? Is he trustworthy, in your opinion?”

  “Oh,” said Massimo, “he’s like any member of the technophiles . . .”

  Ah, so he’s part of this thing too, thought Simona. No surprise there.

  “A bit of a hothead . . .” Stefano added. “But he’s very serious about what he does. He tries to do his best work, which doesn’t always correspond to the needs of Dottore Signorelli, the head of the Quotidiano delle Valli.”

  “And what do you think of Professor Martini?”

  Massimo laughed. “I see that in two days you’ve managed to meet all of the valley’s true characters. If you’re basing your judgment on them, you must have a strange opinion of the locals.”

  “Not at all,” Simona lied.

  “Martini is a little like Felice. Apart from the fact that he is clearly more disturbed. But he seems to be a prominent specialist in his field. He’s been called into many towns as a consultant.”

  “Good,” said Simona.

  She thought for a few seconds. Then: “One last question. What is there to see in Torre Pellice?”

  CHAPTER 5

  AT NINE O’CLOCK ON THAT JUNE night it was still broad daylight on the rock-strewn western face of the mountain. Enormous, oblong rocks pierced the terrain on a diagonal like porpoises, dolphins, and whales leaping through a sea of stones. In front of one of these masses, at the edge of a little stream trickling down from the snow around the eastern limits of the alpine precipice, the man set down his backpack and his weapon. Lying on the cold stone with his face directed toward the rays of an invisible sun, he listened closely, hearing only the sound of his own breath, which was heavy from the climb. Then his breathing became calm, fading into the total silence of the peaks. He stayed that way for several long minutes, completely still, with his equipment between his splayed legs and his heels planted among the stones. After some time had passed, he heard a loud, faraway crack: the colliding horns of mountain goats competing for females. It continued for a little while then ended abruptly. Silence again.

  Until a whistle came from the direction of the lake and the far reaches of the meadows below. Several marmots scattered in fear.

  After that, the faintest sound of hoof beats, of rolling stones, the swish of flying. Maybe a snow partridge disturbed by a weasel, a dormouse, or a field mouse.

  Then nothing again, for a long time.

  Finally, he heard it. The sound he had been waiting for. A buzzing like nothing else. And he saw it, a flying pearl of light in the sunset. It advanced toward him. Then, about three feet from his face, its four wings whipping the air at two hundred forty beats per second, it veered off again in the other direction, making a large figure eight. The man observed the bee’s dance at length—its orientation with respect to the sun, its very slow movements. He smiled, picked up his weapon, and started walking. And as he waded across a rushing stream, stood on an overhang, walked over the patches of melting snow, the bee took off again in the direction from which it came, continually reappearing and departing again. One could say that it was showing him the way.

  * * *

  In her mind, Simona went over the menu of the meal she had just eaten for the sixth time. She had been treated to dinner at the Crota dl’Ours by the director of the library at the Waldensian cultural center. At the end of the meal, Walter Eynard, the chef, had insisted that she taste several varieties of mountain grappa, and the commissario was afraid her mind was sinking into oblivion.

  Now, having just crossed the threshold of the hotel lobby, she cherished the thought of a long phone conversation with Marco. But no sooner had she set one foot on a rug on which several deer were shown fleeing some hunters than she heard her name being called by a very familiar voice.

  “Commissario Tavianello!”

  From behind the backrest of a sofa facing away from the entrance and tucked in a corner of the lobby appeared a face with hollow cheeks and a bluish beard beneath a crown of tousled hair. The man, who must have been completely lying down, performed a strange gymnastic routine in order to get upright and scale the backrest, which he did with an athletic leap. Bruno Ciuffani, television news presenter, made sure it was known by everyone, especially the audience of his show La Mosca, that he was an athlete, ran in the New York marathon, rooted for Lazio’s soccer team, etcetera—all things that had become indispensable to the arsenal of a populist media personality, a personality that had come to be valued very highly by the station’s managers in recent years. Simona made a beeline for the elevator but Ciuffani caught her in front of the control panel.

  “Leave me alone,” the policewoman said. “I’m tired.”

  In that same instant a man with a camera on his shoulder appeared from behind a pillar and a microphone materialized under Simona’s nose.

  “Does the fact that you allowed a murderer to steal your weapon make you especially qualified to lead this investigation?” the reporter attacked, as a chiming sound heralded the elevator’s arrival. “Wouldn’t it be better to attempt an act of modesty for once and leave these legally trained and qualified investigators alone to do their jobs?”

  The light on the camera forced Simona’s eyes shut, but she did her best to keep them open and maintain a stony expression. She didn’t feel like taking another low blow along the lines of “the commissario’s only reply to our valid questions was a mocking and disdai
nful sneer.” The doors opened and she vaulted inside without saying a word or trying to block them from entering, knowing from experience that any attempt to ward off an intrusive camera would look on-screen like a reprehensible attack on the freedom of the press and the right to information.

  “Is it true that you blocked a police operation with the sole intent of protecting an Albanian man, a non- European Union national and a suspect in the murders of Bertolazzi the engineer and Danela the beekeeper?”

  The elevator stopped. The camera’s lens drew even closer to the commissario’s face and the question came out before the elevator doors could open:

  “Is it true that you argued with your husband, Police Chief Tavianello, because he disapproved of your intent to meddle in this investigation?”

  Simona felt her stomach drop and couldn’t keep a wince from spoiling her pretty face. The doors opened. She turned her back on the television crew and motioned to leave, but before touching down on the hall floor, her right foot flew back and slammed into the cameraman’s shin. She turned around to say “Excuse me” as she brought her heel down on the marathon runner reporter’s big toe, leaning as far back as she could and grinding her foot into him as though she were stomping something into the ground.

  “I shouldn’t have,” she admitted a few minutes later, when she was finally stretched out on the bed. “But I couldn’t help myself.”

  * * *

  “You say you shouldn’t have done it, but it was good for you,” Marco pointed out. “So you did the right thing. After all, we can’t let them step on our toes all the time without ever fighting back. What are you doing?”

  “Nothing. I’m giving my foot a deep massage with one hand. It helps.”

  “That must be why you’re breathing a little heavily. It’s . . . almost provocative.” Simona let go of the sole of her left foot, to which she had been applying a series of therapeutic squeezes, and settled into a comfortable position on the pillows in order to speak more evenly.

  “You know, it’s strange what’s happening to me in this little corner of the mountains,” Simona said. “I know you think I’m wasting my time. And yet I have this feeling that something very significant is going on here, something bigger than the two murders.”

  Marco grumbled.

  “So you didn’t stay just because you were ticked off about having your gun stolen to kill somebody? You’re genuinely interested in this case? You think it has some implication or other?”

  “Yes, implications that reach far beyond these valleys . . .”

  “The thing about the bees?”

  “Not just. I met the person in charge of the Waldensian cultural center’s library. You know, Torre Pellice is the capital of the Waldensian Church. At the advice of the booksellers at Claudiana Books I went to visit this Signor Miro, and we had a long talk . . .”

  Just as she was about to add that he had invited her to dinner, she realized that the particulars of the menu escaped her. And besides, now wasn’t the time to list them and provoke grumbling from Marco.

  “What’s the connection between the Waldensians and the murders at the beekeeper’s house?”

  “Well, let’s just say that, generally speaking, the history of the Waldensians, who were heretics even before Protestantism . . .”

  “OK, OK, there’s no need to give me a lecture. I’ve read a few articles on the subject . . .”

  Simona sighed.

  “I’ll just point out that, precisely because of their history, many Waldensians have maintained a certain soft spot for heretical behaviors and a love of debate. According to the booksellers, Miro was the person I needed to see, the most knowledgeable of them all when it comes to tensions in the valley around the question of the bees and modern agriculture. And they weren’t wrong. Over the last several years there have been a lot of conferences, public debates held in piazzas and on television, town hall meetings addressing problems like GMOs and the disappearance of the bees, problems that concern the regional economy as much as the health of local residents. Miro didn’t miss a single one. He showed me a stack of papers: essentially confidential convention programs and brochures for the audience. And he arrived at a pretty convincing conclusion. The people I thought were just lunatics at first, members of the valley’s circle of technophiles, are actually part of a network of international influence, with a mission statement and everything, all financed by Sacropiano. It seems the company decided to turn this valley into a laboratory for experiments involving cutting-edge technologies—for example, perfecting new pesticides, modifying animal species, molecular engineering, and nanotechnology. And they’re testing the limits of what’s acceptable on the local population.”

  “Oh God, my poor little girl! What have you gotten yourself mixed up in? I hope the dinner was good, at least . . .”

  “What dinner?”

  Marco let out a little laugh.

  “You don’t expect me to believe that you had this conversation over a glass of water? I hear the way you’re talking, sweetie, and I know what time you’re calling me. You had a little feast, no? And after that, your Waldensian jumped your bones? And you wallowed in lust and fornication?”

  “Stop talking nonsense.”

  Marco abandoned his jocular tone. “You ate out, didn’t you? I called you at the hotel a little while ago. They told me they hadn’t seen you all day.”

  “Yes, I stayed away to avoid the reporters, but my strategy didn’t work with Ciuffani. That viper would have slept in the lobby all night just to head me off. You know, that guy is goddamn hand in glove with the Internal Information and Security Agency, I’m sure of it.”

  “Don’t start up again with your paranoia about the secret service. And don’t change the subject. Who did you have dinner with?”

  “Oh, what’s the big deal? Are you done acting like a jealous teenager? Yes, I had dinner with Signor Miro . . .”

  She was about to add that he was seventy years old and paralyzed on one side of his body, but her mind suddenly returned to the menu, and in a fit of sadism she rattled it off for him. Marco listened in silence before spitting out venomously:

  “Fine then, if after all of that he didn’t manage to screw you, your Waldensian is really an idiot.”

  And he hung up.

  * * *

  First and foremost, acceptance is a matter of business sense: knowing what is acceptable and what is not, and what needs to be done in order for the public to accept a given technological development. This notion was born with the advent of the technologies we have seen emerge in recent decades, in particular genetic engineering (DNA, GMOs), information and communications technology (the Internet, telephone technology, radio frequency identification), biometrics, and even nanotechnology, which is still relatively new. Explosions in technological innovation lead to great social transformations as well as legitimate public health, social, and political concerns. We are confronted with the challenge of reorganizing the most basic aspects of the ties that bind us.

  Another advancement occurred with the development of acceptance assessment techniques, which are methods of anticipating what the public will be able to handle. It’s no longer a matter of needs or desires but rather of knowing what the average consumer and the nation at large will be unwilling to tolerate. Social acceptance is therefore a matter of rendering acceptable things that are unacceptable (or that go against certain values). Studies on social acceptance demonstrate a cynicism typical of the business world and, upon close inspection, reveal a certain political agenda. Recommendations published by national research centers, whether European Union or privately funded, are aimed above all at developing markets for new technologies, being as careful as possible to avoid any political, social, or cultural objections. Two European research commissions, the JRC (the Joint Research Centre) and the IPTS (the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies), set the tone.

  This approach to managing desires reveals more than just the egoism of an obscure manage
rial class. How can we see it as anything other than a logical consequence of the prevailing economic system and social climate? Exposing the conspiracy would only lead to confusion. Social acceptance hinges on our society’s endemic fascination with all things modern, new, and original. Due to a collective inability to come up with other sources of common ground, few escape this infatuation with new technologies.

  Nevertheless, certain innovations remain shocking, and must be predigested in order for the public to tolerate them. This is often why public officials take up ethical issues: “It is possible that [. . .] in the future, competitive advantage will be determined by the ability to anticipate and cater to the tolerance of social phenomena, mechanisms of appropriation, and modes of expression.” The motto that governs this research is “create participation to create acceptance.” This consists in creating the illusion of objective information, which is reinforced by a series of mechanisms of cooperation with consumers and citizens. A period of maturation, also known as “co-conception” in research and development jargon, serves to take the “social temperature”; this is done through a series of debates, town hall meetings, conferences for circles of science enthusiasts, all supposedly independent of any economic interests.

  Under the pretense of fostering collaboration with citizens and consumers, social acceptance is ultimately merely a strategy for diffusing opposition to certain technologies. If the words “ethical,” “environment,” and “safety” are frequently invoked, it is primarily to reassure investors and put their minds at ease. Signor Renzo Tomellini, head of the Department of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the European Commission Directorate-General for Research, articulates it clearly in a report for the French Senate in 2003: “I am not talking about a moral approach, but a utilitarian approach. Major investors [. . .] invest in sectors that are considered neutral or secure from an ecological or ethical standpoint. They want to avoid potential minefields like GMOs. In other words, they want to participate in responsible development: not just something that is ethically and morally correct, but also beneficial to the economy because it constitutes a secure investment. And investors need security.”