The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees

by Serge Quadruppani

  Simona had turned off her cell phone and was in an inexpressibly good mood. On the far end of the little piazza, in one of the high-up neighborhoods of San Giorgio al Monte, she was sitting on some greenish fountain steps bathed in bright sunlight. She savored a long moment of peace before deciding to knock on a metal door, which was painted green and set in a wall that connected two stone buildings.

  “Come in,” said a voice. “It’s open.”

  She turned the handle and pushed the door open. The contrast between the naked stone of the piazza and the profuse vegetation that now met her eyes reminded her of crossing over from the desert to an oasis during a trip she and Marco had made to southern Tunisia, and the rapture they had both felt as they entered it.

  On the left there was an enormous bellflower plant, from which protruded stalks more than three feet long and laden with white and lilac-colored clusters. To the right an array of bugles, wood sorrels, foxgloves, and devil’s nettle formed distinct layers of silvery green, wine red, white, pink, purple, blue, and turquoise in a profusion of round, tubular, trumpet-shaped, and climbing flowers. At the end of a path bordered by jasmine plants whose perfume wafted several inches above her head was a rose-covered lattice. Underneath it Professor Martini gestured with his left hand for her to come closer, his face turned to the right. The air hummed with infinite buzzing sounds. Simona walked toward the professor. When she reached him she noticed a bee resting on his speckled hand, surrounded by the sweet smells of the yellow and purple roses that bloomed cheek to jowl.

  “An Osmia cornuta,” he said. “You see this white tuft on the head? It’s a male. In this species, the female has the horns.”

  The bee flew away and he looked up at the commissario.

  “That’s not the only trait that distinguishes this species from the bees we keep to produce honey,” he said smiling. “Unlike the Apis mellifera and other domesticated species, wild bees are solitary, not social. Which is why one can easily draw the conclusion that domestication and exploitation are directly responsible for the very existence of any society. Would you care for some tea? Or coffee? A glass of water?”

  Simona shook her head.

  “Thank you, but I don’t need anything. I just quenched my thirst at that magnificent fountain in the piazza.”

  “Then you must have ingested excessive amounts of saltpeter. I set up tubs of filtered water for my pets,” he said, gesturing toward the shimmering liquid at the foot of a hydrangea whose flowers were as large as babies’ heads. “But please, sit down.”

  They settled into two weathered painted folding chairs. Martini placed his right hand on a round metal table with a mesh-pattern top. Simona realized that what she had mistaken for liver spots or birthmarks were in fact droplets of honey.

  “Look,” said the scientist, gesturing toward the insect on his hand with his chin. “The magnificent metallic sheen, the black belly . . . It’s an Osmia caerulescens. You usually only find these around the wisteria over there by the wall. They love leguminous plants . . .”

  Out of nowhere yet another insect came and landed on his hand, then set to work on one of the golden splotches.

  “Ah, this is a nice surprise!” Martini exclaimed excitedly. “There shouldn’t be any of these left . . . It’s a Chelostoma florisomne, and my buttercups bloomed a while ago. But it’s definitely her; the yellow belly can’t trick us.” Another creature joined the others on his hand and prepared to suck up the honey.

  “Meet Osmia adunca, who generally feeds from Viper’s Bugloss, which I have a bed of behind the hydrangeas. Well, as you can see, it also enjoys my homemade nectar. Now we have two Megachile willughbiella, which closely resemble the honeybee aside from the black stripes on their abdomens. And here is Eucera longicornis . . . In the two years I’ve been here I’ve documented seventy wild bee species in my garden. I started feeding them with a nectar I make myself, completely organic and free of any pesticides, of course.”

  He raised the hand on which a half dozen insects were now gathering nectar.

  “ This way I can extend their life spans in many cases . . . Their natural food source, which can be a specific plant or plant species, usually only lasts a few weeks.”

  “Is this your way of combating the bees’ disappearance? Are you in the process of domesticating new species?” Simona asked.

  “God forbid! I think domestication is possibly the worst thing to have happened to the honeybee and its kind. Let’s just say I’m trying to foster a new kind of relationship between them and us. It’s part of a project that you will most likely find megalomaniacal, but it’s the last hope for human survival. A new kind of alliance between living beings in which mankind is no longer at the center, but rather one component out of many . . . A vain hope, don’t you think?”

  He sighed ironically.

  Simona inhaled, exhaled, and watched the bees on the man’s hand gorge themselves on nectar.

  There was a moment of silence. In that garden, vast as the dark of night and as the light of day, perfumes, sounds, and colors corresponded.

  Then, one by one, the bees took flight from the professor’s hand, and Simona went back to being a cop.

  “You didn’t answer the question I asked you the other day. Why did the bees disappear from Minoncelli’s apiary? Were they traumatized by the attack on their hives? And if so, why would all of them leave? It’s rather strange that a few groups wouldn’t stay behind, or even just one . . . You’d almost think they emigrated out of the blue.”

  “I was right,” he said spiritedly. “You’ve already understood everything. But you still don’t know what it means,” he added, as a shadow of sadness passed over his eyes. Then he told Simona about the damage caused by pesticides, how they weakened bees’ immune systems as much as those of humans, about the trauma it caused to transport them, about the deplorable conditions hundreds of thousands of transhumant beehives were subjected to in the United States in order to improve commercial almond production. He also told her about the theory that pheromones emitted by the bees could influence human psychology, and that the afflictions of a few individuals could have consequences for others, which would explain, he concluded, “. . . why there are so many crazy people in these valleys, including me.”

  He talked about a lot of things. But as she was pushing the metal door open to leave, Simona took one last look at him. She regarded the bald cranium bent over the hand where he’d drizzled a few drops of nectar, the hunched-over, lanky, mantis-like body under the pergola, and she felt as though he had really been talking to her about something else entirely. Something that went well beyond the crucial point they had touched on so briefly.

  * * *

  Due to the arrival of a busful of Bavarian tourists, the noise in the hotel lobby was deafening. Calabonda had to lean over the small table in order to be understood by Ciuffani without yelling.

  “Thank you for agreeing to answer some of my questions, Signore. To unravel a baffling case like this one we need the help of everyone who is willing and kind enough to cooperate.”

  “I’m always on the side of the law,” Ciuffani said, glancing at himself in the large mirror on the wall near the corner sofa where they were sitting. “You know that I have a special bond with the carabinieri,” he went on, sweeping his hair back. “Go ahead. I’m ready to answer all of your questions.”

  “All right then,” said the maresciallo. “I’m sure you’ll be able to explain what this was doing near the wire fence at Sacropiano’s research center in Pinerolo, at the exact spot where it was apparently cut by the terrorists who carried out the failed attack. I’m sure you’re up to speed on the attempt . . .”

  “Of course . . . What is it?”

  Ciuffani took the sealed envelope in his hand. It contained an empty bottle of whiskey.

  “This bottle has a tiny tracking device under the label,” said Calabonda. “See? There, in the corner. Well, one of my men recognized it immediately, having personally advised the m
anagement in this hotel to put them there after they realized that bottles stolen from local retailers were being trafficked through the company’s supplies. That’s how we were able to know with absolute certainty that this bottle was purchased yesterday evening at the bar in this hotel, by a man who then joined you in your room, where the two of you had, according to staff on that floor, a rather long meeting. Who was that man?”

  The reporter’s expression slowly changed as the carabiniere spoke. He took another look at himself in the mirror. He didn’t recognize the panicked face that it reflected.

  “Listen,” he said, with a strained little laugh. “It’s that . . . I . . . can’t answer that question. I have to consult with . . . May I make a phone call? It’s very urgent,” he assured Calabonda as he stood up.

  Calabonda shrugged his shoulders and forced a smile.

  “Go on. You are free to come and go as you please.”

  “For now,” he said under his breath as he watched the man take a few steps away and pull out his cell phone.

  * * *

  About an hour later, as the beekeeper’s old jeep struggled to make the steep hairpin turns in the middle of the fir forest, Simona asked Minoncelli, “Have you already heard this whole thing about bee pheromones having the potential to influence people?”

  Right then the vehicle went over a series of bumps, cracks, and potholes. The road horseshoed around, the steering wheel quivered in Minoncelli’s hands, the incline got steeper. He fiddled with the gear stick and the accelerator. Several long minutes passed before he was able to respond.

  “You spoke with Martini, right? I’d say it’s not an entirely unfounded theory . . .”

  The vehicle slowed and stopped. The beekeeper turned his arctic-lake-colored eyes on Simona.

  “Listen,” he said. “Breathe and listen.”

  Behind him, on the other side of the glass, she was able to make out, between the trunks of the larches, the mass of rhododendrons, their flowers like flaming crimson in the dark forest, and along the edges was the blond stain of the beehives. He opened the door of the jeep and got out, without taking his eyes off them.

  “Listen”, he repeated.

  She heard the buzzing. Sweet, gentle, constant, endless. A faint, indescribable feeling—and something else. Perhaps the pheromones everyone had been talking about. The combination washed over her body like a long, interminable, maddening caress.

  Minoncelli got to work.

  * * *

  That night, lying down in her room, Commissario Simona Tavianello told Marco about the man’s gentle movements as he removed the slatted racks and adjusted the frames dripping with golden honey: the movement of the uncapping knife, the elegant way he offered his bare skin to the thousands of little darts without it being pierced by even one of them. She described it all in such rich detail that when she suddenly realized what she was doing, she immediately stopped talking.

  Simona waited for her husband to get semi-hysterical and make some biting, jealous remark. But that’s not what happened at all.

  There was a brief silence. Then Marco simply said, “Listen, Simona, I’m just so bored here without you. Tomorrow I’m going to take the ferry back to Naples. I’ll be in San Giorgio al Monte again by the afternoon. That is, if you want me there, of course,” he added with a weak, nervous laugh.

  “Are you joking? I’m thrilled! I just don’t want to force you . . .”

  “I’ll be there. Goodnight, my darling.”

  He hung up. Simona stared at the receiver for several long seconds. She turned off the night-light and curled up in her bed. Her thoughts returned to Minoncelli’s eyes. She wondered if she’d told her husband about them, those eyes.

  A few seconds later, the hidden microphones planted in the room by the AISI recorded a muffled laugh, whose significance the senior officials were left to speculate on the following day.

  CHAPTER 7

  SIMONA WAS HAVING A DREAM ABOUT HELICOPTERS. The pilot turned to give her a thumbs-up: it was Professor Martini. She realized that with his frenzied expression and movements, the tall, scrawny, wild-haired carcass stooped over the aircraft’s control stick bore a striking resemblance to Evangelisti. As she fought off a bout of nausea, she looked up at the blades, which had been replaced by swarms of innumerable insects. The aircraft was being carried by millions of bees fleeing their apiary.

  The commissario opened her eyes. It looked like midday, but a glance at the digital alarm clock on the bedside table told her that it was only five thirty. The rumbling sound from her dream continued.

  She got up, walked over to the window, pulled back the curtain. The view of the valley was superb. The dawn sky very pale, almost white. Between the hotel and the snow-covered mountains, made pink by the rising sun, were droves of helicopters.

  The phone rang.

  “Operation Edelweiss is underway,” announced the tense voice of Evangelisti. “We’re about to deal a major blow to ecoterrorism. If you want a front-row seat, meet us in the piazza in fifteen minutes.”

  Simona disliked—in fact, hated—rushing out the door without having a leisurely breakfast first. On the mornings of coordinated attacks she would rather get up at four thirty in the morning than give up the espresso- and-biscotti ritual that accompanied the gradual reawakening of her synapses. As she arrived in the main piazza her bad mood was compounded when she saw the vans of several television crews, both Italian and international, equipped with enormous parabolic antennae. There were at least a half dozen of them occupying the sidewalks and half of the street. At the far end of the piazza, behind a statue of Garibaldi, she recognized the black vehicles of the NOCS, the Italian antiterrorism unit, and spotted the balaclava-masked figures. Between her and them there was a small group of reporters—then there was a throng of uniforms. Walking toward them, she had to show her identification card, first at the barricade that held back the sea of video cameras, microphones, photographic devices, and their handlers, then a second time in order to approach Commander Tosto, a close acquaintance of hers.

  “Hello, Giovanni!”

  Seeing her, the huge man raised his cup of cappuccino in her direction and smiled broadly.

  “Commissario!” he exclaimed in his inimitable Palermitan accent. “I’m delighted to see you.”

  “It’s always a pleasure to work with you,” stammered Simona, “but I’m not sure I can say I’m happy to see you this time. What is this madhouse? Who is that guy?”

  About ten yards behind the official, two men in balaclavas were coming down the steps of an old building. Between them was a man much smaller in height and build, who was hiding his face in his jacket.

  Commander Tosto lowered his gaze.

  “That’s the porter. He’s the only person who sleeps here. We’re taking him in for interrogation.”

  “But what is this building?”

  “The seat of the Alpine Valley Beekeepers’ Defense League. We surprised the members of the group in their homes and conducted a thorough search . . .”

  “Have you found anything yet?”

  Tosto looked even more uncomfortable than before.

  “Commissario, I don’t know if I can . . .”

  “Of course. I hope the operation is a success.”

  Simona turned around, scanning the crowd for Evangelisti. She saw him in the middle of an animated throng of reporters. He saw her too. He gestured with his hand for her to come. One of the reporters who was holding a microphone up to the magistrate turned around to see who the gesture was directed at. It was Ciuffani. He started walking toward her.

  The commissario took off in the other direction. As she made her way to the edge of the piazza she was practically running. She almost collided with a carabiniere, who was standing with his arms crossed in front of a hotel just beyond the general commotion. Looking up, she cried out:

  “Calabonda!”

  “Commissario, good morning,” he said.

  “But you’re not . . .”

>   “No, I’m not participating in this operation. They just asked me to put my men and my workspace at the disposal of the investigators from NOCS and the General Investigations and Operations Unit. I’m only here as a spectator.”

  Seeing the noncommissioned officer’s crestfallen expression, Simona almost felt like giving him some words of encouragement. But then she thought it might upset him, so she contented herself to nod to show that she had registered the information. Then she gestured to indicate that she would be on her way.

  “Commissario,” said Calabonda. “I have something to tell you.”

  “I’m listening.”

  The carabiniere cleared his throat.

  “What I mean is . . . I’d like to meet somewhere else. Do you know the Chapel of San Gregorio?”

  “Yes, I visited it with Marco.”

  “Right before you get there, on the right, there’s a path through the fir trees. Take it, walk fifty yards, and wait for me.”

  He looked at his watch.

  “A half hour from now.”

  Simona stared at the mustachioed face. The dark glasses made it impossible to look into his eyes. Either this guy had also fallen prey to the mental illness of the valleys, which may or may not have been caused by amped-up bee pheromones, or something very serious was going on.

  “All right,” she said.

  * * *

  A half hour later, Calabonda stepped out of his car and signaled to her to get out of hers.

  Leaning against a larch tree ten or so feet from the beaten dirt road, he told her about the discovery of the whiskey bottle, and how they had traced it to Ciuffani. Then he told her about the interrogation at the hotel, which the reporter had interrupted to make a phone call. Afterward, Ciuffani had returned with a triumphant air.

  “And that’s when he said that he was sorry,” continued Calabonda, “but he would have to bring the interview to a close, and that moreover I would soon receive a phone call to that effect. And with that, he turned on me and left.”

  Seeing as he paused, Simona asked, “And what did you do?”