The History of Bees

by Maja Lunde

  A queue formed. The entire village had apparently discovered that I had returned from the dead and suddenly everyone wanted to buy my dusty spices and dried-up flower bulbs. I had taken care to send off a few orders already in the morning, but by the time the sun was at its zenith in the sky, it was impossible to get anything else done except wait on customers. Presumably it only took these few hours before everyone knew. It wasn’t the first time I’d been shocked by how quickly gossip spread in this little place—it was as if it had the help of a near-gale, at least when something really big had happened. And clearly something had now. My return was apparently on a level with the resurrection of Christ, judging from the crowd.

  I heard people whisper about me, but it was surprising how little it bothered me. Because they did not greet me with mocking smiles and sharp comments like after my lecture about Swammerdam, but rather with open gazes, bowed heads, hands extended with respectful curiosity. A glimpse of myself in the windowpane reminded me of why. My new appearance was really doing its part. I no longer resembled a phlegmatic shopkeeper. The chubby feebleness had disappeared. This clean-cut, slender man inspired respect. He was exciting, special, not one of them. Very few people knew with certainty what had ailed me and if they had suspicions, it was perhaps awe rather than derision that filled them. Because I had stood face-to-face with death, but had fought back and risen again.

  I was in my element. The money poured through my fingers. I counted and calculated at a furious pace, while I chatted with anyone and everyone, making sure to ask how things were going with each of them. Has the marriage of your daughter, Victoria, wasn’t it, been blessed with little ones? How about the farm? How many foals did you say? Fantastic! And the crops? What do you think, does it look like it could be a plentiful harvest? But little Benjamin, is he already ten years old, and still smart as a whip? He will become something important, that boy.

  When I locked the door for the evening, it was with a light, precise movement. In my hand I held a bulging money purse. And although my feet were blessedly tired, it cost me nothing to walk the few miles home. My books awaited me there. I would work until midnight, because I wasn’t the least bit tired, had even more energy. I thought I had to choose, but I could manage both—both life and passion.

  TAO

  It was nighttime and I was awake again. Sleep had no meaning; neither did anything else. I was in the sitting room with my back against the one wall. I bowed my head and looked down at my hands, put my fingertips against each other. The nails were too long, I pushed them under each other until it hurt. Wondered how long I would have to push until I drew blood.

  I’d been able to handle Mom’s disappearance. She was sick, old. It seemed like she’d come to a good place, it looked beautiful on the film, and safe. But Wei-Wen . . . The tears burned in my chest, tightened my throat, were so physically painful that I struggled to breathe. But I didn’t release them.

  Nobody required us to work. The supervisor of my work team showed up the day after we came home, together with Kuan’s supervisor. They had both been informed. By whom he didn’t say, and I forgot to ask. They stood stammering outside the door, wouldn’t come in, and said we must take all the time we needed.

  We didn’t know how long they would leave us in peace.

  On the first few days gifts arrived at our door. Mostly food. Canned goods. A bottle of real ketchup. Even a kiwi. I didn’t even know that anyone produced kiwis any longer. But it had no taste. Somebody had also gathered up our things and had them delivered to us. Everything was there, even the empty plum tin. The smell of it nauseated me.

  In the beginning, Kuan just lay in the bedroom. He cried for both of us. Sobs filled the apartment, unfurling through the narrow rooms. But I was unable to go in and see him.

  Then he got up. We walked around each other in silence. The days slipped by; we lived in a vacuum, just as stagnant and closed as the room where Wei-Wen had been lying. The only voice that spoke in our home was that of Li Xiara over the radio, giving a speech about national sacrifice. Kuan was still silent. And I was unable to say anything, because I didn’t know how. Perhaps he didn’t blame me, perhaps he hadn’t even thought that thought.

  Yes.

  The vacant gaze. The distance he kept from me at all times. He had previously been so physically intimate, now our bodies were never in close proximity. But he was too passive to say anything. Perhaps he didn’t dare. Or was it an attempt to protect me? I didn’t know.

  But this thing that was between us had grown to be so insurmountably large. He kept his distance from me, but neither did I manage to touch him, talk to him. It became almost unbearable to be in the same room. He stirred up the same thoughts again and again. The same two words. My fault, my fault, my fault. That was why everything about him was repulsive. His body disgusted me. I felt sick at the thought of him touching me, but hid it the best I could. We played house, but without the child. Cooked meals. Tidied up. Did laundry. Every day was the same. We got up, got dressed, ate a little. Drank tea. The eternal tea. And waited.

  I kept trying to call the hospital. I was always the one who did it, as he didn’t even have the initiative to do that much. I never spoke to Dr. Hio again and after a few weeks it was revealed that she had quit. The other doctors said nothing about why.

  The answers were the same regardless of whom I talked to: We don’t know anything else. You will have to wait. Of course we will find you a name. Of course. Just wait a little longer. Just a few days. We will look into it. We will get back to you. You will just have to wait.

  In spite of the fact that we had been given all the time off we might need, Kuan came out one morning wearing his work clothes after his shower.

  “Just as well,” he said softly.

  I was surprised, almost dumbfounded, not that he was going out, but over how relieved I was. This, to get rid of him, to be by myself—I experienced it as the first bright spot in all of these weeks.

  “Is that all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Just go.”

  “If you think it’s difficult to be alone, I don’t have to.”

  “It’s fine.”

  But he kept standing there. His clothes hung loosely on him; he was even thinner than before. He just looked at me. Perhaps he expected me to say something. Get angry, shout, explode at him. But why did he expect me to go into a rage? Had that also become my responsibility? His huge eyes stared at me, begging, his soft mouth slightly open. I turned away, was unable to look at him. That handsome man who formerly had caused me to forget myself. Now I just wanted to get him away from me as quickly as possible.

  “Tao?”

  “You have to go if you’re going to make it in time for roll call.”

  I still didn’t look at him. Heard how he took several breaths, wanted perhaps to say something, but couldn’t find the words.

  Then he disappeared—his steps across the floor, the door slamming shut—and finally left me alone in the empty apartment. I went into the bedroom. On Wei-Wen’s bed lay his pajamas. I picked them up and sat there holding them in my arms. I hadn’t wanted for us to wash them. They’d only been worn for two nights, and were lying ready for him on his bed. Until he came back. The fabric felt thin between my fingers, smiling moons against a background of blue. They still smelled faintly of child sweat.

  I sat like that all day.

  After this I began gradually to reverse my sleeping pattern. While Kuan slept his heavy manual-labor sleep, I was awake in the sitting room. I paced and stood still, and it was not until dawn that I collapsed into bed. I could not rest; if I sat down, if I relaxed, if I slept, then Wei-Wen would be gone forever.

  I turned to face the window. We had a view directly facing the white fence that enclosed the fields. Guards were posted at one-hundred-meter intervals. I could make out the silhouette of the guard closest to me. He was staring out into space and did not move. I would have done anything to find out what he was guarding.

  The fence w
as so high that we couldn’t see inside, not even from the roof of the house. I’d been up there and tried. A net had been stretched on top of the fence, which the wind caught hold of constantly. During the initial weeks there had been workers up there several times to secure it better. Every day people appeared who were curious to see it, but they were all turned away. The area was heavily guarded. I had walked along the fence to see if there were any openings, places one could crawl through, but there were guards everywhere.

  Kuan spoke of how people talked. The work team had to report to another field now. It was a mile’s walk each way and people had plenty of time to talk. He heard them. The speculations ran wild. It had something to do with Wei-Wen, everything that happened, they thought. The fence, the closing off, the military. It must be so, because we were the last ones who’d been there. And Wei-Wen was in the hospital. But when they became aware that Kuan was listening, they fell silent. And the moment they felt confident that he wasn’t listening, they continued. The jabbering was about us now and sensational in nature. We were the target of everyone’s attention and there was nothing I could do.

  We knew as little as they did. Something had happened to Wei-Wen out there, and now he was gone. That was all we knew.

  All of a sudden I noticed the guard down there. He had collapsed by the fence, sat with his knees curled up beneath him and his head dipping gently forward. He was asleep.

  WILLIAM

  The eggs are no more than 1.5 millimeters in length. One in each cell, grayish against the yellow wax. After just three days the larva hatches, and she, because usually it’s a she, is overfed like a spoiled child. Then the days of growth come, before the cells are covered by a wax lid. In there, she creates the cocoon, the larva spins it around itself, a protective garment against everything and everyone. Here, and only here, she’s alone.

  After twenty-one days the worker bee crawls out of the cell to the others, a newborn, but not ready for the world, an infant, can’t fly, can’t eat on its own, and barely manages to hang on to the boards, crawling, creeping, searching. On the first days she therefore receives simple tasks indoors and has a short radius. She cleans the brood box, first her own cell, subsequently others, and she’s never alone. There are many hundreds of others, who at any given time are at the exact same phase of development as she is.

  Then her work as a nursing bee begins, although she’s still only a child. It’s now her responsibility to feed those who are not yet born. At the same time she attempts her very first flights, testing out her wings, in the afternoon, days with good weather, careful, hesitant. She finds the way out of the flight hole; for a while she circles in front of the hive, before she slowly increases the distance from her home. But she’s still not ready.

  She still has tasks in the hive. She takes care of the pollen that comes in, produces wax and carries out her stint as a guard bee. And at the same time, the trips outside of the hive become longer. She’s preparing herself. Will soon be ready. Soon.

  And then, finally, she becomes a forager bee. She disappears outside on her own, is free, her wings carry her from plant to plant, she collects the flowery-sweet nectar, pollen and water, for mile after mile. She’s alone out here, but still a part of the community. Alone she’s nothing, a part so tiny that it’s insignificant, but with the others she’s everything. Because together they’re the hive.

  The idea began out of nowhere, but developed like the bee itself. I started with sketches, light charcoal strokes on paper, imprecise dimensions, vague designs. Then I became more daring, I measured, calculated, the lines became clearer, I lay the full expanse of the paper out on the floor. In the end I took out a pen and ink and it finally took shape before my eyes, clearer, more precise lines, exact measurements. And finally, on the twenty-first day, the hive was ready. “Can you build this?”

  I spread the drawings out across Conolly’s worn tabletop. The table was full of nicks and scratches from many years back, and on top of this it was not completely steady. You would think that he, of all people, would insist on furniture in one piece. Everything in this little sitting room of his was crooked and lopsided: an unmade bed in the corner, a broken chair placed by the hearth. Perhaps he didn’t have the energy to repair his own furnishings, and instead tossed them into the fire when they were beyond repair. The floor was full of sawdust, as if he brought his work in with him, even though he had a workshop in an adjacent room.

  He picked up one of the drawings. They seemed fragile in that powerful hand. He held it up to the light in the cramped sitting room, moved a step closer to the peephole of a window, where one of the panes was broken and the opening boarded up with a knotty plank. He had been recommended to me, the best carpenter in the area, it was said, but his surroundings were not convincing.

  “The box is fine, but why does it need a slanted roof?”

  “Well, it is a house, after all. A building, a home.”

  “A home?” He hesitated. “It’s bees you’re talking about, right?”

  I couldn’t explain all of this to him, had to come up with a logical reason, speak his language. “It’s because of water. Rain. When it rains, it will run off.”

  He nodded; that was an argument he could accept, because it was related to construction, not feelings.

  “That makes it more complicated. But it should be fine.”

  Then he picked up the drawing of the interior.

  “And frames?”

  “They’re supposed to hang from the top. It would be preferable with ten per hive, but we can make do with seven or eight. A piece of wax is to be attached to these.”

  He looked at me questioningly.

  “Beeswax. So the bees can continue to build on it.”

  “Really?”

  “The bees build diagonal honeycombs by nature, but I don’t want to let them build as they like, which is why I am adapting the working conditions.”

  “Right,” he said and scratched his ear, seeming on the whole completely uninterested.

  “In this hive, the frames will help them build honeycombs in a line. I want to be able to have a complete overview of the working conditions through the door, and to be able to take the honeycombs out and put them in. That way it will be easier to take care of, observe and, not least, harvest the honey without hurting the bees.”

  He looked at me blankly for a moment, then he studied the drawing again.

  “I have the cornices,” he said. “But the walls and roof . . . I’m a little unsure about the materials.”

  “I will leave those assessments to you,” I said with all the friendliness I was able to muster. “This is, after all, your field.”

  “You’re right about that,” he said. “And the um . . . the parallel honeycombs will be up to you.”

  He smiled for the first time, a broad and easy smile, while he held out that powerful fist. I smiled back and grasped his hand. I could already envision crate after crate of Savage’s Standard Hives being carried out of the carpenter’s workshop and being sold at a good profit for both of us. Yes, this really had all the promise of a splendid collaboration.

  GEORGE

  Kenny’s vehicles rolled into the yard with a resounding cough of exhaust fumes. The dust sprayed off the tires and settled in a thick layer on the empty flatbeds and the engines completely drowned out the small birds twittering at the approach of sunset. I had rented three trucks this year. Regular trucks, unfortunately, not semitrailer trucks like the kind Gareth used. These were old, rusty wrecks on the outside, nothing impressive, and in terms of space were not more than three hives high and four wide. But under the hood they were trusty workhorses, with engines so simple that you could fix them yourself if something happened, and something happened all the time.

  We began loading hives in the twilight. This couldn’t be done during the day while the bees were out, so we had to wait until they’d turned in for the night.

  Darkness fell. We started the engines so the headlights lit up the meadow wh
ile we were working. We were like Martians in white suits with hats and veils, in and out of the beams of light from the vehicles, as if we had come from a foreign planet to take with us biological material in the boxes. I had to chuckle to myself. He should have seen us now, Professor Hoodie.

  The sweat trickled down under my suit. It was heavy work. Every single hive weighed many pounds.

  But next year. Next year there would be a truck, perhaps a proper semitrailer truck. I’d been saving money, hoped it was enough for another bank loan. Hadn’t talked to Emma about it. Knew what she thought. But to make money you have to spend money. That’s how it is.

  We left as soon as the hives were in the vehicles. Nothing to wait for and we had a long trip ahead of us. We drove two men in each vehicle, taking turns driving. I took my own car. Tom and I.

  Maybe it was because of Star Wars, maybe because Tom himself had said that he would write about the trip, that it would give him inspiration. He had arrived, at least, the same afternoon. With full approval from John, the professor. Tom gave Emma a hug, pulled on his coveralls and went out. He had been with the bees ever since. Didn’t say much. I couldn’t see his face. It was in the shadow behind the veil. But he worked, did what we asked him to. Silently and quickly, even faster than Jimmy and Rick. I wanted to tell him so, praise him, but couldn’t find the right moment. There was no chance for it in the car, either, because he just rolled up his sweater into a sausage, leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes.

  He was handsome, my boy. A little thin, but handsome. The girls must like him. Did he have a girlfriend? I didn’t know.

  The engine hummed smoothly. Tom’s breathing was just as smooth. There were few cars on the road, we passed someone only once in a great while. The road was dry, we maintained a fast speed, but not reckless.