The History of Bees

Chapter 42 WILLIAM

The package arrived in the mail ten days later. The writings of Dzierzon. I brought it upstairs with me and closed the door to the room on the second floor, which was now wholly and fully mine. Thilda didn’t sleep there anymore, not even now that my health was restored. Perhaps she wanted me to ask her to return to the conjugal bed, maybe she wouldn’t come until I begged and so it would never happen.

The bed loomed, soft and safe before me. How easy it was, just to go to bed, let the blankets swaddle me, make everything dark and warm.

No.

Instead I sat down by the window with the package in my lap. I caught a glimpse of Charlotte’s white-clad back at the bottom of the garden, bent over the hive. She spent hours down there. She had carried down a table and a chair for herself, sat with papers and an inkwell. I saw her constantly observing and taking notes in a little leather-bound book, with enthusiasm and lightness in her movements. She was like me, worked the way I had previously worked, though it felt like a long time ago now. I hadn’t been to the hive myself since my conversation with Rahm. I had turned my back on it, wanted mostly to break it into pieces, jump on it, to see the pieces of board fly in all directions, splintered and destroyed. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it—the bees prevented me; the thought that thousands of desperate and homeless bees would rise up and attack me.

I undid the twine, broke the seals and folded the paper to one side, and with a German dictionary at my side I started reading. Until the end I kept hoping that Rahm’s claims were wrong, that he had misunderstood something, that Dzierzon had absolutely not produced such an advanced hive. But even though my German was shaky and I only understood a fraction of the texts, one thing was clear: his hive was very much like mine; the doors were positioned somewhat differently and the roof pitch was at less of a slant, but the principles were identical and the method of use the same. Furthermore, he had carried out a series of in-depth observational studies of the bees in their hives and a lot of the research entailed precisely this. The underlying philosophy was rock solid and testified to an infinite patience; everything was scrupulously documented and with an exemplary presentation of the argument. Dzierzon’s work was world class.

I put the writings away and once again turned my attention towards the window. Charlotte put the lid on the hive out there, walked a few steps away and took off her hat. She smiled to herself before setting out towards the house.

I opened the door. I could hear her footsteps below. I moved over to the landing. From here I could see her. She walked into the hall. There she sat down by the sideboard, took out her notebook and opened it in front of her. She reconsidered, her gaze suspended for a second in space, before she bowed her head and wrote. I walked down the stairs. She lifted her head and smiled when she saw me.

“Father. How nice that you’ve come,” she said. “Here—you have to see this.”

She wanted to show me the book, held it out to me.

But I didn’t look at it, simply walked to the coat stand, found my hat and jacket and quickly dressed.

“Father?”

She beamed at me. I looked away.

“Not now,” I said.

The passionate enthusiasm in her eyes, I couldn’t bear to be in the same room with her. I walked quickly towards the door.

“But it won’t take long. You have to see what I’ve been thinking.”

“Later.”

She didn’t say anything more, just had this gaze, so determined and assertive, as if she didn’t accept the rejection.

I didn’t even have the energy to be curious. She hadn’t found out or thought of anything that had not already been thought and I couldn’t bear to explain this to her, disappoint her, tell her that all the time she’d spent down there by the hive only resulted in things that were obvious, that all of her thoughts had already been thought a thousand times before. I opened the door slowly, registered how something indolent had once again descended upon my body and a sigh was released from my diaphragm. I prepared myself for many more in the time ahead. In my hand I squeezed the key to the shop, to my simple, country seed shop. That’s where I belonged.

The Swammer pie left behind a coating of grease on the roof of my mouth, but I was still unable to refrain from eating. I had already shoved two down in the course of the morning hours. The scent of them poured out of the bakery and was intrusively present also in my shop. It penetrated through all the cracks, even when I closed the door, a constant reminder of how simple it would be to buy one more, or several. The baker even gave me a discount; he thought I was too thin, but that wouldn’t last for long. It felt as if my body had already begun to expand, as if it were in the process of recovering its former sloppy constitution.

No near-gale howled any longer through the streets driving customers to the shop. The novelty had definitively worn off and half the day had already passed without anyone coming by. The large orders of seed corn were long since completed, now it was mostly spices and seeds for fast-growing plants, such as lettuce and radishes.

I ate a few more bites, although the pie was too salty. I drank lukewarm water from a dipper to alleviate it, but it didn’t help much.

Then I walked to the door. The afternoon carriage from the capital drove down the street. The diligence stopped at the end and people streamed outside, but nobody came in my direction.

I nodded to the saddler who was standing outside in the sun greasing a saddle, smiled politely at the wheelwright who rolled a new wheel out of the workshop, briefly greeted my former employee Alberta, who was carrying two large rolls of cloth into the dry-goods shop, all of them hardworking ants, with their hands full. Even Alberta was clearly managing to make herself a little useful, with rolling hips and rapid feet, saying hello right and left, while she stepped lightly up the stairway.

“Mr. Savage.” She smiled in my direction.

Then she hesitated for a second; evidently something had occurred to her. “I have something you have to taste! Wait a minute.”

She disappeared quickly into the shop with the rolls of fabric. Shortly afterwards she came out again with a bundle in one hand.

She stood in front of me. I could smell the scent of her. It made me unwell.

“What’s this about? I have a great deal to do.”

“I hear that you’ve begun with bees,” she said and smiled with crooked teeth behind lips a little too moist.

I was suddenly reminded of Swammerdam’s sea monster, but pushed the thought away.

“My father also keeps bees. He has five hives. Look here.” She held up the bundle. “You can have a taste. It’s the very best.”

Without waiting for an invitation she walked into the shop. She laid the bundle down on the counter and undid the knot. It contained a loaf of bread and a small pot of honey. She held it up, looked at it and smacked her lips loudly. “Come.” She waved for me to come closer.

Her skin was rough, spotty, on her chin two pimples were pushing their way to the surface. How old was she now? Well over twenty at least. Both her hands and face showed that she had already spent too many working hours in the sun.

She gave me a piece of bread. The honey, not translucent, but rather a cloudy color, coiled over the slice, oozed out and down into the bread.

“Taste it!”

She took a large bite herself.

The smell of honey, of her and of a half-eaten Swammer pie on the counter turned my stomach. Nonetheless, compelled by my upbringing, out of foolish courtesy, I took a bite.

I nodded as it swelled in my mouth.

“Very good.”

I chewed while I tried not to think about the brood and larvae that were in the honey, crudely pressed out of the straw hive.

She kept her eyes on me at all times while she ate. Finally she licked the honey off her fingers, excessively, with a self-assurance verging on the ridiculous. “Lovely. Now it’s time to do a bit of work.”

At long last she walked out, although walked… Her hips undulated out the door, I was unable to refrain from looking at them and ended up just standing there, in the middle of the floor.

Then she was finally gone. I took two steps around myself, breathing rapidly. A drop of honey remained on the counter. I wiped it away quickly, trying to erase it from my mind, along with her, the moist lips, the pimples, the almost obscene movement her midsection performed with every tiny gesture she made. Hips I could pound up against, as if she were earth. But I restrained myself. I took control. Even if it would require all the strength I had.

The only chair in the shop beckoned me. I stumbled over to it, placed my expanded backside on the seat. I crossed my hands over my abdomen as if to hold myself in place.

I just sat there and breathed deeply. Several minutes passed, the fever in me cooled down, the nausea subsided. Yes, I was able to control myself.

It was hot, a strip of sunlight revealed dust particles in the air right in front of me. They moved calmly, suspended weightlessly in the air. I pursed my lips and blew at them. They leapt away, but stabilized again with surprising quickness.

I blew again, harder this time. They flew away this time, too, before quickly reverting to their former shapeless existence, so light that nothing could fetter them. I tried focusing on them one by one. But my eyes stung. There were too many.

So I shifted my attention to the entirety. But there was no whole, just infinite amounts of uncontrollable dust particles.

It was no use. Not even that. They defeated me. Not even this was something I could control.

And so I sat, completely overpowered. An impotent child once again.

I was ten years old. Streaks of sunlight shone through the foliage in the forest, spreading a golden tint over it all, everything was yellow. I sat on the ground. The soil that throbbed up from beneath me was warm and damp through my trousers. Motionless, with intense concentration I sat there, in front of the anthill: at first glance, a blessed chaos. Every single creature so tiny and insignificant, it was inconceivable how they could have built a hill that almost towered over me. But with time I understood more and more. Because I never grew weary, I could sit for hours and watch them. They moved in clear patterns. Carried, put down and retrieved. It was meticulous and peaceful work, systematic, instinctive, hereditary. And work that was not about each individual, but about the community. Individually they were nothing, but together they were the anthill, as if it were a single, living creature.

Something was awakened in me when I understood this, a warmth unlike any other, a fervor. Every day I tried to get my father to come with me, in here, in the yellow wood. I wanted so much to show him what they had accomplished, what such small creatures could manage together. But he just laughed. An anthill? Leave it in peace. Do something useful, lend a hand, let’s see what you’re made of.

That’s how it had been on this day, too. He had mocked me, and again I was here alone.

All of a sudden I discovered something, a breach in the system. A beetle had crept up on the outside of the hill, where the sun was shining. It was of monstrous proportions compared to the ants. The sunlight reached down between the trees and a ray hit the beetle’s back. It stood completely still now. A space opened up around it, none of the ants walked past, they left it alone, they continued with their purposeful work. Nothing more happened.

But then I became aware of an ant on its way towards the beetle; it broke away from the customary patterns, was no longer a part of the whole.

And it was carrying something.

I squinted. What was it? What was it carrying?

Larvae. Ant larvae. Now more of them were coming, more of them broke the pattern and they all brought the same thing. They were all carrying their own children.

I leaned closer to look. The ants dropped the larvae in front of the beetle. It stood still for a moment, rubbing its front legs against each other. Then it started to eat.

The beetle’s jaws worked furiously. I leaned over as closely as I could. The larvae disappeared into its mouth, one after the next. The ants stood in a long row, ready to serve the beetle their own offspring. I wished I could look away, but was unable to keep myself from watching.

Another larva, down into its mouth. And the ants waited, they had interrupted their usual patterns, liberated themselves from the whole to carry out this atrocity.

They crawled on me, within me. My cheeks became red hot, the blush spread through my whole body, the blood reached every part of me. I didn’t want to see, became unwell, but was unable to stop myself. To my astonishment I felt a pumping sensation beneath the fly of my trousers. A sensation I had only barely discerned previously, but which was suddenly all-consuming. I squeezed my thighs together, squeezed around what had grown hard. Another larva was crushed between the jaws of the beetle. The wide-set eyes glistened, the antennae moved. I lay down on my stomach, flat on the ground, striking against the earth, thought my trousers would be soiled and ruined, but was unable to stop. At the same time, there were waves of nausea inside me, because the larvae were killed. They disappeared into the beetle’s bowels. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. And it aroused me.

While I was lying there and pounding hard against the earth, I heard footsteps behind me, my father’s steps. He’d come after all, he stopped and he observed, but didn’t see anything of what I wanted to show him. He just saw me, the child I was and my infinitely great shame.

This moment, me on the ground. My father’s initial astonishment, subsequently his laughter, short and cold, was without joy and full of loathing, of scorn.

Look at you. You are pathetic. Shameful. Primitive.

It was worse than everything else, even worse than the belt I had a taste of when evening came and the glaring pain across my back all through the night. I just wanted to show him, explain to him and share my enthusiasm, but all he could see was my shame.