The History of Bees

Chapter 44 WILLIAM

When I finally managed to move again, it was completely dark. The street outside was quiet, with the exception of yelling from the tavern a little way down the street. A sad place, cramped and oppressive, where the village tosspots met night after night and drank themselves senseless. Some ran past, on the way out of there, shadows across the window, howling and singing, rude laughter, which became gradually fainter the further away they got.

I was cold. The room had grown chilly, the evening air flooded through the door, which I hadn’t gotten around to closing before falling asleep. My neck was stiff, my head had toppled towards my chest and my shirtfront was damp with saliva.

I stood up, stiff and sore, hurried to the door and quickly closed it.

Imagine if someone had discovered me, imagine if customers had looked in and seen me sleeping in the shop, right in the middle of opening hours. Even more stories could arise from such things, yet again I could put myself on the map as the village fool. But maybe, hopefully, the afternoon had been just as bloody quiet, or should I say as blessedly quiet, as the morning.

My stomach clamored for nourishment and wrapped in paper was a last piece of the pie. Dry and cold, the grease had congealed into a wormlike ridge around the edge. I ate it all the same and simultaneously swore I would never again allow myself be tempted into eating this dish. Perhaps not even pie at all. Although, what difference did it make?

I closed up, locked the door and set out for home.

The voices from the tavern grew louder.

The windows were warm yellow squares in the darkness. For the first time in my life, I felt drawn to them. A goblet of cheap wine, merely. It couldn’t do any harm. I stopped. If someone saw me in there, that I’d become one of them, would it really change anything?

Everything was as usual outside the tavern. The same scenes played themselves out this evening as on every other evening; two rough workmen were arguing loudly, one of them bumped into the other, shoved him, soon they would fight. A stout tramp gurgled to himself as he lurched down the street; at the same time a tall lout came staggering out the door, brushed against the corner and spewed twice where nobody could see, but the sounds of the day’s supper and the excessively large amounts of alcohol he had consumed, which found its way back out into the fresh air, were not to be mistaken.

No. I headed home. I had not sunk that low. When I passed the building, I noticed that even more people were outside on this bright summer evening.

A young girl’s vulgar squealing. “Stop it! Don’t!”

It was a no that said yes. Followed by intense giggling.

It was only now that I recognized the voice. It was Alberta. I didn’t even need to see her to know how her large breasts were most certainly on the verge of swelling out of her dress, I could literally feel the penetrating odor of the cleavage between them all the way here.

Somebody was pressing against her and digging with his hands at all of her curves, slurring drunken incoherence against her throat, absorbed in his own lust, own intoxication, own desire, pounding against this wind-fallen fruit, this rotting fruit, that would soon bulge into something unrecognizable, swell up, for nine whole months. A young boy, judging by his ungainly figure, perhaps no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, the voice still hoarse and fresh, recently changed. He was far younger than she was, should have been at home, in bed, sleeping or perhaps reading, studying, planning for the future, to make somebody proud, to make a name for himself. A door opened, the light fell through, disclosing with whom Alberta was having vertical intercourse, who the young figure was, who far too soon had commenced his own process of putrefaction, consumed by what he believed was passion, who at exactly this moment was in the process of putting his entire existence at risk, and who didn’t see me, see his father, his father who believed that life had long since hit rock bottom, but who at this moment truly had the rug pulled out from under his feet.

Edmund.