The History of Bees

Chapter 61 TAO

The boy and his father stood behind me as I put the key into the lock and opened the door to an empty evening darkness.

Kuan’s jacket wasn’t hanging on the hook in the hallway. His shoes were gone.

I pushed down the handle on the bathroom door.

His shelf above the sink was empty. There was just a trace of soap where his razor had been.

He’d moved without saying anything. Because he wanted to? Because he thought I wanted him to? Because everything about me reminded him of Wei-Wen, the way everything about Kuan reminded me of him?

Because he blamed me?

Yet another one who’d disappeared. But this time I couldn’t search for him. I couldn’t ask, couldn’t contact him. This was his decision, I had no right to ask. For I was still to blame.

The boy and his father had stayed in the hallway. They looked at me expectantly. I had to say something.

“You can take the bedroom.”

I put my bag down in the middle of the living room floor and made up a bed for myself on the couch. I could hear the boy talking in there. His voice came in waves, eager, chattering about practical details with a newfound energy. He’d rediscovered a future. The darkness in him had disappeared. Or perhaps I’d put too much into the words the evening before. Loaded them with all of my own stuff.

I went over to the window. The fence was still there. In the air above it a helicopter was circling. The bees were contained, like in a cocoon, not a single one was supposed to slip out, not until there were many more of them and there was certain knowledge about how to control them. That was how Li Xiara wanted it to be.

She wanted to tame them. They were going to save us. She wanted to tame them, the way she had tamed me. And I’d allowed myself to be tamed. That was the easiest. Follow her, don’t think.

The boy was laughing. It was the first time I’d heard him laugh. How young and bright his laughter was. I’d given them something. The sound grew louder, made it easier to breathe. When was the last time somebody had laughed between these four walls? Behind me was the bag. Inside it was the book, I’d never returned it, but read all of it from beginning to end. I carried the words with me, but didn’t know what to do with them. It was too enormous, I couldn’t cope with it.

They were preparing the square, clearing away a space. A podium was being built, cameras rigged up. Several crews were working at once, because the speech was going to be broadcast to the entire world. An energetic producer bossed people around. In the background she stacked large baskets full of freshly picked pears. The symbolism felt exaggerated. But maybe that was what it would take.

I was given my own dressing room. A woman came in with some clothes to choose from. Nothing flashy, but all of the clothes were brand new. A simple design, it resembled the uniform from the Party’s earliest phase, as if to remind viewers where I came from, that I was one of them, one of the people. They were a little stiff, with fold creases, but of a soft fabric.

“It’s cotton,” the woman said. “Recycled cotton.”

I’d never before owned a cotton garment. Every meter cost a month’s salary. I chose a blue suit, put it on. The fabric breathed, I could barely feel it against my skin. I turned to look in the mirror. It suited me. I looked like one of them. Like her, Li Xiara, not like a worker from the fruit fields, but like the person I was perhaps actually meant to be.

I was somebody else in this suit—the person she asked me to be. I turned around, looked in the mirror over my shoulder; the jacket hung nicely over the shoulders, the trousers fit around the hips. I tugged a little at the sleeves; they ended exactly where they should.

Then I met my own gaze. My eyes… they looked so much like his. But who was I? I looked down. Wei-Wen had never owned a cotton garment. And his short life had not had any meaning.

Again I forced myself to raise my head, to look at myself. A useful idiot stared back at me.

No. All of a sudden the fabric felt abrasive against my skin. I tore off the blouse. Stepped out of the trousers and left them lying on the floor.

It would have meaning. And I knew how.

I pulled my own threadbare sweater down over my head, tugged on my old trousers, buttoned them quickly and put on my shoes.

Then I picked up my bag, which was lying on the floor, opened the door to the dressing room and quickly walked out. I found the producer and grabbed hold of her.

“Where is Li Xiara? I have to talk to Li Xiara.” She was in the village Committee building, had received the largest office. Three men were chased out of there by a security guard when I arrived, even though it was absolutely clear that they had hadn’t finished their conversation.

Li Xiara stood up quickly and walked over to greet me. She tried one of her gentle smiles, but I was done with this now.

“Here.” I handed her the book.

She accepted it, but didn’t open it, didn’t even look at it.

“Tao, I’m looking forward to hearing you speak.”

“You have to read the book,” I said.

“If you like we can go over it one more time, I’d be happy to do so. The wording. Perhaps we should change some of the phrasing…”

“I just want you to read this,” I said.

She finally shifted her gaze towards the book, stroked the title with one finger. “The History of Bees?”

I nodded. “I won’t do anything, I won’t give any speeches until you’ve read it.”

She looked up quickly. “What are you saying?”

“You people are doing everything wrong.”

Her eyes narrowed. “We are doing everything we can.”

I leaned forward, held her gaze and said softly: “They’re going to die. Again.”

She looked at me. I waited for an answer, but it didn’t come. Was she thinking? Did she take it in? Did my words mean anything to her at all? The anger rose inside me. Couldn’t she say something?

I couldn’t stand to be there any longer; I turned and walked towards the door. Then she finally reacted.

“Wait.”

She opened the book and calmly turned the pages until she reached the title page.

“Thomas Savage.” She glanced at the name of the author. “American?”

“It was the only book he wrote,” I said quickly. “But that doesn’t make it any less important.”

She raised her head and looked at me again. Then she nodded towards a chair.

“Sit down. Tell me.”

At first my words tumbled out in rush, as I explained haphazardly, jumping back and forth. But then I understood that she was giving me time. Several times somebody knocked on the door; there were many people waiting, but she turned them all away and I slowly calmed down.

I told her about the author, Thomas Savage. The book was based on his experiences and his life. Savage’s family had been beekeepers for generations. His father was one of the first to be affected by The Collapse and one of the last to give up. And Savage had worked with his father until the end. They had changed over to organic operations at an early stage, that was Savage’s own requirement. He never forced the bees out onto the road, never took more honey than they needed to survive. But all the same they were not spared. The bees died. Again and again. Finally they were forced to sell the farm. Only then, as a fifty-year-old, did Savage sit down and write about all of his experiences, about the future. The History of Bees was visionary, but still real and concrete because it was based on a lifetime of practical experience.

The book was published in 2037, just eight years before The Collapse was a fact. It predicted the fate of the human race. And how we might, in turn, manage to rise from the ashes again.

When I was finished, Li Xiara sat in silence. She held the book calmly in her hands. Her gaze, impossible to read, rested on me.

“You can go now.”

Was she throwing me out? If I refused, she would call security, give them orders to take me home. Demand that I stay there, in the flat, until it was time for the speech and then require me to give it and many more, against my own convictions.

But she did none of these things. Instead, she turned the pages until she reached the first chapter and leaned towards the text.

I stood there. Then she lifted her eyes again, nodded towards the door.

“Now I would like to be alone. Thank you.”

“But…”

She put one hand on the book, as if to protect it. Then she said softly: “I have children, too.”