‘Lease me your soul for one year, a single year in a lifetime, an eternity, and I will set you free. You will lose nothing and gain all. Whatever you want will be yours, and in addition, your soul will be returned unchanged. When would you ever again be offered such riches, such enrichment in place of a life of endurance?’
‘Yes,’ sighed Xia, a faint breath, an exhalation of hope. She took a night flight from Marabar.
Far away a silk ribbon was undone, a leaf of parchment torn in two, its pieces fluttering to the floor.
***
An early spring evening just after Easter, the premier event in the Greek Orthodox religious calendar. Festivities on the island had been joyous; all had eaten, prayed and drunk to the lees. There had been more Church services and the liturgy was richer than usual, culminating in the Easter weekend services. On the night of Good Friday hundreds of tiny lanterns had been hung about the walls of the castle above Hora. The Bishop had visited the island to oversee the Easter service, Father Zeothus supporting him at each turn of ritual. The church was plunged into darkness at midnight to symbolize Christ’s descent into the underworld. The darkness was then shattered by the lighting of the congregation’s candles - a thousand pinpricks of light.
A candlelit procession, led by the priests, made its way around the settlement, stopping at various places to deliver a blessing.
Hovering far above the island the Beekeeper had looked down. He watched the procession wend its way through the slender streets. A nocturne in black and white. Slowly, the tenuous line moved towards the castle, halted while at the most elevated point of the journey and a blessing was sent out over the community below. When they reached the church, more prayers, then heads lowered at the awful Sacrifice.
The following night saw the festivities continue. Again the Beekeeper hovered above the island and watched. Above him a full moon; before him the shafts of honeyed light falling upon the bay beneath. Again, just before midnight the church fell into darkness. Then, midnight striking, the celebrations began.
The stone before the tomb is rolled back, and Christ steps free.
‘Hristos anesti!’ the people say to each other, Christ is risen.
‘Alithos anesti!’ comes the reply, truly He is risen.
The crackers go off. People peel away to their homes and restaurants - the Easter fast is broken. Sweet loaf, eggs dipped in cochineal, soft cheeses, soup made from the tenderest, most secret parts of the lamb, and Kytherian wine.
Tomorrow the celebrations would begin in earnest. The roasting of the lambs on spits, forty year old Cretan wines would be brought to the island, there would be dancing and singing. The Beekeeper would sit silently in the shade of the fir trees and watch the celebrations taking place by the Bay of Kapsali - the music undulating across the wide blue sea.
Perhaps only seventy Easters for each of them, he mumbled, looking wearily at the festivities. He had hoped that among all the activity a cry would have gone out, that scent of need. Instead, the singing and dancing continued, infusing the air with great wafts of joy, of drunkenness, of gladness to be alive.
A little disappointed, he gathered himself up into the softness of a bee and took off on a sunny breeze, back towards the shadows of his home.
***
Father Zeothus took off his shoes and set them carefully at the foot of his bed. He was exhausted. Tired by the endless round of services and preparations for services. Up before dawn, he never reached his bed until well after dark during the Easter period. Not only was there the enormous load of activities required to cater for the parishioners, there were also the trials undertaken by his own spirit.
Easter was to him the most spiritually gruelling time of the year. His belief was genuine and deep. The events that had taken place two thousand years beforehand were as fresh to him today, as to those who had stood by the Tomb and waited.
He felt overawed by the idea that the Son of God had agreed to take on the shabby clothes of man and allow Himself to undergo the indignity of Crucifixion - for the sake of those who would carry out the Sacrifice. It was an act almost too incomprehensible to absorb. Father Zeothus felt as stunned by its brutality, as overwhelmed by its generosity. And, while in this state of disorientation, he had to undertake his most demanding workload.
While he had led most of the religious activity, he was rarely part of the social release that followed. If the priest attended one of the gatherings the people held back the revelry until he left. It was a sign of respect. But that part of the priest that was human and needy, felt lonely.
So now, he lay back on his bed and wearily sighed his way towards sleep. It was a warm, spring afternoon and the drowsy noises of insects and dogs barking in the distance were soporific. The breeze moved through the olive groves with a high, silky rustling. He was very tired and very vulnerable. A small but strong ache of loneliness went out. It drifted from his window, out past the olive trees and was taken up by the warm rising air that dusted the island. In the ravine running along by the castle, columns of seabirds moved in the soft, slow swirl of the thermals. His scent was taken up, and thrown off by a tornado of birds in slow motion. Without permission, his loneliness had taken wing.
The Beekeeper, too, had been imprinted. The scent of the pollen and nectar he sought out, was need. Within minutes of having picked up the scent he was on his way. For the first time the need of the Beekeeper matched the need of the dreamer.
By the time the priest had entered deep sleep the bee was upon his windowsill. A little surprised by where the scent had led him, the Beekeeper hesitated. His need for release from his life was too strong and so, he moved in. He alighted upon the pillow. Another soul about to be leased, another step closer to his own, longed-for freedom. Release from a misguided pact.
The need of the priest was immense. As he lay, now deep in sleep, his breathing was slow and regular. His soul sat lightly upon the body and with each exhalation of breath it hovered gently apart. It was draped like gossamer upon the flesh. At this ritual the Beekeeper was king. The drone began from silence to low vibration. The bee became a mere sound persuasive at the dreamer’s ear, allowing the dream to swell, taking the need, the ache, to a point where agreement to the request became a mere formality.
Now is the time. The bee is but a sound, a movement in air, insinuating itself into the dream of the sleeper, slowly, softly pressing in between the flesh and the soul. The desire of the priest is palpable, the ache of loneliness a golden scent, so sweet and attenuated the bee itself is almost intoxicated, this man’s need for a friend to take away his loneliness is so strong it is almost assent. The vibration increases, insistent, the soul drifts further from the flesh. The priest lies, thrown upon a shore of need, the hum is now but a touch - the offer is made - the priest, in a sigh, dreamed a friend. All is ready, all almost foregone. A sigh, a breath of acceptance is all that is needed.
The Beekeeper hesitates, the priest inhales that breath destined to exhale assent. Never in six centuries has the Beekeeper hesitated, never has he held back at the prospect of such a prize. The soul lies before him, almost within grasp.
The hum blows out from vibration, solidifies to bee, flies a shriek from the prone body, away from the soul hanging before him. A hurl at the window, and a scream out into the night.
The Beekeeper threw a hook into the wind and allowed himself to be carried up to the castle above the settlement. He sat upon the castle wall, looked out to sea, then back over the lights of the sleeping town. There beneath him lay his own salvation, freedom from a burden he could no longer bear, and he had let it go. The lease of the priest’s soul would have taken him a step closer to release, to freedom. Yet he could not pluck it as it hovered before him, he could not seize the prize. For the first time in six centuries compassion for a soul that was not his own, had taken precedence.
He again looked out across the sleeping town through the fug
ue of its myriad dreams, his traditional fare, and he no longer had the taste for it. He groaned in his own desolation, he knew he no longer had a chance to secure his own release. He would continue, generation after generation confined to his own loneliness and despair, with no prospect of release. He threw a glare of despair up to his left at the monastery of St John, hewn from the face of the cliff, a crevice where the Saint had begun the writings known as Revelations.
‘One mistake’ he whispered, ‘one greedy, venal decision made in youth - and damned for all time. Can’t I ever be sorry enough?’
He reduced to bee, contracted to hum, to vibration, and struck out into the night.
Swiftly, precisely, in the arc of a wing, forgiveness flew across the path of the Beekeeper on his homeward fight. Greed, despair, learning, compassion - that great cycle of existence - throwing off lives like lapilli.
Softly, firmly, a wing was passed across the hum that sped through the darkness. There, in a night full of stars, the Beekeeper was allowed an ending.
Having descended, the wing gathered him up in forgiveness. The hum was swept into silence. Release, freedom.
*******************
About the Author
Karen Overman-Edmiston
People’s motivations and their interior life are at the core of Karen Overman-Edmiston’s writing. In addition, impressions and experiences gained while travelling have had a strong impact on her work. These factors are strongly evident in the novel, The Avenue of Eternal Tranquillity, as well as in an earlier publication, Night Flight from Marabar, a collection of short stories. Both titles are available in bookshops and online.
Karen Overman-Edmiston was born in the United Kingdom. Educated in the U K, Ireland and Australia, she gained a Master of Arts at the University of Western Australia. Having previously worked for the West Australian government, Karen runs her own consultancy business as well as continuing her writing.
Karen has written for the stage and has had competition-winning plays performed, including at the Festival of Perth. She is also a prize-winning short story writer who has had stories published in several magazines.
Publisher’s Website: https://sites.google.com/site/crumplestonepress/
The Beekeeper - from the collection: 'Night Flight from Marabar' Page 3
