The Honey Month

by Amal El-Mohtar

  I knew you once. I thought I did,

  and thought I knew myself as well.

  My little body, tiny wings,

  though small, still yet my very own.

  But I cannot see, cannot be sure,

  if in this fragile frame of mine,

  if in this dust, I have the strength

  to come to know you twice.

  DAY 17

  Ugandan Honey

  Colour: Cloudy mulled cider—mulled because the crystallised chunks in it make me think of orange peel.

  Smell: Carob molasses and hay.

  Taste: A savoury flavour: black olives and smoked cheese. It’s so unusual, so earthy.

  There is a land called Loved-by-the-Sun that is known for its honey. Its flavour is such that the great and small alike seek it out, princes for rarity, peasants for nourishment. It is said that a family can live off an ounce of this fabled honey for a month, and need nothing but water to supplement their meals; it is said that even the rich, smoky scent of it imparts vigour to the mind and limbs, and folk marvel at what flower could produce the nectar necessary to its magic.

  They marvel awry. It is all in the tenacity of the bees.

  The bees of Loved-by-the-Sun are not content with the search and the find and the dance so common to their tribe. Instead, before they begin the matter of seeking out flowers, they seek out dry brush and twigs. Six or seven will set upon a bit of wood or grass, and though their wings droop and weep with the heft of it, they bring it back to the hive.

  Then there is a dance.

  One bee, chosen for her beauty, her skill, her strength, will carefully build a dry wall around herself. She will position its materials delicately, in the pattern most appropriate to combustion. Trapped within, she begins to work her wings, rubs her fragile feet against the wood and the hay, and does not stop until she has kindled a flame and fed her body to it.

  It is a magnificent spectacle to behold—but more magnificent still is the dance of the other bees. For one by one, they twirl themselves in the smoke of her sacrifice; one by one, they singe their feet on her pyre; one by one, they seek out the noblest flowers and stamp cinders into stamens and pistils, mix their sister’s ash with their food. In this way they bless each flower they visit, and one could say with great certainty that all the blossoms of field and forest lean out towards the flight of Loved-by-the-Sun’s bees, who scent the air in their wake with solemnity and grace.

  DAY 18

  Manuka Honey

  Colour: Mulled cider—but more specifically the dark froth that gathers at the top. This one is also cloudy, with darker splotches in some parts.

  Smell: Medicinal. Eucalyptus? A bit like lemon candy, too.

  Taste: It tastes like medicine, like cough syrup. I asked my sister to try it for a second opinion, because it tasted like something very specific from our childhood, but while she said medicine, she couldn’t narrow it down any further. Cough syrup it remains—or what cough syrup should have tasted like, had it actually been taken with honey.

  Thin, scraping. That’s how the voices were. Grey and harsh and angry, but thin, above all, thin and scratching as smoke in the throat. I could hear them as through a mist, while lying in my bed, could hear them arguing together.

  I was four years old, and didn’t know what to do. I thought it must be my parents, and so I got out of bed, hurried past the closet with the skeleton in it, away from dreams of giant spider creatures and vicious monsters with shaggy black fur and bulbous red noses, out of my room and around the corner to my parents.

  They were in their beds, asleep.

  I could still hear the voices coming from upstairs; I knew that no one else could be up there. But it wasn’t the thought that they were in my house that was frightening. It was that they sounded so angry, and that they seemed to be arguing about me.

  I curled up on the bottom stairs and cried. It was so hard to know what to do. I had none of the dream-clarity, then, none of the terror that pushes you to run while your legs churn molasses and the monsters gain, none of the exhilaration that forces flight from a cliff-top as the only alternative to pursuit. All I knew was that their voices were wrong, and I wanted them to stop.

  So I climbed the stairs. My eyes stung and my cheeks were wet when I saw the ravens.

  There were three of them. They perched on our kitchen table, huge as raccoons, and spoke in human voices. As I stood staring at them, they paused, then cocked their heads to look at me in that way that birds do, slantwise.

  “Please stop fighting,” I whispered. “I want to sleep.”

  They looked at each other. They looked back at me. One of them hopped a little closer, still on the table. I could see the marks its talons made in the marble-painted wood.

  “What you mean,” he said—he had a man’s voice, anyway—“is that you want to dream.”

  “Yes,” said another, approaching his fellow, “you want the good dreams, the flying dreams.”

  “Stop,” said the third, and here was the woman’s voice, weary and sharp as needles. “Leave her alone. She’s not ripe.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem necessary to speak, not yet. They weren’t arguing anymore, anyway, so I kept looking at them. Glossy, the light glinting white and blue from their feathers, their hematite beaks. They were beautiful—much lovelier than seagulls, I remember thinking.

  “Do you like honey?” asked the first crow.

  “I don’t know,” I said, truthfully. I hadn’t tried any yet. I thought the woman-crow made a sound like sighing.

  “Here,” said the second crow, and I don’t know where he’d dipped his beak, I don’t know what pot was open where, but he had something shiny sticking to it, like glue or syrup. “Try this. You may find you like it very much.”

  I inched closer. I wanted to. I thought I shouldn’t, that these were strangers, that my parents and teachers and countless television commercials had told me not to accept things from strangers, especially not food—but this strangeness was comfortable, somehow, almost comforting, now that there was no fighting. I leaned forward to lick the crow’s beak—and caught a whiff of what was on it.

  It smelled like medicine. I wrinkled my nose, stepped back, and shook my head.

  “No thank you,” I said, firmly. “I only take medicine from my mommy.”

  If crows could look disappointed, this one and his friend certainly did. The woman-crow looked... Different. Relieved, maybe. They didn’t say another word to me; I looked away for a moment, and when I looked again, they were gone.

  I know it’s strange I should tell this to you. I know it sounds like madness. But I feel I need to, because this honey you’ve offered, this sweetness you’ve mixed into my tea—it smells just like that medicine. And the more I look at you, the more I listen to your kind grey voice, the blacker I find your hair, the darker your eyes, and the sharper your long grey fingers.

  DAY 19

  Honeydew Honey

  Colour: Apple juice. I want to organise these into series; apple juice, apple cider, white wine, various other booze.

  Smell: That body smell, ringed with green-fleshed melon that gives the scent a supple thickness.

  Taste: Melon, pie, and pistachio.

  Morning tastes of honeydew and the fading of candles. It tastes of fingers on guitar strings, of a voice the colour of dimmed lights singing. It tastes of green honey and spring. So spoke the cloudy-haired woman who stood by country roads, near rivers, between beech trees and birch. Her fingers wore no rings, her wrists no bracelets, her feet no shoes.

  No one believed her, of course. Who could properly taste the morning?

  The morning, she would say, always tastes of spring, no matter what the season. The winter sun tastes of wet bark and sticky buds when it first rises; at noon it tastes of spun sugar, at evening it tastes of bay leaves and soup. The fall morning tastes of wet grass remembering the sun, the summer morning tastes of lilacs and the waking of bees. And spring mornings tast
e of honeydew honey, and spring.

  Still no one believed her. Show us, they said. Feed us.

  So she did. She robbed the sky of honey, stole eggs from the sun, ground the dawn to flour. She sifted it through a net of spring branches, salted it with morning-bright sea. She baked bread of the morning, made it into pie-crusts and scones, broke Venus into sultanas and pistachios. She offered them up to passersby, saying only taste, taste, and tell me what you hear. Robin song sweet enough to sip? Larks and sparrows chittering crumbs and seeds to the ground? Tell me what you see, what you smell. Only taste.

  They tasted. They chewed the dawn with open mouths, swallowed in great lumps.

  They shrugged.

  It tastes like bread, they said. Nothing really tastes like spring. Spring doesn’t taste like anything.

  She can be found along country roads, near rivers, by beech trees and birch, wherever there are hives. She is most often alone, and birds will not touch the bread she scatters to them; it tastes too much of salt.

  DAY 20

  Blackberry Honey (2)

  Colour: Thick, cloudy, creamy orange yellow.

  Smell: Sugared brambles and thorns.

  Taste: Gentle, quiet; somewhat crystallised. It does not taste of blackberries so far as I can tell; oh, maybe a little, there, but it’s more honey than anything else.

  It’s gone, now.

  It’s gone, it’s passed,

  the need, the flush,

  dead now, and gone.

  The honey on the brambles is melted all to rain,

  the sugar on the thorn is licked clean away

  and not even a spot of blood to tell its passing. Gone,

  and where the tongue to sing of sweetness? Where

  the candied throat to chime music to the air,

  the lips that want kissing? Gone, I say,

  folded thickly into night and swallowed away.

  Ophelia went to the river with flowers in her hair,

  the river came to Ophelia with fern in his.

  She loved the river, drank him down;

  he loved Ophelia, took her tears.

  They swallowed each other like spoonfuls of salt

  and they sang and sang, until, together,

  they came to know the sea.

  DAY 21

  Bamboo Honey

  Colour: Orange amber, complete with cloudiness and bubbles.

  Smell: Thick and gummy; raisins; a hint of molasses.

  Taste: Lychee. Completely. Strong, beautiful, lychee-thickened-with-honey with a side of light raisins.

  The air is green as lychee-shine when she knocks at your door. It’s early, and you’ve only just stumbled out of bed, only just finished your second yawn of the day when you shuffle towards the door, stifling the third, wondering who it could be.

  You squint at her woman’s shape, because your glasses are still by the bed. She seems nice enough.

  Let me in, she says, and her voice is friendly, I have quince and pears to bake, I have honey and raisins and home-made crusts, and your kitchen is very fine.

  You let her in, because you can smell fruit in the air around her, and while you can’t quite make out her shape, you figure you’ll do her a good turn. Great way to start the day, isn’t it, with pie?

  You shower while she lays out her things, and through the steam you can hear her singing a song about a chimbley sweep and a wicked dame, and you scrub extra hard behind your ears to show your hospitality. You put on a clean pair of jeans and a dark shirt that shows you’re trying, thick socks, even a silver ring on the middle finger of your right hand, and step out into the kitchen.

  You forget your glasses. This is not unusual. Also, you look better without them.

  She stops singing when you appear, and you suspect she’s smiling. Everything smells so good, of browning crust and juicy filling, and you think to ask her name. Would you like some pie? she asks, and she smiles, you think she smiles, so you say, sure, when it’s ready, is it?

  Not quite yet, she says, and her voice is like sugar-water, liquid-sweet and clear. You run your fingers through your hair and say you’ll be right back.

  You go to your room, pick up your glasses. You figure she’s seen how hot you are without them, now she’ll find how clever you can look with them on. You adjust them on your nose, and step back out into the kitchen, curious to see what the blurred outlines of the singing woman will resolve into, curious about her age, the colour of her eyes.

  She’s still a blur.

  You blink, take the glasses off, wipe the lenses on your shirt—it’s a blend, it’ll do—put them back on. You can see the edges of the kitchen counter clear as morning, the lines of the fridge, the cupboard handles, but she, at the center of it all, she’s indefinite, she’s smudged.

  Oh, she says, looking up—you suppose she was looking down. You’re staring. How rude.

  You take a step back, but it’s too late. There’s a buzzing now, you can tell, a buzzing in the air. I’ve half a mind not to feed you any pie, she says, mildly, but I can hardly eat it all myself.

  You can’t move while you look at her, and you can’t look away. There’s a razor-sharp piece of quince pie laid out on a plate for you, and its clarity’s born up by a cloudy space of skin that’s coming closer and closer. Taste it, she says. You’ll like it. It tastes like you.

  You taste it. It’s like nothing you’ve had before. She says the same thing to you once you’ve eaten the slice entire, when you’ve licked the quince jelly and the crumbs from the plate, when her fruit’s inside you. You’re like nothing I’ve had before, she says, and you’re sure, now, that she’s smiling.

  DAY 22

  Malaysian Rainforest Honey

  Colour: Opaque, creamy orange-brown—a bit like pale caramel, slightly warm.

  Smell: Cold wet flowers tangled in syrup.

  Taste: A very watery honey, strange because it’s very crystallised, but it’s as if the crystals are floating in wetness. It tastes like candy—the hard kind that come in bright colours, individual wrappers. That, and violets—the scent of violets.

  She has eyes like penny candy—one violet, one raspberry blue. There’s mischief tucked into her crooked smile’s corner, peeking out like a napkin from a tatty pocket. She licks her lips like they’re covered in sugar, makes you want to do the same. Her hair’s a honey-tangle of brown and blonde, and she’s all sweetness and light, sweetness and light put on for show. She has a plum-coloured, corduroy newsboy cap bottom-up in front of her, full of spare change.

  “Be careful,” say your brother, your sister, your sister’s friend. “She has a reputation.”

  Her voice makes you hungry. She tells you stories whenever you walk by—every time a different one. There’s a drum in her throat, you think, beats out a rhythm to reel you in.

  “Be careful,” she says, smiling. “There’s a troll lives by that trash can, will trip you every time.”

  You look down, blushing, walk a little faster—trip, and flush hotter. You turn back, and she’s laughing a little, but you don’t hold it against her.

  “Be careful,” she says, grinning, “There’s a water-thing ‘round that spout that’ll suck the air from your flames.”

  You can’t light a cigarette all day to save your life. But you like her, you can’t help it, and every day you drop a few quarters her way, shy, flustered, grateful.

  “Be careful,” she says, one day, and the candy in her eyes is rock-hard, “there are faces in the stone walls, watching, waiting for you to turn your back before pouncing.”

  You freeze. You can’t look at anything but her solemn face, until she stands up, tips the coins out of her cap and into your palm, pats your shoulder seriously.

  “You need the change,” she says, settling the cap on her honey hair. “Be careful. It’s time to go.”

  She reaches out her hand, and you take it.

  DAY 23

  Tart Cherry Creamed Honey

  Colour: The colour of quince syrup: a
dark beautiful red amber.

  Smell: I wonder what it is about creaming honey that produces that unpleasantness? All the creamed ones have had it so far, an odd body-like odour that I’m coming to realise promises deliciousness. There’s a sharpness to this one too, though, a hint of pine resin.

  Taste: Cherries steeped in syrup or wine.

  There’s music around her when she moves towards him, determined, lips numb and cheeks flushed. She’s watched him all evening, heard him laugh, memorised the cadence of his speech, waited for it. She’s been drinking cherry cordial, pretending to listen to the words addressed to her, smiling when appropriate, nodding her head. But the night is almost over now, and she walks towards him.

  His hair is black, his skin is pale. He’s like something out of a storybook, she thinks, and she wants him to speak to her, wants to meet his eyes, wants to dazzle him with her cleverness, with her kohl-lined eyes and short skirt and the strength of her want.

  I will take you, she will say, to a place you’ve never been, because I know, I can tell, that you’ve never known eyes like mine. I will take you to a corner as dark as it is quiet and I will tell you the story of a pale-skinned boy who dreamt of a girl with eyes like mine, and it will enchant you like a song heard at midnight by a jasmine-petaled pool. You will hear it and you will see me by the story’s light, you will want my lips at your ear and my words against your skin, and you will tell me I taste of cherry cordial and I will tell you how you smell of tobacco and molasses and we will leave together, we will leave hand in hand and discover each other one new word at a time.

  She approaches him. He laughs, as he has been laughing all evening, but this time he looks at her as he does it. He looks at her and he laughs, and she meets his eyes as he does, and his laughter breaks her thoughts to pieces. Her lips part without sound, meet again; she cannot move. She closes her eyes, steps back, steps away, turns towards the door, and purse in hand she pushes it open and walks out into the night.