The Beekeeper's Ball: Bella Vista Chronicles Book 2

by Susan Wiggs

  “Yes. I have enjoyed much good fortune in my life.”

  It was a startling statement, given what little Mac knew of the man. Magnus Johansen had lost his family in the war, and had outlived his only son and his wife. He had survived a head injury not so long ago. And yet here he stood, elderly but still proud, beaming at his granddaughters. Mac was suddenly more interested in Magnus, anxious to find out how the man had endured all that, yet could still call himself lucky.

  “So,” said Magnus. “We must get to know one another.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “I’ve read some of your books. I’m honored that you’re going to be writing about me. I warn you, though. I have a very long story to tell.”

  Mac’s gaze kept straying to Isabel. She clearly didn’t like him, and despite what his libido was telling him, he didn’t like her, either. Still, there was something about her, not just the slender ankles and the pretty dark hair, but some vibe that drew him, even as he told himself she was a complication he didn’t need in his life.

  “I’ve got time,” he said.

  Chapter Five

  “So how do you prepare for your first interview with your subject?” asked Isabel the next morning.

  After dragging himself out of bed, Mac needed coffee, not questions. He noticed a soft hissing sound coming from the espresso machine. “So that magic cappuccino you made me yesterday—was that a one-time event or can I get another?”

  “Depends on how you ask.”

  “Please. Begging here. Charge me anything you like. Put it on my tab.”

  “I might just do that.” She didn’t smile, but her eyes were light as she ground some coffee beans into a one-shot filter.

  Mac inhaled the aroma and watched her expertly pull the shot and then steam the milk with a wand. He liked watching her work, each movement economical, efficient. He liked watching her, period. What the hell? If he was going to be stuck in paradise for a while, he might as well enjoy the view.

  “You and Grandfather can have coffee on the patio, and then get to work on your project. It’s quiet out there until the workmen arrive. After that, he can show you more of Bella Vista.”

  “Thanks. Will you and Tess be joining us?”

  She hesitated, glanced back over her shoulder at him. “It’s Grandfather’s story.”

  “You’re part of it. Just figured you might want to hear what he has to say.”

  “Oh. Well, I suppose....”

  “Sure we do,” said Tess, coming into the kitchen. She was wearing some crazy headpiece, a white net thing with a big fake flower made of feathers. Noticing his stare, she said, “Do you like my fascinator?”

  It looked weirdly similar to Isabel’s beekeeping veil. “Your what?”

  “My fascinator. I’m trying out different looks for the wedding.” She turned her head this way and that. Tess was a pretty woman—and who didn’t like a redhead—but the lopsided headgear didn’t do much for her.

  “I never give fashion advice before I’ve had my morning coffee,” he said.

  Isabel set a perfect bowl-shaped cup of cappuccino in front of him. “Good answer.”

  “Bless you,” he said, savoring the first creamy sip.

  Tess picked up a painted serving tray. “Let me help you carry.”

  “Thanks.” Isabel held the door leading out to the patio. Mac followed with his coffee and his cane, and a satchel of files and photographs he’d stayed up late studying last night. Magnus sat at a wrought iron and tile table with his coffee, the two cats swirling around his ankles. “Grandfather, is it all right if we join you for a bit?”

  “Of course. Particularly since you’ve brought sustenance.” He eyed the tray of food.

  It looked like a food magazine layout, featuring a variety of cheeses with fresh berries on brightly painted Italian pottery, and a tiny glass container of honey with the smallest spoon he’d ever seen.

  Isabel laced a thread of honey across the cheeses. “These are my favorite honey and cheese pairings. Comté, Appenzeller and ricotta. I had my first honey harvest last summer—a small one. That’s when I realized I needed expert help with my beekeeping.”

  “Sorry I wasn’t your guy,” said Mac.

  “Please, sit down and let’s enjoy the morning.” Magnus gestured at the chairs.

  It was all Mac could do not to wolf down the whole snack tray. But he’d been trained by the best, his redoubtable mother, who had taught her six sons diplomatic protocol and etiquette as if it were her job. He made himself a small plate, sipped his coffee and settled in, curious to find out more about Magnus, his beauteous granddaughters and the place they called home.

  Magnus smoothed his weather-beaten hands over the legs of his trousers. “So. Here we all are. It is hard to conceive of, my life in a book. I don’t know where to begin.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mac said. “Whatever crosses your mind.”

  “Bella Vista,” Magnus said without hesitation. “This place is always on my mind. Perhaps I even imagined it before I realized it was quite real.” He flexed his fingers, resting them on his knees, and said, “When I was a boy in Denmark, we would go to the cinema on Saturday afternoons, and naturally my favorites were the films about cowboys and Indians in the Wild West. I always envisioned America as this vast, unsettled land, a place of endless opportunity. It never looked like this in the picture show. My schoolmates and I yearned to come here, but I never thought I would. It was more like a place of dreams.”

  In an odd way, Mac could relate. He, too, had grown up far from the States, and he, too, had been drawn to its larger-than-life, practically mythic aspect. His impressions had been formed by watching old VHS tapes of Nickelodeon series. Instead of the Wild West of Magnus’s imagination, he had been filled with mental pictures of schools populated by perky girls with ponytails, a row of candy-colored lockers and stern but good-hearted teachers capable of solving a spunky kid’s problems before each thirty-minute segment was up.

  “Do you recall when you made the decision to come here?” Isabel asked.

  The old man rested his hands atop his cane. “There was no decision. It was an act of desperation. And survival.”

  Mac put his phone on the table. “I’ve got a digital recorder app. Do you mind?”

  “No, of course not. That is why you’re here.”

  From the corner of his eye, Mac could see Isabel stiffen, but then she settled back and waited quietly.

  “It was not something my family aspired to or wanted for me. We would have been content to live out our lives in Denmark. We—my parents, my grandfather and myself—were comfortable in Copenhagen,” said Magnus. “We had all that we needed. We weren’t wealthy, though we were certainly comfortable. My father worked as a civil servant. My mother kept house, and her passion was for growing things. She prized her apple trees, and the whole neighborhood loved the Gravensteins she cultivated. Not the most beautiful fruit ever to grace the table, but surely the tastiest.”

  He leaned back in the chair, his pale eyes looking into a past Mac could only imagine. “I was but a boy when the Nazis arrested them and took them away. A youngster still in his school years doesn’t get to decide anything, least of all whether or not to emigrate to America. It was all I could do to avoid getting caught myself.”

  “Do you know why they were arrested?”

  “For harboring a Jewish man and his daughter. My uncle Sweet and little cousin Eva. We weren’t really related, of course, but that is the story we gave out.”

  “Eva...the woman you eventually married.”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling at Isabel. “My Eva. Although in 1940, when she first came to live with us at the house in Copenhagen, I considered her a pest. Sweet was born a Dane, same as my father, but his wife was a member of the chalutzim—that is the Hebr
ew term for pioneers. Thousands of them came to Denmark from eastern Europe or Germany, and they were welcomed by the Danish and by King Christian. They had come for agricultural training, the goal being to eventually move to Palestine. But Sweet’s wife had no interest in farming.” Magnus’s mouth turned briefly into a curl of disgust. “She wanted only to be rich and comfortable, and she believed Sweet would give her that. He didn’t seem to care for money, though. He was a photographer, and a good one at that. He turned the basement of our house into a darkroom.”

  “So he took these pictures?” Mac opened a file folder to four fading snapshots, turning them so Magnus and the two sisters could see.

  Magnus nodded. “Yes, I brought one large case along when I came to America after the war, and those photographs were tucked into the lining.”

  “Talk about life in Copenhagen at the start of the occupoation. What was it like, having another family living with you?”

  “At first, life still seemed...normal. Routine. From my perspective as an only child, it was good fun having a playmate. Yes, it was routine, until Sweet and Eva disappeared into the night.”

  “Were they warned that there was going to be a roundup of the Jews?” asked Mac.

  “You’ve done some reading, then,” said Magnus. “But in fact, some years later, in the autumn of 1943. No, the reason Eva and her father had to leave was that the Germans found out my father’s greatest secret.”

  Secrets seemed to run in this family, Mac thought, looking from one sister to the other, two beautiful but very different women who hadn’t known each other while growing up.

  “What precipitated their leaving, then?” Mac asked Magnus.

  “An agent affiliated with the Danish underground was caught and tortured. We had to assume the operation was compromised. Eva and her father had to leave in secret well in advance of the official action. They were sent up to a small coastal town called Helsingør—you would know it as Elsinore, from the Shakespeare play. Shortly after that, the soldiers came to search the house, but by that time, there was nothing to find. The Nazis were furious that the tip-off failed to yield any results, and they took my parents in for questioning.”

  Now Magnus closed his eyes and held himself very still, so still that Mac thought he might’ve drifted off to sleep. He exchanged a glance with Isabel. She sat unmoving, her fingers braided together, tense.

  Then Magnus opened his eyes. “I never saw them again. From that night onward, I was on my own. Which is my long-winded way of explaining what I meant when I said I didn’t make a decision of any sort about my own future. I simply reacted, determined to survive, as any wild animal might do. I lived by my wits—or lack thereof—from day to day. So in that sense, it wasn’t a decision that brought me to America. It was happenstance—and sheer blind luck, although I do not recall feeling at all lucky that day.”

  He shook his head, paused to sample the honeyed cheese with some bread. “From today’s perspective, it is easy to look back and deride ourselves for not seeing the storm coming. But you understand, we were simply Danes, living our lives and going about our business. It was quite some time before I even grasped that there was a division between Jews and Gentiles. We were all Danes first. Denmark did not force Jews to register their property, or to identify themselves, and God knows, they were never made to give up their homes and businesses.”

  “That came later, didn’t it?” said Tess, regarding him with soft-eyed sympathy. She reached up and took the feather thing out of her hair and set it aside.

  “It all came about gradually as the Germans tightened their control. They broke their promises one by one, replacing each edict with another. The Germans even claimed the Jews of Scandinavia would not be included in their Final Solution. But by that time, everyone knew that was a lie.”

  PART TWO

  “For the bee, honey is the ultimate reality. It represents the fulfillment of her life mission, the triumph over her enemies, the continuity of the hive, the justification for working herself to death. Honey is to bees what money in the bank is to people—a measure of prosperity and well-being. But there is nothing abstract or symbolic about honey, as there is about money, which has no intrinsic value. There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world’s real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance.”

  —William Longgood, The Queen Must Die

  Summer Fruit with Honey Dressing

  * * *

  If possible, get the ingredients at your local farmer’s market. Food tastes better when you know where it comes from.

  * * *

  ⅓ cup honey

  ⅓ cup lemon or lime juice

  6 fresh mint leaves, finely snipped

  2 cups melon cubes

  2 cups green seedless grapes

  1 cup fresh blueberries

  1 cup fresh pineapple chunks

  * * *

  Use a whisk or hand mixer to whip the honey until it turns thick and opaque. Add the lemon or lime, then stir in the mint leaves. Combine the fruit in a large glass or pottery bowl. Pour the honey mixture over and stir gently to coat. Serve immediately with a clear flute of sparkling water or Prosecco.

  [Source: Original]

  Chapter Six

  Copenhagen, 1940

  “Here, let me fix your hair again.” Magnus’s mother licked the palm of her hand and smoothed it over his head. “This cowlick will not be tamed.”

  He gritted his teeth, enduring the grooming in order to get the picture taking over with quicker.

  “Goodness,” Mama said, “you’re taller than me all of a sudden. When did that happen?”

  “He’s going to be taller than all of us,” said Farfar, his grandfather, reaching out to straighten Magnus’s tie. Even though it wasn’t a Sunday, they were all wearing their Sunday best. The starched and creased collar cut into his neck.

  Uncle Sweet had set up a big cube-shaped black camera on a tripod, its accordion-fold lens aimed at the apple tree in the backyard, where they were gathering for the family portrait. Sweet wasn’t really Magnus’s uncle, and Sweet’s daughter, Eva, wasn’t really Magnus’s cousin. Yet Magnus had long known him as Uncle Sweet. His real name was Sigur, but everyone called him Sweet. Papa said they’d come up through school together as boyhood friends, the way Magnus was with Kiki Rasmussen, his best mate.

  Sweet was a photographer, making his living by taking pictures of people and buildings. He used to have a studio and picture laboratory in Strøget, but he closed up shop soon after the Germans invaded Denmark and overran the city. Papa said this was because Uncle Sweet was Jewish.

  “All together, now,” he said, motioning Magnus and his parents and Farfar to their places under the tree. “You, too, Eva. How pretty you look, with those ribbons in your hair.”

  Unlike Magnus, Eva seemed to like getting all dressed up. She preened as she stood next to him. Then Uncle Sweet got into the picture, and fired the shutter with a button on a cable attached to the camera. He repeated this several times until he was satisfied.

  “Good work, everyone,” he declared, clapping his hands. He had a funny grin and dark hair that stuck out over his ears. Magnus had always thought he looked like a tall, skinny clown. “I’ll go to the basement and process the plates. Eva, hang up your good clothes and finish putting your things away in your new room.”

  “Yes, Poppy.” Flipping back her fat, dark pigtails, she followed him into the house.

  Papa had explained to Magnus that Uncle Sweet and Eva had been put out of their house, and were coming to live with them. For safety’s sake, they had to pretend they truly were family. The photograph was meant to promote the illusion. It would be displayed on Mama’s pianoforte, along with the other family pictures.

  “How long will t
hey stay with us?” Magnus asked his mother.

  “For as long as they need to, I would imagine.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “That poor little girl. I don’t know what her mother can be thinking, abandoning her family.”

  Sweet had a beautiful wife named Katya, but Magnus had always thought her a bit strange. She rarely joined in the picnics and parties with Magnus’s family, and she was always complaining that Sweet didn’t make enough money. She loved pretty things and said he never bought her enough of them.

  “Does that mean Eva’s mother won’t be coming to live with us?”

  Mama looked as if she’d tasted something sour. “No, she will not. She ran off with a German officer.”

  “Why do you say she ran off?” he asked his mother. “Last week, Kiki and I saw her through the window of the Crown Prince tea room, and she wasn’t running.”

  “It’s just an expression,” Mama said. “It means she no longer chooses to be with her family.” Her mouth turned even harder and more disapproving.

  “Because the German officer can give her fancy things so she would rather be with him,” Magnus concluded, repeating a snippet of gossip he’d heard.

  “As I said, I don’t know what she must be thinking. Just don’t speak of it in front of Uncle Sweet and Eva. It makes Eva very sad.”

  “I would never say anything,” Magnus promised. He tried to imagine what it would be like, seeing his mother with some stranger, and a German at that. The very idea made his skin crawl.

  * * *

  Uncle Sweet had turned the basement into his workshop and laboratory. Magnus was fascinated by his collection of cameras, big and small, and by the workings of the darkroom. Sometimes Sweet would let him watch as he created a print, the image appearing onto the paper in the chemical bath, like a ghost emerging from another world. Most of the pictures commemorated life’s events—marriages and birthdays, new babies and commencements. Some of his clients had their pictures made with horses or dogs, or surrounded by gardens.