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The snow was knee-deep around the house, but thinner on the path by the stream. The day was bright and the beekeeper kept to the flat ground, took the long way round to the old bridge and the track that led to the village. It was dull-cold under the blue shadow of the poplars, and the old man walked carefully with two sticks but still fell. Feet sliding on rocks hidden by the snow, knees giving way beneath him.
His hands were raw, legs and trousers torn when he got to the track. The old man breathed a minute or two, bent forward, leaning on his sticks, and when he raised his head to start walking again, he saw he was not alone.
Men up ahead, two of them, with an ox and cart, laden with wood for burning. One wheel was caught in the frozen, rutted track and their voices were loud, words blurted like curses. The beekeeper raised a stick, waving it in the bright air to draw their attention, and when the tall man at the ox’s head held an arm up in greeting, he started on his limping journey towards them.
The second man came round the back of the cart, watching him.
– The bee man.
– Come through the winter then.
The cold air was still and clear and the beekeeper could hear their conversation, the note of surprise at his survival, could feel the weight of their curious eyes on him. Wishing to make the encounter as brief as possible, he started to explain, calling before he got to them.
– I have the missing child. In my house.
The men looked at him. His voice was hoarse, it caught in his throat. He thought they mustn’t have heard him.
– The boy.
The words scratched at the cold air and the men said nothing. He stopped, still a couple of paces away from them.
– He is small and his hair is long. Came the same day as the snow and he is sick now. Should go back to his people.
The old man shifted his bony feet, could feel the icy track through the soles of his boots. The sun was bright and the two men had their hands raised, shielding their eyes.
– There is no boy missing from the village.
– Are you sure he is one of ours?
– He’s in my house. I found him.
– But he is not from the village. We have no child missing.
The tall man repeated himself, face drawn into a brief frown, like a question. The other man laughed.
– You found him, he’s yours I say. We’ve more than enough already.
The beekeeper looked at him, wanted him to come and take the child away but couldn’t find the words to tell him. Not one of theirs. He waited, but the tall man didn’t speak again: he patted his ox, took hold of its head to guide it, and the laughing man turned away, too. Steadied the load as the cart lurched over the rut and on. Nodded farewell, rolling away from the beekeeper, back towards the village.
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– Where do you come from?
The sky was darkening when the old man returned, and the boy awake under the straw.
– You are not from the village. Where do you come from?
But the child did not answer: only closed his eyes again.
The day turned to quiet, moonless dark and the beekeeper coaxed the fire back to life. Washed the cuts on his legs first and bound them, then cooked up a pot of gruel: enough for two and some left over for the morning. When he looked up, the child was standing. Arm wrapped tight around his rags, eyes fixed hard on the door, he seemed to be listening.
– What is it?
The old man took the pot off the fire and waited. It came again, the wail and yell, outside, somewhere deep in the centre of the valley. The old man whispered:
– Fox.
And then:
– Sounds human, yes?
The boy looked at him, grey eyes unblinking, and the beekeeper was not sure that he understood him. The fox cried again, and the old man pulled on boots, a blanket over his shoulders, went out into the cold. Beside the house, the coop door lay slanted, the fowl inside easy prey for a hungry fox in a winter-bound valley. The old man righted the panel, fixing it firmly, scolding himself for his carelessness: it should be he, not the boy, who was watchful.
The child was lying by the fire again when he came back in. The old man stirred the embers to warm him, took a fistful of dried berries from the jar by the far wall: something sweet, a small reward for the boy to chew on. He heard the fox a few more times as he cooked and again later while they were eating. The beekeeper watched, but the boy did not look up from his food, and the noise retreated back further into the valley.
The light died off slowly from the fire, the fox was gone, and the old man was aware of the wide emptiness around his house, and of not being alone. He lay down for the first time since the boy came, on his own straw bed, on the other side of the embers. Still uncertain of being too close to the child, but the comfort of company was unexpected, soothing.
A memory came, unbidden, before he slept: of the spring when his father had stung him. He couldn’t say now how old he was then; just about the same size, perhaps, as the boy in the straw before him.
After the frosts had gone, his father carried a small handful of bees back to the house each morning, and his mother stood him at the door to watch his father coming. For weeks they followed the same routine: his bare arm gripped by his mother’s hands, bee pinched tight by father’s fingers and pressed against his skin. Mother let him cry, father waited, then scratched the sting out of the blister with the long curl of his thumbnail. The burning welts on his arm, the hot sickness that came with them, closing down fast on eyes and throat; the same the next day, and on those that followed. Until the blisters stopped coming, and there was no pain any longer, no nausea, and he pulled the full comb from the hives for the first time that autumn.
The old man lay on the edge of dreams, planning. His father had more than doubled his stocks back then, and now he could do the same. Breed new queens, build more hives: it would be hard, but four hands could do five times the work of two; he had learned that from his father. The winter had been fierce, too long, and so perhaps he had been right, the laughing villager: the boy had come to him, his now, a gift from the valley.
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But in the morning, the boy’s fever had returned, his sick breath coming fast and shallow. Afraid, the old man sweetened cool water with honey, lifted the boy’s head, fed him in spoonfuls. He could see the small throat leap with each mouthful: restless eyes under blue lids, shuddering heart inside the narrow chest.
The beekeeper cursed his idle dreams; the child was sick, not apprentice, or heir: he didn’t belong here. Still pale as the winter grass and he still smelled cold, like wind and river. The old man had been caring, feeding and warming for days now, but the boy was getting no better. His eyes were dull, limbs weak, and he cried while he was sleeping.
The beekeeper went over and over the events of the first morning: he had a dying child on his hands, could allow himself no more illusions. The boy came from the direction of the western slopes. The old man had never been beyond the valley, but he reasoned to himself that the boy’s people must live there, over the far rise, perhaps a whole village. Where there is one child there is usually another and with them come fathers and mothers. They might be looking for him now, or have given him up for lost when the snow came.
There was grey light under the door, wind coming through the cracks in the wood, but it was not cold. Outside, the thaw had started, water dripping from the eaves as the day gathered. The old man boiled eggs for the child in case of hunger, told the sleeping form he would be back with help as soon as he was able. His people, beyond the western slopes, they would not know to come here and get their boy. It would be quicker if he went to them.
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The far hills were still snow-bound but the valley was softening. The old man walked north along the stream, which sang with new water from the thaw. His legs were bound tight with rags, and the going was easier than the last time; the snow not so deep now, patches of brownish grass and earth coloured the lo
w banks. Soon he could see the mossy bridge, still frosted white, and the straggly copse, somewhere beyond which lay the common lands, the village. Late morning, he began to cut across country, retracing the boy’s steps across the floor of the valley.
In his mind’s eye a journey, a lifetime ago, with his father. A warm day, early autumn, and a runner had come panting to fetch the bee-man to the village. Had taken them out to the orchard where a swarm had descended, so heavy it had bent the branches of the fruit trees. The beekeeper remembered leaves brushing the grass below, and the almighty, ten-thousand-fold hum, mesmerising, thrilling. Women and children locked in their houses, men with tight faces watching from behind the orchard wall, keeping their distance. His father, tall, a shadow over his long features, laid a wide strip of linen in the grass, and then waited. The bees crawled along the white cloth, covering it slowly with their thick, black bristling. Teeming to the empty hive, which was lying open and ready, walls smeared with honey.
His father had taken the money: he had been paid handsomely, but he did not seem pleased. They did not carry the hive up to the beeches as he had expected, did not take the new colony and set it up beside the others. Instead, they drove the cart away from the village along the stream, stopping at the place where the rocky banks levelled off, and the flow was deep.
He did as he was told, stayed alone in the cart, watching. While his father took the full hive, the bees trapped inside, and held them under the water.
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Shaken by the memory, the old man stood still. He had started up the slow rise of the western slopes, but could not walk again for a good few minutes. Only when he realised how late it had become did he force himself on again. There was no sun visible to judge time by, but it was certainly well after noon: the light weaker than before, the day less convincing. The slope was steep, hurt the old man’s lungs. He stopped more often, tried to keep his breathing even, but still to keep going. Could see the last swell of ground now, which would take him out of the valley. His fingers were dead-white, gripped around his sticks, and he didn’t like to look at them. Nor at the clouds over the brow of the hill, heavy with rain to come. He hoped the boy’s village would be close. That they might feed him there, drive him home, or offer a bed to rest on.
No trees at the top, no shelter, but then nothing to obscure his view, either. He looked for plumes of smoke from stoves and chimneys, or for low clumps of houses, strips of cultivated land, for walls and fences. The sky was grey and low over the unfamiliar country, rolling on for days in all directions. The old man stood and held in his rasping breath, watching for signs of life in the land ahead.
Wind, treetops, water, clouds. No human movement or human sound.
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The rain came, swallowed the land, the old man. He was not strong now, let it take hold of him. Was aware, after some time, of having left the bone-jarring slope behind, of being back on the flat plain of the valley. He did not look for a marker to fix his course, but kept his head down, face out of the pelting rain, eyes almost closed.
His thoughts circled, uncontrolled: the empty land beyond the valley, the child in his house that had come from nowhere. Could no longer picture the boy’s face, his form, only grass and rain: sought him out and now he was gone from him again.
The storm was above, but the old man’s sticks found the ground ahead and he did not falter. He felt little in these hours, not cold or wet, nor pain or hunger. He saw the bees held under by his father’s hands, spoke a few words aloud as he stumbled.
– Old stock. Too late in the season. They would have died anyway: too weak to suffer the winter.
Soon the light would fail and he was too slow now to make it home before nightfall. He thought of his own bees, under the beeches, waiting for the warmer weather. Then of the dream he had, the day the boy came: no fear, just a slight figure on the ground in front of the hives, sleeping. The rain let up, and he could see the first low rise ahead, the familiar trees on the grey horizon.
The day was almost gone when he reached the clearing. There was no snow by the hives, the ground was dry, and while the wind touched the tops of the trees, below them it was still. Just warm enough for his bees to be flying.
The old man watched the small bodies navigate the outside air, listened to the strange barking sound of his breath. He filled his lungs, but his heart could not find its familiar rhythm. He moved in closer to the hives, standing between them, letting their comforting hum surround him.
No blossom yet, but his bees were busy, bringing out their winter dead. Small carcasses on the dark earth before the hives. He laid himself down beside them.
The Crossing
He has been there since dawn; head down, keeping pace with them.
Marta can see for miles along the broad riverbank, and she has kept one eye on his progress all morning, urging her children on, hoping they haven’t seen him. Marta is frightened. They were making headway till they hit the river. Every hour’s delay brings danger closer. And now the man. She has been walking her family along the wide surge of water since late yesterday afternoon. The anger from the east at their backs, she has kept them moving, one eye behind her, the other on the thick swirls of current churning the water slowly over and under.
Pressing on, praying for a way across, Marta carries her baby at her chest and a bundle tied to her back. Her eldest child, a daughter, walks in front of her with their bag, and her young twin boys walk behind. The river defences have been damaged in the fighting and Marta can hear the boys’ boots squelch in the marshy ground, tramping in step with one another, in step with her. The grass is long, the going uneven: they walk as if they are wading already. Moving on in silence, below the line of the flood barrier, level with the water, parallel with safety on the other side.
She looks back at the man and he is still there: no closer, no further away, but with his head up, now. Watching. White smudge of face under a black hat.
Marta drops her pace momentarily, ushers her sons past her, putting herself between her children and the stranger.
If she keeps pushing, Marta thinks they can stay ahead of him for another hour, maybe two. He will give up. Drop back. There will be a way across the water.
Up ahead she sees a bridge. The tall pillars are still upright in the slow current, but nothing connects them: bombed and the remains washed away. Marta helps her children up onto the road that rises steeply to the bridge. She reasons with herself, fights down the disappointment. There must be another, further along there will be another.
– We’ll keep going.
The twins run up the slope and stand at the edge where the road stops and twisted fingers of metal poke out of the blasted concrete. They lie on their stomachs, heads dangling over the edge, calling down to the water. Their laughter throws echoes around the tall columns, and Marta is afraid the man can hear them. They have slowed down: he could be in earshot now. Doesn’t want to draw any attention to them, not out here where there is no one to help them and no way of knowing what might happen. She walks with Ani her daughter, holding the baby close, calling to her sons.
– We’re not stopping.
But now Ani isn’t moving. She is pointing and pulling at her mother’s arm.
– There’s a man.
Marta knows he has gained on them before she has even looked round. Less than one hundred metres now, still walking, looking straight ahead, breaking into a run. Marta can see the mud on his trouser cuffs. Yellow on black wool.
The twins run down to their mother, oblivious to the man, who is almost at the bridge now, white wrists reaching long and thin from his black sleeves. He is speaking, but Marta can’t hear what he’s saying. He should be shouting if he wants us to hear.
The twins are excited; they rush at their mother.
– We could swim it, Mama.
– It’s not very deep.
Marta pulls them sharply off the road; eyes fixed on the stranger, walking her family away from him, daughter behind her, arm
s around her boys. She wants to turn, but there is only the rise of the road between them, and she can hear what he says now.
– It’s not deep. I’ve done it.
But Marta doesn’t hear the words. Only the accent. Heart in her mouth.
– I’ve been across here before.
The familiar rhythm. One of us. The relief makes Marta shake.
The stranger stops on the road. Still talking, still breathless. His neck is long and thin, and his head is bony. Full of black teeth, white gums. A hard mouth but a voice like home.
– It’s a good place to swim.
The stranger looks at Marta, smiles and nods. His eyes are dark. Friendly. His voice is right, but still she keeps away. He wears boots bound in rags, and Marta can smell him, his sour breath and skin.
– We’ll walk on.
She gathers her children again; urging them further down the slope along the riverbank; away from the broken pillars, the road, the man.
– We’ll find the next bridge.
Marta’s palms are pressed flat against the backs of her twins, pushing, her legs straining under the weight of the baby, the days spent walking, the bundle on her back.
– They bombed all the bridges.
The voice is polite, still breathless, but gentle. Like the eyes. The man stays where he is at the water’s edge, standing, watching the departing family. Marta looks round at him, and he smiles, then squats down and puts his hands in the water. Marta pushes her children on.
– The river turns further up. You’ll be walking east again soon.
Marta stops. Her heart turns over. Her daughter has hold of her arm.
– I don’t want to swim, Mama.
The twins push at her sides, two sets of eyes fixed on the man at the shore.
– It’s not deep. Tell her, Mama.
– We saw the bottom.
Field Study Page 8
