by Maja Lunde
“It’s here. This is where he is,” she said.
She stood there, uncertainly. Then she retreated.
“You can go in alone.”
I put my hand on the door. The metal was surprisingly cold against my skin, I pulled my hand back momentarily. The palm of my hand left behind a damp mark in the midst of all the sterility. Then I opened it.
I stepped into a dimly lit room. Scarcely registered that Kuan followed behind me. It took time to get accustomed to the darkness. I almost butted into a pane of glass that ran from the floor to the ceiling just one meter away from the door. Behind it lay a simply furnished hospital room. A closet. A bed. A bedside table of steel. Bare walls. A bed.
Empty.
The bed was empty.
The room was empty. He wasn’t there.
I stormed out into the corridor again, but then came to a sudden halt. There was Dr. Hio with another doctor. They were speaking quickly and whispering. The other doctor leaned towards her, rigid and fuming. Reprimanding.
Kuan followed behind me, remained standing there as well.
“Where is he?” I said loudly.
The doctor spun around towards us and suddenly fell silent. Tall, thin, pale. Restless hands that he pushed down into the pockets of his coat.
“Your son is unfortunately no longer here. He has been discharged.”
“What?”
“Transferred.”
“Transferred? To where?”
“To . . .” His eyes still didn’t meet mine. “Beijing.”
“Beijing?!”
“As you have perhaps been told, we are still unsure of what has afflicted your son. It was therefore decided that he would be in better hands with a special team.” Kuan said nothing, just nodded.
“No,” I said.
“What?” Finally the doctor looked at me.
“No. You can’t just send him away.”’
“We haven’t sent him away. We have sent him to the best specialists. You should be grateful . . .”
“But why hasn’t anyone told us anything? Why couldn’t we go with him?”
The same thing all over again. First Mother. Now him. Taken away from me, without any explanation.
“Which hospital is he in?”
“You will be informed.”
“Now!”
“If you will just go home, we will give you more information soon.”
I had reached my limit. I no longer had the strength to be reasonable, controlled, sensible. My voice rose, became sharp. “Take me to my son now! Take me to him!”
In two steps I was beside the doctor and grabbed his shoulders. “I want to see my child. Do you understand?”
The blood rushed to my head, my cheeks became damp, I tried shaking him, and he just stood there, in disbelief.
Then somebody took hold of me and held me tightly, took hold around my arms, paralyzed me, making me just as incapacitated as he was himself. Kuan. Obedient, now like he always was.
We didn’t speak on the train home. The trip took almost three hours. We had to change trains. And go through two checkpoints. A fingerprint check and many questions. Who were we? Where did we live? Where were we going? Where had we been? Kuan answered all of the questions calmly; I could not fathom how he managed it. As if he were himself. But at the same time, he wasn’t. I met his gaze once; unfamiliar eyes stared back at me. I turned away.
We traveled the final stretch on foot. We were just a hundred meters from our house when we became aware of the helicopters circling above us. The loud clattering rose and descended. At first I thought they were right above our house, but when we came closer, I saw that they were flying over the fields, over the pear trees. Over the forest.
We turned the corner and stopped. There, in front of our house, where the fields began, stood all of our colleagues, all of them in work uniforms. They had been interrupted in their work and they stood around passively in a small group. Some still held pruning shears and baskets for debris in their hands. They were quiet, just stood there looking in astonishment at the area in front of us. In the distance I could make out the hill where we had eaten lunch. Behind it lay the wild forest. The air above the trees was full of different aircraft, and in front of us, a wall of silently moving tanks passed by, a wall between us and the field out there. Behind the tanks soldiers were working. They were in the process of putting up tall white tarpaulin fencing, several hundred meters long. They worked quickly and efficiently, said nothing. I heard only the thudding sounds as they pounded the poles down into the ground. Beyond the soldiers, behind the fence, I could discern figures wearing full-body suits with helmets. Protected from something out there.
GEORGE
I couldn’t fall asleep. The pitchfork was still there vibrating in my heart after my conversation with Tom, his words rattled around in my head, again and again. Received a scholarship, won’t cost you a cent, John’s taken care of everything.
Emma lay quietly beside me, breathing almost without a sound. Her face was smooth. She looked younger when she was sleeping. It was almost rude, that she could lie there like that and just sleep while I lay beside her struggling.
A bulb out in the yard blinked. One of the floodlights was about to go out, or perhaps there was something wrong with the wiring. The flickering became a disco light. A strobe light flashing through the window penetrated my eyelids. I pulled the duvet over my head, but it didn’t help, it just got even harder to get the air down into my lungs.
Finally I got up, tried to adjust the curtains, was able to cover up the crack on the side where the light came in.
But it wasn’t enough. The light flickered through the curtain, too. Maybe Emma was right about how we should get some of those completely lightproof blackout things. She’d shown me some in a magazine, they looked like ordinary window shades. But that would have to be later. Now the light had to be repaired. Right now. It couldn’t possibly take long, a simple and manageable job, something that could be fixed quickly. I actually needed to fix the light in order to sleep.
It was a warm night. I didn’t put on my jacket, just went out wearing the T-shirt I’d worn to bed. Nobody saw me anyway.
The light was hung high up on the wall, I had to get a ladder. I went to the barn, lifted the longest one down off the wall, walked out, put it in place, checked that it was stable and climbed up.
The glass dome over the bulb was good and stuck. Couldn’t be budged. It was hot, too. Just warm enough that I managed to hold on to it, but not for too long at a time. I tried with my T-shirt, held the dome inside the fabric while I twisted, but it didn’t work. Finally I pulled off my T-shirt.
The bulb flickered at irregular intervals, erratically. Wouldn’t surprise me if there was a problem with the switch. Emma objected every time I did electrical work myself, but honestly, electricians charge you just for looking at them. They must be raking it in—maybe that’s what one should have become. Or maybe that was what Tom should have become. Would have been much better, a short education, well paid.
Scholarship. Won’t cost you a cent. John’s taken care of everything.
It was a disappointment, but not enough to scare me.
There I was, bare-chested, wearing boxer shorts, socks and shoes on my feet and twisting the dirty light dome. Finally it loosened. I held it and the T-shirt in my left hand while I tried to attack the bulb.
“Dammit!”
It was burning hot to the touch. I had to climb down again with the dome, put it on the ground and then go up again. Luckily the bulb was easily unscrewed. But it occurred to me that if the problem was with the voltage, perhaps the entire light should be taken down, the entire socket. Leaving it like this was a fire hazard. It could not possibly be all that difficult.
Back into the barn to find my tools. Up the ladder again.
I hated cross-head screws. It didn’t take more than a few turns before the cross-head had become a hole that the screwdriver just spun around in, unable to get a gri
p. And these four were of the extrastubborn, rusty variety. But I was even more stubborn. Wouldn’t give up, not this guy, no sir.
I leaned in and screwed away with all of my might.
Finally all four were out. The light was still stuck to the wall, painted into place. But that much I would manage, a little resistance didn’t scare me. So I grabbed hold and shook away.
It came loose. Just the wires dangled there in its wake, sticking out of the wall like earthworms. I poked at one with my finger.
“Hell!”
The shock wasn’t strong enough to knock me off balance. Not by itself. But in the other hand I held the socket and screwdriver. And the ladder wasn’t particularly stable, either.
I lay on the ground. Don’t know if I’d passed out as I fell. Had an unclear image of the ladder swaying midair, with me on top, like some cartoon character. I became aware of pain in several parts of my body, it hurt like hell.
Way up there I could see the wires creeping along the wall, downwards, towards me. I focused. They came to rest.
Then Emma’s face appeared. Pale with sleep and her hair tousled.
“Oh, George.”
“It was the light.”
She lifted her head and discovered the wires splaying out of the hole in the wall.
I sat up. Slowly. My body responded, luckily. Nothing broken. And the light was down. I’d done it.
She nodded towards the ladder.
“Did you have to take care of that in the middle of the night?” She extended her hand towards me, pulled me up. “Couldn’t it wait?”
I took a couple of steps. My leg ached, but I tried not to show how much it hurt. Should be embarrassed, but was actually just relieved that I had fixed it. I was a stubborn devil. Not the kind to take off when the going got tough.
She handed me the T-shirt. I was about to pull it down over my head.
“Hold on a minute.”
She started brushing off my back. Now I noticed for the first time how filthy I was. Covered with dust and gravel from my socks to my scalp, hands full of sticky, black muck from the light.
I twisted out of her hands and pulled on my T-shirt. I could feel how a number of pebbles still stuck to my back, caught now between my skin and washed-out Chinese cotton. It was going to be painful to sleep on, like walking with pebbles in your shoes. But what was done was done—the light was down, that was the most important thing.
I put up the ladder and walked towards the barn again. Had to finish what I’d started.
“Have to get the electrical tape,” I said. “Can’t leave the wires hanging and dangling like that.”
“But can’t you do that in the morning?”
I didn’t answer.
She sighed. “At least let me turn off the power for you.” Her voice was louder now.
I turned around. She attempted a smile. Was she being ironic? Because I’d forgotten the electrician’s first commandment?
“Go on up to bed,” I just said.
She shrugged her shoulders. Then she turned and walked towards the house.
“And listen, Emma,” I said.
“Yes?” She stopped. Turned around.
I straightened up, summoned my strength.
“Florida is not gonna happen. Just so you know. Not for me. You’ll have to find yourself somebody else. I’m going to live here. There’ll be no Gulf Harbors.”
WILLIAM
The straw hive I’d ordered arrived three days later and I had found a location for it in the semi-shade of an aspen on the lower part of the property, in the part of the garden we allowed to grow wild. It wouldn’t be in anybody’s way in this part, none of the children spent time down there, and I would really be allowed to work in peace, make my observations of the bee colony, take notes and draw without being disturbed. A farmer south of town sold me the hive without blinking; probably because I offered him a price, instead of asking what he wanted for it. He didn’t even try to barter with me but accepted on the spot, which told me that I probably could have gotten the hive for half what I’d offered.
He explained to me about harvesting, but I waved him away. It was obviously not for the sake of honey that I had gone to the trouble of procuring the hive.
Thilda had sewn a suit, not unlike a fencer’s, out of an old white sheet. She had to take it in three times in the process, apparently unable to comprehend that my former measurements no longer pertained. On my hands I wore a pair of discarded gloves that did indeed make the skin clammy, but were utterly necessary for protection.
There I stood, under the aspen tree. Now it was just me and the hive, me and the bees.
I picked up a notebook. Observational studies were a meticulous task, but they usually gave me pleasure, because it was there, in the observation, it all started. That was where my passion originated. How could I have forgotten that?
I was about to make notes when something else occurred to me. How out of practice I was after all the years that had passed: I needed a chair.
A little later I was back with a simple stool; out of breath, the sweat was running under the suit, which, now that I felt it on my body, was a tiny bit too small, tight under the arms and in the crotch.
I sat and slowly settled down.
There wasn’t much to see. The bees left the hive and returned, there was nothing surprising about that. They were out gathering pollen and nectar—the latter they transformed into honey, while the pollen was feed for the larvae. It was meticulous and peaceful work, systematic, instinctive, hereditary. They were all siblings, because the queen was everyone’s mother, they were produced by her, but not subjugated to her. They were subjugated to the whole. I would have liked to see the queen, but the basket covered the bees, and everything they did inside was hidden.
Carefully I lifted it and peeked in from underneath. The bees swarmed up and spread out into the air around me, they were not fond of being disturbed.
I observed brimming honeycombs, a drone or two, I saw eggs and larvae and leaned in even closer. My skin was prickling with expectation, because now I had begun, finally I had begun!
“Time to eat!”
Thilda’s voice sliced through the buzzing of insects and chased the birds into hiding.
I leaned over the hive again. It did not concern me, the family meals were not a part of my life, I had not eaten with them for months. The children streamed towards the house behind me, one after the other they disappeared inside.
“Teatime!”
I peeked at Thilda from under my arm. She was standing in the middle of the garden staring at me, and now she even set out in my direction.
Little Georgiana’s fork scraped against an empty plate.
“Hush!” Thilda said. “Put the fork down!”
“I’m hungry!”
Thilda, Charlotte and Dorothea put serving dishes on the table. One with vegetables, one with potatoes and a tureen with a watery dishwaterlike liquid that was supposed to resemble soup.
“Is that all?” I pointed at the dishes that were served.
Thilda nodded.
“Where’s the meat?”
“There isn’t any meat.”
“And the pie?”
“We’re out of butter and pastry flour.” She stared at me resolutely. “Unless you want us to take some of the tuition money.”
“No. No, we aren’t touching Edmund’s tuition.”
Now I suddenly understood why she had insisted I take part in the family dinner. She was more cunning than I thought.
I looked around me. The thin faces of the children were all turned towards the three dismal dishes on the table. “So,” I said finally. “Then we’ll have to be grateful for the food we have received.”
I bowed my head and prayed. The prayer felt amiss on my tongue, I spit it out quickly in order to finish.
“Amen.”
“Amen,” the family repeated softly.
Through the window I could glimpse the hive in the distance, down there in t
he garden. I served myself a small portion, so I would be able to get back as quickly as possible.
Thilda received the serving dishes after me, then the children, one after the other according to age. It pleased me that Edmund was the eldest and was allowed to help himself right after Thilda, because boys at that age need solid meals four times a day. But he took little, and just poked at his food. He was unusually pale and thin, as if he never saw daylight. His hands were trembling, too, and his forehead sweating. Was he not feeling well?
The girls, on the other hand, eagerly devoured the meal. But there was not enough for all of them. When little Georgiana finally received her portion, only scraps were left. Charlotte pushed one of her potatoes onto to her little sister’s plate.
We ate in silence. The food disappeared from the girls’ plates in just a few minutes.
During the meal I could feel Thilda’s eyes on me. She did not need to say a thing. I knew only too well what she wanted.
GEORGE
I left at first light. Took some sandwiches in a bag and a thermos full of coffee. Drove the whole way without stopping. Seven hours straight, without a single break. I hadn’t seen Emma at all. After I’d fixed the light, I passed out for a couple of hours on the couch. She was up in the bedroom, maybe she was sleeping, maybe not. I couldn’t bring myself to check. Didn’t have time. No . . . didn’t dare, to tell the truth.
My eyes itched, were slightly bloodshot, but I was nowhere close to falling asleep. It cost me nothing to drive all these miles. I was well over the speed limit the whole way, but there wasn’t much traffic and no speed traps. Would have been just perfect if my driving had cost me my license.
At exactly 12:25 p.m., according to the clock on the dashboard, I pulled up with a skid in front of the college. Parked in a space bearing the sign RESERVED FOR PROFESSOR STEPHENSON, but didn’t give a damn. Stephenson, whoever he might be, would have to find himself another space.
