by Maja Lunde
Intensive research was carried out on other insects that could be suitable for effective pollination. The first ones they tried were the wild bees, but it was useless. The farming of different types of pollinating flies was subsequently attempted for this purpose, Ceriana conopsoides, Chrysotoxum octomaculatum and Cheilosia reniformis, but without success. Simultaneously the climate changes made the world a more inhospitable place to be. The rising sea levels and extreme weather led to the emigration of human population groups and the food shortage became acute. Whereas previously people had started wars for reasons of power, wars were now being fought over food.
This article stopped at the year 2045. One hundred years after the end of the Second World War, the earth, as modern human beings had known it, was no longer a place that could be populated by billions. In 2045 there were no bees left on the planet.
I went over to the bookshelves where I’d found many of the most recent books about The Collapse, wanting to put some of them back. I was about to shove a book into the shelf when I noticed a green spine a little further down. It wasn’t particularly thick or tall, not a big book, but my eyes were drawn to the green color all the same. And the yellow letters with the title: The History of Bees.
I grabbed it and tried to pull it out. But the book resisted; the plastic on the bookbinding was stuck to the books next to it and emitted a small sigh when I pulled them apart. I opened it; the covers were stiff, but the pages fell easily to the side, welcoming me in. The last time I had read this book was at my school’s simple library, and at that time it had been a shabby printout, a copy. This time I was holding a pristine edition between my hands. I looked at the title page: 2037. A first edition.
Then I opened to the first chapter and my eyes were met once again by the same familiar pictures. The queen and her brood, which were just larvae in cells and all the golden honey they surrounded themselves with. Swarming bees on a frame in a beehive, crowded together, each identical to the next, impossible to distinguish from one another. Striped bodies, black eyes, rainbow-colored wings that shone.
I continued turning the pages until I came to the passages about knowledge, the same sentences I had read as a child, but now the words made an even greater impression: “In order to live in nature, with nature, we must detach ourselves from the nature in ourselves . . . Education means to defy ourselves, to defy nature, our instincts . . .”
I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. The guard came around a bookshelf and walked towards me. She didn’t say anything, but once again rattled the keys. Demonstratively now.
I nodded at her quickly to show that I was on my way out. “I would like to borrow this.” I held up the book. She shrugged her shoulders.
“Help yourself.”
When I got back to my room, still holding The History of Bees to my chest, I finally put it down on the bed along with a pile of other books. I’d borrowed as many as I could carry. Soon I’d continue reading. I just needed a shower first.
I peeled off my clothes while standing in the middle of the floor. I pulled off everything at once, my socks got stuck in the legs of my trousers. The clothes were left in a tangled heap on the floor.
I showered until the hot water ran out, washed my hair three times, scrubbed my scalp with my nails, to get out the dust from the dead city streets. Then I dried myself off for a long time. I couldn’t remove the dampness from my skin; the bathroom was foggy. Finally I brushed my teeth for a long time, feeling how plaque and bacteria disappeared, wrapped the towel around me and walked into the room again.
The first thing I saw was that my clothes had been picked up. The floor was empty. I turned towards the bed. A woman was sitting there. She was younger than me. Her skin was soft, no dirt under her fingernails. Her clothes were clean and sleek, snug, like a uniform. This was a woman whose occupation was something completely different from working outdoors among the trees.
In her hand she held one of the books. I couldn’t see which one.
She raised her head and looked at me, serious, dispassionate. I was unable to say anything, my brain was working intensely to make something fall into place. Should I know her?
She calmly stood up, put the book down, then handed me my clothes, which were now neatly folded and placed into a pile.
“I would ask that you please get dressed.”
I didn’t move. She behaved as if her presence here were a given. And maybe it was. I stared at her, searching her face to see if it stirred up any memories. But none emerged. I noticed that my towel was falling off, slipping down, about to leave me naked, and if possible, even more vulnerable. I pulled the towel up and squeezed my arms against it to hold it in place, feeling both awkward and exposed.
“How did you get in?” I asked and was surprised that my voice actually carried.
“I borrowed a key.” She said it smiling a tiny smile at nothing at all, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
“What do you want? Who are you?” I stammered.
“You must get dressed and come with me.”
It wasn’t an answer, it was an order.
“Why? Who are you?”
“Here.” Once again she held out the pile of clothing.
“Do you want money? I only have a little.” I walked over to the bedside table where I still had a few coins in the drawer, turned around and held them out to her.
“I was sent by the Committee,” she said. “You must come with me.”
WILLIAM
The drawings lay in my lap. I sat on a bench in the garden, at a distance from the hives, close enough to see and hear them well, but far enough away to avoid being stung. I sat as motionless as an animal following a scent, a prey that would soon be attacked.
But the attack was already over. I was a carcass now.
The bee dies when its wings are worn out, frayed, driven too hard, like the sails of the Flying Dutchman. She dies midleap, as she is about to take flight, has a heavy load, perhaps she has taken on more than usual, is bulging with nectar and pollen, this time it is too much, the wings do not carry her any longer. She never returns to the hive, but plunges to the earth, with her entire burden. Had she had human feelings, she would have been happy at this moment, she would have entered the gates of heaven well aware she had lived up to the idea of herself, of the Bee, as Plato would have expressed it. The worn-out state of her wings, yes, her death in its entirety, is a clear sign that she has done what she was put on earth to do, accomplished an infinite amount, taking into consideration her tiny body.
I would never have such a death. There were no clear signs that I’d done what I was put on the earth to do. I had not accomplished anything at all. I would grow old, my body would swell, and subsequently fade away, without any trace of me left behind. Nothing would remain, except possibly a salty pie which left behind a greasy coating in the mouth. Nothing but a Swammer pie.
So it all might as well just come to an end right now. The mushrooms were still there, in the top drawer furthest to the left in the shop, carefully locked, with a key only I had access to. They would take effect rapidly; in just a few hours I would grow lethargic and listless, subsequently unconscious. A doctor would diagnose it as organ failure; nobody would know it was self-inflicted. And I would be free.
But I couldn’t do it, because I couldn’t move from the bench. I didn’t even manage to destroy the drawings, my hands refused to perform that simple movement, the muscular impulse stopped in my fingertips, paralyzed me.
For how long I was alone, I didn’t know.
She came without my noticing. Suddenly she sat down on the bench beside me. Without a sound, not even her breathing was audible. The close-set eyes, my own eyes, looked towards the bees that buzzed in front of us, or perhaps towards nothing.
In her hand she held the letter from Dzierzon. She must have found it among the chaos in the room, found it and read it, as she previously had also searched and gone through my things. Because it had been her all alo
ng, the tidy shop, the book on my desk. I just hadn’t seen it, hadn’t wanted to see it.
The proximity of another human being caused the paralysis to release its grasp. Or perhaps it released its grasp precisely because it was her. She was all I had now.
I laid the drawings on her lap.
“Destroy them for me,” I said softly. “I can’t do it.”
She just sat there. I tried to meet her gaze, but she looked away.
“Help me,” I begged.
She put a hand on the drawings. For a moment she was silent.
“No,” she said.
“But they are rubbish, don’t you understand?” My voice broke, but it didn’t unsettle her.
She just shook her head slowly. “It’s too soon, Father, perhaps they may still be of value.”
I drew a breath, managed to speak calmly, tried to sound rational.
“They’re useless. I really just want you to destroy them, because I’m incapable of doing it myself. Take them away, put them somewhere I can’t see them and can’t stop you. Burn them! A huge fire, flames reaching up to the heavens.”
I wanted the words to provoke a reaction, get her to stand up and obey my earnest appeal, as she usually obeyed all my requests. But she just sat there, leafing through the pages, with one finger lightly tracing the lines I had done my best to draw straight, the details with which I had struggled so. “No, Father. No.”
“But that’s all that I want!” All of a sudden there was again a tightening in my chest. I had my father’s hand around my neck, his scornful laughter in my ears, dirt on my knees and a belt waiting. She was the adult and I was the child, ten years old again, with the heavy weight of shame on my shoulders, because yet again I had failed. “Burn them, please.”
It was only then that I noticed the tears in her eyes. Her tears. When had I last seen them? Not when she sat beside me during all those hours last winter, not when she came home with a dead-drunk Edmund, not when she found me almost swallowed up by the earth.
And then I understood. These were her drawings, too, her work. She’d been there the entire time, but I’d only seen myself, my research, my drawings, my bees. Only now did I really absorb how there had been two of us from the first day. They were hers, too, the bees were hers, too.
“Charlotte.” I swallowed. “Oh, Charlotte. Who have I really been for you?”
She looked up in astonishment. “What do you mean?”
“I mean . . . you should have had something more.”
She drew her hand over her eyes; there was only amazement in her gaze now.
“Something more? No.”
I wanted to say so many things to her, that she deserved a better father, one who also thought of her, that I’d been an idiot, only concerned about my own affairs, while her support was completely unshakable, regardless of the nature of my undertakings. But the words grew too large, I wasn’t equal to the task.
All I could do was to take her hand. She let me do it, but hastened to lay the other one protectively over the drawings so the wind wouldn’t take them.
We sat there in silence.
She inhaled several times, as if she wanted to say something, but no words came.
“You mustn’t think like that,” she said finally. Then she turned her head and looked at me with her clear, gray eyes. “I’ve received more than any girl could expect. More than any other girl I know. Everything you have shown me, told me, let me participate in. All the time we’ve spent together, all the conversations, everything you’ve taught me. For me you are . . . I . . .”
She didn’t finish the sentence, just sat there, and finally she came out with it:
“I couldn’t have had a better father.”
A sob escaped from me. I stared out into space, focusing blindly on nothing, while fighting back the urge to cry.
We remained seated there; time passed, nature surrounded us with all of its sounds, the birdsong, the whistling of the wind, a frog croaking. And the bees. Their subdued buzzing calmed me.
Carefully Charlotte wriggled her hand out of mine and nodded gently.
“You won’t have to see them anymore.”
She stood up, took the drawings with her, carried them with both hands as if they were still something valuable and disappeared in the direction of the house.
A deep sigh escaped me, of thankfulness and relief, but also with a certainty that it was finally over. I remained seated, sitting and looking at the bees, at their perseverance, back and forth, never resting.
Not until their wings were torn.
GEORGE
Once again, I was unable to fall asleep. Everything was in place to ensure a good night’s rest. The room was suitably cool, it was quiet. And dark. Why was it so dark lately? Much darker than before. Then I remembered the light. That was why. I’d never gotten around to repairing it. The cables were still crawling up there on the wall, like worms with heads of electrical tape. I passed by them every day, saw them every time, and they always put me in a bad mood. One of the many things I never got around to. It wasn’t important, I knew that. I didn’t need that light, none of us did. Emma didn’t nag me about it, either. I don’t even think she thought about it. But the crawling cables were a part of everything that wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, everything that didn’t work.
I needed seven hours of sleep. At least. I’ve always envied those who don’t need much sleep. Those who wake up after five hours and are ready to perform at their best. They’re the ones who really go far in life, I’ve heard.
I turned towards the alarm clock—12:32 a.m. I’d been lying here since 11:08 p.m. Emma had fallen asleep right away and I dozed off, too, pretty quickly. But then I woke up again, my head clear, alert. And my body was running, unable to lie still, unable to make contact with the mattress. No matter what position I was in, it was wrong, lumpy, poking.
I had to get some sleep. I wouldn’t be able to function tomorrow if I couldn’t sleep now. Maybe a drink would help.
We didn’t have any hard liquor, rarely drank it. But I found a beer in the refrigerator. And a glass in the cupboard. Then there was the opener. It wasn’t hanging on the wall, in its place, a hook over the sink, the fourth hook from the right, between the scissors and a spatula. Where was it? I opened the silverware drawer. Found the corkscrew along with some rotten rubber bands in a separate part of the drawer furthest in. But the opener wasn’t there. I opened another drawer. Nothing. Had she rearranged the system? Put things in new places? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time.
I kept looking in drawer after drawer. Had to put down the beer, use both hands, couldn’t be bothered to be quiet now. Since she’d gone and started rearranging everything, she’d have to put up with that much. Dammit, there were so many drawers in this kitchen and so much junk. So-called useful utensils gathering dust. An egg cooker, an electric pepper grinder, a gadget that divided an apple into six pieces. Things that had accumulated over the course of half a lifetime. Emma was the culprit behind the majority of the things. I got the urge to find a bag, start throwing things out, at long last. Clean up.
But then it appeared. It was lying in the big drawer with the ladles, scoops and whisks. In the very back. At the very bottom. Yup, had clearly been given a new place. I opened the beer quickly. Mostly I had the urge to go and wake her up, tell her she could give a damn about changing things. But instead I took a large swig of beer. The cool liquid ran down my throat.
My stomach rumbled, but I didn’t feel like finding anything to eat. Nothing appealed to me. Beer was nutritious, too. I wasn’t tired at all, just restless. I paced back and forth, went into the living room, grabbed the remote. But I froze midmovement, because suddenly I noticed something on the wall in the dining room.
I walked in and stood in front of them. The drawings. William Savage’s Standard Hive. Which, strictly speaking, had not been a standard for anybody except the Savage family. On a wall never touched by sunlight. In thick gold frames, shiny, withou
t a speck of dust, Emma made sure of that. Black ink on yellowed paper. Figures. Measurements. Simple descriptions. Nothing more. But behind it was a heritage that my family had taken care of ever since the drawings were made in 1852. The Standard Hive was supposed to be William Savage’s great breakthrough; he was supposed to write himself into the history books. But he hadn’t taken the clever American Lorenzo Langstroth into account. Langstroth won, he developed the hive measurements that later became the standard. And nobody paid any attention to Savage. He was, quite simply, too late. That was maybe how it had to be when they sat there in distant parts of the world, each of them working on the same thing, but without a telephone, fax or email.
Behind every great inventor are always a dozen crestfallen guys who were just a bit too late. And Savage was one of them. So there were neither riches nor honor for him or his family.
His wife apparently managed to marry off most of the daughters. But it was worse for the son, Edmund. He was a good-for-nothing, a restless guy, a dandy, had acquired a taste for liquor at an early age and eventually disappeared into the gutters of London.
Only one of the daughters had never married. Charlotte, the brightest. The first lady of our family. She purchased a one-way ticket across the pond. Her trunk was up in the attic. It was the one she traveled with, she and a baby. Who the father was, nobody knew. The two of them and the trunk came to America all alone. In it she had everything she owned. It smelled stuffy, old. We didn’t use it for anything, but I didn’t have the heart to throw it out. Charlotte had put her entire life into the trunk, including her father’s drawings of the Standard Hive.
And that was where it started. Charlotte started beekeeping. Not full-time, on the side of her job as a teacher and headmistress. She only had three hives, but the three hives were all it took for the child, a little boy, to eventually take a shine to it, and he expanded with a few more hives. As did his son. And his son. And finally, my grandfather, who invested in full-scale operations and made a proper living out of it.
