The History of Bees

Chapter 12 TAO

“One, two, three—jump!”

We followed the tire ruts inwards across the fields. Wei-Wen walked between Kuan and me. He was wearing my old red scarf around his throat. He loved it, wanted to wear it every day, but was only allowed when nobody else could see. It was awarded as a kind of badge of honor, not a dress-up garment. But I liked that he wore it, perhaps it would inspire him, make him want to have one of his own someday.

Wei-Wen was holding each of us by the hand and demanded that we pull him up through the air in long jumps forward. “More. More.” The scarf was blown upwards into his face, almost covering it, hiding it and without thinking he pushed it aside.

“Look!” he shouted again and again and pointed. “Look!” At the trees, the sky and the flowers. Being out here was new for him, the fields were usually a place he observed from the window, before he was forced out the door to get to school on time or lifted into bed in the evening.

We were going to walk to a hilltop not far from the forest and eat there. We could see it from our house, it was located no more than three hundred meters away, so it was not a long walk for Wei-Wen, and we knew that up there we would have a nice view of both the city and the fields. We had packed fried rice, tea, a blanket and a tin of plums we had been saving for a very special day. We would then take out the pen and paper, and sit in the shade and work. I hoped I’d manage to teach him the numbers up to ten. It would be easier today. Wei-Wen was well rested. So was I.

“One, two, three—jump!”

We pulled him up into the air again, this had to be for the fifth or sixth time.

“Higher!” he shouted.

Our slightly defeated gazes met above his head. Then we lifted him, yet another time. He would never tire of it, we knew that. It was in the nature of a three-year-old never to tire. And he was used to getting his way.

“Imagine when he doesn’t have us all to himself any longer,” I said to Kuan.

“That will be tough on him,” he said and smiled.

We were very close now, just a few more months, and then we would have enough money. All the extra money we had went to the battered tin box in the refrigerator. When we could demonstrate a sufficient amount of savings, we would receive the permit. 36,000 yuan was the requirement. We had 32,476. And it was urgent, because soon we would be too old. The age limit was thirty years old and we were both twenty-eight.

Wei-Wen was to have a sibling. It would presumably be a shock, having to share.

I tried to release his hand.

“Now you can walk by yourself a little, Wei-Wen.”

“Nooo!”

“Yes. Just a bit. To that tree there.” I pointed to a tree fifty meters away.

“Which one?”

“That one over there.”

“But they’re all the same.”

I was unable to keep from smiling, he was right. I looked at Kuan. He grinned at me, his face open and happy. He was not angry because we were here, but in fact seemed satisfied with the compromise. He was, like me, determined for this to be a good day.

“Carry me!” Wei-Wen squealed and attached himself to my leg.

I shook myself free.

“Look. Take my hand.”

But he kept whining.

“Carry me!”

Then suddenly he was flying through the air, as Kuan hoisted him easily up onto his shoulders.

“There. Now I can be a camel and you can be the rider.”

“What is a camel?”

“A horse, then.”

He neighed and Wei-Wen laughed. “You have to run, horse.”

Kuan took a couple of steps, but stopped. “No, not this horse. This is an old and tired horse who also wants to walk together with the mommy horse.”

“The mare,” I said. “It’s not called a mommy horse, it’s a mare.”

“Fine. The mare.”

He continued walking with Wei-Wen on his shoulders. He reached for my hand and we walked hand in hand for a few meters, but Wei-Wen swayed precariously up there, so he hastened to take hold of him again. Wei-Wen’s entire body bobbed with each step he took, he held his head high, looked around and discovered suddenly that he had acquired a wholly new stature.

“I’m the tallest!” He smiled to himself, as happy as only a three-year-old knows how to be.

We reached the top of the hill. The landscape was spread out before us. Rows of trees, as if drawn using a ruler, blossoming, symmetric cotton balls, against brown soil where the grass had only just begun to sprout through last year’s rotting leaves.

The wide and shady forest lay just a hundred meters away. Dark and overgrown. There was nothing for us there, and now these areas, too, were going to be planted.

I turned around. To the north there were fruit trees from here to the horizon. Long, planted lines, tree after tree after tree after tree. I had read about trips people made, in former times, tourists. They traveled to see areas like this in the spring, making the trip solely to see the blossoming fruit trees. Was it beautiful? I didn’t know. It was work. Every single tree was a dozen hours of labor. I couldn’t look at them without thinking that soon they would be full of fruit and we would have to climb up them again. Pick with hands just as attentive as when we pollinated, pack every single pear in paper with extreme care, as if it were made of gold. An overwhelming amount of pears, trees, hours, years.

But all the same, we were out here today. Because I’d wanted to be.

Kuan spread a blanket on the ground. We took out the boxes of food. Wei-Wen ate quickly and spilled his food. He was always in a hurry at mealtimes, thought food was boring, was picky, ate little, even though we always sat there waiting with our portions, ready to give him more if he should want it.

But when we opened the tin of plums, he calmed down, perhaps because both Kuan and I were quiet. We put it between us. The tin opener made a scraping sound against the metal as Kuan twisted it around. He tilted the lid to the side and we looked down at the yellow fruit. It smelled sweet. I carefully took a plum with a fork and put it on Wei-Wen’s plate.

“What is it?” he asked.

“A plum,” I said.

“I don’t like plums.”

“You don’t know that until you’ve tasted it.”

He leaned over the plate and stuck his tongue into it, tasting the flavor for a second. And smiled. Then he snapped it up like a hungry dog, the entire plum went in his mouth at once, the juice ran out of the corners of his mouth.

“Is there more?” he asked, still with his mouth full.

I showed him the tin. It was empty. One for each of us, that was all.

“But you can have mine, too,” I said and passed the plum to him.

Kuan gave me a defeated look. “You need your vitamin C, too,” he said softly. I shrugged my shoulders. “It just makes me want more. Just as well not to have any.”

Kuan smiled at me. “All right.” Then he also let his plum slide onto Wei-Wen’s plate.

In just two minutes Wei-Wen had eaten all of them. He was on his feet again, wanted to climb the trees. And we had to stop him.

“The branches can break.”

“I want to!”

I opened the bag looking for the pen and paper.

“I thought instead that we could sit here and play with arithmetic a little.”

Kuan rolled his eyes, and Wei-Wen didn’t seem to have heard what I’d said.

“Look! A boat!” He held up a stick.

“That’s nice,” Kuan said. “And there’s a lake.” He pointed towards a mud puddle a short distance away.

“Yeah!” Wei-Wen said and ran away.

I put the pen and paper back into the bag without saying anything, turned my back to Kuan. He ruffled my hair. “The day is long.”

“It’s already half over.”

“Come here.” He pulled me down onto the blanket. “Feel how lovely it is, just lying here like this. To relax.”

I smiled in spite of myself. “OK.”

He took my hand and squeezed it. I squeezed his back. He squeezed mine in return. We both laughed. The usual discord was nowhere to be found.

I turned over onto my back. Stretched out completely, without any fear that someone would come and order me up from a break. The sunlight blinded me. I closed one eye, the world lost its depth. The bright blue sky merged with the white blossoms on the tree above us. They became the same surface. The sky peeked through between each individual petal. If I looked at it long enough, the foreground and background changed places. As if the sky were a blue crocheted blanket with holes against a white backdrop.

I closed both eyes. I could feel Kuan’s hand resting in mine, completely still. We could have talked. We could have made love. But neither of us wanted to do anything but lie like this. Down by the mud puddle we could hear Wei-Wen put-putting, the boat sailing back and forth.

After a while I had to change positions. My shoulder blades were digging sharply down into the ground. The small of my back started aching a bit. I turned over onto my side and supported my head against my arm. Kuan had of course fallen asleep, and was snoring lightly. He could probably have slept for a whole week, if given the chance. He was always a little too thin, a little too pale, his body at all times running on a deficit. He got less sleep than he needed, less food than his metabolism consumed. Still, he kept himself going, worked longer days than I did, but was never dissatisfied. He rarely complained.

How quiet it was out here… Without the workers around me it was even more obvious. Even Wei-Wen’s noises had stopped. No wind in the trees, just the absence of sound, emptiness.

I sat up. Where was he? I turned towards the mud puddle. It lay alone in the sunlight. The muddy-brown water glittered.

I stood up.

“Wei-Wen?”

Nobody answered.

“Wei-Wen, where are you?”

My voice didn’t carry for more than a few meters, was swallowed up by the silence.

I walked a few steps away from the blanket, gaining a full view of the landscape.

He was nowhere to be seen.

“Wei-Wen?”

Kuan was awakened by my shouting, got to his feet and also began scanning the landscape.

“Can you see him?”

He shook his head.

It was only then that it struck me how infinitely large the area was. And that everything looked the same. Field after field of pear trees. Nothing else by which to navigate except the sun and the forest. And a three-year-old alone out here…

We hurried down to the puddle. The stick lay bobbing on the surface of the water.

“If you walk over there, I’ll go here?” Kuan’s voice was matter-of-fact and undramatic.

I nodded.

“He’s probably just wandered off somewhere without thinking,” Kuan said. “He can’t have gone very far.”

I hurried across the field, trotting across the uneven ground, along the tire ruts heading north. Yes, surely he had just wandered off. He had probably found something or other that was so exciting that he didn’t notice us calling.

“Wei-Wen? Wei-Wen?” Perhaps he had been very lucky and discovered a small animal, an insect. Or perhaps a tree stump that looked like a dragon. Something that stopped him, made him start daydreaming, forget everything around him, learn something. An earthworm. A bird’s nest. An anthill.

“Wei-Wen? Where are you? Wei-Wen!”

I tried to keep my voice light and breezy, but heard how piercing it sounded.

In the distance, I could hear Kuan’s calls. “Wei-Wen? Hello?”

His voice was calm. Not like mine. I tried to call with the same calm. He was here, of course he was here. He was sitting and playing and lost in his own world.

“Wei-Wen?”

The sun scorched my back.

“Wei-Wen? Little one?”

It was as if the temperature had risen dramatically.

“Wei-Wen! Answer me, sweetie!”

My own breathing. It was uneven. Jagged. I turned around and discovered that I had already run several hundred meters away from the hill. It was impossible that he’d gone this far. I started running back, but changed course, moving in relation to the tire rut that was a few meters away.

I remembered that he’d been wearing the red scarf. Wei-Wen had been wearing the red scarf. That should be easy to see. Between the brown earth, the green grass and the white blossoms the scarf should stand out brightly.

“Tao! Tao! Come here!” Kuan’s voice. Unfamiliar and sharp.

“Have you found him?”

“Come here!”

I changed directions and ran towards him. Something was squeezing my larynx, with every breath I took it became more difficult to breathe, as if the air didn’t reach my lungs.

I caught a glimpse of Kuan between the trees. He ran towards me from the forest. It lay huge and dark behind him. Had he come from there? Had Wei-Wen disappeared in there?

“Is something wrong? Did something happen?” My voice forced its way out, was constricted, strained.

And now I could see him properly. Kuan ran towards me. His face was frozen, eyes open wide. He was carrying something in his arms.

The red scarf.

One shoe that flapped in time with his steps as he ran, a black, dangling child’s head. I ran over to Kuan.

A weak sound escaped me. I squelched a scream.

Because Wei-Wen was fighting for his breath. His face was white under his black hair. The eyes that looked at me, pleading for help. Had he broken something? Was he injured? Was he bleeding? No. It was like he was paralyzed.

Kuan said something, but I didn’t hear the words, saw his lips moving, but no sounds reached me.

Kuan didn’t stop, but kept running.

I shouted something. The things. Our things! As if they were important. But Kuan didn’t stop. He just ran with Wei-Wen in his arms.

I followed him. Followed him and the child towards the houses, towards help.

The shoe flapping. The wind that caught hold of the red scarf.

We ran all the way back to the development. I kept my eyes on my child, on Wei-Wen, his eyes were huge and frightened. But I couldn’t do anything but run.

I said his name again and again.

But now he no longer reacted.

Less resistance in his body. His face was even paler, the sweat beading on his forehead.

His eyes closed.

What a long way it seemed. How far we had walked. Was it really this far?

Finally the first of the houses came into view before us. But we came from the other side, opposite from where we’d gone in. The carriage road was so similar that we hadn’t seen the difference.

Silence. Where was everyone?

Finally we saw a person. An older woman. On her way out. She was dressed up. I noticed that. That the woman was wearing lipstick and a dress. “Stop,” Kuan shouted. “Stop. Help, help us.” The woman looked confused. Then she discovered the child.

An ambulance arrived in a few minutes. As they came driving up the dust swirled up from the dry road and settled into Wei-Wen’s hair, on his shoes, in his eyelashes. The personnel dressed in white came running out. Carefully they lifted him out of Kuan’s arms and took him with them. His arm hung limply, slung out of the grasp of one of the personnel in white. That was the last thing we saw. Kuan and I were led into the car, but not in the back with him, they put us up front. Somebody reminded us to put on our seat belts.

Seat belts. What did we need those for?