The History of Bees

Chapter 32 TAO

Sweaters, trousers, underwear. For how many days? A week? Two?

I packed everything I had room for. I’d taken out a beat-up bag of my father’s; now I was throwing clothes into it quickly, with the urgency of someone who has already waited too long.

When I came home again after I’d been behind the white fence, it was impossible to go to bed. I trotted back and forth across the floor. Not because I was restless, but because I was finally on my way. I wouldn’t have to stay here and wait, hoping for the one phone call that would explain everything, wait and fret over the two simple words I had never said to Kuan. Those two little words: forgive me. I was unable to. Because if I said forgive me, it was true. Then I was to blame.

This was the only thing I could do.

I closed the bag. The zipper made a loud rasping noise. The sound must have covered up his footsteps, because when I turned around, he was there. Blinking his eyes a little, rumpled, barely awake.

“I’m going to Beijing.”

“What?”

His jaw dropped. Perhaps because of what I said, perhaps because I didn’t ask him to come with me. At that moment it hit me that I should have said we. We’re going. But it had never occurred to me that he’d come along.

“But how… ?”

“I have to find him.”

“You have no idea where he is. Which hospital he’s in.”

“I have to go.”

“But Beijing… Where will you start?”

He was so thin. Sharp shadows. Thinner than ever before. Far too gaunt.

“I found addresses. I have to search the hospitals.”

His voice rose: “Alone? But is the city safe?”

“It’s our son.”

The words sounded unreasonably harsh. I lifted the bag down onto the floor without looking at him anymore. Noticed only how he stood uneasily behind me, the words as if stuck inside him. Was he thinking about offering to come along?

“But how will you pay for it? The ticket, hotel?”

My hands stopped in midair. I knew it had to come, the question of money.

“I’ll just take a little,” I said softly.

He walked quickly to the kitchen cupboard, opened it, searching. His face hardened as he turned to face me. Suddenly there was something cold in his eyes. With an abrupt movement he tore the bag out of my hands, opened it and looked straight at the tin that lay on top.

“No.” It came out loudly, with a force I seldom heard from him.

He dropped the bag with a thud on the floor and took one step towards me.

“You won’t find him, Tao,” he said. “You’ll spend everything we have, but you won’t find him.”

“I won’t spend it all. I said I won’t spend it all.”

I took out yet another sweater, even though I didn’t need any others. Started to fold it. Tried to work calmly. The synthetic material rustled between my fingers.

“I have to try.” I looked down at the floor. Tried not to look at the bag, which I wanted to snatch up. Fixed my gaze on a crack; Wei-Wen had dropped a toy there once last winter, a yellow wooden horse. I was angry when it happened, we didn’t have many toys. And he screamed, because his horse broke, one of the legs snapped off.

“But if the money disappears… We’ve been saving for three years. We’ll be too old. If the money disappears, we…”

He didn’t finish, just stood there. The bag between us, the tin box on top of it.

“It won’t help,” he said finally. “Going there won’t help.”

“As if sitting here does.”

He didn’t answer, perhaps didn’t want to contradict my accusation. Just stood there, unable to speak of what he was carrying, what was troubling him—not just that Wei-Wen was gone, lost to us, but that it was my fault. And now I was going to take away from him the chance for another child, too.

I looked away, couldn’t look at him, couldn’t think about it. My fault. My fault. No. I knew that wasn’t right. The fault was just as much his. We could have just stayed home that day. Stayed home with the numbers, the books. He was the one who had wanted to go out. He was just as much to blame. We were both at fault.

“Come with me.”

He didn’t answer.

“You can come with me, we can go together.”

I ventured a look at him. Was he furious? His eyes met mine. No. Just infinitely sad.

Then he shook his head feebly.

“It’s better if I stay here. Available. Besides, it will be more expensive if there are two of us.”

“I won’t spend all of it,” I said softly. “I promise I won’t spend all of it.”

Quickly I pulled the bag towards me. Tossed the sweater on top so it covered the box. Then I pulled the zipper closed. He didn’t stop me.

I carried the bag out into the hallway and found my jacket. He followed me.

“Do you have to leave right away?”

“The train only leaves once a day.”

We stood there. His gaze lingered on me. Did he expect me to say it now? Would that make everything easier? If I shouted it?

I was incapable. Because the moment I asked him for forgiveness, I would have to take in precisely this: that if he’d had his way, we wouldn’t have been standing here now. We wouldn’t have been out there that day, and Wei-Wen would still…

I put on my jacket. My shoes. Then I picked up the bag and walked towards the door.

“Bye, then.”

He took a step forward. Was he going to tear the bag away from me? No. He wanted to give me a hug. I turned away, put my hand on the doorknob, couldn’t bear his body against mine. Couldn’t bear his cheek against my own, his lips against my throat, that he might awaken the same feelings as before, against my will. Or maybe that would stir up the nausea in me as well. And even more… would I stir up the same feeling in him? Would he still want me? I didn’t know and didn’t want to know.

I didn’t breathe easily again until I’d found my seat, sat down and felt the chair beneath me. I rested my spine against the seat’s worn plastic. I lay my head back and found the headrest. I stayed seated like that, watching the houses, the people, the trees and the fields outside. They didn’t concern me. The train slid through the landscape so quickly that the trees we passed became mere shadows. The 1,800 kilometers were supposed to be behind us by evening, according to the timetable, but that depended on the number of checkpoints along the way.

My own world vanished behind me. The landscape changed, gradually, as we eventually got further north and higher up. From the mild fruit orchards of my home district, the tree-covered hills, the terraced gardens, to the wide flatlands of rice fields, and further, as the train climbed upwards into the mountains, to more barren, more fallow areas. When we came down again, a deserted landscape met me. Dry, barren, almost no trees. Mile after mile of the same monotony. I turned my face away from the window, there was nothing to see.

I had been in Beijing only once before, when I was little. My parents had friends there. We went to visit them. I remember only some images. A large and lively street, dusty, intense. Deafening noise, people everywhere, many more than I’d ever seen before. And the train trip, I remembered it well, exactly the same as now. The train, too. The technology hadn’t changed throughout my entire lifetime. Nobody had time for innovation anymore.

I nodded off. Dozed in and out of dreams that resembled one another, that I came to Beijing and searched, that I found someone who would lead me to him. On one occasion it was a hotel employee. He knew where Wei-Wen was, he said, and took me through narrow alleyways and busy streets. We ran, him first, me behind him. I bumped into people all the time, almost lost sight of him. I caught him, but he tore loose. I woke up out of breath. The next time I fell asleep, it was a woman in a store. The same thing happened. She said she would bring me to him. She led me out into the jungle of streets, where the skyscrapers blocked the sun and the street vendors kept trying to stop us. She ran so fast that I lost sight of her, and sobbing, I had to stop and realize that my only chance to see him again was gone.

And then I was immediately somewhere else. A garden party. A dream, a memory? I was wearing a summer dress, it was hot. I was a child and attending an end-of-term party. We ate cakes, dry cakes made with artificial low-fat lard and an egg substitute. And a watery Popsicle, artificial, but good nonetheless. I was sweaty; the ice slid coolly down my throat.

Some of the girls were doing a circle dance, the sound of their singing rose through the garden, growing louder and louder, some voices clear and pure, others a little off-beat and off-key, the way children often sing. I stood quietly in the shade and observed them.

The cake table was being emptied. Some children went to take an extra serving. Daiyu was one of them. She was wearing a light blue jumpsuit with short trouser legs, and her hair was put up with clips. Her shoes were tight and shone brightly in the sun; they looked hot. She stood at the cake table and took a piece. Put a piece of cake on her plate. One of the very biggest. Then she found a fork and went to sit with the parents.

Another child came forward to the table. A boy. Wei-Wen. My Wei-Wen. What was he doing here? He took a piece of cake as well. A big piece, even bigger than Daiyu’s.

And then he left.

No, I thought, not the cake. Don’t take it.

But he slipped away from me, always with the cake in his hand, slipped away among the people, then he appeared again. I had to reach him before he took a bite. He must not eat any of the cake. Must not. I was an adult now, following after him, jogging, clearing the way in front of me, caught a glimpse of him anew, but then he disappeared again, turned up, disappeared. The party grew around me, there were more and more people.

His red scarf in the crowd, a patch, in the distance.

And yet again he slipped away.

I was awakened by the train driving into a large, dark and run-down railway station. Beijing.