The History of Bees

Chapter 43 GEORGE

I drove down to the center of Autumn. Well, center is a bit of an overstatement. Autumn was actually just a single intersection. A northbound highway met another heading east, and there were a few houses gathered there. I didn’t have a lot of gas left, but didn’t fill up. Never more than half a tank. It was a new gimmick I’d come up with. And I drove until the tank was empty. As if it cost less to fill up an empty tank halfway than a half-full tank all the way.

The disappearances had been given a name now. Colony Collapse Disorder. It was on everyone’s lips. I tried it out. The words rotated through my head. There was a rhythm to them, and the same letters. The Cs and the Os and the Ls and the Ss. A little rhyme, Colony Collapse Disorder. Dilony Collapse Collorder, Cillono Dollips Cylarder, and something medical about the whole thing, as if it belonged in a room with white coats and intensive care equipment, not out in my field with the bees. Still, I never used those words. They weren’t mine. Instead, I said the disappearances, or the problems, or—if I was in a bad mood, and quite often I was—the damn trouble.

There was a narrow space between a green pickup and a black SUV in front of the bank. I looked around—no other spaces on the rest of the street. I pulled the car up right against the green pickup and tried backing in. I’ve never liked parallel parking; I’m not much of a man when it comes to that, so I avoid it as much as possible. Don’t think Emma knows how terrible I am at it, even. But I had to go to the bank. Today. Had put it off for too long already. Lost money with each passing day, every day without hives out there in the sun among the flowers.

I pulled the wheel all the way to the side, backed up until the car was halfway past the pickup. Then I pulled the wheel back and kept backing up.

Completely crooked. Almost on the sidewalk.

Out again.

A lady walked past, staring at me. Suddenly I felt like a teenager, a greenhorn behind the wheel.

I tried one more time, took a deep breath. Took it easy, twisted the wheel all the way, backed up slowly, halfway, and straightened out.

Shit!

The space was too small, that was the problem. I pulled out, drove into the middle of the street and set out for the parking lot a little down the road. Parking like this right in front of the bank was just laziness, we were too lazy in this country. I was perfectly capable of walking.

In the rearview mirror I saw a huge Chevrolet come rolling up. It slid into place in the too-narrow space in a single movement.

The air-conditioning was like a wall I had to break through when I opened the door to the bank. I was still shaking a little from the parallel parking crisis, but shoved my hands into my pockets.

Allison sat behind her desk, tapping on the computer, as usual. She had the sense to dress like a lady, flowery blouse, freshly ironed, against freckled, young skin, perfectly green eyes. She looked clean, smelled clean, too. She looked up and smiled with toothpaste-white teeth.

“George. Hi, how are you?”

She always made me feel a little special, Allison. As if I were her absolute favorite bank customer. She was good at her job, in other words.

I settled into the chair in front of her desk. Sat on my hands, wanted to hide the shaking, but the wool fabric of the chair made my palms itch. I took them out again. Put them in my lap, where I managed to keep them still.

“Been a long time.” Her teeth sparkled at me.

“Yeah. Been a while.”

“Everything fine with you guys?”

“Not as fine as it should be.”

“Oh dear, no. Sorry. I’ve heard.”

The row of pearls disappeared suddenly behind her soft, young lips.

“But I hope you can help us out of the worst of the trouble,” I said and smiled.

No sign of her showing more of those pretty teeth, unfortunately. She just looked at me gravely.

“I will of course do my very best.”

“Your best. Can’t ask for more than that.” I laughed. Suddenly noticed I was showing off a little, stuck my hands under my thighs again.

“OK.” She turned towards the screen. “Let’s see. Here you are.”

She was quiet. Looked over the account. The sight didn’t exactly make her jump into the air with enthusiasm.

“What did you have in mind?” she said.

“Well. It would have to be a loan.”

“Yes. How much?”

I told her the amount.

The freckles on her nose jumped. The answer came without a trace of consideration.

“I can’t do it, George.”

“Golly. Can you at least do the calculations?”

“No. I can tell you right away that I can’t do it.”

“OK. Can you talk to Martin, then?”

Martin was her boss. The type who shied away from conflicts, not one to end up in a bar brawl, to put it that way. Mostly stayed in his office. Just came out every once in a great while, when large sums of money were to be assessed and signed for—I knew that from Jimmy, who had just taken out a mortgage on a house. Martin had less hair every time I saw him. I glanced towards him, where he was seated behind his glass wall. The bald spot shone in the glare of the ceiling light.

“There’s no point. Trust me,” she said.

A lump rose insistently in my throat. Should I sit here and beg? Was that what she wanted? She was almost twenty years younger than me. Emma used to babysit for her once upon a time. Delicate as a little fairy, who’d believe that she’d grow up to become a ball-breaker?

“Honestly, Allison.”

“But George. Do you really need that much?”

I couldn’t bring myself to meet her green eyes from across the desk.

“The entire operation is down,” I said quietly to the floor.

“But…” She was quiet for a while, thinking. “Can’t we look at how we can get it up and running again without your needing to make such big investments?”

I had the urge to roar, but didn’t answer. She didn’t know shit about beekeeping.

“Where are the majority of your expenses, would you say?”

“Manpower, of course. I have two men working for me, you know that?”

“Yes.”

“And then there’s running costs. Feed. Gas, that kind of thing.”

“But now? Investments you must make?”

“New hives. We had to burn a lot.”

She chewed on a ballpoint pen.

“OK. And what does a hive cost?”

“Materials. Hard to say. They have to be built.”

“Built?”

“Yes. I build them from scratch. Every single one. Except for the queen excluder, that is.”

“The queen excluder?”

“Yes. The part that’s put between… Never mind.”

She took the pen out. Her teeth had left marks on the top. If she chewed harder, she’d crack the plastic, get ink on those white teeth of hers. That would be something. Blue ink on white teeth, on the freshly ironed blouse, on soft lips, like clumsy Halloween makeup.

“But…” She reconsidered. “I’ve seen Gareth Green have hives delivered. I mean, I’ve seen them arrive, on a truck. Ready to go.”

“That’s because Gareth orders them,” I said clearly, as if I were talking to a child.

“Is that more expensive than building them?”

She put the pen down. Apparently she wasn’t going to give me the pleasure of soiling her clean appearance.

The lump pushed its way upwards. Soon it would reach the point where it was no longer possible to hide it.

“I just mean,” she continued and revealed once again the white teeth, as if this were just so amusing, “that perhaps you can save some money by ordering them. And time. Time is money, too. Don’t build them yourself any longer.”

“I understood that,” I said quietly. “I understood that’s what you meant.”