The History of Bees

Chapter 58 GEORGE

Gareth’s farm smelled of something burning. The sweet aroma of warm honey and gasoline. The smoke hit me the minute I opened the car door.

He was standing with his back to me and his face towards the bonfire. It was many feet tall. The beehives weren’t stacked, but rather tossed in a pile. The bonfire roared, creaking and crackling. Merrily, was how it struck me. As if it had a life of its own, as if it were taking pleasure in destroying somebody’s life’s work. He held a gasoline can in his hand, his arm hung limply. Maybe he’d forgotten it was there.

He turned around and noticed me. He didn’t look surprised.

“How many?” I asked and nodded towards the fire.

“Ninety percent.”

Not the number of hives, not the number of bee colonies, but the percentage. As if it were all just math. But his eyes told a different story.

He walked a few steps, put the can down. But then he picked it up again, probably realized he couldn’t leave it there, in the middle of the yard.

He was red, his skin was so dry that it was about to crack, a rash had spread upwards from his tanned throat.

“What about you?” He raised his head.

“Most of them.”

He nodded. “Did you burn them?”

“Don’t know if there’s any point, but yeah.”

“Isn’t worth using the hives again. It’s gotten into them.”

He was right, they stank of death.

“I didn’t think it was going to happen here,” he said.

“I thought it was negligence,” I said.

Gareth pulled up the corners of his mouth into something that was supposed to resemble a smile. “Me, too.”

He wasn’t so different from the little boy he had once been, the one who stood alone in the schoolyard, with his backpack emptied out on the ground in front of him, the books trampled to pieces, the pencils thrown away, everything full of mud. But he didn’t give up then, never ran away, just crouched down, picked up the books, wiped the mud off with the sleeve of his sweater, gathered up the pencils, picked up his things, just as he had hundreds of times before.

I don’t know why, but suddenly I reached out my hand, squeezed his upper arm.

Then he bowed his head, his face crumpled, dissolved in front of me.

Three gut-wrenching sobs escaped from him.

His body was in turmoil beneath my hand, straining, as if there were more inside that wanted to come out. I just kept holding on to him. But nothing more came out. The three sobs and no more.

Then he straightened up, drawing the back of his hand across his eyes without looking at me. At that exact moment a gust of wind hurled across the yard, the smoke from the fire surged towards us. And the tears flowed freely.

“Damn smoke,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Damn smoke.”

We stood still, he shook himself a little, pulling himself together. Then he produced his usual grin.

“Well, George, what can I do for you today?”

Gareth was right. The hives arrived right away. Allison approved the loan without blinking, and just two days later a gray truck pulled into my yard. A grouchy guy got out, asked me where I wanted them.

He dumped them on the field before I had time to get there myself. Didn’t say a word, just held out a clipboard with a piece of paper on it and wanted me to sign for the delivery.

There they were. Stiff. Just as steely-gray as the truck they’d arrived on. They smelled of industrial paint. A long row of them. Every single one the spitting image of the next. I felt a cold shudder of distaste, turned away.

Just hoped the bees wouldn’t notice the difference.

But of course they’d notice the difference.

They noticed everything.