The History of Bees

Chapter 5 WILLIAM

She often sat there, beside my bed, with her head bowed over a book, turning the pages slowly, reading with concentration. My daughter Charlotte was fourteen years old and should have many other things to keep her busy besides seeking out my mute company. Still she came more and more frequently. I distinguished day from night through her presence, and her perpetual reading.

Thilda had not come by today. She came to see me more seldom now, didn’t even drag the family doctor here anymore. Perhaps the money had now really come to an end.

Thilda had never said a word about Rahm. I would have known, even if she were to speak about him while I lay in the deepest of slumbers. His name could awaken me from the beyond. She probably had never put it together, never understood that our conversation the last time we met, his laughter, had led me right here, to this room, to this bed.

He was the one who had asked me to come. I didn’t know why he wanted to meet me. I hadn’t been to see him for several years, and made only compulsory, polite conversation on the rare occasions that we happened to meet in the city—conversation that he always brought to an end.

The autumn was at its peak when I went to visit him. The leaves were an intense play of colors, clear yellow, warm brown, blood red, before the wind had succeeded in tearing them off, forcing them down to the ground and decay. Nature was brimming with fruit, trees laden with apples, juicy plums, dripping sugary pears, and the soil, not yet fully harvested but full of crunchy, crisp carrots, pumpkins, onions, fragrant herbs alongside the field, everything ripe for the picking, for eating. One could live just as carefree as in the Garden of Eden. My feet stepped lightly across the ground as I walked through a grove overgrown with dark green ivy, towards Rahm’s house. I was looking forward to meeting him again, to having time to converse with him properly, as we had done so long ago, before I became the father of so many children, before the seed shop took all of my time.

He met me at the door. He still wore his hair cut close, was still thin, wiry, strong. He flashed a smile, his smiles never lasted long, but warmed nonetheless, and then he let me into his study, which was full of plants and glass tanks. In several of them I caught a glimpse of amphibians, full-grown frogs and toads, bred from the tadpole stage I presumed. It was towards this field of the natural sciences that all his attention was directed. When I came to see him after completing my exams eighteen years ago, I hoped to study insects, particularly the eusocial species, the individual insects that functioned together virtually as one organism—a superorganism. That was where my passion lay, with the bumblebees, wasps, hornets, termites, bees. And ants. But he held that this would have to come later and soon I was also busily occupied with these inbetween creatures that his study was full of, creatures that were neither insects, nor fish, nor mammals. I was only his research assistant, so I could not object. It was an honor working for him, I knew that and was therefore concerned about showing reverent gratitude rather than imposing demands. I attempted to adopt his fascination and expected that when the time was ripe, when I was ready, he would allow me to reserve time for my own projects. That day never came, however, and quite soon it became clear to me that I would instead have to carry out my own research during my time off, start with the fundamentals and slowly work my way forward. But there was never any time for this, either, before or after Thilda.

The housekeeper served biscuits and tea. We drank from delicate, thin cups that almost disappeared between our fingers, a tea set he had bought himself on one of his many trips to the Far East in the years before he settled down out here in the village.

As we sipped the tea, he told me about his work. About the research he was doing, about his most recent scientific lectures, about his next article. As I listened I nodded, asked questions, taking care to formulate my words in a qualified fashion and then listened once again. I fixed my gaze on him, wanted him to meet it. But he did not look at me much, instead his eyes slid across the room, across the artifacts, as if they were the ones he was talking to.

Then he fell silent, no sound other than that of the wind tearing the yellowing leaves off the trees out there. I took a sip of tea; the slurping sound was heightened in the quiet room. Heat rose to my cheeks and I quickly put the cup down. But he did not appear to have noticed anything, just sat there quietly without dedicating any more attention to me.

“Today is my birthday,” he said, finally.

“I’m sorry. I had no idea… but I extend to you my heartfelt best wishes!”

“Do you know how old I am?” He turned his eyes towards me.

I hesitated. How old could he be? Very old. Well over fifty. Perhaps closer to sixty? I fidgeted, noticing suddenly how warm it was in the room, cleared my throat. How should I answer?

When I said nothing, he looked down. “It’s not important.”

Was he disappointed? Had I disappointed him? Again? His face, however, expressed nothing. He put down his teacup, took a biscuit, how mundane, a biscuit, even though the conversation we were about to embark on was anything but mundane and he put it down on the saucer.

He didn’t eat it, just let it lie there. The room was uncomfortably quiet. I had to say something, it was my turn now.

“Are you going to celebrate?” I asked and regretted it immediately. What a foolish question, as if he were a child.

Neither did he deign to answer. He sat there with the saucer in his hand, but did not eat, just looked down at the tiny, dry biscuit. He moved his fingers, the biscuit slid towards the edge of the saucer, but he quickly straightened it, saving the biscuit at the last second and put the saucer down.

“You were a promising student,” he said suddenly.

He drew a breath, as if he were about to say something more, but no words came.

I cleared my throat. “Yes?”

He shifted his position. “When you came to me I had great expectations.” He let his hands hang at his sides, just sat like that, straight up and down. “It was your powerful enthusiasm and passion that convinced me. I had otherwise not planned to hire an assistant.”

“Thank you, Professor. Those are immensely flattering words.”

He straightened his back, sat very erect as if he were a student himself, glanced at me quickly. “But something happened to you.”

My chest tightened. A question. It was a question. But how should I answer?

“Had it happened already by the time you gave the Swammerdam presentation?” Again he looked quickly at me. His gaze, which was usually so steady, wavered.

“Swammerdam? But that was so many years ago,” I said quickly.

“Yes. Exactly. So many years ago. And it was there that you met her?”

“You mean my wife?”

His silence confirmed my question. Yes, I met Thilda there, after the lecture. Or, rather: the circumstances led me to her. The circumstances… no, Rahm led me to her. It was his laughter, his derision that caused me to look in another direction, to look in her direction.

I wanted to say something about this, but couldn’t find the words. He leaned forward abruptly, cleared his throat faintly. “And now?”

“Now?”

“Why have you brought children into the world?”

He made the last comment in a louder voice, a voice that almost broke and now he was staring at me, unwavering, a frost had emerged inside of him.

“Why?” I looked away quickly, unable to meet his gaze, the hardness in his eyes. “Well, it’s what one does.”

He rested his arms on his knees, simultaneously inhibited and demanding. “It’s what one does? Well, it is perhaps what one does. But why you? What do you have to give them?”

“To give them? Food, clothing.”

He abruptly raised his voice. “Don’t bring up that confounded seed business of yours!”

He sat back again abruptly, as if he wanted to distance himself from me, and wrung his hands in his lap.

“No…” I struggled against the cowed ten-year-old inside of me, tried to remain calm, but noticed that I was shaking. When I finally managed to speak again my voice was high-pitched and forced. “I would very much like to continue with my research. But it’s just that… as you, professor, can probably understand… there isn’t enough time.”

“What do you want me to say? That it’s completely acceptable?” He stood up. “Acceptable that you can’t find the time?” He stood there on the floor in front of me, moved a few steps closer, grew, became large and dark. “Acceptable that you still haven’t finished writing a single research article? Acceptable that your bookshelves are full of unread books? Acceptable that I’ve spent all this time on you and you still haven’t achieved more in life than a mediocre boar?”

The last word hung quivering in the air between us.

A boar. That’s what I was to him. A boar.

A weak protest rose inside me. Had he really spent that much time on me, or had I first and foremost been a henchman for his projects? Because that was perhaps what he actually wanted, that I should inherit his research, keep it alive. Keep him alive. But I swallowed my words.

“That’s what you want to hear? Right?” he said, with eyes as empty as the amphibians’ who were staring at us from the glass tanks. “That that’s how life is? One reproduces, has offspring, one instinctively puts their needs first, they are mouths to feed, one becomes a provider, the intellect steps aside to make way for nature. It’s not your fault. And it’s still not too late.” He stared at me until it hurt. “That’s what you want to hear? That it’s still not too late? That your time will come?” Then he laughed suddenly. A small, hard laugh without joy, but full of scorn. It was brief, but it remained inside me. He fell silent, but did not wait for my answer, knew that I wouldn’t have the strength to say anything. He just walked to the door and opened it. “Unfortunately I must ask you to leave. I have work to do.”

He left me without saying good-bye, let the housekeeper show me out. I wandered back to my books but didn’t take any out. I couldn’t even bear to look at them, just crept into bed and stayed there, stayed here, while my books accumulated dust. All of the texts I’d once wanted to read and understand.

They were still there, in disarray on the shelves, some with the spine further out than others, like an uneven row of teeth on the shelf. I wrenched myself away from them, could not stand seeing them. Charlotte lifted her head, became aware that I was awake and quickly put down the book.

“Are you thirsty?”

She got up, found a mug of water and held it out to me.

I turned my head away.

“No.” I heard the severity in my voice and hastened to add, “Thank you.”

“Do you want anything else? The doctor said—”

“Nothing.”

She looked at me closely, as if she were studying me.

“You look better. More alert.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Really. I mean it.” She smiled. “At least you answer.”

I refrained from saying anything else, as any further speech on my part would only reinforce the impression of restored health. Instead I let the silence confirm the opposite, and my gaze slide away, as if I no longer noticed her.

But she did not give up, just remained standing by my bedside, holding one hand in the other, wringing them a little and releasing them again, until she finally came out with what was clearly weighing on her heart.

“Has God abandoned you, Father?”

Imagine if it were that simple, if it had something to do with Our Lord. To lose one’s faith, for that there was a simple remedy: find it again. When I was a student I had immersed myself in the Bible. I always had it at my side, and I took it to bed with me every evening. I kept searching for the connection between it and my field, between the small wonders in nature and the big words on paper. I lingered especially over the writings of Paul the Apostle. I can’t count the number of hours I’d sat studying Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, because so many of his fundamental ideas are found in this, it was the closest one that came to a theology according to St. Paul. And having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. What did that mean? That he who is captive is perhaps the only one who is truly free? Doing the right thing can be a prison, a form of captivity, but we had been shown the way. Why didn’t we manage it, then? Not even in meeting with His creation did human beings succeed in doing the right thing.

I never found the answer and I took out the little black volume more and more seldom. It gathered dust on the shelf, along with the others. What was I going to say now? That this, my so-called sickbed, was far too banal and vile to have anything to do with Him? That its core was to be found solely within me, in my choices, in the life I had lived?

No. Perhaps another day, but not now. So I refrained from answering her, only shook my head feebly and pretended to fall asleep.

She sat with me until peace descended upon the house below us. I listened to the pages being turned, she read quickly, the soft sound of muslin moving when she now and then changed position. She was apparently chained to the books, just as I was chained to the bed, even though she was wise enough to know better. Book learning was a waste of time for her; she would never have use for the knowledge anyway, simply because she was a daughter and not a son.

But all of a sudden she was interrupted. The door opened. Rapid footsteps stomped across the floor.

“Is this where you’re sitting?” Thilda’s stern voice, and without a doubt her equally stern gaze upon Charlotte. “It’s bedtime,” she continued, as if the information in itself were a command. “You have to do the dishes from supper. And Edmund has a headache, so I want you to put on some tea water for him.”

“Yes, Mother.”

I could hear Charlotte’s feet against the floor as she stood up and the sound of the book being put down on the sideboard. Her light footsteps moving towards the door.

“Good night, Father.”

Then she disappeared. Her serenity was replaced by Thilda’s brisk steps. She walked over to the stove and with loud, brusque movements she put in more coal. She did it herself now; the maidservant had long since been obliged to find other work, and now Thilda suffered daily over having to take care of the heating herself, a suffering she did very little to conceal. She emphasized it rather, by accompanying all of her movements with sighs and groans.

When she finally finished, she just stood there. But I had only a moment of silence before her perpetual orchestra started up. I didn’t need to open my eyes to know that she was standing down by the warmth of the stove, allowing her tears to flow freely. I had seen it a number of times before and there was no mistaking the sound. The crackling of the coal accompanied her tirade. I squirmed, laid my ear against the pillow in an effort to muffle the sound, but without any particular success.

A minute passed. Two. Three.

Then she finally relented and concluded her lamentation with a powerful blowing of her nose. She probably understood that she wasn’t getting anywhere today, either. The mucus warmed by her body flowed out of her, with loud, almost mechanical snorting sounds. She was always like this, so well lubricated, whether she cried or not. Except for down there. There it was woefully dry and cold. And all the same she had given me eight children.

I pulled the blanket over my head, wanted to shut out the sound.

“William,” she said sharply. “I can see that you’re not sleeping.”

I tried to keep my breathing quiet.

“I can see it.”

Louder now, but no reason to move.

“You have to hear this.” She took an extra deep sniff. “I’ve been forced to let Alberta go. Now the shop is empty. I’ve been obliged to close.”

What? I couldn’t keep myself from turning over. The shop closed? Empty. Dark. The shop that was supposed to provide for all of my children?

She must have noticed my movement, because now she drew closer. “I had to ask the shopkeeper for credit today.” Her voice still choked with tears, as if she might at any minute start honking again. “The entire purchase was put on credit. And he stared at me so, with pity. But said nothing. He is a gentleman, after all.”

The last words were swallowed by a whimper.

A gentleman. Unlike yours truly. Who probably did not incite any great admiration from the surrounding world, and especially not from my wife, where I lay, without a hat and cane, monocle or manners. Yes, imagine; I had such bad manners that I was leaving my entire family high and dry. And now the circumstances had grown dramatically worse. The shop was closed, my family would not manage without me for long, although it was wholly necessary for them all that the daily operations continued. Because it was the seeds, the spices and the flower bulbs that put food on the table for all of them.

I ought to get up, but could not manage it, no longer knew how. The bed paralyzed me.

And Thilda, too, gave up on me today. She inhaled vigorously, a deep, trembling sigh. Then she blew her nose one last time, probably to make sure that every single little drop of mucus had left the ear, nose and throat region.

The mattress complained when she lay down. That she could bear to share a bed with my sweaty, unwashed limbs was more than I could fathom. It essentially said everything about how headstrong she was.

Slowly her respiration grew calmer; finally it was heavy and deep, a credible sleep-induced breathing, wholly unlike my own.

I turned over. The light from the masonry stove rippled across her face, her long braids lay on the pillow, released from the tight intricate bun on the back of her head, her upper lip covered her lower lip and gave her a dogged look, like an old toothless woman. I lay there and observed her, tried to find my way back to what I had once loved, and what I had once desired, but sleep overcame me before it happened.