The History of Bees

Chapter 59 TAO

The boy put the fried rice on the table in front of me. The last time there had been a few pieces of vegetables and a little egg mixed in. Today it was flavored only with artificial soy sauce. The scent burned in my nose. I almost had to lean away to keep from gagging. I’d barely eaten in the past few days, although Li Xiara had given me enough money. More than enough. But I didn’t have the stomach for anything other than dry biscuits. Every nerve in my body was burning, my mouth was dry, the skin on my hands cracking. I was dehydrated, perhaps because I barely drank any fluids at all, or perhaps from all of the tears my body had released. I’d cried myself dry now, there were no tears left. I’d cried myself empty to the sound of Li Xiara’s voice. She’d visited me every day, talked and talked, explaining and coaxing me. And slowly, as time passed, her words acquired meaning. I clung to them almost greedily. Maybe I wanted them to acquire meaning. Just to follow her lead, without having to think for myself.

“You have loved him too much,” she said.

“Is it possible to love somebody too much?”

“You were like all parents. You wanted to give your child everything.”

“Yes. I wanted to give him everything.”

“Everything is far too much.”

For fractions of time, seconds, minutes I thought I understood. But then I would encounter meaninglessness again, and what she said became just words, because all I was able to think about was Wei-Wen. Wei-Wen. My child.

Yesterday she came for the last time. We wouldn’t be talking anymore, she said. I had to go home now, put my own grief aside. Duties awaited us. She wanted me to give speeches, talk about Wei-Wen. About the bees that had come back. About our goal, about her goal with them, to cultivate them like useful plants, in controlled surroundings, make every effort to ensure that they would once again reproduce, at such a rapid pace that everything would soon be as before. Wei-Wen was to become a symbol, she said. And I was to be the grieving mother who managed to see the bigger picture, putting aside her own needs for the community. When I, who have lost everything, can, so can you. She didn’t give me any choice. Something inside me understood why. I understood that she, too, was doing what she had to, or thought she had to do. Even though I still didn’t know if I would manage it, if I could cope with what she wanted from me. Because the only thing that had meaning was him. His face. I tried to hang on to it, his face between Kuan’s and my own. He was looking up at us. More. More. One, two, three—jump. The red scarf lifted by the wind.

My departure was the next day. Wei-Wen had to stay behind. Later I might be allowed to give him a burial. But that wasn’t important. The tiny, cold body covered with a layer of frost was not him. That face wasn’t his, not the one I tried to remember all the time.

I pushed the bowl towards the boy.

“It’s for you.”

He gave me a questioning look.

“Aren’t you going to eat anything at all?”

“No. I bought it for you.”

He stood there jiggling one foot.

“Have a seat.” I heard the pleading in my voice.

He quickly pulled out the chair and drew the bowl towards him, looked at it for a moment with something like happiness, before he raised it to his mouth and started shoveling in rice.

It was good to see him eat. To see him keep himself alive. I just sat there studying him while he shoved the rice into his mouth, barely taking time to chew before the next mouthful was on its way.

When the worst of his wolfish hunger was sated, he calmed down, concentrated on guiding the chopsticks more slowly towards his lips, as if an inner etiquette teacher had suddenly reminded him of his manners.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

I smiled in response.

“Do you know anything more?” I asked after allowing him to chew for a bit.

“About what?”

“About your family. Will you stay here?”

“I don’t know.” He looked down at the tabletop. “I just know that Dad has regrets every single day. We thought we were safe here, that this was where we should be, but then everything changed. We’re just a nuisance now.”

“Can’t you leave?”

“Where to? We have no money, nowhere to go.” The feeling of impotence crept through me again. Yet another thing I couldn’t do anything about.

No. This was not insurmountable. This was something I could manage, somebody I could help.

I raised my head.

“Come with me.”

“What do you mean?” He looked at me in astonishment.

“Come back with me.”

“Are you going home?”

“Yes. Now I’m going home.”

“But we aren’t allowed—they’ll refuse. And what about work? Is there work for us there?”

“I promise that I’ll help you.”

“What about food?”

“There is even less here.”

“Yes.” He put down his chopsticks. The bowl of rice was empty. Only a single grain of rice remained on the bottom. He noticed it, picked up the chopsticks to get hold of it, but quickly put them down again when he saw that I was observing him.

“You have to,” I said softly. “If you stay here, you’ll die.”

“Maybe that’s just as well.”

There was something savage in his voice and he avoided my gaze.

“What do you mean?” I forced the words out, I couldn’t take this. Not in him, someone so young.

“It doesn’t make any difference what happens to us,” he said with his head bowed. “To Dad and me. Where we live. Here. Together. Or alone. It’s not important.” His voice became hoarse suddenly. He cleared his throat, removing the huskiness. “Nothing matters anymore. Don’t you see that?”

I couldn’t muster a reply. His words were distortions of Li Xiara’s. Each and every one of us is not important. But she was talking about community; he was talking about loneliness.

I stood up abruptly. I had to make him stop talking. The fragile hope I was clinging to was on the verge of being crushed. I looked in all directions except at him as I walked towards the door.

“You have to pack,” I said in a low voice. “We leave tomorrow.”

Back at my room, I quickly pulled out the bag. It didn’t take long to gather up the few things I had with me. The clothes, some toiletries, an extra pair of shoes. I searched the entire room, wanting to be sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. And then I discovered them. The books. They’d been there all along, but I hadn’t seen them, they’d become a part of the room. They lay in a pile on the nightstand, I hadn’t touched them since the guard came to get me, hadn’t taken them out to read them, not once, knowing that the words would probably have as little meaning as everything else.

I had to return them, perhaps I could still make it to the library. But I just stood there holding them. I could feel the smooth protective plastic on the book cover at the bottom of the pile sticking to my hands.

I put them down on the bed and picked this one up. It was The History of Bees. I’d never had the chance to finish reading it. But I opened it now.