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.
Chapter 6
GEORGE
Emma was right about the snow. By the next day it was already melting all over the place, running and trickling so you couldn’t hear anything else. And the hot sun beat down on the boards of the house, bleaching out the color on the south wall a little more. The temperature crept steadily upwards, growing warm enough for the bees’ mass defecation flight. They are clean creatures and won’t relieve themselves in the hive. But when the sun is finally beating down, they fly out and empty their bowels. I had actually hoped for this, that the winter would release its grip now while Tom was home. Because then he could come along out to the hives and clean the bottom boards. I had even given Jimmy and Rick the day off, so Tom and I could have the chance to work alone. But as it turned out we didn’t go until Thursday, just three days before he had to go back.
It had been a quiet week. We walked in circles around each other, he and I. Emma stayed between us, laughing and chatting as usual. She was clearly putting her heart into finding food that suited Tom, because there was no end to the number of fish meals she conjured up, how much “exciting” and “delicious” fish they had suddenly acquired in the frozen goods section at the store. And Tom, he bowed and scraped in thanks, was so pleased about “all the good food.”
When yet another fish meal had been consumed, he usually remained seated at the kitchen table. He read alarmingly thick books, tapped away feverishly on the computer or was completely consumed by some Japanese crossword puzzle thing he called sudoku. It apparently didn’t occur to him that he could move somewhere else, that outside the day was suddenly flooded with sunshine, as if somebody had put in a more powerful lightbulb.
I found things to do, of course, I knew how to stay busy, too. One day I even drove to Autumn and bought house paint. As I stood there painting the south wall, I could feel how the sun scorched the back of my head. And I knew that we could take the chance on a trip out to the hives. I didn’t really need to clean the bottom boards just yet, but it was the last chance for Tom, so it wouldn’t hurt to start with a few hives. The bees had already been out for a while; they gathered pollen when the sun was shining. He used to enjoy this. He always used to go out with me. Jimmy and I cleaned the flight holes a few times in the course of the winter, but apart from that we left the bees alone, so it was always a special occasion when we were out among the hives for the first time. Seeing the bees again, the familiar buzzing, that was a joyful get-together, like a real reunion celebration.
“I need help with the bottom boards,” I said.
I was already dressed to go out; I stood there in my rubber boots and overalls, in the middle of the room. My legs were restless, I was looking forward to this. I had folded the veil up, I could see better like that. I had taken out extra gear, too, held it out with both hands.
“Already?” he asked and didn’t look up. He was slower than molasses. Just sat there all pale in the glow of the laptop with his fingers on the keyboard.
I suddenly noticed how I was holding the suit and veil out a bit too far, as if I was going to give him a gift he didn’t want. I pushed both under my arm and put my other hand on my hip.
“It’s rotting underneath them. You know that. Nobody likes living in muck. You wouldn’t, either, even though student dorm rooms aren’t exactly known for being the cleanest.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a croak. One of my hands was also at an odd angle. I removed it from my hip. It remained dangling idly at my side. I scratched my forehead just to give it something to do.
“But you usually wait a couple more weeks,” he said.
He looked up now. My boy’s eyes stared at me.
“No. I don’t.”
“Dad…”
He saw that I was lying. Looked at me with one eyebrow raised.
“It’s warm enough,” I hastened to say. “And we’ll only take a few. You’ll be spared the rest. I’ll take care of them with Jimmy and Rick next week.”
I tried handing him the suit and hat again, but he didn’t accept them. He basically gave no sign of moving, just nodded at his computer.
“I’m in the middle of an assignment for school.”
“Aren’t you on vacation?” I put the gear in front of him on the table. Tried to stare at him firmly, let my eyes say that he’d better help out now that he had finally decided he could be bothered to pay us a visit. “See you outside in five minutes.”
We had 324 hives. 324 queens, each with her own colony, located throughout the area in different places, rarely more than 20 in each place. If we’d lived in another state, we could have had up to 70 hives in one site. I knew a beekeeper in Montana, he had gathered close to 100 in the same place. The region was so fertile that the bees only had to fly a few yards to find everything they needed. But here, in Ohio, the agriculture wasn’t diversified enough. Mile after mile of corn and soybeans. Too little access to nectar, not enough for the bees to live on.
Emma had painted the hives, all of them, over the years, the color of candies. Pink, turquoise, light yellow and a kind of greenish pistachio color, as artificial as sweets full of additives. She thought it looked festive. For my own part they could just as well have been white, like before. My father had always painted them white and his father and grandfather before him. They used to say that it was the inside that counted—not the color. But Emma thought the bees liked them this way, that it made it more personal. Who knows, maybe she was right. And I had to admit that the sight of the colored hives scattered across the landscape, as if a giant had dropped his sweets, always gave me a warm feeling inside.