“Wei-Wen… Wei-Wen… Wei-Wen…”
She stood over me. Once again she was calm, adjusting her clothes a bit, catching her breath.
“Let her go.”
Hesitating, the guards let me go. I sat there leaning forward, no longer putting up a fight. There was no fight left in me. Slowly Li Xiara walked over to me, and put her hand on the back of my head. She let it rest there for a moment, then she stroked my cheek and took hold under my chin. She gently forced my face upwards, so that my gaze met hers.
Then she nodded.
They took me to him. He lay on a white sheet in a sharply illuminated room. He was sleeping. His body was hidden by a blanket. Only his head was visible. His face was soft, but thinner than before. His eye sockets stood out like clear shadows. I drew closer and then I discovered it—they’d shaved off all his hair on the one side of his head. I took another step, and understood why. A section behind his ear, by his hairline, was red. The sting. I resisted the urge to rush forward. I was alone, but knew they were watching. They were always watching me. But that wasn’t why I remained standing there.
As long as I was here, two meters away, I could still believe he was sleeping.
I could believe he was sleeping and avoid noticing the ice crystals that were growing like vines from the floor and up along the legs of the bed.
I could believe he was sleeping and avoid noticing how my breath hung in the air in front of me, every time I let warmth escape from my lungs.
I could believe he was sleeping and avoid noticing that he emitted no corresponding white cloud, that above his bed, over the white sheet, the air was still, clear and cold.
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.
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.