I leaned forward, held her gaze and said softly: “They’re going to die. Again.”
She looked at me. I waited for an answer, but it didn’t come. Was she thinking? Did she take it in? Did my words mean anything to her at all? The anger rose inside me. Couldn’t she say something?
I couldn’t stand to be there any longer; I turned and walked towards the door. Then she finally reacted.
“Wait.”
She opened the book and calmly turned the pages until she reached the title page.
“Thomas Savage.” She glanced at the name of the author. “American?”
“It was the only book he wrote,” I said quickly. “But that doesn’t make it any less important.”
She raised her head and looked at me again. Then she nodded towards a chair.
“Sit down. Tell me.”
At first my words tumbled out in rush, as I explained haphazardly, jumping back and forth. But then I understood that she was giving me time. Several times somebody knocked on the door; there were many people waiting, but she turned them all away and I slowly calmed down.
I told her about the author, Thomas Savage. The book was based on his experiences and his life. Savage’s family had been beekeepers for generations. His father was one of the first to be affected by The Collapse and one of the last to give up. And Savage had worked with his father until the end. They had changed over to organic operations at an early stage, that was Savage’s own requirement. He never forced the bees out onto the road, never took more honey than they needed to survive. But all the same they were not spared. The bees died. Again and again. Finally they were forced to sell the farm. Only then, as a fifty-year-old, did Savage sit down and write about all of his experiences, about the future. The History of Bees was visionary, but still real and concrete because it was based on a lifetime of practical experience.
The book was published in 2037, just eight years before The Collapse was a fact. It predicted the fate of the human race. And how we might, in turn, manage to rise from the ashes again.
When I was finished, Li Xiara sat in silence. She held the book calmly in her hands. Her gaze, impossible to read, rested on me.
“You can go now.”
Was she throwing me out? If I refused, she would call security, give them orders to take me home. Demand that I stay there, in the flat, until it was time for the speech and then require me to give it and many more, against my own convictions.
But she did none of these things. Instead, she turned the pages until she reached the first chapter and leaned towards the text.
I stood there. Then she lifted her eyes again, nodded towards the door.
“Now I would like to be alone. Thank you.”
“But…”
She put one hand on the book, as if to protect it. Then she said softly: “I have children, too.”
Chapter 62
WILLIAM
The wallpaper hung in tatters from the walls and its yellowness was still invasive. She was singing again, today like every day, a melodious humming of faint notes while she swept the floor with precise movements. I lay with my face towards the window; a few brown leaves fluttered past out there.
She swept the debris onto a tray and put it by the door. Then she turned to face me.
“Shall I shake out your blanket?”
Without waiting for an answer she quickly lifted it off me, picked it up in her arms and carried it towards the window. I lay there in my nightshirt only, feeling exposed, but she didn’t look at me.
She opened the window, the air poured in. It had grown colder just since yesterday. I could feel the goose bumps rising on my legs and pulled my feet up under me.
She held the carpet outside the window and shook it with large movements. It stood straight up like a sail out there before she allowed it to drop. Just when it was almost hanging straight down, she gave it another yank and sent it up in front of the window.
When she was finished, she laid it over me. It was as cold as the air outside. Then she pulled up a chair beside the bed and stood there with her hand on its back.
“Shall I read for you?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She never waited for an answer, just went over to the bookshelf, which was again meticulously organized. Hesitated a bit, sliding her index finger quickly across the spines of the books. Then she stopped and pulled one out.
“We’ll take this one.”
I didn’t see the title. She didn’t read it to me, either, probably knew that it didn’t make any difference. It wasn’t what she read, but the fact that she read that was important.
“Charlotte,” I said with the hoarse, old man’s voice that wasn’t mine. “Charlotte…”
She looked up. Shook her head gently. I didn’t need to say it, shouldn’t say it. Because I’d repeated it such a countless number of times already and she knew it very well. What I asked from her was to get away. Leave. Abandon me. Think about herself. Live, not for me, but for herself.
But her answer was the same every time. Nonetheless I would keep on saying it again and again. I couldn’t help myself. I owed her this, because she had granted me her entire life. But there were no words that would make her leave, no words could hold her back. She wanted only to be at my side.
Her voice filled the room along with the cool autumn air. But I wasn’t cold. The words took me into an embrace. She would read for a long time now, never allowed disturbances.
I reached out a hand and knew she would take hold of it.
She sat like this, today like every other day, with her hand calmly in mine, and filled the silence with words. She wasted the words on me, was wasting her time, her life. That in itself was reason enough for me to get up. But I wasn’t equal to it. I was stripped of—no, not stripped—I had thrown away both my will and my passion.
Then suddenly a sound rose up towards us from the ground floor. A sound I hadn’t heard in many years. The crying of an infant. An infant? Not mine. Perhaps someone who was visiting? But who? Months had passed since I had heard voices down there other than those of my own family.
Charlotte stopped reading. She actually allowed herself to be disturbed and leaned forward a bit, as if she were about to take off at a run.
Someone was lulling a baby to sleep down there. Thilda?
The child whimpered, but allowed itself to be comforted. Gradually it became calmer.
Charlotte leaned back in the chair, picked up the book and resumed reading.
I closed my eyes. Could sense her hand against mine and the words rising and falling in the air between us. The minutes passed. She read, and I lay completely still, in a state of deep gratitude.
But then the baby’s wailing started up again downstairs. Louder now. Charlotte stopped.
She withdrew her hand.
The crying intensified to despair, distress, tearing at the walls.
Then she stood up and put down the book. Quickly she walked towards the door. “I’m sorry, Father.”
She opened the door. The crying filled the room.
“The infant… ,” I said.
She stopped in the doorway.
I searched for the words. “Has somebody come to visit?”
She shook her head quickly.
“No. The baby is ours now.”
“But, how?”
“The mother died in childbirth. And the father, he’s not able to take care of it.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “Is he here?”
“No, Father.” She hesitated. “He’s in London.”
Suddenly I understood. I sat up halfway in the bed, tried to look at her sternly, to make her tell me the truth. “It’s his child, isn’t it? Edmund’s?”
She blinked rapidly. Didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to, either.