The Day of the Bees Read online

  “You no longer have that luxury. You must ask yourself—are you motivated only by your love for a man, or will you serve a higher purpose?”

  “There is no higher purpose than love.”

  “You are quite right about that. And there is no higher love than for one’s country.”

  “There is for me.”

  “Well then, if you want to save this love, you must serve your country.”

  Village of Reigne

  Dearest Francisco,

  The sanctity of love’s innocence is a candle that burns only once. One prays the candle will continue to burn after the short night of innocence breaks to a new dawn. Such a violent hope to hold. We are so violent.

  Finally … finally! I hold in my hand a letter from you. I’ve reread it and reread it. It seems we have cried an ocean of tears for each other. If only we could swim to the middle of that ocean and embrace, drown in each other’s arms, into peaceful oblivion. We cannot—it’s a poetic notion that shall never come to pass. But what we had still burns bright in your letter, that candle of hope I hold. In its glow I can still see the apples of the morning through your eyes, the swallows over the vineyards dipping to warm currents of wind, the lizards preening themselves on the rock walls dividing freshly tilled fields, the colors of the grasses changing with the passing sun of each day. I cling to this, I caress each word on the page you have written to me. I cannot help but swim to you in this sea of memory, created as much by laughter as by tears.

  My mind goes back in an endless whirl of dampness and heat. The moldy scented air of the abbey the morning after the Bastille Day dance, the naked children of the château laughing beneath the clock tower. I still hear their laughter. We were on the road from the cherry orchard to the dance in Ville Rouge. I wanted to show you the ruins of the Marquis’s château, tilting like a broken crown atop a steep hill. We parked the Bearcat in the village below and walked through the coolness of a narrow cobblestone street winding upward. The end of the street curved away from us as we climbed, our final destination continuing to elude us, disappearing from sight. High stone walls on either side prevented us from seeing into the houses we passed. We could hear the murmur of conversation as families sat on their patios having lunch. We could hear birds chattering in the branches of fig trees. The scent of peaches and cold strawberry soup permeated the air. Each step we took unveiled another sensation. Higher we climbed, until we were above all the houses and had a view down onto the private lunches on the patios we could only sense as we walked by. Everything was normal; it was the kind of Provençal scene that postcards love to celebrate and city sophisticates love to deride. But what we witnessed next was not normal.

  It was as if we had been led to that spot to glimpse the original Garden of Eden. That garden was before us, an apparition, like a play enacted only for our benefit. The play was so intimate and innocent it seemed we were part of it; yet it was something we both knew we could never convey to others, for they wouldn’t believe us. Others would think that the two of us, so in love, had projected that love into a forbidden fantasy garden beneath the crumbling stone columns of the Marquis’ notorious château. What we saw was not perverted. It was spontaneous nature: naked children.

  From our angle of vision we could see the children, but they could not see us. They were playing in the back garden of a stone house out of sight of their parents, who lingered over the remains of a long lunch, laughing at family anecdotes. There were two sets of parents at the lunch table, one French, the other from a northern country, their accented voices unself-consciously loud. The children around the corner paid no heed to their parents; they were more interested in exploring their exotic differences.

  The girl was French, about six years old, in a splashy colored sundress, her hair perfectly braided down her back and anchored with a blue bow flaring out like the wings of some extraordinary bird. Her tiny toenails were painted bright pink and flashed as she moved her exquisite feet in open-toed sandals. She was every mother’s darling, the apple of every father’s eye. She was confident in her skin and her eyes sparkled with devil-may-care coquetry. She knew that her supple body exacted from others a kind of supplicant obeisance. She did not yet know why this was, but it was. If she turned her leg just so, and her smallish hips jutted just so, and if her lips pouted in just such a manner, well then, she was just too cute for people to stand. So people wanted to hug her, or tickle her, or run their fingers through her hair, or lick her up like vanilla ice cream. In her mind there was nothing wrong with this, nothing unusual, and certainly nothing sinful. She was simply and knowingly, in her heart and gestures, the prize of the universe; a powerful angel that could light up the world and make it sigh and cry over perfect innocence.

  And the boy? Oh Francisco, you remember how he was? He was her opposite: awkward, uncertain, and fascinated by her power. He was caught in a web that had begun to be spun centuries before he existed. He was seven or eight years old, taller than she, dressed in shorts, T-shirt, and sandals. He didn’t have a clue how she could leverage the world with her provocative cuteness. He didn’t understand at all why she was such a drama. There was an air of mischief, mystery, and play about her that seemed to bubble up from some subterranean spring deep within her.

  If he had any idea of who Eve was, he would have run. Even with no idea of Eve he was still nervous and shy, not knowing if he was going to be sheared like a lamb or shot like a rabbit. For there was great danger in what this girl was whispering to him in their play, the two of them half hidden in shadows of an arched stone doorway. Their parents called out to them from around the corner, making certain these prized possessions hadn’t wandered off or been swooped up by a jealous sun.

  The little girl spoke in quick whispers, close into the boy’s ear. He was nervous at being so near to her. The look on his face was a mix of incomprehension and incredulity. Perhaps he was taken aback by what she was suggesting. Perhaps, unlike his parents, he didn’t have a complete understanding of the French language, and thought he had misheard what she intended. She slipped off her sandals and continued to whisper to him. His face finally registered comprehension. He slipped off his sandals too. She laughed and stepped into his sandals. They were too big on her delicate feet as she spun around in a little dance of glee before him. She was wearing his shoes now—and she insisted he wear hers. Obediently, he struggled to pull her sandals on, but they were too small. She prodded him to continue, and he did, breaking the sandal buckles as he forced his feet in. He stared down at this oddity, his feet constrained in girls’ sandals. He was teetering on the edge of the absurd, the edge of a girl’s world. He gazed quickly around. He was out of sight of his parents, but he had an expression of being exposed, caught in the act, as if the mates at his all-boys’ school were seated at their desks, watching him parade around in girls’ sandals, their laughter a chorus of male mockery.

  She was not through with him. She stabbed him with more whispers. Now his expression was just plain dumbstruck. He stepped back into the shadows as she stepped out into the sun. With a quick laugh, she pulled the sundress up and over her head. She stood before him in a naked glow, except for his sandals and her highwaisted little-girl panties. She swung the dress back and forth, taunting him. How could he let this little girl out-dare him? He was a big boy. He was not afraid. And besides, no one was really looking. No one could see. No one would tell. That’s what she promised with her hot smiling whispers. He slowly pulled his T-shirt off. She was fascinated by his bony white chest, and the two flat pinpricks of pale nipples. She pinched one of the nipples and he held his breath, not wanting her to know its effect on him as she studied his face with the delight of a novice scientist staring into a microscope for the first time, watching protozoa split.

  She whispered for him to go further. After all, she was not ashamed of what she had to offer. Her legs were lean, her belly was taut, her shoulders were smooth, her flesh was firm, it was all just her. If he wanted, he could feel her, the
scientist didn’t mind being dissected. But he kept his hands to himself, not fully comprehending her game. She swung her dress again before him in another dare. She was down to her panties; it was his turn now.

  He unbuttoned his shorts and pushed them over his white underpants. The shorts fell to his ankles and he kicked them off. She was delighted. He really was brave. They eyed each other warily, two armies on either side of the divide. She reached out and touched her finger to the center of his chest, then drew it down to his navel. So perfect to have a real live doll to play with. Then she froze as she heard her mother call her name.

  The boy’s eyes widened in terror. Was her mother about to get up from the table and discover them? He trembled. The girl called out to her mother that all was okay in the garden. The two children waited for the next intrusion, but it didn’t come. They were safe. She whispered that she wanted everything off him. He shook his head in a firm no. She whispered again. He was not to be moved. She, with all the nonchalance of one squeezing toothpaste out of its tube, hooked her thumbs under the elastic of her panties and slipped them off. There she stood, the perfect little statue in all her glory—and, like a statue, incapable of inhibition.

  He was astonished. Not that she was naked, but that she had the courage to do it. She was younger and smaller than he, yet she led the way. She belittled him by her action. He might as well have been standing there in a raincoat and rubber boots compared to her. How had he gotten himself into this predicament? He tugged at his own underpants indecisively, then pulled them off before he could think better of it.

  I held my breath with that little girl as she stared in wonder. There wasn’t much between his legs, that wasn’t the wonder. It was that she had mastered the art of seduction. She had persuaded him to follow her. This created a new charge between them, a lick of lightning exposing anarchy, their flesh set free, their spirits floating. That is why she did what she did next, quite quickly and without thinking. She pulled on his underpants and whispered that he put on hers. He did, struggling with the small elastic band, but finally succeeding. There they stood, two statues with the roles reversed.

  She gazed at him with such compassion and reverence. He had actually followed her lead; now she was him and he was her. Swiftly her expression changed, became a blank. Suddenly she slapped him. He was stunned. And as if she had no control of her hand, she smacked him again. He wanted to cry but he couldn’t. He was a little man and could not admit the pain of humiliation. She slapped him again, so hard his whole body shook. She laughed. For he had followed her too far with too little resistance. She no longer had respect for him. If she could so easily get him to be her, then what need did she really have of him in the end? As she laughed a strange surge came up from his loins and stiffened between his legs, causing a swell in the ill-fitting panties. He wasn’t hard, he was too young to be, but he was aroused. Aroused by all the confusion she had created around him and all the confusion she stirred in him. She touched emotions he didn’t know he had. His flesh responded with sensations he had never felt before. A shudder of shock went through him as she pointed at the swelling between his legs, pointing her finger at a fresh source of vulnerability—vulnerability for both of them. She somehow knew that her inexplicable cruelty toward him had evoked a swelling that one day would stand at attention barking demands of its own. Neither of them would be safe then. This abstraction was like a hammer hitting a crystal ball: she shattered into uncontrollable giggles.

  Francisco, I squeezed your hand so hard. The clock tower, which rose above the tiled rooftops behind the children, chimed the late afternoon hour. The children’s parents called for them, getting up from the table, chairs scraping back. The children hurriedly pulled on their clothes over each other’s underpants—surely there would be some fancy explaining to do later. The parents came into the garden to collect their treasures. The children whined disagreeably that the afternoon had to end so soon, especially since they had been so good and not caused an unpleasant moment. Then they were all gone. Vanished.

  The two of us were left standing alone, staring into the empty garden. We had witnessed something so private and primal that we knew we could never share it with anyone else, just as the children knew that they could never share or speak of this to others—that one day, when they had forgotten each other’s names and faces, they would remember only the sensation, the feelings they caused in each other without knowing why.

  But I knew why. As we moved to leave I looked down. There, behind a blooming lilac bush, was the truth, hidden from the little boy the whole time he was ensnared in a game he could never win. On the ground were pots and pans in neat rows, each filled with mud drying in the sun. Delicious dirt pies and cakes, sprinkled with flower-petal frosting. It was the little girl’s kitchen, her play place where she practiced for the future expected of her. Little did the boy suspect, despite all the enigmatic excitement the girl represented, that where her world really was headed lay behind that fragrant bush. She had created a home in her heart long before she would invite any man to share it with her.

  We stood above the garden, holding hands even more tightly to prove to ourselves that what we had seen was not a lovers’ hallucination, but real. The clock in the tower chimed again, startling us back to the present, reminding us that time is love’s executioner. But we were reluctant to let go. We had become the children. Their spirit had entered us, or awakened what was always there. I was a girl with you. Isn’t that what most women want in the beginning, to be a girl with her boy, so she may grow into a woman, giving all, reinventing herself inside a larger self? I held your hand like a girl. A schoolgirl walking with her burden of books, dreaming dreams that dare her to risk all. I wanted my clothes off. I wanted you in me everywhere so I could completely surround you. I did not want to be invaded by you, but desired to include you anywhere my body could receive you. You in me, for me to be you, being me. My mouth full, my heart kissing, my soul sucking. No sweet surrender, only a seed sowing. Couldn’t you feel? I held your hand like a schoolgirl with breasts burning under her blouse. I was so open to you, no woman could be wider. I was a sea for you to swim in. I dip my hand into the sea’s current, its scent on my fingers, on my breath, on my tongue. I want the taste of your unsuspecting boy stiffness in my mouth. Waves of heat crush over me from a cloudless sky. My fingers tremble. Between my lips the tip of the flame burns brighter. I make a thousand cuts on my body for you to enter. I feel the prick of your boy stiffness in the crease of my soul. Such is a woman on the furthest edge of desire.

  And now I am left in isolation, alone in my bed with memories of the children. My head bends, my mouth touches my breasts, my lips taste a spot of milk on thickening brown nipples. I want to suck, to feel what will flow. Only my own sobbing comes, not the gentle sigh of a baby nursing. It is my own breath of life, exhausted when I turn from your phantom kiss.

  I am haunted by children—all children. The sun burns a hole through my nightdress, through the thousand cuts where you once were. The hollow moon blinds my eyes. I will tell you now, as no one else can hear and we are all alone, I am frightened, terrified of what’s to come. But I shall go forward.

  Love is not about going back, but moving toward something. We have both been broken, we must grow new wings. I kiss the stumps of your new wings. I am flying now in this bed of memory. The bed moves beneath me, rattles and spins, moving into the clouds, ascending up above the world where no one can see my red laughter, blue tears.

  LOUISE

  Village of Reigne

  Darling Man,

  I must be very circumspect. Even though I am not mailing these letters to you now, as they could be opened and examined by censors, I am still fearful of putting down everything that happens to me here, as it involves others, and their lives could be placed in danger. How hesitant I am even to write these words. I have devised a place to hide these letters: the false bottoms of my knitting baskets. Knitting is a solace to me, since there is so little time left
before the baby arrives. I have knitted clothes and blankets, my fingers never stop moving. This is good since my mind is restless and wanders easily. Did I tell you I am teaching in the little village school? There was a notice one day posted outside the town hall that a teacher was needed. Certainly my father, who sacrificed so much for my university education, never intended that I would end up instructing children in the third and fourth grades. But these are times in which we all are occupied in ways never imagined before. At first I only taught third grade, but the teacher disappeared one night, perhaps because she was Jewish. It is now forbidden for Jews to be teachers. Who knows? When people disappear the reason is almost never given. Were they sent east to work in the munitions factories? Were they conscripted and banished to some forlorn outpost? Were they shot for running contraband? Were they one of those never found after gunfire was heard in the mountains at night? Were they among those who wear the yellow cloth star sewn on their jackets and are driven away in trucks by armed guards? It could happen to anyone, and it happened to many at the local school. I am a teacher and so I have a little money to get by with.

  I can hear you now saying, “Why don’t you sell the art I left with you? That is what it is for!” I cannot sell it, for then suspicion would form as to who I really am. Also it would be a trail leading you to me; you would track me down to this small village. Besides, even if I could sell the art, I wouldn’t, for the only ones with money to afford it have the blood of betrayal on them. I don’t want that blood to touch my hands or the milk that my baby will drink. So I teach. I make a small difference with small lives. Mine has become a small life, and I like it that way. So many people have so little, have lost so much.

  This countryside was never a place to make a person rich. It has always been a place of hard work. There is no reason that my life should be any different. I make do. I have your letters. Oh yes, I have them! Sometimes one a week. For now Royer is coming through, true to his word, trading me one of your letters for each message I deliver for him. And that is what I have been reluctant to write to you about, what it is that Royer does, what it is that I do. As I said, it involves other people who could be put in jeopardy if my letters were ever read by the wrong person. Even though now I do not see faces, I see only darkness and shadows on moonless nights. On nights with moonlight, I see hat brims and woolen caps pulled down to obscure faces. You do not know what I am talking about, do you? I am speaking in riddles.