The History of Bees by Maja Lunde

Author:Maja Lunde
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Touchstone
Published: 2017-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

TAO

Sweaters, trousers, underwear. For how many days? A week? Two?

I packed everything I had room for. I’d taken out a beat-up bag of my father’s; now I was throwing clothes into it quickly, with the urgency of someone who has already waited too long.

When I came home again after I’d been behind the white fence, it was impossible to go to bed. I trotted back and forth across the floor. Not because I was restless, but because I was finally on my way. I wouldn’t have to stay here and wait, hoping for the one phone call that would explain everything, wait and fret over the two simple words I had never said to Kuan. Those two little words: forgive me. I was unable to. Because if I said forgive me, it was true. Then I was to blame.

This was the only thing I could do.

I closed the bag. The zipper made a loud rasping noise. The sound must have covered up his footsteps, because when I turned around, he was there. Blinking his eyes a little, rumpled, barely awake.

“I’m going to Beijing.”

“What?”

His jaw dropped. Perhaps because of what I said, perhaps because I didn’t ask him to come with me. At that moment it hit me that I should have said we. We’re going. But it had never occurred to me that he’d come along.

“But how . . . ?”

“I have to find him.”

“You have no idea where he is. Which hospital he’s in.”

“I have to go.”

“But Beijing . . . Where will you start?”

He was so thin. Sharp shadows. Thinner than ever before. Far too gaunt.

“I found addresses. I have to search the hospitals.”

His voice rose: “Alone? But is the city safe?”

“It’s our son.”

The words sounded unreasonably harsh. I lifted the bag down onto the floor without looking at him anymore. Noticed only how he stood uneasily behind me, the words as if stuck inside him. Was he thinking about offering to come along?

“But how will you pay for it? The ticket, hotel?”

My hands stopped in midair. I knew it had to come, the question of money.

“I’ll just take a little,” I said softly.

He walked quickly to the kitchen cupboard, opened it, searching. His face hardened as he turned to face me. Suddenly there was something cold in his eyes. With an abrupt movement he tore the bag out of my hands, opened it and looked straight at the tin that lay on top.

“No.” It came out loudly, with a force I seldom heard from him.

He dropped the bag with a thud on the floor and took one step towards me.

“You won’t find him, Tao,” he said. “You’ll spend everything we have, but you won’t find him.”

“I won’t spend it all. I said I won’t spend it all.”

I took out yet another sweater, even though I didn’t need any others. Started to fold it. Tried to work calmly. The synthetic material rustled between my fingers.

“I have to try.” I looked down at the floor. Tried not to look at the bag, which I wanted to snatch up.

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