The Murmur of Bees

by Sofía Segovia

that there was only disquiet and unhappiness there. That the land breathed but would struggle to allow any crop to live. That the air blew and brought oxygen, but it also poisoned something deep within the cells. That life there was heavy, dangerous, dark, ominous.

Sometimes when we do not have someone in front of us—in plain sight, in constant contact—while we know it does not mean that they no longer exist, it’s as if it were impossible that they should carry on without us, that they could continue to exist without our physical influence. Perhaps this stems from the depths of our early childhood, when we are reluctant to lose sight of our mother for fear of her disappearing.

I imagine that, in much the same way, my parents thought they would return to a town frozen in time, fossilized. A Brigadoon. But no. Life—and death—continued without them.

you leave a place or say goodbye to someone, and thereafter, you feel the existence you have left behind is frozen by your absence.

Anyone who has been bereaved knows that the survivor’s recovery is a torturous road.

Imagine so many around you suddenly falling. Falling like flies, as if the air had suddenly been filled with poisonous gas.

Their need for meat, groceries, worship, and sharpened knives was greater than their pain and sorrow. Such is life.

Because the perfect course of action can only be seen in hindsight, which is why we fill life with so many should haves. In that moment, with the blindness that comes from living in the present, my papa’s temper was fiercer than my mama’s.

If somebody was going to love her, a mother could hope only that her daughter would be loved well and for the rest of her life.

If one thing had been beaten into Beatriz in the years of war and months of infection and death, it was that life offered no guarantees, and regardless of how many plans had been made, events outside of one’s control could easily spoil them.

And now she wanted to think that, while life did not make promises, sometimes it offered opportunities.

She therefore concluded that it did not matter whether Carmen married at sixteen or seventeen: the important thing was to seize the opportunity and not let it go.

She realized with nostalgia that they were leaving behind the childish games of “Who will I marry?” that a mother and daughter play, a question to which there was never a concrete answer, until there was. And now there was. And she wanted to say to her daughter, Here he is; it’s time; this is what life is offering you. Don’t let it go.

For Carmen—she decided to believe—there would be more joy than suffering. And what more could a mother want for her daughter?

For the first time in a long while, she felt that the deaths, disease, and war were not the end; life went on, and at times like this, she took pleasure in it.

desisted

Life waits for no one, and death takes us all.

He did not want to turn into a snail, and he liked the idea of stretching his legs, but he would miss the bars that kept him inside, that protected him. He knew he would be unable to control his movements in order to keep away from the edge. The first night, he could not sleep. After that, he slept but would wake suddenly, startled by the feeling in his stomach of falling into a void. Simonopio was not afraid of hitting the ground; he was afraid of the void. Of falling forever.

She was not used to having someone so close, whether in the day or night, but if she was not there to offer comfort to her boy, what purpose did she have in life?

Sometimes Reja thought he followed his bees in his sleep, just as he did when he was awake: he moved his legs as if running and his arms as if flying.

Simonopio gradually conquered more and more territory of the shared bed, leaving her with little space to rest—insufficiently and poorly—on the edge of the cliff. Reja was not scared of the void; she was scared of the hard floor. She was afraid that, when she hit it, her bones would shatter like glass.

She reached them with the look and sense of purpose of a bee defending its swarm.

He could not regain his breath, and it was not from the effort of their trek but from fear.

But he still did not know when, which was why he was terrified: he felt as if he were falling endlessly, awake but with no control, unable to find his balance again on the firm ground of certainty.

His urge to strike out revived, he went for her for accepting the charity and gifts that were no doubt the result of the guilt felt by those who have everything.

carrying a pillow and blanket and moving with as much stealth as possible, for fear of being turned away. It took him a long time to fall asleep, both due to the narrowness of the bed and to the thoughts that insisted on going around and around in his head, trying to find a way out of the predicament he had gotten himself into. In the end he slept, because his child’s body demanded it and his mind gave in.

and for the time being, he needed to feel protected, at least while he was in the unconscious state of deep sleep. He spent the days rebuilding his courage.

Simonopio suspected she did not feel the cold on her hardened skin, but perhaps in her ancient insides she did, without realizing it. He knew it was not time for Nana Reja to die, but he also knew certain situations could easily change because of a stubborn refusal to protect oneself.

Simonopio ran out behind Martín, frightened by the product of his imagination.

After he closed the door very carefully, the bad smells invaded his nose again. He thought it was possible that, after so many years living in one place, they were reluctant to move, to be lost in the open air until their essence was gone. Now, in self-defense, they were clinging to the porous plaster on the walls and the old timber beams of the roof, and if Simonopio did not resolve it soon, it would not be long before they found his sheets, pillow, and mattress to be the ideal vessels in which to prolong their existence in the space where they had been born.

Little by little, he forgot his doubts about how effective his blessing had been, because what better blessing could there be than to be under the protection of his bees? And so, sleeping and growing under a living roof that gradually changed its rhythm and breathing to match his—that was how Simonopio would conquer his fear.

he would go in search of the treasure that awaited his bees every day of spring.

for the strength and daring needed for such a journey would not be gained from one day to the next or just by wanting it.

They were never afraid, and nothing deterred them from their goal. Only death would stop them, and they did not mind dying in the act of completing their daily mission.

Simonopio, restricted by his human state and his young age, had to find or make passable trails, which slowed his progress. He also tired; he tripped, and when he fell, he cut his knees or hands. The rain soaked his clothes. The cold, when it came, seeped into his bones. The intense heat of summer and thirst made him stumble. The thorns in the undergrowth caught him, and the stones did their utmost to twist his ankles.

In doing so—step by step, hour by hour, and day by day—he shook off the fear just like they shook off the raindrops. And he felt stronger.

He knew that he still had time and that time would work in his favor: if he did not manage to complete the journey that spring or summer, he would do so the next or the next. In the end, he would do it.

You must be a parent to understand that from great love there also comes a great violent impulse.

The boy did not want for anything. If the kid decided he wanted his own room, they simply gave it to him. If the kid got lost, they searched for him, without understanding that the devil never gets lost. That the devil hides. That he plans, he waits, and then he ambushes. He takes you by surprise.

the world was for the living, and sometimes the living had to make decisions based on new information.

but that did not mean he had adopted a philosophy of “Spend Now, Worry Later.” For he certainly worried now.

on the pretext of the new law, but with the true motive of greed.

the agrarians turned from scavenging birds to birds of prey.

He would take a deep breath and remember that it was better to have the land occupied by a trusted incompetent than by a greedy stranger.

He could not imagine how the country would survive if it allowed the rural areas to die, for in spite of all the changes—the emergence of iron cities like Monterrey, all the technological advances, all the marvels of the modern world—if there was one thing that never changed, it was that people, whether of a city or a village, needed to eat every day.

My mama told me that Simonopio’s transformation—after he moved to his new sleeping quarters with his bees to begin his new life as a wandering knight—had been a shock, because while he had never been a silly child, there was always a sparkle in his eyes that only a child can have, whether it be of innocence or of blind faith in everything and everyone.

But her godson, this child with the body of a nine-year-old boy, had an old look in his new look, a look that suggested an unshakable wisdom and determination, like they had never seen in anyone.

That winter, Simonopio was not idle either. He knew that time had not lessened the danger Espiricueta posed, and that it would be a grave mistake to dismiss or ignore him. Simonopio’s previous year’s travels had not served to put such thoughts out of his mind; the purpose of the wandering was not to forget the fear the man had instilled in him. On the contrary: he fed the fear and allowed it to grow. He would not allow himself to become complacent, as easy as his days were, without the weight of that fear, without the weight of the responsibility he had taken on as the only one who saw Espiricueta for what he was: the coyote.

Simonopio closed his eyes, knowing that a look has the power to attract.

remaining there until he felt peace return to Francisco Morales’s body.