Grey Bees

by Andrey Kurkov

Memory withers away, goes to pieces, but the photographs remain. They stay in their albums: school, military, wedding. And the albums sit in his sideboard, meekly and obediently.

Eyes, of course, can be deceived by darkness; instead of seeing everything clearly, they may fill in what they haven’t quite caught. But people are used to believing their own eyes, even if they are half-blind, even if what lies before them is obscured by nature or by smoke.

“You’re a fool, Greyich. What the hell do I need the exact time for? It’s just crazy – you keep track of minutes, but you don’t notice days flying by. You didn’t even know it was February 23rd, remember? If you ask me, it’s the calendar that matters.” Pashka pointed to the wall on the right, above the bed. “You see that there? I keep track of days and dates, not time.”

“Smoking kills – vodka thrills!”

Sure, the church had been bombed, but nobody lived there anyway – it was the house of God, and God has one or two such houses in every village.

To the sound of the raindrops, Sergeyich examined his native walls, trees and fences, his little world, in which he had lived through all his troubles and problems, day after day, night after night. It – the trees, the gates, the doors and the windows – had up to this point protected him like a fortress, like a bulletproof vest. And all these years he had thought the opposite: that he was protecting his home, his land, his world. No, he had been wrong. Only now, when it was time to leave, did he realise it.

After all, honey is also money. It may even have more in common with money than sausages or clothing, since sausages and clothing fluctuate in value, while honey, regardless of whether it’s buckwheat or motley grass, resolutely maintains its value.

Time plays a role when there’s someone to keep track of it, to depend on it. And if no-one like that remains, then time, too, stops and disappears.

It was the bees that worried Sergeyich, because without them, the meaning of his life, the sense in his departure from Little Starhorodivka would be lost. The meaning would evaporate, abandoning him to a meaningless state.

Three years in an abandoned village with Pashka had taught him that one could have few, very few people around, and nothing bad would come of it. On the contrary, such near-isolation could help one better understand oneself, one’s own life.

And if his wife could be called “ex”, his daughter certainly could not; children are yours for ever, wherever you live and no matter how much you quarrel with them.

“What happened is what Putin says happened,” she insisted. “Putin doesn’t lie.”