The Castle in the Forest (28 page)

3

I
have not described, and do not intend to list, the numerous other activities, undertakings, and small explorations that the devils under my authority were engaged in through those parts of the province of Upper Austria (which includes Linz and the Waldviertel). By now, they are of no interest.

History has, however, underlined the perspicacity of the Maestro's projections into the future, and so if I return in my understanding to the summer of 1896, it is with the strength of knowing that one's work has been of significance: many a detail that is now recalled was worthy of our attention.

I can assert, therefore, that Alois Junior was demonstrating his considerable talent to charm whoever was in his immediate surroundings. For a time, he even succeeded in leavening the heavy suspicion that emanated from Alois Senior's person, who, when he was in an ugly mood, could come upon others like a wall of oncoming bad weather—an unsettling affect he had often used at Customs while confronting a dubious tourist. Yet, such was the boy's charm—a nice combination of youth, health, a touch of wit, and apparent goodwill—that his father could not maintain this massive psychic front for more than a few days. Moreover, Alois Junior was showing some interest in the bees. He had many good questions to ask.

Before long, Alois Senior was beginning to feel a rare happiness—he so seldom liked his children. Now he did. One of them, at any rate. He even began to give Alois a few of his best lectures on beekeeping, and before long repeated all of his earlier speeches to Klara and Angela and Adi, plus his monologues at the Linz taverns, to which he could now add the newer ones at Fischlham, where he played the resident expert from Hafeld. The boy picked it up so quickly that Alois had to dip into more advanced knowledge of the sort he had ingested from reading apicultural journals. Finally, he was even presenting a few of Der Alte's finer insights as his own, as, for example, the near humanity of the bee, or the delicacy and high inspiration of their lives. The boy kept taking it in, and he was deft when working with the hives. Senior began to dream of a future where father and son might add colony to colony. This could become a true business.

One day he was feeling so proud of Alois Junior that he brought him along on a visit to Der Alte. He had hesitated before deciding on such a move—he certainly did not wish to be replaced as the local expert in Junior's estimation. On the other hand, he was proud of his association with Der Alte, so learned a man, yet ready to treat him as an equal—that, too, might impress the boy.

The truth is that he was no longer uneasy over the beekeeper's superiority. He had been fortified by the hour when Der Alte all but wept in his arms. Moreover, he had again a practical need for advice. His hives were full of honey. He had studied his manuals on the technique of honey gathering, but he did not feel ready. In the old days, back at Passau and Linz, he used to make a botch of it. The honey he gathered was ridden with small chunks of wax, and—no matter his veil and gloves—he had received a few too many nasty bites where the cloth gaped on his neck and wrists.

Now it would be closer to a major effort. He could hardly sell the better part of this harvest if his product was not free of detritus. One dead fly was enough to spoil a sale if the customer saw it first!

So here he was seeking advice once more from the old goat. Yet now he felt more tolerant. It was amazing to Alois how little he was offended on this occasion by the aroma of the hut. Der Alte might know more about bees, but he, Alois, knew enough not to burst into tears just because something went all wrong.

He took Alois Junior with him, therefore, and Der Alte responded to the visit with warmth. He was happy not to be alone. His convalescence had dragged along and was sometimes as painful as a sharp light in the eye. His pride had drooped under the weight of all that was missing in his life. Hermits are not often ready to undergo intense self-examination. It hardly matters whether they are hermits protected by the Cudgels, or in service to us, or, very occasionally, unaffiliated—although this last is a feat, considering the loneliness, but in any event, such clients usually have to be taken at least once a year through a cleansing of their moods. For this last week, I had had to spend time on Der Alte. His spirit had fallen before the knowledge that he could not see himself in any way as a social leader—which had been the most intense of his early ambitions. He had no mate, no heirs, no real money. And his memory kept reminding him of men or women who had done him injuries which he had failed to pay back. Under it all was the heavy disappointment that he had not arrived at any of the powers and distinctions to which his intelligence should have entitled him. As is so often true of the depression that follows an unexpected accident, he saw this affliction as a judgment on himself.

I made a point of being present, then, during Alois' visit, for I wanted to improve Der Alte's mood. If a client's thoughts can be darkened when we wish to drive them down a bit, so too do we have the skill to lift a man out of a black mood for an hour or two, even—if it comes to it—provide a moment of joy. We do not want them to expire emptily. (Much better for us if they die young and in a rage.) Most of our old clients either cease to exist—no soul is left!—or are reincarnated by the Dummkopf, who does not like to give up on any of His creatures, large or small, wise or foolish—which may be one reason the world becomes more and more overrun by mediocrity.

The situation is, of course, never simple, since we, too, have to look to take what profit we can still extract from worn-out clients.

I was looking, therefore, to improve Der Alte's mood. Indeed, I was able to give him relief from his unhappiest thoughts so soon as Junior and Senior came to visit. I even connected him again to the notion that he was an attractive man. Vanity is always the human sentiment most available to us. Der Alte, therefore, felt powerfully attracted to Alois Junior. It was the first time in many years that he had felt the desire to make love to an adolescent.

After the introductions and the formal query about his health, they began to discuss the procedure. “Honey gathering! Of course! I can tell you about that.”

In full form, intensely aware of the boy, Der Alte felt more than ready to launch into an exposition on the lesser-known aspects of the process.

“Yes,” said my rejuvenated old fellow, “honey gathering is an art in itself. I am glad you have come to me on this day because, truly, able as your father has become in his short period here at Hafeld—a brilliant man, your father—nonetheless, the best of beekeepers have to learn what is virtually a new vocation when, after the long winter and a kindly, warm spring that fulfills our hopes, the larvae in our brood combs are now ready to hatch. That, if I may say, is a most pregnant moment for our vocation. The hives are teeming. The old bees are out on flights, and the youngsters are assigned to the innumerable tasks of housekeeping, one of which, for example, is to fill empty wax combs with honey and cap them with a fine, thin layer of wax. Specialists among the bees are given that assignment. Young Alois, it is equal to a miracle. Such workers are young, some are just ten days old, but already we may think of them as craftsmen. The layer of wax that covers each tiny comb has no more thickness than good stout paper.”

Alois restrained himself from saying, “I know that already,” and winked instead at Junior. He had told the boy to be prepared to listen. “When it comes to his bees, Der Alte can speak in full paragraphs. Sometimes it is full pages. All you need do is nod. I already know nine parts in ten of what he will say, but it is like fishing. Be patient, and you will get what you came for.”

“So, yes,” Der Alte now said, “the honey gathering, if not done properly and at the right time, can be a rude interruption of the work of the bees. The first question to ask oneself, therefore, is what will be the best hour to remove your honey from the hives?” He held up a hand as if to police his own exposition. “It is the late morning,” said Der Alte. “That is definitely the best time. The hives are warm but not yet too hot. The worker bees are somnolent. I would go so far as to say that your little creatures might be taking a siesta at this time. They are, after all”—and he laughed—“
Italian
bees.”

To be courteous, Alois smiled. So did Junior.

“Well, then,” said Der Alte, “we take the great step. For that, I will have to lend you an empty hive body.”

“Is it because we will have to transfer the bees who are in the honey chamber?” asked Alois Junior.

“Exactly,” said Der Alte. “Your sense of anticipation is excellent. Your imagination is closely focused, I can see, on the particularities of this situation.”

“Yes,” said Alois Senior, “he is a bright boy, but if I may venture my opinion, there is no way to separate those honey-chamber bees from the honey unless one brings up a separator board.”

“Of course,” said Der Alte, “and so the first move, then…?”

“Locate the Queen,” said Senior. “That's one thing you taught me.” He turned to Junior. “Yes, bees will panic when they do not know where their Queen is. To move them from one box to another, you also have to transfer her.”

“Exactly,” said Der Alte. “I have shown your father how to locate the lady. Then you must introduce a queen cage”—he took a little box from his pocket the size of a deck of cards. “With this, you will use a catching glass.”

“Yes, my father has shown this to me. He even let me blow one of the Queens from the catching glass into the cage.”

“That is a nice procedure,” said Der Alte. “In a year or so, however, when you become as highly accomplished as I expect, you will dispense with the cage. You will be able to pick up the Queen with your fingers.”

“Yes,” said Alois Senior, “but don't try it in a hurry,” and he made a gesture of slapping frantically at invisible bees, as if to remind Der Alte how this bold procedure could invite a disaster.

“Just yesterday,” said Der Alte, “I moved three of my Queens into three separate hives. With my fingers. I could have used the catching glass. Undeniably, it is as your father suggests, a more cautious procedure. But I am like an acrobat who has taken a serious fall. There is no solution but to get up on that
verdammten
tightrope again.”

Actually, Der Alte had gone back to the catching glass for these transfers, but as an experienced client, he was able to lie with whole assurance on any subject. His desire to elicit Junior's admiration was all the impetus he needed. First, however, Alois had to be neutralized.

“Your father,” he now said to Junior, “has, as usual, gone to the heart of the matter. The Queen once removed, your bees will use the separator board to escape from the honey chamber into the brood chamber, for that is where you have relocated the Queen. How they will struggle with one another in their haste to use the exit and so be able to reunite themselves with their lady.”

He smiled at Alois Junior. “Ah, to be young again and on the hunt for a young woman. In the old days, nothing could stop me. Would you say there is anything that might stop you?”

“Yes,” said Alois Junior, “my father.” All three laughed.

“You must listen to your father.”

“I am prepared to,” said the youth. He smiled warmly at Der Alte, as if to offer one concrete instant when they could feel nicely connected to each other. Before the air between them could take on such emphasis, however, Alois Junior made a point of adding, “I think you have confused me. Aren't all these bees little women?”

“Yes,” said Der Alte, “in the technical sense, if we speak of their gender they are female, but, of course, they are not queens, so their generative organs are undeveloped. Consequently, they act like men. Some become guards. They defend all the gates in the hive. Some are warriors. Most of them are loyal, determined, hardworking. In that case, yes, they are like women, too. They live for the good of the hive. But they are like men when it comes to worshipping the Queen.”

“This is all wonderful to hear,” said Alois Senior, “but I am still waiting to get my honey out of the hive.”

“In that case,” said Der Alte, “I will give you the key.”

“Timing,” said Alois Senior. “You told us already.”

“Yes, that is the general rule of thumb. But what is the secret to timing? It is to wait until you hear an unmistakable sound of happiness rising from the hive. Exactly so! When the honeycomb is full, and the bees know they have made good honey, why, they are ready to act like women again. They sing to each other. You must be able to recognize this sound. They sing in joy. On the morning after you have heard such a chorus of contentment, you must be ready to lead all these good bees through the exit in the separator board into the chamber where you have moved the Queen. Then, of course, the honey will be left ready and open to our invasion, if I may put it that way. But come, I will lead you outside. One of my hives is now singing this song of contentment.”

I went with them to hear it. I do not know if I would have interpreted the hum that entered my ears in those words. The sound was unmistakably strong. It offered the rapt, intense sound of dynamos in an electrical plant, that elevating yet fearsome hum which comes into human ears whenever one form of energy is converted to another. So much is taking place. A dominion is being directed to enter another dominion. It is the sound common to many motors. “How much we have done,” these motors could be murmuring.

Der Alte's last injunction was to put the honey chamber into a sealed box so soon as it was free of its bees. “Then you must take it indoors for the extraction. Into a good sealed room. I cannot emphasize this enough,” he said directly to Alois Junior. “As you may not yet know, these divine creatures have two natures: total loyalty to their Queen, but whole greed for the honey itself. They will gorge on it anywhere they can find it, from any and all hives. So you must not attract any bees who may be out foraging. For that reason, extraction can never be attempted in open air. I repeat: it must take place in a sealed chamber.”