The beekeeper gets up during the night, fetches hot water from the boiler in the Kachelofen that’s set into the wall between the kitchen and parlor. He pours the water over dried chamomile blossoms, stirs in rapeseed honey, sits alone at the kitchen table with the cup between his palms, and raises it to his lips.
I know this.
Because one night I hear him. I get up to sit with him. Across from him and the steam from his cup and the wide span of his hands around the cup. Where does the warmth of his hands leave off and the warmth of the tea begin?
We talk about Heike, worry about her as if we were her parents. Between him and me there is a constancy I haven’t known with men. And yet, it feels familiar because it’s been there for me with women. With Luzia. With Lotte. A constancy and a comfort.
I make sure he sees me enter the path between the tall grasses, and I linger until he steps from the house. Then I let him find me. Wait for him to pretend he doesn’t know I’m here. That’s before I know that he does not pretend. He tells me he saw the bobbing of my shoulders and head above the grasses, always a few turns ahead of him.
We spread out my shawl, a flicker of threads, and when we lie down, the weave adapts to our bodies and the space between them, rearranges itself in hues of purples and blue.
“Now I know why the bees came to us,” I tell him.
“Why?”
“So that I had to summon you.”
In mist like this, you are gorgeous. It smoothes your skin. Makes your hair glisten. Mist is content to hold you, shrink your surroundings, lets you see the hidden till you emerge stunned, changed. For that’s the quality of mist. Waves and wind may rage, but mist does not need to show off.
We don’t talk about what we’re doing. Because then we’d have to stop.
From then on, I listen for him at night, sit up against my pillow so I won’t be caught by sleep. Soon, he is steeping two cups of his tea. Mine waits for me when I join him.
He slants the honey jar toward me. Rapeseed honey flows toward the edge of the rim.
“People will say…”
“Say what, Sabine?”
“That this is how I keep you for my daughter.”
“You’re making a sacrifice then.” He teases me.
“Being with you is no sacrifice.”
“What else will people say?”
“That I was searching for a man to keep Heike from harm if I were to die.”
“I’ll keep both of you from harm.”
“I would never take you away from Heike.”
“I don’t matter to her.”
“But if she wanted you—”
“It was never about her, Sabine.”
“For me it’s always about her.”
“I know that. But for me she is a child.”
After a few weeks of this—
No—
Nineteen days.
I remember exactly.
After nineteen days of this we stand up from the table and go to my room and lock the door.
Who has the right to say what should and should not touch?
How many of you have longed for desire to overtake you once again?
For the rush of your beauty to amaze you?
Who is to say what is sin?
We’re discreet. Of course we are discreet. In public we hold one another with our presence, not with touch. And it’s even more exquisite like that because only we know. That’s how I have him for myself. He tells me he did not expect the passion that claims him, crazes him. For me such passion is instinctive. I show him. You tuck your toes beneath my feet, press them upward against my soles while your palms press downward against the crest of my head, and as you sink into me, bordering me inside and out, I strain against that sweet hold, break through with a cry.