Usually Lotte and I can talk about everything. It sustains me. Is part of our days, our thoughts, our laughter. That’s why it’s so troublesome when she and Kalle isolate themselves. Of course we see them—they’re our neighbors—but every sentence they speak to us already aims toward its ending while they press on past us; every word has that rush forward, even when they walk slowly along the crest of the dike.
They whisper, those two, as if afraid wind will scatter their words through our neighborhood. Is it because I’ve told her too much about the beekeeper and me?
As Tilli weaves back and forth between our families, the balance changes. Heike starts running away again. To Lotte’s house. And Tilli brings her back. Part of the time Tilli lives at our house, but more often next door.
When Heike wants to go with her, Tilli says no one else is invited.
As if Lotte and I ever needed an invitation.
Heike asks, “Who says so?”
Tilli hesitates. “Lotte.”
Heike bawls. Like a child, only louder.
I put my arms around her.
“I’m sorry,” Tilli says. “I’ll help here, too … with anything you need.”
“You know we need you to be around Heike. What is happening with Lotte?”
She blushes—that is, the white around her freckles turns pink so that her freckles are lighter now. “I don’t know what is happening.”
But I don’t believe her.
With each absence Wilhelm has claimed more space in Kalle’s soul. His wordless attachment competes with the space his siblings occupy, a struggle when Kalle still tried to keep Wilhelm separate from the other three, when he didn’t understand his quiet and unyielding persistence that he has come to admire.
In November Kalle returns with an early Christmas gift for Wilhelm, two brushes and a metal box with watercolors. He also brings a pony, rendered worthless by the impatience of its previous owner, and promises Wilhelm to teach him how to nurture the pony to strength, earn its trust.
Heike takes Wilhelm and Pia to the barn to visit the pony. Smell of dry hay. Wilhelm has to sneeze.
Heike lifts him up. “You can pet the pony’s head.”
Above the pony is a spider’s web where a wasp whirs and spins like a carousel. The spider scrambles down the thin-thin that comes from its body but stops when it’s close to the wasp that thrashes like the whale in the picture at church harpooned by a little boat.
Tilli comes up next to them. “I was looking for you, Heike.”
“I got away.”
“You’re good at that.”
Heike laughs. “I know.”
“And you know that you’re not supposed to get away with the little ones by yourself.”
“Not little,” Pia complains.
The web bulges, but no wind. Up and down the spider works, wraps the wasp. A bee Tilli would free with a twig, poke it from the net. But not a wasp.
“Bees have round rear ends,” Tilli says. “Wasps have pointed rear ends. That’s what my brother says.”
Heike says, “You don’t have a brother.”
“My cousin. I have … two cousins and they are brothers.”
“But not your brothers.”
“Not brothers to me.”
“Down. Now.” Wilhelm squirms in Heike’s arms.
“But then you can’t see the wasp.”
“Wasps mean.”
“Bees make honey,” Heike says. “The beekeeper is my husband because I gave him my bees.”
“How many bees?” Pia asks.
“Two million.”
Tilli asks, “Remember when the wasp stung you in the foot, Heike? You were running in the tall grasses.”
“Grass waves like water.”
“You cannot drown in grass,” says Tilli.
“I was running and then I cried because of the wasp.”
Wilhelm sneezes.
Pia tilts her head back to watch the spider climb all over the wasp, all around the wasp. “Up,” she demands. “Now.”
Tilli props her against one hip, careful to keep the short legs together. She can’t carry Pia like Wilhelm who’ll clamp his legs around her waist.
The spider up and down fast. Stock-still, the wasp.
“You picked me up from the grasses,” Heike says. “You put your spit on my bite.”
“To stop the itching. Spit does that.”
“You got a big knife—”
“—a little paring knife—”
“—and stuck it into my foot.”
“No. I scraped it across the stinger.”
“Until it came out.”
“Out,” Pia repeats.
The spider spins with the wasp. Both spin till the wasp is stock-still again. Then the spider crawls all around it. Swaddles the wasp.
“It’s nature,” Tilli says to the little ones. “Spiders numb their victims.”
Pia grimaces.
Wilhelm grimaces.
Come morning wasp is gone. Net is gone. Above hangs a tiny dark bundle.
“Our wasp,” says Pia.
“Our spider hoisted it up,” says Heike.
I wait until Kalle is away for a few days. Then I rush to Lotte’s house.
“I’ve missed you,” she cries when she opens the door.
My face is wet. “I’ve missed you, too.”
“If—” Her fingers sweep the wet from my face. “If anything happens to me—to me and to Kalle—will you raise Wilhelm as your own?”
I take her by the elbows. “Are you ill?”
“No. No, I just need to know what if—”
“For me to raise Wilhelm. As my own. I will.”
“Just if.
“I will.”
“So we both understand.”
“You would tell me if you were ill?”
“I would tell you.”
“Then what is it you’re not telling me?”