Brunetti switched the still-burning chip to his left hand and ran his right forefinger along the bottom of the frame, detaching some of the globs. He put his finger in his mouth and prodded the honey free with his tongue. Sweet, faintly grainy, sweet again, chewy, more sweet, more bliss.
Casati took the frame back and inserted it in the hive. When Casati opened the second hive, Brunetti saw more bees, more motion, almost all of the cells full and covered, and always the same buzzing rush that was no longer menacing, though it had grown even louder.
Brunetti, fascinated, waved the smouldering chip, which refused to burst into flame and produced only a steady stream of smoke. The noise had become an incantation. His thoughts flew to Aristotle, who had written – he no longer remembered where – about having once experienced ‘one glimpse of celestial is-ness’. It was a phrase Brunetti had never understood. Until now.
The sound diminished as they approached the last hive. ‘One more,’ Casati said and took the top off the green hive. When he pulled out the first frame, Brunetti saw that there were almost no bees on it, and the few left crawled slowly and apparently without purpose. He saw no Queen.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.
Casati shook his head in answer and balanced the frame on the hive. He stooped down and pulled out a drawer at the bottom of the hive. Brunetti saw the bodies of bees lying there, too thick to count. Casati pulled in his breath when he saw them. He removed a plastic ziplock bag from his back pocket, opened it to remove a slim leather case and took from this a plastic vial and a pair of tweezers.
‘They shouldn’t die in the hive,’ Casati whispered. Brunetti had no difficulty hearing the other man because the buzzing noise had grown much softer near this hive.
‘When they’re sick, they’re supposed to fly away so they won’t infect the others,’ Casati said, sounding puzzled.
Carefully, he used the tweezers to pick up a few of the dead bees; he dropped them into the vial, capped it, and slipped it and the tweezers into the case, which he returned to the ziplock bag and put back in his pocket. Then he closed the drawer, took the top of the hive and put it back in place. ‘This isn’t supposed to happen,’ he said in a voice Brunetti associated with the stunned victims of violent crimes.
‘What’s wrong?’ Brunetti asked again.
‘The test will tell,’ Casati answered, then almost consciously shook himself loose from his shock. Looking at his watch, he said, ‘Come on. We’ve only got about twenty minutes.’
Casati hurried back the way they had come and clambered down into the back of the puparìn, leaving Brunetti to step down to his own place. He untied the rope and they were off.
‘We turn around,’ Casati said, and did it quickly, effortlessly, in four strokes of his oar. The sun was now pounding on Brunetti’s right shoulder, so they were heading south. He glanced to the side and saw how the embankments had grown higher, and then he understood Casati’s need for haste: natural embankments were emerging from the water on both sides of them as the tide went out, leaving them rowing in ever-shallower water.
He felt the sudden increase in Casati’s rhythm and met it. They’d be stuck there overnight or until the tide changed again. He thought of the mosquitoes arriving at dusk, shoe polish or not, and he rowed.
This was not open water. ‘Left,’ Casati called from behind him, and Brunetti did as ordered. After about twenty strokes, Casati called out ‘Right,’ and an obedient Brunetti joined him in turning the boat, following a path that he could not discern. Plants grew towards them from both sides as the retreating tide exposed the grass that had been hidden under water when they came. Something slid roughly along the bottom of the boat, and both men froze. Casati cried out, ‘Forza!’ and quickened his pace. Again the scraping sound came. Brunetti’s oar hit something hard.
And then the waterway in front of them broadened with no warning and they emerged into a large patch of open water. Casati slowed his rhythm, and Brunetti was happy to match it. ‘This is the Canale di Sant’Antonio,’ Casati said, a fact which conveyed no meaning to Brunetti. But the slower rhythm did. ‘We can take it easy now.’
Ahead of them Brunetti saw buildings and rooftops and the telltale bell tower. ‘Is that Burano?’ he called back to Casati.
‘Yes. Would you like to stop for a coffee?’
Brunetti would have liked to stop and have other rowers take him home. But he called out, ‘Good idea.’ Real men.
8
The coffee was followed by two glasses of water, and then another, and after that Brunetti felt as though he might be able to make it from Burano to Sant’Erasmo. Two men came into the bar and said hello to Casati, who introduced Brunetti, explaining he was a friend who had come out to visit. That led the two men to offer them a drink, but Casati refused, saying they had rowed too much and needed to get home before even thinking about a glass of anything other than water.
He and Brunetti walked back to the boat, and the men came along, one of them saying the puparìn was the most beautiful he’d ever seen, and if Casati ever decided he wanted to sell …
Casati laughed and sat on the riva – so much had the water gone down – to lower himself into the boat. Brunetti did the same, untied the boat, called up farewells to the two men, and bent again to his oar, wondering if this was what it was like to be a galley slave. But slaves had no leather gloves and certainly did not stop for coffee in the afternoon.
Casati told him that there was a shortcut but that he didn’t trust it at low tide, so they went out to the Canale di Burano, where the depth was certain, and rowed to the Canale di Crevan and to where they had started. They silently pulled into their docking place, and Brunetti tied the boat to the metal ring. Casati untied the grating and lifted it on to the riva. ‘My great-grandfather made it,’ he said proudly. ‘I use it as an anchor, but I never leave it in the boat.’
It was only then that Brunetti noticed the forged swirls and arabesques that still survived among the pieces that had been broken off over the years. As so often happened with Brunetti, knowledge of the object’s age added to its beauty.
Casati was quickly up the three steps, holding his oar and fórcola, and asked Brunetti to hand him up his. Casati set them all down and leaned over to offer Brunetti a hand, which he was not at all ashamed to accept. Once on land, Brunetti took both oars and put them over his shoulder.