Jan312009
Winter, the dark one
Saturday, January 31st, 2009 at 8:15 pm by Gulnaz (for Papa)The bees sleep in the winter house, a half-underground room with thick walls, and they need quiet and cold but not frost. This year the electricity goes off for most of the evening, and I thought: the bees do not care. But Papa cares. He sits up with a thermometer and a candle, and every few hours goes down to listen to the hives.
"If you press your ear to the box you hear a hum, like a far-away road. If the hum stops, there's trouble." The hum has not stopped.
It is minus twenty. We eat honey with hot milk before bed. We are lucky to have it.
Grandfather says the same hum is in his head every night. He says it is the sound of the valley asleep.