The Beekeeper's Ball: Bella Vista Chronicles Book 2 (11 page)

P
ART
F
OUR

On the first day of foraging in a new area, scout bees are sent out first to taste the nectar and pollens. If any are adversely affected they will be expelled from the hive immediately, and the colony will avoid the area.

In addition, once foraging begins, nurse bees in the hive clean foragers each time they return. These strategies protect the colony from mass exposure to…any contaminants they encounter.

—Soil Association [
www.soilassosciation.org
]

Piernik

Piernik is a moist, sweet honey bread that is delicious served toasted with a bit of butter and a cup of tea. Thanks to the intense spices, the bread has a long shelf life.

It’s an old Polish tradition to bake piernik to welcome the birth of a baby girl. The loaf is then buried underground to preserve it. The bread would be brought out and eaten at the girl’s wedding.

These days, this is not recommended.

½ cup of soft butter

1-½ cups honey, warmed in a pan
or in the microwave

1-¾ cups of sugar

1 tablespoon ginger

1 teaspoon cloves

3 to 3-½ cups flour

½ cup of vegetable oil

6 eggs, separated

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup of dark beer

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cups of dried fruits and nuts: raisins,
candied orange peel, walnuts, dried apricots, dates, etc.

Beat together the butter, oil and warm honey. Add the egg yolks one at a time. Beat in the sugar and spices. Then add the beer and flour alternately. Finally, fold in the beaten egg whites and fruits and nuts.

Bake in buttered loaf pans for about an hour, until the tops begin to crack and the cake tests done.

Yield: 3 loaves or 6 mini-loaves.

[Source: Traditional]

Chapter Ten

Copenhagen, 1941

“Poppy says we have to go away,” Eva said to Magnus, coming out to the kitchen garden where he was doing chores. His mother had set him to weeding. Since the Germans had taken over the year before, food supplies were scarce, and Mama was determined to have a good yield of tomatoes and beans this year.

“Yes,” said Magnus, thinking about the secret goings-on in the basement.

“Why do we have to go?”

He didn’t think she knew about the secret. Maybe his mother didn’t know, either. After the incident he’d witnessed in the basement, Magnus had snooped and discovered that Uncle Sweet and his father were deeply involved. They made a good team. Papa went about his business, going to the office every day with his leather satchel and his bowler hat, returning home at suppertime to read the newspaper, question Magnus about his day and give his wife an affectionate hug. Then he would settle down with his “cousin” Sweet and little Eva, ending the day with a satisfying meal.

Now Magnus knew there was more to him than that. His father—quiet and reserved, never one to make waves, was an underground hero.

“Your father and my father don’t trust the Germans to leave people alone,” he told Eva.

She picked up a stick and poked it at one of his mother’s three willow skeps.

“Hey, stop it,” Magnus said. “You shouldn’t disturb the bees.”

“I’m not disturbing them. I just want to see.”

“They don’t know that. If you bother them, you might get stung.”

“I saw your mother getting the honey out. She didn’t get stung.”

“Because she knows what she’s doing,” Magnus said, exasperated.

“Where do the bees go in winter?” she asked.

“They don’t go anywhere. They just stay in their hives. All the worker bees cluster around the queen bee for warmth.”

“How do they know when it’s springtime and they can come out?”

“They can tell when the outside temperature heats up. You can get them to come out by carrying the skep to a warm place, but it’s not a good idea. You don’t want them coming out unexpectedly. If they think the hive is under threat, they’ll attack.”

“Oh. I’ll leave them alone, then.”

Magnus wished she would leave
him
alone. Instead, she leaned over his shoulder as he dug out a weed. “What’s censorship?”

“It’s when people aren’t allowed to read the truth,” Magnus said. “The Germans have been censoring the newspapers to hide what is really going on in the world.”

“Papa says the truth can’t be hidden, not for long. It always comes out.” She watched a cluster of bees around the entry of one of the hives.

Magnus wondered if she was thinking of her mother, who never called or came to see her anymore. He worked in silence for a while, grateful that his own parents were loyal to each other, and brave enough to open their home to Uncle Sweet and Eva.

“Papa told me we don’t go to temple anymore because the Germans hired some thugs to set fire to the synagogue,” she said.

“Yes, they couldn’t censor that news because people saw it happening.”

“The local police stopped them. The police are on our side, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do we have to leave Copenhagen?”

“Because the Germans might take over the police, and then we won’t be so safe.”

Eva plucked a dandelion that had gone to seed. Forming her lips into a perfect O, she blew the tiny seeds into the wind. “I don’t want to leave,” she said, bending to pick up another dandelion head. She blew the seeds again. “I like it here. I like you.”

Hearing her words made him feel a little funny inside, pleased and embarrassed all at once.

She picked a third dandelion and puckered her lips.

“Hey, cut that out,” said Magnus. “You’re spreading weeds.”

“It’s beautiful, the way they float on the breeze,” she said, watching the flurry of seeds. “Like thousands of tiny umbrellas. Or parachutes, more likely.”

“All I see is a silly girl spreading weeds in my garden.”

“They’re like tiny paratroopers,” she said, watching the seeds with a thoughtful expression. “The paratroopers land behind enemy lines, don’t they? Poppy says that’s what they do, down where the fighting is.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“The Germans want all the Jews dead,” she said bluntly, her voice expressionless.

His stomach clenched into a knot. “Who told you that?”

“I heard Poppy talking about it to your father. He said he tried to convince my Mama to come away with us, but she doesn’t believe him. She says if she’s nice to the Germans they’ll be nice to her.”

Magnus stabbed the spade into the earth, digging out a dockweed. He had no comment about being nice to Germans.

“I’m scared,” Eva said.

He had no reply to that, either. He couldn’t tell her not to be scared. He couldn’t tell her she was being silly, because for once, she wasn’t.

“If something happens, will you take care of me?” she asked baldly.

He had no idea how he could do such a thing, but she looked so worried. “I’ll do my best,” he said.

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

“Forever and ever?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That makes me feel better.”

It shouldn’t,
he thought. The truth was, he felt as scared as she did. Promises were easy to make, easy to break. But he meant to keep this one.

* * *

The garden flourished that summer because Magnus’s mother was determined to feed her family despite the depredations of the distant war. In the fall, there were beans and tomatoes and pickles to can, and jar after jar of applesauce. Mama’s hives yielded fresh honey, and then willow skeps were winterized. The bees would not come out until the air warmed and the sun appeared. Some days, he could believe life was normal, but then he would wander out and see something—a stupid decree pasted on a bus kiosk, a Jewish business abandoned and boarded up—and he would remember the country had been invaded.

Just after Christmas, Uncle Sweet and Eva disappeared. Magnus woke up one gray, chilly morning to a house that was preternaturally quiet. He tiptoed into the room Eva and Sweet used to occupy. It was bare; the two turned-wood bedsteads and washstand empty, the cupboard where they kept their things empty.

“Where is Eva? Where’s Uncle Sweet?” he asked his mother at breakfast.

She served him a bowl of porridge and stewed apples. “Off to a safer place. They had to get out of the city. The...authorities...” Her voice trailed off. Her mouth was set in a grim line. “These are difficult times.”

“Where did they go?”

“I don’t know. I truly don’t. It’s best if we don’t ask.”

Something in her tone raised goose bumps on his skin. He thought about something he’d overheard in the basement.
If we don’t know the answer, then it can’t be tortured out of us.
“When will we see them again?”

“God only knows.” She held him close, just for a moment, for three heartbeats, perhaps. Then she smoothed his cowlick with her hand and followed it with a kiss, something she did every day. She smelled of floral cologne and of cinnamon from her baking, a comforting scent.

Magnus tried to eat, but he had no appetite. He kept thinking about the promise he’d made to keep Eva safe.

For the next few days, he could hear his parents at night, their worried murmurs a constant hum in the house. Something was happening, something bad.

Then one icy night, when he was out in the back getting wood for the stove, the Germans came. Magnus could hear them inside, their heavy boots stomping through the house, harsh voices questioning. Huddled in terror, he listened to the ransacking of his house—the only home he’d ever known. Instinct kept him hidden; he wondered if they’d found his father’s materials in the basement. He waited, crouched in the dark, until the noise subsided. The grinding gears of a truck filled the air. Then he forced himself to wait some more, and he went in.

The house had been ransacked. Valuables, liquor, food, everything. The Christmas tree lay on its side, its candles setting fire to the drapes and furniture. Coughing, he grabbed the hidden cache of valuables his parents had stowed under a trapdoor beneath the parlor rug, and then he ran.

* * *

His friend Kiki Rasmussen took him in for a time. They shared a room, and sometimes it seemed like fun, staying the night with his best friend, whispering secrets in the dark. But most of the time, Magnus felt choked by the hot lump of tears in his throat, and he would bury his face in a pillow and cry until he felt as if everything had drained out of him. Kiki’s parents went to the
Hauptsturmführer
and demanded to know where the Johansens had been taken, but no one would tell them. Rumors rushed like a winter storm through the city. People were taken away, families torn apart, homes ruined by the German invaders.

On a bone-cold January day, Magnus walked across the bridge over Sankt Jørgens Sø, a city lake favored by ice skaters. He had no interest in skating, though, as he trudged toward the center of the city. The Nazis had set up barriers made of sawhorses wrapped in barbed wire, blocking off the side streets near the bridge, which channeled traffic down the main boulevard, making it easy for Magnus to blend in. He wore his school uniform and a plain wool coat that was too large for him, a hand-me-down from Kiki’s older brother. His green knitted cap was warm, but scratchy. All of Magnus’s clothing had been ruined in the fire.

Behind him, he pulled his old bladed sled, the one he and his father used to coast down the slopes in Golden Prince Park. On the sled was a heavy box tied up with a bit of string. The chunky ice and partially exposed walkway were sure to dull the blades, but Magnus didn’t care.

His gut burned with a fury so hot, he scarcely felt the cold as he approached the building, once the headquarters of the Royal Dutch Shell company. Now the entire place housed the
Geheime Staatspolizei
—the Gestapo. The outside walls were painted with gray and green blotches to camouflage it from British air raids, and there were helmeted guards in long overcoats stationed at the U-shaped opening.

Though it was barely three in the afternoon, darkness crowded down from the winter sky, and the windows glowed with lights from within, offering a deceptive warmth. He could see offices and conference rooms through the windows of the building. Some of his friends’ fathers used to work at
Shellhus,
but it was all different now. These days, the place was overrun with uniformed foreigners on a mission to keep the Danes from disrupting their war effort. It was no secret that they used any means necessary, including torture.

Magnus couldn’t bear to think that his parents might have been brought here, tortured here. He stopped on the sidewalk outside the building and watched a room filled with German soldiers having a meeting, as they did each afternoon since Magnus had started covertly watching the place. They all looked very serious as they shuffled through papers and smoked fancy, machine-rolled cigarettes. On one wall, a cheery fire burned in a fireplace, lending a warm glow to the scene.

Someone bumped him from behind, and he nearly stumbled over the sled. Holding its rope tighter, he turned. “Excuse me,” he said, regarding a street sweeper. The guy scowled at him, his unshaven face grim, his gray canvas coveralls stained. He reeked of aquavit and stale cigarettes. He had a twig broom and long-handled dustpan filled with bits of trash.

“Watch yourself, boy,” he said, whistling through the gaps in his teeth. He jerked his head in the direction of the
Shellhus.
“Nothing but trouble that way.”

Magnus sidestepped the guy and walked boldly up to one of the guards stationed at the entranceway. “I have a delivery for Colonel Achtzehn.”

The helmeted soldier fixed him with a stony look. “Leave the parcel here. It will have to be inspected.”

An inspection.
Magnus hadn’t counted on that. “It’s a gift from my school,” he said, offering a bright-eyed, eager look. “The Jeanne d’Arc School, where he gave a historical presentation on Friday. May I be allowed to deliver it in person?”

“Let’s have a look.” The soldier used a utility knife to cut the string of the box and lifted the flaps. “What the hell is that?”

“Honey from the garden,” Magnus said. “It’s a great delicacy. It should be taken inside immediately before it gets ruined by the cold.”

“I’ll deliver it myself,” the guard said.

This wasn’t working out the way Magnus had planned it. “Yes, but—”

“Off with you, boy. I’m sure Colonel Achtzehn will send his compliments to the headmaster.” He picked up the box and strode into the courtyard.

Magnus stared after him until the other guard made a shooing motion. “Go on with you, then.”

Magnus dragged the sled away, passing the street sweeper, who was swirling his twig broom around the gutter. Rounding the corner to a car park, he ditched the sled. Then he scurried across the road, blending in with shoppers and school kids and office workers dodging traffic. With a quick motion of his hand, he took off the green cap and let it drop behind a bus stop. Retrieving the school knapsack and brown cap he’d left in a doorway, he went on his way. He had an urge to linger and try to catch a glimpse of the meeting in the
Shellhus,
but he didn’t dare, in case they came looking for him.

Ahead of him was the bridge over the lake. It was nearly dark now, and the crowd was thinning. For the first time since he’d approached the
Shellhus,
he dared to exhale a long sigh of relief. He realized his heart was pounding crazily. He was shaking, and not just from the cold. And for the first time since his parents had been arrested, he felt a small, tight smile—more of a smirk—curve his lips.

When he was just a few steps from the bridge, a large, gloved hand clapped over his mouth and an arm wrapped around him from behind with such force that Magnus lost his breath. He felt himself being dragged behind the wood and barbed wire barrier, into the recess of a doorway. He struggled and tried to scream. His assailant smelled of aquavit and tobacco, and the cold reek of winter.