The Flower and the Beetle

Alexei Raymond

“For an instant, silence, noisier than a waterfall.” 

-Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children

 

In the passenger seat, Valentin felt the grandeur of movement.

            Emil encouraged him, contrary to the boy’s knowledge of appropriate seating for ten-year-olds, to sit up front. Emil’s rationale was along the lines of on this occasion, why not? and, without too much of a fuss or the will to refuse, Valentin gingerly buckled in. With the streets rushing past them—primarily from the seemingly yawning, panoramic windshield—the boy braced for a wind that wouldn’t come.

            — Ah, it’s wide here.

— Wide?

— The window is so big.

— Oh—oh, the windshield? Yeah! You’re not scared, are you?

— No.

Earlier that afternoon, Emil pulled up in his small red car, as he always did on Tuesdays, and called Valentin to let him know he’d arrived. The boy had started getting used to the ginger man whose face was seemingly molded into permanent amusement. The previous man, whose name the boy had already forgotten, and never truly cared to know, was, by comparison, always strange. Though the humming plasma ball he’d given him as a farewell gift made the boy feel guilt over how grateful he was about the switch to Emil. The Perach[1] program, he was told, in vaguer, softer terms, was for the quiet kids—those who struggle with friends, or their studies, or both. Something about being chosen to take part shamed him, for it felt like everyone could see and confirm things the boy only vaguely experienced and didn’t quite choose to own.

            They told him that Emil, like the forgotten man before him, was a university student who would meet him once a week, and they’d be able to hang out ‘like brothers’. The simile, though its words were familiar, had no effect on the boy, raised single child as he was. The idea of an older brother, and one so adult, never stopped being a peculiarity he couldn’t quite feel at home with. Though it did become easier with Emil, whose cheery nature often dissolved Valentin’s reticent, sullen demeanor. The man, he grew to learn, was actually quite fun, and made him forget the pairing was meant to fix something.

            At first came the relief that Emil wouldn’t make him sit down and solve math problems, as the previous man did. Emil’s weekly hour was always spent on more engaging activities, where Valentin felt wonder and fun. The previous school year, the forgotten man would simply come over and loom next to Valentin as the boy showed him the cartoons he loved, his computer games, or where he’d go on the internet, before they settled into doomed attempts at making him parse math problems. Sometimes, the man, when he’d sit beside Valentin in front of the TV—always slouched—would stoke Valentin’s discomfort by asking with thinly veiled attraction, about Alona, the pretty blonde girl in some show the boy enjoyed. Valentin, feeling at a loss as to the kind of response expected of him, and with a twist of ownership over the pretty TV girl, simply replied that she was one of the regulars in the show, and left it at that.

            — Hey, was school alright today? Heard you’re ending the year next week, and then it’s the summer break, right? Man, miss those days.

— Oh, um, it was okay. My birthday is on the… four, five… sixth day of the break.

The boy struggled to divide his attention between the thrill of the front seat and Emil’s chat, though could always supply memorized facts.

— Well, well! And you’re gonna be a fifth-grader next year! That’s pretty cool, right? Those big kids you see now—gonna be you soon!

Despite Valentin’s growing comfort with Emil, he’d still default to silence. While silence felt pointedly uncomfortable with the suspicious, previous man, Emil seemed to take it in stride, made it okay, in some aura of calm patience, as if Valentin always had an endless reservoir of time at his side, to gather his thoughts and finally choose to say what he truly wanted—or not. The rides with Emil, with which the assigned big brother took him either to his lively home or on various outdoor adventures, became a source of comfort and anticipation. Quietly awed, Valentin continued to bask in the graduation of the front seat, before Emil began to slow and brake.

            — Oh, we’re here?

The car turned off the highway toward a hill and some yellow, summery fields.

— Yup! Just gotta… park here… somewhere. There, that’s the spot!

The car climbed up the hill and stopped in an empty lot beside a wire fence. Valentin jumped out and surveyed the land around them. Below were the rushing highway and the complications of an intersection. Nearby was some sort of space for outdoor weddings, like his uncle’s, recently. And right before him, beyond the low fence, lay the dry, rolling fields, giving way to distant treelines and some sporadic structure husks. Emil locked the car and came to stand beside the boy.

— It’s pretty nice here, isn’t it? Bit dry, but at least it’s not too hot out right now.

— Yeah. I’m not hot.

— Well that’s good. You know, I actually thought about just going to the movies, but we did that last week. This place though… Back in high school me and some friends used to come out here to hang out. Bonfires, picnics… girls. Come on, let’s go.
Emil stepped over the low fence and advanced into the field—his courage infecting the boy. Valentin, following the initiative, tried to keep up the pace.

            An assortment of plants—some dry, spiky husks, others still living and holding onto green, others topped with surviving flowers—came up past the pockets of the boy’s shorts, prickling his legs in a familiar, though tolerable manner. He at once felt in his element—child entomologist’s—with his eyes resuming what they felt called to do: to spot any living creatures present in the bushes, on stems, sitting inside flowers. Emil, still walking ahead, seemed lost in thought. Valentin, in between his ongoing search for beetles, continued to periodically glance at Emil’s back, in case the man wanted to ask him something, or tell him a story, as he sometimes did. But Emil just continued to pace about, looking toward the distant treeline.

            — Emil! I found one! Look, look!

The man turned, emerging from distraction, his permanent smile absent, as Valentin hopped and pushed through the dry grass—his hands cupping a captive black beetle.

— Look! I found it sitting inside a flower. They usually sit there. There are sooo many like these next to my house. I sometimes collect too many to hold in one hand!

— Oh! Wow! It doesn’t bite? Looks kinda… cute?

— Hah! No, no, they don’t bite. I don’t think the biting ones are here. The biting ones are bigger, and like, long, and… They’re called in Russian… um, drovosek. I like them!

— That’s like a lumberjack, right?

— Oh, right, right!
In his excitement, the boy didn’t wonder how Emil understood the Russian word. They never spoke in Russian, and the man never gave any signs that they could. Though the boy’s mother seemed especially pleased with entrusting him to Emil. Valentin always sensed some overflowing pride in her, or admiration, whenever she was home and Emil came over to pick him up. The way she glowed when Emil introduced himself made Valentin feel a pang of jealousy, but also made the prospect of spending time with him feel safer—approved, somehow. For if she trusted him, he supposed he could, too.

            — Hey, I was thinkin’, what about your friends? Are you gonna play with them more? I hear you’re staying home these days.

— Um… I like playing Warcraft.

— That’s fine—Warcraft’s cool, but I mean, will you be going outside with your friends a bit more? What were their names, David and…?

— Oh, Igor.

— Yeah, those guys. They seem nice, right?

Emil picked a yellow flower off a nearby stem—the kind Valentin found the beetle in—and began to twirl it. Valentin provided no answer.
— Valentin?

— Sometimes. They wanted me to go home last time.

Valentin was surprised by how suddenly the admission made his throat feel funny—his chin quiver. His brows furrowed as he pried open the beetle’s carapace until he broke off a piece, exposing the beetle’s wings and the softness underneath. He dropped the beetle into a forebodingly sharp bush, while Emil looked elsewhere, apparently back with his private thoughts.

— Little pricks.

Emil swore. His sanctioned swearing. It always jolted Valentin to hear how casually Emil allowed himself to swear—how he didn’t even seem to think that the words he used were sensitive, or in any way wrong in the boy’s presence. Pricks. Sometimes, Valentin would privately echo Emil’s cadence. To test confidence. Pricks.

— Well, listen. You shouldn’t let them gang up on you. Man, I think it’s just that sometimes when friends hang out a lot—over and over—a break might be good for you, you know? I had that with my friends back then. But just a break—you don’t stop being friends. You gotta be able to miss each other. What do you do when they’re being mean to you?

— I go.

— Buddy. Come here.

Emil moved to stand beside him, and, unexpectedly, placed the hand holding the flower on the boy’s shoulder. Valentin’s lower lip began to quiver too, and it was as though an inexorable pull was exerted on his eyes from the obscured ground. He could not look up.

— Val. Tell me if they’re mean to you, okay? I can take care of it! Don’t worry, okay? Alright? Valentin?

The boy forced a nod.

— Okay?

— Okay.

Emil broke off—quite suddenly—and dropped the flower. He’d apparently spotted something in the bushes in front of them. In the jarring interruption of the moment, Valentin managed to look up, tentatively, feeling the ground’s pull weaken. The afternoon sun was on its way to dip below the trees in the distance. The yellow field they’d invaded was turning orange, and shadows began to pool beneath their feet. Dusk’s advance.

            — Fuck! Check it out!

In a few large strides, Emil covered the distance back to Valentin and revealed what stood in his palm. An upward sprawling, majestic, and threatening bogomol. The green hunter was larger than any of those the boy had ever caught—mere nymphs in comparison. Its size looked to be in harmony with Emil’s age and maturity. Not without envy, Valentin thought that of course the big brother would be able to catch the larger insect.

— Wow! It’s a—nu…

— A praying mantis, right? It’s okay, you can tell me in Russian.

— Yeah, bogomol!

The mantis, standing frozen at its articulations, began to elegantly move—even flow—up and around Emil’s hand. The ginger hair on his forearm was punctuated by the hunter’s slender feet.
— Wanna hold it?

Valentin hesitated, set aback by the hunter’s imposing size, the sharp claws. Though the opportunity could not be refused.

— Okay.

The mantis, larger than the boy’s entire hand, moved to his forearm, and then a few paces further up—almost reaching his sleeve.

— Ahh!

Emil laughed and intervened to take the large creature off the boy, thereby preserving Valentin’s strained composure.

— Okay, I think we can let him go now. Too bad we don’t have a camera!

The insect was allowed to step onto some tall grass, where it stood still, though made to sway by a slight breeze. The boy and the man watched it for a while, as if in reverence of the hunter’s godliness, as the distant, ceaseless sound of traffic brushed the air around them.

— Well! Looks like it’s getting a bit late. Better get you back so your mom’s not worried.

— Oh, yeah, okay.

In their purposeless saunter into the field, they managed to cover quite some ground, so the walk back to the car took longer than expected. Emil led the way, and Valentin brought up the rear, still eyeing the stalks around for any remaining bugs they might’ve missed—perhaps some special one to impress Emil with. But without further excitement, they stepped over the wire fence, and Valentin took the passenger seat once again, having already grown out of his prior reservations about legality and imagined policemen. On the ride back home, he grew accustomed to the view afforded adults in the front seats and didn’t think much about the lull that settled between himself and Emil. He simply watched more and more streets, minor landmarks go by, content with Emil’s handling of the drive. Then came the familiar street, the drop-off, and, a minute later, he would be home.

            — That’s us.

Valentin unbuckled himself, stepped out, and shut the door firmly, the way his father had taught him whenever he’d come over to pick him up for the weekend. Emil came around the back, and both stood in the courtyard leading up to Valentin’s apartment building. The streetlamps along the road began to turn on and pour yellow in cones to counter the evening’s dark.

— Okay, bye.

With a clipped goodbye befitting the nature of his boyhood, he began to walk home with a bounce in his step, when Emil called for him to stop. Valentin turned, hands already going to his pockets, thinking he’d forgotten something in the car. Emil stood beside the car in silence for a moment, his face holding an unfamiliar expression. The evening dulled his reddish hair. The boy approached.

— Valentin, you do know that today’s our last day, right?

Before thought could grasp, Valentin’s eyes went low, glancing at the dusty wheels of the car, Emil’s boots. Was anything even said?
— Bye.

So muttered, he turned—stone then, alone then—and resumed the walk home, seeing bricks and shoes, shoes and bricks, as the trailing silence swelled, soared, then detonated in the evening sky—

Muting all speech, sound, and sense.