The Murmur of Bees

This chapter comprises the memories of an unnamed first-person narrator, apparently the son of Beatriz and Francisco Morales. He confesses that he’s now extremely old, a great-grandfather for whom others make decisions. He’s comforted by the memories of all that happened at his home, La Hacienda Amistad, when he was a child.

Beatriz, matron of the hacienda, sits in Reja’s rocking chair, while other’s search for Reja. Francisco Senior, Beatriz’s husband, leads the search: “While she awaited the news, Beatriz, a practical-minded woman, concluded they were unlikely to find the nana alive” (19). She’s relieved to learn they found Reja alive.

Workers find Reja sitting on a rock. She shows Francisco two bundles and tells him that she heard a baby crying. One bundle contains a swarm of bees. The second reveals a baby boy, Simonopio, who has a cleft palate.

The first-person narrator describes his childhood as the only boy with two older sisters, Carmen and Consuelo. Because he loves outdoor play, he confounds his mother’s attempts to clothe him in finery. His father wants him to know the toughness of the land. The one person he wants to be with is Simonopio.

The first-person narrator describes the reaction of those first seeing the baby Simonopio. Some suggest leaving the child in the wilderness. Reja says he’s her baby. She insists that they allow the bees to come home with him.

The village doctor remarks, “The boy is surprisingly healthy” (33). The physician recognizes the cleft palate and warns that the baby can’t suck milk and will likely die. Reja soaks the edge of her shawl in goat’s milk and honey, dripping it slowly onto the baby’s tongue.

Soldiers steal the hacienda’s maize harvest. Francisco knows they’ll shoot him if he resists. The Mexican Revolution took the life of his father-in-law. He keeps his daughters in a Monterrey nunnery for safety. Francisco knows he can’t guarantee anything for those he loves. He decides to take Simonopio as his son.

Simonopio learns to focus his eyes by following the bees. He differentiates among the individual bees and understands them. Humans grow irritated with his speech problems and conclude he’s unintelligent, so he remains silent. He can close his eyes and see the past and the future, and he wonders if others can.

Beatriz assembles the upper-class women of Linares to plan a gala, the first in eight years. She reflects on the assassination of her father by soldiers who erroneously assumed him a traitor. She thinks, “War was waged by men. What could God do against their free will” (53).

At the meeting, Simonopio surprises her. When he grasps her hand, she notices he is hot to the touch. Without allowing anyone else to touch him, she guides him from the gathering.

Mercedes Garza, a woman who attended the gathering, contracts the Spanish flu and becomes the first person to die. Her funeral is a super-spreader event. The deadly flu ravages the community, shutting down all meeting places.

Burial rites become truncated. People wrap their dead in sheets, leaving them in the street. The gravedigger transports bodies daily to a mass grave. He calls out to the bodies, but anyone who answers is left to die. One person doesn’t die and begins to improve. After three days, he asks for water. The gravedigger transports him to his home. Hearing this, the assistant priest declares a miracle: “Lazarus has risen” (66).

The survivor is Lázaro, short for Lazarus (after the man who was raised from the dead in the Bible). The priest telegrams the archbishop in Monterrey. The state governor stumbles upon the telegram, and Lázaro becomes a celebrity. The rumor spreads that he went to heaven before his return. People ask him if he saw their loved ones in heaven and if he has any messages.

Dr. Cantu, the community physician, goes to Lázaro’s home, arriving when the priest does. Eventually, the doctor discovers that Lázaro never died. When he realizes this, the priest is despondent. He tells the crowd outside that Lázaro never died. Afterward, he returns to the chapel, locks himself in, and goes to sleep. Soon after, he dies of the flu.

The Morales’s son returns to narrate this chapter. By his account, Simonopio saves the family by developing a fever at the moment the Spanish flu ravages Linares. Simonopio’s illness causes the family to miss the funeral, preventing their exposure. Francisco decides to relocate his entire family to his more secluded Hacienda La Florida. He gathers his daughters from Monterrey along with everyone who works for him. Simonopio suddenly wakes up with no fever.

Anselmo, the troublemaker who believes that Simonopio has been kissed by the devil, is the only campesino left behind. Defying Francisco’s command to avoid exposure, Anselmo sends his wife into Linares to buy his tobacco. When he is confronted, Anselmo responds angrily: “Then maybe I shoulda shot you, Señor, when you came with your daughters” (97).

This chapter describes Simonopio’s psychic abilities and how he uses his foresight to prevent accidents and injuries. During the planning for the gala, Simonopio realizes something bad will happen to Beatriz. He rushes to the planning meeting to take Beatriz’s hand and lead her away from the sick woman. He sees a vision of people lying dead on the streets.

Simonopio feels grateful he kept his family from gatherings where the disease spreads. He doesn’t resist the pointless mustard poultice around his belly. Simonopio knows the way to their new destination because the bees have told him of a shortcut.

The Morales family suffers during the quarantine. They have no idea when they’ll return home to Linares.

While going to check on Hacienda la Amistad, Francisco encounters Simonopio, who sits beside him on the wagon. Francisco understands nothing happens by coincidence with Simonopio. At Amistad, they discover that the house is covered with dust. Once a week, they go inside to clean it.

The first-person narrator explains that the real reason Simonopio took Francisco to the hacienda was to collect Beatriz’s massive sewing machine. With the help of campesinos, they take it to La Florida. Beatriz quickly acclimates to the presence of the machine. She begins to sew many different garments. She makes ball dresses for her daughters, clothes for the campesinos, dolls out of scraps, and blouses for little girls to wear to schools when the pandemic ends. She never thinks that many of those for whom she’s making clothes are dead.

Bitter and vengeful, Anselmo watches the Morales family caravan return to Amistad. An Indigenous refugee from southern Mexico, Anselmo experienced brutality and promised his family he’d take them north for a better future. They got as far as Nuevo León, where he camped out on Francisco’s property and ran out of food and water. Anselmo told his family to attack the next passerby. That person was Francisco, who saw that they desperately needed help. He hired Anselmo, giving his family a two-room house.

As a tenant farmer, eventually Anselmo will own a plot of land. Despite this, Anselmo feels used. When Beatriz says she’ll pay for Anselmo’s children to go to the mission school, he refuses. Anselmo’s wife and most of his children died during the pandemic, and he concludes that Simonopio is the cause of their suffering.

Beatriz is depressed until Francisco brings her sewing machine. Her daughters show no interest in sewing and avoid Beatriz, whispering behind her back. Simonopio relieves her frustration by bringing her honey daily. She worries because Simonopio goes into the hills by himself. Simonopio knows Beatriz’s heart, though Francisco doesn’t. If he did, “he would have realized his wife was not the pillar of strength she pretended to be” (132).

Carmen tells Beatriz about a youth she met at a debutante ball in Monterrey. Antonio has asked her to marry him. Carmen fears that Antonio is dead since she hasn’t received mail from him. Beatriz points out that mail service has stopped and it’s unlikely that any letter he wrote would arrive. Beatriz and Carmen become co-conspirators, keeping the information about Antonio from Francisco.

When the family returns to Amistad, Beatriz immediately orders everyone to start cleaning. Beatriz doesn’t understand the disappointment on Francisco’s face when he points out that the place really wasn’t all that dusty given how long they were gone. She points out that some places were extremely dirty and needed cleaning.

Beatriz has sewn clothes for Anselmo’s surviving family and decides to deliver them. She’s surprised when Simonopio accompanies her. As they near the house, Simonopio hides in the brush while Beatriz knocks on the door.

The bees, who are dormant, don’t accompany Simonopio and Beatriz to Anselmo’s cabin. Although he knows the paths well, this is the one trip he never made.

Simonopio understands that life is made up of stories, and he knows he has a special ability to change stories. Often, in doing so, he can positively impact the lives of others. Francisco once told him the story of the coyote and the lion, explaining that Simonopio was the lion. Simonopio has long known that Anselmo is the coyote and that one day a life-changing confrontation will occur between them. As Simonopio considers this, Anselmo appears, yells at him, and raises a stick to strike him.