Wasps

Wasps are not seen as an abstract danger in Henry Beskow’s home: he believes they are especially poisonous at that time of year, and says a sting can swell his throat until he cannot breathe. Their presence therefore turns the question of how to cool a hot room into a question of safety, revealing both Henry’s vulnerability and Johnny’s attentive, practical care for him.

Heat, Air, and the Threat of Wasps

When Johnny visits, Henry is sweating beneath his knitted cardigan and has struggled unsuccessfully to take it off. Johnny says the room needs airing because the heat could make Henry sluggish; Henry resists opening it up, warning that wasps will get in. Their exchange gives the insects a presence before one appears: the closed-in heat is immediate, while the danger Henry anticipates is outside, poised to enter. Johnny does not dismiss the concern. He asks for a solution that would relieve the heat without exposing Henry to the feared sting, making their disagreement a small negotiation between comfort and protection.

A Sound Misidentified, a Danger Remembered

The feared insect never appears in the room. When Henry hears a buzzing and asks Johnny to check whether it is a wasp, Johnny searches the steamy living room, looking under the curtains and lifting the sofa cushions. He finds a bluebottle instead, which he reports as enormous and promises to kill. The distinction matters: the immediate disturbance is harmless by comparison, but Henry’s fear has already shaped the room’s rules. A sound is enough to make the possibility of a wasp present, and Johnny responds by searching rather than brushing the warning aside.

Henry’s explanation makes that caution more than a household preference. Asked about his allergy, he describes a sting as potentially fatal: his throat swells wherever he is stung, leaving him unable to breathe. He calls it a weakness, while his laughter briefly softens the exchange without undoing the danger he describes. Before Johnny leaves, Henry reminds him to close the kitchen window he had opened. The instruction returns the conversation to its practical stakes: air is needed, but an opening also admits what Henry fears.

A Household Rule of Protection

The warning has a practical consequence: before Johnny leaves, Henry tells him to close the kitchen window, knowing Johnny had opened it. The request turns Henry’s fear of wasps into a rule of care for the house, even as the heat makes fresh air desirable. In the same parting exchange, Henry tells Johnny to take a couple of hundred kroner from the jar on the refrigerator for petrol and whatever the boys need; Johnny pats his grandfather’s dry, wrinkled cheeks. The feared insect remains unseen, but its possibility sits within this ordinary intimacy, where protecting Henry and accepting his generosity are woven into the visit.

Sound and the Unseen

Henry’s attention to sound extends beyond the insect he fears. He recognizes Margrete Sundelin’s trumpet from Hauger School Band practice, having heard her play both Bravura and Entry March of the Boyars, and associates her Thursday rehearsals with the blue bicycle carrying her trumpet case. Against this familiar, identifiable music, the buzzing in his living room becomes a different kind of signal: Henry says he knows that sound, though Johnny’s search finds a bluebottle rather than a wasp. The contrast gives the insects a presence even when they are absent. Their threat enters the scene not through a visible sting but through a sound Henry interprets in light of his vulnerability.