Before breakfast the porch went quiet, except for a tiny rehearsal. The hyacinths were handing little clappers to their own bells. Each cluster said hello to the bee, nodded to the step, and rang exactly once.
We asked at the kiosk by the square. A man with a paper of seeds said he had heard they were calling the mailman. The florist beside him shook her head. They are only greeting the morning, she said. The gardener told me the step likes to be counted in.
By the next afternoon one bee came back and sat on the lowest bell. She left a speck of pollen on the stair, as if it were a calling card, and the whole porch stayed polite through tea.