The Beekeeper of Aleppo

by Christy Lefteri

  ‘When will we have the interview?’ I say so that her eyes return to me.

  ‘I’ll be in contact again soon with a date for the asylum interview. I suggest you start preparing. Think about your story, how you got here, what happened along the way. They will ask you all sorts of questions and you need to be ready, because they will be emotionally difficult to answer.’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Have you been thinking about it?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Of course. I think about it all the time.’ And again I see something more real in her than the straight-talking newsreader.

  She rubs the back of her right hand over her eye, smudging the make-up a bit, in the way a young girl might. ‘It’s just they’ll pounce on anything,’ she says, ‘especially if your story’s a mess.’

  I nod, feeling worried but she doesn’t seem to notice my concern. She glances at her watch to let me know that the meeting is over. Afra and I get up to leave.

  Next to see her is Diomande. We swap places at the door and he goes in and sits down, with his folded-up wings poking under his T-shirt. He is much more talkative than I am. He greets her warmly in his broken English and starts immediately to talk about where he’s from, how he got here. Before she’s even asked him anything, he’s jabbering away. And I can still hear his voice even from the end of the corridor, a charging energetic ramble, and something about it reminds me of a galloping horse.

  Afra tells me she is tired, so I take her to the bedroom and she sits on the edge of the bed, facing the window, just like she used to in our house in Aleppo. I watch her for a while, wanting to say something to her, but no words come to my mind, so I head downstairs.

  The Moroccan man isn’t in the living room. I think he heads out during the day and wanders around the shops, speaking to people, picking up new words, observing and learning things along the way. There are a few others in here: the Afghan woman with the handwoven hijab. She is making something with some blue string. There is nothing much to do but sit in the living room and watch the TV. A politician with a face like a frog is speaking.

  We literally have opened up the door unconditionally, without being able to secure-check anybody … the Dusseldorf bomb plot had been uncovered, all right – a very, very worrying plan for mass attacks along the style of Paris or Brussels. All of those people came into Germany last year posing as refugees.

  My face heats up. I change the channel.

  This guy’s admitted cheating six times! But it’s only on breaks! And you want him gone! Ashley’s on The Jeremy Kyle Show, ladies and gentlemen!

  I turn off the TV and the room plunges into silence. Nobody seems to care.

  I wander over to the computer desk and sit down. I think of the field in Aleppo before the fire, when the bees hovered above the land like clouds, humming their song. I can see Mustafa taking a comb out of a hive, inspecting it closely, dipping a finger into the honey, tasting it. That was our paradise, at the edge of the desert and the edge of the city.

  I look at my face on the dark screen, thinking of what to write – Mustafa, I believe I am unwell. I have no dreams left.

  The landlady comes in and begins to clean the living room with a bright yellow duster. She tries to reach the cobwebs in the corners, tiptoeing with her platform shoes and skinny elephant legs, and so I get up and offer to do it for her. I spend the afternoon dusting the walls and tables and cabinets in the living room and any of the rooms upstairs that have been left open. I get a glimpse into some of the other residents’ lives. Some have made their beds, while others have left their rooms in a mess. Some have trinkets on their bedside cabinets, precious things from a past life, photographs on the dresser. Propped up without frames. I don’t touch anything.

  The Moroccan man’s room is tidy, everything folded neatly, a bottle of shaving foam on the dresser, razors lined up. There is a black and white photograph of a woman in a garden. The photo is faded and white at the edges, and there is a small gold wedding band on the dressing table next to it. The photo next to that is of the same woman, some years later. She has the same eyes and smile; she is sitting on a wicker chair holding a baby, a toddler standing beside her. Another photo, glossy, many years later, is of a family: a man, a woman and two teenage children. The last one is of a woman standing on the shore with the sea behind her. I turn it over and read the words in Arabic:

  Dad, my favourite place. I love you x

  I head downstairs feeling heavier than before and decide to go for a walk. I make my way to the convenience store; the Arabic music reaches me as I walk along the street. Although I’m not familiar with the song that is playing, the music transports me home, its tones and rhythms, the sound of my language surrounding me and soothing me as I enter the little shop.

  ‘Good morning,’ the man says in English. His accent is good and he is standing very upright, as if he is guarding the place, middle-aged, cleanly shaven. He turns the volume down and follows me with his eyes while I walk around. I stand by the counter staring at the unfamiliar newspapers: The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Mail.

  ‘It is a beautiful day,’ he says.

  I am about to reply in Arabic, but I don’t want to have a conversation with this man. I don’t want him to ask me where I am from and how I got here.

  ‘Yes,’ I say finally, and he smiles.

  Just beneath the magazines, on the last row of shelves, I notice a sketch pad and colouring pencils. I have some change in my pocket so I buy them for Afra. The man glances at me a few times and opens his mouth to say something, but a woman calls him from the back of the shop and I leave.

  In the late afternoon the Moroccan man returns, calling my name as soon as he walks through the door.

  ‘Nuri! Mr Nuri Ibrahim! Please come here – there is a gift for you!’

  I go out into the hallway and he is standing there, a huge smile on his face, holding a wooden tray with five plants it.

  ‘What’s this?’ I say.

  ‘I had a bit of money saved and I went to the vendor on the street and got this for the bee!’ He shoves the tray into my arms and nudges me through the living room, toward the patio doors. He picks up an overturned plastic table in the corner of the courtyard, wiping the muck and dried leaves off with his hand.

  ‘Right,’ he says, ‘put it on here!’ Then he stands there for a while admiring the flowers – sweet clover, thistle and dandelions. ‘The man told me which flowers to get, which ones the bee would like.’ He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a saucer of water. He rearranges the plant pots into a line, so the bee will be able to get from one to the other without flying, and he puts the saucer in the tray.

  ‘I think she will be thirsty,’ he says.

  For a while I can’t move. I can see him staring at me, waiting for me to put the bee into her new home, and there is a shadow of disappointment in his eyes at my lack of enthusiasm. In this moment, standing beneath the tree with the flowers beside us and the sun beaming down, I remember my father. I remember the look on his face when I told him I didn’t want to take over the family business, that I wasn’t interested in selling fabric. I wanted to be a beekeeper with Mustafa, I wanted to work outdoors in nature, I wanted to feel the land beneath my feet and the sun on my face, to hear the song of the bees.

  For so many years I’d watched my father work hard in that little dark shop, with his scissors and needles and tape-measure and swollen knuckles, the colours of the world, of deserts and rivers and forests, printed on the silks and linens around him. ‘You can make blinds with this silk. Doesn’t it remind you of the colours of Hamad when the sun is setting?’ This is what he would say to the customers, and to me he would say, ‘Close the blinds, Nuri! Close the blinds so the light won’t get to the fabric.’ How I remember his eyes when I told him I didn’t want to work in that tiny dark cave for the rest of my life.

  ‘You don’t like it?’ the Moroccan man says. His expression is different now, a deep frown.
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br />   ‘I like it,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

  I put my hand out to the bee and she crawls onto my finger and I transport her to her new home. She inspects the flowers, making her way from one plant pot to the next.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ I say to the Moroccan man. ‘What are you doing here in the UK?’

  His shoulders stiffen and he takes a step away from the wooden box. ‘Why don’t we go in and maybe you can come and see it again tomorrow.’

  In the living room he sits in the armchair and opens his book. ‘I think queuing is very important here,’ he says to me, with the usual tone of laughter back in his voice.

  ‘But where is your family?’ I say. ‘You bring the plants and remind me of Syria, and when I ask you about why you are here you ignore me.’

  He closes the book now and looks at me straight in the eyes.

  ‘As soon as I was on that boat to Spain I knew I had sold my life, whatever life I have left. But my children wanted to leave; they were in search of a better life. I didn’t want to be alone there without them. They had dreams. Young people still have dreams. They couldn’t get visas and life was becoming too difficult at home – there were problems, too many … so they went underground, and this is dangerous. We all decided to leave together, but my son and daughter were taken to another hostel where children are allowed. They are waiting, too, and my daughter … my daughter. …’ He stops talking and I see that his small eyes, almost hidden in the creases, are shimmering. He is far away. I don’t ask any more questions.

  Diomande is up in his room. He went upstairs after Lucy Fisher left, closed the door and hasn’t come out since. When the Moroccan man and everyone else go up to bed, I head out into the courtyard. I go close to the sensor for the light so that it will come on and I watch the bee crawling over the dandelions, settling into her new home.

  Then the flowers on the tree catch my eye. There are still thousands of blossoms on it. I turn around expecting to see Mohammed in one of the dark corners of the garden. I kneel down and look through the hole in the fence, trying to see the green of the leaves on the bushes and trees. Then I sit with my back against the tree and my legs straight out in front of me and close my eyes. It is quiet, apart from the sound of the cars. I squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating, and I can hear the waves. Loud they rise, a big long breath, and fall back again. I feel the water beside me, right here, a dark monster, lapping at my feet. I lie back and my body and mind are taken by

  was dark and wild. Mohammed was standing by the shore, in his black clothes, almost invisible against the night sky and inky water. He stood back when the waves lapped at his feet and slipped his hand into mine. Afra was a short distance away, facing the land instead of the water. We were brought here by coach, a three-hour journey across mainland Turkey, all of us clutching onto our life jackets and our few belongings. Although there were only twenty people in the smuggler’s house, the number of travellers had increased to forty. The smuggler was standing with the man who had been appointed captain of the dinghy.

  The boat that left last night had toppled over and the people were lost at sea. Only four survivors were pulled from the water, and eight bodies were found. These were the conversations I could hear around me.

  ‘At least this isn’t as bad as the crossing between Libya and Italy. That’s the deadliest sea crossing in the world!’ one woman standing nearby said to a man. ‘And some of the bodies washed up on the shore in Spain.’

  Mohammed tightened his grip on my hand.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘Didn’t I tell you this?’

  ‘Yes, you did, but—’

  ‘So it’s true. We might fall into the water?’

  ‘We won’t.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Allah will protect us.’

  ‘Why didn’t he protect the other people? Are we special?’

  The boy was sharp. I looked down at him.

  ‘Yes.’

  He raised his eyebrows. There was a strong wind and the waves rose.

  ‘It’s like a monster,’ Mohammed said.

  ‘Stop thinking about it.’

  ‘How can I stop thinking about it when it’s right in front of me? It would be like if you held a cockroach right up to my face with all its legs wriggling and told me to stop thinking about it!’

  ‘Well then, go on thinking until you crap your pants.’

  ‘I’m not doing it on purpose.’

  ‘Pretend we’re getting on a ship.’

  ‘But we’re not. We’re getting on a rubber boat. If we fall in the water, maybe the fishermen will catch us in their net. They’ll think they’ve caught a big fish, but then they will get the biggest shock of their whole lives.’

  Afra was listening to our conversation, but she didn’t join in and she kept her back to us.

  We waited there for an hour at least. People were becoming restless.

  ‘This could be our last time on this earth,’ Mohammed said. ‘It would be good if we had some ice cream. Or maybe a cigarette.’

  ‘A cigarette? You’re seven.’

  ‘I know how old I am. My dad told me never to try one because it might kill me. I thought I would try one when I was seventy. But seeing as we might die tonight, now might also be a good time. What would you like to have if you were going to die tonight?’

  ‘We’re not going to die tonight. Stop thinking about it.’

  ‘But what would you like to have?’

  ‘I would like very much to have some camel’s wee.’

  ‘Why?!’

  ‘Because it’s good for the hair.’

  The boy laughed and laughed.

  I noticed that a woman standing nearby had been looking at me, her eyes flashing towards me then away, then back again to where Mohammed was standing. She was a young woman, probably in her early thirties, and her hair was long and black like Afra’s and sweeping across her face in the wind. She pushed it back with her hand and looked at me again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I said.

  ‘Me?’ she said.

  I nodded, and she glanced again at Mohammed and took a step closer to me. ‘It’s just that …’ She hesitated. ‘It’s just that I lost my son too. It’s just that … I know. I know what it’s like. The void. It’s black like the sea.’

  Then she turned away from me and said nothing more, but the wind from the sea and the echo of her words got beneath my skin and froze my heart.

  The appointed captain had climbed into the dinghy and the smuggler was showing him something on his phone and pointing out to sea; people were moving closer to the water, sensing that it would soon be time to go. Everyone had started to put on the orange life jackets, and I was busy adjusting the straps of Mohammed’s jacket and then helping Afra with hers.

  The smuggler waved us over and everyone edged closer to the water, and one by one we slowly climbed onto the rocking boat. Mohammed sat safely next to me. Afra had still not said anything, not a single word had come out of her mouth, but I could feel her fear; her soul was as dark as the sky now, as restless as the sea.

  The smuggler told us to turn off our torches and our phones. There must be no noise and no light until we got to international waters.

  ‘And how will we know,’ a man said, ‘when we have reached international waters?’

  ‘Because the water will change. It will become foreign,’ the smuggler said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It will change colour – you’ll see, it will look unfamiliar.’

  Only the captain had his phone on, for the GPS. The smuggler reminded him to follow the coordinates, and if something should happen to the phone, then look out for lights in the distance and follow them.

  The engine turned on and we headed out into the darkness, the rubber creaking over the waves.

  ‘It’s not that bad,’ I heard a child say. ‘It’s not bad at all!’ There was triumph in the girl’s voice as if we had just overcome a great danger.

>   ‘Shh!’ her mother hissed. ‘Shh! They told us no noise!’

  A man started to recite a verse from the Qur’an, and as we went further out to sea, other people joined in, their voices merging with the sounds of the waves and the wind.

  I had one hand in the water. I kept it there, feeling the movement, the rush of sea, the aliveness of it, the way it got colder as we moved away from the land. I placed my other hand on Afra’s arm but she didn’t respond; her lips were pursed, like a closed shell.

  Mohammed’s teeth were chattering. ‘We haven’t fallen in yet,’ he said.

  I laughed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

  The boy’s eyes widened, full of genuine fear. It seemed that he’d been relying on my ignorant optimism.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, ‘we won’t fall in. People are praying. Allah will hear.’

  ‘Why didn’t he hear the other people?’

  ‘We’ve been through this already.’

  ‘I know, because we’re special. My feet are wet.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘My feet are cold.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  Mohammed glanced over at Afra. ‘Are your wife’s feet cold?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she say anything?’

  The boy stared at her for a while, looking at her face, her scarf, her clothes, her hands, her legs, her feet. I followed his eyes, wondering what he was thinking, what he was trying to figure out, where his mother was.

  ‘How long will it take?’

  ‘Six hours.’

  ‘How long has it been already?’

  ‘Six minutes.’

  ‘No! It’s been longer than that!’

  ‘Then why do you ask?’

  ‘Sixteen minutes!’

  ‘OK, sixteen.’

  ‘We have five hours and forty-four minutes left. I will count.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  He started to count, but by the time he got to the fifth minute he was fast asleep with his head on my shoulder.

  I still had one hand on Afra’s arm and one hand in the water. I looked out into the darkness, all this sea and sky, and I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Is this what Afra saw every day? This absence of form.