The Beekeeper

by Dunya Mikhail

  “You listen to the stories of survivors for the sake of documentation,” I said. “Does this work affect you psychologically?”

  “Of course, it does affect me. Sometimes I can’t sleep. Imagine, for example, what it would be like to listen to a nine-year-old girl explain how she was raped even though she didn’t know what sex was. She says, I don’t know why they were doing that to me. No one had ever laid a hand on me before.”

  After leaving the office and the market, Abdullah suggested

  that we sit in a café until it was time for me to go. We ordered ice cream, but it melted before we could eat it. I didn’t know why we’d gotten it in the first place.

  “Abdullah, I need to ask you something: Will the publication of this book cause any harm to you or to anyone mentioned in it?” I said.

  “No,” he firmly replied.

  “Scheherazade saved her life with the tales she told. You, on the contrary, may be putting your own life at risk because of these tales.”

  “You mean I’m like Scheherazade? I’d be happy to be like Scheherazade. Listen, I have a gift for you.”

  “I wonder what it could be.”

  “Natural honey.”

  “Where did you get it? I thought you weren’t beekeeping anymore.”

  “I brought it from Sinjar. I have a friend there who keeps bees. I go there to help him sometimes. I’m nostalgic for bees. How I love to watch their patterns of flight, circle by circle, as the queen flies higher and higher . . .”

  I remembered the wonderful song of Fairouz, “The Path of Bees” (the path of flying bees / over the broken light / drawing circles / writing lines in the air / high above the palaces / higher than the domes, drawing lines / if you’re going to leave me darling / remember me / and remember the path of bees). I daydreamed a bit with the circles of bees, all the way back to circles of childhood that we used to draw in the dirt with a little stick, circular ripples of waves that grow bigger when we toss a stone into the water, rings of fire that tigers jump through at the circus, the circles of whirling Sufi dervishes who spin and spin until they disappear, the circles my brother drew on a piece of paper when he lost his memory after a stroke, circles made in the air by a little girl as she skipped rope in the camp.

  “This is the nicest gift. Thank you. I hope next time I visit you’ll be back home in Sinjar with your farm and your bees,” I said.

  “Of course we want the region to be fully liberated so that we can return to our past lives. But, in fact, something inside us has changed forever. Some people will never return. On the other hand, this disaster has opened our eyes to some beautiful stances and wonderful people . . .

  Abdullah began again: As your Scheherazade, before I accompany you to the airport, let me tell you another story of a girl who is a relative of mine. I visited her family a week ago to offer my condolences for her death, or rather, her suicide. Can you believe that after she survived Daesh and arrived safely here, she killed herself just like that?

  Jamila was living in one of the caves in Sinjar with her mother, her father, and her younger sister. They were somewhat isolated — they didn’t have a clock; they would wake up to the sound of the rooster, and go to sleep when the stars appeared in the sky. Sons and daughters in the village usually helped their parents with everything, including farming, milking the cows, and taking care of the chickens. Every day Jamila would ride their donkey to fetch water for the family. Once, her donkey stopped in front of another donkey coming from the opposite direction. A young man was sitting on top of the other one. The two donkeys seemed to know each other, which made Jamila and the boy smile, but then they each went on their way. Jamila kept smiling to herself, thinking of that tan young man who’d turned his face to glance at her after she’d left. The days passed, and Jamila would go off and come back with her donkey, as usual, until one day she caught a glimpse of a donkey coming toward her from the opposite direction with a rider she knew — it was as if she’d known him for a long time. They slowed down as they got closer to each other, then both stopped. He smiled and said hello. She greeted him in return. He asked her where she was bringing her water from. When she told him, he said that he knew of a spring where the water was purer, and offered to show it to her. She followed him. There, they dismounted from the donkeys, and drank the spring water from their cupped hands. “This water really is better, I’ll take some home to my family,” she said. “Who is your family?” he asked. They told each other about themselves and their lives, as if they were old friends. When Jamila got home with the new water, she felt like something had touched her soul, something she had never felt before — it was as if the handful of water she’d drunk had magically transformed her into a happy human being who loved everything around her; she found such a mysterious beauty in it all. The next day, when she went to this new spring, she found the man sitting there. He didn’t say that he’d been waiting for her, but that he’d been there since morning. They sat talking on a rock beside the water. He touched her hand, and she felt her heart pounding. “Did you want to tell me something?” he asked.

  “What about you? Did you want to say something to me?” she said.

  “I have a secret. Let’s keep it between you and me.”

  “What is it?”

  “I think my donkey is in love with yours.”

  “Really? How did you know?”

  “He lost his mind. It’s as if he’s gone crazy.”

  “How so?”

  “He stays up all night, waiting for the sun to come up, so that he can come to this spring.”

  “Same with my donkey. Nothing pleases him except coming back to this spring.”

  “I stay up with him every night. I can’t sleep.”

  “Why not?”

  “I look up at the stars, thinking of a girl I’m in love with. I ask the stars, Does she love me too?”

  “What do the stars tell you?”

  “They tell me to just ask her, to ask the girl I’m in love with. So, let me ask you, Jamila, what do the stars say?”

  “Each star says, I love you.”

  After continuing to meet at the spring, they decided to get married. On this special day he took her to a house made of mud, next to his family’s house. He said it would be their home in the near future. He’d intended to bring his family with him so he could ask for her hand after the month of April had ended. Their custom prohibited marriages that month because, as the saying goes, only nature can be a bride in April, and you can’t have two brides at once; and the earth mustn’t be plowed in April because it is pregnant with colorful flowers and wild plants during that time of year.

  Jamila eagerly awaited the end of the month. She desperately wanted for the two of them to “become one,” as he put it.

  He joked with her about the wedding, saying, “I wonder how musicians and drummers will be able to get through the rugged, mountainous areas to reach your house, and the two donkeys will have to lead the wedding procession.”

  Jamila told her mother that they would have guests over to discuss the engagement. Her mother inquired about the man’s last name and origin, which was the tradition for mothers in those situations. Once the month was over, however, a quarrel broke out between the young man’s parents, which led to his mother leaving to go to her family’s house. The family’s drama wasn’t conducive to the engagement, so it was postponed.

  One day, when Jamila was on her way to the spring to meet him, Daesh kidnapped her. They took her to Talafar, where she was sold along with the other captives. Jamila curled up as tightly as she could to resist being raped, but the man who claimed to own her took her by force, and made her bleed. Jamila wept bitterly, wondering how her lover would react if he ever found out that she was no longer a virgin. He loves me, so he will have to forgive me, she thought to herself, it isn’t my fault.

  More than a year and a half after her
kidnapping, he still hadn’t left her mind for a moment. Sometimes she imagined him coming on his donkey to save her, and she would hold onto him as the donkey raced away like a motorcycle. Her mind carried her to that little mud house, where she would wash his clothes and cook for him, and she would give birth to children who looked like him. Her hope of returning to him allowed her to withstand the torture of captivity. She didn’t try to commit suicide, as some of the captives who were in the building with her did. She resisted death for his sake.

  Daesh locked up more than just people — they captured animals as well. They imprisoned goats, cows, and chickens from the village, forcing them into captivity as well. Once, a Daeshi came and asked the captives, “Do any of you know how to milk a cow?” Jamila and three other women replied that they did, and so they were moved in with the cows. They thought this might exempt them from being raped, but they discovered that milking cows was just extra work, and didn’t keep them from being sold, bought, or raped. After three and a half months of living in that place near the barn, they’d milked the cows as many times as they’d been raped — the time came for the four of them to escape. They had an hour to do it, so one of them suggested a plan, and the rest quickly agreed to it. They put on Daesh clothes and the men’s head covering, the yashmagh. It was winter so they put on coats as well. The clothes smelled foul, but it was all they could find.

  The four girls headed west toward Sinjar, which was fifteen miles away. They reminded each other to behave like men, in case someone saw them or stopped them along the way. They walked for an hour until they arrived at an abandoned farm, where they decided to rest. They were shrouded in complete darkness, but they noticed lights coming from the direction they had fled. The lights seemed to be heading toward them, so they jumped up and ran away. They found a trench nearby, where they decided to hide, scattering dirt and grass on top of themselves. The lights came closer and were fixed on the farm that they’d just left. A spotlight came so close that it brought their breathing to a halt. Then the spotlight continued past them to the other side, before it gradually disappeared. They came out of the trench, brushed the dried grass out of one another’s hair, and walked toward the mountains until morning. There, by the valley at the foot of the mountain, they sat to rest, exhausted from hunger, thirst, and fear. They fell asleep until noon, and when they woke up, they saw a car coming toward them in the distance. One of them suggested that they flag down the car to see if they could get some water, at least, but the others objected out of fear. Every now and then, one of them would walk a little ways from the valley and then come back. Gradually, the sun went down, and they headed west. Their thirst became unbearable. Every time one of them collapsed to the ground from thirst, she would tell the others to move on and leave her there, but they all kept their promise to stay together. Suddenly they arrived at a house that looked abandoned. Hesitantly creeping inside, they found it was empty, except for the one thing they so desperately wanted: a water basin. They drank from it, and then washed their faces. They felt life returning to them. They sat on the floor to rest for a moment, but ended up falling asleep — and they didn’t wake up until they heard the sound of dawn prayer. They left the house and walked all the way to the village of Sinno, but when they saw cars flying Daesh black flags there, they froze, and didn’t move from where they were in the valley. They stayed there until darkness fell, until all the cars disappeared. They found bodies and human remains dumped beside the road. One of them fell down and refused to keep walking. The rest of them slowed down and stayed with her until she calmed down a bit. In that moment, Jamila found a soft spot of grass in the valley, and she concluded that there must be water there. She dug into the ground until she found it. “This is spring water, come drink it,” she said. The water was mixed with mud, but they were so thirsty and their lips were so dry. Each took a handful of water and wetted her lips. They kept walking toward the mountains. Despite the darkness, they could see fighters up there. Happily, they ran toward them, but those fighters fired shots toward the girls, thinking they were with Daesh. The girls forgot that they were disguised as Daesh. They were in quite a predicament: every time they moved they would hear the whiz of bullets flying by. Finally, one of them decided to take off her clothes — she threw away the yashmagh, let down her long hair, and only left on her pants. She ascended the mountain waving her hands in the air. Some of the fighters ran toward her. She pointed out the other girls to them. Each fighter carried a girl on his back and climbed back up the mountain. They carried them on their backs for two miles, to the headquarters of the Sinjar protection forces. They remained up in the mountains for a few days under the care of Sinjaris.

  Jamila wanted to surprise her lover. She wore a dress with colorful flowers on it, and got ready to see him. She smiled thinking about the mud house adjacent to his parents’ house. In her mind, she wondered how he was going to receive her. Would he pick her up with joy, like someone in a movie? Would he cry upon hearing about the torture she endured in captivity? Did he even know that she had been kidnapped? Or did he think that she was dead?

  Her mother welcomed her with tears, hugging her for a long time, in disbelief that her daughter returned. Jamila was waiting to hear something about her beloved, who’d asked for her hand in marriage two years earlier. She dared to ask her mother whether she had heard anything about him. “He’s okay . . .” she said, and then fell silent. Jamila looked expectantly at her mother, waiting for her to say more. Her mother added, “He got married a month ago.”

  Jamila didn’t say anything, she didn’t betray any emotion. After an hour of doing nothing, she went out to walk around the streets of her village. But what had happened to those streets? Why were they wrapped around her like an octopus? Nothing was the same anymore, even the sky had changed, it wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. The world had changed around her, at the exact moment when she most desired her old, familiar things.

  Her steps accelerated as her thoughts floated upward. She ran down the dirt road, gasping for air. Her breath was cut short, as if the hands of her rapists had all come back together and were choking her to death, beating her, insulting her, shoving her into the corner.

  Their hands tore her body into two halves, like two countries at war, the dividing line an inferno and dead people . . .

  Her dress exploded,

  the flowers scattered in the air,

  the colors popped up high like fireworks in a celebration,

  but; no sound could be heard,

  no sound . . .

  Copyright © 2018 by Dunya Mikhail

  Translation copyright © 2018 by Max Weiss and Dunya Mikhail

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or website review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  Originally published in Arabic as Fi Suq al-Sabaya by Al Mutawassit

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper.

  First published as a New Directions Paperbook Original (NDP1401) in 2018

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  (CIP data was unavailable at time of printing)

  eISBN: 9780811226479

  New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

  new directions titles available as ebooks

  ndbooks.com

 

 

 
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