The Beekeeper of Aleppo: A Moving Testament to the Human Spirit

by Christy Lefteri

  We were led away from there, with two or three other families, to a gated camp near the port. Mohammed held onto my hand, asking me where we were going.

  We found ourselves enclosed in barbed wire, and before us was a grim village with immaculate concrete walkways, wire mesh fences and white gravel. There were rows and rows of square boxes for people to stay in until they got their papers. An empire of identification.

  The pebbles were meant to soak up water, but the ground was saturated, probably from rain earlier. In the alleys between the cabins there were clothes hanging on lines and, at the entrance of every cabin, a gas heater, and on top of these heaters people had placed shoes and socks and hats to dry. In the distance, beyond the cabins and across the sea, I could see the faint outline of Turkey and, on the other side, the dark hills of the island.

  As I stood there with Afra and Mohammed and the other families, I felt lost, as if I was out alone in a dark cold sea with nothing to hold on to. This was the first time in a long time that I had felt any safety, any security, and yet in this moment the sky felt too big, the rising dusk held an unknown darkness. I stared at the orange glow of the gas heaters, felt the certainty of my feet on the pebbles. But somewhere nearby there was shouting in a language I didn’t understand, followed by a long cry – the voice was desperate and came from a deep and hollow place and it sent the birds flying into an orange sky.

  Each cabin was already divided, partitioned with blankets and sheets to make room for more families. We were given a section of one of these cabins and told that there was food in the old asylum next to the registration centre, and that the gates would be locked at 9 p.m., so if we wanted to eat we should go soon. But Mohammed was rocking from foot to foot, as if he was on a boat, and as soon as he got the chance, he lay down. I covered him with a blanket.

  ‘Uncle Nuri,’ he said, opening his eyes a little bit, ‘can I have chocolate tomorrow?’

  ‘If I can find some.’

  ‘The type you can spread. I want to spread it on bread.’

  ‘I’ll try to find some for you.’

  It was evening and cold. Afra and I lay down too, and I rested my palm on her chest and felt the beating of her heart and the rhythm of her breathing. ‘Nuri,’ she said as we lay there.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I think you’re not all right.’

  She was close to me and I could feel the tension in her body.

  ‘None of us are OK,’ I said.

  ‘It’s …’ She hesitated.

  ‘What is it?’

  She sighed. ‘It’s the boy …’

  ‘We’re all so tired,’ I said. ‘Let’s sleep now, talk tomorrow.’

  She sighed again and closed her eyes.

  She fell asleep quickly and I tried to mirror her breath, slow and steady, so that I could shut off my mind, but her tone had been so dark, as if she knew something that I didn’t, and I couldn’t sleep. Her unspoken words had opened a chasm, and from that place images came and went like dreams – Mohammed’s black eyes, Sami’s eyes the colour of Afra’s. Even as I drifted off, my body jolted from a sudden noise in my head, like a door creaking open, and there, on the other side, the shadow of a boy. ‘Will we fall into the water?’ I heard. ‘Will the waves take us? The houses won’t break like these do.’ Sami’s voice. Mohammed’s voice.

  Then my mind plunged into darkness and silence. I turned away from Afra and focused on patterns on the bedsheet partition. I was kept awake by the mutterings and whisperings on the other side, a young girl talking to her father. As she became more distressed their voices rose.

  ‘But when will she come?’ the little girl was saying.

  ‘When you’re asleep she will stroke your hair. Just like she used to, remember?’

  ‘But I want to see her.’

  ‘You won’t see her, but you’ll feel her. You’ll feel that she is near you, I promise.’ I could hear a crack in the man’s voice.

  ‘But when those men took her …’

  ‘Let’s not talk about that.’

  The little girl let out a sob. ‘But when they took her she was crying. Why did those men take her? Where did they take her? Why was she crying?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about this now. Go to sleep.’

  ‘You said they would bring her back. I want to go back home and get her. I want to go home.’

  ‘We can’t go home.’

  ‘Never?’

  The man didn’t reply.

  Then there was a shout outside, a man’s voice, and a deep thumping. The sound of beating? A body being beaten? I wanted to get up to see what was happening, but I was afraid. There were footsteps outside the cabin, and people running, and then there was quiet and eventually the distant sounds of the waves drew me in, took my mind away from where I was, far away into open water.

  I woke up to the sound of the birds. There were voices and footsteps and I noticed that Mohammed was not in the cabin, and Afra was still asleep.

  I went out to find him. People had ventured out of their cabins to catch the warmth of the sun, others were hanging clothes on the lines in the alley. Children were jumping over the puddles or punching balloons onto the barbed wire with their fists, like volleyballs, laughing as they popped. I couldn’t see Mohammed among them.

  I noticed soldiers walking around, guns in their belts. I made my way to the old asylum building; I’d been told there were services and a children’s centre. There was something haunting about the island – half-finished crumbling properties, empty storefronts – as if the residents themselves had suddenly run out of there in a hurry, leaving the place to fall apart. Windows like eyes opened into dark uninhabitable buildings. Shutters hung off their hinges. The old asylum was like some place from a nightmare. In the hallway there was a huge unlit fireplace behind cast-iron bars; a staircase led up and around towards voices that were echoing from other rooms on other floors.

  ‘What do you need?’ a voice behind me said.

  I turned around: a girl in her early twenties, sun-kissed cheeks, a dozen silver hoops in one ear and one in her nose. She was smiling but she looked tired, the skin beneath her eyes purple. Her lips were cracked.

  ‘I was told there were resources here. I wanted to get a few things for my wife.’

  ‘Third floor, to the left,’ she said.

  I hesitated. ‘And I’m looking for my son.’ I looked over my shoulder as if Mohammed might just appear behind me.

  ‘What does he look like?’ the girl said, yawning. She covered her mouth. Her eyes swam. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t sleep well. There was trouble last night.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  She shook her head, holding back another yawn. ‘The camps are getting too full, some people have been here so long, it’s hard to …’ She stopped there. ‘What does your son look like?’

  ‘My son?’

  ‘You just said you were looking for your son.’

  ‘He’s seven. Black hair, black eyes.’

  ‘You’ve just described most of the boys here.’

  ‘But they have brown hair and eyes. This boy’s eyes are black. As black as the night. You can’t ignore them.’

  She seemed preoccupied now, taking a phone out of her back pocket, checking it so the screen lit up the shadows on her face.

  ‘Where are you staying?’ she said.

  ‘In the cabins by the port.’

  ‘You’re lucky you’re not in the other place.’

  ‘The other place?’

  ‘Does your wife need clothes? There’s a boutique upstairs. I’ll take you.’ The hallway started to get busier, people from so many parts of the world. I could hear variations of Arabic, mixed in with the unfamiliar rhythms and sounds of other languages.

  ‘Your English is very good,’ she said as we climbed the stairs.

  ‘My father taught me when I was a child. And I was a businessman, in Syria.’

  ‘What ki
nd of business?’

  ‘A beekeeper. I had hives and I sold honey.’

  I watched her flip-flops as they slapped against the soles of her feet.

  ‘This island was a leper colony once,’ she said. ‘This asylum was like a Nazi concentration camp. People were caged and chained without names or identities. The children here were abandoned, tied to their beds all day.’

  She suddenly stopped talking as we passed a policeman who was coming down the stairs. He was not wearing glasses, too dark in here, and he nodded and smiled at her with warm eyes.

  ‘The second and fourth floors are camps,’ she continued, once he was out of sight. ‘In the courtyard at night they light a big campfire and make food, because otherwise all you will eat are bread rolls with cheese, and maybe a banana. Sometimes old women bring vegetables from their gardens for the stew. On this floor there are two boutiques, one for women and children, and one for men. You might want to get something for your son too. There’s quite a lot of stuff today and you’ve come early, which is good.’

  She led me to the women’s boutique and left me there, and as I entered I heard a man in the hallway say to her, ‘You know the rules. Just ask them what they need. Don’t talk to them.’

  I hovered in the doorway for a few seconds to hear her response. I expected her to apologise, but instead I heard a throaty laugh, full of defiance. There was a confidence in her that she had brought with her from another place. There were only footsteps after this, fading away as I entered the boutique. The walls were damp and green, light coming in through a long barred window, shining onto a rack. A woman stood alert with both hands behind her back.

  ‘Can I help you?’ she said. ‘What do you need?’

  ‘I need some clothes for my wife and my son.’

  She asked me questions about their sizes and body shapes, pushing the hangers along the rail until she pulled out a few suitable items.

  I left the place with three toothbrushes, a couple of razors, a bar of soap, a bag full of clothes and underwear, and an extra pair of shoes for Mohammed; I imagined he would want to run around a lot here with the other children. Perhaps he had heard them playing in the morning and got up to join them? Maybe some of them went down to the sea to greet the new arrivals? Along the harbour there were shops – Vodafone, Western Union, a bakery, a café and a newsagent – all with signs outside in Arabic: SIM cards, Wi-Fi connection, Charge your phones.

  I went into the café. The place was full of refugees drinking tea or water or coffee, a break from the camps. There were people speaking Kurdish and Farsi. Ahead, a man and boy were having a conversation in Syrian Arabic. A waitress came out of the kitchen in the back holding a notepad, asking me what I would like. She was followed by an older woman, who was holding a tray full of glasses of water. She placed the drinks on the tables, speaking to the customers, greeting them by name. She had learnt a bit of all three languages.

  I ordered a coffee, which I was told was free, and I took a seat at one of the tables, and when my coffee was brought out I savoured it, sip by sip. I never thought I would be sitting down somewhere, next to other families, drinking coffee, without the sound of bombs, without the fear of snipers. It was at this time, when the chaos stopped, that I thought of Sami. Then there was guilt, for being able to taste the coffee.

  ‘Here by the self?’

  I looked up. The older woman was looking at me and smiling.

  ‘Speak English?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. No, I’m not here alone, I’m with my wife, and my son. I’m looking for him. He’s about this tall, black hair, black eyes.’

  ‘Sound like all boy!’

  ‘Do you know where I can buy chocolate?’ I said.

  She explained to me that there was a convenience store down the road. I noticed that some people had ordered food. The refugees had brought business to this place; usually in March the island would have been almost deserted.

  When I left I headed to the convenience store down the road, and there I bought a jar of Nutella and a loaf of fresh bread. The boy was going to love it! I couldn’t wait to see the excitement in his eyes.

  I found an Internet café because I wanted to see if Mustafa had replied to my email. I was nervous as I typed in my username and password – there was a part of me that didn’t want to know, because if there was no email from him then I would find it even harder to keep going, but I was happy when I saw a stream of messages waiting for me:

  * * *

  04/02/2016

  Dear Nuri,

  Mustafa has not been able to get to his emails. I spoke to him today, he has made it to France and has asked me to check his messages and respond. He was hoping there would be a message from you, he has been hoping every day. I cannot even begin to explain how pleased I am to hear from you. Mustafa and I were both very worried. He tried not to imagine bad things but he found it hard not to, as you must know.

  When I speak to him again I will tell him the good news. He will be very happy. Aya and I are in England. We are living at the moment in a shared house in Yorkshire and waiting to find out if we have been granted asylum.

  I am glad you made it to Istanbul, Nuri, and I hope that you make it safely to Greece and further.

  With love,

  Dahab

  * * *

  28/02/2016

  Dear Nuri,

  I finally made it to my daughter and wife in England. It was a horrible journey through France and I do not want to write about it here, but I will tell you when you arrive. I know that you will make it to us. We are waiting for you. I cannot rest until you get here. You are like my brother, Nuri. My family is not complete without you and Afra.

  Dahab is very unhappy, Nuri. She was trying to stay strong for Aya, but since I arrived here she has been lying down all day with the lights switched off, holding on to a photograph of Firas. Sometimes she cries, but most of the time she is silent. She will not talk about him. All she says is that she is happy that I am by her side now.

  I see from your last email that you were in Istanbul. I hope that you have made it to Greece by now. I have heard that Macedonia has closed their borders so it will be difficult from there, as it was for me, but you must keep going. By the time I hear from you again I hope that you will have moved closer to where we are.

  So many times I wish I had not stayed behind, that I had left Aleppo with my wife and daughter because then my son would still be with us. This thought brings me close to death. We cannot go back, cannot change the decisions we made in the past. I did not kill my son. I try to remember these things because if I don’t I will be lost in the darkness.

  The day that I hear that you have made it to England will bring light to my soul.

  Mustafa

  I sat there and read and reread the email. You are like my brother, Nuri. And the memory came back to me of Mustafa’s father’s house in the mountains. The house was surrounded by pines and fir trees and it was dark and cool inside, old mahogany furniture and handwoven rugs, and on a console table at the far end, beneath a window, a shrine to the mother and wife who had left them. There were photographs of her as a young girl and then as a young woman, tall and beautiful with glittering eyes. There were wedding photographs and pictures of her holding Mustafa in her arms, and others when she was pregnant with the child she would die with. Mustafa grew up under the care and protection of his father and grandfather, no women to soften the place or bring light to it, no siblings to play with, so he found solace in the brilliant light and beautiful sounds and smells of the apiaries.

  He got to know the bees like they were his siblings, he watched them and learnt how they spoke to one another, he followed paths deep into the mountains to find the source of their journey and sat in the shade of the trees and watched as they collected nectar from eucalyptus and cotton and rosemary.

  Mustafa’s grandfather was a strong man, with huge hands like Mustafa, a sharp eye and a sense of humour – he encouraged Mustafa to be curious, to ha
ve adventures with nature. He liked it when I came to visit and would cut up tomatoes and cucumbers for us, as if we were children, as if I had become the missing link in their family. On soft bread he would spread butter and honey fresh from the hives, then he would sit with us and tell us stories about his own childhood, or about his beloved daughter-in-law.

  ‘She was such a kind woman,’ he would say. ‘She looked after me well, and she would never tell me to shut up when I babbled on.’ And even after all these years he would wipe his eyes with his liver-spotted hand. Sitting in that cool living room, we seemed to be surrounded by his mother’s never-faltering smile, a smile that engulfed us and weaved itself around us, a bit like the sweet sound of the bees.

  Then he would become brisk. ‘Right, you two do something useful now. Go and show Nuri how to extract the honey. And give him some royal jelly to eat – he needs it after being cooped up in the city like he is.’

  And Mustafa would take me to the place where the bees sang.

  ‘We will build things together, I can tell,’ he said. ‘We balance each other you and me. Together we will do great things.’

  * * *

  03/03/2016

  Dear Mustafa,

  You have always been like a brother to me. I remember the days when I visited your father’s house in the mountains, I remember the photographs of your mother, and your grandfather … What a man he was! Without you, my life would have been very different. We created great things together, just as you said we would. But this war snatched it away from us, everything we dreamed about and worked for. It’s left us without our home, without our work and without our sons. I am not sure how I can live like this. I fear that I am dead inside. The only thing that is keeping me going is the wish to reach you and Dahab and Aya.

  I am so happy to hear that you have finally reached your wife and daughter. This thought alone, knowing that you are with them, brings joy during these dark times.

  Afra and I have reached Leros and hope we will be leaving for Athens soon. If the Macedonian border is closed, then I will find another way. Don’t worry, Mustafa, I will not stop until I get there.