The Beekeeper of Aleppo

by Christy Lefteri

  ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘To get some things.’

  ‘There was noise. Too much. I told them to go away.’

  ‘Who?’ I said.

  ‘The children.’

  ‘Did the boy come back?’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘Mohammed.’

  ‘Nobody came,’ she said.

  I put the bag down and told her that I was heading out again to find some food for dinner, and this time I searched the streets for Mohammed. I followed the laughter of children around every corner, in the open fields, beneath the trees. I went back to the asylum, checked in every room, including the children’s centre and the mother-and-baby room and the prayer room. I took the road down to another shore, on a quiet beach with children’s footprints in the sand, but whoever was there had already left and the sun was setting. I stood there for a while, inhaling the fresh air, feeling the orange sunlight on my face.

  When I opened my eyes I saw the strangest thing: about thirty or forty octopuses hanging on a line to dry, their silhouettes against the setting sun making them look like something from a dream. I rubbed my eyes, thinking I might have fallen asleep, but the octopuses still hung there, their arms pulled down by gravity, taking on an odd shape, like the faces of men with long beards. I touched the rubbery flesh, smelt them to see if they were fresh, and took one to cook on a fire. I held it in my arms as if I was holding a child and headed back to the cabins, buying a lighter from the sweet shop and collecting some twigs and branches along the way.

  When I got back to the camp, Afra was sitting on the floor, twirling something in her fingers. I saw that it was Mohammed’s clear marble with the red vein.

  I was about to ask about Mohammed, but I noticed that her face had suddenly dropped and her eyes were no longer blank; they were alive and full of sadness.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said. ‘You have sad eyes.’

  ‘I do?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘It’s because I just realised that I lost my platinum bracelet – you know, the one my mum gave me?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I remember.’

  ‘The one with the little stars.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I put it on before we left. I must have lost it on the boat. It’s in the sea now.’

  Sitting down on the floor beside her, I wrapped my arms around her and she rested her head on my shoulder, just like she did in the hole in the garden before we left Aleppo. She didn’t cry this time; I could feel her breath on my neck and the flutter of her eyelashes on my skin, and we stayed like this for a long while, as the cabin darkened and only the glow of the gas fire could be seen. There was noise around us: people shouting, children running, a strong wind in the trees from the sea, coming to us in waves. I wondered if Mohammed was still playing, or if he was on his way back to the cabin.

  Then I went outside to cook the octopus. I put the twigs and branches in a pile on the ground; I held the octopus on a branch above the fire. It took a lot longer than I thought, even though the octopus was already slightly cooked from hanging in the sun.

  When it was soft enough and cool enough, I tore it into pieces and took it in to Afra. She devoured it, licking her fingers, thanking me for making it, asking me where I found such a thing.

  ‘Did you get it from the sea yourself?’

  ‘No!’ I laughed.

  ‘But you couldn’t have bought it – it’s far too expensive!’

  ‘I found it,’ I said.

  ‘What, you were walking along, minding your own business, and you just found an octopus?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and she laughed from her stomach, her eyes laughing too.

  I looked through the doorway, anxious, waiting for Mohammed.

  Afra lay her head on some of the blankets and closed her eyes without saying another word. I lay down beside her, and after a while I heard gates opening and closing, distant doors locking. On the other side of the partition the child was crying, her father muttering words of reassurance. ‘No, the men with the guns won’t kill us. Don’t worry at all! No, they won’t. I promise.’

  ‘But they might shoot us.’

  The man laughed now. ‘No. They’re here to help us. Just close your eyes now. Close your eyes and think of all the things you love.’

  ‘Like my bicycle at home?’

  ‘Yes, that’s good. Keep thinking about your bicycle.’

  There was silence for a long time and after a while I heard the girl speak again, but this time her voice was softer, calmer.

  ‘Daddy,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I felt it.’

  ‘What did you feel?’

  ‘I felt Mummy stroking my hair.’

  And then neither of them spoke again, but I could almost feel this man’s heart drop in the silence. Further away there was banter, people talking and laughing. There was no shouting tonight.

  I looked at the octopus and the Nutella and the bread, all placed on the floor in case Mohammed came back in the night – he would see the food and know it was for him. But the camp was closed now. I was locked in and Mohammed locked out. I got up and made my way through the grid of boxes in the dark, to the edge of the camp until I found the entrance. There were two soldiers standing at the gate, holding guns.

  ‘Can I help you?’ one said.

  ‘I need to go out.’

  ‘It’s too late now. You can go in the morning.’

  ‘So I’m locked in? Like a prisoner?’

  The man said nothing in response and didn’t avert his eyes either.

  ‘I need to find my son!’

  ‘You can find him in the morning.’

  ‘But I have no idea where he is.’

  ‘How far do you think he went? This is an island!’

  ‘But he might be alone and scared.’

  The soldiers were having none of it. They sent me away and I tried to go back to the cabin, but it was difficult in the dark, every corner was the same, and I hadn’t counted the grids so that I could find my way. Maybe this was what happened to Mohammed? Maybe he ventured out without counting and couldn’t find his way back? Maybe another family had taken him in? I decided to lie down on the ground, by the doorway of another cabin, so that I was close to the warmth of their gas fire.

  I woke up in the morning to the sound of rain on the metal roofs of the cabins. I was drenched and I got up and somehow managed to find my way back to Afra. I recognised a pink bedsheet hanging out on one of the lines. The rain was pounding down. Flies had gotten in and were all over the octopus.

  Afra was already awake. She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling as if she was looking at the stars, and twirling the marble in her fingers, just as Mohammed had done.

  ‘Where did you go?’ she said.

  ‘I went out and got lost.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep last night. The rain started, and all I could hear and see in my head was rain.’

  I swept my hand over the octopus and the flies dispersed, buzzing around our section of the cabin, making rings around one another and then returning to the octopus like magnets.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ I said.

  ‘You want me to share the octopus with the flies?’

  ‘No,’ I laughed. ‘We have bread and chocolate spread.’

  I took the bread out of the paper bag and tore it into pieces, leaving some for Mohammed. Then I opened the Nutella, considering how I would spread it onto the bread without a knife. Afra said we could dip the bread into the chocolate.

  Later that morning, when the rain finally stopped, I headed out again to look for Mohammed. At first I wandered around the enclosure, making my way through the people-containers, the rows and rows of the compound, the walkways, beneath the hanging clothes, calling out Mohammed’s name. The ground was saturated with water – even the shoes outside the doorways were full of water. The white gravel had been able to soak up only a certain amount. But this rain felt like
it was coming out of the sea. The wire mesh, and everything now, was covered in a sheen of silver, like shining liquid metal, making the place seem even more like a prison than before, and now that the sun had come out, there were reflections and splashes of light.

  I made my way to the old asylum. A teenage boy was sitting on the steps with headphones on, his head against the wall, eyes closed. I nudged him awake to ask him if he’d seen anyone who could be Mohammed. But the boy’s head rocked on his shoulders, and his eyes opened only ever so slightly. I could hear children playing on one of the upper floors, faint echoes of laughter, and I followed the laughter through the corridors to the fourth-floor camps, looking into each room; inside there were blankets hanging as partitions, shoes in neat rows, here and there I glimpsed someone’s hair, or a leg or an arm. I called out, ‘Mohammed!’ and an old man with a gruff voice replied, ‘Yes!’ and then, ‘What do you want? I am here! Have you come to take me?’

  I could still hear him as I made my way down the corridor. The children were in the last room, which was full of toys and board games and balloons. A few NGO workers were kneeling next to the younger ones. One of them held a baby in her arms. She caught my eye and came to greet me.

  ‘This is the children’s centre,’ she said, pronouncing the words very slowly.

  ‘Clearly,’ I said. ‘I’m looking for my son.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Mohammed.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘Seven.’

  ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He has black hair and black eyes. Not brown. Black like the sky at night.’

  I could see that she was searching her mind for a moment, but then she shook her head. ‘Try not to worry – he’ll turn up, they always do, and when he does you can give him these.’ With her free hand she rummaged through a plastic container and retrieved a box of coloured pencils attached to a notepad. I thanked her and left, and this time as I headed back down the corridor and down the stairs, I could almost see the ghosts of those people, not so long ago, gagged and chained to their beds. I heard echoes now, not of the children’s laughter, but other sounds, at the edges of the imagination, where humans cease to be human.

  I made my way out of there quickly, down the stairs and out into the silver light and down to the port. The café was full of people, and I sat for a while to charge my phone and have a coffee, watching the two women, who I realised were mother and daughter, bringing out glasses of water and tea and coffee, interacting with the refugees, trying to communicate as best they could in the little Arabic or Farsi they had picked up. On this day, the father and son were also there, the son a smaller version of his dad, minus the moustache. I allowed myself to relax a bit, and lean back in the chair and close my eyes, listening to the conversations going on around me and to the distant thunder over the sea.

  I waited there until the afternoon, but there was no sign of Mohammed. At four o’clock I went to the registration centre to find out if the authorities had checked the papers and granted clearance. There were hundreds of people gathered around a flustered man who was standing on a stool, holding up cards and calling out names. He didn’t call ours, but I was pleased because I didn’t want to leave without Mohammed.

  The next day passed in a similar way – the sun dried up the rain and the wind was much warmer. It was as if the darkness had been washed away, and even though there were more people streaming onto the island, tossed in by the waves, and fewer people leaving, the place somehow seemed more peaceful. Maybe there was just so much noise that it all blended together and became like the drumming of rain or the sound of waves or the buzzing of the flies around the octopus, and away from the campsite the soil smelt fresh and sweet, and the trees were beginning to blossom and bear fruit.

  And there was still no sign of Mohammed.

  By the evening of the next day I started to lose hope. I took the coloured pencils out of their packaging.

  ‘What is that?’ Afra said, her ear tuned into the sound. ‘What are you opening?’

  ‘Pencils.’

  ‘Coloured ones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is there paper?’

  ‘Yes, a notepad.’

  ‘Can I have it?’

  I placed all the pencils in front of her in a row and led her hand to them. I opened the notepad and placed it on her lap.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  I lay back and stared up at the ceiling of the cabin, at the spiders and insects and cobwebs that had gathered in the corners. I listened to the soft conversations through the sheets and out in the alleys, and the pencils swishing over paper.

  Hours later, when it was almost dark, Afra finally spoke. ‘I made this for you,’ she said.

  The picture she had drawn was so different from her usual artwork – a flower-filled field overlooked by a single tree.

  ‘But how did you draw this?’ I said.

  ‘I can feel the pencil marks on the paper.’

  I looked at the picture again. The colours were wild – the tree blue, the sky red. The lines were broken, leaves and flowers out of place, and yet it held a beauty that was mesmerising and indescribable, like an image in a dream, like a picture of a world that is beyond our imagination.

  The following afternoon my name was called out at the registration centre. I was given the cards and permission to leave the island for Athens: Nuri Ibrahim, Afra Ibrahim, and Sami Ibrahim. My stomach turned when I looked at Sami’s name, printed so clearly on the piece of paper in my hand. Sami. Sami Ibrahim. As if he was still among us.

  I didn’t tell Afra that we’d been granted clearance. I didn’t even go to the travel agency to buy the ferry tickets. The days and nights passed and Afra was feeling restless.

  ‘I’m having nightmares,’ she said. ‘I am dead and there are flies all over me and I can’t move to shake them off!’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We’ll be off this island soon.’

  ‘I don’t like it here,’ she said. ‘This place is full of ghosts.’

  ‘What kind of ghosts?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Something not human.’

  I knew that she was right. I knew that we had to go, but I didn’t want to leave without Mohammed. What if the boy returned and wondered where I was? I knew he was coming back, he must be. As the police officer said – this is an island, he couldn’t have gone far.

  The following night it was raining again and Afra had a terrible fever. Her head was hot, her hands and feet as cold as the sea. I dabbed her forehead and chest with a damp cloth – my T-shirt dunked in water.

  ‘He’s playing,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sami, I can hear him. Tell him to be careful.’

  ‘He’s not here,’ I said.

  ‘He’s lost,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sami. The houses are all gone and he’s lost.’

  I didn’t say anything. I rubbed her hands between my palms to warm them up, watching her beautiful face. I could see she was frightened.

  ‘I want to leave here,’ she said.

  ‘We will.’

  ‘When? Why is it taking so long?’

  ‘We need to get the papers.’

  The following day her fever was worse. She was shivering and complaining about pain in her back and her legs.

  ‘Tell him to come in and have his dinner,’ she said as I wrapped one of the blankets around her.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘He’s been off playing all day.’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ I said. I found some lemons to make her a soothing drink to sip, but Afra was becoming more unwell as the days passed. I thought she was losing hope. I knew we had to leave this place, so I told her that we’d been given the papers. I waited several days for her to get a bit stronger, until at least she could stand on her own and go outside to feel the sun on her face. Then I bought the tickets and wrote a note.

  Mohammed,

  I h
ave waited for you now for one month. I have no idea what happened to you, where you are and whether you will even come back to find this note, but I have been looking for you every day, and I pray that Allah will protect you and look after you. Take this money and the card. You must use the name Sami (this was my son’s name) and go to the travel agent (you will find it next to the Seven Gates café) and buy yourself a ferry ticket to Athens. Don’t miss the boat, because there will be no more money to buy another ticket. You will have one chance, so make sure you get the times right.

  This will be your third time on a boat! When you make it to Athens, try to find us. Here is my phone number: 0928-----. Keep in mind that the phone might not work. My full name is Nuri Ibrahim. I am planning to go from Athens to the UK. If you get to Athens and you do not find us, please continue to search. Please try to make your way to England, and if you meet any person who seems kind, give them my name and hopefully they will help you to find me.

  I hope to see you soon. In the meantime be very careful, make sure you eat well and don’t give up. It is easy sometimes to give up. I will be thinking about you and praying for you even across seas and mountains. If you do need to cross any more water, try not to be afraid. I will pray for you every day.

  Uncle Nuri

  I folded the letter and money into an envelope and placed it on the floor, in the corner of the cabin, beneath the jar of Nutella.

  * * *

  The cargo ferry was so big, and painted with yellow stars; there were lorries and cars parked on the bottom level. At the port people were saying goodbye to the NGO workers. The ferry was due to depart for Athens at 9 p.m. and the journey was going to take roughly eight hours. There were chairs for women and older people. The air was warm and the sea that night was calm. Until the last moment I was on the lookout for Mohammed, but it wasn’t long before all the passengers had boarded and the horn for departure sounded loud and clear. Then the ferry edged out into the open sea, leaving the island of ghosts behind. Afra breathed deeply, inhaling the sea air. The darkness now entered my mind from the sea and the sky, and I felt it again, that sense of being lost: the sky and the sea and the world seemed too big. I closed my eyes and prayed for Mohammed, the lost boy who was never mine.