‘Everything is fine with me.’
I notice out of the corner of my eye that Afra has straightened her back.
‘Actually, Dr Faruk,’ she says, ‘I think my husband is unwell.’
‘What seems to be the problem?’ He looks from Afra to me.
‘I’m just having a bit of trouble sleeping,’ I say. ‘I’m finding it difficult to get to sleep.’
I can see Afra shaking her head. ‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s more than that—’
‘No, I’m fine!’
‘Can you tell me more, Mrs Ibrahim?’
‘Can nobody hear me?!’
She thinks for a while, searching her mind, and says, ‘I can’t explain what it is, Dr Faruk, but I know something is wrong. He is not my husband.’
Dr Faruk looks directly at me now. I laugh. ‘Honestly, Afra, I’m sleep-deprived, that’s all. I end up so tired that I fall asleep in all sorts of ridiculous places.’ My laughter seems to be having no effect on either of them.
‘Like where, for example?’
‘The storage cupboard,’ Afra says, ‘and the garden.’
The doctor is frowning now and I can see that he is overthinking this.
‘Anything else unusual?’
They are both ignoring me. I look from the doctor to Afra. She quickly looks away.
‘He changed in Istanbul. He …’ Afra hesitates.
‘He …?’
‘He talks aloud to himself, or rather to someone who is not there.’
‘Dr Faruk, I would really appreciate some sleeping tablets to help me rest, and once I do I won’t accidentally fall asleep in the storage cupboard again.’ I am smiling too broadly.
‘I am concerned about what your wife is saying, Mr Ibrahim.’
I laugh. ‘What? No! It’s just me running through things in my head. Just memories. To-do lists. That kind of thing. It’s nothing!’
‘Have you experienced any flashbacks, Mr Ibrahim?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Any repetitive or distressing images?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Trembling, nausea or sweating?’
‘No.’
‘How is your concentration?’
‘Fine.’
‘Do you feel numb, as if you have lost your ability to experience emotions such as pain or joy?’
‘No, doctor. Thank you for your concern, but I am fine.’
The doctor leans back in his chair now, more suspicious than before. Afra’s face has dropped, her eyes have darkened, and I feel a great sense of sadness watching her sitting there looking so burdened.
The doctor is unconvinced. Nonetheless, our time is up and he writes out a prescription for sleeping tablets, strong ones, and asks me to come and see him again in three weeks.
That afternoon Afra will not go into the living room. She sits on the edge of the bed for a long time.
‘It wasn’t the bomb that blinded me,’ she whispers. ‘I saw Sami die. And that’s when it all went black.’
I don’t know what to say to her, but I sit beside her for maybe an hour or more and we do not speak to each other. Through the window I watch the sky change colour, the clouds and the birds moving across it.
We do not even move from where we are to get anything to eat. Usually the landlady brings a pot of stew or soup from her house, carrying it with oven gloves across the driveway, banging on the door with her elbow, and placing it in the middle of the dining table for us to help ourselves. I am sure that everyone has already eaten, that all this has happened without me noticing. I can hear footsteps and voices and the murmur of the TV in the living room, doors open and close, the kettle boils, the toilet flushes, water runs. The sky grows darker and I catch the moon, a crescent behind the mist of clouds. Sometimes I expect Mohammed, but he doesn’t come. I move to the armchair and wait for
of the fifteenth day, the mother with the blue hijab stood up suddenly, Mahsa in her arms, and ran over to where the old lady was tending to another young child. She grabbed the old woman by the shoulders. At first, I thought something bad had happened and I jumped to my feet. But then I saw that the mother had a smile on her face, and once she’d let go of the old woman’s shoulders, she started pressing her own breasts with her palms.
‘Echeis gala!’ the old woman said. ‘Eftichos! Echeis gala!’ and she crossed herself and kissed the mother’s hands. The mother made herself comfortable now on a blanket, signalling to the old lady to keep watching as she held Mahsa in her arms, gave her the nipple and the baby girl began to feed. I smiled at this turn of events. A real smile, coming from my heart. The old lady saw this and she raised her hand to me in salute.
Having seen all this unfold convinced me that things can change, that hope can prevail, even in the most difficult of circumstances. Maybe we could get out of here soon. I remembered the money in my rucksack. I’d been guarding it with my life, using it as a pillow at night to ensure that nobody could get to it without waking me first. People spoke openly about the thieves. They were silent though about the other things that lurked in the shadows.
That night, when I saw the boys sitting on their usual blanket beneath the tree, I thought about approaching them, and when the strong smell of cologne wafted my way, I saw they were splashing aftershave onto their faces.
I wandered over and asked them if I could sit down. They were wary, their eyes darting to the woods, but they were too young and too naive to refuse. They shook my hand and introduced themselves as Ryad and Ali, twin brothers, not identical, about fifteen years old. Ryad was the taller and stronger of the two, Ali had something of the child in him still; together they were like puppies. I asked them questions and the boys answered, talking over each other at times.
They told me how they fled Afghanistan and their father’s murderers. After their father’s death the twins were themselves targeted by the Taliban and their mother urged them to leave before they were captured. She didn’t want to lose her boys as well as her husband. They described to me how she had cried and kissed their faces a hundred times because she feared that she would never see them again. They told me about their journey through Turkey and Lesbos, and how they arrived in this strange city with no help and no idea what to do next. That was when a man advised them to head to Victoria Square, a well-known meeting point for refugees.
‘We thought somebody there would help us,’ Ali said.
‘And we couldn’t sleep on the streets anymore.’
‘And all the benches were taken.’
‘And there were too many gangs.’
‘Ryad was afraid.’
‘Ali was more afraid – he was shaking in the night.’
‘So they told us to come here.’
‘So, you know Nadim?’ I said. ‘Has he been helpful to you?’
‘Who’s Nadim?’ Ryad said. They both stared at me without blinking, waiting for a reply.
‘Maybe I got his name wrong.’ I forced a smile. ‘The man with the guitar. The man with the scars.’
They quickly looked at each other and their eyes became dark and unwelcoming.
‘I think you mean Ahmed,’ Ryad said.
‘Oh, that’s it! I knew I’d gotten it wrong. I’ve met so many people these last few weeks and I’m terrible with names.’
The boys remained silent.
‘Did he help you?’ I said. ‘I’ve heard that he’s very kind.’
‘He helped us out quite a bit the first night,’ Ali said, and Ryad nudged him. It was slight, on his thigh, but I saw it.
‘I see. And then?’
Ali was reluctant to answer. He lowered his face to the ground, not looking at me or his brother.
‘Does he want the money back?’ I said.
Ali nodded. Ryad rolled his eyes, looked up at the sky.
‘How much?’
‘We are paying in instalments, OK?’ Ryad spoke up now, he sounded defensive.
‘How? Where do you find the money to make the repayments?’
I must have looked at Ryad’s new shoes because he tucked his legs under him, but it was Ali’s reaction that disturbed me the most. I noticed that his body folded inward and he wrapped his arms protectively around himself, his face bright red. From nowhere there was a shadow that blocked out the sun and I saw that Nadim was standing over us, rebab in hand, a crooked smile on his face.
‘I see you’ve all met,’ he said, taking a seat beside us on the blanket, and he began to play, the soft sound washing through my mind, washing away the thoughts and worries, the melody warm, dipping lower and darker and becoming even more mesmerising. After an hour of music, Nadim put down his guitar and drifted away from us. I saw him head for the woods and decided to follow him, past a group of Greek men smoking by a bench, past two women loitering in the shadows. I followed him to a clearing with a fallen tree and as he sat down on the cracked log, he took something out of his rucksack: a small, sharp penknife. He placed its blade on his left wrist, paused for a second, then scanned his surroundings. I stepped back into the shadows to make sure that he wouldn’t see me. Then without any more hesitation he ran the knife along his forearm. I could see the creases of pain on his face, his eyes rolling backwards, so that for a brief moment there was only white. His arm was bleeding and he took some tissues out of his bag and held them over the fresh wounds. But it was the look on his face that I remember the most; he seemed angry. Was this punishment?
I moved slightly and a twig broke and Nadim looked up and his eyes settled on me, narrowing. I stepped back, further into the darkness, and not knowing what else to do I began to run through the woods and back to the campsite.
‘What happened?’ Afra said when I sat down beside her.
‘Nothing. Why?’
‘Because you’re breathing like a dog.’
‘No, I’m not, I’m perfectly calm.’
She shook her head slightly in resignation and in that moment Nadim emerged from the trees and sat down on the step of the statue. He suddenly appeared emaciated again just as he did the first day I saw him – his strength had been drained from him. I waited to see if he would approach me, but he didn’t even glance in my direction. He simply rolled one cigarette after another and sat there for an hour or more smoking.
The boys were on their blanket, playing a game on their phone and laughing. Sometimes Ali punched Ryad’s arm, and then Ryad got fed up and took the phone, sitting with his back to Ali so that he couldn’t see the screen.
Although Nadim seemed relaxed and preoccupied with his own thoughts, I could see that his mind was actually on the boys, his eyes constantly flicking towards them.
I lay down next to Afra and pretended to close my eyes, but I watched Nadim and the boys. At ten o’clock on the dot Nadim got up and went into the woods. Three minutes later the boys followed. I got up and followed them too, trying to keep enough distance between us so that they would not see me, while at the same time staying close enough so that I would not lose them.
They took sharp and unexpected turns, as if they were following an invisible path, and eventually reached a different clearing in the woods than before. Here, there was trash everywhere, piles and piles of it; a dried-up pond had become a rubbish dump. In the middle of a concrete well there was a stagnant fountain surrounded by the pipes of an ancient watering system. Just beyond this, all the bushes in a rose garden were dead. Drug addicts and dealers hovered around the well, syringes lay strewn on the ground. People sat on the roof of a maintenance building, and scattered around were mattresses and boxes – the remnants of a past life.
The boys stood by the well and they were soon approached by a man who slipped some money into Ryad’s hand. Then the boys split up. Ali took the path to the right of the fountain, and Ryad waited until another man came shortly after to collect him, and they went off together in the opposite direction. I stood there for a while, and people started to notice me. Nadim was nowhere to be seen, he must have slipped away. I couldn’t stay here too long. I had to leave this place, go back to the campsite.
So I began to make my way there, taking wrong turns and retracing my steps. When I heard the sound of children kicking a ball I knew I was close, and shortly after I saw the light of the campfire. I found Angeliki sitting by the tree again beside Afra. The notepad and colouring pencils were in her lap, her head pressed against the bark of the tree, fast asleep. Afra was also asleep, curled up on her side in a foetal position with her head resting on both hands. I could feel that someone was watching me, and when I turned around I saw that Nadim was back on the step of the statue, smoking and staring at me.
He raised a hand, signalling for me to come over, and I went and sat beside him on the step.
‘I have something to give you,’ he said.
‘I don’t need anything.’
‘Everybody needs something,’ he said, ‘especially here.’
‘Not me.’
‘Just hold out your hand,’ he said.
I watched him without blinking.
‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Hold out your hand. Don’t be scared. It’s not bad, I promise.’
He took my hand and opened up my palm.
‘Now close your eyes.’
This thing had gone too far now. I attempted to pull my hand away, but Nadim tightened his grip. ‘Come on. Just close your eyes,’ he said with a grin, his eyes sparkling in the firelight.
‘No way,’ I said, and attempted to pull my hand back with force, without making a scene. But what happened next was so sudden and unexpected that it caused my mind and my body to freeze. I felt intense pain across my wrist. He’d slashed me with his knife. I held my arm up like a wounded bird, the blood coming out fast, dripping onto my trousers.
I rushed away from him, stumbling over to Afra, pleading with her to wake up. She opened her eyes, frightened, and I led her hand to my wrist. She sat up sharply, the blood now running through her fingers. She began to feel the wound with her hands and she pressed down on it, attempting, in vain, to stop the blood. Then I could feel another pair of hands. Angeliki had taken off her green headwrap and was twisting it around my wrist.
‘What happened?’ Afra said. I looked back toward the statue, but Nadim had disappeared.
Angeliki exhaled and sat down beneath the tree, her face full of anxiety. The blood was seeping through the layered material of the scarf, my arm throbbing. I lay down from exhaustion, but Angeliki was sitting upright. The last thing I saw before my eyes closed was her long neck, her polished cheekbones sharp in the dying light of the fire.
When I woke up, hours later, in the middle of the night, I saw that she was still sitting in the same position, her eyes scanning the darkness and the shadows.
‘Angeliki,’ I whispered, and she turned to me, wide awake. ‘Lie down here next to Afra. I’ll take over for a bit.’
‘You won’t fall asleep again?’ she asked.
‘No.’
She was hesitant for a moment, but then she lay down on the blanket next to Afra and closed her eyes.
‘Odysseus,’ she said out of nowhere, ‘he pass the island of Sirens. Do you know who the Sirens were?’ This was not a rhetorical question – she waited for me to reply, and she opened one eyelid, halfway, to make sure that I was listening. But I was in pain and I found it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’
‘They will try to entice men to death with their song. If you hear their song they will take you. So, as they are pass the island, the men put wax in their ears to no hear the song, but Odysseus want to hear the Siren song because he had been told it is so beautiful. So do you know what they do?’
‘No.’
‘This very important. The men tie Odysseus to the mast of the ship – they tie him on so tight. He says for them to leave him tied there no matter how much he begs, until they are safe, far from the Sirens and their song.’
I didn’t respond. I held my bandaged arm, trying to ignore the heat of the pain, and looke
d out into the woods, into the things unseen lurking there.
Angeliki continued, ‘Athens, this the place where people get caught in dangerous things – they are called to those things and they can’t help it, so they go.’
I noticed that Ryad and Ali were not on their blankets. They still hadn’t returned, and I didn’t want to think about where they had gone and what they might be doing. I looked at Angeliki’s blood-soaked green wrap on my arm, at her tufts of unruly frizzy hair, full of life, at Afra’s hair spread out around her without her hijab. Angeliki had drifted off quickly and both women were sleeping now. I remembered what Angeliki had said about Odysseus when we had first arrived here, how he had travelled to all those places, made such a journey to distant lands, in order to find his way home. But there was no home for us.
I touched the letter that Mustafa had written to me, which was still in my pocket. I took out the photograph of us both and looked at it by the light of the fire.
Where was home now? And what was it? In my mind it had become a picture infused with golden light, a paradise never to be reached. I remembered one evening, about ten years ago, it was Eid, and to celebrate the end of Ramadan Mustafa and I had organised a party for all our employees at the Martini Dar Zamaria Hotel in Aleppo. It was held in the inner yard – there were palm trees and lanterns and plants hanging from the balconies overhead. Above us a square of night sky, full of stars.
The hotel had prepared a feast of meat and fish dishes, with rice and grains and vegetables on the side. We prayed together and we ate with our employees, our friends and our families. Children ran around among the adults. Afra looked beautiful in a red and gold abaya, making her way around the room, holding Sami by the hand, greeting the people who arrived with a smile that held within it all the warmth in the world.
Firas and Aya and Dahab were there, and even Mustafa’s father had made a trip down from the mountains; a quiet, unassuming man, nothing like his own father, but he was proud of his son’s achievements and he relished the food and the company, speaking to me freely about his apiaries. The scene was magical – the leaves of the trees glistened, the smoke of the shisha rose into the night in ribbons of silk, the plants in the hanging baskets suddenly bloomed with glowing flowers, infusing the courtyard with their sweet scent. It became a place in a storybook, the type my mother used to read to me in the room with the blue tiles.
The Beekeeper of Aleppo Page 17
