The Beekeeper

by Dunya Mikhail

  “I felt sick all the time,” Maha said. “I didn’t know if it was from my pregnancy or from the situation I was in. After two months in captivity, I gave birth to my fifth child. I didn’t name him. I said I’d name him later, but I didn’t have the desire to do anything — he didn’t have a name or any milk.”

  Maha had to mash rice to feed her baby. There wasn’t anything else to eat or drink. One day, when the baby was three months old, Khalid came home with another man. Khalid told Maha’s eldest daughter, who was fourteen years old, that she had to go with this man because he’d bought her. Maha cried and begged, and the kids surrounded their sister so that she wouldn’t go with him, but it didn’t make any difference. Khalid forced her aside and ordered her to go. “A deal is a deal,” he said. Maha dreaded the day that Khalid would sell her second daughter, who was twelve years old. She decided to run away with her children as soon as possible. The first time Khalid went to go to the hospital, she and her kids left the house. Her daughter helped her carry the three babies, who were three months, eighteen months, and three years old. They crossed a few streets and then they stopped outside a store. Maha asked the shopkeeper for directions to the bus station. But her Arabic was poor so the owner was suspicious. He reported her to Daesh. Khalid was well known in the area, and it didn’t take long for him to leave work and retrieve them. He took them back to his house; he tied Maha and her daughter to the bed and beat them with all his strength. The three babies were in horrific pain because of the poison he had given them. They died, just like that, in front of their mother and sister. Khalid buried them in the garden because “they’re infidels, and they don’t deserve to be buried in graves,” as he put it. Maha fainted next to her children’s little graveyard. She fell down and stayed right there, refusing to leave them.

  A few days and nights passed. Maha remained frozen in place, motionless — a statue next to the graveyard. This attracted the attention of the woman next door, who used to avoid Maha. But when she learned about what had happened, she began visiting Maha all the time, offering her help. One day, she offered to help them escape. Maha didn’t respond. She had turned to stone, and no words would come out of her mouth. But her daughter responded. The neighbor brought her cell phone so that Maha’s daughter could call her uncle. I received a message from him on WhatsApp. When Khalid left for the hospital, Maha and her daughter waved goodbye to the neighbor and left. My plan for their escape started in the park by the hospital and ended with them walking to Zakho. When I received Maha, she asked me, “Are you Abdullah?” She knew my voice because I had been with her on the phone every step of the way. She hugged me, crying, and said, “What good is it that I survived? I wish I had died there with them. I wish they had buried me in that garden.”

  I wanted to reply to Abdullah, but the words wouldn’t come out of my mouth either.

  The kids at their home in Kocho

  The kids buried in the garden

  One Step Closer, Two Steps, Three

  She whose song

  has no beginning

  nor end —

  She whose voice faded

  into stars and moons —

  Where is she?

  Where is she?

  “I have some good news. The mother returned finally.”

  “The mother whose child got across the border first?” I asked.

  “Yes. It was so moving to receive her.”

  “Thank God she made it back safely. I’d love to be able to speak with her.”

  “I’ll let you know as soon as I can.”

  Abdullah met the mother near the temple in Lalish. She was visiting the temple to renew her baptism. Abdullah held her baby so that she could finish the ritual. When she was done, she took her baby back, thanked Abdullah, and said, “I feel uncomfortable leaving my child with someone else, even if it’s only for a few minutes. I imagine he’ll disappear from right under my nose, and even if I run after him I won’t be able to catch up with him.”

  “Is the second baptism a new ritual?” I asked.

  “Yes, our spiritual leader called for it in order to purify tortured souls, those who were persecuted and forced to give up their religion. It’s a ritual for returning to oneself.”

  Abdullah with the mother and her son

  Abdullah sent me a recording of the mother’s story.

  I imagine their steps, one step closer, two steps, three . . .

  Their families are waiting for those steps to be heard, closer, closer still . . .

  I got a glass of water, closed the door behind me, and listened:

  I ran . . . I ran after my friend who was carrying my son but she crossed the border without me. There were deafening explosions coming from all around us, but I kept my eyes trained on the two of them. They crossed over quickly with the others. A group of armed men prevented me from crossing. The area was filled with men I didn’t know. We didn’t know them, or what they wanted from us — anybody could kill me or rape me or sell me. I heard the sirens of successive ambulances . . . I was afraid to die and leave my son without a mother or father. I wanted to reach my brother and ask him to take care of my son in case something happened to me. But time was running out, time slipped past me and I couldn’t catch up with it. There wasn’t even time to cry, but tears streamed down my face silently. A policeman stopped me and the others who were trying to cross the border. They detained us until further notice. I told the policemen: “I don’t want anything from you. It’s not my intention to stay in your country. I just want to cross and return to my country. I just want to cross. Nothing else. Nothing, please . . .”

  They said they would release us when the investigation was finished; they said that these were just routine security measures. In fact, that prison was much nicer than the Daesh house. At least I wasn’t raped there. I don’t know why I was released or how I crossed that distance . . . I can’t remember everything . . . But as soon as I was across the border I saw all of them — they were all there waiting for me. We cried . . . We cried so much . . . We sat on the floor to cry as much as we wanted. My friend who had carried my son for me was also there. I hugged her with indescribable gratitude. I couldn’t believe that I had woken up from this nightmare . . . But I’ve found some comfort here in the Lalish shrine’s baptismal water. It’s so relaxing to be barefoot here, exactly the opposite of being barefoot around Daesh. It was so disgusting to be enslaved by those people with their filthy beards. At least our sheikhs here have clean beards and they don’t hurt anyone. Soon I’ll be going to Germany with the other women because they have specialists there to treat us. But after the treatment, I’ll come back here. This land is sacred and we can’t leave it, no matter what happens. This isn’t my first time visiting Lalish. Every time I come here, I untie a cloth knot that had been tied by another pilgrim and I retie it as I make a wish. This time my wish is so precious, the most precious in my life. I only say it in my heart. If I tell anyone else, it won’t come true.

  Then I listened to the recordings of five others who had visited the temple to renew their baptism after returning from captivity:

  What should I tell you? I don’t know where to start. I was working in a hair salon, and my husband was a teacher in the Kocho secondary school. We were earning a decent living. I loved my husband even before we got married. Once, when I visited him at school because he had forgotten to take his lunch with him, I saw how much the students loved him. In the hallway they fought over who would get to carry his lunch for him. Who could have imagined that beasts would overrun the school and turn it into the site of a massacre? I saw them from the second floor of the school, when they killed my husband along with the other men. Our newborn baby was resting on my shoulder. My husband was a skilled musician and I used to sing when he played the lute. We always had friends over who would stay up late and sing with us. My husband didn’t want to leave his lute at home that day, that cursed day when
Daesh attacked us. When they separated me from my husband, I yelled, “Why are you doing this? You have no right!” They replied, “We’ll take you all up to the mountain. You’re just being separated temporarily.” They laughed at us. They tricked us so that we wouldn’t scream and cry. They only delayed our tears for a little while.

  What can I say? My son is a lot like his father. One day I’ll tell him about his father and what he was like. I’ll give him the lute when he grows up. But I’ve changed a lot as well — I even forgot the songs . . .

  * * *

  They emptied the region. Only the sheep remained there — sheep without their shepherds. Our animals were left alone, without any supervision. Nothing had ever hurt me before, but with Daesh everything in my body was hurting. From childhood we are accustomed to opening our eyes and seeing the sun and nature. Even though we weren’t guilty of any crime, they imprisoned us inside four walls; our souls were tortured inside our bodies from the humiliation and cruelty. It was so hard to breathe. If not for my kids, I would have killed myself — I endured everything for them. My favorite thing to do there was mashing the rice into soup: I mashed it with all of my strength because I badly needed to crush something. I wanted to curse at him but I was afraid that he would harm my kids. That would be the worst punishment. One time I dared to defy him by asking, “If you had a sister, would you let someone treat her the way you’re treating me?” He didn’t hit me then, which was unusual because he would hit me whether he had a reason or not. He calmly told me that he was doing the right thing, implementing shari‘a law. Even when he raped me, he justified it by saying it was a kind of “worship.” He ordered me to pray with him before raping me.

  But something else that was strange happened to me in the Daesh house: my relationship to my husband’s second wife changed dramatically. She was with me in the same building and we would meet when the Daesh men left to fight. Our shared pain made us unexpectedly close, so much so that I wouldn’t escape without her. She courageously confronted a Daeshi when he tried to rape my eldest daughter, who was twelve. “Leave her alone,” she shouted, “she’s just a child, what do you want with her?” Her words had cost her so much, her words turned this man into a wild animal, and he beat her in a way that he’d never done before. She was in a lot of pain and I hugged her as she cried. Our friendship became deeper than I ever could’ve imagined, especially since I’d once considered her my enemy — after all, she took my husband from me and my kids. But she didn’t take him forever, as Daesh did. We’d been married for ten years when I first noticed that he’d changed, that he didn’t care about me and the kids the way he once did. He was out all the time, and even when he was home, he seemed absentminded, as if he wasn’t with us. At first he justified being away all the time by saying how busy things were at work. He worked at a dairy that he owned with one of his friends. He complained that the cows were sick and that it was affecting his work. But deep down I sensed there was another problem that had nothing to do with the cows and their diseases. My feelings were correct. One day he came and confessed that he was going to marry another woman. It wasn’t shocking to me because I’d been expecting it, even if I had hoped that it wouldn’t happen. I always foresee the things I’m afraid of. I don’t know if it’s intuition or the embodiment of my fears. I even anticipated Daesh’s arrival — I felt that some evil was going to come, and I was scared before it even happened. We were waiting for the Daesh men to go away, for the chance to run away together — Neeran, her daughter, my three kids, and myself. All of a sudden, I couldn’t understand what was happening exactly, but their phones all started ringing, and in a few moments the five men picked up their weapons and left in a hurry. We heard the revving of the car’s engine and then absolute silence. All of us, all the women and their kids who were captives in that building, ran away. Without looking back, we separated ourselves into groups, and moved in different directions so that we wouldn’t attract any suspicion. Our group — Neeran and I and our kids — walked for about two hours, hesitating to talk to anybody; you don’t know how to tell your friend from your enemy. A man who was walking on the opposite side of the street with his two kids didn’t seem evil to me, so I stopped him and asked if we could use his phone. He said okay. But I was disoriented and couldn’t remember a single number, so I handed Neeran the phone. She called several different numbers but nobody was picking up. The man didn’t lose his patience with us, he didn’t mind us making all those calls. Finally her cousin answered. Neeran returned the phone to the kind man and asked him how to get to the bus station. The man pointed us in the right direction. He didn’t give us a chance to thank him. He quickly continued on his way. We walked about another hour until we reached the station. We needed to call Neeran’s cousin again so that he could tell us what to do next. He said he’d ask around and would have an answer by the time we called back. “You decide who we should ask to borrow their phone,” Neeran said. “Your instinct is always right.” I took a long time to decide. I was afraid to ask the wrong person. That would mean death for all of us. When I glanced at an old woman sitting on a big rock, I knew she was the right person to ask. She told us that she didn’t have a cell phone, but she called over a young man who was standing nearby. This man, who was possibly her son or her grandson, I couldn’t tell, gave her his phone. Neeran’s cousin picked up and told her to find a driver who was carrying diapers with the number three on them. A long period of anxiety passed for us when we weren’t able to find this man. It felt like a tunnel with no end. I’m not sure how much time passed: maybe an hour and a half, maybe more, maybe less — time was passing in an unusual way. Anyway, we finally found the man we were looking for. It took us three days to escape. With every step we took, the shadow of Daesh receded. Now that we arrived, their shadow is far away from us, but it hasn’t disappeared. Their frightening faces come to my mind and appear in my chats with Neeran. We decided to live together, to raise our four kids. I never imagined this would happen. I had even once told my husband — who is also her husband after all — that he was crazy to suggest that we move in with his other wife and newborn daughter. He’s still missing. If he ever returns, he won’t believe that we’re living together.

  * * *

  I found a way to be free: a small bottle of poison in the bathroom. I mixed some of the powder in a cup of water, and gave the rest to my friends who were captives with me. We all drank at the same moment, as if we were toasting our freedom. None of us died, but we all got sick. Death was a wish that didn’t come true for us.

  The men weren’t with us that day, and we would have been able to escape if the door had been unlocked. The female guard locked it behind her when she went to sit in the front garden. We watched her through the window as she talked on the phone. We call it a “garden” even though it only had a few withered trees. The woman seemed European, she spoke formal Arabic with a heavy accent; she seemed to be extremely knowledgeable about the Daesh laws, which they called “shari‘a law.” She had special status among them. She acted as a leader, sometimes as a secretary. She would give them orders after receiving a phone call. One day, that woman disappeared. I don’t know if she returned to her own country or if she died. Her absence didn’t make a difference, though. The men still locked the door.

  Before my captivity, I was engaged to a man from Zakho. I met him during the spring festival of Nawruz, when I took a trip with my parents there to visit my uncle and spend the holiday. My uncle took us out with his family for a picnic, where we joined the other families in the area who also went out to celebrate the Eid. My cousin introduced me to Isam. I caught him smiling at me when we were dancing in a group. It was April, the month when the red tulips bloom — our people hang bouquets of tulips on their doors in order to ward off evil. We don’t milk our cattle on the holiday — on this occasion, the milk is for their own calves — because on the Eid everything should be complete, happy, and beautiful.

  We unfolded a big blanket un
der the tree and sat on it for dinner, just as the other families did. Every family picked a tree to sit under. I watched Isam put the same types of food on his plate that I’d put on my own. We were eating and chatting and I learned so many things about him — his interest in science, his optimism about solar energy. He was serious, but he also had a sense of humor that I liked. I found myself thinking about him during the trip back home to Sinjar. Before long he called me up. He asked me for the recipe of the cake I’d made and brought to the picnic. He said he loved it and wanted to try to make it himself. We exchanged numbers — so I figured he would call me — but I didn’t think it would be to ask about my recipes. But he called more than once, and was always sweet to me whenever he did. I was eager to meet him again. Isam moved quickly. He asked me to marry him before we’d even met a second time. As a matter of fact, I was very happy, it was the happiest time of my life. We were engaged and planned to get married after he graduated from university in less than a year.

  Two months after our engagement, we heard about Daesh. Our neighbors were leaving their houses so we decided to leave for Zakho and stay in my uncle’s house. Isam encouraged us to do the same because he’d also heard that Daesh was coming toward Kocho. On the way to Zakho, we found ourselves face to face with Daesh.