The Beekeeper

by Dunya Mikhail

  Next Abdullah picked up an untied medium-sized cloth, then stepped back a ways, closed his eyes, and threw the piece toward a stone outcropping at the top of the cave where there were already many other pieces of cloth. “You have to do the same thing, for good luck,” he told me. I imitated his motions but didn’t succeed. My piece of cloth didn’t land in the desired place — I’m the worst basketball player in the world — but he insisted that I try again. “You have to close your eyes, and imagine the target,” he reminded me. I succeeded on the third attempt. He probably didn’t notice that I’d opened my eyes a little bit.

  We went deeper into the cave until it became completely dark. Abdullah turned on the flashlight on his phone and raised it up to illuminate the place. I was very grateful for this person who sanctified light. We reemerged from the darkness and went into another cave. On either side there were very old stone pots. Pointing toward them, Abdullah explained that the olive oil in those pots was used to ignite wicks, and that Yazidis celebrate the new year in Lalish by lighting 365 lanterns, to usher in the new year with light. Their New Year’s Day falls on the first Wednesday of April. They call it Red Wednesday because people put red flowers on their doors. “Did those rituals change after Daesh invaded?” I asked Abdullah. “We still light the lanterns because they give us a sense of hope. But we canceled all the musical festivities until people can return to their homes,” he replied.

  We went down several steps, descending into a deep cave there; there was a spring called Zamzam, whose waters branched outside the cave. I drank from it just as Abdullah did. He said it was considered the freshest water in the world. He didn’t tell me then that the sacred water was for Yazidis only; it had something to do with their baptisms. Just a few steps away was the tomb of Sheikh Edi.

  “By the way, what did Mr. Luqman tell you?”

  “He said everything is permitted except drinking the spring water.”

  “I know.”

  When we came out of the spring, some men and women were sweeping the floor. “There are always volunteers here cleaning the temple,” he said as I glanced at a broom on the wall. I was embarrassed to leave like that, so I volunteered to sweep a little bit.

  Every so often I would stop to contemplate those symbols carved onto the walls of Lalish. I was in awe of the fact that they were so similar to the Sumerian symbols that I’m so obsessed with — these symbols were the first form of communication in history. I don’t know what they mean; like any great words, we can’t know exactly what they mean. Poetry came first, through metaphors and images that referred to their meanings and their shadows. Among those symbols is the eight-pointed star, which represents the goddess Ishtar (Inanna), the circle inside the circle, the ornamental square, the sun disk, the palm tree, the sparkling pot with water flowing from both sides, and also the wings drawn not only on birds but on humans as well. The special bird for the Yazidis is the peacock, because, according to the Yazidis, “it’s the head of the seven angels.” They say the peacock was sent by God to alight on Lalish and brush its seven colors over the valley.

  Pilgrims rest on big stones that have been eroded into the shape of seats without armrests, just like in ancient Mesopotamia. Abdullah sat down on one of those rocky seats in order to answer a new call for help.

  “There’s a family on the road. I’m following their progress step by step,” he said.

  Leaving Lalish, I looked out the car window at a tree, its branches so colorful with all the pieces of cloth tied around it as wishes. How many of those wishes will come true? And how many of the missing will return?

  I met Abdullah the next day at a house he rented in Dohuk. We sat on the floor with his family. Abdullah was surrounded by kids, not only his own, but also the sons and daughters of his missing siblings, as well as other kids whose fathers were missing — he was taking care of all of them. They sat around him the way elementary students gather around their teacher.

  There was a big lunch spread out in front of us, like those that tribal leaders would offer their guests. Abdullah put his phone down and said, “The family I told you about has made it to safety.”

  “That’s wonderful. Now I have some of my appetite back,” I replied.

  Abdullah with his youngest daughter Rula and the children with no fathers

  After lunch, I was excited to taste the pistachio coffee. I love coffee, in general, but the taste of this special brew was so exceptional that it made traveling those thousands of miles worth it. Abdullah gave me three large packets of that coffee, saying, “Take this back to America with you.”

  “One is enough,” I said, but he insisted, like a prophet who knows an eternal truth. His wife Sari wanted to send me off with milk to add to the coffee, but I assured her, “There’s milk in America.”

  After we finished our coffee, we hurried to Qadia Camp to meet some of the people whose stories I’d already heard — but now we would meet them face to face. Abdullah unexpectedly slammed on the brakes several times during the trip, to make way for a flock of sheep. When we reached the entrance to the camp, he told me, “It’s better if you take off your seat belt.” I realized just then that he wasn’t wearing his.

  “Why?”

  “So that you look like a real Iraqi. That way they won’t question you or demand to see a visitor’s permit, the way they do with most foreigners.”

  We headed down a dirt road leading to the camp; tents lined the road, their residents who’d survived seemed as if they were living an ordinary life — a life like any other. They were cooking outdoors, drinking tea, bathing in the outdoor baths. Some children were playing with a ball, as if they were at a picnic, just like when we go camping with our families in America. But their eyes weren’t like the eyes of others. The way they look at you: they turn back at you, as if waiting to hear some news from you, or perhaps they’re wondering how you’re going to just leave them so soon? Their eyes glitter with the evidence of everything that they’ve seen.

  Behind the crammed tents, there is the United Nations sign and a girl jumping rope. Her feet floating upward give one a sense of emancipation. These children add movement to otherwise desolate places — but who could know the damage that had been done to their tender souls?

  I was ready to listen to terrifying stories as soon as I arrived and started to meet the people there. I was stunned by their willingness to offer me help rather than ask for it. Their generosity has remained, despite the change in their circumstances. I didn’t speak with a single person in the camp who didn’t insist that I have dinner with them, or at least have something to drink. “You can’t do that. We have to offer you something.” They confront you with those words even as you’re thinking about what you can do for them.

  These people, whose stories I’d heard over the phone, are now right here in front of me, in the flesh. I simply greet them, without knowing what to do next. Shush, I think to myself, don’t ask any more questions, don’t reopen their wounds — just say a few simple words, like the ones you would use with ordinary people in everyday situations.

  On the way back from the camp, I took a few pictures, but I was stopped by a policeman, who said, “Photography is forbidden.” I didn’t know how to respond, but Abdullah hurried to speak with him in Kurdish. They talked for a long time, and the tone changed from officious to friendly. The policeman bid me farewell, but I didn’t understand a word he’d said. In the car I told Abdullah, “You never told me photography was forbidden here.” He replied, “Come on, there is a law, but that doesn’t mean we have to obey it. As long as we aren’t hurting anyone. By the way, that policeman is a relative of mine. He forgot all about photography and started asking me about some of the missing people.” Just then, I saw some girls sitting on a red barrel, drawing on pieces of paper. “I want to get out there for a moment,” I said. I took their picture and asked one of them, “What are you writing?” “Riddles,” she said. When I show
ed Abdullah the picture, he said, “Nice. You had to take a picture of those girls.”

  Some of my old friends heard that I was back in the country. They hurried to put together a poetry reading. Poetry wasn’t on my mind during this urgent time, but they said that I couldn’t leave the country without reading some of my poems. It only took them three hours to actually organize the reading, including all the preparations and spreading the word on social media. That was the same amount of time it took for me to get from Dohuk to their place in Erbil. The road was very dangerous by car; every time the driver passed the cars in front of him by veering into oncoming traffic, leaving only a tiny distance as the drivers were forced to swerve suddenly — and every time I automatically threw my hands up to cover my face. I didn’t expect too many people would show up for that last-minute reading, but I was wrong. Some of the audience included writers I’d known a long time ago, when I had just started writing poetry.

  Offering tea

  How had they grown so old, with gray hair glittering on their heads? Maybe they were wondering the same about me, too. In any case, it seemed that poetry was still alive among my people. They wouldn’t let me stop reading; they clung onto my words as if they were actually going to save them.

  On the way back, I was startled by the sight of men sitting on the side of the road, counting piles of money and then putting the piles into garbage bags. I said hello to one of them, Emad Noury, a theater actor. He explained to me that it was payday. “The director brings our salaries in these bags every month,” Emad said.

  I remember the period of economic sanctions on Iraq, when the value of the Iraqi dinar fell so low that the currency had to be printed on such cheap paper that those stacked piles of dinars weren’t worth as much as a dozen eggs. Still, the sight of cash carried in garbage bags was unexpected for me, coming from America.

  Girls playing riddles

  It was as if I hadn’t experienced such things too during the first thirty years of my life.

  Emad invited me to visit him at Amal Camp, so I went there. I thought I was going to see tents scattered along both sides of a mud road like in Qadia Camp, but this camp was actually a five-story building. We climbed the stairs to the second floor, to the room where Emad lived with his wife Hiam and their daughter and son.

  A large 2016 calendar hung in the middle of the wall, with a sewing machine underneath. I asked Hiam, “I wonder what the 2017 calendar is going to be like?”

  She was silent for a moment, then said, “Maybe next year will actually be as beautiful as this year’s calendar wishes to be?”

  She went into the shared kitchen, and came back a few minutes later with a tray of coffee and some candy we used to call “sour-sweet,” which I remembered from my childhood in Baghdad — people would always offer it to their guests.

  “Hiam, where are you from?”

  “From Bakhdida, in Nineveh Province. Our home is there, two stories we built with our own hands, brick by brick.”

  Hiam showed me a picture of her house. Looking at it, she told me: “I was a sewing instructor. My friends and neighbors often stayed up late at our house, until well after midnight, chatting and listening to tarab music. When we heard about the arrival of Daesh in the region, Emad decided that we should leave everything and go, but I refused. I told him to take the kids and go. I was staying there, sure that he would return in a few hours. In fact, I was busy sewing clothes for my sister and her family because they’d just received their immigration papers to go to America. They were planning to leave in the next few days, and they needed new clothes — and I wasn’t going to leave before I’d completed their clothes. It was 11 a.m. on August 6, 2014, when Emad and the kids left. Hours later, the sound of gunfire was so loud that I could no longer hear Emad’s voice on the phone.

  Hiam shows me the picture of her house that she left behind

  In the evening, my neighbor knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to leave with them — they had an extra seat in their car for me. I hesitated. What if Emad and the kids came back? My neighbor said, Everyone is leaving and nobody’s coming back. Come with us, Hiam. Don’t stay here by yourself.

  “I went with them, and left everything behind except my house key. Emad had taken the photo albums and wedding tapes. There was nothing else of any value except for the house itself. I called my sister, and she said: Don’t worry about the clothes. The situation is terrible. We’re going to the monastery near our brother. We don’t know when we’ll be able to leave the country.

  “I left with my neighbors — the road to Erbil was so crowded that it took us seven hours instead of one hour. We saw crowds of people running barefoot; some people rode on farm vehicles — not everyone has a car, you know. The sound of gunfire was even louder once we were on the road. That caused more confusion and delays at the checkpoints. The policemen in front of us told us to lie down on the ground. Daesh was behind us, waving their flags. Emad and the kids had made it to a public park in Erbil where they spent two days and nights. To reach them felt never-ending. I’m an optimist who’s usually pretty easygoing, but what happened to us was completely unprecedented. We had lived through continuous war but we had never heard certain words like sabaya, caliphate, fucking.

  “When I got to the park, it was so full of people there was nowhere to walk. I caught a glimpse of where Emad and the kids were, and I reached them by zigzagging between the families. They had sandwiches, which were donated by a family in town who handed out food to everyone in that park. We stayed there for a few days, and then we were taken to this camp. Emad is a theater actor, as you know, so he founded a theater group here in this camp. He started teaching and training the children here. They meet on the fifth floor for cultural and artistic activities.”

  “So there’s a school here in the camp?” I asked.

  “Yes, they go for three to four hours a day — and even do homework, despite everything.”

  “It’s such a good thing to have classes in these extraordinary times.”

  “Our life is always extraordinary, you know. How do you find Iraq after all this time away?”

  “Sour-sweet, as always.”

  I left Amal Camp for the shrine of Dair Mar Elia because I had an appointment with Claudia. She was introduced to me by a friend who volunteered at the Shlomo Organization for Documentation. At first, Claudia seemed withdrawn and reluctant to talk to me on the phone. But when we met I found her to be such a warm person, even aching with her kindness and deep pain. After the meeting, we cried and laughed together, and shared news like old friends.

  Overnight the shrine of Dair Mar Elia had been turned into a camp that housed hundreds of displaced families from Mosul and the surrounding villages who didn’t know how long they were going to stay there. Claudia’s room was full of paintings she had recently made, “to release her feelings,” as she says. In the middle of the room, her daughter Maryam was twirling around and around in her white dress, which looked too big for her, while singing softly in a mixture of Arabic and English. In another month, Maryam will be two years old. “Mimi memorizes what she hears on YouTube and sometimes combines unrelated lyrics,” Claudia explained.

  We went together to a café near the camp, staying late into the night. Little Mimi was very attentive, and every time she noticed

  The tattoo on Claudia’s hand

  someone leaving the café, she would say, “They just left.” Claudia took some pictures with me, and said, “These are only for you. They’re not for publication, except for a picture of this tattoo.”

  She shared her story with me: I was pregnant with Mimi when I heard about Daesh for the first time. I was shopping in the market, and I’d left my son Hawar with my neighbor to play with

  her kids. But an hour later, she called me and said, “Come back, they say there’s a gang named Daesh that is about to attack us.”

  It was around th
is time of year, about two years ago. On my way back from the market, I called my husband at work and said, “Get ready, we have to get out of Mosul. The situation doesn’t look good.”

  I worried when my husband didn’t come home from work that evening, and my concern grew with the escalation of gunshots nearby and the darkness surrounding our neighborhood. I called him several times but he didn’t respond. I shared my fears with my neighbor. She said, “How could he respond to you while he was serving at the front? The world is upside down there. Of course he isn’t going to respond.”

  But I kept trying to reach him, until morning when I fell asleep for a bit. When I woke up I saw that my husband’s friend had written down his telephone number on a note that he stuck to our refrigerator. I called him. He said, “Our region has fallen to Daesh. Let me call our friends who were with him, and I’ll call you back.” I kept the phone in my hand until it rang. The friend said, “I don’t know what to tell you . . . Daesh slaughtered him along with two other people he was with. One of our friends, who hid behind the water containers, saw them beheaded.”

  His words turned me to stone. The whole world became a stone that I wanted to throw away from my house. When my son saw me frozen in place like that, he asked what had happened. “Your father’s dead,” I told him. I was too shocked to consider his feelings. He sobbed in the corner.

  Some neighbors had celebrated Daesh’s arrival, even crying with joy, and throwing candy. The Daesh were smart. When they entered the city, they tore down the concrete barriers and checkpoints, which were annoying and upset many people. They provided water and electricity. But a month later they started imposing strange laws. For example, unmarried girls would have to wear white veils; widows, green; and married, black. They banned shaving and makeup. Modern clothes disappeared from the market. In the mosques they shouted for everyone who worked for the government to repent, and to swear on the Quran that they had forsworn any political party. On July 17, to be precise, they issued a law that Christians had to pay the jizya, but even that tax wouldn’t necessarily save anyone. They marked the houses of Christians with the letter N, announcing that those houses had become the property of the Islamic State. My Muslim neighbors apologized, saying, “You were here in these houses before us. It’s not right to do this to you.”