The Beekeeper of Aleppo(13)

Kids are running around with ice cream and lollies the size of their heads. The sandcastle boy has made a whole city – he’s used bits of plastic, bottle tops, sweet wrappers, to add colour to his buildings. He’s made a flag out of a lost sock and a candyfloss stick. He crowns the castle in the middle with a teacup.

The boy gets up and stands back to admire his creation. It’s impressive, he’s even used the teacup to make houses to surround the castle, and a water bottle looks like a glass skyscraper. He must sense I am staring because he turns and glances at me, for a moment pausing and holding my gaze. He has that innocent, preoccupied look, like the children before the war. For a moment I think he is going to say something to me, but a girl calls him to come and play. She entices him with a ball. He hesitates, taking one last glance at his marvellous creation, looking at me one more time, before he sprints off, abandoning it.

I sit for a while on the promenade by the sandpit and watch the sun move across the sky. In the afternoon the place is quieter, clouds have gathered, the children have gone. I take the asylum documentation out of my backpack.

To stay in the UK as a refugee you must be unable to live safely in any part of your own country because you fear persecution there.

The sky cracks and there’s a flash of lightning. Thick raindrops fall onto the piece of paper in my hand.

UK.

Any part.

Persecution.

It rains harder. I put the documents into my backpack and start up the hill towards the B&B.

Afra is sitting by the double doors in the living room; there are a few other residents milling around and the TV is on full blast. The Moroccan man raises his eyebrows. ‘How’re you doin’, geezer?’ He says the whole sentence in English now, his dark eyes sparkling.

‘Not too bad, geezer,’ I say, and force a smile. This satisfies him. He laughs with his chest and slaps his hand on his knee. I sit at the desk again and stare at my reflection in the computer screen. I touch the keyboard but I cannot bring myself to check for emails. My eyes keep moving to the glass doors. Whenever the wind picks up and the light comes on, I expect to see the shape of Mohammed in the garden.

I go out into the courtyard and search for the bee, and eventually I find her crawling over some twigs and fallen petals beneath the tree. When I put my hand out she crawls onto my finger and makes her way to my palm, and there she tucks in her legs and nestles, so I take her inside with me.

The landlady brings us all tea on a tray, and some Kenyan sweets, yellow with turmeric. She speaks English perfectly, from what I can tell anyway. She is a tiny woman, so small, like she was meant to be a doll. She is wearing shoes with huge wooden blocks at the ends of her skinny legs and, as she clomps around the living room handing out the sweets and tea, she reminds me of a baby elephant.

The Moroccan man told me that she is an accountant; she works part time in an office in South London and the rest of the time she runs this bed and breakfast. The council gives her money to do this and to keep us here. She scrubs the walls and the floors as if she is trying to wipe away the filth of our journeys. But there is something else about her – her story is not simple, I can tell. There is a mahogany cabinet in the corner of the living room. It is lacquered with a sheen like water, and it is full of glasses for alcohol. Every day she polishes spotless glasses. She stands there with a cloth that looks like a torn-off part of a man’s striped shirt – I have noticed there is even a button on it. She can’t get rid of the green mould on the walls though, or the grease in the kitchen that’s as thick as my skin, but I can see she takes pride in caring for us. She remembers all of our names, which is a great feat considering how many of us come and go. She spends some time talking to the woman from Afghanistan, asking her where she got her hijab, which is handwoven with gold thread.

‘The bee is still alive!’ the Moroccan man says.

I look at him and smile. ‘She’s a fighter,’ I say, ‘and it was raining last night. She won’t survive out there though, not for long, if she can’t fly.’

I take the bee back outside, put her on a flower and I go to bed with Afra. I help her get undressed and I lie down to sleep beside her.

‘Where is Mustafa?’ she says. ‘Have you heard from him?’

‘Not for a long time,’ I say.

‘Have you checked your emails? Maybe he is trying to get hold of you? Does he know we are here?’

There is a strange sound now, a whistle deep in the sky. ‘Can you hear that?’ I say.

‘It’s the rain on the window,’ she says.

‘Not that. The whistling. There is a whistle. It doesn’t stop. Like a dust storm is coming.’

‘There’s no dust storm here,’ she says. ‘Only rain or no rain.’

‘You can’t hear it then?’

She looks concerned now and rests her head on her palm. She is about to say something and I laugh, stopping her. ‘It was cold but sunny today! Now it’s raining! This English weather is like a madman! Maybe you should come out tomorrow? We can go for a walk along the seafront.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I can’t. I don’t want to be out in this world.’

‘But you’re free now, you can go outside. You don’t have to be afraid anymore.’

She doesn’t say anything in response.

‘A boy made the most amazing sandcastle, a whole city, with houses and a skyscraper!’