The Beekeeper of Aleppo(18)

‘Just get all of them and then we will try until we find one that fits.’

I go into the kitchen and find a mixing bowl. Mohammed sits patiently waiting for me to return and then I start picking the keys off the tree – there is a stepladder in the garden and I use this to get to the ones on the higher branches. Soon the bowl is nearly full and I check and double-check to make sure there are no keys left. When I turn, holding the bowl, Mohammed is no longer there. The worm is making its way into the puddle.

I take the bowl inside and upstairs into the bedroom, where I put it on the bedside cabinet on Afra’s side, next to the marble. I am very careful not to wake her. I lie down beside her. She is facing me with her eyes closed and both hands tucked under her cheek and I can tell she is fast asleep because her breathing is slow and deep. I turn the other way and stare into the darkness because I can’t close my eyes. I think back to our time in





was where I met Mohammed.

On the other side of the Asi River there was a barbed-wire fence with a hole about two metres in diameter, like an open mouth. People threw their belongings over the fence and passed infants through the hole. It was still dark and we were told by the smugglers to lie on our bellies and crawl on our hands and knees across the flat land of dusty soil and bracken.

Once in Turkey, we walked for what felt like a hundred miles, through fields of wheat and barley. It was quiet. Afra was holding onto my arm and she was shivering because the cold was unbearable. We were about half an hour into our journey when in the distance we saw a child run into the road, a silhouette against the sun. He was waving at someone and then he sprinted off in the direction of some houses.

We approached a village, small bungalows with terraces and open shutters, people looking through windows, others coming out of their homes, standing at the side of the road, their eyes wide with wonder as if they were seeing a travelling circus. There was a long table with plastic cups and jugs of water. We stopped and drank and women from the village brought out blankets. They gave us bread and cherries and small bags of nuts, then they stood back and watched us leave. I realised afterwards that the look I had mistaken for wonder was actually fear, and I imagined swapping places with them, seeing hundreds of people battered by war heading to an unknown future.

We walked for another hour at least, and the wind became stronger, pushing us back. Then there was the sudden smell of sewage and we were in an open field. There were tents everywhere and people sleeping on blankets amid rubbish.

I found a space beneath some trees. There was a sense of quiet here that was unfamiliar to me; in Syria, silence held danger, it could be shattered at any moment by a shell bomb or the sound of gunfire or the heavy footsteps of the soldiers. Somewhere in the distance, towards Syria, the earth rumbled.

The wind blew down from the mountains, bringing the smell of snow. I had an image in my mind – the white glow of Jabal al-Shaykh, the first snow I had ever seen, many years ago, Syria to the left and Lebanon to the right, the borders defined by the ridge, and the sea far below. We had placed a melon in the river and it had cracked from the cold. My mother was biting into the iced green fruit. What were we doing there at the top of the world?

A man next to me said, ‘When you belong to someone and they are gone, who are you?’ The man looked haggard, dirty face, dishevelled hair. He had stains on his trousers and reeked of urine. There were sounds in the darkness, like the cries of animals, and I thought I could smell the rot of death. This man gave us a bottle of water and told me to sit on it for a while to warm it up before we drank it. The night came and went and the sun came up. There was food on the ground and a new blanket. Someone had brought hard bread and bananas and cheese. Afra ate and then fell asleep again with her head on my shoulder.

‘Where are you from?’ the man said.

‘Aleppo. And you?’

‘Northern Syria.’ But he didn’t say where.

He took the last cigarette out of a box and lit it. He smoked it slowly, looking out across the arid land. He might have been a strong man once, but there was no flesh on him now.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘I lost my daughter and my wife,’ he said, letting the stub of his cigarette drop to the ground. And that was all he said about it, in a flat toneless voice. But then he seemed to be thinking about something. ‘Some people …’ he said, finally, after a long pause, ‘some people have already been here a month. It would be best to bypass the authorities and find a smuggler. I have some money.’ He glanced at me, hopeful, to see what I would say.

‘Do you know how?’ I said.

‘I’ve spoken to a few people, and there is a bus that can take us to the next town, and from there we can find a smuggler. I’ve seen people go and not return. I didn’t want to try alone.’

When I agreed to go with him he told me his name was Elias.

For the rest of that day, Elias was on a mission; he spoke to a few people, making calls from my phone, which had just a tiny bit of battery left. By the afternoon he had arranged for the three of us to meet a smuggler in the nearby town and from there we would go to Istanbul. It was strange to think how easy it had been to set up, that there existed an organised system for those of us who were lucky enough to be able to afford it.

The next day we walked to the bus station and took the bus to the nearest town, and there we met the smuggler, a short asthmatic man with eyes that buzzed around like flies. He drove us to Istanbul in his car. When we arrived, Elias was never far behind me. The buildings in the city were tall and bright, old and new, gathered around the Bosporus, where the Sea of Marmara meets the Black Sea. I had forgotten that buildings could still stand, that there was a whole world out there that was not destroyed like Aleppo.