The Beekeeper of Aleppo(22)

1/02/2016





My dearest Mustafa,

Your last email was sent in January and there are no more messages after this so I wonder if you made it to France. More than anything I wish that you are in England with your wife and daughter. I just remembered the first time I visited the beehives in the mountains. It is like a moving picture in my mind. We were so young. If only we knew then what life would bring. But if we had known, what would we have done? We would have been too afraid to live, too afraid to be free and to make plans. I wish I could go back to that moment and stand there surrounded by the bees, learning with every second that passed that they were not my enemy.

I am in Istanbul now. Afra and I are staying in a smuggler’s flat with twenty other people and we are waiting to leave for Greece but the wind is too strong at the moment. There is a young boy here, the same age as Sami. He is alone and I’m not sure what has happened to his family. I dread to think. But he trusts me, and I am looking after him.

I know that I have a long journey ahead. Some days I think I cannot take another step, but I have a dream in my mind of meeting you in England. This is what keeps me moving forward. I have money and passports. I feel lucky to have these as I see that some people have nothing. I will be waiting for your response.

Nuri

When I returned to the smuggler’s flat in the evening, I gave the things I had found to Mohammed: chewing gum, mints, a penknife, a pen, a key ring, a glue stick and a road map.

The map was Mohammed’s favourite item; he opened it out on the floor and traced his finger along the lines of roads and mountains. He found stones in the plant pots on the balcony and, using the pen, he drew faces on them. He made a whole family of stones, gliding them across the map as if they were on a journey: father, mother, grandmother, a brother and two sisters. That night I found him fast asleep on the map, so I picked him up, draped him over my shoulder, and then carried him to the bedroom and laid him down gently on the blanket. Mohammed didn’t even stir; he was lost in his dreams.

‘We’ll be leaving soon,’ I said to Elias the following night. He stood like a great ancient statue on the balcony, opening a fresh packet of cigarettes. He put one to his mouth and lit it, looking out into the woods. Now that he’d been eating more and working hard his frame had fleshed out and it was easier to see the natural physical strength of this man.

‘The smuggler says two more days.’

Elias considered until he finished his cigarette and lit another. ‘I don’t want to go. I’ll stay here.’

‘Haven’t you already paid the smuggler? Where will you stay?’

‘I’ll find somewhere. Don’t worry about me. I don’t want to go on – I’ve travelled too far already. I’m done.’ His eyes were sad but his smile was different now; there was life in his face and an internal strength. We both stood there, silent, for a long time, listening to the night sounds of the wind and the cars and the dogs.





5




WHEN AFRA WAKES UP IN the morning she asks me why she can smell flowers.

‘It’s probably your perfume,’ I say.

‘But these aren’t roses. They smell faint, like blossoms.’ She reaches over to the bedside cabinet and I remember the bowl of keys. She feels around until she is touching the bowl and then she sits up and rests it on her lap, leaning over it, inhaling deeply, putting both of her hands in, and that’s when I realise that the bowl is filled not with keys but with handfuls of white blossoms.

‘Did you pick these for me?’ she says.

‘Yes.’

‘Another gift!’ Her eyes are full of the morning light. I don’t want to see this. I hate to see her like this and I’m not sure why. I get up and close the gap in the curtains and watch their shadow move across her face. ‘You haven’t brought me one for a while,’ she says, and she brings the flowers up to her face, breathing in their scent, and in that moment a small smile appears on her lips, as faint as the smell of the flowers.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘Where did you find them?’

‘There’s a tree in the garden.’

‘Is it a big garden?’

‘No, it’s small like a courtyard and mostly concrete, but there’s this one tree in it.’

‘I thought you’d never bring me a gift again.’

She puts the bowl back onto the bedside cabinet and checks to make sure that the marble is there. I take her to the bathroom and sit on the toilet while she brushes her teeth, then I help her to get dressed. Taking the abaya off the hanger, slipping it down over her arms, over her body, over the bulge of her stomach, over her scar from the caesarean section – a permanent smile across her abdomen – over the fine hairs on her thighs. I smell her. Roses and sweat. The scar and the crinkling of her skin around her stomach are constant reminders to me that she carried our child, brought him into this world, and I don’t want to touch her. I tie up her hair and wrap the hijab around her head, securing the hairpins where she wants me to. I try not to be abrupt, not to push her fingers away. The smile still seems to be lingering on her lips and I don’t want to spoil it. It horrifies me that a gift from me can have the power to make her smile now, even if it is so slight as to be almost non-existent. All those times I wanted to be able to affect her, to bring some light to her eyes, and now I hate it that I can, because it means that she loves me and that she has been hoping for me to love her. But I am no longer worthy of her, or her forgiveness.