The Beekeeper of Aleppo(24)

The Moroccan man’s room is tidy, everything folded neatly, a bottle of shaving foam on the dresser, razors lined up. There is a black and white photograph of a woman in a garden. The photo is faded and white at the edges, and there is a small gold wedding band on the dressing table next to it. The photo next to that is of the same woman, some years later. She has the same eyes and smile; she is sitting on a wicker chair holding a baby, a toddler standing beside her. Another photo, glossy, many years later, is of a family: a man, a woman and two teenage children. The last one is of a woman standing on the shore with the sea behind her. I turn it over and read the words in Arabic:

Dad, my favourite place. I love you x

I head downstairs feeling heavier than before and decide to go for a walk. I make my way to the convenience store; the Arabic music reaches me as I walk along the street. Although I’m not familiar with the song that is playing, the music transports me home, its tones and rhythms, the sound of my language surrounding me and soothing me as I enter the little shop.

‘Good morning,’ the man says in English. His accent is good and he is standing very upright, as if he is guarding the place, middle-aged, cleanly shaven. He turns the volume down and follows me with his eyes while I walk around. I stand by the counter staring at the unfamiliar newspapers: The Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, the Daily Mail.

‘It is a beautiful day,’ he says.

I am about to reply in Arabic, but I don’t want to have a conversation with this man. I don’t want him to ask me where I am from and how I got here.

‘Yes,’ I say finally, and he smiles.

Just beneath the magazines, on the last row of shelves, I notice a sketch pad and colouring pencils. I have some change in my pocket so I buy them for Afra. The man glances at me a few times and opens his mouth to say something, but a woman calls him from the back of the shop and I leave.

In the late afternoon the Moroccan man returns, calling my name as soon as he walks through the door.

‘Nuri! Mr Nuri Ibrahim! Please come here – there is a gift for you!’

I go out into the hallway and he is standing there, a huge smile on his face, holding a wooden tray with five plants it.

‘What’s this?’ I say.

‘I had a bit of money saved and I went to the vendor on the street and got this for the bee!’ He shoves the tray into my arms and nudges me through the living room, toward the patio doors. He picks up an overturned plastic table in the corner of the courtyard, wiping the muck and dried leaves off with his hand.

‘Right,’ he says, ‘put it on here!’ Then he stands there for a while admiring the flowers – sweet clover, thistle and dandelions. ‘The man told me which flowers to get, which ones the bee would like.’ He goes into the kitchen and comes back with a saucer of water. He rearranges the plant pots into a line, so the bee will be able to get from one to the other without flying, and he puts the saucer in the tray.

‘I think she will be thirsty,’ he says.

For a while I can’t move. I can see him staring at me, waiting for me to put the bee into her new home, and there is a shadow of disappointment in his eyes at my lack of enthusiasm. In this moment, standing beneath the tree with the flowers beside us and the sun beaming down, I remember my father. I remember the look on his face when I told him I didn’t want to take over the family business, that I wasn’t interested in selling fabric. I wanted to be a beekeeper with Mustafa, I wanted to work outdoors in nature, I wanted to feel the land beneath my feet and the sun on my face, to hear the song of the bees.

For so many years I’d watched my father work hard in that little dark shop, with his scissors and needles and tape-measure and swollen knuckles, the colours of the world, of deserts and rivers and forests, printed on the silks and linens around him. ‘You can make blinds with this silk. Doesn’t it remind you of the colours of Hamad when the sun is setting?’ This is what he would say to the customers, and to me he would say, ‘Close the blinds, Nuri! Close the blinds so the light won’t get to the fabric.’ How I remember his eyes when I told him I didn’t want to work in that tiny dark cave for the rest of my life.

‘You don’t like it?’ the Moroccan man says. His expression is different now, a deep frown.

‘I like it,’ I say. ‘Thank you.’

I put my hand out to the bee and she crawls onto my finger and I transport her to her new home. She inspects the flowers, making her way from one plant pot to the next.

‘Why did you come here?’ I say to the Moroccan man. ‘What are you doing here in the UK?’

His shoulders stiffen and he takes a step away from the wooden box. ‘Why don’t we go in and maybe you can come and see it again tomorrow.’

In the living room he sits in the armchair and opens his book. ‘I think queuing is very important here,’ he says to me, with the usual tone of laughter back in his voice.

‘But where is your family?’ I say. ‘You bring the plants and remind me of Syria, and when I ask you about why you are here you ignore me.’

He closes the book now and looks at me straight in the eyes.

‘As soon as I was on that boat to Spain I knew I had sold my life, whatever life I have left. But my children wanted to leave; they were in search of a better life. I didn’t want to be alone there without them. They had dreams. Young people still have dreams. They couldn’t get visas and life was becoming too difficult at home – there were problems, too many … so they went underground, and this is dangerous. We all decided to leave together, but my son and daughter were taken to another hostel where children are allowed. They are waiting, too, and my daughter … my daughter. …’ He stops talking and I see that his small eyes, almost hidden in the creases, are shimmering. He is far away. I don’t ask any more questions.