The Beekeeper of Aleppo(27)

‘Nuri!’ Afra said. ‘Are you on the boat?’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘We are.’

‘Stay on the boat. Don’t go into the water.’

Mohammed was still scooping the water with his hands; everyone else on the boat was doing the same. The girl began to cry now. She was calling out to the men in the sea, calling them to come back onto the boat.

The water continued to rise and more men jumped out of the boat. Every child was crying except Mohammed. I could see his face, serious and determined, between the flashes of light.

There was a moment of complete darkness, and when the light of the torch flashed again, he was gone. Mohammed was not on the boat. I scanned the water, the black waves, as far as I could see, and then, without thinking, I jumped in. It was freezing but the waves weren’t as big as I’d thought, and I swam around, flashing the torch across the surface.

‘Mohammed!’ I called. ‘Mohammed!’ But there was no answer.

I could hear Afra’s voice from the boat. She was calling, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I continued to search the water, which was as black as ink. How would I see Mohammed with his black clothes and black hair?

‘Mohammed!’ I called. ‘Mohammed!’

The torch flashed over the men’s faces. I plunged into the black silence, but even with the torch I could barely see anything. I stayed under for as long as I could, feeling with my hands in case I should catch onto something, an arm or a leg; when there was no air left in my lungs, when the pressure of death was pushing down on me, I came back up gasping into the darkness and the wind.

I was about to take a deep breath and go back under when I saw a man holding Mohammed, lifting him up into the boat. The women took the coughing and spluttering boy into their arms, removing their headscarves and wrapping them around him.

We were deep into international waters now; the smuggler was right, the water did change, the waves were different, their rhythms foreign. Then everyone flashed their torches, hoping a coastguard would see, hoping we were close enough to Greece that somebody would save us. These lights in the darkness were like prayers, because there was no sign of anyone coming. The men couldn’t get back onto the boat – there was still too much water inside. I could feel my body becoming numb. I wanted to sleep, wanted to rest my head upon the moving waves and sleep.

‘Nuri!’ someone was calling. ‘Nuri!’

I saw the stars above, and Afra’s face.

‘Nuri, Nuri, there is a boat!’ There was a hand on my arm. ‘Uncle Nuri, a boat is coming!’

Mohammed was staring down at me, pulling me. My life jacket had started to deflate but I began to kick my legs to stay afloat, to get the blood moving in my body again.

In the distance there was a bright light moving towards us.





6




THIS TIME WHEN I WAKE up on the concrete floor of the garden, the Moroccan man is already standing over me holding out his hand.

‘How’re you doin’, man?’ he says in English as he pulls me to my feet. Then he tells me in Arabic that Afra is inside waiting for me, that she seems even more upset than last time. When I go upstairs, I find her sitting on the bed, with her back to the door and the bowl of blossoms on her lap.

‘Where were you?’ she says, before I’ve even had a chance to speak.

‘I fell asleep downstairs.’

‘In the garden again?’

I don’t reply.

‘You don’t want to sleep next to me.’

I ignore her comment. I give her the sketch-pad and colouring pencils, placing them on her lap, bringing her hands to them so that she can feel what they are.

‘Another gift?’ she says.

‘Remember what you did in Athens?’ I say, and although she smiles, she puts them down on the floor beside her.

‘You’re already dressed, so I’m going to go for a walk. Would you like to come with me?’

I wait for a while, standing there listening to her silent response, and when I can see that she’s not going to reply, I head downstairs and out into the light. I go to the place where the sandcastle city was. The sand is lumpy, with colourful bits and pieces embedded in it. I pick up a piece of transparent pink plastic, probably part of a broken cup, and toss it into the sea. The waves swallow it up.

Just behind me, there is an old woman sitting in a deckchair reading a book. She is under an umbrella with a sun hat on, a bottle of sunscreen by her side. She doesn’t seem to notice that the sun has gone and it might even rain.

A few people are walking their dogs, an attendant picks up rubbish. The aftermath of sunshine. The aftermath of war is something else. There is a sense of calm here, of life continuing. Hope for another sunny day. In the distance, to the left, the faint sound of music comes from the fairground on the pier. It never stops.

The sun pushes through the clouds and the sea suddenly shimmers.

‘Excuse me,’ a voice says behind me. I turn around and see that the woman is frowning, her skin so leathery and brown she looks as if she’s been sunbathing on Syria’s dust plains.

‘Yes?’ I say.

‘Would you mind kindly moving out of my light, please? Thank you.’ She’s thanked me for moving before I’ve even moved. It’s difficult getting used to British manners – I can understand the Moroccan man’s confusion. Apparently queuing is important here. People actually form a single line in a shop. It’s advisable to take your place in the queue and not try to push your way to the front, as this usually pisses people off! This is what the woman in Tesco told me last week. But I don’t like their queues, their order, their neat little gardens and neat little porches and their bay windows that glow at night with the flickering of their TVs. It all reminds me that these people have never seen war. It reminds me that back home there is no one watching TV in their living room or on their veranda and it makes me think of everything that’s been destroyed.