The Beekeeper of Aleppo(28)

I ask for directions to the GP surgery and find it on a hill on one of the side streets leading up from the sea. The place is full of children with colds. A mother is holding a tissue to her son’s face and telling him to blow his nose. Some children play with toys on a mat in the corner of the room. The adults read magazines or watch the monitor, waiting for their names to come up.

I stand in the queue at the receptionist’s desk. There are five people in front of me. There is a yellow line on the floor with the words: ‘Queue behind this line.’

The woman at the front is handing the receptionist a urine sample. The receptionist pulls a pair of red-framed glasses out of a mass of tiny curls. She inspects the container, types something in the system, seals the jar of urine into a cellophane bag and calls out, ‘Next!’

It takes about fifteen minutes for me to get to the front and I have the asylum letter ready. When I put it on the desk, she lowers her glasses onto her nose and reads it through.

‘We can’t register you,’ she says.

‘Why not?’

‘Because the asylum letter doesn’t have an address.’

‘Why do you need an address?’

‘In order to register you, we need to see an address.’

‘I can tell you the address.’

‘It needs to be on your letter. Please come back when you have all the correct documentation.’

‘But my wife needs to see a doctor.’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ she says. ‘That’s our policy.’

‘But the NHS guidelines clearly say that a practice cannot refuse a patient because they do not have identification or proof of address.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ she says, putting her glasses back into her curls, her mouth a tight line, ‘that’s our policy.’

The woman behind me tuts politely. The receptionist pushes the papers apologetically towards me. I stand there looking at them, and in that moment something crushes me. It’s just a piece of paper. It’s just a receptionist in a doctor’s surgery. But the sounds of chattering, people moving around me, phones ringing from the cubicles behind the desk, children laughing … I hear the sound of a bomb ripping through the sky, glass shattering …

‘Are you OK, sir?’

I look up. There is a flash and a crashing sound. I kneel down and cover my ears. I feel a hand on my back, then there is water.

‘I really am sorry, sir.’ the receptionist says, once I’ve stood up and drunk the water, ‘There’s nothing I can do. Could you get the correct paperwork together and come back?’

I follow the road that twists away from the sea, with its row of identical brown-bricked houses side by side, and I head back to the B&B.

I find Afra on our bed again, now with some of the blossoms in her hands. I kneel down in front of her and look into her eyes.

‘I want to lie down with you,’ she says, and what she means is, ‘I love you. Please hold me.’ There is an expression on her face I recognise from years ago, and it makes my sadness feel like something palpable, like a pulse, but it makes me afraid too, afraid of fate and chance, and hurt and harm, of the randomness of pain, how life can take everything from you all at once. Although it’s only early afternoon I lie down next to her on the bed and I let her put her arm around me and press her palm onto my chest, but I won’t touch her. She tries to hold my hand and I edge it away. My hands belong to another time, when loving my wife was a simple thing.

When I wake up it is dark, and the darkness pulsates. I’ve had a dream about something vague, not of murder this time; in my mind there is a glimpse of corridors and staircases and footpaths that make a grid, somewhere far away from here, and a picture of the sky in the morning and a red





flickered on the beach at dawn. Like driftwood washed ashore, we were left on the tiny military island of Farmakonisi. We were wet and shivering and the sun had just begun to rise. Mohammed’s face was white and blue, he still had the women’s headscarves wrapped around his body and for some reason he was now holding Afra’s hand. They did not speak to each other though; not a word passed between them. They just stood there on the shore with the sea behind them and the sun rising up to greet them. One of the men had collected the life jackets and made a huge fire with them. The flames warmed us and we gathered around.

‘I fell into the water,’ Mohammed said, holding onto my hand now.

‘I know.’

‘I died a little bit.’

‘It was close.’

‘But I died a little bit.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I saw my mum. She was holding my hand in the water and pulling me and pulling me, and she was telling me not to go to sleep, because if I fell asleep I would sleep forever and I wouldn’t be able to wake up again and play. So I think I died a little bit but she told me not to.’

I wondered what had happened to his mother, but I didn’t want to ask. Apparently another NGO vessel would be coming to pick us up, to take us to another island; in the meantime we had to wait here on the shore. There was a large shipping container, but this was already full of people; the story going around was that they’d arrived earlier that night from another part of Turkey, further along the coast. They were meant to go to another island but the engine had stopped working and their boat had drifted towards Farmakonisi. The coastguard had found them, and brought them back here. Some of the men and children came outside to talk to us and to warm themselves by the fire.