The Beekeeper of Aleppo(34)

‘We can’t go home.’

‘Never?’

The man didn’t reply.

Then there was a shout outside, a man’s voice, and a deep thumping. The sound of beating? A body being beaten? I wanted to get up to see what was happening, but I was afraid. There were footsteps outside the cabin, and people running, and then there was quiet and eventually the distant sounds of the waves drew me in, took my mind away from where I was, far away into open water.

I woke up to the sound of the birds. There were voices and footsteps and I noticed that Mohammed was not in the cabin, and Afra was still asleep.

I went out to find him. People had ventured out of their cabins to catch the warmth of the sun, others were hanging clothes on the lines in the alley. Children were jumping over the puddles or punching balloons onto the barbed wire with their fists, like volleyballs, laughing as they popped. I couldn’t see Mohammed among them.

I noticed soldiers walking around, guns in their belts. I made my way to the old asylum building; I’d been told there were services and a children’s centre. There was something haunting about the island – half-finished crumbling properties, empty storefronts – as if the residents themselves had suddenly run out of there in a hurry, leaving the place to fall apart. Windows like eyes opened into dark uninhabitable buildings. Shutters hung off their hinges. The old asylum was like some place from a nightmare. In the hallway there was a huge unlit fireplace behind cast-iron bars; a staircase led up and around towards voices that were echoing from other rooms on other floors.

‘What do you need?’ a voice behind me said.

I turned around: a girl in her early twenties, sun-kissed cheeks, a dozen silver hoops in one ear and one in her nose. She was smiling but she looked tired, the skin beneath her eyes purple. Her lips were cracked.

‘I was told there were resources here. I wanted to get a few things for my wife.’

‘Third floor, to the left,’ she said.

I hesitated. ‘And I’m looking for my son.’ I looked over my shoulder as if Mohammed might just appear behind me.

‘What does he look like?’ the girl said, yawning. She covered her mouth. Her eyes swam. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘I didn’t sleep well. There was trouble last night.’

‘Trouble?’

She shook her head, holding back another yawn. ‘The camps are getting too full, some people have been here so long, it’s hard to …’ She stopped there. ‘What does your son look like?’

‘My son?’

‘You just said you were looking for your son.’

‘He’s seven. Black hair, black eyes.’

‘You’ve just described most of the boys here.’

‘But they have brown hair and eyes. This boy’s eyes are black. As black as the night. You can’t ignore them.’

She seemed preoccupied now, taking a phone out of her back pocket, checking it so the screen lit up the shadows on her face.

‘Where are you staying?’ she said.

‘In the cabins by the port.’

‘You’re lucky you’re not in the other place.’

‘The other place?’

‘Does your wife need clothes? There’s a boutique upstairs. I’ll take you.’ The hallway started to get busier, people from so many parts of the world. I could hear variations of Arabic, mixed in with the unfamiliar rhythms and sounds of other languages.

‘Your English is very good,’ she said as we climbed the stairs.

‘My father taught me when I was a child. And I was a businessman, in Syria.’

‘What kind of business?’

‘A beekeeper. I had hives and I sold honey.’

I watched her flip-flops as they slapped against the soles of her feet.

‘This island was a leper colony once,’ she said. ‘This asylum was like a Nazi concentration camp. People were caged and chained without names or identities. The children here were abandoned, tied to their beds all day.’

She suddenly stopped talking as we passed a policeman who was coming down the stairs. He was not wearing glasses, too dark in here, and he nodded and smiled at her with warm eyes.

‘The second and fourth floors are camps,’ she continued, once he was out of sight. ‘In the courtyard at night they light a big campfire and make food, because otherwise all you will eat are bread rolls with cheese, and maybe a banana. Sometimes old women bring vegetables from their gardens for the stew. On this floor there are two boutiques, one for women and children, and one for men. You might want to get something for your son too. There’s quite a lot of stuff today and you’ve come early, which is good.’

She led me to the women’s boutique and left me there, and as I entered I heard a man in the hallway say to her, ‘You know the rules. Just ask them what they need. Don’t talk to them.’

I hovered in the doorway for a few seconds to hear her response. I expected her to apologise, but instead I heard a throaty laugh, full of defiance. There was a confidence in her that she had brought with her from another place. There were only footsteps after this, fading away as I entered the boutique. The walls were damp and green, light coming in through a long barred window, shining onto a rack. A woman stood alert with both hands behind her back.

‘Can I help you?’ she said. ‘What do you need?’