The Beekeeper of Aleppo(69)

In the bedroom, I took off Afra’s hijab, released her black hair from its bun and followed the instructions on the box, dividing her hair into sections and coating it in the foul-smelling mixture. We left it on for three-quarters of an hour before going into the bathroom and washing it off over the sink. I gave her a towel and waited for her in the living area. Mr Fotakis had made us all some fresh mint tea – he had some pots of herbs on the windowsill which seemed to thrive in the humid air – and we both sat there sipping the tea from small glasses.

When Afra came out of the bathroom she looked like a different woman. The blonde hair somehow made her look taller, her cheekbones rounder, and although the lighter hair should have made her skin look darker, it somehow created a paler complexion, so white it reminded me of ashes and snow. The grey of her eyes had deepened and there was a shimmer in them as she sat down beside us.

‘I smell mint,’ she said, and Mr Fotakis put a glass in her hand. He couldn’t keep his eyes off her.

‘You look so different!’ he said, laughing. ‘Amazing how one thing can change a person so much!’ But there was something else in his voice, the same tone that had made me uneasy from the first day we came here. It was the lust and greed that crackled through his phlegm when he spoke, almost hidden, but not quite.

I cut my hair and shaved well and then I put on a crisp white shirt that belonged to Mr Fotakis. The taller of the two brothers came to take the photos. He positioned us in the light of the window and clicked away until he was satisfied.

In the evenings I continued to make the deliveries. There were so many packages and as the days passed I would often meet the same people again; they got to know me and trust me, and sometimes they would offer me cigarettes. I was awake only at night, I no longer saw the sun. Afra and I existed in darkness.

About a week later the passports arrived. Our new names were Gloria and Bruno Baresi.

‘You’re Italian,’ Mr Fotakis said.

‘What if they ask us questions? We don’t know any Italian.’

‘I’m hopeful that won’t happen. You will be going from here to Madrid, then from Madrid to the UK. No one will know that you don’t speak Italian. Just don’t speak Arabic! Keep your mouths shut as much as you can!’

So the date was set and the tickets were booked. Mr Fotakis bought Afra a red dress made of the finest material and a grey scarf that had been hand-woven with tiny red flowers the same colour as the dress. It was beautiful but casual. He also gave her a jean jacket, a handbag and a new pair of shoes. I got a pair of jeans, a leather belt, a new white shirt and a brown jumper. He wanted us to put the clothes on to make sure that we looked authentic.

‘You are a beautiful couple,’ he said smiling. ‘You look like you have stepped out of a magazine.’

‘What do I look like?’ Afra said to me later as I was getting ready to make my deliveries.

‘You don’t look like you.’

‘Do I look horrible?’ she said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not. You are always beautiful.’

‘Nuri, now all the world can see my hair.’

‘Really they can’t,’ I say, ‘because it is a different colour.’

‘And they can see my legs.’

‘But they are the legs of Gloria Baresi, not yours.’

Her lips smiled, but her eyes didn’t.

We were due to leave the next day, and that night there were more packages than usual. I locked Afra in the room and I put the key down on the coffee table for a second to count the boxes and tick them off the list. At that moment Mr Fotakis came in to tell me about the travel arrangements to the airport. He then helped me to carry the boxes downstairs to the van. It wasn’t until I was halfway across Athens that I realised that I’d forgotten the key. I couldn’t turn back to get it – I had ten people to meet and they all had their designated time slots; if I was late for one, I’d be late for all of them. So I kept going and I tried not to think about Afra; I remembered her again only when I was heading back into the city in the early hours of the morning.

When I got to the apartment I rushed up the winding staircase and into the living area, but the key was not on the coffee table where I’d left it and the door was locked. I knocked and there was no answer.

‘Afra,’ I whispered, ‘are you asleep? Can you open the door for me?’ I waited like that with my ear to the door, but I could hear nothing, no answer and no movement, so I resigned myself to catching a few hours’ sleep on the sofa. I was just lying down when I heard the key in the lock and the door open. Afra stood there. I looked at my wife’s face and I immediately knew something was wrong. The morning light that reflected so coldly off the walls of the other buildings revealed a scratch on her face, red and raw, running from her left eye to her jawbone. Her blonde hair was a tangled mess around her face. In this moment, she was not my wife. I could not recognise her. I could not find her. Before I could say anything, she turned away and went back into the bedroom. I sprang up and quickly followed her, closing the door firmily behind me.

‘Afra, what happened?’ I asked. She was curled up on the bed with her back to me.

‘Won’t you tell me what happened?’ I put my hand on her back and she flinched, so I lay beside her without touching her or asking any more questions. It was early afternoon by the time she spoke again. I hadn’t slept at all.