The Beekeeper of Aleppo(8)

As I approached Mustafa’s house I could hear, even from a distance, the faint sound of music. I always found him sitting on the bed in his half-bombed room, vinyl playing on an old record player, biting and sucking at the end of his cigarette, the smoke rising in clouds above him, on the bed beside him a purring cat. But on this day when I arrived, Mustafa was not there. The cat was asleep in the spot where he used to sit, its tail curled around its body. On the bedside cabinet, I found a photograph of the two of us that was taken the year we opened the business together. We were both squinting into the sun, Mustafa at least a foot taller than I was, the apiaries behind us. I knew we were surrounded by bees, though they weren’t visible in the picture. Beneath the photograph was a letter.

Dear Nuri,

Sometimes I think that if I keep walking, I will find some light, but I know that I can walk to the other side of the world and there will still be darkness. It’s not like the darkness of the night, which also has white light from the stars, from the moon. This darkness is inside me and has nothing to do with the outside world.

Now I have a picture of my son lying on that table, and nothing can make it fade. I see him, every time I close my eyes.

Thank you for coming with me every day to the garden. If only we had some flowers to put on his grave. Sometimes in my mind he is sitting at the table and he is eating lakhma. With the other hand he picks his nose and then he wipes it on his shorts and I tell him to stop being like his father, and he says, ‘But you are my father!’ and he laughs. That laughter. I can hear it. It flies above the land and disappears into the distance with the birds. I think this is his soul, it is free now. O Allah keep me alive as long as is good for me, and when death is better for me, take me.

Yesterday I went for a walk to the river, and I watched as four soldiers lined up a group of boys. They blindfolded them and shot them, one by one, and they threw their bodies in the river. I stood back and watched all this and I imagined Firas standing there among them, the fear in his heart, knowing that he would die, the fact that he could not see what was happening and could only hear the gunshots. I hope he was the first in line to die. I never thought I would ever have such a wish. I shut my eyes too and listened, and in between the gunshots and the thuds of falling bodies, I heard a boy crying. He was calling for his father. The other boys were silent, too afraid to make a sound. There is always one person in a group who has more courage than the rest. It takes bravery to cry out, to release what is in your heart. Then he was silenced. I had a rifle in my hand. I found it last week on the side of the street, loaded with three bullets. So I had three shots and there were four men. I waited until their guard was down, till they sat on the bank of the river smoking cigarettes and put their feet in the water where they had thrown the bodies.

My aim was good. I got one in the head, one in the stomach, the third in the heart. The fourth man stood and held his hands up and when he realised I had no shots left, he fumbled for his gun and I ran. He saw my face and they will find me. I have to leave tonight. I must get to Dahab and Aya. I should not have waited this long to leave, but I didn’t want to go without you and abandon you here in hell.

I cannot wait here to say goodbye. You must convince Afra to leave. You are too soft, too sensitive. This is an admirable quality when it comes to working with bees, but not now. I will be making my way to England, to find my wife and daughter. Leave this place, Nuri, it is no longer home. Aleppo is now like the dead body of a loved one, it has no life, no soul, it is full of rotting blood.

I have a memory of the first time you came to my father’s apiaries in the mountains and you were standing there surrounded by bees, without protective gear, your hands shielding your eyes, and you said to me, ‘Mustafa, this is where I want to be,’ even though you knew your father wouldn’t be happy. Remember that, Nuri. Remember the strength you had then. Take Afra and come and find me.

Mustafa

I sat down on the bed and cried, sobbed like a child, and from that day I kept the photograph and letter in my pocket, but Afra wouldn’t leave, so I would go out every day and forage in the ruins for food and return with a gift for her. I’d find so many odd bits, broken or unbroken pieces of people’s lives: a child’s shoe, a dog’s collar, a mobile phone, a glove, a key. Interesting to find a key when there are no doors to open. Come to think of it, even stranger to find a shoe or a glove when there is no longer a hand or a foot to fit it.

These were sad gifts. Nonetheless I’d offer them to her, place them on her lap, and wait for a reaction that never came. But I would keep trying. It was a good distraction. Every day I went out and found a new thing. One day, I found the best gift of all: a pomegranate.

‘What did you see?’ she said to me as I stood by the door.

She was sitting on the camp bed, where Sami used to sleep, facing the window, with her back against the wall. She reminded me of a cat, in her black hijab, with that white stone face and large grey eyes. No expression at all. I could only understand how she was feeling from her voice, or when she picked at her skin so hard she made it bleed.

The room smelled of warm bread, of normal life. I began to speak but stopped, and she turned her ear to me, a slight twitch of her head.

I saw that she’d made bread again. ‘You made khubz?’ I said.

‘I made it for Sami,’ she said. ‘Not for you. But what did you see?’

‘Afra …’