The Beekeeper of Aleppo

The bees were an ideal society, a small paradise among chaos. The worker bees travelled far and wide to find food, preferring to go to the furthest fields. They collected nectar from lemon blossoms and clover, black nigella seeds and aniseed, eucalyptus, cotton, thorn and heather. I [Nuri] cared for the bees, nurtured them, monitored the hives for infestations or poor health. Sometimes I would build new hives, divide the colonies or raise queen bees – I’d take the larvae from another colony and watch as the nurse bees fed them with royal jelly.

‘Would you mind kindly moving out of my light, please? Thank you.’ She’s thanked me 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.

Afra sat beside me and I wished that she could see, wishes that she could be the woman she used to be, because Afra had always had a deep understanding of the world; she had a way of seeing things. Afra always knew too much, burdened with the ability to strip people and places of their masks, to find the remnants of the past in the present.