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Chapter 6
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Beekeeper of Aleppo, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Home, Displacement, and the Refugee Experience
Grief, Memory, and Coping Mechanisms
Hope vs. Delusion
The Trauma of War
Dehumanization vs. Connection
Summary
Analysis
In the present, Nuri wakes and goes to use the bathroom. Diomande’s door is open, and the young man is sitting shirtless on his bed. Nuri notices small white wings jutting out of his shoulder blades. Diomande pulls on a shirt and realizes Nuri is watching him. He tells Nuri about his meeting with Lucy Fisher; she seems worried for Diomande, and this makes him worry too. He explains that he left home to find a way to help his impoverished family. Nuri asks what is wrong with his back, but Diomande only claims to have a bent spine. Nuri notices he has the eyes of an old man.
Diomande’s wings add to the growing surrealism of Nuri’s experiences in the bed and breakfast. Their stunted appearance seems to characterize Diomande as a kind of disfigured angel, perhaps highlighting the sacred nature of his humanity which has been marred by his suffering. The details of Diomande’s life and Lucy Fisher’s worry indicate that his is the wrong kind of story which will not garner sympathy from the immigration officers. Diomande’s very body is evidence of the difficulties he has faced, showing the physical effects of trauma.
Themes
Nuri prays in the privacy of the bathroom, and—seeing himself in the mirror—notes that his reflection has changed in some unfathomable way. He lets the hot water steam up the mirror, hoping Mohammed will appear there. He dresses Afra in silence as she clutches the marble and the sketch pad. Heading downstairs, they find the landlady cleaning. Nuri wonders about her life, how she came to be in Britain. He calls Lucy Fisher about the problem with the doctor, and although she calmly says she will fix it, he worries about the limits of her help.
Like Diomande, Nuri’s trauma has left marks on his physical body, though he avoids exploring the specifics of his changed reflection. His desire to see Mohammed in the mirror suggests that he knows his encounters with the boy are dreamlike or outside the norm of reality, but still he hopes for them. Again, Nuri avoids connecting with either Afra or the landlady; though the opportunities are there, he withdraws into himself. His conversation with Lucy Fisher, while practically useful, raises fears that even well-meaning people may be unable to help his situation.
Themes
Afra listens to the TV in the living room; it is the first time she has left their room other than the meetings with Lucy Fisher. Nuri goes out to the courtyard and peers through the fence at the landlady’s garden. Mohammed was right when he described it as green; it is full of plants and personal effects. Despite the courtyard’s comparative drabness, the bee sleeps on one of the flowers. Nuri remembers managing the hives for nectar flow and honey production. The Moroccan man appears and tells Nuri he should just move his bed to the courtyard.
Afra’s emergence indicates she is starting to open up to the world outside her trauma. Nuri, however, remains preoccupied with Mohammed, lingering in the courtyard where he has seen the boy. The flightless bee, like Afra, is settling into her new surroundings, and her presence makes Nuri long for his old life as a beekeeper. Hazim’s remark draws attention to the fact that the courtyard is becoming a place of longing and—possibly—safety for Nuri.
Themes
In the evening, Nuri watches the other residents play hangman using English words. He thinks of Diomande’s wings and how he smiles even though he is in pain. Nuri sleeps and wakes up to the sound of many bees and the marble rolling on the floor. Mohammed is there; he asks if Nuri found the key. When Nuri says the keys were flowers, Mohammed tells him he needs to look in the green garden over the fence. Nuri does so, surrounded by the sound of bees even though he sees none. He finds a single key in the landlady’s garden and takes it back to bed.
While the other residents engage with one another, Nuri still exists as an outside observer, not allowing himself to take part in the community. Mohammed’s appearance is even more dreamlike than the last, bringing the evocative sound of invisible bees and sending him on a quest to find a key in the landlady’s garden. It is as if Nuri is slipping into another world in these moments, a peculiar kind of escape full of the fantastic and bizarre imagery of fairytales.
Themes
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The bees’ buzzing fades into the sounds of waves, and Nuri flashes back to taking another boat to the island of Leros. Mohammed says to Nuri that his first time on a boat was frightening, which reminds Nuri of Sami. Sami had only been on a boat once and was afraid of the water; he was “a boy of the desert.” He and Mohammed were the same age, and Nuri imagines them as friends in a different reality. Mohammed wishes his mother was with him. Afra sits behind him.
Once again, Nuri’s memories of Sami coincide with his interactions with Mohammed, indicating that he sees Mohammed as a kind of surrogate son. Imagining the two boys as friends in a different reality, Nuri engages in more wishful thinking of an alternate world in order to escape the broken one he inhabits. The mention of Mohammed’s mother while Afra sits silently in the background draws attention to their lack of interaction.
Themes
After disembarking, Nuri, Afra, and Mohammed find NGO volunteers waiting for them. It is obvious there is some operational structure in place, and they are led to a tent for new arrivals. There are many people from various countries waiting to get documentation proving they "exist in the eyes of the European Union." Hours later, Nuri and Afra reach the front of the line. Mohammed is asleep on a bench, but Nuri tells the registration volunteer questioning them that he is actually Sami and presents his son’s passport. The man does not bother to verify this claim, but Afra asks Nuri why he told the man they have a son. Nuri tells her it will make things easier. Afra seems uncomfortable.
In this scene, the shuffling lines of bureaucracy are on full display, reducing each refugee to their documentation. This process demonstrates how systems tend to flatten human beings into numbers and names whose existence depends on a governing body recognizing that existence. So unfeeling is this system that the man does not even bother to verify the existence of Nuri’s son. That Afra questions Nuri’s decision to claim Mohammed as their son suggests she is uncomfortable with the boy taking Sami’s place, perhaps viewing Nuri’s actions as insensitive to their son’s memory.
Themes
The registration volunteer returns from charging Nuri’s phone and asks him and Afra about their occupations. When Afra says she is an artist, the man asks if she painted the pictures on Nuri’s phone and tells her they are very special. Studying Afra, he asks Nuri what happened to her. Nuri imagines the man collecting tragic stories and tells him a bomb blinded Afra (this is the first time her blindness has been explained in the novel). The man laughs when he hears they are trying to get to the United Kingdom, saying they should be more realistic. Nevertheless, they must wait for clearance to go to Athens and are led away to another camp.
Despite the registration volunteer’s personal questions and compliments about Afra’s artwork, his concern feels more like morbid curiosity, especially when he asks Nuri about Afra’s blindness as if she is not there. Even when the stories of refugees are taken into account, then, it is as objects in a collection of tragedy, fully separate from the people those stories belong to. His disdain for their goal of reaching the UK furthers this disconnection, highlighting how even people who serve refugees tend to treat them as something less than human beings.
Themes
The camp is comprised of many rows of makeshift cabins, housing others waiting for documentation. As he looks out on the expanse, Nuri feels lost and unmoored despite the semblance of security. He, Afra, and Mohammed are led into a cabin divided with sheets to separate different families. They are told where to find food and that curfew is soon, but Mohammed is too tired to go out. He asks Nuri if he can have spreadable chocolate tomorrow and falls asleep. Lying down, Afra tells Nuri she thinks he is “not all right” and mentions “the boy,” but Nuri tells her to go to sleep.
Nuri’s sensation of being untethered in a supposedly safe place underscores the way refugees are perpetually adrift from their sense of home and the security that comes with it. Afra’s concern for Nuri indicates there is something wrong with him that is being hidden from the reader. That she references Mohammed as “the boy” feels cold and impersonal, emphasizing again the odd silence of their relationship. Nuri’s dismissal shuts down Afra’s attempt at connection.
Themes
Afra falls asleep, but her questions worry Nuri. He visualizes Mohammed’s dark eyes and Sami’s light ones, their voices merging into one. On the other side of the sheet, Nuri can hear a father and daughter talking. The daughter is asking when her mother will come. Her father assures her that her mother will come and stroke her hair but that the girl will not see her. The little girl tries to talk about the men who took her mother away, but her father stops her. He says they cannot go home. Outside, there is a shout and the sounds of a beating. Nuri is too afraid to investigate, and eventually falls asleep.
By focusing on the differences between Sami and Mohammed, it seems as though Nuri is trying to answer Afra’s unspoken question about the way he is treating Mohammed like he is Sami. Even in this moment, their conflation is hard to deny, as even their voices overlap in Nuri’s mind. Listening to the father and daughter’s sorrowful conversation shows how Nuri’s homelessness and sense of being lost are echoed over and over indefinitely in the stories of other refugees. Even this safe place contains an undertone of violence, as witnessed by the sounds of someone being beaten.
Themes
In the morning, Mohammed is not in the cabin. Nuri goes out to look for him and makes his way to the old asylum. Armed soldiers are patrolling. In that crumbling building, he meets a young NGO volunteer who directs him to food and clothing. Nuri asks if she has seen Mohammed, but his description is too vague to be of any use. She says there was trouble last night in the camp, and that Nuri is lucky not to be in the “other place,” but she does not elaborate.
The presence of the armed guards in the refugee camp feels ominous, as if the refugees are viewed as criminals rather than humans in need of help. In noting Mohammed’s common features, the NGO volunteer makes him one of many, erasing his specific personhood and dismissing Nuri’s concern for the boy. This moment, combined with her insistence that Nuri is lucky not to be in the “other place,” indicates that, oftentimes, gratitude is expected in exchange for a minimal amount of aid.
Themes
The woman tells Nuri the island used to be a leper colony where people were chained to their beds and abandoned. After showing him where to find food and clothing, she leaves. Nuri hears a man in the hallway chide her for talking to Nuri instead of just asking what he needs, but the woman only laughs. Another volunteer helps Nuri select clothes and toiletries, and he wanders along the harbor looking for Mohammed before entering a café.
The image of the leper colony is dehumanizing and imbues the camp with a bleak atmosphere despite its current humanitarian purposes. The other volunteer’s remark about not speaking to refugees similarly paints them as less than human and potentially dangerous, like the lepers who lived there before.
Themes
Nuri gets free coffee in the café and watches the workers greeting other customers by name in various languages. He thinks of Sami and feels guilty about enjoying this moment. An older woman who works there asks if he is alone, and Nuri asks her where he can buy chocolate. At a convenience store, he buys Nutella and bread, excited to give it to Mohammed. He finds an Internet café and checks his email for word from Mustafa. His cousin has sent several messages.
Outside the camp, Nuri does find people who seem genuinely interested in connecting with the refugee population, providing a contrast to the dehumanization he has just experienced. Still, guilt born of grief stops Nuri from participating too much in the community, as if he feels undeserving of even the smallest joys. Even so, his spirits are lifted enough to buy Nutella for Mohammed and seek out correspondence with Mustafa.
Themes
The first email is actually from Dahab, who was checking Mustafa’s messages while he was in France. Dahab is very happy to hear from Nuri; she and Aya are in England awaiting asylum. The next email is from Mustafa himself. He reports that he has made it to England, but that Dahab is deeply depressed about Firas’s death. Mustafa tells Nuri the journey to the UK has gotten even more difficult but hopes that they will be closer soon. He regrets not leaving Aleppo with his wife and daughter, as Firas would still be alive.
Although Mustafa has at last reached his destination, he finds his family broken by the death of his son. The journey itself was traumatizing, as is the regret he feels for not leaving Aleppo with Firas when he had the chance. Like Nuri, home eludes Mustafa, as something will always be missing. Mustafa’s guilt mirrors Nuri’s feelings about Sami, keeping both men from feeling any relief; such emotions, though awful to experience, unite the cousins in mutual understanding.
Themes
Mustafa saying Nuri is like a brother to him brings back a memory of Mustafa’s father’s house in the mountains. The house contained many photos of Mustafa’s deceased mother. Mustafa was raised by his father and grandfather, and he treated the bees like his siblings. When Nuri came to visit later in life, Mustafa’s grandfather treated him like “the missing link in their family.” Mustafa showed Nuri the apiaries there and declared that the two of them would build great things together. Nuri replies to Mustafa’s email and recounts these memories and how the great things they built were taken away from them. He assures Mustafa he will not stop trying to get to him.
Nuri’s feelings toward Mustafa are distinctly familial; at this point in the narrative, Mustafa feels closer to Nuri than Afra, despite the physical distance between the two men. His memory of Mustafa’s relationship with the bees and the tenderness of his father and grandfather fill him with hope unlike anything else. His sharing these memories with Mustafa indicates a desire to reignite that hope in his cousin, pulling him through the present horrors to the new lives they will build together.
Themes
Nuri returns to the camp and finds Afra waiting for him. He asks if Mohammed came back but she says nobody came. Nuri goes back out to find dinner and searches the streets for Mohammed. On another beach, he finds several octopuses hanging out to dry and takes one to cook back at the cabin. This time, Afra is twirling Mohammed’s marble in her fingers with sad eyes. She realized she has lost her mother’s bracelet. Nuri comforts her and then cooks the octopus for the two of them. He waits anxiously for Mohammed to return, but he does not.
Nuri is once again preoccupied with Mohammed and ends up neglecting Afra, who is completely dependent upon him. His discovery of the octopuses feels serendipitous and, for a moment, lets him and Afra connect over the absurdity of what they have been through. His anxiety about Mohammed’s whereabouts escalates, creating a sense of dread in the narrative.
Themes
Afra goes to sleep, and Nuri listens to the father and daughter behind the sheet. The girl is afraid of the armed guards but says she felt her mother stroking her hair. Nuri leaves the food out for Mohammed but realizes the camp’s gates are now locked. He gets up and wanders through the cabins until he finds the entrance, but the soldiers will not let him out to search for Mohammed. Nuri asks if he is a prisoner and they do not respond. Unable to find his own way back to Afra, Nuri sleeps in the doorway of another cabin.
That the young girl feels her mother’s touch provides an example of a coping mechanism her mind has created to deal with the pain of losing her mother. Regardless of its truth, then, it brings her comfort, which is in short supply in the camp. Nuri’s status as a refugee seems to cause the soldiers at the camp’s locked gate to view him as a threat; though they do not say so outright, he and the others are still something like prisoners, unable to determine their own movements. The soldiers’ are compassionless in the face of Nuri’s pleas, further emphasizing how they fail to see him as another human in need of help.
Themes
Nuri wakes covered in rain and finds his way back to Afra. They share the bread and Nutella before Nuri goes out once again to search for Mohammed. In the old asylum, he follows the sounds of children playing and finds some NGO workers caring for little ones. They tell Nuri not to worry and give him colored pencils and paper for Mohammed when he turns up. As Nuri leaves, he imagines the ghosts of the people who once suffered here, gagged and chained to their beds in a place “where humans cease to be human.”
Nuri’s continued search for Mohammed gives him a purpose where he would otherwise be waiting, once again, for someone to tell him where to go. This is the second time the NGO workers dismiss Nuri’s concern for Mohammed, perhaps suggesting that boys go missing from the camp frequently. The narrative invokes the images of the lepers to underline how Nuri’s humanity is being stripped away in this place.
Themes
Nuri spends the afternoon in the café, drinking coffee and watching the family who runs it mingling with the refugees. When he does not find Mohammed, he goes to the registration center to check on their paperwork. A frazzled man is reading names off a list, but he does not call theirs, and Nuri is thankful because he does not want to leave the boy behind. The next day is the same, with more refugees arriving on the island. By the next evening, Nuri has lost hope. He opens the pack of colored pencils and gives them to Afra, who draws him a picture of a tree in a field of flowers. To Nuri, it looks like a dream.
That Nuri is grateful to be stuck on the island for longer shows he is prioritizing Mohammed over all else. This is understandable, given how much Mohammed reminds him of Sami. However, that connection also suggests that Nuri’s determination to save Mohammed is a way of coping with the reality that he couldn’t save Sami, a reality that he still has not directly addressed. Even when he loses hope of finding Mohammed, Afra is still there attempting to reach him through her otherworldly drawings, a place to which he would like to escape.
Themes
The next day, Nuri is given permission to leave the island for Athens. He, Afra, and Sami all receive paperwork, but he does not tell Afra and does not buy ferry tickets. Afra becomes restless, saying that the island is full of ghosts and “something not human.” Still, Nuri stalls, not wanting to leave Mohammed. Afra comes down with a terrible fever that makes her hallucinate that Sami is alive and playing. Afra worsens, and Nuri worries that she has given up hope. Finally, he tells her about the papers and waits for her to get stronger before buying tickets.
Nuri is finally forced to choose between waiting for Mohammed or saving Afra from the island’s bizarre depressive influence. Still, he stalls for as long as possible, indicating the extent of his fatherly care for Mohammed. Even so, he ends up treating Afra as the thing she professes to fear, “something not human.” This phrase recalls the lepers who used to live in the asylum and implies that the constant dehumanization of people in this space has left some kind of incorporeal mark, stripping people of their hope.
Themes
Nuri leaves a note for Mohammed. He has waited for one month and looked every day for the boy to no avail. He gives Mohammed money and the papers with Sami’s name and instructs him to buy a ferry ticket to Athens. Nuri also leaves Mohammed his phone number and tells him to make his way to England if he can. He writes that Mohammed should try not to be afraid if he has to cross more water. Nuri leaves the note in the cabin under the Nutella. He and Afra leave on the ferry the next night, with Nuri looking for Mohammed until the last moment.
With Mohammed’s disappearance at last clarified, the reader can reinterpret the scenes where he appears at the bed and breakfast in light of this new information. It seems implausible that Mohammed, a seven-year-old boy, would be able to make his way to England even if he did find Nuri’s note and money. It seems likely, at this point in the narrative, that the desperation that drives Nuri to leave the note and the money for Mohammed also conjured him in the bed and breakfast as dreams or hallucinations. In other words, Mohammed is not really in England, calling Nuri’s mental state into question. That Nuri tries to care for the boy even as he leaves him behind reveals how much he has come to think of Mohammed as another son he failed to save.
Themes
