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Chapter 8
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 in a closet at the end of the bed and breakfast’s upstairs hall. The Moroccan man finds him and leads him to his bedroom, where Afra has left a picture she drew of the bees’ apiaries. Afra herself is downstairs with the other residents, and Nuri sleeps some more before going to find her. He hears her laughter first and finds her in the living room playing dominoes with the others. It has been weeks since Afra has spoken to anyone and months since Nuri has heard her laugh.
Nuri’s nighttime wanderings seem to be evolving, as he wakes in the storage closet he entered with Mohammed rather than in the courtyard. Afra’s drawing of the apiaries—something beloved to Nuri—is a clear attempt to connect with him emotionally, since their distance has only grown since he no longer sleeps in their room. Finding Afra socializing is jarring for Nuri, as if she has begun to move through her grief independently of him.
Themes
Nuri watches the game and drinks tea before calling the doctor’s office to make an appointment for Afra. That night, he deliberately goes to bed with Afra to ensure he does not fall asleep elsewhere. In their room, he asks if she had a nice day, and she reports that it would have been nicer if he were present. Nuri hears a child’s voice calling out in Arabic and realizes it is coming from the garden. Afra tells him to come and lie down, but Nuri can still hear Mohammed’s voice singing a lullaby, and it reminds him of Sami.
Despite Afra’s surprising engagement with the other residents, Nuri remains on the sidelines, observing. The effort he makes to sleep in his and Afra’s room that night seems driven by the guilt of leaving her alone; her comment that her day would have been nicer with him around confirms her loneliness and desire to reconnect. Even as Nuri tries to be present in this moment, he hears Mohammed’s voice calling out to him, as if to intentionally distract him from the difficult conversations he has been dreading (although the reader does not quite know the content of those conversations at this point).
Themes
In a flashback, Neil leads Nuri and Afra through Athens to the refugee camp at Pedion tou Areos. The park is full of people camping in tents and on blankets, and Neil finds a space for them here. Later, Nuri senses that something is wrong in the park; gangs of men gather, watching and waiting like predators. Afra is clearly frightened and cold, as she and Nuri have no tent, only blankets. An NGO worker brings Coca-Cola to a group of nearby teenagers, which was banned in many Arab countries. He brings a can to Afra and Nuri as well.
The reader can assume that this park is the unsafe one the woman with the leaking breasts mentioned the night before. Essentially a tent city of displaced people, Nuri immediately senses something off about the inhabitants; despite the presence of NGO workers, the atmosphere in the park feels lawless and less observed than the previous camps. Even Afra can sense the danger in her blindness, hinting at dark things to come.
Themes
Later, Afra sleeps and older men linger around the park, watching the young children. An emaciated man (Nadim) sitting at the base of a statue plays guitar. The woman with the leaking breasts (Angeliki) from the school courtyard approaches Nuri; this is where she lives. She tells him that people steal children from the park, to sell their organs or for sexual exploitation. Despite Nuri’s discomfort, she continues to talk to him, telling him again that she is dead inside and that very few people ever escape this place because the borders of other countries have closed. Nuri wonders if Mohammed was taken like the children here.
That none of the men try to hide their intentions speaks to how frightening and unregulated the park is. Angeliki confirms Nuri’s suspicions that children are stolen and trafficked here, highlighting the uniquely vulnerable position of the refugees and the opportunistic people who take advantage of them. Angeliki’s confused speeches about being dead cast her as a kind of harbinger, warning of worse things to come and hinting that there is no escape. In his fear, Nuri’s mind turns to Mohammed, still compelled to protect the boy from these newly discovered horrors.
Themes
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Nuri watches an older man talking to a very young girl, noting something “overtly sexual” in her stance. The woman interrupts to ask him if he knows why Odysseus made his journey, and when Nuri turns back, the man and the girl are gone. The woman says that Odysseus made his journey to find his home again. Nuri is disturbed by her intensity, but since she will not leave, he asks her name. It is Angeliki, a Greek name meaning Angel. When Nuri asks where she is from, she seems disturbed and leaves. Unable to sleep, he watches the man on the statue’s step (Nadim) and notices wounds on his arm. He closes his eyes to shut out the sights.
The trafficking of children takes place almost in the background, and turning such dehumanization into a mundane occurrence makes it even more horrific. Angeliki’s discussion of Odysseus and home resonates with Nuri’s journey and the journey of many refugees, who leave home to try and find it elsewhere. The myth itself falls in line with the fairytale imagery of previous chapters, bringing a sense of otherworldliness to the park. Angeliki’s name and her sudden departure when questioned about her own home amplify her strangeness.
Themes
The next morning, Nuri wakes in Pedion tou Areos and sees local women distributing food to the refugees. One tries to help a young mother feed her baby formula but fails. She encourages the mother to eat instead, and the younger woman reports she still has no milk of her own. Nuri sits by the man on the statue steps, who is plucking a stringed instrument called a rebab. The music is beautiful, and Nuri learns the man’s name is Nadim; he is from Afghanistan. When Nadim stops to nap, Nuri wants to wake him because he does not want to hear the other sounds of the camp where they are trapped.
The struggle of the nursing mother highlights yet another difficulty refugees face when wanting for basic necessities like shelter and food, and it illustrates their frequent dependency on the compassion of others. Nuri himself seeks some small connection with Nadim, whose music brings Nuri unspeakable comfort, the importance of which cannot be overstated in such dire circumstances.
Themes
Afra sits listening to the sounds in the woods, as if sensing danger. Nuri watches Nadim return from elsewhere and the young mother try and fail to breastfeed her infant. Seeing her crying, Nuri contemplates how Afra has not cried for Sami; when he died, she “turned to stone.” Nadim comes to sit with Nuri and tells him he left Kabul because the Taliban does not like music. When Nuri presses him for more details, he confesses in a whisper that he worked for the Ministry of Defense but could not bring himself to kill people. Nuri senses there is more to the story but does not ask.
In spite of her blindness, Afra remains aware of her surroundings, suggesting she is actively participating in her survival where before she was withdrawn. Thinking of how she has not cried for Sami, Nuri seems judgmental, as if frustrated by Afra’s lack of outward grief, perhaps because if she expressed her emotions openly it would give him an opportunity to reach her. Nadim’s story about working for the Ministry of Defense suggests there is more to this man than meets the eye.
Themes
Nadim tells Nuri that Pedion tou Areos is dedicated to the god of war who loved murder and blood. Nuri senses something obliquely dangerous about Nadim. He asks where he learned to play his instrument, and Nadim tells him a story about watching his father play the drums until he himself learned. Nuri is captivated by Nadim’s singsong voice but notices that he did not answer his question. Nadim rolls a cigarette and scans the crowds with sharp eyes, like the men in the woods.
Though Nuri finds Nadim captivating, he also feels like the man is performing for him and has ulterior motives. Despite the fact that the men’s circumstances seem outwardly similar, Nuri is reluctant to trust Nadim, not because he is keeping people at a distance but because the park itself invokes an atmosphere of danger. Nadim’s similarities to the men who lurk near the woods remind the reader and Nuri to keep their guard up.
Themes
As the day wears on, groups of men emerge from the trees, hovering nearby. Nuri asks Nadim to use his cell phone and finds two emails from Mustafa. He tells Nuri he has put an ad on Facebook to see if anyone has a beehive to donate to him. In the second message, he reports that a woman donated a hive and a colony of British black bees, who are well suited for the English climate. Clearly excited, he tells Nuri about the multitude of heather and lavender that grows in Britain, saying that “Where there are bees there are flowers, and where there are flowers there is new life and hope.”
Mustafa’s emails return a sense of normalcy to Nuri, who has felt destabilized and exposed since entering the park. Hearing that there are bees in England inspires Nuri to hope that there is a life waiting for him outside of Pedion tou Areos, where everyone seems abandoned and forgotten. Mustafa’s assertion that it is the bees who cause the flowers, not the other way around, might be interpreted as suggesting that hopeful people can create what they need to survive. This has certainly been the case with Mustafa.
Themes
Nuri and Nadim talk a bit more, and again Nuri senses that there is more to the man than meets the eye. A man sitting nearby suddenly catches Nadim’s eye, triggering a change in Nadim. He seems nervous, then quickly stands and approaches two teenage boys who are otherwise alone. Nuri watches Nadim introduce himself and hand them money. Nuri tells Afra he doesn’t like it here, that something is wrong. Afra agrees, which comforts him. He tells her about Mustafa and assures her they will find him.
Regardless of Nadim’s music and his easy camaraderie, his dealings with the men from the woods add nuance to his character, mixing light with dark. That Nuri is comforted by Afra sharing in his discomfort shows the importance of humans empathizing with one another, even in situations where simple agreement does not change one’s physical circumstances.
Themes
At night, Nuri imagines the crickets are bees. He realizes he forgot to respond to Mustafa and thinks of his mother’s silk fan. She supported him when he decided to become a beekeeper, whereas his father was immensely disappointed. Nuri flashes back to the moment he told his father about his decision to leave the family business. His father accused Mustafa of leading Nuri astray, and he seemed to shrink, as if he had lost his purpose.
Nuri’s comforting memories of the bees become muddled with his memories of disappointing his father. Here, the narrative gives an example of the complex life Nuri was already leading in Syria before he was a refugee, adding another layer to his lived experience. Fleeing his home upended every part of his life, to the point that he is even now questioning his decision to become a beekeeper, reflecting that he sacrificed many things, including his relationship with his father, to gain the life he has now lost.
Themes
Nuri wakes to the sound of a baby crying and Angeliki sitting beside him, her breasts leaking milk. He thinks of the stories of the Arabian Nights that his mother used to tell him, the captivating and fearful nature of night and darkness. It sounds like the baby’s cries are coming from the woods, and Nuri stays awake, feeling unsafe. He remembers how animal Afra felt while breastfeeding Sami, primally connected to her son. Afterwards, she painted more beautifully than before. The crying stops, and Angeliki closes her eyes. Nuri tries and fails to avoid thinking about Nadim, Mohammed, and Sami.
Angeliki’s leaking breasts are concrete evidence of a lost child, presenting a uniquely public form of grief. The mention of the Arabian Nights raises observations about the ability of stories to hold darkness and doom at bay, to be a kind of escape for the listener from their current circumstances. But no escape exists from the baby’s cries, which feel like a warning. The fear makes Nuri primal like Afra when she was breastfeeding. Humanity feels more susceptible to baser instincts in the park, and Nuri’s certainty that nothing good is transpiring in the woods leaves him quietly distraught and ultimately helpless.
Themes
Every night in the park, the predators come out of the woods. The boys Nadim befriended disappear and reappear; they have new things but look more troubled. Angeliki sleeps beside Nuri and Afra every night. Afra refuses to draw with the colored pencils, preoccupied by the sounds around her. She asks Nuri who is in the woods, and he tells her he does not know. More and more refugees arrive in the park every day. Although Syrian refugees are supposed to have priority, Nuri feels that everyone here has been forgotten.
That the last portion of this chapter is told in summary shows that Nuri and Afra are stuck in the park, making no forward movement. The predators move boldly in the open, knowing no one will hold them accountable. Nuri and Afra’s days adopt a listless routine, validating Angeliki’s claim that Athens is where people become trapped. The fear of the woods consumes Afra to the point that she cannot draw her other worlds, reiterating the feeling that there is no escape. In this way, the narrative shows how refugees can become forgotten in terrible living quarters that retraumatize them.
Themes
