Afra Character Analysis

I am scared of my wife’s eyes. She can’t see out and no one can see in. Look, they are like stones, gray stones, sea stones. […] Look at the folds of her stomach, the color of desert honey, darker in the creases, and the fine, fine silver lines on the skin of her breasts, and the tips of her fingers with the tiny cuts, where the ridges and valley patterns were once stained with blue or yellow or red paint. Her laughter was gold once, you would have seen as well as heard it. Look at her, because I think she is disappearing.

And for a while on those evenings […] we were still happy. Life was close enough to normal for us to forget our doubts, or at least to keep them locked away somewhere in the dark recesses of our minds while we made plans for the future.

“We have to go, Afra,” I said.

“I’ve already told you. No.”

“If we stay—”

“If we stay, we’ll die,” she said.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly.” Her eyes were open and blank now.

“You’re waiting for a bomb to hit us. If you want it to happen, it will never happen.”

“Then I’ll stop waiting. I won’t leave him.”

Afra was talking about Aleppo like it was a magical land out of a story. It was like she’d forgotten everything else, the years leading up to the war, the riots, the dust storms, the droughts, the way we had struggled even then, even before the bombs, to stay alive.

Although it’s only early afternoon I lie down next to her on the bed, and I let her put her arm around me and press her palm onto my chest, but I won’t touch her. She tries to hold my hand, and I edge it away. My hands belong to another time, when loving my wife was a simple thing.

“What happened to her?” he said to me, and there was an unmistakable note of curiosity in his voice. I could suddenly imagine him collecting horror stories—real-life tales of loss and destruction. His glasses were fixed on me now.

“A bomb,” I said.

As I stood there with Afra and Mohammed and the other families, I felt lost, as if I was out alone in a dark cold sea with nothing to hold on to. This was the first time in a long time that I had felt any safety, any security, and yet in this moment the sky felt too big, the rising dusk held an unknown darkness.

“It’s so beautiful.”

For some reason, when I said this, she stopped drawing, so that the right side of the picture was left without color. Strangely this reminded me of the white crumbling streets once the war came. The way the color was washed out of everything. The way the flowers died. She handed it to me.

“It’s not finished,” I said.

“It is.”

“[…]sometimes our bodies can find ways to cope when we are faced with things that are too much for us to bear. You saw your son die, Mrs. Ibrahim, and maybe something in you had to shut down.”

“You are lost in the darkness, Nuri,” she says. “It is a fact. You’ve gotten completely lost somewhere in the dark.”

I look at her eyes, so full of fear and questions and longing, and I had thought it was she who was lost, that Afra was the one stuck in the dark places of her mind. But I can see how present she is, how much she is trying to reach me.

“You’re lost in a different world. You’re not here at all. I don’t know you anymore.”

I don’t say anything.

“Close your eyes,” she says.

So I close my eyes.

“Can you see the bees, Nuri? Try to see them in your mind. Hundreds and thousands of them in the sunlight, on the flowers, the hives, and the honeycomb. Can you see it?”

[…]

I don’t reply.

“You think it’s me who can’t see,” she says.

I am scared of my wife’s eyes. She can’t see out and no one can see in. Look, they are like stones, gray stones, sea stones. […] Look at the folds of her stomach, the color of desert honey, darker in the creases, and the fine, fine silver lines on the skin of her breasts, and the tips of her fingers with the tiny cuts, where the ridges and valley patterns were once stained with blue or yellow or red paint. Her laughter was gold once, you would have seen as well as heard it. Look at her, because I think she is disappearing.

And for a while on those evenings […] we were still happy. Life was close enough to normal for us to forget our doubts, or at least to keep them locked away somewhere in the dark recesses of our minds while we made plans for the future.

“We have to go, Afra,” I said.

“I’ve already told you. No.”

“If we stay—”

“If we stay, we’ll die,” she said.

“Exactly.”

“Exactly.” Her eyes were open and blank now.

“You’re waiting for a bomb to hit us. If you want it to happen, it will never happen.”

“Then I’ll stop waiting. I won’t leave him.”

Afra was talking about Aleppo like it was a magical land out of a story. It was like she’d forgotten everything else, the years leading up to the war, the riots, the dust storms, the droughts, the way we had struggled even then, even before the bombs, to stay alive.

Although it’s only early afternoon I lie down next to her on the bed, and I let her put her arm around me and press her palm onto my chest, but I won’t touch her. She tries to hold my hand, and I edge it away. My hands belong to another time, when loving my wife was a simple thing.

“What happened to her?” he said to me, and there was an unmistakable note of curiosity in his voice. I could suddenly imagine him collecting horror stories—real-life tales of loss and destruction. His glasses were fixed on me now.

“A bomb,” I said.

As I stood there with Afra and Mohammed and the other families, I felt lost, as if I was out alone in a dark cold sea with nothing to hold on to. This was the first time in a long time that I had felt any safety, any security, and yet in this moment the sky felt too big, the rising dusk held an unknown darkness.

“It’s so beautiful.”

For some reason, when I said this, she stopped drawing, so that the right side of the picture was left without color. Strangely this reminded me of the white crumbling streets once the war came. The way the color was washed out of everything. The way the flowers died. She handed it to me.

“It’s not finished,” I said.

“It is.”

“[…]sometimes our bodies can find ways to cope when we are faced with things that are too much for us to bear. You saw your son die, Mrs. Ibrahim, and maybe something in you had to shut down.”

“You are lost in the darkness, Nuri,” she says. “It is a fact. You’ve gotten completely lost somewhere in the dark.”

I look at her eyes, so full of fear and questions and longing, and I had thought it was she who was lost, that Afra was the one stuck in the dark places of her mind. But I can see how present she is, how much she is trying to reach me.

“You’re lost in a different world. You’re not here at all. I don’t know you anymore.”

I don’t say anything.

“Close your eyes,” she says.

So I close my eyes.

“Can you see the bees, Nuri? Try to see them in your mind. Hundreds and thousands of them in the sunlight, on the flowers, the hives, and the honeycomb. Can you see it?”

[…]

I don’t reply.

“You think it’s me who can’t see,” she says.