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Mustafa
Sami is Nuri and Afra’s seven-year-old son who dies in Syria. Although the narrative doesn’t make this clear for quite a while, a bomb kills Sami while he is playing in the garden as Afra watches from the house; the last thing she sees before going blind is his eyes looking upward. The novel withholds details of Sami’s death for quite some time as a way of emphasizing Nuri’s unwillingness to face that terrible event. Similarly, a doctor suggests that Afra’s blindness is a reaction to the trauma of watching Sami die, her body’s attempt at protecting her by shutting down her sight. In life, Sami was close to his cousin, Aya, frightened of water, and loved to tell stories. Although he is not initially aware of it, Nuri’s mind creates Mohammed, a young boy around Sami’s age, to cope with the loss of his son as he journeys to England. In flashbacks near the novel’s end, Nuri remembers attempting to calm Sami’s fear of the bombs by giving him a key to a secret house that does not break. In this way, Sami embodies the childlike hope that a safe place and a better world are possible, a hope that Nuri and other refugees struggle to believe in throughout the course of the story. At the novel’s conclusion, Nuri and Afra reminisce about Sami for the first time since his death, beginning the process of healing together.
Sami Quotes in The Beekeeper of Aleppo
The The Beekeeper of Aleppo quotes below are all either spoken by Sami or refer to Sami. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
“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.”
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“There’ll be no bombs there,” he’d said, “and the houses won’t break like these do.” I wasn’t sure if he’d meant the Lego houses or the real houses, and then it saddened me when I realized that Sami had been born into a world where everything could break. Real houses crumbled, fell apart. Nothing was solid in Sami’s world. And yet somehow he was trying to imagine a place where buildings didn’t fall down around him.
Chapter 10
Quotes
“[…]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.”
Chapter 13
Quotes
“I’m building a house!” he says. “When we go to England we will live in this house. This house won’t break like these do.”
I remember now. I remember him lying in bed, afraid of the bombs, and how I had given him an old bronze key that once opened a shed at the apiaries. I had tucked it beneath his pillow so that he could feel that somewhere in all the ruins there was a place where he could be safe.
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Sami Quotes in The Beekeeper of Aleppo
The The Beekeeper of Aleppo quotes below are all either spoken by Sami or refer to Sami. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 2
Quotes
“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.”
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
“There’ll be no bombs there,” he’d said, “and the houses won’t break like these do.” I wasn’t sure if he’d meant the Lego houses or the real houses, and then it saddened me when I realized that Sami had been born into a world where everything could break. Real houses crumbled, fell apart. Nothing was solid in Sami’s world. And yet somehow he was trying to imagine a place where buildings didn’t fall down around him.
Chapter 10
Quotes
“[…]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.”
Chapter 13
Quotes
“I’m building a house!” he says. “When we go to England we will live in this house. This house won’t break like these do.”
I remember now. I remember him lying in bed, afraid of the bombs, and how I had given him an old bronze key that once opened a shed at the apiaries. I had tucked it beneath his pillow so that he could feel that somewhere in all the ruins there was a place where he could be safe.
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