The Beekeeper of Aleppo

In the present, Nuri and Afra meet with the social worker, Lucy Fisher, who will help them claim asylum in the United Kingdom. She is impressed by Nuri’s English and asks about their accommodations at the bed and breakfast. She tells them that they will be interviewed by an immigration officer and that Afra can see a doctor once her papers are processed. Nuri is struck by the phrase “unable to live safely in any part of your own country” in the packet of papers she gives him, and he asks her if she plans to send them back to a different part of Syria.

Lucy Fisher implores Nuri and Afra to “get your story straight,” that simplicity and coherence will be essential in their immigration interview. Still confused about where he and Afra will be sent if this falls through, Nuri’s hands shake and his vision blurs. The social worker brings him a glass of water and tells him that she is not the enemy. Nuri simultaneously senses her frustration and feels unseen by her. He wishes he knew who his enemy is.

Later, Nuri sits in the concrete courtyard of the bed and breakfast, thinking of his bees. He hears a buzz and discovers a bumblebee with no wings. Taking the bee inside, he lets her sleep in his palm while the other residents take tea. Nuri tells the Moroccan man there is not much he can do to help the flightless bee, who has been banished from her colony. He speculates that the rain keeps the bees away, but the Moroccan man suggests that English bees are different. Nuri leaves the bee on a plant in the courtyard.

Nuri uses the computer in the living room to check for messages from Mustafa. Mustafa left Syria before Nuri and Afra and is waiting for them in the north of England. He is the reason Nuri came all this way, but Nuri is afraid to face his cousin as broken as he is. After the room empties out, a sensor light illuminates the garden. Nuri sees the shadow of a young boy and investigates. It is Mohammed, whose identity and presence remain unexplained; the boy greets him as “Uncle Nuri.” Mohammed tells him to look through the fence at the green garden. The boy smells of lemons thanks to the blossom cupped in his palm, which triggers another flashback.

In the flashback, Nuri visits Mustafa’s house in Aleppo only to find him gone. Mustafa left behind a photo of the two of them with the apiaries and a letter explaining his sudden departure. He came upon a group of soldiers executing boys near the river and heard one of the boys calling for his father. Haunted by the memory of his own son, Mustafa shot three of the soldiers with a rifle he found but left one alive. Believing the military will find him, Mustafa decided to finally leave Aleppo, and he pleads in his letter for Nuri to convince Afra to do the same soon.

Afra, now blind and childless (the details of Sami’s fate are being withheld), still refuses to leave Aleppo. Each day, Nuri goes into the city and brings back a gift for her—often broken and discarded things—trying to elicit any reaction. One day, he brings her a pomegranate. When he returns, Afra insists he tell her what he saw, so he describes the bombed buildings and the rotting fruit at the grocery store. Even the pomegranate—a fruit she loves—does not reach Afra. She can tell that Nuri watched someone die today, and she demands that he tell her about it.

Reluctantly, Nuri tells Afra that he saw two soldiers using an eight-year-old boy playing alone for target practice, taking bets. Afra asks what the boy was wearing and other details, “keeping him alive” as long as possible in her mind’s eye. Nuri tells her the soldiers shot the boy and continued to fire while his mother screamed from the house. Afra holds Nuri while he weeps. They argue in bed about leaving Aleppo. Afra refuses and does not contradict Nuri when he says she is waiting for a bomb to hit them. She does not want to leave Sami, even though they both know he is already gone (the narrative has not yet shed light on what, exactly, happened to him).

The next day, Nuri goes out and is overwhelmed by the city’s devastation. He breathes in the smell of a rosebush and pretends he cannot see all the things he has seen. At a checkpoint, he encounters two soldiers who try to force a gun into his hands. Nuri pleads, saying he will join them but needs a few days to take care of his sick wife. The soldiers tell him that he will either join their ranks the next time they see him, or else they will kill him. Nuri returns home and tries again to reason with Afra, but she shuts down. Nuri thinks of the way bees give one another directions and wishes he had someone to guide him.

Nuri and Afra wake to the sound of men approaching their house. They take shelter in a hideout Nuri dug in the garden, holding each other close in the subterranean space. Nuri remembers Afra walking with Sami wearing bright colors, looking at him over her shoulder, but the image fades. With Afra asleep against him, Nuri considers ending her misery and breaking her neck. She wakes when the men’s footsteps are close and asks Nuri if they will be killed. Nuri thinks of covering her mouth, not trusting her not to call out. When she lets out her breath after the soldiers retreat, he realizes she still has a will to live.

When morning comes, Nuri and Afra emerge from their hiding place to find their home ransacked and graffitied. Seeing it, Nuri wishes he was blind too. The soldiers have found all of Sami’s old toys, and they are strewn across the floor. Nuri tells Afra he is leaving whether or not she comes with him and begins to pack. He finds her sitting with a Lego house Sami built when they told him they would move to England. Sami said “the houses won’t break like these do,” and Nuri wasn’t sure whether he meant Lego houses or Syrian houses. At last, Afra asks Nuri to take her away from this place, her eyes moving around the room “as if she could see it all.”