The Island of Missing Trees, page 24
The silence stretched on before Dr Norman spoke again. ‘I’m afraid I cannot answer this question. I’m bound by confidentiality. I don’t exactly know what Defne told you, but I’m not at liberty to divulge personal information about my patients. No matter how many years might have passed.’
‘But, Doctor –’
‘I’m really sorry, I cannot help on this matter. If you’ll allow an old man to speak his mind, I’d advise you to leave this matter behind. It was all a long time ago.’
When Kostas hung up, after a minute or so of strained small talk, he stayed still, staring at the sliver of horizon through the balcony rails.
‘Who were you talking to?’
Startled, he whipped around. She had got out of bed, her feet bare, her body half covered with a bedsheet. As soon as he saw her face, he knew she had heard everything.
‘It was Dr Norman,’ he said. ‘He refused to tell me.’
She sat on the only chair on the balcony, not caring that the couple at the front desk might spot her from the patio below. ‘Do you have a cigarette?’
He shook his head.
‘I know you don’t smoke,’ Defne said vacantly, ‘but I kind of hoped you might have a packet tucked at the bottom of your suitcase. Sometimes people do things that run counter to their nature.’
‘Please, Defne …’ He held her hand, tracing the lines on her palm with his thumb as if searching for the warmth he had found there the night before. ‘No more riddles. I need to know what happened after I left Cyprus. What happened to our baby?’
In her eyes, he watched one emotion overlay another.
‘He died,’ Defne said, and her voice was flat like a wall. ‘I’m sorry. I thought he would be safe with this family.’
‘What family?’
‘An English couple. Reliable, decent people. They desperately wanted a child. It seemed the right thing to do. They promised they would take excellent care of him and I know they did. He was a happy baby. They let me come and see him. They told everyone I was the babysitter. I didn’t mind, so long as I could be with him.’
Tears started streaming down her cheeks, even as her face remained still, as if she didn’t realize she was crying.
Kostas put his head on her lap, burying his face into her scent. Defne raked her fingers through his hair. The space between them grew thinner, a tenderness unfurling where pain had been.
‘Will you tell me – everything?’ he asked.
And this time, she did.
Summer 1974. The roads were dusty and rough, hard to drive on, the sun scorching, the kind of heat that insinuates itself into your pores and never leaves.
She had tried everything. She had lifted every piece of heavy furniture she could find in the house, jumped from high walls, taken scalding-hot baths and drunk cup after cup of slippery elm, the bitter taste burning down her throat. When one method failed, she embarked on the next. Towards the end of the week, exasperated, she used a knitting needle, pushing the sharp edge inside her, the pain so unexpected, she doubled over as her knees buckled under her weight. Afterwards, on the bathroom floor, she lay shaking, sobbing, her voice jagged like a saw, cutting into her very being. She knew there were midwives in the community who could induce miscarriage, but how could she get their help without her parents finding out? And what would happen if they did? That she was pregnant was shameful enough; that it was by a Greek man, beyond conceivable.
When she reeled out of the bathroom, she found her sister glued to the transistor radio. Meryem cast a sideways glance at her.
‘You okay? You look like a wreck.’
‘My stomach,’ Defne said, her face flushed. ‘I must have eaten something bad.’
But Meryem wasn’t paying attention. ‘Have you heard the news? The Turkish army is here! They’ve landed in Kyrenia, they’re coming.’
‘What?’
‘The Greeks sent two navy torpedo boats to stop them, but they were hit by the Turkish air force. We are in a war!’
Defne could not process the news immediately, her mind spinning with disbelief. But she understood that soon the streets would be teeming with soldiers, paramilitary groups, armoured vehicles. She knew if she were to get an abortion, now was the only chance to still find a way. In a few days, the roads would be closed, maybe a curfew imposed indefinitely. There was no time to think, no time to doubt. Pocketing all the money she found in her father’s jacket, emptying the jar of coins in the kitchen, she left the house without a clue as to where she could go. There were Turkish doctors in the area, but she worried that someone might inform her family. With new barriers springing up between entire neighbourhoods, it was almost impossible to get hold of a Greek doctor. Her only chance was a British physician, but all foreign medical staff were leaving the island.
‘I cannot treat you,’ said Dr Norman.
He had examined her, asking as few questions as possible. He was kind and avuncular, and seemed to understand the predicament she was in. But he would not help.
‘I have money,’ Defne said, opening her handbag. ‘Please, this is all I have. If it’s not enough, I’ll work and pay you, I promise.’
He took a long, ragged breath. ‘Put that back. This is not about money. Our medical practices are closed. We are not authorized to work. Both my nurses have already returned to England and I’m leaving tomorrow morning.’
‘Please.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I have nowhere else to go. My family will never forgive me.’
‘I’m sorry, I cannot take your case,’ he said again, his voice thickening.
‘Doctor –’ She started to explain, but then she stopped, something constricting her chest. With a curt nod, she clutched her handbag, turned her back and walked towards the door, the room suddenly too small to contain her.
He watched her for a few seconds, pressure building behind his eyes, pulsating.
‘Wait.’ Dr Norman gave an inward sigh. ‘There’s another plane in two days’ time. I suppose I could take that one.’
She stopped, her face etched with something like relief, though not quite. She reached for his hands, crying, all the tension she had been storing up inside finally finding its way out.
‘My child, calm down.’
He made her sit; gave her a glass of water. A clock down the hall ticked away steadily, each stroke a heartbeat.
‘I have a sister who went through a similar ordeal when she was about your age.’ His forehead wrinkled as the memory surfaced. ‘She was madly in love, planning to get married. It turned out the man had a family already – he had a wife and five children, can you believe? When he heard she was pregnant, he cut off all ties with her. It was the week before the 1950 general election, wintertime. My sister didn’t tell me anything, not until later. She visited some kitchen-table surgery on her own. They treated her roughly. She had life-changing complications afterwards. She could never give birth again. I want to help you because I fear that if I don’t, you will end up in a backstreet den.’
Listening to his words, Defne felt dizzy.
‘There’s one issue, though,’ Dr Norman said, his voice still gentle but with a new intensity. ‘We have been ordered to close all offices. I will hand over the keys this evening. I cannot perform the procedure here.’
She nodded, slowly. ‘I think I know of a place.’
The next day, early evening, the back room of The Happy Fig had been transformed into a makeshift clinic. Yiorgos and Yusuf had tidied away the chairs, put three tables side by side and laid newly laundered tablecloths over them, trying to make everything as clean and comfortable as possible. It had been a whole week since the doors of the tavern had closed to customers. Despite the reports of military clashes and civilian casualties, the exodus of populations from each side of the island and rumours of a permanent partition, the two men, partners for long years, had stayed put, unable to leave Nicosia. Given that they did not want to part ways, where would they go – north or south? The faster the chaos around them swirled, the deeper they had sunk into a state of torpor. When Defne told them about her predicament, they instantly offered help.
Standing in the middle of the room, Dr Norman prepared the chloroform he planned to use as an anaesthetic. He wasn’t going to give Defne the usual dose, she was too pale and shaken, and he feared that her frail and stressed body might not withstand it. As he sterilized his instruments, she began to cry.
‘My child, be brave,’ said Dr Norman. ‘It’s going to be all right. I’m going to sedate you; you won’t feel a thing. But please consider one more time, is this really what you want? Is there no way you can talk to your family? Maybe they’ll understand.’
She shook her head as the tears kept rolling down her cheeks.
‘Oh, darling Defne, don’t c-c-cry.’ Yusuf, by her side, caressed her hair. ‘You d-d-don’t have to do this. Look, we can r-r-raise the baby. You’ll always be the mother, people don’t need to know. It’ll be a s-secret. Yiorgos and I will take care. We’ll f-find a way. It’ll be all right. What do you s-say?’
But his kind words only made her cry harder.
Yiorgos loped off into the kitchen and returned with a glass of carob juice. Defne refused it; the mere sight of it reminded her of Kostas.
They closed the windows, then opened them again, the heat suffocating despite the ceiling fans. The air outside smelled of citronella, planted to get rid of mosquitoes. Meanwhile, Chico, locked in his cage so that he would not disturb anyone, squawked words picked up from happier days.
‘Hello, kiss-kiss! Oh la la!’
And that was when they heard the sound of an engine. A car was approaching, its tyres crunching on the gravel. Then, another one. Customers never drove this far as the tavern was nestled between olive groves, they preferred to park in the clearing about a hundred feet away and walk up the hill.
‘I’ll go and check,’ said Yiorgos. ‘Probably one of our regulars hoping to sneak in for a tipple on the sly. I’ll tell them to come back another time.’
‘Wait for me,’ said Yusuf as he joined him.
But it wasn’t loyal customers craving a drink at their favourite watering hole. It was a group of strangers – young, grubby, sullen men driving around, blowing off steam, spoiling for a fight, alcohol on their breath. They left their cars – all except one. In their hands, they had sticks and clubs, which they held awkwardly, as if they had forgotten why they had taken them.
‘We are closed,’ said Yiorgos. There was a note of caution in his voice as he tried to work out their intentions. ‘Were you looking for something?’
None of the men said a word in response. Their expressions hardened as their eyes raked the tavern, rage unseating levity. That was when Yusuf noticed something he had initially missed. One of the men was also carrying a can of paint with a brush poking out of it.
Yusuf couldn’t tear his gaze from the paint. It was bright pink, the colour of the chewing gum that he had once found stuck on the door with a menacing note. The colour of berries that grew on evergreen shrubs clinging precariously to the side of cliffs, gripping the void dangerously.
Fig Tree
Of all the animals in my ecosystem, there were some I admired and others I quietly disliked, but I don’t ever remember regretting meeting anyone as I tried to understand and respect every form of life. Except for once, that is. Except her. I wish I had never known her or that I could, at least, find a way to wipe her from my memories. Even though she is long dead, I still hear that high-pitched sound sometimes, an eerie vibration in the air as though she is fast approaching, buzzing in the dark.
Mosquitoes are humankind’s nemesis. They’ve killed half the humans who ever walked the earth. It always amazes me that people are terrified of tigers and crocodiles and sharks, not to mention imaginary vampires and zombies, forgetting that their deadliest foe is none other than the tiny mosquito.
With its swamps, marshes, peatlands and streams, Cyprus used to be their Eden. Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol … they were everywhere once upon a time. An ancient clay tablet found here read, ‘the Babylonian mosquito devil is now in my land; he has slain all the men of my country.’ Well, it would have been more accurate if it said, ‘she has slain … ’, as it is the female of the species that causes the carnage, but I guess it’s not the first time women have been written out of history.
They have been around forever, though not as long as us trees. Across the world you can find mosquitoes from prehistoric times trapped in our resin or petrified sap, sleeping peacefully in their amber wombs. It is remarkable that they still carry the blood of prehistoric reptiles, mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers, woolly rhinoceroses …
Malaria. The disease that decimated multitudes of soldiers and civilians alike. That is until Ronald Ross – the Scottish doctor with a lantern jaw and spiked moustache – made the discovery that physicians had overlooked since the days of Hippocrates. In a humble laboratory in India, Ross cut into the stomach of an Anopheles mosquito and there it was, the evidence he had been seeking. It wasn’t swamp gas that carried malaria, but a parasite. Armed with this knowledge, he set out to eradicate the disease across the entire British Empire. It was a fateful day in 1913 when Ross visited Cyprus.
Yet the fight against mosquitoes would have to wait until the end of the Second World War, when a Turkish doctor, Mehmet Aziz, launched the campaign in earnest. Having suffered from blackwater fever as a boy, he had seen first-hand how pernicious it was. Supported by the Colonial Development Fund, he dedicated himself to the cause. What I find remarkable about him is that he paid no attention to the ethnic or religious divisions that were tearing the island apart, and focused solely on saving human lives. Starting in the Karpas Peninsula, Aziz had every breeding place sprayed with insecticide, and then again, to wipe out possible larvae. It took him four arduous years, but he would triumph in the end.
Since then Cyprus has been malaria-free. Yet that didn’t mean mosquitoes were eradicated completely. They continued breeding in gutters and cesspools. As they loved hanging around fig trees and had a taste for ripe or rotting fruit, I had made the acquaintance of quite a few over the years.
In the tavern they would hover around every night, molesting the customers. Blindingly swift, they whizzed past, zooming up and down their prey in the time between two heartbeats. To keep them at bay, Yusuf and Yiorgos placed pots of basil, rosemary or lemongrass on each table. And when that didn’t suffice, they burned coffee grounds. But as the evening carried on and the customers sweated from the booze and the heat, emanating lactic acid, the pestilential bugs swooped in again. Swatting at them was no solution either. A human’s clumsy hands are no match for the speed of their wings. Even so, they are no risk takers. They’ll remember the scent of the person who tried to kill them and avoid that person for a while, allowing enough time for their prey to forget their presence. They are patient like that, waiting for the right moment to taste blood.
They attack animals too. Cattle, sheep, goats, horses … and parrots. Bitten from beak to claw, poor Chico complained all the time. Frankly, none of this bothered me back then. I had accepted mosquitoes the way they were, not giving them further thought – until, that is, I met her in August 1976. By then The Happy Fig had been closed for almost two years and Chico had long gone. It was just me inside the tavern. I was still waiting for Yiorgos and Yusuf to return. I was waiting faithfully. That summer I yielded my best harvest yet. That’s the thing about trees, we can grow amidst the rubble, spreading out our roots beneath the detritus of yesterday. My figs, bursting with flavour, remained unplucked from branches, uncollected from the ground, where they attracted all manner of animals and insects.
The mosquito appeared out of nowhere one midnight and found me, lonely and distressed, yearning for the past. She perched on one of my branches, glancing around nervously as she detected the scent of citronella in the air. Instantly, she took off to evade the scent and landed on another branch on the opposite side.
She told me about her children. Whatever one might think of female mosquitoes, there is no denying they are good mothers. They can consume blood up to three times their own body weight and use it as a prenatal supplement. But the mosquito said that lately she could not properly provide for her eggs as she had been infected by the infamous parasite. Desperately trying to nourish her offspring, she ended up feeding the enemy inside.
This is how I came to learn that recently there had been a surge in reports of malaria across the Mediterranean, an uptick in the number of cases due to climate change and international travel. Mosquitoes had developed resistance to DDT, and the parasites to chloroquine. I wasn’t too surprised to hear this, though. Humans lose focus easily. Immersed in their politics and conflicts, they get sidetracked, and that is when diseases and pandemics run rampant. But I was taken aback by what the mosquito shared with me next. She talked about a baby she had bitten several times – Yusuf Yiorgos Robinson. I felt a chill spreading from the tip of my branches down to my lateral roots.
Hundreds of British babies died in the 1960s in Cyprus, the cause still unknown. And when Defne’s son, adopted by an English couple, succumbed to acute respiratory distress caused by the insect-borne parasite, he would be buried in the same place, next to the other infants who had lost their lives on this island about a decade before.
A wave of sadness washed over me when I found this out. I tried not to hate the mosquito. I reminded myself that she, too, was a casualty of the parasite, and sometimes what you called a perpetrator was just another name for an unacknowledged victim. But I could not see it that way. I failed to overcome the bitterness and anger that rose up in me. To this day, whenever I hear that buzzing sound in the air my trunk stiffens, my limbs tense up and my leaves tremble.
Soldiers and Babies
Cyprus, early 2000s
On the balcony of the hotel, when Defne stopped speaking, Kostas stood up and put his arms around her, feeling her pain surge through him. For a while the two of them gazed silently at the island stretching out before their eyes. A hawk cried overhead, riding the air currents, miles above the earth.
