The Island of Missing Trees

In 2010s London, the fig tree lies buried underneath the soil, listening to the sounds she can hear above ground. She reflects on how rich and teeming with life the soil is and how trees are able to pick up on sounds around them, from the buzzing of bees near their leaves to the rushing of water inside its trunk. Despite the sounds keeping her company, the tree misses Kostas, Ada, and most of all Cyprus and the sounds of its many birds.

Defne and Kostas meet again in 1974 Cyprus, and Defne expresses her worry that it is dangerous for them to keep meeting like this. On her way back last time she had been apprehended by her uncle and had to lie about visiting the pharmacist to buy medicines for Meryam. Luckily, Meryam had covered for her the next day. Kostas tells her of a tavern called The Happy Fig where they can meet, which he visits every week to sell carob jam made by his mother. The tavern is owned by two men who Kostas believes will help him and Defne, so Defne agrees to try the tavern as their new meeting place.

The fig tree reveals her background. She was born in 1878, the same year Sultan Abdul Hamid II, ruler of the Ottoman Empire, secretly ceded control of Cyprus to Queen Victoria in exchange for protection from Russia. Following World War I, which saw the British and Ottoman Empires on different sides, Britain annexed Cyprus, and it became a colony. British troops swarmed the island shortly after but expressed their disappointment at the lack of forests they believed the island would be covered in. The fig tree explains that years of different kinds of trauma, from locust swarms and deforestation to the constant succession of wars the island had endured in the recent past, had all affected the previously rich, green cover. In its lifetime, the fig tree has witnessed all of this and more, including the first attacks on Britons in the name of enosis in the 1950s and the eventual rise of EOKA and TMT, the respective Greek and Turkish nationalist organizations that turned against the English and each other.

Defne visits The Happy Fig for the first time with Kostas. The tavern is owned by two men in their forties, a Greek Cypriot named Yiorgos and a Turkish Cypriot named Yusuf. The tavern is an extremely popular spot frequented by people of all backgrounds, from Greek and Turk Cypriots to tourists and members of the UN. Upon entering the tavern, Defne spots a brightly colored parrot perched on one of the cabinets, but she is more delighted to see a fig tree in the center of the place, growing through a cavity in the roof. Yusuf and Yiorgos welcome Kostas and Defne, show them to a private table they have set up for the couple in the back, and send over a sumptuous feast for them to eat. Kostas and Defne savor the private time they finally have together, and a couple of hours later, Yusuf lets them out through the kitchen door, asking them to come back, as “young lovers” will bring them luck.

The fig tree reminisces about the first time she met Defne and how back in that time of her life the fig had nothing to worry about—she was strong and healthy and bore plentiful, juicy fruit. She acknowledges that there are times she wishes she had never met Defne, for that may have prevented the tavern from burning down and she would have remained the happy tree she once was.

In 2010s London, the storm finally hits; Ada is awake at night when it arrives, thinking about her outburst in the classroom and worrying that it might happen again. She remembers and misses her mother, and a specific memory comes to mind: Defne working on a painting in her studio, promising to do a portrait of Ada soon. For the first time, Ada refuses, propelled by a growing discomfort with how she looks. Defne divines that Ada’s insecurity is caused by a boy or girl she may have developed feelings for and reassures Ada that not only is she beautiful, but she ought not to be with someone who doesn’t see her this way.

Unable to sleep, Ada checks her phone and finds a video of her outburst, filmed by one of her classmates, posted all over social media; it has garnered numerous negative and hurtful comments. With no idea whom she can ask for help, a lonely and despairing Ada begins to cry.

The fig tree picks up communication from the hawthorn tree in the garden, which is sending signals through its roots and fungi to ask the fig tree how she is doing. The fig tree explains that trees communicate with each other by sending chemical signals through the air and through shared fungi, present in their “shared mycorrhizal networks” (99), especially to warn each other in times of danger. Trees and plants display awareness of their interconnection with all other life forms in their ecosystem: “Even trees of different species show solidarity with one another regardless of their differences, which is more than you can say for so many humans” (100). Currently, the hawthorn tree also informs the fig tree of Ada’s despair, and the fig tree feels sad, for she feels connected to Ada, having grown up alongside her in Kostas and Defne’s home.

When Kostas next visits The Happy Fig in 1974 Cyprus, Yiorgos informs him that Kostas’s mother has been asking about him, possibly because someone may have spotted Kostas leaving The Happy Fig with Defne. Yiorgos tells Kostas that he covered for the young boy but warns Kostas and Defne to be more careful and to arrive and leave separately from now on. To Kostas’s anxious query that they may cause Yiorgos and Yusuf trouble by frequenting the tavern, Yiorgos reassures Kostas that he and Defne are always welcome.

Kostas’s mother Panagiota has always been a deeply religious woman; growing up, she would tell Kostas that the saints see everything, and if he did something in secret they would know. Kostas’s father died when Kostas was only three; he was a mine worker who contracted lung disease from prolonged exposure to asbestos. Panagiota also developed a cancer that would slowly kill her over the years, though Kostas would only much later realize the damage caused by her second-hand exposure to asbestos.

After her husband’s death, Panagiota proceeded to raise her three sons—Kostas and his older and younger brothers—all by herself with an income brought in by selling carob liquor and occasional sums sent by her brother in London. Panagiota is a strong and loving mother, who is equally strict, superstitious, and ritualistic. Because of this, Kostas knows he can never tell his mother that he is in love with a Turkish Muslim girl.

Ada remembers finding an absent-minded and tearful Defne upon returning home from primary school one day. Defne confesses to Ada that the day is a “sad anniversary” and tells Ada about her friends Yusuf and Yiorgos, who used to run a restaurant but disappeared one day. Defne gets up to wash her face and accidentally steps on a cardboard castle that Ada had made in school that day. When Defne pulls her close in apology, Ada smells alcohol on Defne’s breath.

Defne goes on to tell Ada about Cyprus that day, describing a real castle that existed back on the island that carried a story about a hermit and buried treasure. Defne and Kostas once spent a night there, promising each other that they would marry and name their child after the island: “If a boy, a Greek name–Nisos. If a girl, a Turkish name–Ada” (117). Although they never found any buried treasure, Defne tells Ada they found something more priceless—their daughter. Ada realizes that this meant she was conceived on the night her parents spent near the castle.

Later in the afternoon, Ada joins Meryam in the kitchen. She tells Meryam that Defne only spoke about Cyprus when she wasn’t sober. Ada is tired of being treated like a child and wants to know everything about Cyprus and her parents’ pasts.

The fig tree describes how Kostas visited The Happy Fig often in the year 1974, both to meet Defne and to sell his mother’s homemade carob liquor. The liquor is particularly popular, and despite Kostas’s family having five carob trees in the garden his mother is unable to keep up with the demand.

The fig tree describes another carob tree in Nicosia with two bullets lodged in its bark that Panagiota visits secretly and often. In 1956, a conflict-ridden Nicosia was perpetually placed under curfew after sunset. Panagiota’s father, also named Kostas, had been walking by this tree after dusk when patrolling soldiers spotted him and called out to him to stop. Being deaf, Kostas didn’t hear them, and his refusal to stop was interpreted as defiance; the soldiers shot and killed him. Two of the bullets that were fired missed Kostas’s body and lodged in the tree. Panagiota never forgot or forgave this, so when her second son was born, “Kostas Kazantzakis […] was named after his grandfather, a deaf, innocent man, killed beneath a carob tree” (121).

On the second morning of the storm in London, Ada, Kostas, and Meryam are cooped up inside the house. Ada scrolls her phone, looking at fresh comments posted under the video of her screaming. The video has now gone viral, and many comments have even turned supportive, with people posting videos of themselves screaming against different backgrounds, carrying the hashtag “#doyouhearmenow.”

Meryam suddenly remembers that she has brought something for Ada. Ada accompanies her to the guest room, where Meryam searches through the jumble of her things strewn about the room. In the process, she unearths a box of Turkish delight, which reminds Ada of a similar box that sat by Defne’s bedside and carried a number of pills.

Ada comments on how colorful Maryam’s clothes are, to which Meryam responds that all her life she has worn dull colors; she bought these clothes for herself after she signed her divorce papers but has not worn them yet. She brought them along to London, hoping to be able to wear them at least here, and Ada encourages her to do so, telling her she ought not to care about what people say. Meryam finally finds what she is looking for and presents Ada with Defne’s music box, telling Ada that her mother loved butterflies. Ada thanks Meryam, feeling close to her aunt for the first time.

The fig tree compares family trauma to tree resin, which trickles down through generations. She quotes how sometimes siblings turn out very differently, one more melancholic than the other, perhaps because trauma skips generations and one child carries the burden of their grandparents’ trauma more than the other.

The tree describes how Cyprus is covered in tree resin, representative of how the island has never fully healed from the many storms it has weathered, giving rise to numerous superstitions among its residents that are practiced by members of all cultures and communities. The tree reflects on how, despite the differences and clashes brought about by religion and nationality, “superstitions on either side of the border coexist in rare harmony” (130).

When Kostas is 11 years old, the sight of his mother preserving songbirds, a Cypriot delicacy, moves him to tears; he begs his mother to stop, not wanting to eat songbirds anymore, and Panagiota relents, though she quietly believes her son to be too sensitive.

Kostas is very different from his brothers. His older brother, Michalis, was an intellectual, a Marxist and anti-capitalist who vocally opposed EOKA. His younger brother, Andreas, on the other hand, was an idealist who deeply believed in and swore loyalty to EOKA-B’s cause. The brothers were close in childhood, but as their differing beliefs developed as they grew, their worlds began to diverge.

One morning, Michalis is shot and murdered in broad daylight, and though the killer is never found, Andreas is convinced that it is the Turks. His need for revenge grows more intense until he finally leaves home to join EOKA, leaving behind only Kostas to keep Panagiota company.

The fig tree describes how, after gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1960, the people of Cyprus were hopeful of a permanent peace between the Greeks and Turks, with people from both communities forming the new government. The chukar, a type of partridge native to Cyprus, became emblematic of this peace, as the bird would build nests on both sides of the island. However, their numbers dwindled over time due to hunting, just as the peace did not last long. The tree recalls a conversation she once overheard at The Happy Fig, when an English journalist described how British politicians and experts, despite constantly discussing “the Cyprus problem” (135), believed that Cypriots were too civilized to do anything violent or extreme. A few weeks after this conversation, numerous Turks, Greeks, and British were killed in four hundred separate attacks that took place across Cyprus.

Later in the evening of the second day of the storm, Meryam begins to prepare baklava, her favorite dessert, as Ada asks her questions about Kostas and Defne’s relationship. Meryam reveals how they were high school sweethearts of sorts and how a headstrong Define persisted in her relationship with Kostas despite it being forbidden. Meryam, five years older than Defne, never had Defne’s courage; however, despite not approving of Defne’s actions, Meryam would cover for her when Defne snuck out to meet Kostas. When Ada asks Meryam if she knew about Defne’s alcoholism, however, Meryam seems uneasy, and Ada realizes that Meryam does not know everything about Ada’s parents’ pasts.

The fig tree describes how the partition line that divides Greek and Turkish land in Cyprus is called the “Green Line,” because the British major general who marked the division on the map used a green pencil to do so. The tree asserts that the color was a conscious choice, as any other color would have held other associations: Blue would have been too Greek; red would have been too Turkish; white or black would have been too decisive; and so on. She wonders how things might have changed if on the day that the major general marked the line his hand had shaken just a little bit, changing the borders and consequently the islanders’ futures, forever.