The Island of Missing Trees(17)

In order for me to survive the long journey from Nicosia to London, Kostas carefully wrapped me in layers of damp sacking before tucking me at the bottom of his suitcase. It was a risk, he knew. The English climate was not warm enough for me to thrive, let alone bear edible fruit. He took the risk. I did not fail him.

I liked my new home in London. I worked hard to fit in, to belong. From time to time, I missed my fig wasps, but fortunately, for the past several thousand years of evolution, there have been parthenocarpic fig trees and I am one of those who have no need of pollination. Despite all this, it would take me seven years to be able to yield fruit again. Because that is what migrations and relocations do to us: when you leave your home for unknown shores, you don’t simply carry on as before; a part of you dies inside so that another part can start all over again.

Today, when other trees ask me how old I am, I find it hard to give a definite answer. I was ninety-six years old the last time I remember myself in a tavern in Cyprus. I, who grew from a cutting planted in England, am now slightly over sixteen.

Do you always have to calculate how old someone is by adding up the months and years with simple, straightforward arithmetic – or are there instances in which it is actually wiser to offset passages of time in order to arrive at the correct total number? And what about our ancestors – can they, too, continue to exist through us? Is that why, when you meet some individuals – just as with some trees – you can’t help feeling that they must be much older than their chronological age?

Where do you start someone’s story when every life has more than one thread and what we call birth is not the only beginning, nor is death exactly an end?





Garden





Saturday evening, Ada had just finished a bottle of Diet Coke and Kostas his last coffee of the day when the sound of the doorbell tore through the house.

Ada flinched. ‘Could that be her? Already?’

‘I’ll get it,’ Kostas said, glancing apologetically at his daughter as he left the room.

Ada dropped her hands on her lap, examining her fingernails, all chewed to the quick. She picked at the cuticle on her right thumb, pulling slowly. Seconds later, voices wafted in from the hallway.

‘Hey, Meryem, you’re here! Good to see you.’

‘Kostas, my goodness, look at you!’

‘And you … but you haven’t changed a bit.’

‘Ah, that’s such a huge lie, but you know what, at my age, I’ll take whatever I can.’

Kostas laughed. ‘And I’ll take your suitcases.’

‘Thank you, they’re a bit heavy, I’m afraid. Sorry, I know I should have called earlier in the week to confirm I was coming. Things got terribly hectic. I didn’t think I could find a flight until the last moment, I even had a bit of a quarrel with the travel agency –’

‘It’s fine,’ Kostas said, his tone gentle. ‘I’m glad you are here.’

‘Me too … I’m so happy to be here, finally.’

Listening, Ada sat up straight, surprised by the touch of intimacy in their exchange. She pulled at the cuticle harder. A bright red pool appeared between her flesh and thumbnail. Quickly, she sucked it away.

In a little while a woman walked in, bundled in a fuzzy taupe overcoat with a hood that made her round face appear rounder and her olive skin warmer. Her eyes were shifting hazel with specks of copper, set slightly apart under thinly plucked eyebrows; her hair fell to her shoulders in auburn, wavy ripples. Her nose was undoubtedly her most prominent feature – strong, angular. In her left nostril shone the tiniest crystal stud. Ada studied their guest, concluding that she looked nothing like her mother.

‘Oh, wow – this must be Ada!’

Chewing the inside of her cheek, Ada stood up. ‘Hi.’

‘My goodness, I was expecting to see a little girl, but I found a young lady!’

Ada extended a cautious hand, but the woman had already lurched towards her in one quick movement and pulled her into her embrace, her bosom, large and soft, bumping up against Ada’s chin. Her cheeks were cold from the wind and she smelled like a mixture of rosewater and lemon cologne.

‘Let me look at you!’ Meryem disentangled her arms and held Ada by the shoulders. ‘Oh, you’re so beautiful, just like your mother! More than your photos.’

Ada took a step back, freeing herself from the woman’s embrace. ‘You have photos of me?’

‘Of course, hundreds! Your mum would send them to me. I keep them in albums. I even have tiny clay footprints of your baby feet, so cute!’

With her left hand, Ada grabbed her bleeding thumb, which had begun to throb – a steady, pulsating beat.

Just then Kostas entered the room, carrying three large suitcases, each a shade of pink and imprinted with the face of Marilyn Monroe.

‘Oh, bless you. Please don’t bother, just drop them,’ Meryem said in a fluster.

‘No problem,’ said Kostas. ‘Your room is ready if you’d like to rest first. Or we could have a cup of tea. Either way. Maybe you’re hungry?’

Collapsing into the nearest armchair, Meryem shrugged off her coat, her many bracelets and rings jingling. A gold necklace glinted at her neck, threaded with an evil eye bead, blue and unblinking.

‘I’m full, thank you – it’s teensy portions all that airline food, but it bloats you up like a puffer fish. So nothing for me, please. But I’ll always have a cup of tea – without milk, though. Why do the English do that? I’ve never understood.’