The Island of Missing Trees(20)
I once heard Defne say to Kostas, ‘People from troubled islands can never be normal. We can pretend, we can even make amazing progress – but we can never really learn to feel safe. The ground that feels rock hard to others is choppy waters for our kind.’
Kostas listened to her carefully, as he always did. Throughout their marriage and long before, while they were dating, he had tried to ensure those rough waters would never swallow her, and yet in the end they had.
I don’t know why that memory seeped back into me tonight as I lay buried under the ground, but I wondered if the stones Meryem placed on the cold earth were a form of comfort for her, a token of reassurance, when nothing else felt solid.
Banquet
When Ada woke up the next morning, the house was filled with unusual smells. Her aunt had prepared breakfast – or a banquet, more like it. Grilled halloumi with za’atar, baked feta with honey, sesame halva, stuffed tomatoes, green olives with fennel, bread rolls with black olive spread, fried peppers, spicy sausage, spinach b?rek, puff-pastry cheese straws, pomegranate molasses with tahini, hawthorn jelly, quince jam and a large pan of poached eggs with garlic yogurt were all neatly arrayed on the table.
‘Oh, wow!’ Ada said as she walked into the kitchen.
Meryem, chopping parsley on a wooden board at the worktop, turned towards her with a smile. She was wearing a long black skirt and a chunky grey cardigan that almost reached her knees. ‘Good morning!’
‘Where did all this food come from?’
‘Well, I found a few things in the cupboards, and the rest I brought with me. Oh, you had to see me at the airport! I was terrified those sniffer dogs would get wind of my halva. I passed through customs with my heart in my mouth. Because they always stop people like me, don’t they?’ She pointed to her head. ‘Dark hair, wrong passport.’
Ada sat at the end of the table, listening. She watched her aunt cut a large slice of b?rek and spoon out a generous portion of poached eggs and sausage on to a plate. ‘For me? Thank you, but this is too much.’
‘What’s too much, it’s nothing! An eagle doesn’t feed on flies.’
If Ada found that an odd thing to say, her face revealed nothing. She glanced around. ‘Where’s my dad?’
Meryem pulled a chair up for herself, a glass of tea in her hand. It seemed she had also brought from Cyprus a set of tea glasses and a brass samovar, which was now boiling and hissing in a corner.
‘Out in the garden! He said he needed to go and talk to the tree.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m not surprised,’ Ada muttered under her breath as she stabbed her fork into the pastry. ‘He’s obsessed with that fig.’
A shadow crossed Meryem’s face. ‘You don’t like the fig?’
‘Why would I not like a tree? What do I care?’
‘That’s no ordinary tree, you know. Your mum and dad brought it all the way from Nicosia.’
Ada had not known that, and had nothing to say in return. The Ficus carica had always been there in the back garden, for as long as she could remember. She took a bite of b?rek and chewed slowly. There was no denying her aunt was a good cook, in striking contrast to her mother, who had always been uninterested in any kind of domestic life.
She pushed the plate away.
Meryem raised her eyebrows, plucked so thin they resembled a pair of pencilled arches on her ample features. ‘What, that’s it? You’re not eating any more?’
‘Sorry, I’m not a breakfast person.’
‘Is that a separate group now? Aren’t all people in the world breakfast people? We all wake up hungry.’
Ada shot a quick glance at her aunt. The woman had a peculiar way of talking, which she found amusing and annoying in equal parts.
‘Good morning, both,’ came Kostas’s voice from behind. He strode into the kitchen, his cheeks webbed red from the cold, a scattering of snowflakes settled on his hair. ‘What a fabulous spread.’
‘Yes, but somebody’s not eating,’ Meryem said.
Kostas smiled at his daughter. ‘Ada doesn’t have much appetite in the mornings. I’m sure she’ll eat later.’
‘Later is not the same thing,’ said Meryem. ‘One must have breakfast like a sultan, lunch like a vizier, dinner like a mendicant. Otherwise the whole order is broken.’
Ada sat back and crossed her arms. She studied this woman who had appeared in their lives out of the blue – the generous dimensions of her face, her loud and boisterous presence. ‘So you haven’t told us why you are here yet.’
‘Ada!’ said Kostas.
‘What? You said I could ask.’
‘It’s okay. It’s good that she asks.’ Meryem dropped a sugar cube into her tea and stirred. When she spoke again, her voice was different. ‘My mother passed away; it’s been ten days exactly.’
‘Mother Selma is dead?’ Kostas said. ‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry for your loss.’
‘Thank you,’ said Meryem, though her eyes remained focused on Ada. ‘Your granny was ninety-two years old, went in her sleep. A blessed death, as we say. I took care of the funeral, then I booked the first flight I could find.’
Ada turned to her father. ‘I told you it was about inheritance.’