The Island of Missing Trees(36)
No sooner had she pointed this out than Ada faltered, feeling the weight of her mobile phone in her pocket, its cold polished surface and all the vicious words it contained. She almost told her aunt that she should care less about what others thought, that people could be mean, and whether they mocked you or not should not matter at all. But she couldn’t say any of this, when she didn’t believe it herself.
Biting the tender inside of her cheek, Ada lifted her gaze. Across from her the wardrobe was open and, inside, she saw the only item that had been neatly arranged on a hanger: a long, fluffy fur coat.
‘That thing is fake, I hope.’
‘What thing?’ Meryem swung round. ‘Oh, that? It’s one hundred per cent rabbit!’
‘That’s awful. Killing animals for their fur is appalling.’
‘We eat rabbit stew in Cyprus,’ said Meryem quietly. ‘It’s really good with chopped garlic, pearl onions. I also add a cinnamon stick.’
‘I don’t eat rabbits. You shouldn’t either.’
‘I didn’t buy it, if that helps,’ said Meryem. ‘It was a present – from my husband. He got this coat for me in London, 1983, just before the new year. Osman gives me a call. He says, “I’ve a surprise for you!” Then he turns up with a fur. In Cyprus! In the sweltering heat. I always suspected he bought it for someone else but changed his mind. Maybe a mistress who lived somewhere cold. He used to travel a lot – for “business”. He always had an excuse – if a cat wants to eat her kittens, she’ll say they look like mice. He was the same way. Anyway, Osman purchased this from Harrods, I bet it cost him a pretty penny. In those days it was okay to wear fur. I mean, I know it’s not okay, but even Margaret Thatcher did. It was the same day the IRA bombed Harrods. My husband could have died – a foolish tourist looking for a present for his mistress which he ended up giving to his wife.’
Ada was silent.
Meryem walked to the wardrobe and caressed her coat absent-mindedly, tracing the edge of the collar with the back of her hand. ‘I didn’t know what to do with this. It had too much history, you know? I’ve never worn it. Why would I need it in Nicosia? But again, when I decided to come and see you, and heard about this winter storm, I thought, this is it! This is my moment. Finally, I’m going to wear it!’
‘What happened to your husband?’ asked Ada cautiously.
‘Ex-husband. I need to get used to calling him that. Anyway, he left me. He married a younger woman. Half his age. She is pregnant. Due any day. They are having a boy. He’s over the moon.’
‘You don’t have children?’
‘We tried … for years we tried, but nothing worked.’ Meryem stirred as if from sleep, her face sombre. ‘Again, I’m forgetting. I brought you something.’ She dug into a suitcase and threw aside a few scarves and stockings, fishing out a gift box. ‘Ah, there it is! Take, take. This is for you.’
Ada put her hand out for the present thrust in her direction and slowly tore away the wrapping paper. Inside was a music box made of varnished cherry wood with butterflies on the lid.
‘Your mum loved butterflies,’ said Meryem.
Turning the key with its jaunty red silk tassel, Ada unlocked the box. Music trilled out, the last notes of a song she didn’t recognize. In a hidden compartment she found a fossil. An ammonite with intricately shaped suture lines.
‘Defne kept this box under her bed,’ said Meryem. ‘I don’t know where she got it from, she never told me. After she ran away with your father, my mother was so angry at Defne she threw out all her belongings. But I managed to hide this away safely. I thought you should have it.’
Ada closed her fingers around the fossil, both unyielding and strangely delicate against her palm. In her other hand she held the music box. ‘Thank you.’
She stood up to leave, then stopped. ‘I think you should wear the clothes. Except the fur, I mean. All the others, they’d look good on you.’
Meryem smiled, her face a palimpsest of shifting emotions, and for the first time since her aunt arrived, Ada felt the distance between them closing just a little.
Fig Tree
If families resemble trees, as they say, arborescent structures with entangled roots and individual branches jutting out at awkward angles, family traumas are like thick, translucent resin dripping from a cut in the bark. They trickle down generations.
They ooze down slowly, a flow so slight as to be imperceptible, moving across time and space, until they find a crack in which to settle and coagulate. The path of an inherited trauma is random; you never know who might get it, but someone will. Among children growing up under the same roof, some are affected by it more than others. Have you ever met a pair of siblings who have had more or less the same opportunities, and yet one is more melancholic and reclusive? It happens. Sometimes family trauma skips a generation altogether and redoubles its hold on the following one. You may encounter grandchildren who silently shoulder the hurts and sufferings of their grandparents.
Divided islands are covered in tree resin which, though encrusted round the edges, is still liquid deep inside, still dripping like blood. I have always wondered if this is why islanders, just like sailors in olden times, are strangely prone to superstitions. We haven’t healed from the last storm, that time when the skies came crashing down and the world drained of all colour, we haven’t forgotten the charred and tangled wreckage floating around, and we carry within us a primeval fear that the next storm might not be far off.