The Island of Missing Trees(37)
This is why, with amulets and herbs, susurrations and salts, we try to appease the gods or the wandering spirits, impossibly capricious though they are. Cypriots, women and men, young and old, of the north and of the south, equally dread the evil eye, whether they call it mati or nazar. They string blue glass beads on necklaces and bracelets, hang them at the entrance of their homes, stick them to the dashboards of their cars, tie them to the cradles of their newborns, even secretly pin them to their underwear, and, still not satisfied, they spit in the air, summoning all the protection they can get. Cypriots also spit when they see a healthy baby or a happy couple; take a better job or earn extra cash; they do so when ecstatic, distraught or bewildered. On our island, members of either community, convinced that destiny is fickle and no joy is here to last, will keep spitting into the breeze without ever thinking that in that very moment, people on the other side, the opposite tribe, might be doing the same thing for exactly the same reason.
Nothing brings the island’s women closer than pregnancy. On this issue, there are no borders. I have always believed they are another nation altogether, pregnant women of the world. They follow the same unwritten rules, and at night, when they go to bed, similar worries and fears spool in their minds. During those nine months both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot women will not hand a knife to another person or leave a pair of scissors open on the table; they will not glance at hairy animals or those deemed ugly, or yawn open-mouthed lest a spirit sneaks in. When their babies are born, they will abstain from trimming their fingernails or cutting their hair for months. And when after forty days they show their babies to friends and relatives, the same women will secretly pinch them to make them cry – a precaution against the evil eye.
We are scared of happiness, you see. From a tender age we have been taught that in the air, in the Etesian wind, an uncanny exchange is at work, so that for every morsel of contentment there will follow a morsel of suffering, for every peal of laughter there is a drop of tear ready to roll, because that is the way of this strange world, and hence we try not to look too happy, even on days when we might feel so inside.
Both Turkish and Greek children are taught to show respect if they see a piece of bread on the pavement. It is sacred, every crumb. Muslim kids pick it up and touch it to their foreheads with the same reverence they would kiss the hands of their elders on the holy days of Eid. Christian kids take the slice and make the sign of the cross, putting their hands over their hearts, treating it like it was the Communion bread made from pure wheat flour and of two layers, one for heaven, one for earth. Gestures, too, mirror each other, as though reflected in a dark pool of water.
While religions clash to have the final say, and nationalisms teach a sense of superiority and exclusiveness, superstitions on either side of the border coexist in rare harmony.
Brothers
Cyprus, 1968/1974
One evening, when he was eleven years old, Kostas was sitting at the kitchen table by the open window, as was his wont, his head buried in a book. Whereas his brothers preferred to spend their time in the bedroom they all shared, he liked being here, reading or studying while watching his mother work. This was his favourite spot in the house, with the steam rising from the pots on the stove, the dishrags dangling from a string swaying in the breeze and, above his head, hanging from rafters, stalks of dried herbs and woven baskets.
Tonight Panagiota was preserving songbirds. Opening their breasts with her thumbs, she stuffed them with salt and spices, softly singing to herself. Every now and then Kostas flicked a glance at his mother, her face sculpted by the light of an oil lamp. There was a pungent tang of vinegar in the air, so strong it filled their nostrils.
A wave of nausea overcame Kostas as the taste of brine burned the back of his throat. He pushed aside the book he had been reading. Hard as he tried, he could not tear his gaze from the rows of tiny maroon hearts arranged on the wooden worktop or from the gutted warblers in glass jars, their beaks half open. Quietly, he began to cry.
‘What happened, paidi mou?’ Panagiota wiped her hands on her apron, ran towards him. ‘Are you sick? Does your stomach hurt?’
Kostas shook his head, struggling to speak.
‘Tell me, did someone say something, my love?’
His throat thickened as he gestured to the worktop. ‘Don’t do that, Mama. Don’t want to eat them any more.’
Startled, she stared at him. ‘But we eat animals – cows, pigs, chickens, fish. Otherwise we’ll starve.’
He couldn’t think of a good answer to that and he didn’t pretend to have one. Instead he muttered, ‘These are songbirds.’
She raised her eyebrows, a shadow falling across her face and then disappearing. She seemed to be about to say something else but changed her mind. With a sigh, she tousled his hair. ‘All right, if it upsets you so much …’
But in that moment when the world spun in slow circuits, Kostas caught a gleam in his mother’s eyes, full of compassion and apprehension. He sensed what she was thinking. He knew his mother found him too sensitive, too sentimental, and somehow more difficult to understand than her other sons.
The three brothers were very different from one another, and as the years had gone by those differences had only deepened. As much as he loved books, Kostas did not wish to be a poet, a thinker, like his older brother. Michalis lived inside language, always searching long and hard for the precise word, as if meanings were something that needed to be chased and hunted down. He called himself a Marxist, a syndicalist, an anti-capitalist – labels that tangled up in his mother’s mind like bougainvillea climbing a wall. He said working-class people of all countries would some day unite to overthrow their common oppressor, the rich, and on that account, a Greek peasant and a Turkish peasant were not enemies but simply comrades.