The Island of Missing Trees(39)

Their numbers have dwindled significantly today for they have been hunted relentlessly all over the island – north and south alike.





Baklava


London, late 2010s


In the evening, Meryem threw herself into making her favourite dessert – baklava. She ground a whole jar of pistachios, the noise of the food processor so loud it drowned out the howling of the blizzard outside. She prepared the dough from scratch, patting and pounding it between her palms, before covering it and putting it aside for a little ‘nap’.

Ada, meanwhile, watched her aunt from where she sat at the end of the table. Her history notebook lay open in front of her. Not exactly to study, but to finish the butterfly she had left incomplete on the last day of school, just before she had started screaming.

‘Look at you! You’re such a good student,’ chirruped Meryem, flicking a sidelong glance at her niece as she opened the food processor and scooped the contents out on to a plate. ‘I’m so happy you’re doing your homework next to me.’

‘Well, I didn’t have much of a choice, did I?’ Ada said wearily. ‘You kept knocking on the door, asking me to come out.’

Meryem giggled. ‘Of course I did. Otherwise you were going to spend the entire holidays in your bedroom. Not healthy.’

‘And that baklava is?’ Ada couldn’t help asking.

‘It sure is! Food is the heart of a culture,’ replied Meryem. ‘You don’t know your ancestors’ cuisine, you don’t know who you are.’

‘Well, everybody makes baklava. You can buy it in supermarkets.’

‘Everyone makes baklava, true, but not everyone succeeds. We Turks make it crispy with roasted pistachios. That’s the right way. Greeks use raw walnuts – God knows who gave them that idea, it just ruins the taste.’

Amused, Ada rested her chin on the tip of her index finger.

Though smiling still, a shadow crossed Meryem’s face. She didn’t have the heart to tell Ada that for a fleeting moment she had seen Defne in that gesture, so painfully familiar.

Ada said, ‘You make it sound as if we should judge a culture not by its literature or philosophy or democracy, just by its baklava.’

‘Uhm, yes.’

Ada rolled her eyes.

‘You did that thing again.’

‘What thing?’

‘That teenage thing you keep doing with your eyes.’

‘Well, technically, I am a teenager.’

‘I know,’ said Meryem. ‘And in this country that’s a privilege. The next best thing to being royal. Even better. Privilege minus paparazzi.’

Ada straightened her shoulders.

‘It’s not a criticism. Just stating a fact. I blame the English language. In English, thir-teen is teen, right? So is four-teen, fif-teen, six-teen, seven-teen … Where I come from, at seventeen you’re usually preparing your dowry. At eighteen you’re in the kitchen brewing coffee because your future husband is in the sitting room with his parents, asking for your hand in marriage. At nineteen you’re serving your mother-in-law supper and if you burn it, you get an earful. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that’s a good thing. Hell, no! All I’m saying is there are kids in the world – girls and boys – who can’t enjoy their teens.’

Ada studied her aunt. ‘Tell me about your ex-husband.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Did you love him? At least in the beginning?’

Meryem waved a hand, her bracelets jingling. ‘Everybody is always raving on about love – all the songs, movies. I get it, it’s cute, but you don’t build a life on cute. No, love wasn’t my priority. My parents were my priority, my community was my priority. I had responsibilities.’

‘So it wasn’t a marriage of love?’

‘No, it wasn’t. Not like your parents’ marriage.’

Something new had lodged in Meryem’s voice and Ada sensed it. ‘Are you angry at them? Do you think they behaved irresponsibly?’

‘Your parents, ah, they were reckless. But they were so young, just a bit older than you.’

Ada felt heat flush her neck. ‘Wait a second. So, Mum and Dad were … what, high school sweethearts?’

‘Schools were separate. Greek kids and Turkish kids didn’t mingle that much back then, although there were mixed villages and mixed neighbourhoods, like ours. Our families knew each other. I liked Panagiota – your father’s mum. Such a nice lady. But then things got really bad – we stopped speaking to each other.’

Ada looked away. ‘I thought my parents met in their late thirties or something. I mean, my mum had me in her early forties. She always said it was a late pregnancy.’

‘Oh, but that was afterwards. Because they broke up, you see, and then years later, they got together again. The first time, they were just kids, really. I was always covering for Defne. If our father had caught her, it’d have been a disaster! I was scared out of my wits. But your mum … she was unstoppable. She’d put pillows under bedcovers and slip out of the house in the middle of the night. She was brave – and foolish.’ Meryem drew in a breath. ‘Your mum was a free spirit. Even when she was a little girl, she had this wild, unpredictable side. If you told her not to touch fire, she’d go and build a bonfire! It’s a miracle she didn’t burn the house down. I was five years older than her, but even when I was her age, I was careful not to disappoint my parents, always trying to do the right thing, and you know what, Baba loved Defne the most. I’m not resentful, only stating the truth.’