The Island of Missing Trees(43)
In contrast, her mother preferred to make up her own stories. She would relate tales from her imagination, threading the arc as she advanced into the plot, going back and changing things on a whim. Her themes were darker, featuring spells, hauntings and omens. But once, Ada remembered, her mother shared with her a different kind of story. Both disturbing and, strangely, hopeful.
Her mother told her that during the Second World War an infantry battalion was stationed along the cliffs overlooking the English Channel. The soldiers, weary and bedraggled, were patrolling the coast one afternoon. They knew that at any moment they could come under heavy attack from German artillery, via sea or sky. They didn’t have much food left, they didn’t have enough ammunition, and the further they trudged, the deeper the ground beneath their soaked and split boots sucked them in, like quicksand.
After a while one of them noticed an extraordinary sight on the horizon: billows of smoke were drifting over the Channel, of a colour so bright it seemed unearthly. Trying not to make any noise lest they alert the enemy, he signalled to his companions. Soon everyone was staring in the same direction, their faces etched at first with surprise, then sheer terror. The mysterious cloud could only be some type of poison gas, a chemical weapon, and, urged on by the wind, it was swelling straight towards them. Some of the soldiers fell on their knees, uttering prayers to a god they had long stopped believing in. Others lit cigarettes – one final pleasure. There was nothing else to do, nowhere to escape. The battalion was stationed right in the path of the deadly yellow gas.
One of the privates, instead of praying or smoking, stepped up on a rock, unbuttoned his jacket and started to count. It helped his nerves, the solidity of numbers, as he waited for death to strike. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four … He carried on, watching the golden menace draw closer, expanding and contracting. By the time he reached a hundred, he was bored with counting, and he grabbed a pair of binoculars. It was then that he saw the cloud for what it was.
‘Butterflies!’ he shouted at the top of his voice.
What they had thought was a mass of poisonous gas was, in fact, butterflies migrating from the European continent into England. Swarms of painted lady butterflies were crossing the Channel, slowly making for the mainland. They fluttered through the open sky, flitting and dancing in the summer light, oblivious to the cold, grey battlefront.
A few minutes later, rivers of butterflies, many thousands of them, flew over the battalion. And the soldiers, some so young they were merely boys, clapped and cheered. They laughed so hard there were tears in their eyes. No one, not even their commanders, dared to tell them to be quiet. Their hands reaching out towards the firmament, their expressions pure rapture, they jumped up and down, and those who were lucky enough felt the touch of a pair of gossamer wings on their skin, like a farewell kiss from the lovers they had left behind.
Remembering the story now, Ada closed her eyes and stayed that way until she was jolted by a knock on the door. Assuming it must be her aunt again, calling her to try whatever dish she had prepared, she yelled, ‘I’m not hungry!’
Her father’s voice rose from the other side of the door. ‘Sweetheart, can I come in?’
Quickly, Ada hid her phone under the pillow and snatched up a book from her bedside table – I Am Malala.
‘Sure.’
Kostas walked in, a candle in his hand. ‘That’s a great book you’re reading.’
‘Yeah, I agree.’
‘Do you have a second to talk?’
Ada nodded.
He put the candle on the bedside table and sat next to her. ‘Kardoula mou, I know I’ve been a bit distant this past year. I’ve been thinking about it a lot – I’m sorry if I wasn’t always there for you.’
‘It’s okay, Dad. I understand.’
He looked at her, a tenderness in his eyes. ‘Can we discuss what happened at school?’
Her heart pushed against her ribs. ‘There’s nothing to tell. Believe me. I just screamed, okay? It’s no big deal. I won’t do it again.’
‘But the headmaster said –’
‘Dad, please, that man is weird.’
‘We can talk about other things,’ Kostas tried again. ‘How did that science project go, I forgot to ask? You still working with that boy … what was his name, Zafaar?’
‘That’s right,’ said Ada, a little sharply. ‘We finished our project. We both got an A.’
‘Fantastic. I’m proud of you, love.’
‘Look, about the scream, you need to stop worrying. I felt stressed, that’s all,’ said Ada, and in that moment she believed every word that came out of her mouth. ‘If you keep bringing this up, it’s not going to help. Leave it with me. I’m working on it.’
Kostas took off his glasses, breathed on them, and slowly, carefully, cleaned them with his shirt, like he always did when he didn’t know what to say and needed time to think.
Watching him, Ada felt a sudden rush of affection for her father. How easy it was to deceive parents, and even if you couldn’t deceive, to keep them behind the walls of prevarications you had erected. If you really put your mind to it and were careful not to leave any loose ends, you could do so for quite a while. Parents, especially those as distracted as her father, desperately needed things to run smoothly and were so inclined to believe the system they had created was working fine that they assumed a normality even when surrounded by clues to the contrary.