The Island of Missing Trees(45)
Arriving there is what you are destined for,
But do not hurry the journey at all …
‘Oh, it’s Cavafy!’ said Yiorgos. It was his favourite poet.
He turned the pocket watch over, finding there on the back two letters: Y & Y.
‘Do you like it?’ asked Yusuf.
‘Like it? I love it!’ said Yiorgos, his voice laden with emotion. ‘I love you.’
The smile on Yusuf’s face faded into something else as he threaded his fingers through Yiorgos’s hair. He pulled him close and kissed him softly, the sadness in his eyes deepening. I knew what was troubling him. The day before he had found a note stuck on the door with a glob of chewing gum. A curt, cowardly message, written in broken English using letters cut out from newspapers, left unsigned, smudged with dirt and something red to give the impression of blood, and perhaps it was. He had read the note several times, the ugly words – ‘sodomites’, ‘homos’, ‘sinners’ – stabbing him like knives, cutting a vein close to the heart and opening a wound; not a new one, but an old wound that had never had the chance to fully heal. Ever since he was a boy he had been repeatedly picked on and ridiculed for not being man enough, manly enough, first by his own family, then the students and teachers at school, even perfect strangers; taunts and barbs hurled in sudden fits of rage and contempt, though whence they arose, he never understood; none of this was new, but this time it came with a threat. He had not mentioned any of it to Yiorgos, not wanting to worry him.
That night they chatted for hours, keeping me awake. I rustled my branches, trying to remind them that a fig tree needed some sleep and rest. But they were too absorbed in each other to notice me. Yiorgos drank quite a bit, chasing all that wine with Panagiota’s carob liquor. Although sober, somehow Yusuf sounded no less tipsy, laughing at every silly joke. They sang together, and my God, these two men, they both had terrible voices. Even Chico could sing better than them!
Close to dawn, overwrought and exhausted, I was about to fall asleep when I heard Yiorgos mutter, as though to himself, ‘That poem by Cavafy … do you think some day we could leave Nicosia? I adore this island, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I wish we lived in a place where there was snow!’
They made plans to travel, drawing up a list of all the cities they wanted to see.
‘Who are we k-k-kidding, we both know we won’t leave,’ Yusuf said with a spurt of emotion that was almost despair. ‘Birds can go, not us.’ He gestured towards Chico, sleeping in his cage under a black cloth.
Yiorgos was silent for a moment. Then he said, ‘Did you know that in the olden days people couldn’t understand why so many birds disappeared in winter?’
He told Yusuf how the ancient Greeks were puzzled over what happened to birds when the days turned mercurial and cold winds began to blow down from the mountains. They searched the empty skies, trying to find clues as to where they might be hiding, all those black kites, grey geese, starlings, swallows and swifts. Unaware of migration patterns, the philosophers of antiquity came up with their own explanation. Every winter, they claimed, birds metamorphosed into fish.
And the fish, he said, were happy in their new environment. Food was plentiful in the water, life less gruelling. But they could never forget where they came from and the way they used to soar above the earth, light and free. Nothing could replace that feeling. So when the longing became too much to bear, every year around springtime, the fish changed back into birds. And thus they refilled the firmament, all those black kites, grey geese, starlings, swallows and swifts.
For a while things worked fine and they were thrilled to be back home in familiar skies, until frost gathered on tree branches and they had to return once again to the waters down below, where they would feel safe but never complete, and thus it went on and on, the cycle of fish and birds, birds and fish. The cycle of belonging and exile.
It was the age-old question: whether to leave or to stay. That fateful night, Yusuf and Yiorgos chose to stay.
The Moon
Cyprus, May 1974
The next time they met at The Happy Fig, Kostas was late. Having helped his mother chop wood and stack the logs in piles by the hearth, he could not get away sooner. When finally free, he ran all the way from the house to the tavern.
Thankfully, Defne had not left. There she was in the small room behind the bar, waiting.
‘I’m so sorry, love,’ Kostas said as he rushed in.
Something in her expression stopped him. A hardness in her gaze. He slid into the seat next to her, catching his breath. Their knees touched under the table. She pulled herself back, almost imperceptibly.
‘Hi,’ she said without making eye contact.
He knew he should ask her what was wrong, why she looked so troubled, but a strange rationale seized him, as if by not pressing her to put her pain into words, he could ward it off, at least for a little while.
She broke the silence. ‘My father is in the hospital.’
‘Why? What happened?’ He took her hand – it felt limp, lifeless in his palm.
She shook her head, her eyes welling up. ‘And my uncle … my mother’s brother. Do you remember I was telling you about him? The one who saw me one night and asked where I was going.’
‘Yes, of course. What happened?’
‘He’s dead.’