The Island of Missing Trees(75)
The butterfly passed over groves of almond trees with their bright petals – white ones producing sweet almonds, and pink ones, bitter almonds – and flittered past fields of alfalfa, following the promise of seductive buddleia. Finally, she found a site that seemed well lit, welcoming.
It was a military cemetery, neatly organized with gravel paths running alongside the headstones, so serene and complete in its isolation that it was almost as if nothing existed outside of it. This was the final resting place of British soldiers who had died throughout the Cyprus conflict – except for the Hindu soldiers, most of whom had been cremated.
The south of the cemetery was overseen by the Greek Cypriot National Guard. The north and west were guarded by the Turkish army. And both sides were monitored by soldiers at the UN observation post. Everyone was constantly watching each other, and perhaps the dead were watching them all. The headstones were dilapidated and decaying, in need of repair. In the past, when a group of Greek Cypriot builders was brought in to mend them, the Turkish army had opposed their presence. And when a group of Turkish Cypriot workers was called, this time it was the Greek side that objected. In the end the graves were left to slowly crumble away.
The sun caressing her wings, the butterfly hopped from one grave marker on to another, glancing at the names carved on them. She noticed their ages. How young they were, all these soldiers who had come from afar to die here. The First Battalion Gordon Highlanders. The First Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment.
Then she stumbled across a larger grave – Captain Joseph Lane, murdered by two EOKA gunmen in 1956. The inscription said he had kissed his wife and three-month-old baby goodbye to go to work only moments before he was shot in the back.
There were a number of trees growing around here – pines, cedars, cypresses. A eucalyptus spread its blue-grey leaves over a remote corner. ‘Widow-makers’, they called them. Eucalypti, charming though they are, have the habit of dropping entire branches, injuring, even killing those foolish enough to camp beneath them. Knowing this, the butterfly flew in the opposite direction. And that’s when she discovered something unexpected: infants, row upon row. Almost three hundred British babies had perished on this island, snatched from their parents’ arms by a mysterious affliction that to this day no one had been able to fully explain.
When the butterfly shared this with me, I was surprised. One doesn’t expect to find babies in a military cemetery. I wondered then how many families returned to the Mediterranean to visit these graves. When islanders meet tourists, we assume they must be here for the sun and the sea, never suspecting that sometimes people travel miles away from home just to be able to mourn.
It was in this section of the cemetery that the painted lady came across a group of gardeners. Cautiously, she landed on a hardy geranium, from where she kept a vigilant eye on them. They were planting flowers in the grave beds – crocuses, daffodils, crown daisies – carefully rationing water, which was scarce.
After a while, the gardeners took a break. Spreading a rug under a pine tree, smartly avoiding the eucalyptus, they sat cross-legged on the ground, speaking in whispers out of respect for the dead. One of them took a watermelon from his bag and cut it into thick slices with his knife. Emboldened by the sweet fragrance, the butterfly drew closer and perched on a nearby grave. As she waited for an opportunity to taste that sugary juice, she looked around, noticing the inscription on the tombstone.
OUR BELOVED BABY
IN MEMORY OF YUSUF YIORGOS ROBINSON
JANUARY 1975 NICOSIA – JULY 1976 NICOSIA
When the painted lady recounted this, I made her repeat everything twice. Was there any chance that, distracted by the promise of watermelon, she may not have remembered things correctly? But I knew they were great observers, attentive to every detail. To make up for my rudeness I offered her my ripest fig. Mature and mushy, for a butterfly can only ‘eat’ liquid.
That was the day thousands of Lepidoptera filled the skies of Cyprus and one of them alighted momentarily on a branch of mine. It was then that I learned a particular fact that forever after cast a shadow over me. I was now beginning to put together various missing elements of the story, acutely aware of who this baby was and why he had been named after Yusuf and Yiorgos. Because in real life, unlike in history books, stories come to us not in their entirety but in bits and pieces, broken segments and partial echoes, a full sentence here, a fragment there, a clue hidden in between. In life, unlike in books, we have to weave our stories out of threads as fine as the gossamer veins that run through a butterfly’s wings.
Riddles
Cyprus, early 2000s
When Kostas woke up the next day, it was to the sound of the telephone ringing. By his side, Defne stirred, her nostrils flaring slightly as if she’d caught a scent in her sleep. Carefully reaching over her slumbering body, he picked up the receiver.
‘Hello?’ Kostas said in a whisper.
‘Oh, hello. It’s Dr Norman here.’
Instantly, Kostas drew himself upright, now fully awake. He got out of the bed and walked towards the balcony, pulling the cord with him as far from the wall as it would stretch. He sat on the floor, the receiver wedged between his cheek and shoulder.
‘Sorry, I missed your call earlier,’ Dr Norman said. ‘We were down in our place in the country … I only received your message today.’
‘Thank you, Doctor. When we spoke in London, I wasn’t aware of certain things and couldn’t ask you the right questions. But now …’