The Island of Missing Trees(78)
‘We are closed,’ said Yiorgos. There was a note of caution in his voice as he tried to work out their intentions. ‘Were you looking for something?’
None of the men said a word in response. Their expressions hardened as their eyes raked the tavern, rage unseating levity. That was when Yusuf noticed something he had initially missed. One of the men was also carrying a can of paint with a brush poking out of it.
Yusuf couldn’t tear his gaze from the paint. It was bright pink, the colour of the chewing gum that he had once found stuck on the door with a menacing note. The colour of berries that grew on evergreen shrubs clinging precariously to the side of cliffs, gripping the void dangerously.
Fig Tree
Of all the animals in my ecosystem, there were some I admired and others I quietly disliked, but I don’t ever remember regretting meeting anyone as I tried to understand and respect every form of life. Except for once, that is. Except her. I wish I had never known her or that I could, at least, find a way to wipe her from my memories. Even though she is long dead, I still hear that high-pitched sound sometimes, an eerie vibration in the air as though she is fast approaching, buzzing in the dark.
Mosquitoes are humankind’s nemesis. They’ve killed half the humans who ever walked the earth. It always amazes me that people are terrified of tigers and crocodiles and sharks, not to mention imaginary vampires and zombies, forgetting that their deadliest foe is none other than the tiny mosquito.
With its swamps, marshes, peatlands and streams, Cyprus used to be their Eden. Famagusta, Larnaca, Limassol … they were everywhere once upon a time. An ancient clay tablet found here read, ‘the Babylonian mosquito devil is now in my land; he has slain all the men of my country.’ Well, it would have been more accurate if it said, ‘she has slain …’, as it is the female of the species that causes the carnage, but I guess it’s not the first time women have been written out of history.
They have been around forever, though not as long as us trees. Across the world you can find mosquitoes from prehistoric times trapped in our resin or petrified sap, sleeping peacefully in their amber wombs. It is remarkable that they still carry the blood of prehistoric reptiles, mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers, woolly rhinoceroses …
Malaria. The disease that decimated multitudes of soldiers and civilians alike. That is until Ronald Ross – the Scottish doctor with a lantern jaw and spiked moustache – made the discovery that physicians had overlooked since the days of Hippocrates. In a humble laboratory in India, Ross cut into the stomach of an Anopheles mosquito and there it was, the evidence he had been seeking. It wasn’t swamp gas that carried malaria, but a parasite. Armed with this knowledge, he set out to eradicate the disease across the entire British Empire. It was a fateful day in 1913 when Ross visited Cyprus.
Yet the fight against mosquitoes would have to wait until the end of the Second World War, when a Turkish doctor, Mehmet Aziz, launched the campaign in earnest. Having suffered from blackwater fever as a boy, he had seen first-hand how pernicious it was. Supported by the Colonial Development Fund, he dedicated himself to the cause. What I find remarkable about him is that he paid no attention to the ethnic or religious divisions that were tearing the island apart, and focused solely on saving human lives. Starting in the Karpas Peninsula, Aziz had every breeding place sprayed with insecticide, and then again, to wipe out possible larvae. It took him four arduous years, but he would triumph in the end.
Since then Cyprus has been malaria-free. Yet that didn’t mean mosquitoes were eradicated completely. They continued breeding in gutters and cesspools. As they loved hanging around fig trees and had a taste for ripe or rotting fruit, I had made the acquaintance of quite a few over the years.
In the tavern they would hover around every night, molesting the customers. Blindingly swift, they whizzed past, zooming up and down their prey in the time between two heartbeats. To keep them at bay, Yusuf and Yiorgos placed pots of basil, rosemary or lemongrass on each table. And when that didn’t suffice, they burned coffee grounds. But as the evening carried on and the customers sweated from the booze and the heat, emanating lactic acid, the pestilential bugs swooped in again. Swatting at them was no solution either. A human’s clumsy hands are no match for the speed of their wings. Even so, they are no risk takers. They’ll remember the scent of the person who tried to kill them and avoid that person for a while, allowing enough time for their prey to forget their presence. They are patient like that, waiting for the right moment to taste blood.
They attack animals too. Cattle, sheep, goats, horses … and parrots. Bitten from beak to claw, poor Chico complained all the time. Frankly, none of this bothered me back then. I had accepted mosquitoes the way they were, not giving them further thought – until, that is, I met her in August 1976. By then The Happy Fig had been closed for almost two years and Chico had long gone. It was just me inside the tavern. I was still waiting for Yiorgos and Yusuf to return. I was waiting faithfully. That summer I yielded my best harvest yet. That’s the thing about trees, we can grow amidst the rubble, spreading out our roots beneath the detritus of yesterday. My figs, bursting with flavour, remained unplucked from branches, uncollected from the ground, where they attracted all manner of animals and insects.
The mosquito appeared out of nowhere one midnight and found me, lonely and distressed, yearning for the past. She perched on one of my branches, glancing around nervously as she detected the scent of citronella in the air. Instantly, she took off to evade the scent and landed on another branch on the opposite side.