The Island of Missing Trees(85)
Fig Tree
The next day, as I waited excitedly for Kostas to come back, a honeybee I had known for some time paid me a visit. I had deep respect for her kind. No other species embodies the circle of life quite like the Apidae. If they were to disappear one day, the world would never recover from their loss. Cyprus was their heaven, but heaven did not come easily. Using the sun as their compass, the tireless foragers visited up to three hundred flowers on one flight, which amounted to more than two thousand flowers in a single day.
Such was the bee’s life – work, work, work. Sometimes she danced a bit, but that, too, was part of work. When she chanced upon a good source of nectar, she did a waggle dance upon returning to the hive to inform the others where they should be heading next. But sometimes she danced because she felt grateful to be alive. Or because she was high, having accidentally digested too much nectar laced with caffeine.
Humans have hackneyed ideas about bees. Ask them to draw one – and on this infants and adults are surprisingly alike – and they will scrawl a plump, round blob covered in dense yellow-and-black-striped fur. But, in reality, bees come in a wide variety-some are vivid orange, burnt sienna or rich purple, some shimmer in metallic green or blue, while others have bright red or pure white tails that glow in the sun. How can they all look identical to the human eye when they are so mesmerizingly diverse? Sure, it’s wonderful that birds are lauded for having a whopping ten thousand species, but why does it often go unnoticed that bees have at least twice that number and just as many personalities?
The honeybee told me that not far from the tavern was a field of ambrosial flowers and lush plants in full bloom. She flew there often, for, as well as daisies and poppies, it had the sweetest coneflowers, marjoram and, her favourite, sedum, with their pink hues and tiny star-shaped succulent petals all clustered together. At the edge of the site stood a nondescript white block of a building. A sign on the wall read: CMP LABORATORY – UNITED NATIONS PROTECTED AREA.
She had passed by this place countless times on her way back and forth to the hive. Occasionally, on a whim, she diverted from her path and flew straight into the lab through an open window. She liked to buzz around, observe the people working inside and leave the way she came. But today when she entered the building, without a purpose or plan, something unexpected happened. One of the staff members, God knows why, decided it was a good idea to close all the windows. The honeybee found herself trapped!
Trying not to panic, failing all the same, she threw herself at every windowpane, bumbling up and down glassy surfaces, unable to find an exit. From her vantage point, she could see the flowers outside, so close she could almost taste their nectar, but no matter how hard she tried she could not reach them.
Frustrated and exhausted, the bee settled on top of a cupboard to catch her breath. She turned her attention to the room that had now become her prison cell. Fourteen forensic scientists were employed here – Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – and by now she knew them all. Every weekday the Greeks travelled from the south and the Turks travelled from the north and they met in this no man’s land. This was where all human remains that had been discovered in various exhumations across the island were eventually brought.
Whatever the excavation teams unearthed, the scientists at this lab cleaned and sorted, detaching hard bones from hard bones, separating one set of human remains from another. They worked alone or in small groups, hunched over long, narrow tables on which they arrayed jigsaws of skeletons – vertebral columns, shoulder blades, hip joints, vertebrae, maxillary teeth … They put them together, piece by missing piece, associating fragments with larger parts. It was painstakingly slow work, and mistakes were not tolerated. The reconstruction of just a single foot, composed of twenty-six individual bones, could take hours. Or one hand – made of twenty-seven bones, a thousand touches and caresses now lost. Eventually, as if rising from murky waters, the identity of the victim surfaced – the sex, the height and the approximate age.
Some of the remains were too fractured to be of any use or no longer contained DNA, destroyed by harmful bacteria. The unidentified pieces were stored away in the hopes that in the not-so-distant future, when science and technology advanced, their mysteries could be solved.
The scientists wrote comprehensive reports on their findings, including elaborate descriptions of clothing and personal belongings, items that, though perishable, could be surprisingly long-lasting. A leather belt with an engraved metal buckle, a silver necklace with a cross or crescent, scuffed leather shoes worn at the heels … Once, a wallet had been delivered to the lab. Inside, next to some coins and a key to an unknown lock, were photos of Elizabeth Taylor. The victim must have been a fan of the actress. Descriptions of such items were intended as much for the relatives of the missing as for the CMP archives. The families always wanted to know these details. But what they really wanted to know was whether their loved ones had suffered.
At some point the honeybee fell asleep, worn to a frazzle. She was used to crashing out in awkward positions. Sometimes she would take a little siesta inside a flower. She needed this since sleep-deprived foragers have difficulty concentrating or finding their way back home. Even in the hive, they take their nap on the periphery, while the workers, who clean and feed the larvae, occupy the cells closer to the centre. So my friend was a light sleeper by nature.
When she woke up, it was noon. The staff had left for lunch – all but one. A young Greek woman was still working. Having observed her many times, the bee knew that she liked to be by herself with the bones, and sometimes she talked to them. But this afternoon, alone in the lab, the scientist picked up the phone and dialled a number. As she waited for it to ring, she kept throwing anxious glances at the tables to her left and right, on both of which bones and skulls had been laid out.