The Island of Missing Trees

The fig tree remembers the heat wave and how she mourned the death of the thousands of fruit bats, essential creatures for the island’s ecosystem and whom she considered her friends; the humans, however, didn’t seem to care about these deaths, as they do not regard bats as “cute.” The same day, Kostas arrives at The Happy Fig, looking for Yiorgos and Yusuf, and accidentally discovers the men embracing and kissing each other. Kostas realizes the men are in far greater danger than even himself and Defne, as in addition to being Greek and a Turk they are also a gay couple.

On the third day of the storm in London, Ada discovers people all over the world are posting videos online of themselves screaming with the hashtag #doyouhearmenow, and she is confused and panicked about this global craze she seems to have inadvertently initiated. In search of comfort, she thinks of the stories that her parents used to tell her, remembering a particular one Defne had once narrated: During the Second World War, a battalion of English soldiers had witnessed an approaching cloud of bright yellow, and had been sure they were about to meet their deaths at the hands of poison gas. Only when the cloud arrived closer did they realize it was actually composed of migrating painted lady butterflies.

Kostas tries to talk to Ada about the incident at school, but she refuses to open up. She asks Kostas if she can switch schools, but he refuses, albeit acknowledging that it has been a tough year for Ada. However, Ada shuts down any conversation about Defne; instead, she asks about butterfly migration, and Kostas explains how the insects plan their move across the span of multiple generations. Ada likens this to their own family’s situation, where although her parents migrated to London before she was born, she feels like she is still migrating. Kostas is disturbed by the insinuation that Ada feels unsettled and burdened by her family’s past, and Ada is angry that her father refuses to acknowledge the possibility that she may have inherited generational trauma.

The fig tree remembers Yusuf gifting Yiorgos the gold pocket watch, inscribed with lines by the poet Cavafy: “Arriving there is what you are destined for, But do not hurry the journey at all …” (160), on Yiorgos’s birthday. Yiorgos expresses his delight and love for Yusuf, and Yusuf is reminded of the note he had found the previous day, stuck to the tavern’s door, containing homophobic slurs and threats. Later that night, Yiorgos references the poetry on the watch and asks Yusuf if they ought to leave Nicosia someday, but ultimately they decide against doing so.

The next time Kostas visits Defne at The Happy Fig in May of 1974, she is upset and distant, revealing that her uncle has been killed and her father is in the hospital following an armed EOKA-B attack on the bus they had been traveling in. Kostas is worried that Defne wants to end things, but they both confess that they don’t want to lose each other. A pipe bomb is thrown into the tavern and explodes, killing five people. An uninjured Kostas and Defne rush to help the others, but they have to leave for their own safety when the police arrive. Unwilling to go home just yet, they wander up the hill with a well behind the tavern, eventually making love for the first time under the moonlight.

The fig tree remembers how one of her branches caught fire during the explosion. Yusuf eventually noticed, and he and Yiorgos put it out. Although part of her trunk was singed and some of her branches were charred, the tree knew she, at least, would eventually recover from the horror of that day, unlike the people who had been present at the tavern.

A few weeks after the explosion, Panagiota writes to her brother in London. She is concerned about Kostas—she knows that he is in love with a Turkish girl, and she is worried he will be direly punished for it if people find out. Panagiota requests her brother take Kostas under his wing in London and keep him there until he forgets about the Turkish girl.

The morning after her conversation with Kostas, Ada walks into the kitchen to find Meryam preparing a dish with bell peppers. Meryam notices that Ada is not her usual self, and Ada confides in Meryam about the incident at school and her request to change schools that Kostas has declined. To Meryam’s reassurances that everyone has done something embarrassing when they were young, Ada asserts that this wasn’t normal screaming; she felt “like [she] was possessed” (176). Meryam states that she has a sense of what the problem might be.

The fig tree describes how many of Maryam’s superstitions and rituals are, unbeknownst to her, rooted in a “deep reverence” for trees. The tree senses Meryam come into the garden and walk around lost in thought and realizes that Meryam is thinking of a way to help Ada based on the many myths and beliefs she endorses.

Following the day of the explosion, the situation in Nicosia quickly escalates. The Cypriot National Guard and EOKA-B launch a joint coup to oust the democratically elected Archbishop Makarios, who miraculously escapes the attack but disappears in the process.

Despite her parents forbidding her to leave the house, the day after the coup Defne slips out to The Happy Fig with a letter for Kostas; it is now July, and she has not seen him since the explosion. Defne finds Yusuf and Yiorgos closing the tavern, as all their staff have resigned over safety concerns. They give Defne a letter from Kostas, who has already left for London. In shock, Defne returns home and reads the letter later at night. It details how Panagiota is forcing Kostas to leave, but he promises to return soon and to think of Defne every day until he does. On her own now, Defne is distraught that she has not had a chance to tell Kostas her news and terrified at what the future holds for her.

Shortly after Kostas’s arrival in London, the news of the coup breaks. Days later, Turkish troops arrive in Kyrenia, causing Greek villagers to flee for safety. Fighting breaks out everywhere, most of all in Nicosia, and Panagiota manages to get a message through to Kostas that he ought not to return. She, herself, has fled Nicosia, fighting for her life, and has taken refuge with relatives in the south. Kostas frantically tries to contact Defne in every way possible, including through Yusuf and Yiorgos, but even they become unreachable.

Kostas finally manages to get a hold of Meryam, who tells him that Defne has been receiving his letters but does not want to hear from him anymore. Nevertheless, Kostas continues writing to Defne and in time grows not to expect a reply. Meanwhile, he finds solace in reading nature magazines sold at his uncle’s store, and one day chances upon an article about fruit bats that opens him to the possibility of a life spent studying plants.

The fig tree describes how she has overheard multiple stories of love and politics from the tavern’s customers, forming her own opinions over time that undoubtedly affect her storytelling lens. She narrates the story of a virus that killed numerous fig trees in Cyprus in the 1970s and how trees in close proximity together were worst affected. From this, she concludes how fanaticism is like a viral disease: “it takes hold of you faster when you are part of an enclosed, homogenous unit” (190).

Fanaticism is what led to the death and disappearance of thousands of Cypriots in that summer of 1974 along with the tens of thousands who were displaced from their homes. Each side has their own narrative of what happened, though neither account features the animals and plants who were also touched by the conflict. However, the fig tree plans to include all the creatures in the ecosystem who were touched by the conflict in her retelling.