The Island of Missing Trees

In May of 1974, a heat descends upon Nicosia, and the scalding temperatures cause hundreds of the island’s fruit bats to drop dead. The sight of the dead bats brings Kostas to tears; he proceeds to bury the bats, earning a reprove from Panagiota for his misplaced sentimentality over the dead animals over the human deaths on the island resulting from the ongoing conflict. At his mother’s reaction, Kostas feels an acute sense of loneliness and begins to “slowly shut himself off, carving an island for himself inside an island, retreating into silence” (148).

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.