The Island of Missing Trees

Ada, Kostas, and Meryam celebrate New Year’s Eve together with a delicious home-cooked dinner by Meryam. Meryam begins packing the next day, promising Ada that she is welcome to call Meryam for advice on anything at all after she is gone. Ada asks Meryam to do the interview for her history homework, and Meryam sits down for it right away after brewing them each a cup of tea. She tells Ada about her childhood, divided into happy and unhappy on either side of when the conflict in Cyprus began. As Meryam talks about the troubles of the latter times, Ada expresses her understanding for why the older generation may have opposed her parents’ marriage; however, she cannot understand why her parents refused to talk about their past even after moving to England. To this, Meryam has no answer.

Nine months after Ada is born, Defne begins working for the CMP again interviewing Greek and Turkish Cypriot immigrant families in London. Through these conversations, she notices how the oldest generation hangs on to their pain, the second tries to suppress the past completely, and the third is the most curious to learn more about it: “It was the youngest who seemed to have the oldest memory” (315).