The Cyprus Problem, and: Maine Islands, and: The Hindu Gets Baptized

The Cyprus Problem

for Francesca Cauchi

Not the infamous “green line” that bisects this minuscule islandon the Med—3/5th the size of Connecticut—and thought to be settledin the Stone Age by hypothesized tribes who eschewed highlandto hunker down with pygmy hippos long extinct from the island& build round houses with floors of terrazzo & burned lime.Not the Turks & Greeks each claiming possession of the islandwith two flags, two currencies, two languages, but just one island.Not the un peace-keepers called beach-keepers by the natives,roaring around in white pickups when not trying to pick up the natives.Not the fact that Roman politician Mark Antony once gave the islandas a gift to Cleopatra, nor that the apostle Paul wandered to convertthe population to Christianity. Not the Cypriot Muslim converts.

Not Ptolemy. Not Richard the Lionheart. Not the Cyprus pound convertedinto the Euro. No, the Cyprus problem is purely selfish: when I landedat Ercan on land recognized by no one but Turkey, I couldn’t convertmy dollars into lira because the change place had been convertedinto a kebab stall; couldn’t find my driver because he had settledinto a cigarette & a Turkish coffee; couldn’t find anyone to exertthe effort to speak English. Fatigued, confused, too slow to convertto the Mediterranean pace of life where an hour late is being on time,I finally arrived at the flat, where the refrigerator was specked like a limeturned to rot, kaleidoscopic with spores, the floor & sill converted into a disco for dust motes. Later colleagues assured me that the nativestate is disarray, & that things transpired in the most vegetative

way, if they transpired at all. Why I haplessly believed the nativemode of life was luxuriating on the beach & drinking frosty islandrum drinks, I have no clue. Must have to do with being a nonnativewho projected illusions onto the land. But soon I became nativeenough, a true denizen of Kıbrıs, the Turkish word for this island,ordering mezes of grilled halloumi cheese, dolmas wrapped by nativefingers & drinking as much Efes & ayran as any other native.I smoked lemon-mint tobacco from the hose of a nargila & settledthe bill by declaring “hesap lütfen.” Eventually I even found myself settledinto the flat, putting up nazars, pendants of evil eyes, like other natives,buying water in five-gallon jugs, using bitter lemons in recipes where limewas called for, opening the windows at dusk so that light could climb

up the trellis until the sky yawed like a freshly unearthed quarry of lime-stone: sandy, gray & red-veined. But it was all a lie. There are no natives.There are the Turks, Turkish Cypriots for whom call to muezzin is high timefor cocktails & London Cypriots found bemoaning the lack of limes,mushy peas & fried fish. There are the Greek Cypriots, maybe convertsto the Anglican, else part of the Orthodox Church whose apparent lineof origin extends back to Jesus via unbroken Apostolic Succession. In timeone notices others: Armenians, Maronites, Iranians, émigrés to the island,alongside Brits & descendants of the Lusignans or Venetians. On the islandit’s absurd to ask who came first or what belongs to whom. During what time?While five armies patrol this sun-concussed land, nothing will be settled.Far better to ignore politics and pretend that everything has been settled,

else live in fictions, with Othello’s round unvarnished tale the settingfor which was Famagusta, else with honeygold spring air stilled in timeby Durrell, living under the Tree of Idleness in Bellapais before settlingin Sommières in the south of France where perhaps the most unsettledquestion was whether the market on Place du Marché was out of nativestrawberries vital to making a proper coulis. If nothing seems settledby ignorance or fiction, there are the compounds where expats have settled,too loud lager louts whitish as mussels tugged from shells converting their savings into...