This article has been written for the internet magazine “Cockroaches” (Hamamboculeri – www.hamamboculeri.org) and was also published in the daily newspaper Yeniduzen in the north

www.hamamboculeri.org
Underground Notes, 14 October 2002
Sevgül Uludağ

If we cannot bury our dead, we shall share our soil ..

Costas Hadjipavlou was 50 years old when he was forced to leave this soil..
At Ayios Amvrosios, or Aygurush, which goes under the “new” name of Esentepe, he had orchards, four daughters, and there were hopes and dreams in every beat of his heart…
In 1974, when the masters made moves on this island called Cyprus as if on a chessboard, thousands of people were forcibly made refugees. Those were the days when war clouds gathered overhead, when brother killed brother. Those were the days when young girls were raped, when babies, old and young were sent to their graves…
And Costas Hadjipavlou, who had given his name to a famous cognac of Cyprus, became a refugee…
He was dear Maria’s father: uprooted from the north and resettled in the south, he made a deal with the church at Stavrovouni…
“Give me a piece of land, please” he said raising his eyes to the sky, “where I can at least make a miniature of my orchard at Ayios Amvrosios! Whatever the yield, I will share it with you! …”
And the monks at Stavrovouni consented …
Costas planted his orchard … it was certainly not like the beautiful orchards of Ayios Amvrosios… It was, in his own words, a “miniature” … He planted and watered the soil, loving every single seed, every single little tree – for it was part of his heart. He watched the miracle called life blossoming from the soil… But Costas carried in every beat of his heart the orchards he had left in the north of the island: for 28 years he kept his dream alive: that one day he was sure to return to his village, his orchards, his home.
Tonight, I sit crying for him in a divided city, in the north of Nicosia; my heart beats on both sides of a divided island. I understand how Costas feels, I can feel the planting and the watering, the green of carob and olive trees as they grow, the smell of lemons, the redness of the soil...
Only two months ago, he took his car and attempted to cross the checkpoints…The police stopped him:
“Hey, what are you doing? Where are you going?...”
“I must go and water my trees...”
“No way! Go back! It is prohibited!!”
How those prohibitions broke Costas’s heart!
I never met Costas but I met one of his daughters, Maria, with a wonderful heart...
Maria and I were members of the bicommunal conflict resolution trainers group ... Our friendship goes back over ten years now...
Every time we meet, Maria says, “Koukla mou (my beauty), how are you?”
And we soon start discussing things: about women, peace, politics … We talk about everything happening in our lives…
Last week Maria lost her father, Costas, who was 78 when he passed away.
This piece of news shocked our women’s group, “Hands Across the Divide”… At the same time, Zehra, a member of our group brought into the world a new baby, named Doga.
E-mails brought the news of a birth and a death…
I thought that these were the things that life had brought us: news about happiness and sorrow, at the same time… I was in the north and in the south at the same time. On the one hand, celebrating for the magic baby named Doga, clutching at life with his little fist, and on the other, crying with all my heart for Costas.
Because Costas had never forgotten the trees he had left in the north, or his land, or his homeland that had been forcibly divided. Because this is the homeland of all Cypriots, it carries the same smells, the same soil, the same heartbeats…
Costas wanted to be buried in the north, in his village..
He wanted to be buried in this land..
He was not of course, because the “deep state” governing this place has no relation with human feelings!
They cannot understand an old person’s last wish.
They cannot understand his desire to smell the sea by Ayios Amvrosios, to water his trees for one last time!
I was telling all this to my life-comrade when he said “So, why don’t you send him some soil!…”
And that is what we did …
If we cannot bring our dead to the place of their last wish, if we cannot bury them where they wanted, we shall share our soil!
We were the “Hands Across the Divide” … One of our members, her heart full of sorrow, undertook to carry it out. She cried on the phone for the death of a Cypriot who could not see for one last time the land he had missed...
The women in our e-mail group were rebelling. We wanted to be next to Maria in these difficult times, the Greek Cypriot women wanted to visit Zehra’s newborn baby, Doga....
But our island is divided. The policies in the Turkish side have no “room” for such humanistic matters. The official policy of the Turkish side is based on the argument that “the borders are impenetrable”. So, the Greek Cypriot women could not visit Doga, the Turkish Cypriot women could not cross the border and attend the funeral of Maria’s father, Costas. We could not carry out in our land the last wishes of our dead…
We did carry out my partner’s suggestion: Yesterday, we sent Maria some soil from her father’s village. A woman, whose heart resists the division, in tears carried this soil and gave it to another woman in a village under the control of the United Nations troops, in the “dead zone”, called Pyla…
Another woman with a rebellious heart took this soil and this morning took it to Costas’s grave.
If we cannot bury our dead where they want, as women of this island we shall share our soil…
We share our soil, our air, our water, our heart, our thoughts; even if the masters who have interests in keeping the island divided do not “allow” us to celebrate together the birth of our children and to grieve together for our dead, we still manage to cross the borders…
A fistful of soil, that’s all … A fistful of soil is shared, carried in a plastic bag and placed on a grave. This evening, while speaking to Maria on the telephone where lines are tapped by all secret services, a tear drops because these borders, that have been drawn right in the middle, are inconceivable, are illogical, absurd and are against human life. Because our heart beats along with Maria’s and the hearts of all Marias beat along the hearts of all newborn Dogas. Because Maria is planting flower seeds on the soil that came from the north so that they blossom on a grave in the south… Because the borders are meaningless, but all that passes through our hearts is meaningful…. Because our hearts are the hearts of  human beings.  And our strength is right here: in the unbelievable map of the human heart – in the feelings that overcome checkpoints and barbed wires; in the common feeling of grieving for our dead  and of being happy for our births together …