‘Leventi mou, they look much happier there. Thank you so much.’
Irini, in shawl and woollen skirt, was sitting at the table having a rest when she saw her younger son appear through the gate.
‘Christos, what a nice surprise. You haven’t come to see me in days!’
Markos glanced at him, interested to see what excuse he would offer.
‘I’m sorry, Mother. It’s been busy at the garage … Will you make me a coffee?’
‘Of course, yioka mou.’
She bustled inside, only too pleased.
‘Markos,’ Christos began, as soon as their mother was out of earshot. ‘I need your help.’
Irini Georgiou appeared a minute or two later with a plate of kourabiedes. The biscuits were freshly baked and a cloud of icing sugar still hovered above them.
Her sons’ conversation was curtailed, but they had exchanged the information they needed to.
‘And why aren’t you at work?’ asked Irini.
‘Just taking the day off,’ Christos replied quickly.
He nibbled on one of the biscuits and then got up to leave.
‘But I haven’t even brought out your coffee!’
‘Sorry, Mother, I have to go. I’ve got things to do.’
‘Oh,’ she said, with obvious disappointment. ‘Never mind …’
He pecked her on the cheek and left.
Irini disappeared into her kitchen to turn off the stove. The coffee was just coming to the boil.
Markos was still sitting there when she returned.
‘That was a hurried visit,’ she said. ‘Is he all right? There’s been a lot of noise upstairs in the last few nights.’
Markos did not answer. Over the past weeks he had been getting home at four or five in the morning, by which time Christos’ friends had finally left.
‘Is he … getting involved?’
‘What do you mean, Mamma?’
‘You know what I mean, Markos. Your father might be deaf, but I’m not. I can’t hear what they are saying, but I know he and his friends aren’t just playing cards.’
Markos drew on his cigarette, filling in time while he tried to think of an answer.
‘And I know I don’t get out of the house much, but I do hear rumours,’ his mother continued.
She swept the crumbs left by the biscuits into the palm of her hand and absent-mindedly dropped them into the pocket of her apron.
‘I know Grivas is somewhere in the background and I don’t want you two to have anything to do with him. He’s an evil man, Markos.’
‘Mamma!’
‘I mean it, my darling. He kills Greeks as well as Turks! There’s not an ounce of goodness in that man.’
Irini had tears in her eyes. Her mood had changed from calmness to hand-wringing vexation. She never read a book, but she could read her sons’ behaviour with ease. She knew it could not be a coincidence that Christos was so secretive and withdrawn. Even though it operated clandestinely, everyone was aware of EOKA B and was affected by its activities, whether they were specifically targeted or merely leaned on, terrorised even, for support. It took courage to resist.
She had a hunch that Christos was getting drawn in. His behaviour was furtive and she knew he skipped going to work because she sometimes checked up on him. He worked as a car mechanic in a garage at the end of their street, and Irini often strolled by on the pretext of going to the store. If she could not see his mop of dark hair, it meant that he was not there.
His irregular hours gave him away too. Up until now, he had always passed by on his way back from the workshop, his hands still black with oil. These days he rarely did, and when she saw him return, it was often much later in the day, and his hands were clean.
‘Mamma, you mustn’t worry. Christos knows how to look after himself.’
‘But it’s not just him I’m worried about, Markos. I’m thinking of all of us. I don’t want to go back to those terrible years when we were all living in fear. If you didn’t support Grivas and his people, there was no saying what could happen to you.’
‘You mustn’t get so anxious …’
‘But don’t you remember? He even executed that woman in our village! And we nearly lost your father! I still have nightmares about those days.’
‘It’s not like that now.’
‘I don’t know what makes you so sure. It’s the same man. The same ideas! Grivas hasn’t changed his mind about anything.’
‘But he doesn’t have the same support as he did.’
‘Our president isn’t behind him, I know that. So he’d better watch out too.’
‘I think he knows the dangers, Mamma,’ said Markos.
Both mother and son were silent for a while, as Irini kept busy clearing and sweeping and watering her plants and Markos quietly sipped his coffee.
‘Have a word with Christos, will you,’ she implored. ‘God might not look after this family twice.’ She crossed herself and looked at her son, her eyes full of tears.
Markos got up to hug her.
‘I’ll talk to him,’ he said softly, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of her skin. ‘Try not to worry, Mamma, try not to worry.’
In the warm embrace of her silken-haired son, all anxieties drifted away. Markos had that effect. She loved him more than anyone else in the world.
Markos drove to work that afternoon knowing that he had not been entirely honest with his mother. He was very conscious of the effect he had on her. He had spent his whole life exercising his charm with Irini Georgiou, and as an adult he had learned how potent it was with other women too. It was like alchemy.
He had understood the effect of a smile even before consciousness and language. As a baby, he was aware that if he moved his mouth into a smile he got a response. It was like a special power.
One reason he had felt such antipathy towards Aphroditi Papacosta was his failure to charm her with his smile when they first met. For him, the bitter cocktail of resentment and rivalry had started there, and grown as they had to compete for Savvas’ praise and attention. Since the opening of The Sunrise, eighteen months before, he had been forced to see the boss’s wife every day. He acknowledged her physical perfection. The ideals of form and proportion that she embodied made her beauty a fact, not a matter of opinion.
Now, when she turned up each night for the drinks reception, almost burdened by her jewellery and expensive clothes, he still smiled even though he knew not to expect a reaction. Aphroditi was not the sort of woman he liked. To him, she was overtly spoiled, the type who was ruined first by her father and then by her husband.
Obliged to take over Savvas’ duties as host at The Sunrise, Markos had continued his almost obsequious courtesy to his boss’s wife, and Aphroditi in turn sustained her cool formality. He had begun to detect that she might be simmering with as much anger against her husband as he was, and he started to wonder if she could be useful to him.
Aphroditi’s silent fury with Savvas had lasted for months. Until the day when he had announced that he was going to spend almost every waking hour at the building site, she had felt equal in their business and entitled to a half-share in both decision-making and profit. Even though ownership was joint on paper, he began to behave proprietorially. He was too caught up in his work even to notice her annoyance with him. By contrast, Markos’ reliable presence and impeccable charm each evening became almost comforting.
One night, she acknowledged to herself that she had become less irritated by Markos Georgiou than before. It was just after New Year, and a Cypriot Night was taking place. Guests stood in a circle to watch the demonstration of basic dance steps.
‘Do you know how?’ asked Markos as they sat finishing dessert.
Aphroditi looked him straight in the eye, for perhaps only the second time. For the first time, she noticed that they were deep green. Like emeralds, she thought.
‘Of course I do!’ she said. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘I just imagined …’
She knew what was in his mind: that she somehow felt it beneath her to perform the traditional dances.
To prove him wrong, she got up and joined the dancers, showing that she knew the footwork as well as any of them. She took the hands of a couple standing on the edge and patiently repeated the moves for the novices.
Markos watched her, slightly mesmerised. His eyes followed her as she went round in a circle. Yes, he thought, she does know the dances, and as they speeded up, he realised how well.
Frau Bruchmeyer was in the midst of it all, now quite accomplished with many of the steps and able to help the other guests.
Towards the end of the evening, when the movements got faster and the beginners just stood to watch, Markos joined in with the all-male zeibekiko. Now it was Aphroditi’s turn to be the spectator. The nightclub manager held everyone’s attention. His lithe and supple body was perfect for this enthralling, masculine dance. Everyone clapped in time with the music as he rotated, arms outstretched, and performed a series of acrobatic leaps.
When the band stopped, there was rowdy applause from both hotel guests and staff. Nearly two hundred of them had been caught up by the music and the mood. Such a sense of euphoria could not be created to order; it was something almost supernatural.
It was the night she watched Markos dance that she began to see him as someone other than her husband’s right-hand man. When he came off the dance floor, strands of shiny black hair sticking to his forehead, his temples glistening, eyes sparkling, clearly exhilarated by the energy of the zeibekiko, she could not tear her eyes away. She took a step towards him.
‘Oh, don’t come too close!’ he laughed. ‘I’m giving off heat like a lamb on a spit!’
He had taken off his jacket, and sweat had soaked through his shirt.
It was the first time he had told her not to come too near, and it was the first time she had wanted to.
They were close enough to feel each other’s warmth.
Many of the guests came up to thank Aphroditi before they dispersed, some of them planning to continue their evening in the nightclub. It was exactly midnight.
Apart from the waiter clearing tables, Aphroditi and Markos were the only ones left in the room.
‘You must go,’ said Aphroditi.
Without thinking, she touched his elbow. It was a spontaneous gesture and one that was immediately withdrawn.
‘My senior barman said he would open up tonight,’ said Markos, smiling at her. ‘But he’ll be expecting me there soon. We have a good act on tonight.’
‘Well I must leave too,’ she added quickly. ‘Thanks for helping with the dance demonstrations.’
She hurried, slightly agitatedly, across the foyer and went outside. It had been very hot in the ballroom and her face shone with perspiration. She stood on the hotel steps inhaling fresh air deep into her lungs.
Markos saw Aphroditi standing outside the glass doors to the hotel, car keys in hand. He had been anticipating her touch, and at the very moment when it happened, an idea finally crystallised.
Chapter Twelve
THROUGH THE WINTER Markos had fulfilled his promise to Christos. Once or twice a week his younger brother gave him a small package neatly tied up with brown paper and string and addressed to one of their many distant cousins who had moved to London. Every Cypriot who had left still craved the fruits of their native island, and friends and family shipped their needs to them on a regular basis. Two thousand miles from home, they continued to re-create home flavours, which depended on aromatic herbs grown in their grandmother’s soil, honey from their own mountains and olive oil from the family grove. It was incomprehensible to them all that in England olive oil was regarded as medicinal and only found in small quantities in pharmacies.
He put the packages inside his briefcase or under his arm, sometimes both, and took them to The Sunrise. If he passed his mother on the way out, she would not ask questions. She knew that dozens of relatives looked forward to these essentials, and often took her own to the post office.
The chances of Markos being searched by the police were minimal, and these packages were unlikely to arouse suspicion. Once at the Clair de Lune, he immediately went down to the vault and removed the previous day’s takings. He then placed the parcels inside the safe and went to the bank to deposit all the cash.
When Christos wanted the packages – sometimes three or four might accumulate – Markos retrieved them and dropped them off at his garage. Not once did he ask about the contents. That way he kept both his conscience and his hands clean.
Both brothers knew that these terrorist activities demanded as much secrecy as possible. When Irini asked, which occasionally she still did, Markos had no trouble looking his mother in the eye and assuring her that they were all safe and that this time round he would not throw himself behind the cause.
‘I’m much too old to be running around with a gun,’ he said teasingly one day as he drank his coffee, sweetened just as he liked it.
‘But you’re only—’
‘Twenty-nine! I’m getting on a bit now, Mamma!’
Irini Georgiou laughed.
Markos was by no means old, but the man behind the renewed movement for enosis was, and at the end of January General Grivas died suddenly, aged seventy-four.
Grivas’ death did not mean the end of the terrorist movement. Instead it marked the beginning of increased involvement from the Greek military junta in Athens, who began to send more officers of its own to Cyprus. It was the excuse they had been looking for and presented the perfect moment for accelerated interference in Cypriot affairs. If they decided to get rid of Makarios and put in their own people, enosis could be achieved quite swiftly, as long as the Turks kept out of it. This was their thinking.
As the troop numbers rose, so did Papacosta’s new hotel. The New Paradise Beach was a vast concrete shell that cast a great shadow into the sea. Papacosta could only see its beauty, but other hoteliers were shocked by its scale and ugliness. It grew visibly each day, with Savvas demanding long hours from everyone on site. The more income that flowed into The Sunrise, and particularly into the Clair de Lune, the faster the new hotel could progress. Additional labourers were taken on as the building climbed ever higher.
Savvas was rarely seen at The Sunrise now, but Aphroditi had ceased to mind. Nowadays, when she got ready to go to the nightly reception, she realised that she was looking forward to the evening. It no longer seemed a duty. The way Markos greeted her each evening reinforced that feeling, and when they went in to eat dinner her courtesy was now sincere, and she made sure to thank him for pulling out her chair.
Once spring had carpeted the mountains with wild flowers and the fields were verdant with bright shoots, the head chef wanted to celebrate. In mid April, a Gala Dinner was held: ‘Farewell to Winter’. It was a theme that provided plenty of inspiration, and the ballroom was lavishly decorated with orchids, poppies and hyacinths. Even for this event, Savvas could not find time.
Winter had been mild, with only the lightest sprinkling of snow on the Troodos Mountains, and Frau Bruchmeyer had continued to swim each day at dawn, her lithe, ageless body cutting a channel through the calm, oily sea. Tonight she sat at the top table on Markos’ left, her muscular arms still showing last year’s tan.
The menu that night was fruits de mer, with sculptures created from lobster, langoustine, scallops and prawns. Oysters had been flown in from France, and there was even caviar and smoked salmon. It was a colourful display, celebratory, glamorous and lavish, and the wine waiters successfully pressed their clientele to accompany their food with champagne.
Markos paid Frau Bruchmeyer plenty of attention. For half an hour or so Aphroditi saw only his back and was obliged to engage in conversation with her neighbour, an elderly Cypriot who had once been a politician and a good friend of her father.
‘I miss him,’ said the man. ‘It must have been such a shock.’
‘Yes, it was,’ replied Aphroditi, hoping the
conversation might not have to last too long. ‘My mother still hasn’t really got over the loss.’
‘Does she live all on her own?’ asked the man’s wife, leaning across and fixing Aphroditi with a penetrating stare.
‘Yes,’ replied Aphroditi defensively. ‘She didn’t want to return to Cyprus. I did try to persuade her.’
‘Well, it’s understandable after what happened …’ interjected the man, making an unwelcome reference to her late brother.
The three of them continued eating in silence for a few minutes.
‘Perhaps if a little Papacosta comes along, she might change her mind,’ said the wife brightly. ‘I couldn’t be more than a mile from my lovely grandchildren.’
Aphroditi knew that her mother did not like this woman, and she could see why.
‘Personally I think she’s made a good decision and I don’t think she’s going to regret it,’ said the husband. ‘It’s just not safe any more. What with all the rumours at the moment, who’s to know what’s going to happen?’
Aphroditi cut in.
‘Rumours?’
‘Don’t bother Kyria Papacosta with your worries,’ interjected the wife. ‘I am sure she has heard what’s going on.’
There was another pause.
At this moment, Aphroditi felt something on her shoulder. It was Markos, touching her lightly to get her attention.
‘Kyria Papacosta,’ he said. ‘Look!’
He was holding out a hand; there, in his palm, was a tiny pearl, the size of a split pea.
‘I nearly broke my tooth,’ he beamed. ‘It was in one of my oysters!’
He dropped it in his glass of champagne to clean it, fished it out with his fork, dried it with his napkin and presented it to Aphroditi.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘A miracle from beneath the waves. Like Aphroditi herself.’
Aphroditi flushed slightly. Savvas had given her dozens of pieces of jewellery over the past years, but none with such a flourish. She picked it off his palm and examined it. It was smooth in texture but rough in shape – and still cool from the champagne.