Larger than all of them, and most prominently displayed, was a graduation photograph of her brother Dimitris. He looked proud and handsome in ermine and mortar board at the ceremony in London. It was in an ornate silver frame, with the image on the left and engraved on the right his name and the dates of his birth and death.
A copy of the photograph sat on a grand tombstone not far away, with the same words: ‘Yia panta tha se thimamai. Den tha se ksehaso poté.’
Forever remembered. Never forgotten.
The tragedy of a short life stolen away in the prime of youth had been repeated many thousands of times in the past few months. Whatever anyone was saying, this conflict was not a new one. It had been taking lives and destroying happiness on this island for years.
Over in England, Artemis Markides looked at this same poignant image every single day.
Aphroditi felt as if someone had grabbed her heart and wrung it violently. She sat down for a moment. The pain of the past weeks, months and years flooded over her. Everything seemed to have disappeared. Her brother, her father, the man she loved. Nothing that she treasured remained.
Nicosia was where she had expected to see Markos again, but the catastrophe on the island had deepened in a way that none of them had ever imagined. Sooner or later he would bring the keys for The Sunrise. She held on to that thread of hope.
Perched on the edge of a chaise longue, she felt nauseous again and fled to the bathroom. Once she had vomited, she stood up. The small mirror on the front of the cabinet gave her a shock. It was the first time in many weeks that she had seen herself.
She saw a thin face, almost gaunt, with hollow eyes. Her hair was lank and straggly, the skin on her neck sagging and her complexion as white as the shirt that her neighbour had been hanging up. She washed her face and dried it on a towel that had gone crisp with time. It was surprising that Kyria Loizou had even known who she was.
For the first time, she realised how filthy her dress was. She took it off and put it in the bin. After a cold shower, she opened the wardrobe and found something fresh to wear. Her parents had left plenty of clothes in the cupboards and drawers, knowing that they would not be suitable for England. They had always planned to come back on a regular basis.
She chose a blouse and a skirt that she belted around her waist. Both garments almost drowned her. Although her mother was much plumper, the two women had almost the same size feet, so Aphroditi pulled out some flat sandals from the bottom of the wardrobe and buckled them up.
With her wet hair brushed back into a ponytail, she felt a little better. Her stylish bob had long since grown out. Before showering, she had left her showy earrings and pendant on her mother’s dressing table; she decided not to put these back on. It seemed inappropriate to wear such things now, and she opened the drawer to put them inside. There was an envelope there with her brother’s name on the outside. It was not the moment to cause herself any more pain, so she left it there. In any case, she respected her mother’s privacy and did not want to invade it.
Feeling revived, she decided to go out. Like Savvas, she was curious about what had taken place in Nicosia. She shut the door, left the key under the doormat, knowing that her husband would expect to find it there, and crept out of the main door. In due course, she would feel strong enough to make conversation with her kindly neighbours, but not yet, not now.
Aphroditi walked the city’s streets like a woman in disguise. When she caught sight of her reflection in the occasional shop window that was neither broken nor boarded up, it was as if she saw someone else.
Taking a route that twisted and turned through the old streets of Nicosia, she occasionally glimpsed the barrier that divided the city in two, old metal drums, makeshift fencing and barbed wire. It had been there for years but in many places was now reinforced. Evidence of the recent violence across the barricades was clear to see. Buildings were pockmarked with bullets, and the interiors of some were exposed to daylight where a hole had been crudely gouged by artillery fire.
A few of the smaller shops were functioning again, mostly grocers or general stores. She had no money with her so she could not buy anything; she hoped that Savvas would return with something for them to eat. Hunger was beginning to nag at her.
When Aphroditi returned to the apartment, Savvas was there.
There was a bag on the table and she could see that he had also spent some money on a new suit.
Even if he had been as tall and slim as his late father-in-law, the row of jackets and trousers hanging in the apartment would have been of no use to him. Savvas would not have worn second-hand clothes. Fortunately, a tailor near the Green Line had recently reopened.
‘It was as though he was sitting waiting for me,’ said Savvas, smiling for the first time in weeks. ‘He had three suits waiting for someone who was exactly my size!’
‘And that’s one of them?’
Savvas nodded. Aphroditi also noticed that he had been to the barber.
She looked inside the bag on the table. It contained some bread and milk.
‘There’s not much out there,’ he said glumly. ‘But the shopkeepers are expecting more supplies any day now.’
Aphroditi cut two slices of bread and ate both of them hungrily.
‘The city looks terrible, doesn’t it?’ she said, between mouthfuls.
‘Yes, it’s a mess. They say that a huge number of people left not so long ago because they were worried there was going to be more fighting. But the general view is that it’s all over.’
‘What do you mean, all over?’
‘That this is it. That the line is drawn. And there is nothing we can do about it.’
‘But what about Famagusta?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ said Savvas. ‘We’ll get Famagusta back all right. But not Kyrenia. I don’t think we’ll be going there for a while.’
‘Can we go home?’ asked Aphroditi, grasping at the prospect of normal life.
‘Not yet,’ said Savvas. ‘But let’s hope it won’t be long.’
Aphroditi began to make coffee.
‘I’m really annoyed with Markos Georgiou for not getting the keys to me,’ Savvas added. ‘I suppose he’ll turn up with them eventually. And all the jewellery’s there too …’
Aphroditi found some sugar in the cupboard. She usually drank her coffee sketo, without sugar, but the sweetness gave her much-needed energy.
‘Perhaps we’ll be able to start all over again with The New Paradise Beach,’ said Savvas. ‘I’ve been checking the insurance policies. We might be covered.’
‘And what about The Sunrise? Do you think it’s been damaged?’
‘Let’s hope not,’ responded Savvas. ‘We’ll know as soon as we can go back.’
For the first time in weeks, Aphroditi pictured a return to the old life. Perhaps all the daydreams of lying in Markos’ arms, his lips touching hers, would become a reality once again.
Both Aphroditi and Savvas smiled, though their reasons were very different.
Over the following weeks, provisions became more varied and plentiful and a few more people began to drift back to the city hoping to repair their lives.
A new normality began to evolve. One by one the kafenia opened up again. On the day when the zacharoplasteion where her mother used to take her after school displayed cakes in its window, Aphroditi felt a surge of optimism. The following day, she took one of the tables inside and treated herself. She still needed to regain the weight she had lost and hoped her craving for pastries was going to help.
News of Famagusta had not been positive so far. There had been little progress with talks. The newspapers informed them that there was still much to negotiate before they could return.
‘We have to be patient, Aphroditi,’ said Savvas.
These words, from the most short-tempered man she had ever known, puzzled her, but when she came in one day and saw him sitting at her father’s big desk, she soon realised what had caused him to say them.
Savvas had found some advantage in what had taken place. In front of him were the floor plans of a building.
‘Is it The New Paradise Beach?’ she asked.
‘No,’ said Savvas. ‘It’s another hotel.’
He responded to her quizzical look.
‘I was going to wait before telling you,’ he said, looking both sheepish and pleased. ‘It was too big an opportunity to miss.’
‘What was?’
‘Nikos Sotiriou decided to sell his hotel. He had been wanting to take early retirement even before this crisis, so he offered it to me for thirty per cent of what it’s worth.’
The hotel Savvas had bought was Famagusta’s second most luxurious after The Sunrise.
‘Even by conservative estimates it was a bargain. Some others might come up. So as soon as we can return to the city, we’ll do a few repairs and open again. If I get the other one I have my eye on, it will make me the biggest hotel owner in Famagusta.’
Aphroditi was astonished.
‘But—’
‘I’ve taken out a loan. Not a cheap one, but I promise it will pay off. I am absolutely certain of it.’
Aphroditi felt slightly faint. It was almost beyond belief that Savvas had behaved like this in these uncertain times.
‘But we have nothing to sell to repay the loan …’
‘We won’t have to,’ he said snappily.
A moment passed. Aphroditi said nothing, just stared at her husband. He continued.
‘There’s always this place … your mother has her house in England. And there’s the jewellery sitting in the safe. That’s a tidy sum. Plenty of security.’
Savvas Papacosta’s optimism and the fact that he had acted without consulting her took her breath away.
‘I think I’ll go out for some fresh air,’ she said.
She needed to get away from her husband, and the late autumn weather had even brought a small breeze.
Down in the street, she found herself taking an almost automatic path towards the pastry shop. It was somewhere to go, somewhere comforting. The selection was limited, but a small slice of baklava with a cup of coffee would cheer her, even if it was only for a few minutes. She was totally incredulous that Savvas had risked so much.
As she waited to be served, she surveyed her fellow customers. Most of them were women her age or slightly older, perhaps less soignée than they might have been a year earlier, but they had all dressed up to go out. Just as it was for men going to the kafenion, meeting friends in the zacharoplasteion was a much-needed taste of normality for the ladies of Nicosia. One table in particular caught her eye.
A woman, aged sixty perhaps, with a helmet of backcombed black hair, was chatting to her friends, a group of three women all with similarly over-tended locks. Aphroditi knew her face. With her politician husband, she had been a frequent visitor to the nightclub. She recalled her from the opening party but knew that recognition would not be mutual.
In the dust and disarray of the city, it was miraculous to see these women chatting as if they had not a care in the world. Wafts of heavy perfume emanated from their table. Perhaps one of them was Aphroditi’s own favourite scent, but now the heady mix nauseated her.
The women were noisy and dominating, and their garish clothes and bright lipstick seemed out of place in the dilapidated street. Aphroditi could tell that they had all once been prized for their beauty and were determined not to let their looks fade. With her scrubbed face and her mother’s clothes, she no longer felt part of their world.
Suddenly she noticed something. The youngest of them was wearing a ring. It was the flash of its diamonds in the light that caught Aphroditi’s eye, but only when the woman’s hand stopped waving about (clearly she wanted to draw attention to it) could she get a proper look.
All the sugar she had just consumed seemed to surge through her body.
She saw a yellow diamond, perfectly circular in shape and the size of a small coin, surrounded by smaller ones, also yellow, set in platinum. There could not be two similar rings on the island. There was no mistaking it. It was hers.
Aphroditi was paralysed. There was no question of going up to the woman and accusing her of theft. Sitting in her mother’s old-fashioned clothes, trying not to be noticed, it was the last thing she could do.
Trembling like a leaf, she paid her bill and left. How had her ring ended up on this woman’s finger? It was not merely that she felt robbed. It was something even more pressing.
What had happened to Markos? How could anyone have retrieved that ring from the safe without his knowledge? Now more than ever, she needed to know.
Aphroditi took the shortest route home, her legs shaking so much they could scarcely carry her.
Chapter Twenty-three
IN FAMAGUSTA, THE habit of visiting the Georgious soon became a daily one for Emine, who was always carefully escorted by Hüseyin and in the company of Mehmet. Little Vasilis was as excited as Mehmet to have a new playmate, even when they ended up playing games of soldiers, an activity that he did not really understand.
Everyone had got used to keeping their voices low. The skies were quiet now, but if they grew complacent about the danger they were in, then all might be lost. There was nothing to indicate to them what was happening outside the city.
‘Do we really need to stay now?’ Irini asked Markos.
‘If the soldiers don’t know we’re here,’ he answered, ‘then we’re probably better off here than anywhere else. We have food and we’re safe.’
‘How do we know what’s safe out there?’ asked Emine. ‘If Markos is right about this dividing line, there might be chaos everywhere.’
‘If the line is meant to be separating Greeks and Turks, there’ll be plenty of people on the wrong side of it, I suppose,’ Irini reflected.
‘We could go north of the line,’ said Hüseyin. ‘We still have family and friends in Maratha.’
‘If you suddenly appear out there,’ interjected Vasilis, ‘you’ll be putting us in danger too. They’d come looking for others.’
‘Well in any case, nothing has changed for me,’ said Emine. ‘Until Ali comes back, I’m not leaving.’
Once Vasilis became involved, the discussion grew heated. Maria picked up Vasilakis and went into the bedroom, where the baby was sleeping. Mehmet was left once again to listen to the sound of adults arguing.
‘Why don’t you fetch your father, Hüseyin?’ suggested Markos. ‘We should see what he thinks too.’
Halit was sitting smoking on his doorstep. He looked very much at ease, just as he would have been in his old life. When he saw Hüseyin, he immediately castigated him.
‘Why did you leave them alone there?’
He could never put to one side his anxiety over what might happen to his wife and children in a house full of Greek Cypriots.
‘Will you come, Father?’
‘What? To that Greek house?’
‘We’re talking about whether to leave. It affects all of us,’ he insisted.
‘Us? Which us?’
‘Please. It’s important. Just for a few minutes.’
‘Well I’ll come, but I won’t sit down.’
Looking around him, Halit stubbed out his cigarette and crossed the street with his son.
Everyone except Vasilis stood up when Halit entered the room, and Irini greeted him warmly.
‘Welcome to our home,’ she said. ‘Let me make you some coffee.’
Halit remained standing, just as he had said he would. The others resumed their discussion about whether the departure of the Özkans was a good idea. They had scant information on which to base such a decision.
As Halit was about to say what he thought, they all heard the same sound. The slamming of car doors. It was close by but not directly outside. Then came voices.
They all froze. Turkish soldiers had not been on patrol in their street for some days now and they had been feeling safe. There was shouting, the sound of hammering, a door bei
ng kicked in, the groan of gears being crunched into reverse and then more yelled instructions. After twenty minutes or so, everything went quiet again. It had seemed a long time.
Irini, Vasilis, Panikos, Emine, Halit and Hüseyin all breathed a sigh of relief. Maria and the children were still in the bedroom and oblivious.
‘I think they’ve gone,’ Hüseyin whispered finally. ‘Let me go and see.’
He padded towards the door, drew the latch across and stepped outside. In a moment he was outside his family’s home. There was debris around it and he realised almost immediately that it was their front door that lay in splinters on the street.
He walked across the threshold. Even though he could see that there were items missing, the overturned tables and chairs and the spilled contents of drawers and cupboards made the house seem more cluttered than it had been before.
His father’s precious backgammon board had gone, frames were missing from the walls and the fridge had been removed. The store cupboards had been opened. A chest of drawers where his mother kept some silk cloths had been pulled open and the contents taken. Their small bust of Atatürk had been dropped on the floor, but the valueless nazar was intact, so he grabbed that as he left.
He ran back to the Georgious’ house to break the bad news.
‘You know what this means?’ exclaimed Emine.
Nobody spoke for a moment, but the truth had dawned on them all.
‘They will know someone was living there.’