Although the chef favoured a sophisticated style of international cuisine, he still had good stocks of dried koukia (broad beans), revithia (chickpeas), fakes (lentils) and fasolia (white haricot beans).
Irini especially was wide-eyed. She had not imagined such quantities of food, and the relief was enormous after the weeks of rationing meagre supplies.
There were plenty of tins of tomato purée, cans of vegetables for the times when fresh ones were out of season, and gallons of evaporated and condensed milk.
‘Look, Maria! Do you see all that halloumi?’ said Irini with excitement.
They might be lacking in meat, but she would still be able to fill hungry stomachs.
Catering for such vast numbers meant that the commis chefs often took short cuts, so there were huge cartons of stock cubes and sesame paste in industrial quantities. On another shelf were enormous jars of pickled mushrooms and capers. There were also the basic ingredients: olive oil, salt, pepper, dried herbs and plenty of spices. Every meal would be flavoursome.
Irini looked up at the higher shelves and realised she would not be short of ingredients for making a dessert or two. There were twenty-pound boxes of whole nuts and packets of ground nuts as well as every dried fruit: sultanas, raisins, dates and figs. In huge jars there were quantities of fruit preserved in syrup: cherries, figs, quince, pumpkin, walnuts and even watermelons. She had never seen such quantities of honey.
To Mehmet’s delight, there were also bars of chocolate. They were not a kind he had seen before. They would have looked at home in the giant hands of a colossus. He was allowed one soft square, and even that he could hardly manage to finish.
Irini smiled. She was like a child in a sweetshop herself and could hardly wait to begin cooking.
‘We could stay here for ever, Markos,’ she said, smiling. ‘Can I try to light one of the ovens later?’
In her head were all the recipes from her childhood and the first few years of her marriage, when meat had been a luxury and fish just an occasional part of their diet. She knew a thousand ways to make pulses, rice and spices into tasty dishes, and the sweet things she could create with flour, sugar, nuts and oil were virtually limitless.
Markos saw the animated look on his mother’s face.
‘Let’s do it as soon as we have finished the tour, Mamma,’ he said. ‘And by the way, Father has asked me where the bottles are kept.’
Irini gave her son a disapproving look.
‘We don’t know how long we’ll be here,’ he said. ‘He can’t live without it.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But …’
‘It does seem to help his pain,’ said Markos.
From the kitchen, he took them to the ballroom, and his mother and sister were almost lost for words.
‘But … the … oh my goodness … look at the … I’ve never …!’
They were awestruck by the mosaics, the furniture, the drapes, the murals and a thousand other details that embellished the hotel.
Some hours later, they were all sitting round a table together. Irini had suggested using the big table in the kitchen where the staff usually ate, but Markos had insisted that they should, on this occasion at least, eat in the ballroom.
Without any assistance, Irini had produced three tasty dishes as well as a tray of warm baklava. Markos had gone to the cellar to choose a fine wine to accompany his mother’s cooking.
He had laid the top table with silver cutlery, crystal glasses and starched napkins, and candles burned in the sconces around the walls. He put his mother on the Salamis throne where Aphroditi had always sat, and his father next to her. Markos himself sat by his mother, with Maria and Panikos to his right. The Özkan men faced them.
Once they were all seated, Markos made a toast.
‘Stin yeia mas,’ he said. ‘To our health.’
They all raised their glasses, except for Halit. Cautiously he tasted the first mouthful of Irini’s food. To his surprise, it was delicious and not unfamiliar. Next to him, Hüseyin ate everything appreciatively, as did Mehmet.
‘It’s even nicer than Mummy’s food,’ he said loudly.
His father gave him a disapproving look, almost glad his wife was still in their room.
Irini Georgiou had never looked so proud as everyone ate hungrily and then asked for more.
Upstairs, Emine gazed out of the window. Images of her slaughtered family members haunted her. Her imagination kept taking her to a vision of her precious sister. Had they killed her first, or had she been obliged to watch the murder of her three daughters? Were they raped? Had they been buried alive? How much did they suffer? Perhaps because she would never know the answer to these questions, her mind would not rest. She was tormented by the unknown.
At times her grief overwhelmed her. She wondered if her brother-in-law and the two boys had survived. Perhaps it would be better if they had not. And what about her other three sisters and their children?
Her mind dwelt constantly on Ali. If innocent women were being slaughtered, what would be happening to soldiers?
Small amounts of each dish were taken up to the first floor, but when the plates were brought down, the food was untouched.
‘She just needs time,’ Irini kept saying to Halit. ‘She just needs time.’
The days passed. Irini was busy. Until Emine was ready to help her, she would be the lone cook for all of them. Maria helped when she could, but she was still nursing the baby most of the time.
With all the sacks of flour in the store, Irini even began to make bread. Each morning as people came down the stairs, the aroma rose to greet them. Three loaves baked for the day lay in the kitchen on a tray, golden, glazed and waiting.
Once they had eaten warm slices, thickly spread with honey or jam, Irini made them coffee. Breakfast was always taken around the staff dining table.
In the first few days, there were plenty of jobs for the men to do. In an extension to the kitchen there was a chilled storehouse where fresh produce was kept. There had been a delivery only hours before the evacuation, and salads, vegetables and fruits of every variety were lined up in neat compartments. During the intervening weeks they had all rotted. The store was full of flies, and judging from the scrabbling going on at the back, rats had also found their way in for a feast.
The odour was foul, but not as repugnant as the meat fridge, and all the men worked at clearing it out.
‘Unless we clean it up, those rats will make their way into the kitchen,’ Markos said. ‘And the smell won’t get any better.’
Within a day, the storehouse was scrubbed clean. The debris was piled into sacks, and later that night Markos and Hüseyin took them through the hotel’s back gate and dumped them behind the food store. Panikos was rather overweight to be of use with heavy manual labour such as this.
Irini was insistent that their diet should be supplemented with something fresh, so Hüseyin had a daily mission to forage in abandoned gardens for fruit and tomatoes. It was strange that it still gave him a feeling of guilt every time he plucked an orange from a stranger’s tree or pulled the last ripened tomato from a vine.
He had usually gathered as much as they needed by midday. After that he felt redundant. There was nothing else to go foraging for, and Markos had given him a strict order not to go out after dark.
‘But surely it’s safer at night?’ Hüseyin suggested timidly.
‘No, it’s too risky,’ Markos responded sharply. ‘We can’t predict the soldiers’ movements then.’
Hüseyin felt put down. He would do what he was told, but nevertheless resented this man bossing him around.
Panikos had witnessed this exchange and could see that Hüseyin would be happy to be sent on a mission.
‘We’ve got most things here,’ he said to the young man, ‘but all the radios in the rooms are built in. If I give you directions, can you go to my shop? There are some transistors – and there should be plenty of batteries too.’
Hüseyin went willingly.
Only one transistor remained in the otherwise ransacked shop, along with a small supply of batteries, but at least it meant that they would be able to keep in touch with the world outside. That night, they took it in turns to listen to CyBC, then Radio Bayrak. It did not matter from which side the news came, it was not good. All around Cyprus there was still chaos, confusion and fear.
Not long after, Panikos came up with another mission for Hüseyin.
‘While you’re out,’ he said, ‘would you keep your eye out for a bicycle?’
Hüseyin did not disappoint him. Within days, he brought one back and, wheeling it in, he saw Panikos’ face light up.
That afternoon, Panikos began his project to create a generator.
After a week or so, Emine finally emerged from her room. Irini was very happy to see her friend. She had prepared food for her every day, and when she saw that Emine was beginning to eat again, she knew it would not be long before she enjoyed her company. The women immediately began to prepare meals together, but Maria suggested a new task for them all.
Vasilakis had grown a little in the past few months, and Maria wondered if, in the hundreds of empty bedrooms, any small clothes had been left behind. In the final panic of leaving, the occupants of Room 111 had abandoned a full wardrobe. The voluminous sundresses and vast Hawaiian shirts were of no use to any of them, but Maria was certain that somewhere there would be something that fitted her little son and even the baby. There had been plenty of small children staying in the hotel after all.
‘Mehmet’s trousers are looking too short as well,’ said Emine. ‘We could start on the top floor and work down.’
Frau Bruchmeyer’s wardrobe in the penthouse must have been full of beautiful and elegant clothes, but they did not go into her rooms.
‘If anyone is going to come back,’ said Emine, ‘it’s the lady who lived here. So we must leave everything just as it is. In any case, none of us have her slim figure …’
Markos had given them a master key that opened every bedroom on the fifteenth floor, and the baby lay and gurgled on the bed as they went through the possessions that had been left. Many people had tidied their rooms before leaving, straightening their beds, folding towels and hanging them neatly on the rail. Others had just run, grabbing their passports but nothing else. They had not even taken their suitcases.
The task of going through the abandoned clothes entertained and occupied the three women for hours that day.
There was plenty to try on. Most of the guests were wealthy; many of them were elegant and chic. Both Irini and Emine found the new outfits very different from their usual conservative styles, but they were happy to be in clean, fresh clothes. They also took trousers for the men. Panikos had already discovered a huge supply of starched and immaculately ironed shirts waiting unclaimed in the hotel’s laundry room.
In two adjacent rooms the women also found everything that was needed for the children.
‘Look at these baby clothes!’
There were little dresses and bonnets, tiny trousers, lace-edged vests and small cardigans. Maria read the labels. All of them had been made in France. Little Irini was immediately changed into a new outfit and Maria held her up to be admired. She kicked her legs as if in approval.
Up on the top floor of the hotel, the women felt very free. There was little chance that the sound of their voices would carry to the outside world. Even if there had been Turkish soldiers standing on the beach below, they would not have imagined that there were three women high above them who for a few hours laughed as if they had not a care in the world and almost forgot where they were.
As Maria twirled around in front of the mirror in a full-sleeved floral blouse and matching skirt, Emine exclaimed, ‘You look lovely in that!’ as though they were out on a shopping trip in one of Famagusta’s chic department stores.
‘Thank you!’ said Maria.
‘And look at these earrings!’ said Irini. ‘Try them on!’
They were made of plastic and the colour was a perfect match with the blouse.
‘We’re just borrowing all of this, aren’t we?’ said Maria uncertainly, spraying on some perfume that had been left on the dressing table.
‘Well we’re not going anywhere with it,’ laughed Emine. ‘I’ll tell you what would make you look even lovelier …’
‘What’s that?’
‘If we could do something with your hair …’
With clothes slung over their arms, they began their long descent – as yet they had only searched a single floor.
Before they sat down to dinner, Emine washed and trimmed Maria’s hair, then put it in rollers. Maria went to the kitchen and sat close to the ovens to dry it, meanwhile chatting to Irini and Emine, who were preparing the meal.
That night all three women wore their new clothes and the men put on fresh shirts. Even Mehmet and Vasilakis had different outfits, though they probably cared the least of anyone.
They ate by candlelight again in the ballroom. The flames picked up the tiny squares of gold in the mosaic floor and passed through the prism of the crystal glasses to make a multicoloured pattern on the ceiling.
Irini had cooked a special dish with anchovies and rice. For the hotel’s traditional Cypriot nights, there had been a supply of salted goat’s meat, which had survived several months at the back of a fridge. Slices were served on a grand silver platter. They even managed to make a version of pastitsio with some preserved sausages – or fırın makarnası, as Emine called it.
Emine and Irini both noticed that, for the first time, Halit and Vasilis were engaged in conversation. The wives exchanged a satisfied glance. They had always hoped for this moment. As the days had passed, the two men had started to forget their differences.
After dinner that night, Markos suggested something that had been on his mind: there should be someone on watch. Just because there were strong iron gates and bars, it did not mean that the soldiers might not come looking for spoils, especially if they ever found out that The Sunrise had been the most glamorous hotel in Cyprus. The other hotels might be easier targets but they should be prepared.
He had noticed a pattern with the soldiers’ movements. It appeared they patrolled Kennedy Avenue in the late afternoon.
‘I think we should take turns and do shifts,’ said Markos. ‘The rooftop is a good viewing point for all the approaching roads. And they’ll never come from the beach side.’
Next day, Halit volunteered to do the first shift.
‘There’s no reason why I can’t do a shift too,’ said Vasilis.
‘But—’ started Markos.
‘I’m not too old for it,’ he said defensively.
The only problem would be the long climb up fifteen flights of stairs, but Vasilis was adamant.
‘We can always go up there together,’ said Halit.
The offer made Irini smile. She had never imagined it would happen.
The men agreed that they should go to the rooftop every day before dinner. Markos made them promise that if they smoked, they would stay out of view. As dusk fell, the glow of a cigarette might attract a soldier’s attention.
Every day after that, Hüseyin went up to the rooftop to take over from the men. It was only there that he had a sense of purpose. Since being in the hotel, he had yearned to run, not to fight but simply to get away from the stagnation. He wanted to do something other than sit and wait, not even knowing what it was he was waiting for. The lack of activity in the hotel was difficult for him. Earlier in the week he had woken up from a vivid dream in which he was in front of a selection panel for the national volleyball team. Too fat to jump, he had failed. He was now anxious that one day he might even be as corpulent as Panikos.
One night, he could not sleep. Quietly he slid open his balcony door and looked out. It was November now and the air was cool and crisp at night. He looked down at the beach, lit by the moonlight, and imagined he could hear his friends’ voices. Every dent and footprint had been removed from the sand
by a constant steady breeze. The sunloungers still sat there piled up where he had left them.
He wondered what had happened to the friends with whom he had played beach volleyball and water polo. The best times of his life had been spent on that beach, with boys like Christos. Kyria Georgiou had not mentioned him for a while. It was as if he had become a ghost in their lives.
He knew that Ali was fighting somewhere too. Perhaps the two of them had even encountered each other. Sometimes it made Hüseyin feel like a coward that he had not joined his brother, but he could not picture what he would be fighting for. To kill some Greek Cypriots? To avenge his lost cousins? Both would be pointless.
Night after night, in the flickering candlelight, Panikos tuned the radio. They caught up with the latest attempts to establish a solution for their devastated island and the situation with the homeless and the refugees. They also listened to the lists of people who were trying to find lost relatives, but the names they were hoping to hear were never read out. The batteries were running low, as was their belief that they would ever again see either Ali or Christos.
Chapter Twenty-five
IN NICOSIA, SAVVAS and Aphroditi were doing their best to survive. Although their diet was more limited than that being enjoyed by the Georgiou and Özkan families, Aphroditi was feeling much better now. All her symptoms of dysentery seemed to have passed, and a few weeks on, she noticed that, for the first time since she was a teenager, she had actually put on a little weight.
Even if she had packed her own clothes and brought them from Famagusta, she would not have been able to get into them; she was glad of her mother’s elasticated waistbands.
Like Irini in Famagusta, the owner of her favourite zacharoplasteion could create a mouth-watering variety of results – all of them fattening – out of flour, honey, oil, nuts and various spices. Aphroditi knew that she should stop going there, but her reasons for visiting were no longer just to taste the beautiful pastries.
Day after day she sat at a table close to the window, watching for the woman with her ring. Sometimes she waited in vain, but on other days the person she was waiting for would come in, always with the same group of women.