How they seemed to love themselves, thought Aphroditi, how over-primped and over-preened they seemed against the backdrop of nearby dereliction. They seemed unaffected by everything that had happened. Aphroditi found herself feeling the occasional pang of envy for their camaraderie and their apparent oblivion to everything outside this shop. They appeared not even to notice her, so enthralled were they with each other and their hilarious conversation and unrelenting gossip. If the woman would only come in on her own, just once, Aphroditi could ask how she had acquired this piece of jewellery. As things were, she knew she could not separate her from the crowd. They were like a string of pearls without a clasp.
She tried not to stare. She did not want to be noticed. In spite of the fact that she had put on her aquamarine necklace, she knew she looked dowdy and down at heel.
One day the woman with the ring came in alone and sat down. It was Aphroditi’s ideal opportunity and she was about to speak when she noticed something: the woman was wearing the matching earrings. Aphroditi felt the blood drain completely from her face. Even if she had ordered a pastry, not a mouthful could have passed her lips.
Just as she recovered her composure, she heard the ting of the bell. The door opened and the woman’s friends danced in. They were even more dressed up than usual.
‘Hronia Polla, Katerina!’ they chorused. ‘Many happy returns!’
They all sat down and coffees were immediately brought, along with a huge cream-filled gateau and seven plates.
‘Panagia mou!’ shrieked one of them. ‘Your lovely husband has been generous! Look at those earrings!’
In turn, they all inspected the new addition to her jewellery collection. The earrings were indeed very splendid.
‘Well, Giorgos says there’s nothing worth investing in apart from diamonds at the moment, so I’m not going to dissuade him,’ she said coyly.
‘My husband says the same,’ the one with the helmet hair added, ‘but I don’t seem to be benefiting like you!’
‘Perhaps you should …’
The rest was whispered behind a hand, so Aphroditi did not catch what she said, but there were shrieks of mirth before everyone laughed and carried on eating cake.
Aphroditi slipped out, feeling as nauseous as if she had eaten twenty slices of Katerina’s gateau. She imagined she could still hear their laughter from a hundred yards down the street.
She had plenty of information; she knew the name of the man who had bought her jewellery and the name of his wife. It would not be difficult to find out who they were. Nicosia was a small place and the number of people with that much money had dwindled. Their connection with the politician whose wife she had recognised would probably lead her to them.
But this was not entirely the issue. Seeing the jewellery that she knew had been in the safe fuelled her burning need to know what had happened to Markos.
It must be something terrible. Surely if he was in Nicosia he would have been to see her. He knew where they were living. But he had not come. Markos was the only person with the keys and combinations to the safes. Perhaps he had been forced to open them and was now a prisoner in Famagusta. The thought made her stomach churn.
She had to get there. It was the only way to find out.
Such a journey would be almost impossible, but there must be a way. She could not think of an excuse for asking Savvas to help without revealing the truth and, in any case, they were hardly speaking. She would have to sell the only thing she had. Judging by the woman in the café, there was obviously a market.
Pawnbrokers were already operating in the city. It was the perfect way to exploit anyone who was desperate for food. Most people had something of value to trade and they would accept a tiny fraction of its worth.
A few days later, Savvas told Aphroditi that he would be going away for a week. Though he was sure that it would not be long before the hotels in Famagusta were up and running again, he was still keen to explore other possibilities and wanted to see some sites on the south coast. Many hotel owners and developers were scared and ready to get out of the island, so prices would soon be hitting rock bottom.
He left Aphroditi a little cash to survive on and took the car. She could not bring herself to worry if he would get back safely.
The next night, Aphroditi stood naked in front of the mirror. She had more than made up for her weight loss and was hating her bloated waistline. It seemed ironic to be getting fat when they had so much less to eat than before. Perhaps it was all the bread.
Then she noticed her breasts. They had expanded, and the nipples were enlarged. She looked at herself from the side.
‘Oh my God!’ she murmured aloud, half with shock, half with pleasure.
She turned to see herself from all sides. It was a long time since she had scrutinised herself in the mirror like this. Her shape had completely changed.
She found a piece of paper, sat down on the bed and, with shaking hands, began to calculate. She must have conceived at the beginning of August. Her lack of periods she had put down to illness and stress. It was now early December. There was no question about who the father was.
In spite of the circumstances, she was thrilled at the discovery. Now, more urgently than ever, she needed to find Markos.
The following morning, she made time to have coffee with the Loizous on the floor below her. For an hour or so they shared their experiences of the war. The Loizous had been in Nicosia for the duration. They had nowhere else to go. All their children had gone to England some years earlier, but they had no desire to leave their beautiful island.
‘There were gunshots every day,’ said Kyrios Loizou. ‘And fires breaking out all over the place.’
‘But we stuck it out, didn’t we? We still have our home here,’ said Kyria Loizou. ‘And there’s our orchard in the north. I’m sure we’ll get it back again one day.’
‘That’s not to say that we haven’t had to pawn a few things,’ added her husband.
‘Yes, prices have gone up so much!’ exclaimed his wife. ‘Specially bread!’
Aphroditi’s ears pricked up. She thought for a moment.
‘That’s a shame,’ she said. ‘What did you have to take?’
‘All our silver frames,’ Kyria Loizou answered.
Aphroditi noticed a pile of photographs on the side table.
‘And an icon,’ said the elderly man. ‘We got a good price for that …’
‘But our son has promised to send us some money,’ Kyria Loizou said cheerfully, ‘so we’ll go and retrieve them as soon as it arrives.’
A few minutes later, Aphroditi left the apartment. In her hand she had the address of their pawnbroker.
She felt vulnerable as she walked quickly through the streets. The pawn shop had always been in a seedy part of town, but such areas were even more run-down following the bombardment they had suffered. Slipping through the door, she noticed a row of silver-framed icons and wondered if one of them belonged to the Loizous.
In his white coat, the pawnbroker reminded Aphroditi of a pharmacist. As if scientifically, he examined her necklace, ring and bracelet with his magnifying glass to check on the purity of the stones, and then glanced up at her. He saw that there were earrings to match. She did not look like the sort of woman who would have owned such things, but he was impressed. He could not lie.
‘They’re good,’ he said. ‘Real quality.’
‘I know,’ Aphroditi replied. ‘But I need to sell them.’
‘I’ll give you one hundred for the lot,’ he said, laying them carefully on his counter. ‘The stones are flawless, but you won’t get more than that anywhere else.’
She was feeling bold.
‘I need the money for something specific,’ she said, ‘and I don’t know what it will cost. So that’s what will help me decide.’
The pawnbroker took off his glasses.
‘Well, if you tell me what this something specific is, then perhaps I can help you make a decision.’
It was still early and there was nobody else in the shop.
‘Can I sit down?’ said Aphroditi, suddenly feeling exhausted.
The pawnbroker pulled a chair round for her.
‘Tell me,’ he said.
Perhaps for the first time in her life, Aphroditi felt she had nothing to lose.
‘I need to go to Famagusta …’
The man looked at her. This woman must be insane. Not only was she considering taking one hundred pounds for a set of jewellery worth fifteen hundred, but she wanted to go to one of the most dangerous places in Cyprus. Did she not know that it was fenced off and patrolled by Turkish soldiers?
‘But I need someone to take me,’ she added.
He realised that she was planning to go alone. She must be desperate.
‘Well …’ he said, with deliberate hesitation, ‘I might be able to help you with this.’
His mind had already come up with a plan. This woman certainly had the means to pay whatever it cost, and he would still make a profit out of her. He dealt in desperation, and also in information, and he made money from both.
The pawnbroker had a group of contacts who could be bribed to arrange for safe conduct to the northern part of the island. Many Greek Cypriots had left valuables hidden or even buried in their gardens when they fled from the invasion, fully expecting to return in a short while, but weeks had now turned into months and they were losing faith in the talks and negotiations that might allow them home. All they wanted was to cross the Attila line, make a brief, clandestine visit to retrieve a few valuables, and leave again. It had happened many times and there were networks of people who could help. Anything could be done, as long as payment was forthcoming.
Going right inside the abandoned city of Famagusta was another matter. There were Turkish soldiers willing to accept a bribe, but breaking through the barbed wire was a different proposition.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘come back tomorrow. It won’t be cheap but there will be a way. I’ll have news for you then.’
Aphroditi gathered up her jewellery, carefully put it back on and left the shop.
That night, she lay awake for hours, thinking.
The discovery of her pregnancy both excited and terrified her. She lay with her hands on her belly. It seemed impossible now that she had not been aware of it before.
Somehow she had to find out whether Markos was still in Famagusta. The prospect of seeing him gave her such butterflies that she wondered if the baby was already moving inside her.
Eventually she fell into a dream-filled sleep. Markos was waiting for her on the beach outside The Sunrise, and they walked for miles, hands joined, bare feet sinking into deep sand.
When she woke, her pillow was soaked with tears. Was such joy really beyond reach? Later that day she would return to the pawnbroker. This could be her only chance of happiness.
As Aphroditi made her way through the streets of Nicosia, rain was turning the dust to mud. It was cold and yet humid, a combination that brought coughs for the young and aching joints for the old.
She had found an old waterproof coat of her mother’s. It was caramel coloured and there was a silk scarf in the pocket that she put on to keep her hair dry, knotting it under the chin just as her mother used to. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and hardly recognised the person she had become. Her bump was well hidden beneath her mother’s gathered skirts and shapeless dresses, but she knew that the combination of the outfits and her spreading figure made her look like an old lady. Her reflection, even in broken shop windows, confirmed this.
The pawnbroker seemed happy enough to see her.
‘I’ve found someone to take you,’ he said. ‘On Monday.’
Savvas was returning on Tuesday evening, so she would have preferred to go sooner.
‘It couldn’t be any earlier than that, I suppose?’
‘No,’ the man said roughly, as if reacting to ingratitude. ‘There aren’t many people prepared to do this, you know.’
In what she now thought of as former days, people had never spoken to her in that way. She had status and beauty back then. Nowadays, the basic need to survive had changed the way everyone behaved, and manners seemed to matter not at all.
‘What time shall I come?’ she asked.
‘Late afternoon,’ he said. ‘It’s better to do something like that when it’s getting dark. And I assume you want to come back the same night?’
Aphroditi had not thought about this at all.
‘Yes, yes … I’m sure I will.’
‘We’ll have to settle up now,’ he said, not looking her in the eye but staring blatantly at the hand on which she wore the aquamarine ring.
She pulled it off with some difficulty; her fingers had swelled a little in recent weeks. Its absence made her left hand look bare.
She removed the earrings and put them on the counter. Then the bracelet.
The pawnbroker said nothing. He was waiting for the final part of the payment. Aphroditi had not yet undone her coat, but now she did so and looped the pendant over her head.
He leaned over and took it out of her hands. This was the prize.
‘Do I get …’ she began hesitantly.
‘A receipt?’
She nodded. There was no reason to trust this man. Only desperation had brought her here.
He got out a small pad, scribbled on the top sheet, tore it off and handed it over.
‘In lieu of safe conduct,’ it read.
What else had she expected? Folding the paper, she slipped it in her pocket and said an inaudible thank you.
The bell jangled. An elderly couple was entering as she left. Aphroditi knew them by sight, but there was not the slightest flicker of recognition on their distraught and wretched faces.
The next three days passed with agonising slowness. Aphroditi did not know what to do with herself. She slept late and then walked the streets in the afternoons, sometimes losing herself, often coming up against walls of sandbags. The musty smell of emptiness was all-pervading. It did not matter much where these ambles took her. There was always the possibility of finding a shop selling fruit or a tin of milk, and she carried a string bag for this purpose. These days there were very few things that she felt like eating. She had no appetite for sweet things any more and had not been back to the zacharoplasteion since Katerina’s saint’s day, the day she had seen her diamond earrings.
She usually returned from her wanderings late in the afternoon. Having closed the shutters, she slumped, exhausted, in what used to be her father’s favourite armchair. In the semi-darkness she was almost too tired to listen to the radio, which reported on little but the state of the refugee camps and the stagnation of talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriot leaders. She had no heart for politics.
One night she rang her mother, who, as usual, urged her to come to England.
‘Why don’t you come?’ she asked. ‘I just don’t understand you. What is there to stay for?’
‘Savvas is still hoping …’
‘But why can’t you go back later on … when everything is settled?’
‘It’s more complicated than that, Mother.’
‘It all sounds very simple to me, dear.’
If only you knew, thought Aphroditi. If only you even had the slightest idea.
‘Well, if you see sense,’ continued Artemis, ‘you know there’s space for you here.’
‘I’ll call you again next week,’ said Aphroditi. ‘Bye bye, Mother.’
Their conversations always took a similar path. At the moment when the receiver clicked, both mother and daughter felt dissatisfied.
Finally the day appointed for her journey to Famagusta arrived.
Aphroditi was so full of trepidation that she could not eat. She knew there was a possibility that The Sunrise had been destroyed and the safes broken into. And that something terrible had happened to Markos.
She killed time tidying up the apartment, remembering that Savvas was returning the foll
owing day. Then she looked in her mother’s wardrobe to see if there was anything that might make her look less frumpy. By late afternoon, five or six dresses lay discarded on the bed. Neither floral prints nor geometric designs flattered her, and most plain colours seemed to drain her. Finally she chose a shirt dress. Green used to suit her so well, but now it seemed as if nothing could improve her looks. The shapeless, button-through style hid her pregnancy.
As she stood in front of the mirror, she realised how much she now looked like her mother. Although she had her father’s eyes, her stature and shape were uncannily similar to Artemis Markides’. Her hair at least was still dark brown. It had grown several inches in the last months and was drawn back with a clip. She was not yet ready for the short uniform style of most older Cypriot women.
Aphroditi glanced down at her watch. Apart from her wedding ring, it was the only item of any value she still possessed.
The time had passed. She laced up some flat winter shoes, put on her raincoat and picked up her shoulder bag. Inside it she dropped her key, her purse and the receipt from the pawnbroker. Then she went out of the front door.
She paused on the landing, suddenly remembering something. The small velvet pouch with her pearl was in a bedside drawer for safe keeping. She could not leave without it. Perhaps it would be her lucky charm. She nursed the possibility that she might never come back.
She let herself back into the apartment, retrieved what she wanted and left again.
Aphroditi knew that she was taking a huge risk by going into the occupied part of the island, and there was a brief moment of doubt. Was this fair to her unborn child? The belief that she was on a mission to find the baby’s father was the only thing that stopped her from turning back.
Chapter Twenty-six
IT WAS FIVE in the evening and she was due to meet her escort just before nightfall. There was ample time, but she was anxious nevertheless about being late. Something told her that the pawnbroker would not be sympathetic.