Fear and excitement mingled inside her.
The streets were unlit, so she needed to be careful to avoid tripping on broken paving stones or pieces of fallen masonry. As she stumbled along, she realised that the shoes she had chosen felt like boats.
There were very few people around. A cluster of Greek soldiers on one street corner did not appear to notice her as she passed. They were standing in a circle, facing inwards, smoking and laughing, oblivious to anything but the joke that one of them was telling. She saw a mother with two small children. They looked destitute, but she noticed that the little girl was carrying a loaf. She caught its fragrance as they passed.
Aphroditi suddenly felt hungry, but it was too late to do anything about it. Her favourite pastry shop was not far away, but she could not go there now.
Eventually she reached her destination. There were no lights inside the shop, and when she saw that the sign in the window had been turned to read ‘Kleisto’ – ‘Shut’ – she had to fight back tears.
For a few moments she stood pretending to peruse the items in the unlit window. The display was piled high with clocks, watches, ornate silver frames, icons, radios and other things that had once been treasured by their owners. Now they just looked like junk.
She was alone in the street.
She imagined her aquamarines stored somewhere inside the shop, or perhaps they had already been sold. There was no time for sentimentality, but she asked herself if she had been conned. All she had was an unsigned scrap of paper.
A moment later she heard the sound of a jeep, and when she turned, she saw that it had drawn up almost next to her. The window was wound down and a man’s voice spoke gruffly.
‘Papacosta?’
She nodded.
‘Get in.’
Nobody opened the door for her these days. It still seemed strange sometimes.
The driver had left the engine running, and the moment she climbed into the passenger seat, the vehicle moved off again.
Without any preamble, he informed her of the schedule. He sounded Greek rather than Greek Cypriot.
‘This is what happens. I take you to a crossroads about ten miles outside Nicosia. Someone picks you up from there and does the next twenty miles. After that, you’re taken on foot—’
‘On foot?’ exclaimed Aphroditi. ‘But—’
‘It’s not far. You won’t be on your own,’ the driver said impatiently. ‘Then with any luck there’ll be someone at the wire.’
With any luck. It sounded so casual, but what could she say? What choice did she have now?
She hugged her bag to her. The jeep had already reached the edge of the city and the road was rough and gravelly, worse than in the past. She tried to see if the landscape had changed in any way, but it was impossible in the darkness to make out anything much. They jolted along, sometimes swerving to miss a pothole.
The driver made it plain that he had no interest in talking to her. Most of the time he seemed to be looking out of the side window rather than the windscreen, which terrified Aphroditi.
They passed no other cars on the road, and in what seemed like no time, the vehicle stopped. The driver drew on his cigarette. Aphroditi turned to him for an explanation, noticing for the first time that he looked about eighteen. The youth did not speak, but rudely indicated with a nod of his head that someone was waiting up ahead.
Having opened the door, she swung her legs round and dropped to the ground. The other vehicle had no lights on and its engine was not running. There appeared to be nobody in it.
She walked nervously towards it, her heart beating furiously. The jeep had already driven off. When she got closer, she could see a figure in the driver’s seat. He was fast asleep. She tapped on the window and the man woke with a start. Without even looking at Aphroditi, he berated her for being late. Being entirely in these people’s hands, she was in no position to argue.
This driver was more ill-tempered than the previous one. He said little, but the stream of curses he uttered under his breath identified him as a Greek Cypriot.
‘Have you taken other people to Famagusta?’ she asked nervously.
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Nobody wants to go back there. Too dangerous.’
This stage of the journey seemed to take an age. The driver’s cigarettes made her nauseous, but to her great relief she eventually felt the deceleration of the car.
‘This is where you get out,’ he said, pulling on the handbrake.
‘But there’s no one here!’ she protested.
‘Well it’s as far as I go,’ he said flatly.
Aphroditi wondered how many people had taken a cut of her payment. Certainly none of them seemed to have been paid to care.
‘But I can’t just stand here in the middle of nowhere,’ she said, determined to hide her alarm.
‘I’m not waiting around,’ he said. ‘That’s not what I’ve been paid to do.’
‘But isn’t someone meant to be meeting us here?’
‘I don’t know what you’ve arranged,’ he said rudely. ‘I was told to get you to this place, and that’s what I’ve done.’
The thought of being abandoned in this lonely spot filled Aphroditi with terror. She was about to give up her plan and ask if he could just drive her back to where they had come from.
‘That’s Famagusta,’ said the driver, pointing. ‘You can walk from here.’
Out of the window she saw the forbidding outline of a city. She had not realised they were so close. There it was. Her home. The place she had loved, now in darkness.
Then she saw a figure coming towards them. It was a man. He seemed to have appeared from nowhere. Slim, medium height. For a fraction of a second she thought it was Markos. He was coming to meet her! She put her hand on the door handle and was about to let herself out and run towards him.
A moment later the man was close enough for her to see that she had been mistaken. He looked nothing like the man she loved. There was not the slightest resemblance.
‘I suppose that’s your guide,’ said the driver.
She got out of the car and without saying anything slammed the door behind her.
Now that he was close up, Aphroditi wondered how she could ever have imagined that this man was Markos. He was around the same age but more thickset, and she noticed that he had several teeth missing. He had a fixed expression, his mouth set in a frozen smile. The dark gaps between his teeth made him look sinister.
She realised immediately that he did not speak Greek, and when she tried some English, that did not work either.
‘Famaguthta?’ he asked, his missing front teeth giving him a curious lisp.
As if there was anywhere else to go, thought Aphroditi.
She nodded.
They walked side by side. Aphroditi’s shoes were giving her blisters, but she plodded along determinedly. Gradually the city loomed larger in front of them and she began to make out the individual buildings, low-rise apartment blocks and houses.
The landscape around them was flat. They passed a few ruined homes and some empty, unlit farmhouses. It was now about midnight and the temperature had dropped. She wished she had worn a thicker coat. Even though they were walking quite briskly, she began to shiver. Fear was taking hold of her.
Only when they were a hundred yards or so away did she notice the fence. She turned towards her guide to see his reaction and saw that he was prepared. He was removing some cutters from his pocket.
The silence was heavy. She recalled her last moments in the city, when everyone was taking flight: the noise of car engines, hooting horns, shouting, the roar of aircraft overhead. Now there was nothing. All she could hear was the thumping of her heart.
Quickly and efficiently he snipped the wires and let her through, not bothering to rejoin the pieces. Presumably they would return the same way.
Then she heard voices. Turkish.
Her guide grabbed her by the wrist. Instinctively she pulled away from him, confused and alarmed.
Up until now he had seemed less rough in his ways than the first two men she had encountered, and it took her a moment to realise that this man was not wanting to steal her watch. He was merely pointing at it, making stabbing gestures as if trying to tell her something.
Although he was speaking very quietly, he was miming as well, tapping the watch face and holding up two fingers. Aphroditi understood that she would have to be back in two hours. She also realised that the voices she had heard were coming closer and the toothless Turkish Cypriot was handing her over to someone new.
Two Turkish soldiers sauntered into view. When she looked round, Aphroditi saw that the previous guide had already disappeared. It was all she could do to remain upright. She felt as if her trembling legs might collapse beneath her.
One of the soldiers, his arms folded contemptuously, looked her up and down silently. He was thickset and had a moustache. The other one, slightly taller and fairer, lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply before addressing her in Greek. She felt it was a good sign.
‘What do you want here?’
It was the only question that mattered, but she had not expected to be asked. The answer she gave could not be the truth, but she had to say something.
‘I want to see our hotel,’ she said.
‘Our hotel …’ he repeated.
The other soldier laughed. Aphroditi realised that he understood Greek too, and he also parroted her words. The notion of what was now meant by ‘our’ clearly amused them.
‘So let’s go to our hotel then, shall we?’
Their disdainful sarcasm was threatening enough, but when one of them put his arm through hers and began to steer her along, fear began to rise within her.
‘Shall we go down to the sea?’ he asked.
Aphroditi nodded. She was fighting back her tears now. Whatever happened, she must not allow them to see how afraid she was.
The second soldier took her other arm and they strode along like the best of friends, though they were both taller and their steps much longer than hers. She was struggling, her blistered feet now bleeding, though she could not look down to see them.
‘Parakalo. Please,’ she entreated quietly. ‘I can’t keep up with you.’
The soldiers said something to each other in Turkish but did not slow their pace. In spite of their displays of mocking friendship, they pretended not to hear.
Sandwiched between them, Aphroditi surveyed the dilapidation of the streets. Weeds were growing between the paving stones and the shops were derelict. There was not enough time to take it all in. This was not the city she knew. It was a place she did not recognise. Its soul had gone.
Several times during their march to the seafront, they met other groups of soldiers and stopped for a few minutes. Aphroditi’s lack of understanding of the Turkish language fuelled her sense of fear. If only she had been more diligent and bothered to learn more than the basics, it might have helped her now.
Her appearance had already caused her some shame and embarrassment in Nicosia, but now she was grateful for the way in which her shapeless clothes made her look like countless middle-aged women. Most of the soldiers they encountered were momentarily curious about this dowdy Greek Cypriot in a shabby mackintosh and headscarf, but then ignored her completely.
They seemed to have all the time in the world to chat, light each other’s cigarettes and pass around a bottle of whisky. None of them were expecting any action. It was clearly just a formality to be patrolling these empty streets, where the only other living creatures were rats and mice. Drunkenness was not going to prevent them from fulfilling their almost non-existent duties.
What bothered Aphroditi most at this stage was that she only had two hours in the city. Time was ticking away, but she knew it would be unwise to point this out.
When the first of the hotels came into view, the taller of the soldiers asked her:
‘Where is “our” hotel, then?’
The stockier one spoke to her more aggressively.
‘Pou?’ he repeated. ‘Where?’
She had a momentary thought that it might be better not to lead them to The Sunrise, as they might then imagine she had more money. She dismissed the idea, however. Now that she had come all this way, she might as well reach her destination. The smallest possibility that she might see Markos or even be able to work out what had happened to him kept returning to her. It gave her just enough courage to stop her from falling to her knees and pleading with the soldiers to take her back to the wire.
‘It’s called The Sunrise,’ she said. ‘It’s down towards the end of the beach.’
For a few moments the soldiers jabbered between themselves. She had felt their mood change. As before, she had no idea what they were disagreeing about, which only made the situation more frightening.
Even with their unsympathetic pace, Aphroditi knew that ten minutes’ walking still lay ahead. The only thing that had kept her feet moving was hope, but as she took in the state of the city and realised that nobody could possibly be living there, her energy began to drain from her. They walked down Demokratias Avenue and Ermou Street, where the once-gleaming plate glass of her favourite shops was now jagged and broken. Almost everything had been wrecked.
When they got to the strip of hotels, she could see that some of them had smashed windows, but she was not sure if this had been caused by the earlier bombing or if they had been broken into.
In the distance, she could make out The Sunrise. It was still standing, apparently intact, but very eerie in the darkness. She was so close now, only a hundred yards or so away. It was strange how energy could return with hope or excitement.
The soldiers stopped outside a small guest house opposite the hotels.
‘We’re going for a break now,’ said the taller one. ‘These friends of ours will get you where you want to go …’
It was the fourth time Aphroditi had been handed over to someone new, but the look of dismay on her face did not appear to register with them. Two other soldiers had appeared on the pavement next to her. They were older than the first pair; their crinkly hair had streaks of grey. One of them was wearing a greatcoat over his uniform.
Even from several feet away, Aphroditi could smell alcohol on their breath. One of them reached out and chucked her under the chin. She felt the sharp scratch of his fingernails.
He said something in Turkish and the others laughed.
The first two soldiers must have told them where she wanted to go, and the new ones began walking towards The Sunrise. She followed them meekly. She gathered that they did not speak any Greek.
On the roof of the hotel, Vasilis and Halit were on watch. A few days earlier they had noticed that soldiers were newly billeted in a guest house a short distance away. Markos had insisted that they increase their hours on duty.
Their stomachs were full of good food and Vasilis had enjoyed some wine from the hotel cellar. They kept each other awake by talking; over these past months, there was little they had not told each other of their lives. They were vigilant, though, and took their job very seriously. Although their view was obscured by the hotel next door, they kept a close eye on the soldiers’ movements.
‘So how often do you prune?’ Halit was asking, running his tespih through his fingers.
‘Well, it depends on rainfall …’ answered Vasilis. He was sprinkling water on the tomato plants that they were cultivating on the rooftop.
Vasilis’ citrus orchard remained his favourite subject, and although Halit had given his up when he had left Maratha to bring his family to Famagusta, he dreamed that he would have trees again one day.
As the men talked, they always faced towards the street, keeping a lookout. Occasionally a vehicle would drive in their direction and turn off opposite the hotel, up a side street that eventually led out of the city. Very occasionally soldiers went past the hotel on foot.
‘Vasilis! Look!’ Halit whispered, interrupting the other man’s flow. ‘Down there!’
Thre
e figures were coming from the left and stopped in front of the railings of the hotel.
‘It’s all locked up, Halit. Nobody can get in.’
‘I know, this place is like a fortress, but …’
‘Don’t worry, my friend. Papacosta was prepared.’
Another second passed.
‘Pass me the glasses,’ said Halit. ‘There’s something odd.’ There was a note of real anxiety in his voice.
Early on in their stay at The Sunrise, when they’d agreed that they needed to keep watch, Hüseyin had come back with a pair of binoculars that had been dropped in the street. They were army issue and powerful enough for them to identify uniforms and faces even in a low light.
‘Two soldiers,’ said Halit. ‘But there’s a woman too.’
‘A woman? Are you sure?’
‘Take a look!’
Vasilis saw that there was indeed a woman walking behind the two soldiers. The men sauntered, their gait swaggering. They were apparently indifferent to her.
He drew back from the parapet of the roof, anxious not to be seen. Halit remained poised and still, following their progress as they approached.
Aphroditi saw that they were almost at The Sunrise. It looked so unfamiliar, and the railings that surrounded the hotel so unfriendly. She had never seen the gates closed before. At more than eight feet in height, both railings and gates were unscalable. Looking through, she could see that the main doors were also still protected by the iron grid and that this had not been forced open.
The soldiers remained on either side of her as she stood in front of the bars, looking in at the intense blackness of the windows. They were talking over her head. She wished she understood even a word.
Halit, hidden in the shadows, tried to focus on the three of them. It was hard to make anything out, with the lines of the bars across their faces.
Perhaps, thought Aphroditi, if she could get them to take her round to the other side of the hotel, facing the sea, there might be a means of getting in. With no common language, all she could do was point. Unless she found a way of getting inside the hotel, her mission would have been futile.