One of the soldiers bent down and said something to her. His face was half an inch from hers and the overpowering combination of bad breath and acrid sweat made her heave. He noticed her recoil and it seemed to infuriate him.
Seizing her arm, he pulled her roughly away from the iron fence. Without warning, his apparent boredom and indifference seemed to have turned into aggression. The other soldier was also shouting at her now. He spat on the ground just in front of her feet.
Still holding her arm, the first soldier hauled her into the passageway to the side of the hotel. This was where Aphroditi had wanted to go, but not like this.
From the rooftop, Halit watched the trio disappear out of sight. He had heard the soldiers’ shouts. The sound had carried all the way up to the rooftop.
‘I don’t know who she is,’ he said, ‘but I wish we could help her.’
‘We can’t,’ said Vasilis. ‘It’ll put all of us in danger.’
‘But we need to alert Markos and Hüseyin! They should know there are soldiers right next to us.’
‘You go! I’ll stay up here. Give me the binoculars.’
Unbeknown to any of them, Markos had gone out that night. As he came southwards down the main road in front of the hotels, the soldiers had already turned into the passageway. Their rough voices alerted him to their presence and he knew his route home was blocked. More than that, he had left the fire door on the latch.
He ducked into the side road opposite The Sunrise and crouched in a doorway. From his hiding place, he could see into the passageway. He realised that there were two soldiers and they were not alone.
In between them was a third person, much smaller. Not a child, but probably a woman. She was caught in the middle of them, held so tightly that there was no question of her getting away. Her feet scraped the ground. She was being dragged.
Then he heard screaming.
Up on the roof, his father heard it too. Aphroditi was screaming as hard as she could. In Greek. In English. Just in case someone, anyone, might hear.
Halit had knocked on Markos’ and Hüseyin’s doors. He did not want to rouse the women, so he had not banged hard. Hüseyin had appeared immediately, but they could not get a response from Markos.
Hüseyin left his father behind as he sprinted upstairs to the roof.
‘You won’t be able to see them from here,’ whispered Vasilis. ‘They’re out of sight. Almost directly below us.’
They could still hear the sound of the woman’s screams, and a short while afterwards loud, incomprehensible sobbing that required no translation.
Her voice. Something stirred inside Markos. He knew that voice. He had heard that whimper before. It couldn’t be …? He recalled the last time he had made love with Aphroditi and the noise she had made; how she had sobbed, but with pleasure that time. There was something in its tone that told him it was her, but the person he had glimpsed briefly before she was obscured by the soldiers had looked nothing like the woman he remembered.
The soldiers had not taken Aphroditi far. Pushing her against the rough concrete wall of The Sunrise, they raped her, brutally. Finally she was too weak even to scream. All the fight went out of her.
Hüseyin took the binoculars from Vasilis. He could not see into the side passage, but something else had caught his eye. A slight movement across the road from the hotel. The flash of a white shirt. He adjusted the focus.
There, across the road, he saw a man watching. It was Markos.
Something seized hold of Hüseyin. All rationality left him. He handed the binoculars back to Vasilis, then turned and bolted for the door leading to the staircase. A panting Halit was just reaching the top of the stairs and emerging on to the roof when he met his son running the other way. Hüseyin did not stay to explain.
Aphroditi lay slumped against the wall of The Sunrise. The two soldiers now had a dilemma on their hands. They could not leave the woman here. She had to be delivered back. If they did not have this obligation they would probably have finished her off there and then. There were plenty of places to leave a body. But if they killed her, there would be too many questions asked. And they did not want to jeopardise the payment they had been promised.
Without understanding a word, Aphroditi knew that they were arguing about her.
They pulled her to her feet. Her raincoat was still miraculously buttoned up, and even belted.
As Hüseyin emerged through the fire door into the passageway, he saw that the soldiers were dragging what looked like a large rag doll towards the main street. He was too late to help.
At that moment, reason returned to him. If he revealed himself now, coming out of the hotel, he was putting the lives of two families in danger, perhaps to no avail.
His heart was beating furiously, conscience and duty warring inside him. He pressed himself against the wall. He was just in a nightshirt and knew it was poor camouflage.
At some point Markos would have to come down the passage to re-enter via the fire door. What had he been doing out at night? Hüseyin shuddered at the thought of what might have happened if the soldiers had got to the end of the passageway and found this door ajar.
The last thing he wanted was to confront Markos, so he turned round to make his way back inside.
Markos had done his best to remain out of sight, but suspicion that the woman he had seen was indeed Aphroditi urged him to take a step out of the darkness.
The soldiers were now pulling the woman along on her heels. It was less effort than dragging her the other way. They marched in step in the direction of their guest house, entirely oblivious to the presence of a man watching them from behind.
Aphroditi herself was barely conscious, but she forced open the slits of her eyes, swollen by the soldiers’ remorseless punching, and wondered if some release was finally being granted her. Was this the vision of heaven that artists tried to paint and poets to describe? The rape had stopped … there was moonlight … there was Markos … He was pushing his fingers through his hair … yes, it was definitely Markos. She tried to say his name, but nothing came out of her mouth.
His curiosity satisfied, Markos withdrew into the shadows again.
In his haste to get back inside, Hüseyin’s foot caught in something and he almost tripped. Bending down to release himself, he could feel it was the strap of a bag. He picked it up and took it with him into the hotel. He went straight up to the rooftop to speak to his father and Vasilis Georgiou.
‘They’ve gone,’ he said.
‘I wonder who she was … Did you see her?’ asked Vasilis.
‘Not clearly,’ Hüseyin answered. ‘I don’t even know if she survived.’
‘Poor woman,’ muttered Halit. ‘Those total bastards. A defenceless woman …’
‘You mustn’t tell your mother, or Maria or Irini,’ Vasilis said emphatically. ‘On any account.’
‘Of course not, Kyrie Georgiou.’
‘They would all die of fear,’ added Halit.
‘What’s that you’re holding?’ asked Vasilis.
‘I picked it up in the passageway. I suppose it’s the woman’s bag.’
‘Is there anything inside?’ enquired Halit. ‘It might tell you who she was.’
Hüseyin unzipped it and tipped out the contents. A purse, a key and a little velvet pouch. Inside the purse were a few notes and half a dozen coins. When he tipped the velvet pouch upside down, something fell into his palm. The three men all leaned forward to see what it was.
‘Did you ever see such a tiny pearl?’ asked Halit.
Hüseyin replaced it carefully. Nothing in the bag identified the owner.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m going to get some sleep.’
He turned away before the two older men had noticed that there were tears in his eyes.
Whoever she was, he thought, I failed to save her.
He was furious with himself, but he was even angrier with Markos Georgiou.
‘Allah belanı versin,’ he muttered. ‘God damn you, Markos Georgiou.
’ He must have seen the whole episode.
Hüseyin sank into a deep sleep filled with nightmares and noise. Aphroditi’s bag sat on his bedside table.
The following morning, he went straight down to the kitchen, where the smell of warm loaves greeted him as usual. Mehmet, Vasilakis and Markos were having sword fights with long-handled wooden spoons.
Hüseyin sat opposite Markos and observed him. He could not swallow the bread with jam that was their daily fare, and the rich, dark coffee turned his stomach.
From the minute he got up in the morning, Markos was the centre of attention, the life and soul of the party. It was not just because of his relentlessly happy mood, but also because he always had something to say to everyone. Hüseyin wondered if he put on that charm like other men put on trousers and shirts. He realised that Markos Georgiou was a consummate actor. There was something so calculating in the way he focused on certain people around him.
This morning he had chosen the children to be the object of his attention and exuberance. Even the time he spent playing with Mehmet was a way of finding favour with Emine and probably Halit too. It worked. Hüseyin could see it in their eyes.
This was the same man who only the previous night had watched a woman being raped and done nothing to save her.
Chapter Twenty-seven
THE SOLDIERS HAD dragged Aphroditi back to the guest house, and had half-thrown her into a jeep. The two younger soldiers she had met earlier that night reappeared and drove her back to the fence. Gradually physical pain began to overwhelm her. It was the only thing that told her she was alive. There were no more hallucinations or delirium to keep it at a distance. Every jolt of the jeep, every bump over every stone, sent waves of excruciating agony through each limb and muscle.
She was indifferent to everything on the return journey. All sense of danger, anxiety and impatience had gone. She no longer cared about where she was going or where she had come from. It did not matter whether she was dead or alive. This sense of emotional neutrality did not even allow her to feel despair. Perhaps this would be the way to survive from now on. To feel absolutely nothing.
Many times during her ordeal she had thought of the baby, but the numbness of her emotions now stopped her from doing so. Perhaps this was all part of the slow living death that she was experiencing.
Her escorts on the return journey were the same men as before. When it came to the final stage, the brusque Greek was chain-smoking but at least he had noticed that she was unwell. He handed his silent passenger his own water bottle. For Aphroditi, the gesture was one of almost unbearable kindness. She took it and drank.
‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ he asked.
An overwhelming sense of shame prevented her from replying. She could feel that her eyes and lips were swollen and her raincoat was covered in filth, but perhaps he could not see this as it was still dark. It was only then that she realised she had lost her shoes and her bag.
It would have been impossible to walk all the way from the pawnbroker’s shop, so she asked to be dropped closer to home. Since it was on his way into the city, the driver could not object.
At the end of her parents’ street, Aphroditi managed to get out and hobble towards the entrance to the block. Without her bag, she had no purse, no key, no pearl.
On the balcony above her, she heard a sweet sound. It was the singing of the canary, blithe, melodious, oblivious. It was six in the morning and the bird was delivering its own private dawn chorus to herald the day. It was also when Kyria Loizou brought its food. Sure enough, she appeared, and as soon as she saw Aphroditi, standing as if frozen to the spot, she hurried down.
‘I’ve lost my key,’ said Aphroditi feebly.
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ answered Kyria Loizou, concealing her shock at the young woman’s appearance. ‘Your parents always made sure I had a spare one. And they had one of mine too. I’m sure I can find it.’
She took Aphroditi’s arm and led her into the hallway. The elderly woman soon found the key inside an old tin, and with her arm round Aphroditi, she unlocked the upstairs apartment and they went in.
‘Let’s take these dirty things off,’ she said. ‘And I think we need to bathe that face.’
Aphroditi sat, and very gently Kyria Loizou helped her to undress. Aphroditi could not even unbutton the raincoat. Several of her fingers had been fractured and she had to be undressed like a child.
Beneath the dirty coat, the kindly neighbour could see that the dress was torn and stained with blood.
‘My poor child,’ she kept saying. ‘My poor little lamb.’
Somehow she got Aphroditi down to her underwear, and only then did she realise how broken she was. The bruising on her shoulders and back was beginning to turn from red to purple, and her eyes were almost shut from the swelling. She began to shiver uncontrollably and violently. When Kyria Loizou tried to get her to stand so that she could lead her towards the shower, she saw that the bed where she had been sitting was soaked with blood.
‘My poor dear,’ she said. ‘I think we need to get a doctor for you.’
Aphroditi shook her head. ‘No,’ she said weakly.
She had felt the warm gush of blood, but she did not want to face anyone’s questions. She just wanted to be warm, to sleep and perhaps never to wake up. Yes, to sleep for ever. That would suit her very well.
‘Well let’s get you into the shower, then,’ said Kyria Loizou.
She found fresh towels and took Aphroditi by the hand. She was horrified by the state she was in. It was as if she had been in a car crash or set upon by thugs. Kyria Loizou did not allow herself to imagine what might have happened. All she knew was that Aphroditi must have a warm shower. She wanted to attend to her physical needs before she asked her how she had got to be in this condition.
Gently, with a sponge and soap, she helped Aphroditi clean herself up.
The most worrying thing was that she hardly spoke. It was as if she did not feel. She did not protest or exclaim when Kyria Loizou applied antiseptic to her wounds and taped up her broken fingers. It was as though she was not really there. Her thoughts were somewhere else: as if the lights had been turned out.
Once Aphroditi was dry, Kyria Loizou helped her into a nightdress and got her into bed. She had put on the gas fire in the bedroom and found some pads in a drawer.
For a while, she sat by the bed and watched over Aphroditi. The young woman seemed vacant and was clearly in shock.
‘Are you sure about the doctor?’
Aphroditi nodded without lifting her head from the pillow. There was nothing that could be done to save the baby now.
Kyria Loizou had made an infusion with honey and some herbs that she had found in the store cupboard. It sat untouched on the bedside table.
‘When is Kyrios Papacosta back?’ she asked.
‘Today,’ Aphroditi whispered.
Once she saw that Aphroditi was asleep, Kyria Loizou went briefly down to her apartment to cook.
It was the smell of soup that eventually roused Aphroditi, along with the sound of voices. One of them was Savvas’. She closed her eyes again, not wishing to face an interrogation from her husband.
She could hear Kyria Loizou telling Savvas that his wife seemed to have had a little accident, but she was sure she would recover.
Aphroditi heard Savvas’ heavy footsteps cross the room towards the bed and then retreat again. Then she heard the slam of the front door.
Not long afterwards, her neighbour crept in.
‘Are you all right?’ she whispered. She lifted the blankets and could see that the sheets needed changing again.
‘There are fresh ones in the bathroom cupboard,’ said Aphroditi quietly.
Efficiently and without fuss, Kyria Loizou changed the bedlinen without Aphroditi having to get out of bed.
‘I was a nurse many years ago,’ she offered as an explanation. She tucked the corners in neatly, then gave Aphroditi a thermometer. ‘I want to take your t
emperature,’ she said. ‘If it’s raised, we will have to get a doctor. If it’s not, then …’
‘Thank you for being so kind.’
‘It’s nothing, my dear. If you want to tell me anything, please do. If you don’t, then I understand. Whatever has happened has happened and nothing can change that.’
The elderly woman folded up the sheets that were saturated with blood.
‘I’ll take these downstairs to wash,’ she said before scrutinising the thermometer. ‘It’s normal,’ she declared, pulling the blankets back across.
For a few minutes she continued to bustle about the room.
‘I had a miscarriage once,’ she said very matter-of-factly. ‘So I know it’s important to keep eating at times like this. I’m going to bring you something.’
At about the time that Kyria Loizou was tucking the sheets in around Aphroditi, Emine was changing the beds at The Sunrise. It had become her routine to do this once a week. She had calculated that with each of the five hundred beds having seven sets of linen, they would not run out for more than fifteen years. Only then would she have to start washing. It was unimaginably far into the future.
As she was tidying Hüseyin and Mehmet’s room, she spotted a bag sitting on a chair. Her first thought was that a former guest must have left it behind, but it was strange that she had not noticed it before. Even stranger, the bag was familiar. It was identical to one that Aphroditi Papacosta often used to bring to the salon.
She unzipped it. Inside was a little purse embroidered with birds, the same one from which Aphroditi had tipped Emine a hundred times. It made her feel a little shaky to see something so familiar not in the hands of the owner.
She left the bag where it was, but later that day she asked Hüseyin where he had found it.
‘I picked it up in the street,’ he said truthfully.
‘But where? Where exactly did you find it?’
Hüseyin blushed. His mother’s interrogations made him uncomfortable, as if she thought he had stolen it.
‘Close to the hotel,’ he said.
‘And when exactly? When?’
‘Does it matter when?’