‘Why have you become such a coward?’ Christos had screamed.
‘It’s not a question of cowardice,’ said Markos, carrying on with what he was doing. It was around ten in the morning and he was shaving, methodically passing his razor through thick white foam, watching his face gradually emerge. He looked at his own image in the mirror, apparently ignoring his brother who stood at the bathroom door.
Christos had come up to Markos’ apartment to try and win him over to his way of thinking. He never gave up.
‘But you used to have conviction! Belief! What’s wrong with you?’
‘Christos, there is nothing wrong with me.’ Markos smiled at his brother. ‘Perhaps I just know more now.’
‘What do you mean by that? You know more? What is there to know?’ Markos’ calm manner angered Christos. ‘This island is Greek, was Greek, should be Greek, should be part of the motherland! For God’s sake, Markos, you once believed in the struggle for enosis!’
‘So did our uncle,’ said Markos impassively. ‘And our father.’
‘So that means we give up? Because people like Uncle Kyriakos died?’
Their mother’s brother had been executed by the British authorities during the worst of the violence before independence. His name was rarely mentioned, but a black and white photograph of him on a table in their parents’ living room was a daily reminder.
Markos continued shaving. A moment passed. There was nothing more to say about the martyrdom of their uncle that had not already been said during their lifetime. The grief that had engulfed the household would never be forgotten. It had left its own scars. Christos had been seven years old then, and witnessed the wailing and the naked anguish displayed by their aunt and mother.
Markos had hated his uncle Kyriakos and could not now pretend otherwise. When he was little, Kyriakos used to slap him round the head if he was not pulling his weight with the fruit harvest, and if he caught his nephew eating an orange during picking hours, he would then make him eat four more, one after the other, including the rind, to teach him that greed had its own punishment. He was a cruel man, and not just to his nephew. Markos, ever observant of what went on around him, had suspicions that he hit his wife too. The first time he had caught his mother holding a cold compress to Aunt Myrto’s cheek, no explanation was given. When he enquired, he was told it was ‘no business for a child’, but such things had happened so frequently that he had seen a pattern. Markos wondered if this was why God had punished Kyriakos by giving him no children. If so, He was punishing Myrto too.
Seeing his aunt grieve, keening and crying, hour after hour, constantly petted and patted by her family, Markos had wondered how much of it was an act. How could she lament the loss of a husband who had treated her that way? He watched his mother comforting his aunt and was reminded of how many times he had seen her with an arm around the same shoulders after she had been beaten.
During the year that had followed Uncle Kyriakos’ death, their father had also been wounded, almost fatally. Even now, Markos vividly recalled the smell of dirt and blood that had seemed to pervade the house when he was carried in. Vasilis Georgiou had recovered, but his chest and back had been lacerated and his upper body was still criss-crossed with scars. The lasting damage was to his leg. Even with a stick, he rocked from side to side when he walked. His left leg could no longer bend and, ever since, he had been in constant pain that could not be alleviated by drugs. Only zivania dulled the continuous ache.
‘Look at our father, Christos! He’s crippled … Who gained from that?’
Neither of them knew the full details of their father’s activities in the 1950s, only that he too had been an active member of EOKA. Vasilis Georgiou had been decorated by General Grivas, the leader of the uprising against British rule, before he was exiled. Markos knew that Grivas had secretly returned the previous year and was clandestinely leading a new campaign for enosis. He had found a new and willing generation of young men such as Christos ready to join his newly formed EOKA B.
‘What I can’t understand is why you stopped! It’s a mission, for God’s sake. You don’t just abandon it when you feel like it. Not until it’s won!’
Christos loved the rhetoric of enosis, enjoyed making a speech, even to the single audience of his brother.
Markos sighed. When he himself had flirted with the cause as a teenager, he had even sworn the oath – ‘I shall not abandon the struggle … until after our aim has been accomplished.’ Nowadays its aims no longer suited him.
‘Perhaps I have other interests now, Christos. Cyprus is becoming something else. A land of opportunity. How exactly is it going to benefit from becoming part of Greece?’
‘What do you mean? A land of opportunity?’
‘You haven’t noticed?’
‘Noticed what?
‘How this city is growing?’
Christos was annoyed by his brother’s bland language.
‘What … so it’s a matter of the money you have in your pocket, is it?’
‘Not only that, Christos. Just ask yourself: do you want your precious island to be governed by a dictatorship? From Athens?’
Christos was silent.
‘Gamoto! Damn!’ Markos had nicked himself slightly with his razor and blood oozed out of the cut. ‘Pass me that handkerchief, Christos.’
He dabbed at it until the bleeding ceased, mildly irritated by the realisation that a blemish would be left.
‘Look at you. Wincing like a baby,’ Christos taunted his brother.
Christos continued trying to persuade Markos to see his point of view, but the more desperate and ranting in his entreaties he became, the calmer Markos grew. He looked at his younger brother with sympathy and shook his head from side to side.
Christos stood clenching and unclenching his hands, almost crying tears of frustration.
‘How did you change so much?’ he pleaded. ‘I just don’t understand …’
Markos did not feel that he had changed. Not inside, at least. It was the world that had changed, and new opportunities were now presenting themselves and asking to be taken.
‘Christos …’ He appealed to his brother, but was immediately interrupted.
‘You’ve become like our parents …’
Markos could not halt his tirade.
‘… happy with an easy life!’
‘And there’s something wrong with that at their age?’ he asked.
‘Father was a fighter once!’
‘Once, Christos. But not now. And if you’re going to be part of it, just make sure you keep it to yourself. You don’t want people finding out.’
Markos was not only referring to their parents, whom he wanted to protect from the anxiety. The police were constantly searching for EOKA B suspects.
He continued his ascent of the concrete stairs and the voices faded. Even with the windows open, the sound of arguing and the noise of the cicadas would not keep Markos from sleeping. A long day and night of work would be followed by a brief but deep slumber.
The next morning he was up at nine as usual, and after the rituals of showering and shaving (he was more careful today), he went down to spend half an hour with his mother before going to work.
Irini Georgiou was chatting to her caged canary when he appeared. She wore a brown chiffon headscarf trimmed with lace which would be kept on all day, and beneath her rose-print apron she wore a floral blouse, the two designs clashing furiously. Everything in Irini’s life was similarly busy, from her daily schedule that was full from morning to night with a continuous sequence of small tasks, to the decor of the place where they lived. Their house in the village had been larger than the apartment, but they had brought with them every stick of furniture and knick-knack they had ever possessed. The combination of these made the apartment resemble a museum of small objects. Every plate, framed print, vase of plastic flowers, lace mat and postcard sent by a friend had been given a home and, just as before, the icon of Agios Neophytos was in pride of p
lace. Irini felt safer this way, almost cocooned within memorabilia.
Among the photographs displayed in their apartment was a portrait of General Grivas, alongside an image of President Makarios, a wedding portrait of the Georgious and pictures of Markos, Maria and Christos as babies. Irini’s adoration of Makarios had increased now that he no longer supported enosis. Sometimes the photograph of Grivas, though, was turned to the wall. She said it was an easy mistake to make when dusting. She hoped that her husband had not been involved in any of the assassinations that had taken place, but she had never dared to ask.
She was well aware that General Grivas had returned from exile. What neither she nor her husband knew was that Christos had joined EOKA B.
‘Come and have your coffee,’ she said, smiling at Markos.
Irini Georgiou adored her firstborn son, and he in turn was always attentive and affectionate towards his mother.
‘Mamma, you look tired today …’
It was true: the dark shadows beneath her eyes were purple-black. Irini Georgiou had not been sleeping well. The past few mornings she had been more exhausted when she got up than when she went to bed. She said it was her dreams. Though they were often illogical and full of tumult, she believed they told her the truth. Whatever anyone claimed, whatever words were used, she believed that peace was contained in the atmosphere. It was an aroma rather than a political situation. Her dreams were telling her that peace was threatened.
When the struggle against the British had ended and the Republic of Cyprus was created, there had been a welcome period of uneventful peace and quiet for the Georgiou family. They were idyllic years of tending their land; of enjoying the quiet rhythm of village life, where birdsong was the only sound that interrupted the silence; of following the pattern of the seasons, the variation in temperature and the welcome arrival of rain. There was space for everyone, land enough to feed them all and warmth between themselves and their Turkish Cypriot neighbours. The only difficulty in their lives had been to manage Vasilis Georgiou’s pain, and his inability to work longer than a few hours a day.
The peace was short-lived and tranquillity was murdered at the same time as their Turkish neighbours, in an act of violence perpetrated by Greek Cypriots. In spite of what their leader, Makarios, said, did and agreed with other politicians, being close to the place where their neighbours had been attacked and killed destroyed Irini Georgiou’s peace of mind. Although her sleep had always been dream-filled, it was now haunted by nightmares. It was then that they moved away from the village. Vasilis drove back each day in his small pick-up truck to tend the land, but Irini Georgiou always stayed behind in Famagusta.
Markos followed his mother into the over-cluttered home, where variously patterned armchairs stood on ornately woven rugs. Markos’ eyes ached at the sight. He could understand why his father spent so much time away from home, some of it tending to the smallholding they had retained and some of it at the kafenion, where he went to see his friends and play tavli. Either would be more relaxing.
Markos kept his own apartment entirely without clutter. He had few possessions. Everything had to have a practical use. Bric-a-brac, which gave his mother security, was anathema to him. Even a floral cloth that she wanted to put on his table, ‘to pretty the place up a bit’, was more than he could bear.
‘Such a disturbed night, leventi mou,’ she said as she put the little cups down in front of them.
She often confided in Markos about her dreams. Her husband, who slept like the dead, was uninterested in such things. He had left an hour before.
‘And last night there were such angry voices too,’ she added. ‘I don’t know what took place exactly, leventi mou, but nothing good, nothing nice.’
Her son did not like to tell her that she had probably been disturbed by a real argument, between Christos and his friends. It did not seem worth upsetting her in this way. If the subject of enosis ever came up, Irini moved the conversation away. She did not want her sons to have anything to do with politics or violence. They had threatened to tear the island apart in those awful years, and she still believed they could. Nothing had been truly resolved.
Markos stroked his mother’s hand, which rested on the table. Her skin was paper thin and there was a graze across her knuckles. He ran his fingers across it.
‘What did you do, Mamma?’
‘Just got a bit scratched cutting back the vine,’ she answered. ‘Nothing serious. It takes a long time to heal when you’re my age.’
Markos looked down at his own smooth skin. His father always had rough, lacerated hands too and it was something he wanted to avoid for himself.
Nowadays, when Markos went to the barber for his regular trim (though he was growing his silky hair much longer that summer), he also had his nails manicured. His cuticles were neatened and the nails filed. There was not a speck of dirt beneath them. With their daily massage in olive oil, they looked innocent, almost childlike. For Markos, these perfect hands demonstrated his success, showing that he never held anything heavier than a pen.
‘Tse! Tse! Tse!’
His mother was feeding Mimikos with his seed.
‘Tse! Tse! Tse! How are those plants I gave you?’ she asked, hardly pausing between talking to her bird and to her son. ‘Have you remembered to water them?’
He smiled. ‘Mamma, you know I haven’t. I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy …’
‘Working so hard, leventi mou, working so hard. No time even for a nice girl?’
‘Oh Mamma …’
It was a joke between them. She was always hopeful. Every mother loved her son, but Markos’ beautiful looks made him easy to adore. She caressed his cheek as she had done ever since he was a baby, then allowed him to take her hand and kiss it.
‘I’m just holding out until I meet someone as beautiful as you,’ he said teasingly.
‘Yes, my sweetheart, but don’t leave it too long.’
Like any mother she was a little impatient. Their daughter was two years married now but she would be very happy if her elder son found himself a wife. Things should happen in some kind of natural order, and besides, he was now twenty-eight.
She was proud that her son had a job in the smartest hotel in town. It had been one of the consolations of moving from the country to Famagusta. She had always recognised that Markos would not be satisfied with a slow, humdrum life caring for orange trees. He might not have achieved good grades at school, but he was bright and she was sure that he had a promising future ahead of him.
Markos rose to leave.
‘Look how smart you are!’ she said, running her fingers down his lapel. ‘You look so wonderful in that suit! Like a real businessman.’
‘It’s the grand opening tonight,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘The Papacostas are having a reception and they’re expecting lots of VIPs.’
‘How exciting.’ His mother beamed with pride that her son would be at such a gathering. ‘Who’s coming? Tell me who will be there.’
His mother lived vicariously through her son’s career. She had never been to The Paradise Beach and knew it was even less likely that she would ever visit The Sunrise, but she always wanted to know what went on in these big hotels. Irini Georgiou would buy the next edition of the local newspaper and cut out pictures of the event, which would almost certainly be on the front page.
‘The Mayor and his wife,’ said Markos nonchalantly. ‘Lots of politicians from Nicosia, plenty of businessmen, friends of Mrs Papacosta’s father, even some overseas visitors …’
‘And will the nightclub be opening?’ she asked.
‘Not tonight,’ said Markos. ‘Tomorrow.’ He looked at his watch.
‘I’ll go and water your plants later,’ Irini said. ‘And I’ll starch your shirts – they’ll be in your wardrobe.’
She was already bustling around clearing the cups, wiping the table, dead-heading a geranium, peering into her canary cage to check if she had put in enough seed. Soon she would start preparing lu
nch. The whole family appreciated her cooking, especially Panikos, who had put on considerable weight since the marriage. Maria would come down to help her, and her son-in-law would arrive home from his electrical shop at midday, just in time to eat.
‘I must go,’ Markos said, kissing her on the top of the head. ‘I’ll come and tell you all about it, I promise.’
Between now and when the sun set, there was not a moment to waste. By the time it was dusk, the island’s biggest social event of the year would be well under way.
Chapter Four
THE SUNRISE WAS filled with the scent of hundreds of lilies and the perfumes of as many glamorous women. Gowns were in jewel colours, jewels were in all colours.
The guests were greeted at the entrance and then directed down a crimson carpet that led them towards the frolicking dolphins. Here they were served with ice-cold champagne and then ushered past the murals, which they stopped to admire.
The plaster pillars were entwined with flowers. As night fell, they would also be illuminated.
Dozens of waiters in white jackets circulated with platters of food. The head chef, with a staff of twenty-five in the kitchen, had laboured tirelessly since dawn to create a colourful array of canapés with liberal use of gelatine, piping and puff pastry. They had worked like robots, mechanically cutting and garnishing so that each piece was neat and precise and bore no resemblance to anything home-cooked in traditional Cypriot style. There were tiny vol-au-vents, delicate morsels of foie gras and prawns to be speared with cocktail sticks. The chef was French and his inspiration was Escoffier. He instructed that everything had to be decorated like a dessert. If it could not have a cherry on top, there must be a few grains of caviar, or a tiny speck of tomato to add a finishing touch.
The combined volume of several hundred voices all speaking at once meant that the twelve-piece band was unheard, but the musicians persevered, knowing that later in the evening when the crowd thinned out their carefully rehearsed repertoire would be appreciated. They had been flown in the previous day from Paris, one of the many things specially imported for the occasion. Savvas Papacosta wanted the reception to reflect the international aspirations of the hotel, and the twang of a bouzouki would undo this with a single note. This, indeed, was a sophisticated affair.