A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

by Christy Lefteri

  ‘You should work on my grandmother,’ Engin says, laughing, and making a scrunched-up face with his jaw sticking out. Adem smiles and picks up a pencil, rolling it over the tear to smooth it over. Then he puts the shoe down and exhales heavily. Suddenly in that orange light Adem sees a glimmer of red hair. He shakes his head and composes himself, but in a misty replay of the past there is a woman sipping coffee on the stool, and the same woman standing, drenched in rain, by the doorway. He smells lemon blossoms and polish. His heart is heavy.

  ‘She would sit right there and watch me while I worked. This room came to life when she was here. She filled it with warmth and laughter and colour. This room of browns and blacks and greys transformed whenever she walked in.’ Adem pauses and looks around. He lifts the candle and walks to the centre of the room. ‘I made shoes for her, beautiful ones, the best I’ve ever made; red, green, purple leathers embossed with various things. I made many. And she’d drift around the room, looking at the shoes on the shelves, or lie down with her head on her arms listening to my stories.’ Adem lowers the candle and moves it around close to the floor as if looking for footprints. ‘In this little room we climbed mountains together, threw rocks, swam oceans.’ Adem laughs and passes the candle across the counter. ‘Sometimes she sat right here. I remember one day she took a pencil and some paper, and she sketched the paths of the town for me, she even drew the well and the biggest fig tree and the boats in the port. I would often use it as a map, but even then I still couldn’t define logically where each path began and ended. She was always so intent on making me learn the twists and dips of the town so that maybe I would feel at home and stay here; but I would always recite an old Greek proverb …’ Adem looks up, trying to remember. ‘Time has turns and a year has weeks – meaning: to have patience. And she did. She had all the patience in the world. She had learnt somehow, through the type of life she had had, to not expect things too quickly, to wait, to watch things unfold slowly. As a child, she had spent much time on her own, watching the others from the outskirts of the fields as they played and she had to learn to find happiness elsewhere, in the smallest of places. She would lead me round the town and show me every corner, every tiny cave beneath the hills where the bats slept, she could tell me the path the snails would take when it rained. She told me one day that it wasn’t really the roads that she wanted me to know, but that she had always wanted someone to walk beside her and see what she saw, maybe even feel what she did.’

  Adem looks around at the still walls and unmoving shoes. ‘That was when there was still some hope, before I locked myself away in the utter darkness of the hut.’ The candlelight illuminates a pair of shoes on a shelf of their own. ‘The priest’s shoes,’ he says, in a heavier tone now, ‘this is their shelf. In those days Pater Yiousif was the town priest. She went to church one day to confess about our relationship. I told her not to go, but a love between a Greek and a Turk was forbidden and her heart was burdened. She told me that she loved me and that, out of all people, a man of God would understand love above anything else. She said she needed to be forgiven for the lies she had told her father. I remember her very words; she stood right here and said that when Jesus first appeared to the apostles after his resurrection, he said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained – John 20:22–3.”’ Adem freezes with the candle held high and he looks ahead fixedly as though she were standing right there before him. ‘She truly believed that she would be forgiven,’ he continues in a quieter voice that falters and cracks slightly with retained emotion. ‘But the priest told one, one told two, two told five and five told ten …’ Adem looks down at the shoes. ‘Eventually her father found out and then the nationalistic youths, and that’s when it all went wrong and she said that maybe we were never meant to be forgiven, maybe our crime was too great …’ Adem’s voice trails off and there is a moment of silence where the crickets beat outside. Engin swallows hard.

  Adem looks more closely at the shoes; they have already been fixed and polished. The fronts are smooth as boiled eggs. The black of the polish is watery and deep in the candlelight. There is a slight gleam. The tongue is straight and the sole is new and strong. Adem brings one of the shoes up to his nose and smells the leather. He then sits down on the stool and in those still shadows, unties the laces of his army boots, and, to his relief, removes them, wiggling his toes now freed from the constraint and slips on the priest’s shoes. The leather is still tight. He moves his toes around, then bends over, pulling each segment of the laces through the holes gently and evenly. Finally, he ties them with a double knot and stands up. Jutting out of his army trousers, the tips of the shoes glimmer slightly in the light of the candle. He stands tall, like a man who believes in a cause. Adem smiles. ‘Choose a pair,’ he says to Engin. ‘Take off your army boots. We’re not here to fight. We have a different journey to make.’ Adem’s voice sounds different now, more definite, stronger, and Engin stands up from the stool and smiles too; he takes the candle and rushes to the shelf, quickly passing the light up and down. He takes a pair of dress shoes with a slightly pointed front. He sits on the stool, discards his army boots and puts the new ones on. In the distance feet crunch on dried brambles and a gunshot is heard.

  They both climb out of the window and stand back on the path and begin walking; the leather squeaking with each step. Finally, they reach a fork in the road. Adem breathes in. The smell of the sea drifts from the port, where he imagines the white sails of fishing boats flapping gently in the breeze. He looks ahead at another path. ‘This leads up the mountain to her father’s taverna,’ he whispers to Engin, but even as he says the words, he is not sure what he is expecting to find. Either a body or a clue. He braces himself and takes a step up the hill. ‘Vasilaki, the farmer, used to ride his donkey down from the mountains with baskets of figs, or cucumbers or watermelons in the wicker baskets at his sides and his tiny son Christaki flapped his legs behind him.’ Adem pauses and looks further up. ‘The goats passed here too in a white line in the setting sun, and she would run down the path while I hid behind the tree here to meet her.’ Adem hears her laugh. The sea rolls on.

  As they climb the hill the sound of crackling music emerges. Incessant martial music, booming louder and louder in the immense darkness. The music silences the crickets and the bombs and the roaring of the flames on the Pentathaktylo Mountains.

  They climb the steps at the top of the hill and enter the veranda of the taverna. In the distance the mountains glow red from the raging forest fires, and far below a dark abyss lingers where the dead town meets the sea. There are no tables on the veranda, no chairs or salt shakers, no cups or glasses scattered about after the end of the night. There is no longer the intense smell of fly killer and there are no baskets of lemons on the floor. ‘It doesn’t look as though this is still a taverna,’ Adem says. The music continues, making the place seem more still, more deserted.

  They enter the kitchen and follow the music, walking through to the house at the back. ‘I’ve never been this far before.’ They walk through a corridor that smells distinctly of men’s cologne. Adem lights a match and follows the music into the bedroom, where he puts the flame to the wick of a candle on the bedside cabinet. The music comes from a radio on the dressing table. He walks towards it as it crackles slightly and turns it off. Silence buzzes in their ears.

  Adem takes the candle and passes it over the pictures on the wall. The first is of an unfamiliar man in a three-piece suit, holding a pair of spectacles in his right hand and standing on what appears to be the veranda of this very house. Adem looks at the photograph more closely. Those are definitely the fields and hills that the house overlooks; he recognises the grey ghost of the Pentathaktylo Mountains behind. The second photograph is of a young boy on a bicycle looking at somebody outside the picture, and a dark-haired woman with a long dress holding a sun umbrella, who is not looking at the boy, but smiling directly at the c
amera.

  ‘The family was clearly wealthy,’ he says. On an antique desk beneath the window is an old typewriter. Adem looks at the make: Hammond Multiplex. ‘Probably imported from the States.’ He stares at it for a moment and finds that he cannot walk away; it sets a precedent for a multitude of memories. He lifts his arm, hesitates and presses the space key. The typewriter clunks and clicks. The too-familiar sound makes his stomach churn. He thinks about his childhood home on the outskirts of Istanbul, and their living room with his mother’s brown armchair, and that little desk with the typewriter where his father used to sit for hours typing the names of the dead. ‘Reminds me of my father,’ Adem says. ‘He was a failed journalist, confined to writing obituaries for Gece Posatasi and later for the Yeni Sabah.’ Adem is consumed for a few minutes by the past. He pulls his hand away, looks closely at his palm and then turns away from the typewriter without looking back. Engin grabs the candle.

  ‘What did you want to find here?’ Engin says, catching Adem up, but Adem doesn’t answer immediately. He keeps walking straight out of the house.

  ‘If her possessions were scattered around I would have known that she had fled with the townspeople that escaped. Or …’ he says but does not finish the sentence. ‘Well, it’s obvious that Kyriaki’s father no longer owned the taverna. I have no idea now what happened to her,’ Adem whispers, and Engin senses that same desperation in his voice again, the tone he had used on the ship when he grabbed Engin’s arm. Adem blows out the candle in Engin’s hand and they walk out of the house back onto the veranda, where the dark sky bleeds red from the rising sun and the rising fires. It is now possible to see the grey smoke rising like the souls of the dead. They stand on the edge of the veranda looking down at the devastation. Adem leans over the railing. ‘Where now? Where do I search? What do I do? Where do I start?’

  Day 2: 21 July 1974

  The first cockerel sings and the sun slides in through the shutters. Koki wakes up. She opens her eyes. She has almost for-gotten where she is. The room is drenched in a red light. The sun bleeds the slaughter of yesterday. She opens her eyes and looks at Maroulla beside her. Then something catches her eye. She sits up. The girl by her side is drenched in blood.

  Koki does not breathe and her body has frozen. A breeze blows outside. The shadows of the leaves move overhead and her heart pulsates. The cicadas’ beat fills the air. The sun throbs through patches of darkness and thumps on her temples. She cannot move. The cicadas march like soldiers in the silence. There is no other sound.

  Koki holds her left hand over the young girl’s body. Her hand trembles. A breeze blows again and the shadows move. Only slightly this time. Again all is still. Her hand shakes. She cries. She brings her hand down to the young girl’s chest and realises that she is breathing. Her chest rises and falls. Like the waves. Like the sun. Koki sobs. She searches her for a wound. Nothing.

  Maroulla’s eyes open. Her pupils widen, then dilate almost immediately. ‘What are you doing?’ Maroulla asks.

  All is still for the beat of a heart. Koki sits up and looks, bewildered, at the little girl.

  ‘What did they do to you?’ she says through sobs, and in an instant turns to look at the door.

  ‘Who?’ the little girl asks, but Koki is already up, checking the rooms of the house. The girl follows her. ‘There is no one here,’ the young girl says, but Koki does not hear her.

  ‘Did they leave?’ Koki screams. Terror in her voice. The girl is shocked and stands straight.

  ‘There is no one here,’ the young girl repeats. A tremor rises in her throat. Koki closes all the shutters, and pushes a chair up against the front door. The little house is drenched in a cool darkness and breathes quietly like the streets after a rare summer rain. Darkness in the morning is different to that of the night; it has the quality of water.

  The little girl stares up at Koki. ‘I went for a walk last night,’ the girl says, and the shadows of Koki’s frown deepen. ‘I wanted to pick a flower for you. It was the same colour as your hair.’

  Koki looks, perplexed, at the girl’s dress and apron. She walks towards her and touches the red stain, shaking her head from side to side. ‘What is this?’ Koki says, but Maroulla does not answer. Koki finds a cloth, pours a few drops of water onto it and gently wipes Maroulla’s face and arms. There is not much more she can do until she can be sure that there is more water about. Koki then puts the cloth down and collapses into a chair. As she looks to her left she suddenly realises that all around are reels of silk of various sizes and colours. On the other table in the corner of the room something glimmers like snow. The table is laden with a thousand cocoons, transparent and marbly in the steaks of morning sun. Next to the table is a large cauldron resting over unlit wood. The girl tiptoes a little way and looks out of the window. Koki stops and looks up with wide eyes. ‘What is it?’ she asks. The little girl does not turn around and does not reply.

  Koki stands up and walks towards the window. She peeks through the crack of the shutter. A white flake flutters across the window. And another. And another. All around pearly specks shimmer against the yellow sky. They coil and fall like ash. The little girl runs to the door. Koki opens her mouth to stop her, but the light has already flooded in and Maroulla is standing very still on the edge of the veranda.

  All around, a thousand pure white butterflies swarm the cottage. They dip and turn as the sunlight trembles on their wings. And for that moment all is white. Koki and Maroulla stand on the doorstep of that abandoned cottage on the top of that abandoned hill sheltered within a ball of floating butterflies. A few stray into the valley far below and over the gold wheat-fields and a few fly into the balmy darkness of the cottage while the two refugees stand smiling as if this were their home and as if they had known each other all this time. ‘They were silkworms,’ says the girl. ‘My mother used to sew. They only live for a day, but that day for them is like eighty years for us.’

  Every minute of this day does in fact feel like a part of a lifetime in another creature’s life. Koki and Maroulla go outside and sit on the veranda, looking down from the top of the hill. The sun is strong and drenches their faces in white light. Koki’s hair is like the flames on the hillside. Her eyes are just as wild. They are mirrors of the world. Her feet are bare and her toes touch the brambles at the edge of the field. Maroulla looks at the thorns. She imagines the trail, a hundred miles long, leading to the red rose. She remembers her mother’s words. She misses her, but she does not cry. Maroulla turns to the last page of the green book and looks at the dewy rose. Red as blood on a white, snowy plain. She imagines it on the glistening slopes of the mountains and thinks that that is probably where she must aim to go.

  Maroulla closes the book and puts it back into the pocket of her apron. She looks at Koki sitting on the floor.

  In the distance a Turkish jet spins into the side of a mountain; its wing is missing. There is an explosion and a trail of smoke wisps into the sky. Overhead a flock of fighter jets sear across the sun, their bellies black as night. For a moment a cool shadow falls over the house.

  Koki turns and looks at the red stains on the little girl’s dress and wonders now whose blood that is. She stands with a fresh look of purposefulness and gazes around, eventually finding a copper basin resting on what seems to be half an old broken door. She places her hands on the basin’s handles. They are scorching hot so she uses the bottom of her dress as a glove to slide the basin to the side. She lifts the door to reveal a deep hole. From within rises the smell of damp conifer bark. A freshwater well. Koki looks around her for the bucket that must be nearby. She walks towards a black bucket with a rope tied round the handle which has been discarded beneath an olive tree. Returning to the well, she holds the bucket over the centre of the hole and drops it in, wishing all the way down that it still has water. A smile creeps across her mouth as she hears a splash. She waits a few seconds and starts to pull. The first heave is always the worst.

  As the bucket emerges, ref
lecting the clear blue of the sky, within it she sees the reflection of another time. Dipping her hand in, she drinks some water from her palm. It is clear and fresh; the town well she was accustomed to was further than the natural springs of these hills. She calls Maroulla over, who also drinks some of the water. Then Koki turns her attention to the copper basin. She pours into it the contents of the first bucket and notices the sound of a light sizzle as the cold water touches the hot basin. Koki repeats this ritual until the basin is full and walks into the house. She returns with a bar of white soap in one hand and a green one in the other. As Maroulla watches Koki, a delicate ribbon of water and red soil manoeuvres towards the girl’s feet.

  Koki puts both soaps down, unties Maroulla’s apron, unbuttons her dress and pulls it up over the girl’s head. The little girl does not complain. She likes the soft touch of the lady’s fingers and the smell of fire in her hair. Maroulla stands bare in shards of light. Her skin is the colour of sun-soaked sand in the morning sun.

  The water in the basin shimmers a nostalgic gold and blue as it reflects the sky. Koki remembers her son and feels sick. She shudders and looks at the bleeding hills, the edges still fuzzy with red-yellow poppies, the rest alight or burnt to char. Far below fields as dark as the sea ripple with ash in the breeze.

  Maroulla does not wait to be told. She climbs into the basin. The water is cold, but she does not shudder. She sits and stares at the five fingers of mountains in the distance that tremble grey-blue in the heat while Koki scrubs her body with the white soap and her hair with the green one. Koki makes sure she scrubs her clean, she rubs her elbows, knees, neck and even her fingers. She scrubs hard to remove all traces of blood from the young girl’s body. And when all is done Maroulla notices a tear forming in those glassy eyes. Or is it a reflection?