A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

by Christy Lefteri

  Litsa finally stands up. ‘Stop, Costandina,’ she pleads over Koki’s crying, but Costandina continues. Koki’s eyes and skin are now stretched and covered in blood. Costandina’s hands are red. Costandina sobs now and stops pulling, but she does not let go. ‘Stop, Costandina,’ implores Litsa again and pulls at Costandina’s shoulders, attempting to draw her up. Costandina drops Koki’s head and moves back. She looks down at the mass of sticky orange hair in her hands. Koki whimpers, on the floor, and Maroulla takes her hand and holds it in hers. The lamp is on the floor and the night is bruised with shadows. Maria removes the dead body, and with her own bare hands digs a shallow hole in the garden. A few of the women lift Elenitsa’s body into it, and all, apart from Koki, help to cover her with soil and blossoms from the trees.

  Later, Sophia and Maroulla collect more twigs, though this time they meander dolefully round the garden, avoiding the grave. After lighting another fire, Maria sits in the garden cooking a chicken. Koki has managed to sit up, and Litsa is patting her forehead with a wet cloth, gently wiping off the blood. Koki winces from the pain, and Maroulla sits beside her. Soon the chicken is served and the women eat in silence. Koki pushes hers aside and leaves it on the floor. The women then huddle in the garden on their knees, just as they once would have done, on a normal night, and clean the dishes using the water from the well. When all is done they sit in the house with blankets on their legs, for there is a cold breeze tonight. Koki sits without a blanket, self-consciously patting down her hair. She looks around for her headscarf, hopelessly, and then rips another purple strip from the bottom of her dress. She raises her arms to tie it round her head, but then lowers them and drops them in her lap. She looks down at her torn dress and at the blood under her fingernails. She sighs deeply, sinks as she thinks of her son and then gazes up at the ceiling. She clutches her fingers, contemplates them and then looks ahead at the women.

  ‘I’ve been hiding all my life,’ declares Koki suddenly. The women turn to look at her, some suspiciously, others ashamedly. Costandina looks at the wall. ‘You pull my hair, ostracise me, beat me, call me names and then you turn your faces to the wall!’ Koki twists the headscarf in her fingers, tugging, clenching, coiling and pulling at it with fury. ‘You talk about the Turks and the British and what they have done to you. What about what you have done to me? … What about me?!’ Koki’s voice rises and resonates around the room; years of anger blazing from within. Everyone is now staring at her. She looks intently at each and every one of them and pauses longer when she gets to Costandina. ‘You have put me in a prison and left me there alone. You are just as bad as the people you detest!’ She looks around again at those wide, expectant eyes; she sighs and her eyes shimmer in the lamplight. As her mind wells up with memories, her shoulders soften. She lets go of the headscarf, looks down and then up again at the others. ‘I have been a target of everybody’s anger. You have stripped me of everything! Even my name has been taken from me! Even my beautiful name! I have nothing left that is mine. Nothing!’ Koki looks again at the women. ‘I have been the enemy, the scapegoat, the Devil, Medusa, the English whore, the fiend with red hair, the motherless child! None of you have ever heard my real story …’ Koki’s voice softens and her red hair and white skin glow in the lamplight. She takes a deep breath and as the light flickers on her face pictures of the past seem to move across the blue of her eyes.

  ‘My name means “red arse”,’ she says. ‘“Koki” comes from “Kokinokolos”: as you well know, a word used in the village to describe English people. I was never meant to be called Koki; I was christened Kyriaki because I was born on Sunday. My father didn’t like his mother’s name and my mother didn’t like her mother, and both grandfathers had fallen to the coincidental misfortune of the name “Bambo”: a most unsuitable name for a girl, especially one of my kind.’ Koki pauses and looks around at the faces of the women, half glowing in the lamplight and half shrouded in darkness.

  ‘All this forced my parents to be the first in the town to disregard the tradition of naming the children after the in-laws and upset them to the point of heated Sunday discussions over glasses of ouzo, accompanied by grand hand gestures, followed by some fainting and a considerable amount of referring to each other as donkeys.’

  Koki stops there and points at Litsa. ‘Your older brother Andreas was the first to call me Kokinokolos!’ Litsa looks down, and Koki continues obstinately, ‘I was six at the time and Pappa and I had been invited by your family for Sunday souvlakia. While the women were preparing coffee in the kitchen for the men an army jeep rolled up outside the farm’s entrance, and a beaming captain waved at Pappa and, lifting his hat, revealed a mass of bronze curls that protruded outwards, like the red-polished Horned God I had once seen in a book about the Bronze Age. Andreas was instantly amused by the resemblance between me and this captain and pointed at both of us, shouting between explosions of laughter, “Kokinokoli! Mama, look, both of them are kokinokoli!”

  ‘In spring, the hills were wounded with poppies and the neighbours said that my hair was made of those blood-coloured petals. Or, in the summer, when at midday these same hills were pale, scorched Englishmen’s flesh, the neighbours said that my skin was made of that same flowerless plain. It was also certain that my hair was made of fire retrieved from hell on the wick of a candle. The Devil! Or, perhaps, my mother, God rest her soul, had been poked by an Englishman; this belief was so great that “Engleza! Engleza!” would be screamed out from behind the lemon groves.

  ‘I was the only daughter of Mihalis Koufos, the owner of the hillside taverna and renowned storyteller, who was believed to be the ear of the earth; although originally our surname, which means “deaf”, was my great-grandfather’s nickname, who acquired it as a result of his selective hearing, especially in the presence of my great-grandmother, and other Cypriot women.

  ‘As I waited on the guests I listened intently to Pappa’s endless facts and hoped, with the conviction of youth, that stories of war lingered in the ripples of the furthest wave.

  ‘On velvet-blue nights I’d carry the small coffee cup, brimming with Greek coffee, to the table where my father sat; usually running a thumb over his chin and staring at the slopes covered with olive trees that dropped down to the sea. I remember how, one night, when I rested the cup on the white tablecloth, spilling more than half the contents into the saucer, he chuckled quietly, lowered his hand on to mine, and said, “It’s money! One day we’ll have a dowry big enough to make a great housewife of you, just like your mother, God rest her soul.” But he did not, this time, purse his fingers and cross himself, but said instead, “The good housewife makes the house laugh.” Poor man,’ she says, nodding her head. ‘Poor man, how could he have known.’ Koki pauses for a few moments. The women are silent. Only their breathing can be heard.

  ‘Some nights I’d serve ouzo and cucumber to the guests who argued continuously, but the aniseed fumes unfortunately never helped with their worries; as the men conversed, with loud voices and giant gestures, their anger drifted over the hills. Pappa’s taverna became more of a café than a restaurant, where men gathered on long nights and Sunday afternoons to discuss the fate of this troubled island.’

  In the shadows Koki’s body changes. It moulds into the silhouettes of the past, into the movements of the people of whom she spoke.

  ‘“Backgammon, Dimitri?” Pappa, as usual, did not wait for an answer and had already started opening the lacquered board, separating the black pieces from the white. The taverna was empty apart from a familiar Englishman, who sat alone at the furthest table beneath a lemon tree, overlooking the hills; his usual seat. He was there so often that I hardly noticed him any more; he would sit slumped in the chair, looking so sad. As he coiled over a newspaper, his face was so grey, as though it reflected the print.

  ‘“What I love about this game is that it’s not necessarily he who has annexed his opponent who wins. One must use the luck of the dice to one’s advantage.” Pappa’s face creased
as he smiled. But Dimitri turned away. Alone beneath the lemon tree, the Englishman ruffled his paper.

  ‘Pappa, noticing Dimitri’s oddly angry expression, bombarded him with what seemed like an absurd series of insults. “What is it now, Dimitri? Is it the rumour about your wife and the tailor? Don’t worry the neighbours are stirrers, she loves you with her life, the mad woman.” Pappa laughed, Dimitri remained silent. “Or your Litsa?” Pappa continued. “She is not still interested in that delinquent, Marcos’ son? He does nothing but smoke and visit those awful clubs for the Englezi!” Pappa’s feigned fatuity was ignored. “Or has that donkey son of yours not starting cultivating the crops yet?” A strange way, it may appear to some, to brighten his old friend’s mood, but Pappa and Dimitri, for as long as I could remember, had calmed many worries with the often humorous trivialities of their everyday lives; funnily enough, the very same trivialities which, according to Dimitri, knocked the women to their hands and knees in despair.’ Koki pauses again and stares at Litsa, who is now looking at her sternly. ‘Do you have something to add?’ Koki looks at Litsa straight in the eyes and Litsa does not reply, but looks down, avoiding the eyes of the others.

  ‘I’ll continue then.’ Koki coughs and looks again at the others. ‘Dimitri opened his hand and looked down at it; I remember it was so covered with lines it looked as though he had never stopped toiling. Then, from the backgammon board, he snatched a white piece and flung it over the veranda: it glistened as it spun and then faded as it fell too far for us to see. Pappa flung shut the backgammon board, as if issuing a punishment to a disobedient child. “What’s wrong with you, Dimitri?”

  ‘Dimitri sat straight in an attempt to gain power at this table and pulled at his moustache. Then he burst out, “Let’s wait for the right black numbers, they will never come!”

  ‘Pappa breathed out and shot a sideways glace at the Englishman, who was still fixated on the paper, even though there was little chance an Englishman would understand Greek. Pappa’s face darkened as he lifted the glass of ouzo to his lips, drank it impatiently, rested it back on the table and leant towards Dimitri, towering over his much-smaller frame heavily and resolutely whispering, “We have given a hundred and three rounds to this subject.”

  ‘“Anathema!” Dimitri protested, flicking his hand like the wing of a captive bird. “Maria saw my Litsa talking to a Turk by the well, she was laughing and” – Dimitri paused and drew a breath – “showing her thigh.”’

  At this Litsa interjects, protesting her innocence. She stands up and looks around at everyone in the room, with sweat on her brow. ‘This is ridiculous! What does any of this have to do with me? My family have done nothing to you!’

  Koki looks up at Litsa. ‘Sit down, Litsa. It’s my turn now,’ she says in a soft voice, unaffected by Litsa’s anger. She glances around again and the others gaze at Litsa expectantly. Nobody speaks. Litsa sits down slowly, and Koki takes a breath, looks around and continues. ‘Pappa struggled to keep a straight face. “Well, it is certain then! Will we christen or crucify the baby?”

  ‘Dimitri looked angry. “Passing from mouth to mouth it was learnt by a thousand, and by the time it came to be heard by the king he learnt of how a cow laid an egg!” said Pappa, chuckling.

  ‘But Dimitri’s mind was fixed. “The Turkish KATAK is giving the Englezi a reason to continue! The Turks are in our way! They are the one’s stopping the union with Greece! They have no right to be here, they are fucking us and my daughter is fucking them! I will spit on her!”’

  At this Litsa adjusted her position and tried hard not to look at the other women. Koki continued without stopping, ‘Dimitri spat over the veranda and then looked at his hands in calculation or resignation. “Did you know,” he began, tapping the edge of the table with index and middle finger, the shape of which resembled a young boy’s imitation of a gun, “when Britain took Cyprus from the Ottomans, Article 117 stated that Turks were either to return to the mainland or lose their nationality?” He said this as if he were reading the Bible or saying a prayer. “These English are playing us against each other. To them we are the pieces; we are a strategic necessity. We are not a home to the English; we are not the olives or the grapevines, the chickens or the donkeys, the bleeding in the fields! We are Air Quarter Middle East and glasses of wine! We serve our masters’ masters. We are twice slaves.” He paused and looked for a fleeting moment at the man on the other table and exclaimed in English, “Freendom is never wan withowt bloodshed!”

  ‘An unexpected wind gushed from across the sea. It seemed to have a calming quality on Dimitri’s nerves, as he reclined far into his chair. He paused again, pulling the left side of his moustache. “The English are parasites!” But after this comment he sighed and something seemed to change from within him. “Enosis and only enosis,” he said in a deflated tone, opening the board. “We had nothing when we were young, despite my dad’s hard work. Our life was controlled by high taxes! I remember I used to go with my poor father to protests. We still suffered. There is only one solution.”

  ‘The Englishman stood up, closed his newspaper, left some money on the table by his coffee cup and walked towards the wooden gate that would lead him to the falling path.

  ‘“Yiasou, my friend!” Pappa called after him, and the grey man nodded gently, then proceeded; but as he did so I noticed a slight hesitation, as brief as the pause of wings in flight, as he passed the table where I sat. For a few moments Pappa waited and looked towards the path as if to make sure that the Englishman was far away enough. “In Ancient Greek ‘parasitos’ means a guest at a meal.” Pappa exhaled deeply through his nostrils, which flared and shrunk, but soon realised that it was no use.

  ‘“Koki!” Dimitri called; his voice was full of malice and hatred. “One coffee! Metrio.” But as I stood to obey his command, I stopped, as he looked at me up and down. “It’s a shame you have no other children, Mihalis, this one’s lacking. Her skin is too white, her eyes colourless, her hair like the red of the Turkish flag and her legs bend like those of a donkey’s. I know she is still young, but how will she ever marry?”

  ‘I never really became immune to such comments from the neighbours; the words hurt and shattered my confidence. I am not trying to excuse my sins, but it explains the incidents to come. I shuffled off to the kitchen not waiting to hear my father’s reply.

  ‘But, this time, when I returned, Dimitri’s coffee tipsy in my hand, Pappa was sitting alone, staring towards the right of the hills where the whitewashed walls of St Hilarion’s Castle were just visible through the lemon groves and carob trees. This was not the first time Pappa had asked Dimitri to leave. Taking the coffee from my hand, my poor father, staring at me as though he were responsible for my torment, sat me on his lap and told me the story of Aurora. With hair the colour of the froth of the sea beneath an orange sunset, and skin so white, one would have thought she was made entirely from the snow on the Taurus Mountains. Sleeping Beauty slept for many years without waking in the dark turret of St Hilarion’s Castle due to a spell cast by a witch and was rescued by a prince who was swept away by her beauty. It would have been a magical story, had the witch not been Vassoulla and the prince Mustafa the fishmonger; but it was difficult then for Pappa, and for everyone, to envision life beyond the Cypriots.

  ‘In the breeze stories reached us like the light of an ancient star. As the night darkened and the ouzo emptied in the bottle Pappa’s stories and tone changed; the sound of the forgotten trample of many colonisations beat either in the distance or in our imaginations. The white Taurean wind, beating through the branches of the olive trees, brought the footsteps of the early settlers: the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Phoenicians, the Lusignans, the Genoese, the Venetians, the Ottomans, the British, the sails beat wildly in their port, the sea to the shore, the lemons to the floor. And still in the distance echoed more.

  ‘Pappa’s face was smooth against the wind as if under the prot
ection of a god, and once more rubbed his thumb over his chin. “Cyprus is a great watchtower, and he who stands at the top has the advantage of a god that can see at once Europe, Asia and Africa.” At this, his forehead folded and eyes creased as he sipped Dimitri’s cold coffee and placed it back in the saucer. “It is an intermediary between three worlds. It reaches high above and goes deep below the ground with its rubble of hatred and war; where people fought to be gods. But they can only expect to reach Paradise when they drop it from the sky, and once it falls … well …”

  ‘Remembering a story he had told me in the past, I replied, feeling proud that I was able to reiterate a few words from one of my father’s tales, “But we have horns to fight them with!”

  ‘My father laughed. “Yes, yes, promontories that thrust into the sea, but the island can’t fight its own battle.”

  ‘Whether he expected me to understand his allusions to war and colonisation, or whether he knew that for me these stories lived with the fairytales in the shadows on the hill I will never know.’ Koki stops and looks round at the women in that half darkness.