A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

by Christy Lefteri

  ‘“He is a levendi!” the seamstress interjected. “Beautiful face …”

  ‘“Pppaa,” Vassoulla spat. “He is a Turk! From the mainland! They are an ugly race.”

  ‘The seamstress nodded in agreement and both crossed themselves and bowed their heads as they noticed the people around them doing so.

  ‘“There’s news that he will marry Bambaji’s granddaughter, he is eighteen and coming of age,” continued the seamstress. Bamabaji’s granddaughter was sixteen at the time, a year older than I, and was considered the most beautiful Turkish girl that Kyrenia had ever known. God had put the colour red in the right places: on her lips and her cheeks, and her skin was the colour of baked bread.

  ‘“It is time you sorted out your Litsa, Vassoulla,” said the seamstress. “It is a problem for a girl of fifteen to be gallivanting around without a husband. It looks bad for our community. We will be ridiculed by the Turks.”

  ‘Vassoulla’s face tightened into a smile. “Oh, there is a doctor’s son who is interested. From Larnaca,” she added quickly. The other lady’s eyebrows folded as she opened her mouth to speak, but Vassoulla looked away from her to where I was standing and pinched my arm – “Stand up straight in the house of God or you will be punished severely.” I pulled back my shoulders and heard the other lady whisper, “She is not normal, the poor girl has been burdened by the sins of her ancestors.”

  ‘“She is a bastard,” whispered another woman nearby.

  ‘“We must pray for her, it is our duty,” said Vassoulla with a false tone of empathy in her voice. Again, another two women, standing nearby, nodded in agreement and bowed their heads.

  ‘The first bead of light merged with the darkness at the front where the bishop stood; and then the light moved through the church as each member of the congregation lit their candle from their neighbour’s, passing the holy light from hand to hand. As the light approached, the women’s faces became reflections of the light of Christ; as it rose and stole portions of darkness some faces appeared even darker in those shadows than they had in the former obscurity.

  ‘Soon Vassoulla passed the light to me from her own candle, being careful not to look my way in case that holy light might just be supernatural enough to lift the veil which she wore, or else that this gesture might have revealed a flicker of genuine shame and a shadow of the face beneath the mask.

  ‘And then a chant rose, like the light, but murkier and heavier, though not dimmer; breaking the gossip as the light the darkness. And the collective voice of the good Christians of Kyrenia town rose and fell as they joined in the singing, and for a brief moment, for they truly believed it, they glowed like the light, in a simultaneous blaze of denial. Then the crowd dispersed and went on their separate paths.

  ‘“Christ is risen, Koki.” The seamstress leant over me and kissed each of my cheeks.

  ‘“Truly He is risen,” I replied.

  ‘“And don’t worry, God will notice you too one day, just like he did my Avyi.” She opened one of her arms to welcome a very pregnant daughter, whom she kissed on both cheeks, wishing her a good rising of Christ, to which her daughter replied, “You too, Mama,” and then continued through the crowd of people, proudly stomach first, hugging and kissing on her way.

  ‘I looked around for my dad, but instead saw Kyrios Christos’ wife, who was a very good cook; the tailor’s daughter, Aphrodite, who was ugly despite her name, but a very good girl; and a widow, Andiyoni, whose sister’s husband’s brother had lost all his money in a game of kounka three years ago, and that was not a good family. Dimitri was standing at the front of the church, as usual, in an attempt to proclaim his patriotism, or “faith”, as his preferred choice of word was. He was kissing the hand of the priest as I approached, and as he saw me raised his arms. “Christ is risen, my Koki,” he shouted, kissing me on both cheeks, but this time I did not repeat the expected phrase.

  ‘“Where is Pappa?”

  ‘“Koki, you will be punished by God!” he said, astonished.

  ‘“Truly He is risen,” I said finally.

  ‘I worked my way through the crowd in the church and the crowd beneath the arches and when I stepped into the clearing, and could finally feel the breeze on my face, I remembered the shoemaker’s touch. I felt his fingers on my skin and I longed for him in a way that I had longed for nothing else. So, with hot cheeks and a fluttering heart I ran through the town, beyond the port and the café and the well, beneath the olive trees and vines, round the golden field of wheat, all the way to the shoemaker’s hut. When I got there I rested my hands on my knees to take a breath and noticed a flickering light in the window. Was he still at work? I composed myself, walked over and knocked gently on the door. There was no answer so I sat right there on the doorstep and listened to the singing of the crickets and watched the fireflies in the trees beyond.

  ‘It was a few minutes later that the door finally opened and the shoemaker stood in the doorway with a shoe in his hand and looked down at where I sat. We said nothing to each other; he smiled, left the door open and resumed his work, while I sat silently on the step and watched him. This same thing happened night after night, night after night, for many, many months. I would sit and watch him until the town had silenced and the crickets’ song had become so deep that you could not tell it from the darkness.

  ‘One night, however, in September, after a particularly cloudy day, it started to rain as I sat on the steps. I didn’t move, and he looked up from his work and watched me as the rain drenched my hair and my dress. He laughed, walked towards me and signalled for me to come in. I looked at the floor. “You have to, now,” he said, ducking his head through the door frame to look outside. So, I stood up and stepped into the dry room, shedding droplets of rain onto the floor like a stray dog. He stood there in the flickering candlelight and watched me. “I’ve been waiting for it to rain for six months,” he said, and I stood, as wet as a blanket, dripping, as thunder sounded overhead.

  ‘“It’s good for the crops,” I replied, and he laughed, then fetched a towel from the back. I wiped my face and rubbed my hair and he went into the back again and returned this time, a few minutes later, with two cups of steaming coffee. I sat on a stool on the counter and sipped my coffee while he continued to work amongst the candlelight and wisps of coffee mist.

  ‘From that day on, and for weeks to come, I would sit on the stool, indoors, whether it was raining or not, and watch the shoemaker while he worked into the night. Every so often he would make, especially for me, a new pair of shoes, and present them to me as I entered. One pair, if I recall, was black patent with laces, another, brown with a little buckle; another, red, embossed with flowers; another emerald-green with a small heel. All of them I wore with pride, even as the neighbours stared and muttered beneath their breath. Of course, the neighbours talked. They talked endlessly like the crickets. Always something to say about somebody else; always a story to tell. They muttered and whispered and murmured and moaned and all proclaimed to know the truth, about everything and everyone and all the large affairs of the world and all the little sordid affairs of our town. You all know that life in the town is empty without the stories. The stories bubble in the pan of beans, rise in the steam of coffee, splatter from the washing, are weaved into the tapestries of silk.’ Koki stops and looks at the faces of the women. Their eyes are wide and the shadows rise from the corners of the room. Although the doors open up into the garden, the air is still and the room is humid and the women’s faces shine in the half light.

  ‘I confessed my sins to the priest. At first, Pappa, God rest his soul, never said a word. Never let the gossip bother him, and never questioned me about what he had heard. He was not a man of pride; he believed, only, that we must all bear our destinies, whatever they may be. He never asked me where I went at night and why on certain nights I came home with new shoes. He knew. Of course, he knew. There were many things Pappa knew, but never spoke of, I am sure of it … Any other father whose daught
er was seen with a Turk would have beaten her and locked her away. But Pappa was different, he let me live the way I wanted to. It was unheard of for a father to do such a thing, but he would always say that he could see my mother’s passion glowing in my soul and who but God should guide the flight of a bird.

  ‘All the other girls in the town were getting married. Avyi had been introduced to her husband over an evening meal; they were married a fortnight later, once the dowry had been agreed. Her family were very well off, so the groom had the benefit of receiving three acres of land. The farmer’s daughter married in the same way. The tailor’s daughter married a man she hadn’t even met.

  ‘Eventually, as time passed, Pappa changed. The whispers of the town had somehow entered his veins, their convictions had taken hold of his mind, he became fretful and worried, wondering in his moments alone whether he had made the wrong choices. I could tell by the way he flicked his rosary beads and rubbed his forehead again and again as though the answers that he wanted were hard to find. One day he looked at me anxiously and said, “I must do what a father is meant to do.”

  ‘He started writing letters to the families of prospective grooms. Late every night, after he had cleaned up the restaurant, he would sit on the veranda and by the light of a candle he would write letters to the families of young men from other towns. He would first contemplate for a while, looking out across the hills, and then he would glance at me with a look of sadness on his face. Although he tried to hide it I could see how he felt sorry for me, how he thought I was destined to always be alone. However, while I sat beneath the tree and kneaded dough or made pastries for the next day, he would scribble away, then very neatly fold the letter and seal it in an envelope. The following day he would give me the letter and instruct me to take it to Vangeli’s café. Of course I thought about burning the letters or throwing them into the sea, but I knew that Pappa would be waiting for a reply. So I did as he wished, but I secretly hoped that all the families would decline his offer.

  ‘Not long after, the replies started arriving. I remember one night I brought three letters out with Pappa’s ouzo, and he nodded, smiled at me and put them on the table. He tapped them a few times with his middle finger as though he were making a wish, straightened them so that the corners of all three letters were together, and sat back. He left them there unopened while he drank one ouzo, then two and then asked me to bring him a walnut sweet. I went into the kitchen and put a walnut sweet into a glass of water with a fork. My hands were shaking with nerves; I took it to him with the fork rattling against the glass and as he took it from my hand he looked up at me. He looked as though he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Once he opened that letter he knew that my life would be in his hands. Perhaps he knew that for the first time in my life I was happy and he didn’t want to be the one to take that away from me.

  ‘He ate his sweet, waited longer still, had another ouzo and finally, as though he was exhausted by thinking, slammed his hand on the table, sat up straighter and opened the first letter. He had made his decision. He read it slowly. He did the same with the second and the third, then he sat with his chin in his hand, sliding quick glances in my direction, while I rolled koubebia for the next day, trying to look as aloof as possible. He then called me over and told me that two men had asked to meet me; one was a doctor and the other a farmer. He looked at me right in the eyes and then leant across the table and touched my hand. “This is the way of the Greeks,” he said, “it’s the way things must be.” I didn’t say a word, returning to my task.

  ‘The meeting was arranged and a few weeks later the doctor from Paphos came for dinner with his parents. Pappa welcomed them at the entrance of the taverna while I peeked out through the crack of the door. I could see them shaking hands and Pappa opening his palm and gesturing for them to enter. They looked around haughtily, right and left, up and down, as though Pappa’s taverna was not good enough for their educated son. “Koki,” Pappa called, and I ventured out with my head down, looking up only when I finally reached the middle of the restaurant, where they were now standing. Immediately the doctor’s eyes widened and a look of disgust spread across his face. “Oh, you’re the one that everybody …” he blurted out, without thinking, and I saw his mum nudge him. His dad coughed loudly and then asked Pappa how business was doing. We ate in silence and when they finally left Pappa asked me to sit with him while he drank ouzo and ate his walnut sweet. He did not talk for a while and I watched him as he dipped his sweet in and out of the water again and again. He did not eat it, though; he allowed the sweet to drop to the bottom of the glass and rested the fork on the side; by this time the water had taken on the sickly-brown of the sweet. “Education comes from within,” he said suddenly. “A doctor can read all the books in the world and know how to tie up a wound or heal a broken leg, but if they don’t know about social etiquette and how to speak to people then they know nothing!” I smiled, and seeing the look on my face Pappa felt satisfied, and finally ate his sweet.

  ‘A similar thing happened with the farmer and in the end Pappa did not write any more letters. A good Greek girl should have an arranged marriage with a good Greek boy. I was not a good Greek girl. In fact most people doubted my Greekness altogether. As more stories bubbled round the town, anger brewed around me. I was already the misfit, and now I had completely violated the rules. I had defied my religion and culture. I had mortified the face of our town. How dare I show up our neighbourhood in such a way? What kind of social education had I had? At first they blamed Pappa for having a restaurant open to all, but after much deliberation it was unanimous that Mihalis was a good man. Consequently, the next question to arise was how such a great member of the community could produce such an oddball; the answer to this was: “From a thorn a rose emerges and from a rose a thorn.” One cannot predict what their offspring will become in life; an honest, respected man’s daughter may turn out to be a whore. Then, they would remember poor Mama and say that in fact, I could have taken after her and that I might have some other man’s genes. At the end of the day, it was decided, over washing lines and cups of coffee, that that was the most likely explanation.

  ‘Anyway, one particular night, in November, high on the hill with Pappa, when the customers had all dispersed, I brought him a little cup of coffee and placed it on the table where he sat. He did not smile and thank me as usual, but instead continued to look down at the flickers of light from the neighbouring homes. His face looked stern and gaunt and that golden colour of his skin now looked pale. His broad shoulders slouched over his stomach and his foot shook beneath the table. He looked at me, momentarily, with red-rimmed eyes, then cast the back of his hand on my face, so hard that my head spun, and I dropped to my knees and sobbed, and when he did not move or comfort me I stood up and ran out of the gate, tumbling in the darkness down the hill.

  ‘When I returned, Pappa said only that the neighbours had tongues like snakes. He put his hand on my shoulder and his eyes shimmered with sadness. It was not spoken of again. But other things happened, and much worse. One other night, on the way to the hut, I was attacked by a group of youngsters. They called me a whore and pulled my hair until they saw blood. They threw small rocks at me, knocked me to the ground and stole my shoes, the black patent ones with the laces. Then they ran off and left me on the floor. At first, I was ashamed to go to the hut, so I walked around, barefoot. Finally, a few hours later, I swallowed my pride and made my way along the port.

  ‘When I got to the hut, the door was closed and I sat on the step, with the candle flickering in the window above. About half an hour must have passed when he opened the door, probably looking for me, and found me sitting on that step. He leant over and touched my arm and I stood up as he looked at the bruises on my arms and my bare feet and the red of my eyes. The shadows moved across his face as he stood still and watched me. There was a strange look in his eyes, maybe of anger or sadness, and he looked away from me and out towards the setting sun. Then, he took a step
closer so that his face was next to mine, leant in awkwardly and kissed me on the lips.

  ‘The more our love developed and grew the less he ventured out of the shoemaker’s hut. Not even for a midnight walk along the sleeping streets. He simply said that the shoes he made were for other people’s journeys. He would not let me question him about this, and over time his skin became pale and his eyes shrank and he touched only residues of the world from the soles of others’ shoes: granules of sand from the beach or small grey pebbles from the mountains and sometimes strange-coloured soil from other regions or other lands. Often he would hold the dirt in his fingers and smell it as if he were inhaling the scent of a wild and foreign herb.

  ‘Sitting in the safety of his hut, he loved to tell me stories. He spoke as he worked and I often lay on the floor, with my head resting on my hands, and listened to the sound of his voice. He told me that Cyprus was the most beautiful place in the world because on its shores one could find the footprints of many conquerors who shaped the island into what it is today; a place so intricate and strange and full of fear. He said that everyone that came brought both something dire and something new.

  ‘He told me about the Roman rulers, Cato and Julius Caesar, that occupied Cyprus when the rule of Ptolemy came to an end. He made the shoes that Cato had worn just so that I could see them; the military sandals, called “caligae”, which had so many layers of sole with nailed edges. He made other Roman shoes with straps and grid patterns, or triangles or circles. He explained that before that the Greeks walked barefoot or wore very simple shoes. He even made me a women’s pair; they were delicate, with patterns of ovals and squares.