A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

by Christy Lefteri

  ‘We have to go,’ Koki pleads, now gripping the old lady’s hand. ‘This is our only chance to live!’ The old lady looks at her, leans forward slightly, brings her other arm up and cups it gently over Koki’s hand.

  ‘My child, I’ve had my chance to live.’ Her eyes are heavy and sink into her face like ships disappearing off the horizon. Koki opens her mouth to argue, but stops and looks at her shrunken body, sunk in that chair, and notices the coarseness of her palm upon her hand, and sees that the lines on her face are part of the paths of the town and the colour of her skin is the colour of the soil. Maria’s eyes are set and unyielding. The old lady nods at her reassuringly. ‘Leave me,’ she says, ‘you must leave me.’ Koki observes the old lady and reluctantly lets go of her hand; then, leaning in, she kisses her gently on the cheek.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers and the old lady smiles and nods again and then looks quickly over Koki’s shoulder. ‘Go!’ she insists. ‘Go quickly, you don’t have much time!’

  And this is true, for as they set off and drive round the bend to the next row of houses, Koki notices, flickering through the trees and buildings, the movement of another jeep pulling up outside the house.

  For miles through darkness in the back of the jeep, beneath the blanket, the women’s bodies are buried in one another’s; they feel as though they are suffocating in the heat. The stench of their bodies is overpowering. The engine drones along the bumpy road and every so often the sound of a passing jeep or tank is heard. Nobody stops them. They rock silently in the darkness. Everyone is awake, apart from the baby, who sleeps peacefully, cradled safely between Olympia and Litsa. The women’s hearts beat hard beneath that blanket; their breath and their blood warm. In that cocoon they lie as still as they can manage. Only their chests rise gently. From a small gap between the blanket and the jeep floor moans a strong wind; it whines like an old song of lament. As the jeep rushes through the streets of Kyrenia the wind sings a song and sadness rises within them, darker than the night. And from that very gap Koki watches the world zoom by in all the colours of darkness: the coffee-black of the sky, the grape-black of the edges of flowers and leaves, the luminous white of the houses, the wink of silver wherever the moonlight falls, and all along their journey, gliding behind the olive-black outlines of the town, is that unmistakable, desolate, opaque blackness of the sea. It slithers alongside them like a gigantic snake from a prehistoric, mythical world. It moves at the same speed as them and breathes salt on them whenever the wind blows.

  In a few moments, they are stopped by a man speaking Turkish. His voice is heavy and rises with the tone of a question. Adem answers, and although the women do not understand his words, his voice sounds confident; steady and full of conviction. Then they all wait for a reply. The other man groans, and there is the sudden flicker of torchlight, slipping into the gaps of the blanket. The women hold their breath. Each one hopes fearfully that the baby will not wake. Not now …

  The light moves away, there are footsteps, and the foot soldier mumbles something and laughs. Adem laughs too and the foot soldier bashes the side of the door with his palm as if to send it on its way. The engine rumbles again, the wheels move and the women exhale.

  Only a minute passes before Adem stops again. Koki peeps through the gap and, noticing the rows of houses, believes that they are in the centre of Kyrenia, probably not too far from the port. Adem jumps out and rushes away somewhere; his footsteps disappear into the night. The women remain still, they hardly dare to breathe. Minutes seem to pass and they lie there, engulfed in darkness, their ears pressed upon each other with only the beating of their hearts and that monotonous sound of the crickets to be heard. Then there is a noise from beyond and the women hold their breath completely. The baby stirs slightly. Just then a shuffling noise is heard, some muttering, what seem to be heated words, and then the passenger door of the jeep is opened. Whoever it is is instructed by Adem to get down, and the jeep starts once more.

  The jeep bumps and swerves through what feels like winding roads: the veins of Kyrenia, the ones that lead to the sea; the red-soiled veins within that white maze. Memories flash in Koki’s mind but she cannot distinguish one from the other, they all blend into one; into one walk, one misplaced stroll along the cobwebbed paths. The salt of the sea becomes heavier in the air and she can hear the waves now, shushing, shushing, shushing the night. The wheels of the jeep sink onto soft sand, and the sea rolls closer. Its chest rises, the wings of waves bring the sea air onto the shore, like Hypnos cooling Aphrodite, bringing that dense darkness from beyond. In the distance a bomb whistles. The sea inhales and exhales. It breathes out deeply, then breathes in heavily. It lashes and laps the shore and whispers and whimpers and sighs. It reaches its fingers up to the wheels of the jeep. The jeep stops and the dog lifts its ears. They have arrived, they can feel it! There is a sense of urgency and expectation and fear and elation. Adem lifts the blanket from them, but the darkness is just the same. The women emerge into the starlight like crumpled butterflies. Their clothes creased, their eyes scrunched up against the sea. They emerge, skeletal, celestial lost souls, as though from the grave, as though in a nightmare, and they stand with Kyrenia behind them, squinting at the black abyss beyond.

  The salty sea air lifts their hair and blows hard in their ears. As they stand there, they notice the expanse of darkness before them, with the slight reflection of a silver moon on the top of the ripples. Olympia remains seated, with the baby pressed to her chest. Even Sophia stands now, and the dog jumps off the jeep and runs round to smell the person in the passenger seat.

  From there emerges an old man. He stands as straight as he can and lifts his face up to the darkness of the sea. He inhales. Portions of his face are highlighted by the moon. His glasses glimmer. White wisps of hair. He looks over at Adem and points at something in the water. The sea swishes in and touches their toes. Ahead, in that black void, the shoreline is invisible and the flickering lights of the warships hover in the darkness to the east of Pente Mile. The sea hisses in and touches their toes. The two men walk into the lapping waves, their feet slogging through water and sand, and they bend over something that glimmers slightly blue in the moonlight. There is much sloshing about and the two men pull something onto the beach. A boat. Big enough to fit five people at the most. The old man climbs in and struggles with the oars, then looks at Adem standing beside him. The black tongue of the sea laps the wood of the boat. ‘Psaroboulis, your home will always be with you. You will never be too far from the sea,’ Adem whispers.

  ‘If that’s the best I can have,’ the old man replies. His voice rattles with phlegm. ‘I married, had kids, drank more wine than there is water in the sea, drank my life into a haze … but thank God for my boat. I would have drowned a long time ago if it wasn’t for her.’ He bashes the side of the boat with a flat palm, then looks out to the black gulf of sea. ‘We will follow the coast west and dip south until we reach Pirgos. It will take us a while.’ Adem nods, then turns to face the women. He dribbles out of the water and stands to face them.

  ‘It is time,’ he says simply, and the women stare at him, with wind in their hair and salt on their skin.

  The women slush through the lapping water and into the boat. The dog follows and sits next to Sophia. The boat rocks in the shallows of the sea. The sea rolls in and out, endlessly, rattling its liquid bones in the darkness. It whispers something gently: familiar stories, familiar words and its voice travels up and down, to and fro, not unlike the man that walked its shores calling endlessly ‘Watermelons, watermelons, watermelons.’ And not unlike the man that called the fish from the depths and sang as he pulled his net. And not unlike the bells that chimed from the hill, and the priest that sang words from the Bible.

  Koki hesitates at the edge of the water, with Maroulla by her side. The little girl shivers. Koki looks down at her. ‘My dad used to say that lost spirits skim the surface of the water. They feel safe here as they can see the reflection of the heavens in the
sea. It gives them hope,’ Koki whispers to the little girl as the wind blows harder and another bomb whistles in the distance. The sea moans now. Adem walks closer to where they stand and first looks down at Maroulla; he takes her hand and holds it inside his palms. She looks at him straight in the eyes:

  ‘You are the green man.’ The little girl smiles. He looks back at her with tears in his eyes and squeezes her hand.

  ‘… It is time for your journey to begin.’

  The little girl nods. ‘Aren’t you coming with us?’ she asks.

  The sea laps their feet. ‘It’s always harder to let go of someone once you’ve opened your mouth or opened your heart.’ Adem reaches into his jacket pocket, retrieves the Bible and holds it out. He looks at it and touches the leather cover delicately with his fingers. ‘I want to give you this to always remember me,’ he says. ‘Like I’ll always remember you … the bravest little girl I’ve ever met.’ He places it into Maroulla’s hand and she looks down at it with wide eyes, then she walks away and stands close to the old man.

  Adem touches Koki’s hand with his fingers. He strokes her hair and her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, ‘I didn’t want to leave you.’ His face is close to hers and he leans in and puts his arms around her, he holds her close to him with his arms clasped across her back. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says again as the tide draws the sea away and the boat clatters about. ‘I didn’t want to leave.’ His voice breaks and he buries his face in her hair. ‘There’s so much I want to tell you, to explain … they gave me no choice, it was the only thing I could do! I was a coward …’

  Koki pulls back, reaches up and holds his face; her eyes are soft and as she feels his skin against her palms she remembers how much she loved him.

  ‘I have never loved anybody else,’ he says, looking at her in the eyes. He holds both her hands and the wind passes between them. Adem’s eyes are full of tears.

  ‘Come with us,’ Koki says, but Adem looks down. ‘Come with us,’ she pleads. ‘Why aren’t you coming with us?’ Her voice is desperate and shrill, but he cannot reply. He kisses Koki on the lips again, a lingering kiss, full of pain.

  Koki clutches his hand. ‘You have to come with us,’ she says, but notices a look in his eyes that is too familiar to her; that look full of longing and sadness and hopelessness.

  ‘I am a Turk,’ he says. ‘An old enemy can never become a friend. They will kill all of us if they see me with you. I will come and find you, I promise.’ Then his eyes lower to the ground. ‘Our life could have been much different.’ He says these last words more quietly.

  ‘You would have been a great father,’ says Koki. Adem looks at her. Koki looks at those familiar eyes and his skin, dusted with time. She takes his hand and feels the lines on his palm and then his fingers. She reaches up to his face and leans in and kisses his lips. The wind blows and a bomb whistles in the distance. He holds her face, her shoulders, her arms; touching her manically, as though, perhaps, he cannot believe that she is real.

  Time is running out. He kisses her again, and again; on the lips, on the cheek, on her forehead. He clasps her arms. The wind blows and the darkness spills over them, heavier than before. She looks at him uncertainly, then out at the black void ahead. She has waited a lifetime to get to see him once. What if there is another lifetime between this time and the next?

  ‘We can start again,’ she says, as a fighter jet flies overhead and somewhere in the distance is the rumble of wheels. She looks back at him resolutely this time. ‘He had your eyes,’ she says. He clutches her arms tighter, frown marks crawl across his eyes. ‘I named him Adem, after you. But they could not accept it and his name became Agori … I came to tell you, that night … but … you had already …’ Her voice shatters and is taken by the sea. She swallows the salt of her tears. ‘The monsters killed him in the orchard; they shot him in the heart.’ Her voice rises higher than the wind, it rips the air, tears at his features so that they are distorted and wild in the moon-light. The sea pulls them and their feet sink into the sand. ‘The monster left a rose on his body. A rose on his body. A rose on his body.’ Her voice rises further, battling with the wailing of the sea. Her shoulders drop, her eyes close and she cries into the night. Her last words roll with the waves, reverberating again and again and again, a rose on his body, a rose on his body, a rose on his body. The body of the sea rises. Rises, rises, rises and falls. A rose on his body, a rose on his body, a rose … a rose … a rose …

  He takes a step back. The look in his eyes, menacing, unnatural. Tears fall and he clasps his hair brutishly. The wind blusters over him. His eyes, ferocious and wild, wide against the wind. The rumbling in the distance is nearer now. Headlights piece the darkness.

  ‘They are skirting the shore!’ His voice manic, untamed, trembling senselessly. ‘You must go. Now! You must go!’ His face is torn with tears. His features twisted, disfigured by the shadows. He takes her hand and pulls her to the boat. Maroulla follows. They climb in and Koki clasps onto his hand. She looks behind her at Maroulla, Sophia and the baby and reluctantly lets go. He winces and turns his face away from her and hits the side of the boat. ‘Go,’ he says to Psaroboulis, ‘go as far into the darkness as you can.’ The old man starts rowing, madly, madly, the oars flap like wings over a black sky. They plunge and plunge and plunge into further darkness; into the thickness of eternity. The shore drifts further and further away. Adem stands there, a shrinking silhouette in the darkness until the women see nothing but black. Nothing but black. And then, a flash of headlights, and a few moments later, a gunshot …

  Koki stands up in the boat and cries from her chest, ‘Adem!’ She whispers through her tears, ‘Adem …’ She leans over the boat and cries into the sea. ‘Have they killed him?’ she says frantically, ‘have they killed him?’ But none of the women answer. Litsa stands up and puts her arms round Koki’s shoulders and eases her onto the floor of the boat. And there Koki rests her head and cries into Litsa’s arms. She cries as the boat drifts further and further away.

  Day 6: 25 July 1974

  Richard wakes up to the sound of waves, the foaming of the sea on the rocks, the sound of the crickets and the fishermen whistling and cursing on the shore. The seabirds soar over and screech. A ceaseless screeching. He opens his eyes, and as they adjust to the darkness, he realises that the couple in the flat below have been arguing. ‘Bloody hell!’ he says out loud, lifts his head and looks out of the window at the blinking lights of Queen Victoria Street. The traffic lights change to red, but there are no cars on the road. Somebody slams a door. Richard groans. ‘God damn you!’ he says, pushing the covers off his body, heaving himself to sit up and swinging his legs over the bed. His movements are slow, his joints stiff. Big Ben chimes in the distance, the sound of the bells flap overhead like singing birds. Too early even for the damned birds! thinks Richard. Who the hell would argue before the birds start singing? From as far back as his army years he was not keen, to say the least, on waking up before the crack of dawn. He remembers his regiment officer, in his junior years, bashing a rifle on the floor of his room and ordering him to do laps for disobedience. Nothing ever changed. Some even said that he would have missed the whole of the Second World War and never known the difference. He was a good pilot, though. The best there was. He just believed the birds should sing first. Of course, his opinion didn’t really matter, even though he had covered more air miles than a falcon. The sky became his home. That bottomless sky. So full of possibilities and emptiness. His stomach churns.

  Richard stands now, scraggy, like an old bird. His legs scrawny, his neck, bony, bending downwards. The clouds drift over and all becomes darker. He dresses himself, combs his hair and makes his way out of the bedsit and takes a long walk to Paniko’s café.

  He approaches the café and sees a closed sign hanging on the door that he has never seen before. He leans forward and presses his face to the glass. It is dark inside and there is no movement at all. Richard looks at his watch. Six forty-five.
Paniko should have definitely opened up by now and been preparing for the breakfast rush hour. Richard leans against the wall and lights a cigarette. Soon Nikos strolls towards the café, nods his head at Richard and, without even looking up, continues straight for the door. There is an almighty thud when he thumps straight into the glass. Slightly dishevelled and still not looking up, he rattles the door handle. Bloody Greeks, thinks Richard, always ignoring the signs, even when they are staring them in the face. Completely bewildered that Paniko has not opened the café, Nikos stands there for a few seconds, staring up at the shop sign almost as if he is checking to make sure he is at the right place. ‘Hm,’ he says beneath his breath, and then, not knowing what to do with himself, he stumbles away.

  No one else comes and Richard is just about to leave when a black taxi pulls up outside the café and Paniko steps out, holding the door open for a young man. The taxi starts up and disappears along the street. Paniko stands, beaming, outside the café. ‘Little Cyprus!’ he says to the young man, with the enthusiasm of a Labrador, but the young man looks it up and down, as though sizing it up, and then nods once, completely unconvinced.

  They walk into the café. ‘This is Vakis,’ Paniko tells Richard, ‘my nephew. He has escaped from Cyprus.’ He leads Vakis to a table and indicates for him to sit down. The boy does not move. Paniko speaks to him in Greek, in a volume that would only be acceptable if the boy were standing on the other side of Soho. If that, Richard thinks. He shakes his head. Paniko asks the boy a question and the boy tuts and throws his head back to indicate ‘No’.

  ‘Vakis, this Englezo. Friend,’ he says and Vakis looks at Richard beneath heavy brown lids, scornfully, as though he would have shot him if he had a gun; but strangely, from that look, a yawn emanates, with completely visible tonsils. The boy chews the air a few times and his lids droop lower. He stares at Richard until Paniko speaks again. ‘Come. I’ll make coffee.’