by Jo Bunt
She put her hands in the coat pockets to warm her bruised hands and found a set of house keys and some used tissues. Pru felt a pang of guilt. She was many things, but she’d never been a thief before. Would Betty have a spare set of keys somewhere? Would she be sitting outside her own home now unable to get in? Pru sighed and swallowed back her tears. Now was not the time to start worrying about other people. She had a job to do. She pulled herself upright and tried to smooth down her matted hair. She used her middle finger to wipe underneath her eyes, in the hopes that any melting makeup would be smoothed away. She steadied herself against the wall and looked around her. Everything looked different today; the yellow light made her surroundings look like a sepia tinted photograph. There was no breeze and little noise. She felt like she was in a bubble, a giant blister surrounding her anguished soul.
Pru was battling the fog of confusion. They had given her so many drugs that she was barely able to string two words together. They said that the medication was for the pain but she didn’t believe them. They told her that she had been shot in the stomach and her baby had died. They told her she would never have children. They told her she was lucky to be alive. They lied.
Eddie was gone by the time Pru woke up. Nobody knew where he was. It was obvious that the doctor had some bad news but he seemed to want Eddie there before he told her. In the end Betty had been the one holding her hand when they told her that her baby had gone. Pru had stayed in bed staring at the ceiling for hours trying to make sense of what had happened. She’d managed to piece together enough of it to know that there had been a baby and that she had held it in her arms. She also knew with absolute certainty that the last time she saw the baby, Mrs Kostas had it.
She sent Betty to get her some cheese on toast before slipping unnoticed from behind the closed curtains of the ward and out into the blindingly bright street. They couldn’t keep her here. She knew what they were trying to do and it wasn’t going to work.
Outside the hospital Marjorie had picked her up and driven her home.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she kept asking, as if she didn’t quite believe Pru’s answers.
“Oh yes, a false alarm that’s all. They’ve told me to go home and rest.”
“Can’t be long now. You’re riding, lower aren’t you? Always a sign that baby’s on its way.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“I can’t believe that Eddie was going to let you catch the bus home. What a dick! Call me if you need anything, yeah?”
Pru couldn’t remember how she got to the hospital, or why for that matter. But she remembered the baby in her arms in the home of Kyria Kostas. She could remember the labour that had lasted most of the day and she remembered Helene being there. She didn’t know why they had stolen her baby but she was going to get him back. When she had woken up in hospital they told her that they had performed a hysterectomy. They said they were sorry, but that it couldn’t be helped. But Pru knew things like that didn’t happen to her.
She pushed herself away from the cool wall with a grunt, and headed to the Kostas’ door. A quiet busyness emanated from within the dark, terracotta tiled home that stopped Pru mid-stride. She could hear the slow, rhythmic ‘swish, swish’ of someone working away, sweeping the floor. Pru tip-toed closer to the entrance, not wanting to be spotted just yet. Looking into the vaguely lit kitchen, Pru couldn’t make out much except blurry forms and deepening shadows. The only light came from a single lamp that did nothing to dispel the growing darkness in the angles of the room.
Taking a silent step backwards, Pru looked all around her and then up at the beautiful building that had been her home for the last five months. Its cream walls and blue painted doors and windows used to please her, but now she was all but consumed with sadness when she imagined living there. She knew that whatever happened tonight there was no way that she was ever going to step foot in that apartment again. She was going to get her baby back and then head back to England where nobody could hurt her or her baby ever again.
If she had had her wits about her she would have realised that the roads were abnormally quiet and that she had barely seen a soul since she’d left the hospital. She didn’t know how long she’d been in the hospital so couldn’t be sure what day it was. It could possibly be a Sunday but somehow it felt different. On a Sunday, while cafés and shops were shut, you still had the impression of a trembling life force behind the walls as people relaxed, chatted, ate or slept. But tonight she could feel nothing at all. Maybe, she pondered, that was because she wasn’t capable of feeling anything anymore. She felt like all her empathy had been swiped away. If anything, instead of feeling any curiosity, Pru merely nodded with relief at the realisation that there was no one around to witness what she was about to do. They couldn’t steal her baby and get away with it. She was tired and weak but she wouldn’t rest until she had her son back in her arms.
Looking back through the poorly lit doorway, Pru could see Mrs Kostas gently sweeping the floor while there, on the sturdy kitchen table, a wicker cradle stood. There was no noise from the basket but she was certain that her son was asleep in that nest.
The pictures in her head were out of sequence but she clearly remembered being in this house. There was blood, there were screams and then, after an interminable afternoon,there washim. She remembered clearly the dark-haired little baby, tongue darting in and out of his mouth, tasting the air around him, like a snake. She remembered him opening his eyes to reveal chestnut lagoons with ebony atolls.
Pru could still feel the ghost of his weight in her arms and the warmth of the body beneath the yellow sheet and she ached to be able to hold him once more. Pru remembered holding him in her arms when he was first born and still covered in the fluid that had been his sustenance over the previous nine months. She could remember the smell of him, all milky and sweet. She could picture, with perfect clarity, his tiny domed finger-nails crowning long wrinkled fingers.
After that, it was all muddled in her mind. She could remember Helene and Mrs Kostas being there. Perhaps they had helped deliver the baby. She grabbed handfuls of her own hair in frustration. Her fingers stuck in the tangled mess that evidently hadn’t seen a brush in some time. She wondered again, with increasing frustration, how long she’d been away. Her stomach ached, and where her stitches brushed against her hospital gown her skin burned and itched. She couldn’t get it clear in her head. Why had the doctor lied to her? And where was Eddie? Did he know what they’d done?
Pru’s head began to spin and suddenly she was looking down upon herself from somewhere upon high. From her elevated position floating above her other self she could see everything in startling clarity but in deathly slow motion. She watched her other self rubbing her temples in distress. Images started to strobe through her mind, one after another, not making any sense to her. Water, glass, blood, Betty, Helene, baby, pain, Eddie. Water. Glass. Blood. As she rushed back into her own failing body she felt the ground careen beneath her and the last thing she saw as she fell through the curtains was the stunned expression on Mrs Kostas’ face.
Chapter seventeen
Famagusta. The name tastes exotic on my tongue. It is a place my mother has mentioned in passing over the years, but never in detail. Her vagueness added to the mysterious and hazy aura ever present when she alluded to Cyprus. The word conjures up fairy-tales of dusky damsels imprisoned in crumbling sandstone towers. Just the mere mention of the Ghost Town in Famagusta evokes feelings of poignant sadness, lost souls endlessly searching dusty abandoned streets for the disappeared and the dead.
In reality Famagusta was a scorching, harried and odorous city like any other in the Mediterranean. Brash shops and overconfident shopkeepers clanged in my ears as I scurried forward trying to look purposeful. The Ghost Town, that the locals knew as Varosha, sat silently and inert off to the side like the forgotten relative at a boisterous family wedding.
I slipped away from the heaving mass of bodies and into the dusty streets of F
amagusta’s old city. The walls should have been impressive, and in their hey-day would undoubtedly have been so, but now they protected nothing and no one from the rest of the world. They leered over me unaware of their impotence. The yells of roadside vendors raised such a cacophony that their cries became an indistinct babble. Domes of mosques held the sky aloft and open-fronted shops boasted the best Turkish Delight in Cyprus. I slowed, without stopping, tempted by the powdered confectionary.
Ostensibly the Turkish inhabitants of Famagusta were the same as their dark-skinned, thick-haired Greek counterparts in the south, but the Muslim presence was palpable and I felt like I really had crossed into another country which, according to the Turkish, I had. I hadn’t gone far when a wiry man with a pitted face was grabbing my elbow to escort me into his shop selling leather jackets and shoes.
“No, thank you. Too hot,” I mimed, flapping my t-shirt and blowing my fringe off my face.
He persevered and this time held out a hot, sweet, apple-scented brew in a glass which I declined.
“Thank you. But no,” I answered firmly but politely and quickened my pace until he turned his attention to another pasty-legged passer-by.
I had been walking for about thirty minutes when I found what I was looking for. The streets were largely deserted here. Buildings that had been damaged in years gone by, probably with the shells of the war in 1974, had been left to falter and decay. There were no flashy shops here and no residents creating homes for their growing families. This seemed to be the domain of cats and stray dogs alone.
“Don’t do it.”
I wheeled round, guilt flowing from my pores.
“Shit, Stefanos! You gave me a heart attack! What are you doing here?”
“I thought you might be up to something. I was right, wasn’t I?” He smirked at me triumphantly like a head boy who’d caught me smoking behind the bike sheds.
“Have you been following me?” I blustered, trying to deflect the attention back on to him.
He inclined his head and shrugged in response.
“Stefanos, please don’t do this.”
“What?”
“You know what. Don’t get in my way, Stefanos, not today.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this.” He stepped closer to me, peering into my eyes with such deep intensity. “You are going to get yourself in trouble and I can’t let that happen to you.” He picked up a strand of my hair and rolled it between his fingers.
“I know what I’m doing. Trust me.” I don’t whether I was trying to convince myself or him but either way, neither of us bought the act. “This might be the only chance I get,” I continued.
“You don’t even know where you’re going.”
“I do. I’ve got this.” I reached into my bag triumphantly, pleased to be able to prove him wrong for once.
“What is it?”
“A map. See? Eddie drew me a map last night. I know exactly where I’m going.”
Stefanos went to take the paper from my hand but I snatched it out of his reach. This was all I had; I couldn’t risk Stefanos destroying my only clue to what lay behind the sandbags and rusting barbed-wire fences.
He scratched at his lightly stubbled cheek and sighed dramatically. “At least wait until dark. And take me with you.”
My impatience was getting the better of me. And I stepped from one foot to another, mulling it over. I was desperate to get my own way but knew that Stefanos could make it difficult for me if I didn’t acquiesce.
“Okay,” I dropped my shoulders in defeat. “I’ll wait until dusk but you arenot coming with me.”
“As you wish. Come with me now.” Then, as an afterthought, he added, “Please.”
He held out his hand, which I ignored, but I walked alongside him anyway both hands gripped on the shoulder strap of my bag. I didn’t trust Stefanos enough to assume that he wouldn’t try and take my map from me.
After five minutes of taciturn silence, Stefanos took me to Ledra Street which was now packed full of shoppers, both locals and tourists alike.
“Do you know this place?” he asked. His polite tourist-guide voice had returned.
I shook my head in reply, still sulking slightly and not feeling particularly loquacious.
“Do you know how long I have been able to walk down this road?”
I shook my head once more.
“Since 2008.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise and looked down the busy street. It could have been any pedestrianised city centre in England. There was a Starbucks and a McDonald’s for a start.
“Come.”
I followed Stefanos into the Starbucks and sat at a table in the window while he ordered two coffees. I tried to imagine how different this scene would have been just a few years ago. It was unfathomable. But that wasn’t the only thing that was troubling me.
“What?” he asked when he looked at my furrowed forehead and questioning eyes.
“It’s just...” I began, wondering which conundrum to begin with, “I wouldn’t expect you to want to drink coffee somewhere like this. It isn’t the kind of place that I would choose to drink coffee while on holiday in Cyprus. Are you trying to make a point?”
“What point exactly?” Ignoring the handle, Stefanos picked up the mug with both hands and looked at me over the steaming rim.
“I don’t know.Youtellme.”
“What is it that you people want?” he challenged.
“So I’m ‘you people’ now, am I?” I asked, not attempting to hide how offended I felt.
“Do you only feel that you have your money’s worth if you see an old woman dressed in black leading a donkey by a rope?” He slammed his mug back on the table and the deep brown liquid sloshed over the side onto the wooden table.
I bit back a retort. How dare he? But part of me wondered if he might have a point so I sat patiently while he continued in the same fashion.
“You think that you’re better than the tourists that come here and want their nightclubs and their British beer, but people likeyou are just as bad.”
“People like me?” I tried to ask evenly.
He nodded.
“Explain,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm against yet another unwarranted attack by Stefanos.
“People like you think they are above the average tourist. You come for the ‘real’ country and to soak up the ‘culture’. But you do not want to see that we too eat burgers and pizza and listen to popular music. You do not want to know us as westernised civilised people, you want us to be quaint caricatures of ourselves.”
“Whoa! Slow down. I hardly think that’s fair!” I raised my voice, unable to contain myself any longer. People at nearby tables turned to look in our direction. “When have I asked you to be anything other than what you are?”
“You–”
“No! That was a rhetorical question, Stefanos. It’s your turn to listen for a change. Every conversation we have ends in you criticising me for the way I behave or my lack of understanding. I may have been born here but I did notgrow up here, I donot know about the history of the island. I donot know about the reality of living here on a day-to-day basis. That’s why I’m here, that’s why I ask all of these questions: I am trying to learn. Iwant to learn. Cypriot blood runs through my veins too, like it or not, and my biological parents are dead. They can’t answer my questions so I’m trying my sodding best here to piece together what I can about my heritage.”
I stopped for breath and waited for what I expected would be his counter-attack.
“Well?” I asked, goading him into a response.
Stefanos kept his eyes firmly on mine. My hands were shaking and my heart was quivering in my throat.
“The coffee here is shit. Let’s go.”
I had to run to catch up with him as he took long strides out of the café. I almost didn’t bother but I knew he was far too valuable as a guide, and besides, I was shocked at how easily he had backed down from our fight.
Stefano
s was difficult to work out. On one hand he was arrogant, narrow-minded and argumentative but on the other he was fascinating, passionate and exciting. He wasn’t the type of person I should spend time with. His personality and mine were inflammatory when mixed together. It was definitely a safety goggles and gloves relationship.
We walked side by side as Stefanos marched me around the city explaining as much about the history as he could. Our earlier fight might not have been forgotten, or at least not by me, but Stefanos had moved on from it with remarkable ease and was back in his persona as charming and affable tour guide. Ledra Street, he explained, had run through the UN buffer zone and had been barricaded until a few years back when it became another crossing point between the North and South of the island.
During the EOKA struggle it had been known as the ‘Murder Mile’ due to the fact that so many of the British military and their families had been targeted in this area. I didn’t want to dwell on that too much. My imagination has always been overactive and the last thing I wanted to do was to imagine dead bodies in the street where people now ate their Big Macs.
What surprised me most about this information was that this barricade was in place long before the Turkish invasion of 1974. The barricade had stood since 1963 following clashes between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
“1963? Why hadn’t I heard that before? It must have been a serious dispute.”
Stefanos shrugged. “If you ask a Turkish Cypriot, they will say ‘Yes’ but the Greeks don’t remember it with such... ah... importance. It led to the Turkish Cypriots setting up areas where they could live safely. They called these places ‘enclaves’. North Nicosia was one of these.”
