by Nadia Marks
On the truck, next to Olga, a baby in his mother’s arms started to cry and was immediately joined by some of the younger children. Fear was setting in. One little girl, terrified and screaming, tried to climb out of the truck only to be pushed back by a soldier. A Turkish woman, a neighbour, ran to the child’s aid.
‘Please leave her with me,’ the Turkish woman pleaded with the soldier in broken English. ‘She just a child, I am Turk, leave her with me.’
Turks were exempt from any interrogation or persecution by the British throughout the uprising, since it was the Greek population that was in revolt against the colonial rule; so too the Linser family should have been, but Anita’s association with Mario made them a target.
‘Yes, yes!’ begged the little girl’s mother, handing her daughter to Katerina sitting at the back of the truck, who in turn was about to pass her down to the Turkish friend on the street. The young soldier was adamant.
‘STOP!’ he called, holding his rifle at the ready. ‘Everyone must remain! Orders!’
All at once the truck full of women erupted in ear-piercing shrieks.
‘English devils! Murderers!’ the women screamed in one voice in Greek. At a loss to know what to do the soldier pointed his rifle at them.
‘Please, officer!’ Olga raised her voice over the chaos, trying to appease him. She was the only one who spoke English. ‘We don’t mean anything by this, it’s just fear. What harm can it do to leave the child behind?’
‘Orders, ma’am,’ the soldier repeated loudly over the noise, lowering his rifle, his eyes avoiding her gaze. ‘Everyone must be collected regardless of age,’ and with that he gave the signal to the driver to move on.
They drove through the town methodically picking up women and children from other neighbourhoods. Once the truck was overflowing it made its way through the narrow streets towards the town’s main school. On arrival they were unloaded and ushered into the assembly hall, which was already packed with earlier arrivals. In the playground the men were being lined up in single file. Amongst them Olga could see several of her workmen and numerous friends and neighbours.
On entering the hall, they were greeted not only by the sheer volume of noise of children howling and women sobbing, but also by the unmistakable odour of humanity. In the right-hand corner of the room, lined up in a row against the wall, were several buckets, which, judging by their stench, had already been used.
‘How long do you think they’ll keep us here?’ a horrified Ernestina asked her daughter. ‘I am not sure I can endure this.’
‘Your guess is as good as mine, Mother, and we have no choice but to endure it,’ Olga replied, spotting a chair for Ernestina to sit on. ‘What I’d like to know is why they brought us here in the first place. It’s the men they are interested in – what do they want with us?’ She looked around for Katerina and Anita who had made their way to an open window in search of some fresh air.
‘There is no way I can go in one of those buckets,’ Anita whispered to Katerina, her head out of the window, trying to breathe. ‘I’d rather burst, or wet myself!’
‘Well, we shall see what happens when you need to go …’ Katerina replied, also hanging out of the window for air.
Scanning the yard a few feet below for friends and neighbours among the men, she noticed a black van entering the school gates. It drove past the lines of men and then came to a stop directly below the window, allowing Katerina a clear view. Sitting in the passenger seat was a man with a black hood over his head covering his entire face, save for two holes for the eyes. Leaning out further, she tried to see more. The man was dressed in dark trousers and a black short-sleeved shirt. The only visible parts of his body were his forearms and hands; hairy as a gorilla’s, she thought. On the little finger of his right hand he was sporting a gold signet ring and a long talon like a hook, a trend of the times among some unsavoury men, and something Katerina found particularly repellent.
The van stood with its engine idling for some minutes while the driver and the passenger talked. The hooded man was conversing animatedly with the English driver, making elaborate gestures with his hands. The little finger on his right hand … She tried in vain to make out what they were saying. After a short while the van drove away to park in the middle of the playground.
‘Did you see that?’ Katerina asked Anita who had turned away to talk to a woman standing close.
‘What was it?’ She turned and looked out of the window again at the van.
‘A rat!’ Katerina spat out in disgust. ‘An informer!’
Everyone knew what that meant. He was almost certainly a Greek; a compatriot and a traitor! A spy who was willing to be bribed into giving information against his own people. Everyone gathered at the windows to look, and soon, like a chorus of hissing snakes, the word traitor filled the room, the sound picking up momentum, getting louder and louder, spilling out of every window and door, until a soldier burst in and, pointing his rifle at the women, silenced them.
Voiceless now, they stood by the windows and watched as their men passed one by one in front of the hooded man sitting in the van. All it took was a nod of his head to identify suspected EOKA activists and determine a man’s fate. Katerina and Anita stood holding on to each other and thanked God that this ID parade only involved the men; they would both have had much to fear if the women had been targeted too.
The informer apparently had inside knowledge of who might be actively involved in the movement. Bought and paid for by the British! It couldn’t be any worse. A fellow countryman bringing dishonour to his people for blood money.
‘A son of a whore,’ a woman standing next to Katerina hissed. ‘A traitor is even worse than the bastard soldiers.’
‘A man betraying his countrymen doesn’t deserve to live,’ another screamed, shaking her fist.
‘I put a curse on him with every inch of my being,’ a frail old woman dressed in black shouted, looking out of the window.
Everyone in that room had a father, a son, a husband or a friend who could be betrayed by an affirmative nod directed at him. If that happened, then the consequences were grave. He would be taken away for sure, possibly tortured like Mario, and undoubtedly be put into one of the detention camps that had been erected on the island since the troubles had begun.
‘Maybe he is a filthy Turk,’ another woman’s shrill voice echoed around the room.
‘That’s more likely,’ someone else shouted.
‘I hope someone takes a knife to him,’ a voice echoed in the room.
Olga looked at her mother; she had known this was coming. ‘What did I tell you?’ she whispered to Ernestina, shifting closer to her. ‘The hatred will not stop here, mark my words.’
Olga had grown up with both Greek and Turkish Cypriots living fairly harmoniously side by side. The only thing that set them apart was their religion and the obvious disparity in their numbers. The Turkish population was much smaller than the Greek and that at times gave rise to some conflict between them, but on the whole the two communities were respectful and friendly towards each other. However, the uprising against the British by the Greek Cypriots was to mark the start of discord between the two communities and that, Olga always thought, wasn’t really either community’s fault.
‘Divide and rule,’ she had said with a hollow laugh to her mother once she realized how the Brits were handling the situation. ‘It always works for them. Get people fighting among themselves …’
With the first rumblings of an uprising by the Greeks, the British governor had proceeded to expand the number of auxiliary police by recruiting a disproportionate number of policemen from the Turkish community. What good is that going to do apart from turning Greek against Turk? Olga observed, and once again found the British tactics not to her liking.
The knowledge that a traitor was among them brought fear and shame to the town. Nothing felt the same again after that. The rumour that went around town after the school incident was that the traitor was inde
ed a Greek, and that made everyone even more uneasy.
‘Where will it all end, Father? It’s been almost three years,’ Ernestina asked the padre when he next came to visit. ‘I know there are bad people everywhere in the world but to betray your country for money? It’s the worst crime.’ She shook her head. ‘What kind of person does that?’
‘A person with no conscience,’ the padre said with a long sigh.
The episode left the Greek population bruised, and ill at ease with each other. Raids and arrests continued and there were several more such episodes during the months that followed, directed by information supplied by collaborators.
Suspicion spread like cholera and people preferred to keep themselves to themselves. No one went out any more, they had no way of knowing who might be spying on them; the cafes were almost empty, people preferred the safety of their homes.
It was during that period that the padre, encouraged by the Linser women, started coming to the house more frequently. His presence offered them security and stability, and in turn, they offered him a sense of belonging; a home.
‘We despair at having traitors in our midst,’ Katerina said to him one day as they sat as usual at the kitchen table. ‘I can only try to imagine what your people went through during the Civil War.’
‘Compatriot against compatriot is the greatest evil, Katerina. At least in Cyprus you are mostly united in your struggle.’
‘We are only a handful of people on this island – we need to be united … we can’t afford to have these traitors amongst us.’
‘Corruption and evil is a part of the human condition; if good exists, then so does evil,’ he told her gravely. ‘Since we believe in the benevolence of the almighty God, then we must also believe in Satan and the malevolence of darkness.’ Lately as they sat together in the tranquillity of the kitchen, the padre had taken to reading her extracts from the Bible to illustrate some points of their discussion. That day it was a passage from chapter five, verse twenty of the Book of Isaiah.
‘Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that count darkness as light, and light as darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!’
Katerina loved these readings and discussions; they made her think and offered her a different perspective. If Olga had been her teacher in the early years, providing her with a social education, now the padre was giving her a spiritual and philosophical one.
She sometimes wondered if she could have had these discussions with Father Euthimios, her Greek Orthodox priest at St Lazarus, whom she respected and loved. He had been her religious mentor and confessor since she arrived as a child in Larnaka, but she had never sat in the kitchen with him, exchanging personal thoughts and drinking coffee.
She was well aware that her relationship with Padre Bernardino was unique. He was a man of God but he was also a man, and her good friend.
10
Katerina had not seen Anita so cheerful since the day she had announced that she was in love with Mario.
‘So tell me,’ she asked her as they sat on the veranda one jasmine-scented July evening, ‘what brings the smile to your face and the colour to your cheeks?’
‘I never thought I’d feel anything again, Katerina mou,’ Anita replied, a sparkle in her eyes brightening her usually serious expression. ‘I haven’t said anything to Mama or Nonna yet – you are the first. Costas has asked me to marry him and I have accepted.’
Katerina had suspected that Anita’s mood had something to do with Costas, who was her constant companion of late. Her own feelings towards him had not changed, but she put her antipathy to Costas down to her loyalty to Mario and tried to ignore it for Anita’s sake. Seeing how animated Anita was, she continued to keep her thoughts to herself.
‘So long as you are sure of how you feel, Anita mou,’ Katerina said and reached for her hand, ‘then I am glad for you.’
‘Mario will always be the love of my life, Katerina mou, but he was taken away from me. Costas is a good man and he told me he loves me … I am grateful for that and I am as happy as I could ever be …’
Anita’s only worry had been how Mario’s family would take the news. She knew her mother and grandmother would be pleased for her but her anxious disposition kept her awake at night until she summoned up the courage to go and see Mario’s mother.
She found her sitting at a table under the orange tree in the back yard of their house, dressed all in black, still in mourning for her dead son, cleaning and preparing louvi, fresh black-eye beans for lunch. The sight brought a sting to Anita’s heart. She knew how much Mario had loved that dish.
‘One of the reasons I like the summer,’ she remembered him telling her when they first met, ‘is so I can eat louvi! The summer foods are the best – watermelon and figs, aubergines and succulent cucumbers, I love them all, but for me louvi is king.’ She wasn’t as fond of them as he was. She found them bland; Katerina cooked them too in the summer but Anita preferred something more full-bodied, more seasoned like her grandmother’s Italian dishes. She felt louvi was more of a salad than a meal; boiled until tender and simply served with an olive oil and lemon dressing, the dish didn’t excite her. Spaghetti with a puttanesca sauce was more to her liking: spicy and flavoursome. But Mario’s infectious enthusiasm for the dish would sweep her along and she would often join the family for lunch on louvi days.
Seeing his mother now sitting under the tree busying herself in the familiar laborious task of shelling and cleaning the bean-like pods, she welled up.
‘Kalimera, Kyria Sophia!’ she called out as she opened the garden gate.
‘Kalostin, Anita,’ Welcome! Sophia called back in the Cypriot dialect, looking up from her work. ‘You are up early this morning?’
‘I couldn’t sleep on account of the heat,’ Anita lied, walking towards her.
‘Well, you’ve arrived just in time! Come … sit!’ and pointing to a chair next to her she handed Anita a knife. Without hesitation Anita sat down and reached for a bowl. Cleaning the louvi was something of a ritual, which she always enjoyed.
‘Remember, Anita mou, how you and Mario used to sit here and help me?’ Sophia pushed a pile of beans towards her. ‘He loved doing it; ever since he was a boy he used to help me.’
At the mention of Mario’s name Anita could control herself no longer. She burst into tears. She’d spent a sleepless night anticipating this meeting and the tension was now getting the better of her.
‘I’ve come to tell you …’ she started through her tears and then stopped to take a deep breath. ‘What I mean is, Kyria Sophia,’ she took another deep breath, ‘is that I want you to know that I have never stopped loving Mario … you do know that, don’t you?’
‘I never doubted it, Anita mou,’ Sophia replied, reaching for Anita’s hand. ‘Mario also loved you deeply, we all do. Now, what have you come to tell me, my girl?’
After drying her eyes and taking a sip of water from the glass Sophia had poured from a jug on the table, Anita started to explain the reason for her early-morning visit. When she finished, the older woman stretched across the table and cupped both of Anita’s hands in hers.
‘You are a good girl, Anita mou, and you are still young, you deserve to be happy.’ Moving closer, Sophia took the young woman in her arms and held her in a tight embrace for a long while, each of them lost in the memory of the boy who had been taken away from them.
‘I wanted to have Mario’s children,’ Anita finally said, breaking the silence, a sob caught in her throat. ‘I always dreamed that we would have four.’
‘Even though Mario was denied a life and a future, you have a right to live,’ Sophia replied, her voice breaking with emotion. ‘You have nothing to feel guilty about, my girl. You have my blessing to marry Costas and have as many children as you can. He seems a good boy and appears to be dedicated to our cause. I hope he makes you happy,’ and with that Sophia took Anita’s face in her hands and kissed her on the forehead.
Anita, who was
always rather guarded when making new friendships, had been uncharacteristically receptive to Costas’s attentions. No doubt his single-minded persistence to befriend her as soon as he met her had much to do with it, but perhaps the biggest contributing factor was his physical resemblance to Mario, even if Anita was apparently unaware of it.
‘I don’t know why,’ she had told Katerina when she first met him, ‘but I feel as if I have always known him.’
‘That’s because he reminds you of Mario,’ Katerina muttered to herself under her breath. She had noticed the likeness between the young men but refused to acknowledge it to anyone; her loyalty to Mario wouldn’t allow it. Besides, she thought, the similarities were tenuous. Whereas Mario, although not very tall, had been muscular and athletic, Costas, though similar in height, was rather lazily stocky. They had the same head of black curly hair and a square jaw, but Mario’s big chestnut eyes had been open and warm, whereas Costas’s were hooded, steely dark, and hard to look into. They both sported a moustache, but Mario’s had been pencil thin and faint, whereas Costas’s was bold, thick and macho. Mario had had a boyish aura about him; Costas oozed manly confidence. But then, Katerina thought, if the two young men had some physical resemblance, there it stopped. Their characters had nothing in common. Mario had been unguarded and sincere, but Costas she found cagey and disingenuous. But she seemed to be alone in her reservations – none of the others appeared to mind Anita’s new suitor, and as the padre had pointed out, she had no particular reason for her antipathy towards him apart from her affection for Mario.
‘I am very glad to see Costas is such a sensible young man,’ Olga had said when she got to know him, ‘and glad to see that he is being cautious. It’s the only way to be these days.’
‘He supports the struggle as much as I do, Mother,’ Anita protested, even though she had distinctly sensed him withdrawing of late, missing meetings and discussions. She put it down to his new job.
‘I’ve no doubt,’ Olga replied, ‘but at least he is taking care to be safe. You should be grateful for that, if you are going to marry him.’
