by Nadia Marks
Their courtship had started through their mutual support for independence, then progressed to friendship.
‘If we don’t get rid of the British, all that bloodshed will have been for nothing,’ he told Anita the first time they met as they sat in Kyria Sophia’s house one evening. A few comrades, young men and women, would meet secretly either in Mario’s parents’ house or in a small bar called Socrates’ Taverna, in the old part of town. They would gather a couple of times a month, and by way of precaution, in case of a raid, they would bring a selection of musical instruments so they could meet under the pretext of an evening of drinking and singing. Mario’s father, a virtuoso bouzouki player, would accompany other members of the group, some on guitar or baglama, while in the absence of a piano Anita sang along with the women. That first evening, Anita had gone alone without Katerina to Mario’s house, and after they had all finished talking, as became their habit a bottle of homemade zivania from the village appeared on the table, and then the music and drinking began. They sang bittersweet songs whose words told of oppression and displacement, of liberty and loss. On that first meeting Costas produced from his pocket a mouth organ, which he proceeded to play with professional expertise.
‘You have the voice of an angel,’ he whispered to Anita as she sang. His voice, hot in her ear, and his physical proximity disturbed her and she found herself shifting away from him. She hadn’t felt anything like that since Mario kissed her for the first time, and the sensation made her feel flustered; moisture gathered on her upper lip and her heart pounded in her ears as she carried on singing. She shot a furtive look at Sophia sitting across the table and felt relief to see that she didn’t seem to have noticed Anita’s agitation.
Everything in that room reminded Anita of Mario. Photographs of him in his EOKA uniform and memorabilia were everywhere. In the corner of the room the little shrine to Panayia, the Holy Mother, with its perpetual burning candle, held yet another photograph of Mario, as if to sanctify him. Costas’s presence in the room made her feel unexpectedly uncomfortable. Keeping her distance from him she continued to sing and then discreetly got up and slipped away to the kitchen. She splashed cool water from the tap on her face and tried to compose herself. What is this that I’m feeling? she wondered. Had Costas’s attention unearthed feelings she had buried along with Mario, or was it Costas himself and his proximity to her that had moved her so?
The next time they met was in the neutral location of Socrates’ Taverna, again without Katerina, and Anita realized that Costas had the power to upset the stability she had fought so hard to achieve. She had loved Mario with all her heart; he had been her soulmate, her comrade, her friend. She had pledged to love him and cherish him for always, but Costas’s self-assured presence disturbed her and made her flush.
Anita and Sonia often talked about falling in love, about erotas, about Aphrodite’s love child and the power of sexual love, but Anita had always dismissed it as myth and fantasy. She now feared that perhaps she was falling victim to the mischievous god against her will.
‘I love Mario with every inch of my being but I don’t feel a burning desire to do more than kiss him,’ she had said to Sonia when she and Mario first started seeing each other. ‘I think people use it as a justification for sex, especially men to excuse their lustful thoughts.’
‘You think too much, my sister,’ Sonia laughed. ‘If you let yourself be free and let Mario show you … once you taste the ways of love you will feel differently.’
‘You don’t have any morals, my little sister,’ Anita scolded her. ‘There are higher things to love than sex!’
Anita liked it when Mario kissed her, but she would not allow the courtship to go further and he was a respectful boy so he did not persist; they were going to wait till they were married.
Costas’s tactics were different. Bold persistence was more his style.
‘You ignite a forest fire in me, my little Hungarian beauty,’ he would whisper in her ear as he pulled her close to kiss her full on the mouth when they were alone.
‘I am not Hungarian!’ Anita would protest, pulling away from him. ‘I am a Greek!’ The sisters’ paternal heritage was a sore point and a legacy that both girls had rejected with passion.
‘Whatever you are, you are the girl for me,’ Costas replied, and Anita, despite herself, would give in to his good looks and caresses.
The wedding ceremony in early September was a quiet affair conducted by Padre Bernardino at his church with just a handful of people including Mario’s family. Sonia came too. It was her first visit back since she’d left, so the Linser household was having a double celebration.
‘I am a happy old lady to see one of my granddaughters marry at last,’ Ernestina had told Olga and Katerina. ‘And who knows, before I die I might see our Sonia marry too.’
Olga drove the couple to the church in her old red Triumph. Costas had invited a couple of his chums, one of whom by the name of Petros had just acquired a brand new black Morris Minor with four doors and leather upholstery, and Costas was insisting that they ride with him instead of Olga. Anita was furious that he’d even suggested such a thing, and refused on the grounds that she wouldn’t be seen dead riding in an English car.
‘I thought you agreed that we despise everything British,’ she had said to him, reminding him how it represented the imperial rule.
‘Well … yes … but …’ he fumbled, ‘… this is a handsome car and the only one in town. We will turn heads as we ride to church. Besides, Petros is going to be my goumbaros.’
‘In that case I suggest you ride alone with your best man,’ she snapped, and walked away with a knot in her stomach. When she reappeared she was calmer but the knot was still there.
They were tightly squeezed in Olga’s car but Anita was happy to be driven by her mother even if it meant her dress was crumpled on arrival. Since Mario’s death she resisted pomp and ceremony even if her grandmother had wanted her to wear a traditional wedding dress with a veil.
‘No, Nonna,’ she had insisted, ‘this is not that sort of wedding, and I am not that type of girl.’ Instead Anita wore a simple cream linen dress with a lace collar and a satin sash around her waist. She wore orange blossom in her hair and her bouquet, which had been hand-picked from the garden that morning by Katerina, was an armful of jasmine that trailed down to just above her knees. Her shoes, made of cream satin like her sash, fastened with tiny silver buckles round her ankles and although the weather was still too warm to wear stockings everyone insisted she did, which made her feel hot and bothered as she walked down the aisle. She thought Costas in his dark navy suit looked handsome standing at the altar. She glanced at him as she took her place by his side, the tight feeling still in her stomach. Then, a question flashed through her mind which she immediately banished. Could it be that his good looks are the only thing about Costas that I like?
*
The night before the wedding Olga had prepared a magnificent dinner for the five women.
‘This could be the last time we shall all be together like this,’ she had told them, making a list of ingredients as she consulted her famous cookery book for the banquet. ‘Tonight we will celebrate Anita’s marriage and Sonia’s return! I will cook us a meal we won’t forget!’
The girls laid out the table with the finest Lefkara linen, heirlooms from Great-grandmother Eva, and polished the best silver, china and crystal, which sparkled all night long in the candlelight.
It’s like the last supper, Katerina mused to herself with a chuckle, when they took their seats around the table. Looking at their beloved faces as she so often did, she reflected on the contrast between her adopted family and the one she had come from. She felt fortunate to be one of these marvellous women who had taken her into their midst and made her their own.
As the night wore on and the eating came to an end, and the conversation was flowing as much as the wine, Olga raised her glass one more time.
‘This time, I’d like to pr
opose a toast to something that concerns us all,’ she announced ceremoniously, ‘but first I’d like to tell you all how blessed I feel to be surrounded by you, my beloved female family. We have lived together, five wonderful women, in harmonious sisterhood for a very long time. Always united, we have dealt with whatever life has thrown at us, good and bad.’ Olga looked around the table, her voice resonating with emotion. ‘But now our life is about to change,’ she continued, ‘and not only for Anita, but for all of us. For the first time in years we shall have a man living amongst us and although men have passed through this house, for you, my daughters, it will be for the first time, as you have hardly any memory of your father.’
They all sat listening, their glasses poised, waiting for Olga to continue. ‘There will be a big change in our lives. That is not always bad, change can also bring good things, so what I would like to do is to propose a toast,’ and with that, Olga stood up and looked at each of them in turn and lifted her glass, ‘to change!’
‘To change!’ they all chimed in unison and raised their glasses.
‘Mama is right,’ Sonia said, hugging Anita, later on that night as the two sisters prepared for bed together for the last time in their bedroom. They preferred sleeping together regardless of the many spare rooms in the house, even if Olga was forever trying to convince them to spread out.
‘What’s the point of this big house if we don’t use it all?’ she told them, but the girls felt otherwise.
That night they had all stayed up far too late eating and drinking and now the excitement of the next day was preventing them from going to sleep.
‘It’s true what Mama was saying,’ Sonia continued. ‘A new chapter is about to begin for us all. Nothing will ever be the same again, Anita mou.’
‘For me nothing has been the same since Mario was murdered …’ Anita murmured. ‘But,’ she quickly added, brushing her dark thoughts away and giving her sister a broad smile, ‘I’m getting married tomorrow! There are many reasons to be happy. This indeed is a new chapter in all our lives, my dearest sister.’
‘I know Costas is not a substitute for Mario, Anita mou, but he loves you and you love him back – don’t you?’ Sonia asked, looking at her anxiously for confirmation.
‘Yes, I do,’ she replied, ‘but not in the same way as I loved Mario. Costas is a very different character.’ The two sisters hugged and kissed each other the way they had done as little girls, before getting into their beds.
‘But please, Sonia mou, promise me you’ll come back soon,’ Anita added, slipping between the cool cotton sheets. ‘I miss you so, and Nicos is waiting for you too.’
‘Only one more year to go, and I’ll be back before you know it!’ Sonia replied cheerfully, and switched the light off.
11
1958
Life in Vienna when she first arrived had been just as Sonia had hoped it would be. She found freedom to do as she pleased, and was relieved to be missing the worst of the political situation back home. However, Anita was determined to keep her sister well informed of developments through regular correspondence.
Her letters were full of political incidents, while Sonia’s were full of accounts of her life in the big city and the music academy.
‘They arrested the entire male population and interrogated them,’ Anita wrote to tell her after that particular episode. ‘There is a traitor in our town, Sonia mou, and we all live in fear of betrayal …’
‘Well, I’m glad I’m here, and not there,’ Sonia wrote back, ‘but let me tell you, my dearest sister, what happened to me yesterday! I met the most handsome boy … well, when I say boy I actually mean man, as he is our new teacher! His name is Hans and he is very good-looking and he thinks I have talent … I think he really likes me …’
Anita didn’t mind Sonia’s frivolous chatter – she knew that side of her sister’s character and her letters were a welcome distraction from all that was happening at home.
Living with Great-aunt Heidi in her apartment, a pleasant walk away from the Academy, or a tram ride if it was raining, suited Sonia well. Finding her way around Vienna took no time at all, especially since during her first week there she had had Olga to help her settle in.
Mother and daughter travelled by ship from Limassol to Piraeus, then after a short stay in Athens they took the train through Greece and the Balkans to Vienna. The journey, which took several days, was to mark the start of a lifelong love of train journeys for Sonia.
‘Please, Mama, can we stay in Athens for a few days?’ Sonia had asked when they were making their plans for the journey. Both Anita and Sonia had always longed to visit the Greek capital, not only for its classical associations, which every Greek Cypriot grew up learning in school, but also for its perceived sophistication and glamour they saw in films. Most Saturday nights the girls and their friends would be found in the Rex, the local cinema, engrossed in whatever new or old film happened to be showing. In winter it would be in the indoor theatre and in summer in the open air. They would sit under the night sky and feast their eyes on their favourite movie stars, cry at the tragedies, laugh at the comedies, learn the popular songs and dances and find out about the latest fashions. Athens in the 1950s, after the hardships of World War II and its aftermath, was undergoing something of a cinematic and musical boom, and to the young Cypriots the city epitomized style.
Mother and daughter stayed in a little pension in Plaka with a view of the Acropolis from its roof terrace. No sooner had they arrived and dropped their bags in their room than Sonia was ready to start exploring.
‘Where to first, Mama?’ she asked, eager to head out again as she splashed some cold water on her face to revive herself from the journey and the midday heat.
‘The Temple of Athena awaits us!’ Olga smiled at her daughter. ‘But first let’s rest a while.’
Sonia gave her mother precisely half an hour before coaxing her out of bed and onto the street again.
‘We can sleep tonight, Mother!’ she urged her. ‘Time for adventure now!’
Weary as she was, Olga too was excited to revisit the city, especially the Acropolis; she hadn’t been there since she was a girl on one of her trips with her father and now she was eager to show it to her daughter.
‘I was as impatient as you the first time I visited Athens. I wanted to see everything,’ she told Sonia while she was getting dressed. ‘But that was such a long time ago now … I wonder how it has changed.’
The climb up to the Acropolis was as thrilling as Sonia had imagined and so different to how Olga remembered it. Climbing through the poor neighbourhood of Plaka with its narrow streets that snaked upwards towards the rock of the Acropolis, they passed doorways and windows laden with pots of basil and geraniums, women on flat roofs hanging their washing on lines and old men sitting on their doorsteps drinking coffee. It was all every inch as picturesque as Sonia had seen in the movies. As they approached the top of the hill, the labyrinth of steps and cobblestoned alleyways leading them upwards became steeper and harder under the unforgiving sun.
‘Let me catch my breath for a moment,’ Olga said, sitting on a bench under some olive trees once they reached the top.
‘My fault,’ Sonia told her mother apologetically. ‘We should have waited till later when it got cool to do the climb.’
‘I was as keen as you were,’ Olga replied with a smile, wiping her brow, ‘but then again … I’m not as young.’
The sight Sonia encountered as she entered the sanctuary stunned her. She stopped dead and stood mesmerized. In line with the main gate in front of them stood the Parthenon, gilded by the sun, more majestic and glorious than any postcard, photograph or film she had ever seen. In the distance to the left, looming over the city, stood the Erechtheion, a temple that Sonia yearned to see possibly even more than the Temple of Athena. Its porch of the Maidens, supported by six massive female statues, the famous Caryatids, held a great fascination for the young Sonia. These sculpted female figures serving as pillars, ta
king the place of weight-bearing columns as they carry the roof of the temple on their heads, had always inflamed the young girl’s imagination. She would gaze endlessly at pictures of them in her schoolbooks and imagined them coming to life at night to roam the city and defend it like some kind of mythological superheroes. Their beauty seemed immeasurable and their stature enviable. Later, when she was older she saw them as a symbol of women’s strength. She stood looking in awe, undecided which of the two temples to approach first, then made her way towards the Erechtheion followed by Olga. She stood beneath the six maidens and looked up in wonder.
‘Look at them, Mama,’ she said, her eyes drawn upwards, ‘aren’t they magnificent?’
‘They certainly are,’ Olga replied and reached out to touch the foot of one.
‘For me they have always symbolized female power and strength.’
‘They remind me of us!’ Sonia exclaimed, hugging her mother. ‘Strong and powerful, with you as our chief Caryatid!’
‘That’s a funny image!’ Olga burst out laughing. ‘You do have a strong imagination, Sonia mou … but you’re right, the five of us have managed well enough over the years, even if holding up our roof has given us some headaches along the way!’
The descent from the Acropolis was much easier. The sun was finally surrendering some of its ferocity as it began to sink in the west, giving way to a cooler evening. In one of the little alleyways at the foot of the sacred rock, the two women came upon a small family-run taverna where they decided to stop for a glass of retsina and the dish of the day cooked by the proprietor and his wife.
The first day of their trip had been as splendid as they could have hoped, and a welcome relief from the troubled island they had left behind.
Their next few days in Athens sped past all too quickly. There was much to see and do and Olga promised herself she would return to the city once the political situation on the island settled and normality was restored.
