Secrets Under the Sun

by Nadia Marks

  She decided the best way to see him was to take a trip to Nicosia. She would drive to the capital on the pretext of a shopping spree and request to stay the night.

  ‘I work late,’ was the only thing he found to say, surprised at her unexpected request when she telephoned.

  ‘No matter,’ she replied, undeterred, ‘I’ll wait for you to finish; I have plenty to do and friends to see, I have buried myself in Larnaka long enough. I need to see people I have neglected for too long, and you, my dear husband …’ she said sweetly, emphasizing the words, ‘… you are one of them.’ Taken aback further by Anita’s unusually dulcet tones, he had no option but to accept. ‘You can take me to dinner after you finish work,’ she added, amazed at her ability to sound so casual and convincing. Where there’s a will, and a good enough reason, there’s a way, she thought with a smile as she put down the receiver.

  A visit to the hairdresser, which was well overdue, restored Anita’s raven locks to their former lustre, framing her heart-shaped face and accentuating her pale complexion. ‘We need to bring you up to date, Anita mou,’ Effie the hairdresser told her, inspecting her unruly curls in the mirror. ‘This won’t do at all! You have a great head of hair but you’re doing nothing with it. You’ve let yourself, go my girl,’ and smiling she picked up the scissors, ready to attack.

  By the time Effie had finished cutting and restyling, the transformation was complete. Reflected in the mirror, Anita saw to her pleasure a new positive and attractive self, infused with energy, ready to embrace what lay ahead. She had indeed let herself go, and had allowed her spirit to be crushed. The situation they were facing felt very much like a state of emergency, reminding her of the days of the revolution. She would once more rise to the challenge. Then, she was fearless – she would be that once more! We are all in this together, she told herself. Katerina’s problem is also my problem.

  She felt confident that with Olga’s guidance they would manage. Katerina’s honour would be saved and they would have a blessed baby to love, cherish and protect. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t going to be giving birth herself. God only knew how hard she’d tried, but she was resigned to the fact that her body wasn’t built for childbirth. She just hoped Katerina’s was.

  She felt a little nervous behind the wheel at the start of her journey; she hadn’t driven anywhere of much consequence for a while but soon she began to relax and enjoy herself. Olga’s car was always a delight to drive and given the good weather she put the roof back, tied a scarf round her newly coiffured hair and let the sun beat down on her. Anita was on a mission. There was nothing she liked better.

  She hadn’t been to Nicosia for at least two years and walking down Ledra Street, the main shopping artery of the city, commonly known by the locals as Makridromos, ‘the long road’ on account of its length, she felt exhilarated. The street was buzzing with life and noise. Cars beeping their horns at every opportunity, shops and cafes, newspaper kiosks, and shopkeepers calling out to her as she passed by, made her realize how isolated and low-spirited she had been for so long.

  She had arranged to meet two friends, Maria and Sophia, in a little zaharoplastio, a patisserie just off Ledra Street called Hurricane, its name a legacy from the British occupation. The two women were already sitting at the table waiting for her.

  ‘What took you so long to come and see us?’ Maria said, jumping up to greet Anita as she walked in. They had all met in Larnaka through their activities in support of the struggle, and now both women were married and had moved to Nicosia with their husbands.

  ‘We meet here every Saturday morning,’ Sophia said, embracing her friend warmly and kissing her on both cheeks.

  ‘We have a women’s only gathering here once a week,’ Maria added. ‘The men of course have theirs daily,’ she laughed.

  ‘We drink our coffee, eat our cakes and gossip …’ Sophia interjected.

  ‘Not only that – we still talk politics, but not as we used to.’

  ‘If you were living in Nicosia, Anita mou, you could join us.’

  ‘Oh yes … we’ve missed you, and our talks – you should come more often …’ The two women took turns to bombard her with words, delighted to see their friend and hardly giving Anita a chance to speak.

  ‘I missed you too,’ she finally replied, genuinely glad to see them both again.

  ‘So, tell us, what brings you here at last?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Well, believe it or not, I came to see my husband – he is living here most of the time now … and to see you two, of course,’ she added.

  ‘Could this mean we might have the pleasure of you moving to the metropolis?’ they both laughed.

  ‘Perhaps …’ Anita said and reached for her cup.

  ‘Well let’s hope so!’ Maria replied cheerfully. ‘Marriage must suit you, my friend – you are looking good on it. Any babies yet?’

  ‘No, not yet, but I’m hoping. How about you?’ she asked, smiling sweetly.

  ‘I have a boy! Two years old next month and we’re trying for a second one. There is nothing better than being a mother, my friend – wait and see!’

  ‘Sooner rather than later, I hope,’ Anita replied and reached for her glass of water.

  They had arranged that she would pick Costas up from his office in her car. Walking into the building Anita could feel the eyes of his male colleagues looking approvingly at her. She had made sure she looked her best. She was classy and elegant, and her coral-coloured linen dress, which stopped above her shapely knees, the string of pearls around her neck and her high-heeled shoes confirmed it.

  ‘You look very … nice!’ Costas said, almost lost for words and clearly surprised at her appearance. Lately whenever he had seen Anita she had looked washed out and plain. Gone was her ethereal otherness that he’d found so attractive when they first met. Now she just looked pale and drab. Although he would never have admitted it in so many words, when they met he had sensed she was out of his league, her family and money set her apart from any other girl, and he felt flattered when she accepted his courtship. But all that had gone a long time ago; since her miscarriages and depression all he’d been left with, he thought, was a sad dowdy young woman, desperate for a baby.

  ‘Thank you!’ she replied, smiling, and gave him a kiss. Aware of the admiring looks she was receiving from his colleagues, Costas puffed himself up and, offering her his arm, led her out of the office into the early evening.

  ‘So, my little wife,’ he asked over dinner and after several glasses of red wine, ‘what made you decide to come and see me?’

  ‘I am a woman, and isn’t a woman allowed to miss her husband and his attention?’

  ‘Well of course, but I thought you didn’t care much for my attention these days,’ he replied, moving a little closer to her.

  ‘Oh darling … that’s only because, as you know, I haven’t been well,’ she cooed, giving him a little look and reaching for her glass of wine. ‘But look how well I am again!’ She took a sip and smiling sweetly went on, ‘In any case, isn’t a woman allowed to change her mind?’ She reached under the table and stroked his leg.

  ‘You always did ignite a forest fire in me in the early days, my little Hungarian beauty,’ he whispered and reached for her hand resting on his thigh. Her irritation rose but she checked it; any other time she would have hissed at him that she was not Hungarian, but instead she kept on smiling and sipped her wine.

  His lovemaking was quick and unremarkable; it always was with him. Not that Anita had anything to compare it with, of course – she had never gone all the way with Mario – but she’d always thought that the sexual act ought to carry some pleasure with it. When she first married him, curiosity and the possibility that it might result in pregnancy had made it tolerable.

  The next morning, she woke early. She had slept fitfully, waking up every hour in the hope it was morning and she could make her escape. He lay fast asleep snoring by her side. She couldn’t wait to jump up, get dressed and
run away, but she’d got this far without slipping up and she needed to play the game convincingly to the end. She waited until he opened his eyes and with the excuse that she didn’t want to bump into Petros who was occupying the next room she got up, got washed, dressed and left. He didn’t protest much, if at all.

  Once on the open road, and well on her way, she started to breathe normally again. A cheerful little melody she’d been hearing all her life started to play in her head. Smiling, she started humming it softly, and before long the words found their way to her lips. At first she sang quietly, but soon her singing gained momentum and grew louder until finally she was shouting the song at the top of her lungs. She sang all the way back to Larnaka, repeating the refrain with joy and glee.

  I don’t want you, I don’t want you, I don’t want you any more,

  I don’t love you, I don’t love you, I don’t care any more,

  If you stay or if you go you mean nothing any more

  I don’t want you, I don’t want you, I don’t love you any more.

  She arrived home exhilarated, eyes shining, cheeks burning and hair rearranged by the wind; no headscarf to keep it in place this time. She felt free and liberated. She had done it! She’d managed to summon the strength and composure to do what she’d set out to do. There had been moments when she’d doubted she’d be able to carry out the plan. But she had! She’d done it for herself, for Katerina, for her mother, for the baby. Their baby!

  Olga and Katerina were waiting for Anita with bated breath to find out how it had gone. They’d had their doubts about whether she would manage to go through with it, but Anita’s glowing face when she walked in told them what they needed to know.

  ‘I can’t say it was easy, but I was determined to do it, and I did!’ she told them, feeling thoroughly pleased with her achievement.

  She went to see him. This time she found him in his church; it was early afternoon and he was preparing for evening Mass. He didn’t hear her come in; he was by the altar and had his back to the door. She glided in silently and took a pew near the front and waited till he’d finished.

  ‘Katerina mou!’ he whispered when he turned around and saw her. This was the first time they’d been alone together since they had agreed to part. He walked up to her and kissed her tenderly on her forehead, making the blood drain from her face and her lips tremble. ‘Are you well?’ he asked, concern in his voice.

  ‘Oh yes, I am well,’ she replied and tried to smile. He didn’t ask why she was there, but instead asked if she’d like some lemonade.

  ‘I have some freshly made,’ he said and gestured towards the house.

  She sat in his garden under the lemon tree now laden with a new crop while he went inside to fetch a jug and glasses. Once again she had rehearsed what she was going to tell him a thousand times but still her hands were shaking. She was glad for the few minutes alone to try and steady her nerves.

  ‘I can’t express how glad I feel that dear Anita is with child again,’ he said when she eventually told him the news, and his face looked as glad as she had ever seen it.

  ‘I will pray to God each day when you are in Vienna that all goes well and that Anita will have the blessed baby she has longed for. Having you and her sister there will be all the support she’ll need.’

  ‘Yes …’ she murmured, lowering her eyes lest he see her lie and the pain reflected in them.

  ‘I will visit Kyria Olga often – I will go as soon as she returns,’ he continued, ‘and she will give me all your news. You could also write to me if you like, Katerina – just to let me know how you are and how Anita is doing.’

  ‘I will,’ she said, trying to stop her lips trembling.

  ‘I shall pray every day that the pregnancy progresses well and that Anita has a healthy baby.’

  ‘And so will I,’ she said and the voice in her head cried in anguish and the ache in her heart grew intolerable.

  They arrived in Vienna on a crisp and sunny November day. Sonia had come to the airport to meet them. Great-aunt Heidi was waiting anxiously to greet them at the apartment. The two women had made space for their visitors and were prepared for what was to come. Olga would stay with Heidi while Anita and Katerina would stay with Sonia.

  When they first arrived, Katerina’s pregnancy hardly showed and she felt as healthy and robust as ever. Her energy levels were high and her excitement at finding herself in Vienna was even higher; never in her wildest dreams could she have foreseen the circumstances of this visit and was determined to experience and enjoy it to the full, while she could. Sonia took leave from the Academy to show them as much of the city as she could before Katerina began to feel too heavy.

  ‘Once the weather turns really cold it will be harder to move around the city and by then you’ll be bigger,’ she explained. ‘The best way to see the city is by foot and once the snow comes you’ll want to stay in the warm.’

  Sonia threw herself wholeheartedly into supporting Katerina and her sister. However much she loved her independence and despite having flown the nest quite early her heart still belonged with the women she had grown up with. ‘We will pull through,’ she declared when she first heard the news, both of the pregnancy and also of Olga’s plan. ‘We will always stick together,’ she told her mother when she telephoned to tell her what they had decided. ‘After all, Mama, we have a reputation to live up to – we are the Caryatids of Larnaka, aren’t we?’

  The excitement of being in Vienna overshadowed any anxiety Katerina might have had about her strange situation and she was now keen to see all the city had to offer.

  ‘I’d like you to show us all the things you’ve been describing in your letters,’ she told Sonia after they’d settled into the apartment,

  Most of all Katerina wanted to visit the Opera. She wanted to hear the music that Anita played on the piano and the records Olga played on her gramophone. She longed, too, to visit the galleries with paintings she had only ever seen in books. This, she knew, was the chance of her life and she had to fill her eyes and ears and memory with all the cultural treasures she had been told of and had read about through her years in the Linser house with Olga as her mentor and teacher.

  ‘Everything I see, everything I hear nourishes my soul,’ she told the girls one afternoon as they sat in the fashionable Café Central for a pre-concert tea and apple strudel, ‘but with my taste for Viennese cakes now I am worried it’s not just my soul that is being nourished.’ She laughed. ‘If I am not careful I shall be the size of a house before I give birth to this baby!’

  Olga remained with them in Vienna until she had secured a suitable doctor and hospital who would take care of Katerina and the birth. She had left her foreman in charge of the textile factory and she needed to return to work, but she refused to leave until she was satisfied Katerina was in good hands, by which time the prospective mother was almost five months gone and looked it.

  Katerina’s first visit to the doctor was a crowded affair; Olga, Anita, Sonia and Great-aunt Heidi all came with her in a show of solidarity. When the five women walked into the doctor’s surgery he didn’t know which one of them was the expectant mother. He guessed that Olga and Heidi weren’t candidates but he gazed in surprise at the other three young women sitting in a row looking anxiously at him.

  ‘Now which one of you young ladies am I to examine?’ he said, peering over his glasses at them.

  After their initial visit Doctor Schmidt announced that Katerina was healthy and well and that there was no need to be worried or for all of them to keep coming to see him.

  ‘Visits will be more frequent closer to delivery time,’ he explained. ‘Now I suggest you all relax. Unless there is a problem you have no need for concern,’ he looked at Olga, realizing she was in need of reassurance more than the young woman carrying the child, ‘and when it’s time for the baby I will be here to take care of it, and of all of you,’ he told them, glancing with amusement around the room at all five in turn.

  With Sonia and G
reat-aunt Heidi’s care the two friends settled into living in Vienna with ease. Katerina was a healthy young woman and took well to being pregnant; Anita, however, worried endlessly for both of them. She tried not to let her anxiety show too much but her own unfortunate experiences insisted on revisiting her.

  The winter months came and went peacefully and Anita tried to keep her fretting to herself by lying awake at night listening to Katerina’s breathing and anticipating signs of danger. When the snow fell the two women either stayed in the warmth of the apartment or made their way to Café Hawelka, which was even warmer. Cosy and welcoming, the place became a second home to them. Most mornings Katerina and Anita would walk with Sonia part of the way to the Academy and then make their way to the cafe with its comfortable shabby armchairs and sofas, hot chocolate and apple strudel, frankfurters and mustard. They’d spend the best part of their day in there reading books and newspapers, which Anita would translate to Katerina and even try to teach her some German phrases.

  By early summer Katerina’s belly had swelled like a hot-air balloon, and she began to feel as heavy as the pregnant donkeys she remembered up in the village. All the time the baby was growing inside Katerina so was the bond between her and Anita. Their connection grew deeper and stronger and their shared experience was to link them together for life.

  Larnaka, 2010

  ‘So you see,’ Anita said, her face streaked with tears as she reached for Adonis’s hand, ‘Katerina and I didn’t just share love and friendship. We shared a life … we shared you, my son.’ Adonis opened his mouth to speak but she stopped him. ‘You were her flesh and blood and she gave you to me with such grace and dignity and above all humility. I know she deserved you more, I know she was a better mother to you than I ever was. I tried, I did, but I wasn’t very good at it.’ Anita’s voice was now breaking but she carried on regardless. ‘There must have been times when she felt resentful of me – I know, I could see it in her eyes, though only at the beginning, only when we came back from Vienna and she had to hand you over … but I will admit I felt some resentment too, at times. Unlike her, I never had that blessed chance to give birth to a healthy child, to feel it grow inside me and then …’ A sob rose to her throat and she stopped talking. She reached for a glass of water, took a sip, let out a long sigh and continued. ‘The pain of losing my baby never went away; the sadness always lingered but the feelings of resentment either from me or from her didn’t last. I want you to know that you brought much joy into my life, my son. I was lucky to have you, to share you, to love you. Both Katerina and I knew that what we did was for the best for all of us, especially for you.’