Between the Orange Groves

by Nadia Marks

  12

  They reached the village square just before sunset, in that enchanted hour when the sun is still making up its mind whether to depart the sky or linger a little longer. As always, the arrival of the twice-weekly bus and the prospect of visitors never ceased to excite the villagers. Some had arrived to welcome Anastasia, others simply out of curiosity to see what other xeni from the city might be arriving. As it happened, that day Anastasia was the only passenger who remained on the bus, all the other travellers having ended their journey on the way. Hatiche and Leila pushed everyone aside and ran to receive their guest with open arms.

  ‘Hoş geldin, Anastasia mou,’ Hatiche said in the customary Turkish welcome and wrapped the girl in her arms. ‘I’m so happy that you kept your promise.’

  ‘I said I’d come!’ she replied, turning to embrace Leila, who was standing next to her mother waiting her turn.

  ‘I’m so glad to see you again,’ the girl said, kissing Anastasia on both cheeks.

  ‘And you can’t imagine how happy I am to be here—’ Anastasia started to reply but was cut short by an abrupt and deafening outburst from Hatiche Hanoum.

  ‘ENVER!’ she shouted at the top of her lungs right by Anastasia’s ears, in the direction of the square. ‘Come!’ she screeched again, as loud as she could, looking towards the kafenion, the village coffee shop. ‘We need you over here!’

  Anastasia turned her head to see who was the target for Hatiche’s shouting and saw a young man sitting at a table under the natural canopy of the vine that provided shade for the tables and chairs. At the sound of Hatiche’s voice the young man got up and started to walk towards them as if in slow motion. His head, Anastasia noticed, almost touched the bunches of red grapes hanging down from the vine, causing him to stoop a little. Was it her brain that was moving slowly, dizzy perhaps from the journey, or was the young man indeed moving that way?

  ‘Quickly!’ Hatiche shouted again and then turned to Anastasia. ‘That’s Enver,’ she told her in a normal voice this time. ‘He’s Hassan’s nephew, he’s staying with us for the summer.’

  Anastasia watched the young man make his way to them. The light from the setting sun was in his eyes, obstructing his vision; unable to see them, he lifted his hands to shield them from the glare.

  ‘I’m coming, Auntie,’ he called out in Turkish which Anastasia understood. Hatiche Hanoum’s teaching when she was young had not gone to waste. She watched him as if mesmerized, but he didn’t see her until he was much closer and then it was apparently his turn to be struck. He stood looking down at her with penetrating eyes the colour of the sky on a summer’s day.

  ‘Hoş geldin!’ he greeted her politely, his blue gaze scanning her face and then, taking her hand, he gave her the firmest handshake she’d ever felt.

  ‘The bags are up there,’ Hatiche’s loud voice boomed in their ears again, snapping Enver out of his trance. ‘Come on, don’t just stand there, help Bambos get them off the roof . . .’ Impatience evident in her tone.

  ‘My uncle Ahmet and my cousin Enver just arrived from Turkey. Uncle Ahmet lives in London and my cousin studies in Istanbul,’ Leila explained as she led Anastasia by the arm towards the house and away from the square. ‘We were expecting them both but not so soon,’ she added.

  Anastasia was confused. Was she feeling flustered? Was her heart pounding out of happiness to be back home or was it her encounter with those blue eyes that disturbed her so? Either way she was in a state of disarray, her mind a jumble, and flooded with a mixture of irritation and excitement. As they walked, Leila chattered on, asking her a hundred questions which Anastasia not only couldn’t answer but couldn’t even hear. She was irritated to learn so unexpectedly that she would now be sharing her precious summer with two strangers; but then, even more confusing, she found herself disturbed by the thought that she would soon be seeing the owner of those blue eyes again.

  Uncle Ahmet, who was Hassan Bey’s younger brother and had emigrated to England at a young age, was sitting under a mandarin tree in the yard, waiting for them with a plate of watermelon and halloumi and a glass of ice-cold lemonade. The minute he saw the girls approaching, he stood up and hurried to greet them. In the distance Anastasia fancied she saw Hassan Bey walking towards them, causing her to stop in her tracks. She looked at Leila, and as if reading her mind, the girl squeezed her arm.

  ‘I know . . . they’re so alike,’ she said and waved at her uncle. ‘It brings a lump to my throat to see him every day.’

  ‘Happy to meet you at last, Miss Anastasia,’ Ahmet said as he approached them, shaking her hand warmly; the intensity of his handshake, she noticed, could not be compared to the one she had received from his son.

  ‘Where are your mother and Enver?’ the uncle asked, looking over the girls’ shoulders for a sight of them.

  ‘Mother’s gone to pick up some vegetables and Enver’s bringing Anastasia’s bags,’ Leila replied. ‘They should be here soon.’

  Dinner that first evening around Hatiche’s kitchen table, which Anastasia had anticipated with so much excitement, was not how she had envisaged it. Hatiche had made her special dish of stuffed vine leaves and no matter how similar they were to her mother’s, something about the way Hatiche Hanoum made them was always more to Anastasia’s liking. She had imagined the three of them sitting together in that self-same kitchen of her childhood, doors and windows thrown wide open to the night, letting in the sweet-smelling mountain air while they talked of old times. Of days gone by when they shared meals on that very table and when they all lived as one family. She had longed for that return to her past, she yearned for the solidarity of the three women taking a journey together back in time. But instead the two unexpected male visitors who were now sharing their meal had brought conflict and confusion into Anastasia’s mind and heart.

  Uncle Ahmet was a boisterous, talkative and likeable man with a lavish moustache and sparkling brown eyes. He spoke animatedly throughout dinner but was polite enough to insist on speaking mainly in Greek for Anastasia’s benefit, even though she assured him that she was able to follow most of the conversation in Turkish. In contrast to his father, Enver was quiet and reserved. He sat opposite Anastasia, his blue eyes upon her, poised and attentive, listening to everyone but without participating. She wanted to look at him, return his gaze, but found herself unable to do so and instead looked anywhere else but at him.

  ‘Considering you don’t live in Cyprus you speak excellent Greek,’ she heard herself praise Uncle Ahmet when Hatiche explained that Enver, unlike his father, spoke only Turkish and English. She made an effort to banish the resentment that kept welling up in her for no good reason towards the male intruders, who she now had to admit were perfectly pleasant.

  ‘Thank you,’ the uncle replied, ‘but don’t forget that I lived here for many years before emigrating; we all had to learn Greek.’ He looked at Hatiche who nodded in agreement. ‘In London,’ he continued, ‘Turks and Greeks, we are all Cypriots but to the English we are all bloody foreigners.’ He said the last two words in English and laughed heartily at the description which only Enver understood.

  Anastasia couldn’t envisage anything about England or London, or anywhere else at that – apart from what she saw in the fashion magazines she loved to look at. Not that long ago even Nicosia was a foreign land to her and the mere mention of those places formed mysterious images in her head, like those she and Panos talked about visiting when they leafed through the world atlas.

  ‘What is it like?’ she asked, looking from father to son with genuine curiosity.

  ‘You mean London?’ Ahmet replied, leaning forward on his elbows. ‘Well, let me see.’ He looked across at Enver. ‘I’d say it’s mainly dark, cold and grey, and,’ he reached for his glass of wine and glanced at his son again, ‘the sun never shines!’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate, Father,’ the young man said in Turkish, a smile starting to play on his lips. ‘The sun does shine, at least once a year!’ Hatiche turn
ed to look at Enver with surprise, not knowing what to make of his comment.

  ‘Enver jokes!’ her brother-in-law said, erupting into more laughter at the sight of the three wide-eyed incredulous women. ‘But it’s true,’ he went on, ‘we don’t see much of the sun there, we see more of the rain.’

  ‘I like the rain!’ Anastasia said, thinking how she had always loved the change of seasons. ‘I look forward to the winter when the rain comes after the summer heat.’

  ‘That’s a different matter,’ Ahmet replied. ‘I don’t think you’d like the rain if it was most of the time, and not only in winter.’

  ‘Even in the summer?’ the girl asked. ‘You mean it rains even in July?’

  ‘Yes, my girl, there is rain even in July!’

  The three women sat silently, trying to imagine a place where the sun didn’t shine and it rained most of the time. After a pause Enver leaned back in his chair, reached for his glass of wine and looked around the table at everyone.

  ‘Well,’ he said cheerfully, ‘lucky for me, there’s plenty of sunshine where I live now,’ and lifted his glass up for a toast, ‘and rain and snow, but all at the right seasons!’

  ‘There certainly is plenty of sunshine where you live now, my boy!’ Ahmet bellowed and lifted his glass too. ‘Let us all drink to the sun!’

  Enver had apparently been living for several years in Istanbul, studying medicine and returning to what he called his ‘cultural roots’, his interest in Turkish culture ignited by his mother who was born there. Since her death and Ahmet’s retirement, the young man had decided to settle in Istanbul in the hope that his father would join him. But Ahmet was entertaining other possibilities. He had missed his brother’s funeral and that weighed heavily on his conscience, so after Hassan’s death he started to reflect that he should return to Cyprus to take care of his brother’s widow and Leila. His years of living and working in London as a tailor in the Terzi family tradition had provided him with a good income, so now with no family of his own in London he felt it was his duty to take care of his brother’s family. There was nothing to keep him in England anymore. His only son was gone and his wife dead and buried; time to come home.

  ‘We can rebuild the shop,’ he told Hatiche when he first arrived. ‘You and I and Leila can continue where Hassan stopped; maybe the boy might even come back from Nicosia and join us.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on the boy,’ Hatiche told him. ‘Orhan has other plans and dreams, but there is no reason why you and I can’t start something.’

  They sat around the table, eating and drinking – Hatiche had gone to town and had also made her most delicious kleftiko lamb which had been slow cooking since early morning in the clay oven in the backyard, infused in lemon juice, garlic and the essential ingredient of wild mountain oregano, and no one could get enough of it. During the course of the evening, Anastasia was informed that Ahmet was here to stay while Enver, once the summer holidays were over, would be returning to Turkey to complete his medical degree. To her surprise she wished it was the other way round.

  After supper that first evening, the three young people decided to take a stroll in the village to see if there was a performance of the shadow theatre in the square. Anastasia had forgotten how dense and black such moonless nights could be in the mountains and how sweet the air was, a fragrant mixture of honeysuckle and pine hovering in the air. She looked up to the sky and her heart soared with what she saw. She had missed these mountain nights, where the heavens were so densely populated that it would have been impossible to squeeze even one more tiny little star to what was already up there. They made their way up the hill in the darkness and each girl held on tight to Enver’s arm as they walked either side of him. He had taken a torch in his pocket for good measure but though the night was as black as carob-honey the young man was loath to use it; he was enjoying the feeling of Anastasia’s arm linked through his own and the proximity of her body too much to disturb it by lighting their way.

  The shadow theatre was already in mid-performance when they arrived and the mood in the village square was genial. Karagiozis had been getting up to all his usual shenanigans and was reducing the audience into huddles of laughter. Three more chairs were promptly brought out from the kafenion for the new arrivals and placed among the crowd.

  They sat with the villagers under the Milky Way in the night breeze, surrounded by laughter and giggles, and Anastasia couldn’t remember a time she had felt happier than at that moment. Given her earlier irritation she was a little perplexed at her euphoria now, but as she turned her head to glance at Enver she realized that being back in the village wasn’t the only reason she felt so glad; the prospect of sharing her summer with him flooded her with added pleasure. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the night air, and shifted closer to him.

  During supper Anastasia had been reluctant to meet Enver’s gaze but now, protected by the darkness, she was able to steal some glances and even let her eyes linger a little longer upon him. She watched him laughing heartily, joining in the fun and enjoying the performance – no matter what language it was performed in, Greek or Turkish, everyone was familiar with the stories of Karagiozis.

  Enver was like no one she had ever met before. Panos was a little like Orhan, Orhan was a little like her brother, her father was very much like her uncle, and Kyria Thecla’s sons were like each other and not unlike most other young men she came across. In fact, she concluded, all the men and boys she ever knew were like each other. But not Enver. Apart from those azure eyes of his, a colour she had never encountered before, she found herself fixated by the dimples on his cheeks every time he laughed and his golden skin, like ripe wheat. Whenever his bare arm brushed against hers or he turned around to look at her, an unfamiliar shudder went through her spine. Enver was indeed different, totally different from anyone she had ever known, and that difference, she realized, was what captivated her and drew her to him.

  Insomnia was not something Anastasia was familiar with nor was she often troubled by unwelcome thoughts when she was in bed. Sleep always came easily to her. Yet that night she had to endure both. She lay awake, her head spinning and troubled, trying to make sense of her confusion. She tossed and turned and sighed and moaned so much that at one point Leila, in the bed next to her, got up and came to see what was wrong.

  ‘I must be tired from the journey and over-excited to be here,’ she lied and from then on tried her best to keep her nocturnal fretfulness to herself. At last, with the first rays of the sun creeping through the shutters, she got up and went to sit in the backyard with the chickens. She couldn’t work out what was wrong with her. When she thought of the night before and her proximity to Enver while sitting in the square her pulse quickened. The feeling was new, it had an unfamiliar physical effect upon her mingled with something like guilt when Panos came to mind.

  Soon afterwards the back door creaked open and out came Enver, rubbing his eyes and looking as tired as she was feeling. At the sight of him Anastasia felt the blood rush to her head and at that moment for the first time she understood what Victoria meant about Dino. She had mocked her friend when Victoria described her flutter of excitement when she was near him, dismissing it as exaggerated romantic fancy, yet there she was now, her heart pounding like a drum, and her face hot and flushed; this was a new and disturbing sensation for her. She had never felt this in anyone’s presence before, and she had certainly never felt it at the sight of Panos.

  ‘Kalimera, Anastasia,’ he said in Greek. ‘You see? I’m not as ignorant as my aunt says I am,’ he laughed.

  ‘Salam, Enver,’ she replied, throwing him a casual Turkish greeting, all the while trying to steady her voice.

  ‘Why up so early?’ He looked quizzically at her.

  ‘I like the early morning,’ she lied, continuing in Turkish.

  ‘My aunt says she taught you to speak Turkish; is that true?’ he asked, impressed by her fluency.

  ‘Yes, she did . . . among other thi
ngs.’

  ‘You must tell me about them sometime.’ He smiled and pulled one of the chairs to the wooden table to sit next to her.

  They sat in the garden, chatting quietly and enjoying the thyme-scented early morning breeze as the chickens clucked around their feet, until Anastasia’s aunt from their old house next door threw open the kitchen window just as Maroula used to do and called out to them.

  ‘I’m making coffee!’ she shouted. ‘Come! I have goulourakia just out of the oven.’

  The thought of eating anything made Anastasia’s stomach lurch; coffee was fine, but food was definitely not. This happened when she felt disturbed or nervous, though very rarely. What on earth was wrong with her, she fretted; it wasn’t like her to reject the offer of sesame goulourakia, nor was it in her character to wish that her aunt wasn’t there. All she wanted was to continue sitting alone and undisturbed with Enver in the yard; she had never felt that level of yearning to be with someone. She enjoyed Panos’s company hugely and looked forward to seeing him, she loved being with her brother and Orhan when she needed their advice or wanted someone to listen to her woes. But this was different, this was beyond wanting to satisfy her own vanity with the knowledge that someone, whether it might be Panos or Orhan, adored her or found her interesting and fun. This was an altogether visceral emotion making her stomach clench, travelling to her heart to make it pound, and then reaching her brain, causing her head to throb. She was used to thinking things through, using her brain to understand her emotions not be hijacked by them. This, whatever it was, was physical and she was gripped by it.

  She looked at Enver as he talked animatedly, smiling broadly with those impossibly sweet dimples, giving him a look of boyhood innocence. And then, there were his eyes. What was it about his eyes that disturbed her so? It was as if there was nothing she could hide when they were upon her. In contrast to what she was brought up to believe – that blue eyes are to be feared, for they can put a curse on you if they so wish – Enver’s eyes were as pure as a cloudless sky on a summer’s day.