Between the Orange Groves

by Nadia Marks

  ‘You know me better than my own mother,’ Anastasia had said to Hatiche, seeking her approval.

  ‘That may be true, my girl,’ a pale and troubled Hatiche told her, ‘but your mother is my dearest friend and I know how she will feel about this. You are Christians and we are Muslims – I don’t need to remind you again that the two faiths don’t mix.’

  ‘You know that I don’t care for conventions or what people say and that I always follow my true beliefs. My mother should know that by now and if not, she should be prepared for the consequences.’

  ‘Your family care deeply for their religion and their conventions, as we do ours. We have managed to keep the two separate from our friendship all these years, Anastasia mou, we have respected our differences and that is what kept us united as friends for so long. Do you not care for that at all? Are you prepared to stand in front of your parents and defy them and your faith?’

  ‘If need be, yes!’ Anastasia replied without hesitation.

  Hatiche had no answer to that; the girl was obviously set to follow her heart despite the certainty of hurting her family and the young man she had vowed to marry.

  ‘And Panos?’ she finally asked. ‘Do you not care about him either?’

  ‘Yes . . . I do,’ she said a little more hesitantly this time, ‘but clearly I can’t love him, otherwise how can I love Enver with every inch of my being? It will be a worse betrayal to marry Panos if I do not love him!’

  Once again Hatiche had no reply. The girl had made a valid point. But what a terrible mess this was going to be. She felt helpless, unable to decide how to deal with this dilemma, so she did what she always did when she needed help: she turned to the coffee grounds. The next morning, after everyone had breakfasted she swiftly collected Enver’s and Anastasia’s coffee cups and, turning each upside down in its saucer, put them in a safe place until she was free to read them alone and at her leisure. What Hatiche saw in both cups was so confusing and troubling that for the first time she could not be sure of their meaning. So as soon as she had finished, with a sense of unease she took the cups to the sink, washed them, wiped them, put them away in the cupboard and never spoke to anyone about what she thought she saw. Destiny, she realized, would have to take its course and there was nothing she or anyone else could do to prevent it.

  The weeks passed and still nobody in Nicosia was informed of the situation. Panos, in touch with Lambros and the rest of the family, assumed all was fine and was therefore oblivious to everything that was going on in the village. He continued to write to Anastasia but his letters lay unopened on the top of the bedroom dressing table, much to Leila’s disapproval at first, although after her initial shock she too started coming round to the idea of Anastasia and Enver’s romance.

  ‘I know it’s not allowed,’ she told her friend, ‘but there’s a first time for everything, and if you two love each other so much it’s only right that you should be together, as I keep telling my mother who is worrying herself sick about it all.’

  Poor Hatiche was caught up in an impossible situation. She wanted to send word to Maroula but she also believed that it was Anastasia’s responsibility. She repeatedly urged the girl to talk to her family, to no avail. Anastasia and Enver were basking in the warmth of their new-found bliss, apparently indifferent to the havoc they had already set in motion. A mixture of defiance and cowardice prevented Anastasia from returning to Nicosia to confront her family and Panos. She wasn’t refusing, she kept telling herself, she would do it in her own way and in her own time, but what eventually forced her hand to confront reality and the wrath of her people came suddenly and very unexpectedly.

  It was early September – and two months had passed since she and Enver had made love for the first time in the forest – when Anastasia decided she had no alternative but to speak to Hatiche Hanoum again. She found the older woman sitting with her sewing in the backyard in the shade of the mandarin tree, deep in thought, her feelings a confusing combination of pleasure and displeasure. On the one hand Hatiche was worried sick about what Maroula and Andreas would say about this unfortunate situation, fearing that they might put the blame on her, but on the other hand she lacked the heart to condemn the young lovers entirely. She knew all about the joys of early love and remembered well her own feelings when she had first fallen for her Hassan all those years ago; and, if she was honest, she was also secretly delighted that Anastasia had fallen for a Turkish boy. Ever since she had held her in her arms minutes after she was born, Hatiche thought of the girl as her own, and now she would truly belong to them. But then her thoughts would turn again to Maroula and Andreas and her heart would sink. These people loved her, had taken care of her and her family in their hour of need, they trusted her; what she was now thinking, and plotting, amounted to a betrayal. No matter how much she considered the girl as another daughter, she tried to reason with herself, Anastasia was Maroula’s daughter. She didn’t belong to her, despite all the love she felt for the young woman.

  Anastasia crossed the yard to where Hatiche was sitting and stood quietly under the orange tree for a moment, then drawing up a chair she sat down beside her. She looked the older woman in the eyes, took a long deep breath and spoke in a strong steady voice.

  ‘I am three weeks overdue,’ she stated with shocking confidence. The words scalded Hatiche like boiling water, causing her to drop her needlework on the floor. She brought her hand to her mouth and gasped.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I have never missed a period, not even by one day, since I was eleven years old,’ Anastasia replied, her eyes shining like stars. ‘So yes, I’m sure!’ she said. She knew all about being pregnant, she had seen and heard enough women talk about it. Even though it was something she had dreaded and wanted to postpone for as long as possible, not wanting to be plunged into the treachery of motherhood before enjoying life, this was different. That was then, and this was now. Now she was carrying the fruit of her union with the love of her life and she welcomed it as the best gift she could ever have been granted.

  ‘Your mother must be told, Anastasia,’ Hatiche replied sternly after regaining her composure, determined that now they all had to face the consequences whatever they might be. ‘I have held on to this secret of yours for too long, I cannot do it any longer,’ she continued with a stony face. ‘I had hoped that giving you time might bring you both to your senses and you would realize that this love of yours could not be. If you had kept quiet no one would have been any wiser, but now? Now it’s gone too far and there is no way back.’

  ‘Now I’m counting on your support and understanding!’ Anastasia replied. ‘You always understood me better than anyone, better than my own mother. I don’t have to think too hard to know what she, or any of the family, will say about this . . . but I had hoped that at least you would be on my side.’

  ‘It’s not about taking sides or understanding, askim mou,’ Hatiche replied a little more gently. ‘I can see you love each other, but this is going to hurt too many people. It is not a blessed love; in the eyes of our two families and our faiths, in the eyes of God, your union is wrong . . . a sin.’

  ‘How can love be wrong in God’s eyes?’ Anastasia persisted. ‘God is love.’

  ‘You know that both of our religions forbid this,’ the older woman pressed on, her voice hardening again, ‘and what about your child? What religion would that child have? Or will you bring it up to have no religion?’ Hatiche Hanoum shook her head in despair. ‘God is merciful, my girl, but this? I pray that he forgives you.’

  ‘There will be no need for forgiveness,’ Anastasia said. ‘I will follow Enver to the end of the world to be with him and if that means taking his religion, so that our child is not without, so be it!’

  Hatiche looked at the girl in disbelief.

  ‘You mean . . . you mean,’ she stammered. ‘You mean you are willing to convert, that you are willing to become a Muslim?’

  ‘Yes, Hatiche Hanoum, I am willing to do that and
more, if it means I can be Enver’s wife and bring up our child together. After all, there is only one God, isn’t there?’

  16

  London, 2008

  ‘So you see, Stella mou,’ Lambros said, taking a deep breath as he stood up to stretch his legs, ‘my sister did the unthinkable! She married a Turk and converted to Islam and became a Muslim at a time when it was unheard of. It was considered a sacrilege by everyone. She brought great shame to our family.’ Lambros started to walk around the table to ease his joints from sitting down too long, all the while continuing to speak. ‘It might not seem so radical now, but then? Imagine your grandmother’s reaction. She took it very badly and she blamed Hatiche for not stopping her.’

  ‘Did Anastasia go to see everyone and explain?’ Stella asked, riveted by this tale of insurrection and defiance, and of the kind of love that has apparently ceased to exist in the twenty-first century. Does anyone love with so much passion and commitment anymore? she asked herself, reflecting on her own life, which although happy and seemingly content had never known such devotion. She too had married young although not as young as her aunt, a fellow student she had met at university, and so far they had a good marriage that she hoped would last as long as her parents’. Yet she also knew that if she hadn’t married Steve, she might have married Keith, or even Tom; she had dated them in turn and they were all nice and as good-looking as each other and she was in love with each of them for a while. But she couldn’t ever imagine a love so intense, so all-consuming that it would make her forsake her family and change the entire course of her life. That apparently belonged to a different era.

  ‘So, Papa,’ Stella persisted, ‘did she go and talk to them? What about Panos, how did he take it?’

  ‘Well, my girl, this was the problem,’ Lambros replied. ‘She didn’t go and see anyone, nor did she explain. She just left with her young man and sailed to Istanbul; none of us ever saw her again and she left poor Hatiche to explain and pick up the pieces!’

  ‘What?’ Stella gasped. ‘She went to Istanbul? Why? You’ve never told me that before, Papa. Why didn’t any of you tell us about this?’

  ‘Because, my girl, we never talked about Anastasia after she left, we all avoided the subject of your aunt.’ Lambros sat down again, rested his chin in his hands and sighed deeply. ‘We behaved as if she had died. A terrible thing to do, and I think about it all the time now. That, and what happened with poor Orhan. What Anastasia did must have hit him hard too . . .’ Lambros looked at his daughter, his eyes full of sadness. ‘They were always very close, you know, those two . . .’

  Stella reached for her father’s hand. ‘We do such terrible things in our ignorance, Stella mou,’ he sighed. ‘We think we know what’s right and wrong but it is all nonsense . . . we don’t!’

  ‘Ignorance and prejudice are two very dangerous things,’ Stella murmured, and leaned forward to hear more.

  ‘My sister did wrong, I will admit that. She wasn’t blameless, but she was young and foolish and maybe if she had handled it differently or had been given better advice it might not have caused all the upset and drama that followed. There was too much blame put on the wrong people, I see that now. But then . . . then, we were all blinded by what happened and we all rushed to judge and condemn.’

  17

  Cyprus, 1950

  Enver was delighted by Anastasia’s decision. ‘I never imagined or dreamed that you would do this for me, my love,’ he said to her after she had spoken to Hatiche. ‘I’ve been tormenting myself knowing that I must leave soon and that you wouldn’t want to come with me.’

  ‘You and our baby mean everything to me, and I would do anything for us to be together,’ she told him, repeating what she had told Hatiche earlier.

  ‘I only have two more years to go at the university and then we can come back here if you want.’ He held both of her hands tightly. ‘But I know you will love living in Istanbul.’

  ‘If I’m with you I don’t care where I live. Istanbul will suit me very well, I’m sure,’ she said and fell into his arms.

  As the days progressed and Hatiche could see that Anastasia was still making no effort to contact her family in Nicosia, she decided to take action and sent a note, via Bambos, summoning Orhan. At a loss as to what else she could do, fearful of breaking the news to Maroula herself, she hoped that her educated and wise son might know how to handle this most delicate predicament. She tried seeking advice from Ahmet but it didn’t help: his view was that if the young people were in love then it should be no one else’s business. Hatiche believed her brother-in-law had been living in England for too long to see the gravity of the situation.

  ‘It has happened before, it’s not the first time, Hatiche,’ Ahmet said, trying to soothe her misgivings. ‘There’s a mixed couple in our community in London, he’s a Turk and she’s a Greek and he’s become a Christian. It’s not the end of the world!’

  ‘It might not be the end of the world in your London, Ahmet, but mark my words, it is here,’ she told him with dread in her heart.

  Anastasia and Enver’s world was about to begin, but for their two families Hatiche knew it was going to be the beginning of the end. She knew this to be true because there was no denying that if the reverse was happening, if her Leila wanted to marry a Christian, she too would believe that her world was collapsing. These things were not taken lightly in their community.

  Lambros wanted to go with Orhan to the village but as the teacher-training exams were upon them and the workload was heavy he couldn’t afford to take the time off.

  ‘It’s not fair, you get to have a little break and I have to carry on working in this heat,’ he moaned, longing to sneak away for a few days too.

  ‘I’m only going for a short time,’ the other boy replied. ‘So stop complaining. You’ll at least be ahead with your revision and I’ll have to catch up when I come back.’

  ‘Yes, but you’ll return refreshed.’

  ‘I’d rather be staying here, but my mother has never sent for me without an explanation before. It sounds like an emergency.’

  They chatted as they walked to the bus terminus together, very much as they had done when they took Anastasia to the bus at the beginning of the summer.

  ‘Maybe you’ll bring her back,’ Lambros said. ‘She’s been there long enough, I think. It’s time she got back to work too, don’t you think?’ he added with a smile this time.

  ‘Do you blame her?’ Orhan retorted. ‘Who wouldn’t want to be away from this heat?’

  ‘My point exactly!’ Lambros laughed. ‘She’s had it too good!’

  The bus was almost ready to leave by the time the boys arrived at the square and Orhan hurried to climb into it.

  ‘Is it his turn to be left behind now?’ Bambos laughed as Orhan looked for a seat in the crowded bus. ‘Off to collect the sister, are you?’ he added, curious as always.

  ‘Something like that,’ the boy replied, choosing a seat by the window.

  Like Anastasia a few months earlier, Orhan enjoyed the journey to the mountains, and his concern about what might be worrying his mother was eclipsed by the anticipation and excitement at the prospect of seeing Anastasia again. They had not been separated for this length of time before. Even when they lived under different roofs in the village the proximity of their houses meant that they saw each other every day. These past summer months without her had seemed like an eternity to him.

  He couldn’t imagine there was any serious problem that had upset his mother. At the most, he thought, she might have found a husband for Leila and wanted his approval. So he settled back and indulged in daydreaming about the reunion with his beloved. Orhan was still very much in love with Anastasia and although her betrothal to Panos had pained him a great deal he was resigned to the fact that since they couldn’t be together as man and wife he would continue to love her secretly and enjoy her friendship. Besides, he knew she loved him too, and as she had always let him believe the only factor that kept them
apart was their faiths, just being close to her was enough for him.

  The girls were in the square waiting to welcome him. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her standing under the canopy of the big plane tree with his sister. They stood in the shade, arms linked, waiting for him to step down from the bus before they ran to embrace him.

  ‘We missed you!’ Anastasia and Leila chimed, and threw their arms around him.

  She looked different to him. More beautiful, fuller, healthier, eyes shining with excitement. Mountain air does wonders, he thought, and returned their hugs and joyful greetings.

  ‘Where is Mother?’ he asked, suddenly anxious that she was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘She’s at home waiting for us, getting supper ready,’ Leila replied.

  ‘Is she well? Anything wrong?’ Orhan asked. It wasn’t like his mother not to be there to greet him.

  ‘Oh yes, she’s fine. Uncle Ahmet and Enver are here too so she’s with them,’ Leila went on cheerfully as the three started towards the house. As they walked down the hill, Orhan saw his mother sitting under one of the trees talking with his uncle and cousin, who he hadn’t seen for years. As a boy he had met Uncle Ahmet when he came to visit the family, but the only time Enver had visited the village with his mother for a summer holiday Orhan was still very young, so he had no memory of this cousin.