The Way It Breaks

by Polis Loizou

  A pointless gesture, but the older woman gave the impression of a smile all the same. When the food arrived, the smell cut right through her. She took a bite, then another, then another. The sauce dripped out of the pitta, fatter and more succulent than the Cypriot kind. The tender meat, the shredded lettuce, the yoghurt, cucumber, mint, lemon: an eruption. She became a wild boar. But she had always been like this. It was a truth she must stop denying, try as she might to mask it with yoga, with health, with denial, with her silly little game. Everything she did, she did for her own pleasure. Even anger, when she felt it, was another way to satisfy herself. She was sick, demented, impure. A reckless hedonist. And an idiot. She would trade her head for a feast.

  On a slow roasting street, she spotted a bookshop. Maybe they stocked Russian novels, it would be something at least. Or she could buy a book she’d read before, translated into Greek. On entering the shop, she abandoned that dream; the place was barely bigger than a cabin. Wooden brackets propped each other up like a house of cards. They leant and sagged over the proprietor, a man of advanced years whose shirt was tucked neatly into high-waisted chinos. Swallowing her pride, she approached him. Greek came more easily with strangers.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said in his language. ‘I am looking for Janka Kupała.’

  The man looked up at her, expressionless.

  ‘Poem?’ she said, drawing a blank on the word for poetry.

  She thought the man was being dismissive, but no – the wheels in his brain were turning.

  ‘I apologise, but I don’t know the name,’ he said in a gentle voice.

  ‘It’s OK…’

  ‘We have a book of Russian poetry,’ he continued. ‘And of course, there’s Dostoevsky, Chekov, the usual ones. Alexievich. I like her work.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, feeling a chill.

  The bell rang with the opening of the door. Aristos stood in the doorway. ‘There you are!’ he said. ‘We turned around and you’d vanished.’

  She bit her tongue.

  She thanked the proprietor. It pained her to disappoint the man after his service, but she wouldn’t buy anything in front of her husband, especially not Russian literature.

  Out on the street, Aristos’ eyes were alight. ‘Tell us next time you decide to vanish.’

  ‘Only there,’ she said in Greek, gesturing at the bookshop.

  ‘Come on, Daddykins,’ said Eva. ‘She’s a grown woman, for God’s sake. She can go wherever she wants.’

  Aristos raised his eyebrows, rolled his eyes. He turned to the younger man, whose eyes were flitting between them all, and then he feigned a lightness. ‘You see, Orestis? This is what awaits you.’

  And there it was, out in the open. Aristos’ first acknowledgement of the stud being groomed in the stables. But nobody said a word, and Orestis’ nervous laugh hung in the air.

  Eva stopped at the window of a boutique. ‘Mother of God!’ she said. ‘I want it.’ She was talking about any one of a half-dozen cocktail dresses slung over the half-headed mannequins. She ran inside, dragging Darya with her. If she’d been in her right mind, Darya would’ve refused. But she was still mired. In any case, what could she say? With half a head herself, she mastered her breathing and left the men. Orestis looked back at the women, wishing he could join them. After all, he was only a boy, a boy left alone with the headmaster.

  For a few minutes at least, Eva kept up the charade of shopping. The heels of her mules clipped along the wooden floorboard. It was the sound of a confident step, a woman who knew what she wanted, what she could afford – everything, of course. Darya stroked the hanging dresses, simply to feel the cool of the AC. She might lie on the floor, press her cheek against its wood. And it was then she felt a familiar demon grow inside her. A judder of pleasure, but also of fear, sickness.

  She would run away.

  Eva had a comment for every garment. And while Darya nodded or shook her head, she calculated her escape. Run away. Yes. Why not? She could do it today, now, in a snap of the fingers as she had done in Poland. Again she saw the faces of her mother and babulia. The former in that dark kitchen of long ago, asking her to peel potatoes, when a bird flew into the room and made them both scream, then laugh, then scream again. The latter’s mouth trembling as she reminisced of nights in the park in the days of Stalin when she danced with a young East-German to the music of an accordionist. Sitting by the gas heater, warbling Vysotsky’s war songs. Darya had known for a while she’d be leaving Cyprus – what if she already had? This was a different country, here, now. She didn’t have to board the ship. No one could force her. She could go to the bathroom and never return.

  But where could she go?

  ‘This one’s a doll!’ Eva said with a gasp. A red cocktail dress came rippling off the rail.

  The boats. Those tin signs in the square, by the harbour. Boat rides to Turkey. Turkey was so close.

  ‘Can I tell you something?’ Eva turned, her face, her stance, steady.

  Darya nodded. Had those signs and boats been here in Rhodos, or had they been in Kos?

  ‘My father is clever. I know him. He knows how to come out on top.’ The girl must have noted something in her response, for she lightly slapped her arm. ‘My God, Darya, you really amuse me. You always show exactly how you feel.’ Then, ‘At least, that’s what I hope.’

  ‘I’m clean,’ said Darya, because she couldn’t think of the word for transparent.

  ‘I’m not so sure. I think there’s more to you.’

  Darya’s cheeks burned.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said the girl, ‘everyone’s like that. You think I don’t know, a Russian coming to Cyprus, that something must be up?’

  The girl behind the counter was intrigued. She looked away when Darya noticed.

  ‘I am not happy,’ Darya said. ‘In Belarus. I leave.’ She was aware of having stressed Belarus. Somewhere, her father was clapping. Maybe even from Heaven, because who knew what had happened to him, to any of them? They might all be dead and buried.

  Eva put a hand to her heart. ‘God have mercy, don’t think I’m asking you about that! Please. Honestly, your life is your life. But that’s what I mean: don’t let my father tell you how to live.’

  Darya wished she could understand. She heard the words, recognised them as individual parts, but together…? How would she ever be on equal footing with Aristos’ daughter? This had to be a trick. Eva was gathering rifles, ready to put her on trial and stand her against the wall. Well, she needn’t trouble herself. A boat to Turkey. Then who knows where. Anywhere. She was capable, and nobody – not even Orestis – had any idea that she was.

  But Aristos…

  Somehow, Aristos would stop her.

  ‘I know my father,’ Eva continued. ‘He does that. Believe me, I know. He pulled the same shit on my mother.’ The girl paused, considered her words, and reached a decision. ‘I don’t know what he’s told you about her. But I can imagine. That she was lazy, stupid, fat… But, you see, she understood him. She knew who he was, even when others couldn’t see it. She was scared of him. And he used that.’

  Eva’s eyes were wet and glowing. Darya remembered the hateful things the girl had said about her in the past. The tears of a girl whose parents had broken up. Of course, Darya had been evil. It didn’t matter that she’d only met Aristos after the fact. What mattered was that he had chosen her and discarded his wife. What mattered was that she had never been one of them.

  ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’ Eva placed a hand on her arm.

  Darya realised she was shaking. She pretended it was the AC, and hugged herself. ‘I understand,’ she replied. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t let him get to me.’ Eva’s eyes sharpened to bullets. ‘And neither should you.’

  ‘OK.’ And she nodded, to show the girl she had listened. Squeezing Eva’s arm, she felt a hardening resolve. She would not be boarding that ship back to Cyprus. Her life under Aristos was over.

  They left the b
outique laden with bags. Even Darya had been coerced by a summer dress. It wasn’t her money, so why not? They walked over to the bench in a small park, where the men were sitting with ice cream cones. Orestis’ face lit up.

  Behind him was a small group of people, their clothes unlike everyone else’s. Something about them was from a different time, out of step with this world. They approached the surrounding tourists with open palms. One of them held a baby, whose cries rang out across the park. Beggars, like the Roma she’d seen in the cities. People’s eyebrows would press on their eyes as they watched them.

  ‘Finally!’ said Aristos. ‘Did my darling’s credit card melt?’

  ‘Yes, Daddykins! Will you give me yours?’

  ‘As if there’s a difference.’

  Darya could see it now. She heard as if for the first time, how Eva spoke to her father. The irony hiding a sternness. The tone of an animal handler.

  ‘Want some ice-cream?’ asked Orestis. ‘My treat.’

  A voice called Aristos’ name.

  Eva was first to respond: ‘Oh my God! What are you doing here?’

  A middle-aged couple were walking up to them, Eva spread her arms for a hug. Darya’s heart lurched. The same old couple that had recognised Orestis, that day at Latchi, she was sure. She could not play his English aunt now. This was how it would end – everything gone with the strike of a match.

  Fine, let it be.

  But no.

  They weren’t those people. The couple were friends of Aristos. They barely acknowledged Orestis in the scramble of conversation, between the man, the woman, Aristos and Eva.

  ‘What are you doing here? Are you living here now?’

  The woman said something about America, they were here on holiday.

  Eva grabbed the woman’s hand. ‘You remember Orestis?’

  The man did a double-take. He held out his hand in a grand show. ‘This handsome young man? That’s Orestis, the fat one?’

  Darya noted the flicker in Orestis’ face, like static on an old TV.

  ‘That’s me!’ he said, laughing. ‘Orestis the fat one.’ And he was on his feet, shoulders back, clamping the other man’s hand in his.

  ‘Re, you’ve changed so much! I never would’ve recognised you.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ said Aristos, meeting her eye. ‘Let me introduce my wife.’

  The older couple stood back, angled themselves to greet her properly. Something registered in their eyes, was filed away. It was the look bureaucrats gave you in Minsk.

  ‘This is Darya,’ he said in English. It dawned on her that he always introduced her like this.

  So she greeted them in Greek. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Likewise.’

  The man turned to Aristos. ‘What has it been, five years?’

  ‘Since we saw you? Nine or ten.’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘I only got married a few years ago.’

  ‘Christ.’

  The rest happened quickly. First, another voice came through the tangle. Orestis’ head perked up in her direction, then there was a tug at Darya’s arm. Next to her, another face she didn’t know, another’s skin on hers. Young or old, who knew. It happened so fast. A woman with black hair and a shawl, gold hoops, eyes full of water, spittle in the corners of her mouth, and she was speaking in another language – not Greek, not English. There was a baby in her arms. Take the baby. That’s what she was saying, it must have been. Take the baby. Urgent, desperate. There were cries, they pierced her ears. The baby’s or its mother’s. Both. Orestis spoke in English, he was barking at the woman, Get away from her! Go! The beggar woman, a mother with her baby. Go! Darya trying to stop them, No. And someone was pulling Darya away, someone yanking the other woman’s hand off hers, unclenching the fingers, the nails from her skin, Get away from her! At least that’s what she thought she heard. She didn’t know. None of it sounded real, none of it was real. Please, God, please may it not be real.

  ✽✽✽

  On the pavement, past window displays and wing-mirrors, she felt outside of herself. No longer a body. Only a breath of a human; condensation left on a pane of glass.

  The others had put it behind them. Already, it was simply an odd thing that happened, destined to become an anecdote, guaranteed to earn five whole minutes’ attention at parties.

  At the time they’d been concerned. That other wife, whose name she was told but could not remember, she’d said, on seeing her staring vacantly at the bark of a tree, ‘Get her some water. She’s gone into shock.’ Then she’d lowered her onto a bench. ‘Let her sit. Sit down, love.’ Eva and Aristos had flanked her on the bench and held a hand each. They’d asked if she was OK, they’d told her that the woman with the baby was gone. A memory fluttered. A young policeman – no, two of them – were dragging the woman off her, and people around them were staring, gasping, hands at mouths and mouths moving with speech. The police had seen the beggars, the travellers, whatever they were, and were already on their way when the woman pushed her baby at her and said, Take him, please. Take him. Of course, that was what she’d said, in her native tongue. Of course, it was. A plea to give her child a life. Darya understood it, then and now. But look what she’d done.

  Everyone else had moved on. They’d watched her breathe, and breathe, and compose herself until her breath became normal. Until she’d lost that edge to it, that sound like a slip. And they’d had coffee together, she, her husband, her stepdaughter, her lover and these two new old friends as if life was always like this, which it was. Of course, it was. These things came and went. These moments between people; reaching, touching, breaking away. Like her father reaching out to squeeze the skin on the back of her neck like a kitten, giggling as she did. Like her kitten back in Cyprus. Like the maid from another land, more distant than hers, come to serve a woman she couldn’t know. Like her mother kissing icons, a crucifix on a silver chain, her fingers as she told her she loved her. Like the sweet strong voice of her babulia singing in church, her voice wrapping vine-like around the priest’s. Like Maksim peering out through that body diffusing to bones. Like the blood that always emptied. Like the soul that rose to meet her, then kiss her goodbye, and leave.

  PART III

  One

  As a child, Aristos had always preferred puzzles to sports. He would sit in the shade of a plane tree overlooking what was, in his young eyes, the entire world. In fact, it was only a patch of mountainside in the Lemesos district, their village just a fragment of a fragment of Earth. But he would spread his sights to the blue-grey slopes in the distance and wonder about the villages there. How would he get there? Which path could he take? More often he’d search the valley for the city, where he knew his future lay, the terracotta roof tiles of a house here and there acting as stepping-stones for his eyes amongst the dusty green hills. Pantelis, whose taverna hunched close by, would spot him sitting beneath the boughs of that tree, self-exiled from the games of the other children running up the steep dirt streets, and he would call out to him: Little Hippocrates. The boy who sat in lonely contemplation beneath a plane tree. Aristos liked the nickname, and so he liked Pantelis.

  The man was as poorly educated as anyone else in the village, but he’d learned the words of Homer off by heart. He claimed that his father and his father’s father and his grandfather’s grandfather’s father would tell the tales, passing them on down the generations. So Pantelis would set plates of roasted lamb and potatoes at his tables, and on command recite whole passages from The Odyssey.

  Men are so quick to blame the gods: they say that we devise their misery. But they themselves — in their depravity — design grief greater than the griefs that fate assigns.

  Aristos had always preferred that tale to The Iliad, whose violence and bloodshed were too close to his experience for comfort. He’d grown up with EOKA’s nationalism, the fight against the Brits, then bloodshed between brothers. Better were the exploits of Odysse
us the trickster, and the gods and monsters who met him on his journey. Its wisdom lived on through the ages. It was a tale that could turn a boy, obeying his master’s orders, into a man who commandeered his ship.

  In some ways, Aristos reflected, it was Pantelis who had instilled in him this yearning to venture forth, explore, take charge.

  Now he was in Greece, the Motherland. He didn’t like to think of the country that way – that was for the flag-wavers, the men with ENOSIS stickers on their pickup trucks. Those men longed for a past that never was; one in which Cypriots were all Greeks until the Ottomans invaded. Even as a child he knew that no country could possibly be just one thing, in the same way a person could not be just one thing. Humans were compounds of their geography, their history, their produce, their climates, the effects of their neighbours and friends and enemies. But try as he might to fight the imagined spiritual connection with Greece – or, more accurately, to the Ancients who informed his education, his view, and European history since – he couldn’t help but feel a stirring in his blood. He’d visited countless times in the past. He knew the mainland and the islands off by heart, cafés and tavernas and bars, the best spots to watch the sun set, where to watch for scorpions and where you were likely to encounter a wolf. And he had never felt anything other than Cypriot, neither Greek nor Turk.

  He wondered if, perhaps, he was delving into his past because he was settling his future. Darya had been upset to share the boat with Eva. But his daughter was attached to Orestis, it would have been foolish not to act on it. There was no one better for his little girl; a young man who was dutiful, considerate, polite – and handsome! Nothing like the youths who spilt their parents’ money on branded swimwear, and their nights joyriding through the tourist district. That receptionist – Elias – lost his brother in a car crash not too long ago. And the one who stepped up for the night shift? Orestis. One man’s recklessness revealed another’s maturity. Thank God, despite the bumpy road of his adolescence, Orestis had turned out more like his mother than his father.