The Way It Breaks

by Polis Loizou

  Her words stuck to him all through the drive back home. With every stop at a traffic light that gave him yet more space to think, he felt a growing resentment for his neighbour. What did she mean by claiming that his wife played music, that she was hiding something from him? Was she trying to make him a fool? Did Katina know the truth about Orestis and decided to tease them all? Darya didn’t play the piano. Of course, she didn’t.

  She did. Of course, she did.

  There was so much he didn’t know about his own damned wife. He’d had her investigated before they got married, it was only logical. Her story of leaving Belarus after its liberation checked out, the details of her family, her father, her mother, her grandmother and a dead brother he never brought up because she never had – something he thought perfectly understandable till now. He knew she’d gone to Germany via Poland, and had discovered which ships she’d worked on before she’d landed the job at his hotel. Everything pointed to a person in search of a better life.

  But this? That she was spotted doing things he had no clue she could do, not a damned clue, made his fingers clench. Did she hate him so much that she hid her truth? What else was she keeping from him? He had caught that look in her eyes when he mentioned a future in Germany. It was hope. Hope. As if she’d been drugged and caged like those lion cubs. As if he was such a dictator that she couldn’t wait to defect. She was on the brink of it, he was certain. Ran, that’s what she did, that’s what the details of her past revealed. And how else would she have left Belarus, if not with a man? No prior marriage had turned up, but who was to say what she’d done to get out of the Eastern bloc, what she’d done to cross those borders, how far she would go to betray him by leaving him too? The next time a traffic light stopped him on the seafront, the questions that burned him erupted from his hands, thumped against the steering wheel. He beat the BMW, making his horn blow loud, making a passing tourist jump.

  The lights of fast-food restaurants and English pubs, karaoke bars, buzzed in his eyes, the club music thudding in his bones.

  Whore, he thought of his wife. Whore.

  Six

  His voice echoed in the hall. He tried again. Nothing.

  She’d done it already. Left. The damned woman hadn’t even waited till the promised Munich.

  That little shrine of hers was still in the corner. He ought to tear it down, rip that red-and-white fabric in two. He went upstairs, hoping to find her in bed with another man.

  The room was dark. His wife was indeed in bed, but only with Hypnos – no doubt escaping her husband in sleep.

  ✽✽✽

  Sipping her tropical smoothie in the early-morning light, she looked maddeningly content. The rain prevented her from sitting outside, so she sat at the kitchen table and stared into space as if in meditation.

  ‘You are free today?’

  It had been a while since she’d posed a question first.

  ‘I have to see my solicitor. Other than that, yes.’

  She nodded.

  ‘You?’ They both knew what he meant by that.

  ‘I see Skevi later,’ she said.

  ‘Skevi?’

  ‘Yoga teacher. She does for me reiki.’

  He lowered his coffee cup harder than intended, the clink almost shattered it. ‘Reiki? Please don’t tell me you’re paying for such a thing.’

  She turned her head to stare, all contentment gone. ‘Why not?’

  ‘What the hell is reiki going to do?’

  ‘Feel good.’

  ‘You feel bad?’

  She didn’t answer. She’d already said more than she’d meant to.

  ‘You feel bad?’

  ‘I want to feel good.’

  She’d used the feminine for ‘good’ as if she meant to be a good woman. He smiled. ‘You know what will make you feel good…’

  Her eyes lit up. ‘No.’

  ‘Call Orestis. Or Lefteris, anyone you want. Don’t waste my money on nonsense.’

  ‘No more boys.’

  ‘Darya, what do you want? What is it that you want?’

  What she wanted, and she made it clear, was not to look at him. Her neck was tense, fingers tight around the still-full glass.

  ‘Do you want a child? Is that why you’re being like this?’

  She rolled her eyes.

  He couldn’t help himself. It burst from him in a voice he barely recognised, one he hadn’t used since the breakdown of his prior marriage: ‘Darya, do you play the piano?’

  At first, she looked afraid. Then incredulous. Finally, a hopeless misery crawled over her features. Something inside her had snapped. Not in a violent, mad way, not like a fresh twig; it was more like old rope, the fibres detaching, letting go to unravel the whole. In a quiet voice, she said, ‘I want to go away.’

  At last, there it was.

  ‘You want to leave me.’ They both heard his tremble. ‘You want to go home?’

  She flicked her head up. ‘We still go Germany?’

  ‘Is that what you really want?’ His hand reached for hers.

  After a pause, she said, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then that’s what we’ll do. Just give me some time to settle things here.’

  Her head, almost as if despite the rest of her body, swung slightly towards him, lowered. An affectionate cat. He put his hand on the back of her neck and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. The action left the taste of sweat on his lip, and the froth of her smoothie on his shirt.

  Let her believe they were going if it meant a peaceful home. In the meantime, he’d come up with another plan.

  ✽✽✽

  He let her go to her reiki, whatever kept her quiet. He had no problem with yoga and meditation, their physical and mental effects were proven. He’d even dabbled in the latter, having learned from an older friend who’d travelled to the East, but it had been years since he’d last done it. Massages and treatments were of equal benefit if outrageously priced — not that Darya much indulged in them. But reiki? It was invisible as ghosts, as lacking in fact. She might as well have paid a shaman.

  ‘Christ,’ he said to the windscreen.

  His wife out of the house, his solicitor dealt with, his conference calls made, he dropped in on the Harmonia. Orestis had mentioned he’d be working that weekend, so Aristos called ahead to arrange a meeting between the managers. Svetlana beamed at him from the front desk, and within minutes a thick Cypriot coffee had been fetched for him in the meeting room where the other men sat waiting. Over the next hour, they discussed individual achievements, team adjustments, objectives and timeframes, schedules, and set a date at the end of October for handovers, and the official start of Thanos’ new role. Aristos noted that Yiorgos was looking sullen.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Yiorgos. And he couldn’t help but flick his eyes at Orestis, fresh in a crisp white shirt. The look Aristos gave Yiorgos drew the meeting to a close.

  The owner was escorted to the lift and went in first.

  ‘The mirror’s looking old,’ he said. ‘There’s a crack in the top-left corner.’

  Thanos whipped out his notebook. On the ground floor, Aristos dismissed the others, telling Yiorgos there was an urgent matter he wished to discuss with Orestis. That served the dual purpose of putting the Front Desk manager in his place, and Orestis on edge.

  ‘Let’s walk to the beach.’

  The young man threw a glance at his former manager, then promptly back at their superior. He followed.

  They walked past the pool, past the bar at its edge, the showers and the ping-pong tables. Aristos took his time. When they approached the stone path through the trees to the sand, he said, ‘You can feel the weather changing.’

  ‘The water’s good,’ Orestis said. ‘I come for a swim on my breaks.’ He was standing with his hands behind his back. Clothes tight against his body, head high, he could have been holding a spear, or a plumed helmet made of bronze.

  Aristos smiled. ‘My old boss used to
swim every morning before work. It’s good discipline.’

  ‘Has something happened to Darya?’

  ‘This doesn’t concern her. In fact, it’s about Eva.’

  The boy was unable to mask his feelings.

  ‘You may think that, when Eva approached me about a job for you, I was doing her a favour. To tell you the truth, it was she who was doing me the favour.’

  A punch would have shocked him less. Nevertheless, the boy shook his head as if reeling from a physical blow. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Poor lad. When had that yokel father last paid him a compliment? ‘I mean it. I remembered how presentable and polite you always were. I was happy to have such a person working in my hotel.’ He allowed a moment. ‘Also, it was a pleasure to spend more time with you lately. To get to know you better.’

  At this Orestis shifted a little. A smile straddled his face, not knowing where to land. ‘Likewise,’ he said.

  ‘You have also been a good friend to my daughter. I know she’s not the easiest person to deal with, but she’s always been fond of you, and I’m pleased to see you’ve been getting closer.’

  ‘If it’s upsetting Darya—’

  ‘Forget Darya.’ It was louder than he’d meant. ‘She’s satisfied.’

  Orestis swallowed.

  ‘Eva feels strongly about you. I know she does. And what a father wants most in the world is for his child to be happy.’

  The young man nodded, as he was supposed to.

  ‘It would make me happy, too, to welcome you into our family.’

  ‘Sir—’

  ‘Think about it, Orestis. A man like you, looking after my Eva, responsible, handsome, sturdy. By marrying her, you will have everything. You will have money, a house, a new car, whatever I can’t currently give you. And one day, you’ll even have the Harmonia. You won’t have to answer to your old man anymore, you won’t have anything to worry about. And you will be loved. Not just by my daughter, but by me, too. You have my word – I would be proud to call you my son.’

  Silence. The boy turned to face the sea as if an answer was waiting there. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Aristos placed his hand on the young man’s back. ‘I know it’s a lot to take in. I’m sorry to have surprised you like this, but at my age, I have to think not only of my own future but also my daughter’s. My family’s.’

  At length, Orestis responded. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. And don’t worry – Eva will never find out about you and Darya. You won’t say anything, Darya won’t say anything, and I… I keep the photos locked away.’

  For a moment, Orestis looked baffled. His reaction came slowly: the face went white, the pupils shrank as if something had been emptied from him. Then another face appeared: a demon, within that perfect head. Aristos had only ever been struck by one man: his father. Nobody else had dared. He steeled himself.

  But Orestis’ fury faded. He looked down at the ground.

  ‘Think about it,’ Aristos said. ‘When you’re ready to propose to my daughter, you have my blessing.’

  Keeping his gait unhurried, he walked back up the stone path. Then, remembering, he turned.

  ‘Tell Yiorgos that I found out you were dating my daughter, and that’s why I wanted to speak with you. I gave you a stern warning about treating her well. You don’t have to say anything more.’

  This was a good excuse. It would assuage the Front Desk manager, who would have felt diminished; it would relieve Orestis of coming up with a suitable lie; and lastly, it would plant in the staff the knowledge that Aristos was firm but fair, a boss who had had no personal reason for an employee’s progress. All was in order.

  Seven

  On Sunday, Darya got up early to don a smart skirt, blouse and navy jacket. She sprayed herself with Yves Saint Laurent. When he asked her where she was going dressed like that she said, without a moment’s hesitation, ‘Church.’ As if this was a weekly occurrence. She didn’t even give him the time to question her. Her back was turned, the Lexus reversed out of the driveway before he could even blink.

  Dumbstruck, he went to his study to stew, and pinch the bridge of his nose while he sat at his desk. He tried to read a passage from his latest purchase, a book about the invention of the Phoenicians, but struggled to concentrate. Damn that woman. He’d vowed never to let anyone affect him.

  He would go for a drive. Perhaps to Amathous, or the Kourion, the Tombs of the Kings, somewhere with ruins where he could sit and contemplate the infinite stretch of time, the long reach of the ancients, the proof of legacy. On the highway, however, came an intervention. The soft-voiced DJ in the speakers was taking his listeners on a journey through the rebetika. Those decades-old songs of loss and longing spoke through the static. Giorgos Vidalis, Marika Papagika, Markos Vamvakaris, a haunting of voices. Crime, prostitution, drugs; the lyrics painted portraits of people as they really were, the things that made and unmade them, in places as distant in the memory as Constantinople, Smyrna. To think that these voices were ever censored or silenced. That was the real crime: when humanity was hidden from humans if it was regarded as dirty rather than true.

  Aristos found himself singing along to the songs, the words came readily. They took him back to the village, where his elders had sung with smoke-filled throats. He ignored the signs to the Kourion and turned off from Erimi towards Kilani. His ears clogged as the road steepened. He swallowed to make them pop.

  In the village, he parked at the most central spot he could find. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d come. A construction job in Lemesos had carried him away from it, and he’d moved his mother into a care home as soon as her dementia was diagnosed. She’d referred to the village on every visit, even on her bad days. I want to go home, she’d beg, as the woman in the next room relived her son’s funeral, wailing, pulling out her hair. How could he ever have left his mother there? At the time he’d convinced himself the staff would give her what he could not. But what thanks was that? In the end, what had he given the woman in return for all she had given him?

  He went into a newly-refurbished café, once a house, if only he could remember whose, where the proprietors were total strangers. He ordered a soumada, and the almond heat filled his throat till at last his ears popped.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he said to the couple behind the counter. ‘I wonder if you remember my family.’ He gave his father’s surname. It sent a shiver up his arms to hear it aloud after all this time.

  The couple explained they’d only recently moved to the village, the café a retirement whim. Most of the inhabitants had left for the cities years before. But they directed him to the little square across the road, where an old man in a starched blue shirt sat in the shade of vines playing backgammon with a round bearded youth.

  ‘Of course,’ the old man said when asked about Aristos’ mother. ‘Of course, I remember her.’ His face was alight, the near-blind eyes almost blue. ‘The Seamstress.’

  It was clear he didn’t recognise Aristos, nor did he ask his name. Instead, he pointed to a corner and gave instructions to The Seamstress’ place. Aristos thanked him anyway and set off.

  Good God.

  It was small, so much smaller than he remembered. The stone abode, with that low roof of corrugated iron, no more than a shack. Tears stung his eyes, so he didn’t look for long. What pained him most was not the thought of his poor widowed mother, stunted in what should have been the prime of her life, mending clothes and praying every day to forgive the gambling, womanising, drunken ways of her departed husband. It was the thought that if he took Darya out of their house in Kaloyiri and brought her to this pile of rocks in Kilani, she might even be happy.

  He had been so hard on his wife. But that was only to keep her.

  He could dissuade her from going to Germany. After all, she’d been calmer in that holiday house in Platres. She might accept Kilani instead. She might see that she had more in common with her husband than not. She would feel less apart.
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  He walked on. He went past that house with the brightly coloured wooden door and shutters, which had always been brightly coloured. The family in it owned the first television he’d ever seen. For half an hour a day, they would let the other villagers watch from the open window. I Love Lucy. He remembered the show, the protagonist’s elastic face. He could almost see it through the shutters now.

  He walked past his teacher’s house, the woman who’d aroused his pubescent classmates. A Greek flag hung outside it now and, though not as obnoxious and provocative as the Turkish flag painted on the Kerynia mountains, it offended him. He’d never had time for nationalists. To be proud of achievements attributed to a whole group? Where was the self-worth in that? Why take pride in what was only yours in the abstract? Nationalism attracted people who in some way had failed to make their own mark; who had the need of living vicariously through the successes of a larger entity. As if Cypriots were only either Greek or Turkish, Christian or Muslim. This was a tiny rock between Europe, Asia and Africa. It wasn’t only Greeks and Ottomans who’d come here, it was also Francs, Venetians, Armenians, Kurds, Turks, Syrians, Brits, Roma… Now the Russian businessmen, the Chinese families, the imported maids from all around. Catholics and Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses held tight among the Orthodox Christians. The priest in this very village – God rest his soul – read both the Bible and the Quran. Cypriot was a blend of every tongue that ever talked here. He’d even read of a Maronite community in the North, whose dialect was a composite of Latin and Aramaic. To diminish such a wealth, such a broad and varied heritage to narrow-minded flag-waving was near enough to blasphemy. How dare anyone break it into pieces.

  He wanted to go further. No, not only further. Deeper. He wanted to extend his arms and reach back through the vines of time, to the fields where shepherds herded their flocks, where women with coloured beads and headscarves ferried dough into stone ovens, to makeshift Orthodox churches hidden in caves from the Ottomans, and further back, to Richard the Lionheart and Berengaria, further, to traders from distant lands mingling on the docks, to philosophers and the dawning of the Greek alphabet, to Chirokitia, to the beginnings of European civilisation, to Aphrodite stepping out of the sea.