A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

by Christy Lefteri

  A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

  A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible

  CHRISTY LEFTERI

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

  Quercus

  21 Bloomsbury Square

  London

  WC1A 2NS

  Copyright © 2010 by Christy Lefteri

  The moral right of Christy Lefteri to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB) 978 1 84916 127 5

  ISBN (TPB) 978 1 84916 189 3

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Typeset by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  Mum

  When I don’t know which path to take

  I feel you by my side.

  When a dream comes true

  I feel you by my side.

  Day 1: 20 July 1974

  First a rose. A scarlet rose. Only one. On a hill maybe, but nobody knows yet. That is not important. The rose sparkles with sugary dew, even in July when the sun is sharp and hot; iridescent red drops shimmering in that immense, oppressive light. Droplets a little like blood tears, if you’ve ever seen them; the last tears of a dying man. A man who’s been put to death, like Christ. Internal bleeding. Eternal bleeding. But the little girl must not know this.

  The stem of the rose is a hundred miles long. It is horizontal, as normal, for the first six or seven inches and then it bends and twists round and in, out and down, like a road with thorns and leaves. Whoever plucks the rose will hold Christ’s heart in their hands and behold the secret of immortality. They will be free of this world once and for all. However, unless looking from above, it is impossible to see where the rose is located. One must follow the stem and one must know that it will be a terrible journey.

  So much for fairy tales that keep us from the bleak reality of life. So much for those stories that give us hope in a place where hope does not exist. And who, by the end of this tale, will be the one to tell the girl that the rose does not exist? And should anyone tell her at all?

  This is a rose in a story told by a mother to her daughter on the day that she knows that she will die. The mother is lying on the floor and is reading the story from a little green book. The girl does not know that the pages are empty, each one as white and bare as the snow on the Troodos Mountains. The mother has just returned from the well and has been shot in the left shoulder, just above the heart. Struggling to breathe, she points at the dried bramble in the garden and tells her daughter that this is where the stem begins. The girl looks at it with wide eyes. ‘Everyone is fighting for this rose, but nobody even knows how to begin looking for it. Only you,’ the mother says, touching her daughter’s chest. ‘The closer you get the larger the thorns will become. You will see bad things, the darkness of the world, but you must not give up. People will come. They will be dressed in green. Do as they say, yes, do as they say and you will be safe, but never tell them about the trail of thorns. Just follow the stem and the red petals, like the ones around me.’

  These are her last words. Her white skin is covered in blood that is also scattered around the floor. In the sunlight the young daughter strokes her mother’s hair.

  ‘Let’s go together, Mama,’ the little girl says, but her mother’s eyes have closed and her face is still. She leans forward and shakes her mother’s shoulders. ‘Mama. Mama,’ she says. ‘Mama, Mama!’ she screams, but there is no answer. All is quiet apart from the radio that has been incessantly playing in the background. ‘Do not panic. They did not manage to invade. They did not.’ She listens to the words. The voice marches around the room. ‘Do not panic. We threw them into the water. We threw them into the sea.’ The little girl takes her mother’s hand and holds it to her face. ‘I want to go together, Mama.’ She rubs it on her cheek. She weeps over her mother’s body until her tears dry and her hands can no longer hold up her mother’s arm.

  She tucks her legs into her dress and wraps her arms round her knees. The morning sun floods through the window, making a perfect square of light on the floor. The girl stares at it. The square of light is still, golden, unspoilt. A mirror of an empty world.

  She stands up and walks to the doorway. The adjacent houses bleed with smoke. Silence is rising from distant corners of the town, much like the chanting and chiming of bells that once ascended from various ends of the town.

  There is no other sound now. No men at the roadside calling ‘Watermelons, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes’. No boys shouting obscenities at one another while unloading fish from the little boats that rock in the port. Not even the snapping of beans where the girls sat with bowls on their laps preparing the evening meal, and the old grandmothers dressed in black with scarves around their heads complained about the heat. In the shade of the tallest building there is quiet where the women embroidered silk into roses and sang. Auntie Maria’s nine children are not screaming and crying. Uncle Vasos and his wife are not arguing.

  There is no movement now. No pins rolling over dough or bread removed from clay ovens in the sun. No hands reaching for lemons on the trees. There is no one chopping onions, or scrubbing clothes, or sprinkling sesame seeds onto cinnamon fingers.

  Only smells remain: the whiff of sweet Greek coffee left in little cups. The zest of lemons discarded on the floor. The must of wheat still soaking in water. The sea on the scales of fish. The blackness of burnt bread.

  The young girl kneels in the prayer position, and through the open doors of the back veranda she catches a glimpse of the speckled world beyond the vine leaves. She looks across the veranda at the dry brambles and imagines the red rose, sparkling with dew, blood pulsating in its veins. Glowing on a dark hillside. She stands up and straightens her dress and the apron that her mother tied round it. They were about to make olive bread when her mum had gone out to get some water from the central well. She looks at her mother. Red petals are flowing from her mouth and onto the little green book whose pages lie open. She stares at the rose on the white page. The petals are thick and the colour is deep. It is a beautiful rose, and where the petals open up it looks a little like a heart. Maybe a heart that is bleeding, the little girl thinks. In fact at that moment, in that town, most hearts are bleeding and hanging with silk thread from the trees, like decorations or prayers. The little girl must not know this, though.

  The young girl closes the book and tucks it into the pocket of her apron. She thinks for a moment about what she will need for the journey. She finds some scissors in one of the drawers and wraps the sharp ends with some red ribbon. They will be useful when she finds the rose; the stem may be thick and coarse. Imagine travelling all that way and being unable to cut the rose. She puts the scissors in the pocket of her apron.

  She stands by the doorway and straighte
ns her feet to make a line. A donkey walks across the field ahead, its lead dragging on the floor. She looks over the flat roofs of whitewashed bungalows, over the lemon groves and olive trees, over the bumpy road, through the arches of the church tower and up towards the hilltops. The dried, thorned stem of the rose begins a metre from her feet. She takes a step towards it. From the trembling heat a man appears. He is dressed in green. The little girl smiles.

  Adem Berker sees a girl standing in the doorway of a hut. He comes closer and notices her black hair, like coal, and her black eyes. The sun is strong and shines in shards. The young girl curtsies as he enters the house and then holds out her hand. ‘Maroulla,’ she says. The girl’s hand is still outreached. Adem does not move. He observes her like a man looking at an old photograph. He moves his eyes down to where her mother lies drenched in blood. He looks behind him suddenly, as if waiting for someone. He crouches down, checks the dead woman’s pulse and stands again. He puffs his cheeks, exhaling deeply. Then, listening to the repetitive mantra on the radio, he stands up and switches it off. Now only the chorus of the cicadas fills the room. His eyes dart across the kitchen and pause for a moment on something on the counter. He moves past the girl and picks up a bottle. The liquid inside is clear like water but moves slower when the bottle is tipped. He turns the cap and brings the bottle up to his nose. Aniseed. Ouzo. He opens a few cabinet doors, searching for glasses. ‘The last door to the left,’ the young girl says. She waits a moment and then walks over to where he is standing, heaves herself onto the counter and retrieves a large ceramic mug from the cupboard. Adem takes the mug and turns to the kitchen table, where there are two wooden chairs. He sits down and pours the ouzo into the mug, just over halfway. He’s going to need it. Adem rubs his thumb over the stubble on his chin. He has not shaved for a few days. He takes a swig of the ouzo. Adem frowns and pushes his temples with his thumb and middle finger. He takes off his cap and puts it on the table.

  The girl turns to face him. ‘When will our journey begin?’ she asks. He looks at her thick hair that leaks onto her face like oil and those lashes that cast slight shadows on the soft skin beneath her eyes. He does not understand what she means. He rubs his eyes and pours another glass of ouzo. He watches her. She must be just five, or perhaps six at the very most. Around her waist she wears an apron. He cannot bear to look at her. She stares at him expectantly; a look so warm and innocent that it stabs him through the heart. He looks again at her mother on the floor and back into those dark questioning eyes. Adem feels sick. He swallows some more ouzo. He wishes he could take her with him; somewhere safe. But where? The dangers are too great. They would capture her, rape her, kill her. Here she would be safer. They would not be back to check the house, this was part of his territory.

  Adem pours another glass of ouzo. The young girl is now sitting on the other chair, looking at him. Her legs are swinging beneath the table. She is drinking from a glass, milk with rose-water.

  Adem rises abruptly, puts on his cap and straightens his jacket. The girl stands up. He rubs his eyes once more and looks through the door at the town ahead. He walks out of the house without saying a word as though walking out of a terrible film at the cinema in Istanbul. He leaves the girl standing in the doorway.

  He does not know how desperately she wishes him to come back.

  The heart of the town starts beating again, but differently this time. Now everything is different. A little way out of the town, Koki stands in the doorway of her house. She is still waiting for her son. She peers out through the branches of the lemon trees. He should have been back hours ago. He left with the other boys when, very early in the morning, they had heard the sound of planes and bombs. They wanted to find out what had happened, and she had begged him not to go. She had never managed to hold on to him, however hard she tried. He was always much older than his age and too much of a free spirit, like his father used to be. Being half Turkish and half Greek, he had been forced to live between two worlds. Two worlds so similar, yet so far apart. As a result he had lived in a neither, a place not on this side or that. He flowed like the river that separates the town from the village. He became like the rushing water. And Koki always loved him well, and he loved her back with hugs and kisses and a laugh that quenched the dryness of her world. But, somehow, she always knew that she could hold on to him only as long as it takes for water to slip through your fingers. It was in the look in his eyes and in the way he walked, as though he had places to go. And he grew so tall, too tall for this town, and he looked more like a man than a boy of eleven, and when he ran, oh, when he ran, he looked as though he could easily fly.

  She paces up and down. The radio is on low and a faint voice repeats reassuring words. ‘Do not panic. We have thrown them into the sea. They did not manage to invade. They did not.’ But in the distance she had heard running and frantic words drifting across the town. ‘They are coming! Run! The Turks are coming!’ She could not believe them. She would never leave without her son. Why had he not returned?

  She looks ahead, waiting for her son’s familiar, mischievous smile. ‘They have not managed to invade,’ the voice on the radio repeats. Koki pushes her forehead with her fingers and shuts her eyes. Her mind is out of control, her imagination wild with fearful thoughts. She pulls her hair with both hands. There are stranger noises now from the town beyond. The rumbling of a truck. The sound of things breaking or falling. But she cannot be sure. It is too far away. She walks to the radio and shakes it. ‘What’s going on?!’ she shouts at it. ‘What in the devil is going on?!’ Her hands shake and her eyes fill with tears. She quickly tunes it to the Turkish station. Just as before, there is only white noise. She shakes it again. Nothing. ‘Please,’ she says to it, ‘please!’ She shakes it harder and a fragmented voice comes through. ‘Turkish troops … invaded the island of Cyprus … landed … Kyrenia. The invasion has been a success …’ Koki’s body feels cold despite the rising heat. She picks up the radio and throws it on the floor, it smashes hard onto the flagstones and the voice crunches to a halt. She runs to the door and calls her son’s name, ‘Agori, Agori, please, where are you?’ but her words come back to her faint and solitary. There is movement in the distance, and the sound of gunshots, and another, much nearer. Koki pulls her hair again. And then she runs. She just runs ahead. Not knowing where to go or where to look. The town flashes past her in a streak of colours. Her head spins. She runs and runs, past the houses, looking left and right, through the field and, suddenly, there on the ground in the shadow of the orchard, she sees two feet. She runs towards them and looks down. She freezes.

  There lies her son. There lies her son.

  There, with his eyes closed and a rose placed neatly on his chest. Koki falls to her knees. She nudges him and shakes his arm. She lifts the rose and sees that it hides a bloody hole. She puts her ear to his chest. Nothing. Empty. She wraps her arms round his torso and cries into his stomach. ‘Agori,’ she says, ‘Agori, Agori, wake up.’ She tries to lift him. His body rises only slightly from the ground. ‘Agori,’ she pleads, ‘get up; we have to go, my love. We have to go.’ She looks at him. Maybe he will speak. ‘Please, speak.’ But his face is still and peaceful. His lips are still red.

  She kisses his face and strokes his hair and her tears flow tempestuous with the wrath of the sea. She cannot take him with her; she cannot even bury him. She takes a gold chain and crucifix from around her neck, kisses it and places it on his chest. She lies down beside him and stays there for a while holding on to his hand, with her head on his shoulder. Her body shakes with inner pain. She could just close her eyes and never wake up. She wishes this life were over. She stays there for ten minutes, fifteen, maybe more. She holds his hand tighter and prays, wishing his spirit to be free, to be safe, to be close to God. She stays there as the sounds of the war pass over them, as the spirits of the life they had known drift past them. The sound of distant laughter. In the sunlight memories move around them. There he is, under the lemon trees, just a yea
r old, learning how to walk. And there he is at five now, on a bicycle. And over there, at seven, with a catapult in hand. And there, at eleven, just yesterday morning, beaming proudly, with a basket of cherries for her. He is running and laughing, he is calling her. She hears his voice. It rushes past like the sound of the river. It comes to her, then fades away, like the sound of the sea. But a feeling passes through her mind. Her heart thumps harder and suddenly she is struck with fear.

  Koki looks around. She hears the sound of gunshots and sees a distant wisp of smoke. She holds her son’s face and kisses his cheek. ‘Goodbye,’ she says, ‘for now, only for now,’ and stumbles back to their home.

  Koki sits on the kitchen floor with a crucifix in her hand. She has sharpened the end with a knife, the part where Jesus’ feet join. To make a knife. ‘From this moment on, their land a desert, their lives deserted. Their children …’

  How could she wish this on the children of her neighbours, the daughters of women who were present at the birth of her own son? Who was she now that she felt this hatred? She rocks over the crucifix and repeats Matthew 5.22 three times. ‘If you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement.’ It is no good. The animosity burns in her throat, behind her eyes, in the cracked fingertips of her right hand that presses into the gold-plated wooden halo.

  She holds the crucifix like a knife, its toes buried in the folds of cloth about her breasts. She contemplates for a moment while the morning sun shines on the whittled features of Christ. Or is it the glow of fire that casts such an evil light? The air is filled with the smell of a burning church: the wood, the incense, the candles, the flesh of the icons. She can see him, again, as though he were still alive, running towards her. Coming home for dinner. If only the Turkish soldiers knew his real name.

  Not all Turks are murderers, she hears herself say, but the voice is distant and comes from the mouth of a woman who she had once been. Koki thinks of her son’s body and shudders. What had she come back for? Why had she not stayed there until they killed her? The pressure with which she holds that sharpened cross is so immense that splinters now dig into her palm but she does not seem to notice.