‘I’ve been waiting on your step all these years,’ she says, exhaling as deeply as though she has been holding her breath all this time. And just then, from beyond … a baby wails.
*
The baby cries on the passenger seat of the army jeep as a fighter jet sears through the sky; the flash of its lights dart above them like a falling star. Serkan looks quickly at the crying baby, stirring on its back, then out at the dusty road. He follows the path past the black field, skimming the orchards, and towards the house of captives.
A flock of jets rip through the black sky. The baby shrieks and Serkan looks down at his red face. The shrieking slashes the air, and Serkan winces and desperately begins to sing, but his voice can hardly be heard. The car bumps up and down on the road. The heat in the car is oppressive; the open windows seem to bear no purpose, except to bring in the smell of charred fields. Serkan’s face drips with sweat, his collar is tight around his neck and he becomes all the more aware of the searing pain at the base of his spine.
The planes fade away in the distance, leaving him with this insistent shrieking, interspersed with the sound of the engine and the crickets and the distant bombs. Around the town, sporadic clashes continue. Serkan turns the knob on the radio and puts the volume up as high as it can go. First, he can make out some discussion about the coup on 15 July against Archbishop Makarios, when a large force of troops and tanks attacked the Archbishopric in Nicosia and the EOKA guerilla, Nikos Sampson, was placed in power. ‘Yesterday,’ the radio host announces, ‘after support for his regime collapsed, Nikos Sampson resigned.’ Although the rest of the words are muted by the crying, Serkan smiles. This last fact is extremely pleasing; the safety of the Turkish Cypriot community has always been his main goal. And to think that Nikos Sampson was meant to be assassinated in 1957, but was freed in 1960 when Cyprus gained independence from Britain. This militant nationalist had lived to steer the coup and provoke the Turks! Good riddance to him, thinks Serkan. He looks down at the crying baby; his eyes are wide and full of anguish, the skin of his face distorted. Serkan then looks out at the black road ahead. In the far distance a hill can be made out by the fire that flames upon it. The rest blends with the sky.
In a very short while he arrives outside the second prisoners’ house. He stops the jeep, turns off the engine and the headlights and looks to his left at the crying baby. Its screeching fills the night like a war siren; full of warning and panic and that imminent, all-consuming terror. Serkan touches the baby’s tiny fingers, then leans across and brings him onto his lap. ‘Little man. Little man,’ he says softly, and the baby’s crying suddenly subsides and turns to a hiccup. Serkan smiles. He looks into the baby’s eyes and sees a part of himself in them; something of the way they look out at the world reminds Serkan of a feeling long-forgotten; a feeling that stabs him in the heart and rips his insides, a feeling that creeps up on him and is as unbearable as thirst.
The baby feels warmth near Serkan; he feels a fatherly touch and thinks that the world is safe. Serkan remembers his father again and those vicious eyes and his hands that came down on him like hammers; knocking him into shape, into the man he has become. A war is no place for a baby. Why should he be the one to steal his childhood? He holds the baby as though he is holding a part of himself. He brings the baby up to his chest and the baby rests his head on his shoulder.
‘Into the garden the calves did stray.
Gardener, quickly, turn them away,
They’ll eat the cabbages without delay,
Eh-e, ninni, ninni, ninni,
Eh-e, ninni, ninni, eh!
Eh-e, ninni.’
Serkan whispers the song tenderly into the baby’s ear. The baby yawns. He sings the song three times until he is sure that the baby is asleep and then looks towards the house, where the windows flicker with candlelight. ‘It’s time to go home,’ he whispers to the baby and stands up carefully, trying not to wake him. He uses his free hand to grab his rifle and the bottle from the back seat, then, leaving the keys in the jeep and the door slightly ajar, he carries the baby round to the back of the house and into the garden. At first he is sure he can hear movement and some muttering, but as he approaches all is silent.
From within, the stench of death and old zivania spills out, hot and humid, hitting the back of his throat, as pungent as bleach. He winces and steps through the open doors into the living room, where the women sit still amongst the light of a candle. All have their faces to the floor. They are shrouded in shadows, and headscarves lie discarded about the place. He scans the room, looking for the stern-looking lady in the white shirt and suddenly spots her on a chair in the corner; the only woman with her eyes fixed on his face. He walks towards her assuredly, but suddenly hesitates with a jerk, as though involuntarily, his foot hovering just above the ground, like a puppet on a string. He lowers his foot and stands there rigidly with his face to the nearest wall; unmoving, in the stillness of the house. Towering over her, with the baby still sleeping in his arms, Serkan stands there as the crickets beat and the bombs fall; rigid in the darkness, sculptured in the shadows, like a statue lost in time. He has no thoughts now, just a feeling of sadness, so immense that it has no shape. He tilts his head down and smells the top of the baby’s head. Burnt fields. ‘Stone baby, I have enveloped you, With cradle straps supported you, By day and night protected you, Mevlsm, send you a soul, Stone baby, stone baby,’ Serkan sings in a sibilant whisper.
A breeze blows through the door and touches the sweat on his forehead. The room fills with the smell of fire and lemon blossoms. He looks back at the lady. She does not seem to have moved her eyes; he can see her stiff expression in the flickering light. He takes a step closer and, leaning slightly, with the baby spread across his palms, he offers him to her, as though he has brought a gift; a ritual offering to a deity: a platter of dates or figs or pomegranates or carrots or turnips or poppies or herbs or edible flowers … Serkan looks at the baby. He wriggles slightly on his palms. His little hands outstretched, he whimpers. The lady sits still and looks at him with a look of disbelief. He steps closer, slowly and carefully, and offers her the baby by lowering his stance further, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. The lady breaks his gaze, and as though she has just awakened from a dream, releases the crucifix from her palm, then jolts her arms up with such sudden force that it takes Serkan by surprise. With desperation she reaches for the baby and snatches him from his arms, as if there were a chance that he might change his mind. She brings him quickly to her chest and exhales with a long groan full of agony and relief. She shoots Serkan a look of piercing hatred and fear, and then, dropping her face to the baby, she searches his tiny body with her hand.
Serkan turns away from her, straightens his posture, shifts his collar and looks around the room. The women immediately drop their faces to the floor. He paces round in a circle, hesitating before each one, watching their bodies shiver as he passes as though he were a gust of bitter wind. He looks down at a young woman huddled in the corner, then at the sleeping girl on the bed, passes an old lady and stops for a brief moment at a woman on a chair, nearest the candle, with hair like fire. He looks down and glassy eyes glance up at him. He waits, sighs, then turns to the lady next to her, dark-haired, dark-skinned, staring manically at the floor. Serkan shifts his feet, moves closer, pauses for a beat, then steps away. He stands in the centre of the room, stares at the ceiling, then, spinning round decisively, heads towards the door.
Just then he notices a young girl at the doorway, dressed in red. She stands still, wearing an apron and holding a little glass cup in her hand. Has she been there all this time? He looks at her, drenched in moonlight with the little cup in her hand and a look of expectation on her face. Serkan remembers his mother, so many years ago, walking out onto the balcony with that small glass of ouzo in her hand. His father would drink it slowly and watch his sheep long after Serkan had gone to bed. His mother never touched the stuff; it was frowned upon for women to drink ouzo. It was a man’s
drink; full of muscle and fire.
The little girl stands still with her apron and the cup in her hand. A cup for spirits. White spirits. Serkan looks at the liquid inside. Clear. He walks towards her, leans down, places his rifle on the floor and takes the cup from her hand. She does not protest and lowers her arm. He smells the liquid. Ouzo. He smells again. Definitely ouzo. Crouching there, at her level, he looks straight into the little girl’s eyes. ‘Who’s the ouzo for?’ he says in Greek, his voice spiked with a sense of urgency. The smell of charred fields and lemon blossoms drifts over them in a balmy breeze. The little girl stares back at him blankly. ‘Who’s this ouzo for, little girl?’ he repeats. This time, his voice sharper, prickly, uneasy. The girl looks at him with wide, unblinking eyes.
‘It’s an offering for our guest,’ a gruff voice suddenly bursts out from behind him. He spins around and sees the old woman standing up, a look of vast fear in her eyes. ‘The ouzo is for you—’
‘Shut up!’ he commands, cutting into her words. He looks around the room, scrutinising the women’s faces in the darkness and sniffs the air through his nostrils like a hunting hound. He looks back at the girl suspiciously, then at the ouzo in the cup. He places it on the floor, and then takes the little girl’s hands into his. The heat presses upon him and the sweat builds on his forehead. A searing pain surges through his spine. The room is silent; only breathing can be heard within. He tightens his grip round the girl’s fingers, his palms damp, his collar tight, he moves his face closer to the girl’s and squeezes his voice into a rasping, brittle whisper. ‘My sweet’ – his voice bitter like lemons – ‘now, don’t be afraid. Tell me who the ouzo is for.’ He tenses as the little girl opens her mouth, but a frantic shuffling noise interrupts their thoughts and something from behind him makes the girl freeze and look over his shoulder.
Serkan instinctively reaches for his rifle. Nothing. He looks at the floor and rummages with his hand in the darkness. He spins around. Looming over him, a dark figure. He looks up and realises that standing there, ferociously, with the base of the rifle held high above his head, is the old lady. In black clothes and a black headscarf in the black night she stands above him like the Angel of Death. The moon shines in her eyes; scrunched-up like fists, only the black of her pupils are visible. Serkan raises his arm in defence, but the old lady brings the rifle down upon him with so much force that the pain and the darkness consume him.
On the living-room floor of the little house is a man. He lies still by Maroulla’s feet, red flowers all around him. The petals blossom from his head and make a dewy pool, which trickles, like a river, to join her red shoes. She remembers her mother. The girl looks up at the horror-stricken faces of the women gathered around. Maria holds the rifle in her hand; her body is stiff and frozen, with the rifle still firm in her strong grip. She looks down at the man strangely. There is a moment when all the woman are frozen in this stance, as if time has been paused for a second, if only to give clarity or scope to this moment that will one day flicker in their minds, so that it can be embossed on their memories for ever, along with all the other images of horror. For now, the only movement is the expanding pool of blood. The only sound: the crickets.
Maroulla is the first to move. She bends down and puts her hand into the blood, then looks at it oddly. The women stare. The next to move is the dog, who, tail down, circles the body and the women. Sophia groans from the bed, and the dog returns to her side. Costandina screams. ‘Shut up!’ Litsa quickly slaps her face. ‘We will be caught because of you!’ she whispers fearfully.
Litsa then runs forward and takes the man’s wrist. She checks his pulse and nods her head. A few women sigh, but there is a sudden and noticeable change in Maria. She softens her stance so that the rifle hangs by her side. Sighing deeply, she looks down at the man, fixes her eyes onto his smooth face and the softness of the skin around his eyes, and the creases around his mouth that could have once been laughter lines, and says, ‘Poor, distorted warrior. What the world has made of us.’ The women watch her, unmoving. She leans over and, gently, with the tips of her fingers, closes his open eyes. She drops the rifle to the floor and allows herself, with an exhaling breath, to release: her knees bending, her shoulders hunching and, instantly, as though someone has just pushed forwards the hands of time, she melts and withers into old age. Her eyelids sink into the bags beneath her eyes, her jaw loosens and her skin softens, allowing her body to be liberated into its descent. The candlelight wavers over her face, and the women, all at once, see an old lady with deep lines and liver spots and disappearing eyes, standing by a rifle that now seems larger than she is. The old lady allows the rifle to be taken from her hand and stares fixedly at the man she has killed.
‘Quick!’ Litsa says and runs to call the man hiding in the basement.
Adem enters the living room, looks at the commanding officer dead on the floor and, bewildered, looks up at the women and then at Koki. Nobody says a word. He crouches down beside the body, checks Serkan’s neck for a pulse, then looks back at the women hovering above him. Adem smiles, a smile that only the little girl can see. Then he shakes his head. ‘They put the wolf to guard the sheep,’ he says to himself and moves quickly, searching the officer’s pockets. He retrieves a key from the top pocket, holds it tightly in his fist, kisses his fist sharply, smiles again and looks up at Koki, who hovers above him, hair aflame. He then turns and looks at the young girl, who stares at him expectantly.
‘Let’s go!’ he says finally. ‘Let’s go. This is our only chance.’ Suddenly his eyes are wide and full of fear. His fist, still tight around the key, trembles slightly. At first the women do not move; they hover uncertainly. ‘Let’s go!’ he says louder, standing up this time. ‘They’ll be expecting him back soon. Let’s go!’ His voice trembles, and all the women, except the old lady, suddenly spin into action, whizzing around the room in a hurry. Adem touches Koki’s fingers, looks into her eyes, nods reassuringly and runs out to start the jeep.
Litsa tries to wake Sophia, and the other women snatch a few blankets and some fruit hastily from the trees in the garden and run outside to the jeep. Koki finds five empty bottles from the cupboard and fills them with drinking water. Litsa helps her take them to the jeep. Meanwhile, the old lady walks slowly towards the flickering candle, lifts her petticoat slightly and lowers herself steadily into the chair. She rests her arms on her lap and leans her head back. She closes her eyes and listens to the shuffling of feet, the manic whispering and the distant falling bombs. And somehow, for now, she manages to mute the foreign sounds and listen only to that familiar rattling of the wind in the leaves and the scuttling of the cockroaches. Somehow, she succeeds in dispelling the smell of fire and inhales only the smell of the red soil and the ferns and the lemons. If she focuses well she can even smell the sweet jasmine flowers and beneath that, the whiff of the cesspits. Into her mind flash pictures of long ago: of her childhood, of her brave brother, of her wedding day, of her poor husband. She crosses herself. ‘My beloved Vasos,’ she says aloud, but does not open her eyes. She does not want to lose the flickering of faces moving across her mind, they will merely dissolve like sugar in water, just as they always do. Her hands shake involuntarily on her lap, and though her knuckles and knees throb with that incessant agony of arthritic pain, her expression remains placid. She thinks for some reason of the olive grove that her husband had planted before he died and how the trees had grown and joined arms, creating a cool, grey roof. She remembers the fresh mint in her garden, drying in the sun. She remembers the nettle field beyond her balcony and the silhouette of Bella-pais against the sun. She remembers the brown armchair in her living room and the colour of her crockery and the bric-a-brac shop on the edge of the port that sold everything from sewing needles to driving licences. She remembers, suddenly, that she has left beans boiling on the stove and bread cooking in the oven. A breeze blows. ‘I will never forget,’ she whispers, but her voice drifts away unheard.
Adem ushers the women in
to the back of the jeep, his eyes darting around, searching the night, listening for the sound of an approaching engine or footsteps or a plane overhead. He helps the women jump onto the step of the jeep and then runs back into the house. Litsa has managed to get Sophia standing, but the girl is lumbering heavily in her arms, causing Litsa to struggle and stumble backwards. Adem runs towards them, lifts Sophia into his arms and takes her to the jeep, resting her gently on the floor. Sophia forces her eyes open, tilts her head up and attempts to look around. She is about to speak when suddenly she sees the dog running towards her. She cracks a smile and it jumps in with her, sitting by her side. She lowers her head again and closes her eyes.
Adem looks quickly at the women’s faces, glances urgently at Koki and orders them to cover themselves with the blankets.
‘Wait,’ announces Koki, looking around her and fumbling desperately out of the jeep. ‘Maria,’ she says, and her voice trails behind her as she rushes towards the house.
Inside, she sees Maria sitting on the chair nearest the candle. She appears at first to be asleep. ‘Maria!’ Koki whispers from the doorway, but there is no reply. ‘Maria!’ she whispers again, moving towards the old lady. ‘Maria,’ she says again, her voice urgent, puffing into the silence like a foghorn. She leans over the old lady and touches her arm. ‘Maria,’ she says, her voice cracking, on the brink of shattering completely.
Old Maria opens her eyes and tilts her head up to look at the pleading eyes of the young woman before her. ‘Let me be, my child,’ she says, but Koki becomes more agitated; she tugs the old lady’s arm, then grabs her shoulder, trying desperately to propel her into action. It is no good. The old lady will not budge.
A Watermelon, a Fish and a Bible Page 22