Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island

by Lawrence Durrell

  “But this house doesn’t,” I said.

  “Some do sooner than others.”

  I pointed to the mason’s signature upon the graven iron plaque which adorned the main door. It bore the conventional Orthodox cross embossed on it with the letters IE XR N (Jesus Christ Conquers) and the date 1897. Underneath, on the lower half of the plate, in the space reserved to record subsequent building or alteration was written only one date (9th September 1940), when presumably some restoration work had been undertaken. “Yes, I know, my dear,” said Sabri patiently. “But if you buy this house you will have to rebuild the balcony. You are my friend, and so I shall insist for your own good.”

  We debated this in low tones on the way down the hill. Though the rain had slackened the village street was empty save for the little corner shop, a grocery store, where a thickset young man sat alone, amid sacks of potatoes and dry packets of spaghetti, playing patience on a table. He shouted good afternoon.

  In the main square Jamal sat uneasily under the Tree of Idleness beneath an open umbrella, drinking coffee. I was about to engage the owner of the house in discussion as to the sort of price he had in mind for such a fine old relic when Sabri motioned me to silence. The coffeehouse was gradually filling up with people and faces were turning curiously towards us. “You will need time to think,” he said. “And I have told him you don’t want to buy it at all, at any price. This will make the necessary despondence, my dear.”

  “But I’d like to have an idea of the price.”

  “My dear, he has no idea himself. Perhaps five hundred pounds, perhaps twenty pounds, perhaps ten shillings. He is completely vacant of ideas. In the bargaining everything will get cleared. But we must take time. In Cyprus time is everything.”

  I rode regretfully down the green winding ways to Kyrenia thinking deeply about the house which seemed more desirable in retrospect than it had in actual fact. Meanwhile Sabri talked to me in knowledgeable fashion about the drawbacks to buying out there. “You simply have not considered such problems,” he said, “as water, for example. Have you?”

  I had not, and I felt deeply ashamed of the fact. “Give me two days,” said Sabri, “and I will find out about the land and water-rights of the property. Then we will ask the man and his wife for the big price-conversation at my office. By God, you will see how tricky we are in Cyprus. And if you buy the house I will send you to a friend of mine to do the rebuilding. He is a rogue, of course, but just the man. I only ask, give me time.”

  That night when I told Panos that I had seen what might prove to be a suitable house for me at Bellapaix he was delighted, for he had lived there for several years, teaching at the local school. “They are the laziest people in the world,” he said, “and the best-natured in Cyprus. And you have honey, and also in the valley behind the house nightingales, my friend.”

  He did not mention silk, almonds and apricots: oranges, pomegranates, quince.… Perhaps he did not wish to influence me too deeply.

  Sabri meanwhile retired into silence and contemplation for nearly a week after this; I imagined him sharpening himself for the coming contest of wills by long silent fasts—broken perhaps by a glass of sherbet—or perhaps even prayer for long stretches. The skies turned blue and hard again, and the orange trees in the Bishopric put out their gleaming suns. The season was lengthening once more into summer, one felt; was stretching itself, the days beginning to unfold more slowly, the twilights to linger. Once more the little harbor filled up with its crowds of chaffering fishermen darning their nets, and of yachtsmen dawdling over caulked seams and a final coat of paint.

  Then at last the summons came; I was to present myself at Sabri’s office the next morning at eight. Panos brought me the message, smiling at my obvious anxiety, and telling me that Sabri was rather despondent because it now appeared that the house was owned not by the cobbler but by his wife. It had been her dowry, and she herself was going to conduct the sale. “With women,” said my friend, “it is always a Calvary to argue. A Golgotha.” Nevertheless Sabri had decided to go forward with the business. The intervening space of time had been valuable, however, because he had come into possession of a piece of vital information about the water supply. Water is so scarce in Cyprus that it is sold in parcels. You buy an hour here and an hour there from the owner of a spring—needless to say no quantity measure exists. The trouble lies here: that water-rights form part of property-titles of citizens and are divided up on the death of the owner among his dependants. This is true also of land and indeed of trees. Families being what they are, it is common for a single spring to be owned by upwards of thirty people, or a single tree to be shared out among a dozen members of a family. The whole problem, then, is one of obtaining common consent—usually one has to pay for the signatures of thirty people in order to achieve any agreement which is binding. Otherwise one dissident nephew and niece can veto the whole transaction. In the case of some trees, for example, one man may own the produce of the tree, another the ground on which it stands, a third the actual timber. As may be imagined the most elementary litigation assumes gigantic proportions—which explains why there are so many lawyers in Cyprus.

  Now Sabri had got wind of the fact that the Government was planning to install the piped water supply to the village which had been promised for so long; moreover that the plans were already being drawn up. The architect of the Public Works happened to be a friend of his so he casually dropped into his office and asked to see where the various water-points were to be placed. It was a stroke of genius, for he saw with delight that there was to be a public water-point outside the very front door of the old house. This more than offset the gloomy intelligence that the only water the cobbler owned was about an hour a month from the main spring—perhaps sixty gallons: whereas the average water consumption of an ordinary family is about forty gallons a day. This was a trump card, for the cobbler’s water belonged in equal part to the rest of his wife’s family—all eighteen of them, including the idiot boy Pipi whose signature was always difficult to obtain on a legal document.…

  I found my friend, freshly shaven and spruce, seated in the gloom of his office, surrounded by prams, and absolutely motionless. Before him on the blotter lay the great key of the house, which he poked from time to time in a reproachful way. He put his finger to his lips with a conspiratorial air and motioned me to a chair. “They are all here, my dear,” he hissed, “getting ready.” He pointed to the café across the road where the cobbler had gathered his family. They looked more like seconds. They sat on a semicircle of chairs, sipping coffee and arguing in low voices; a number of beards waggled, a number of heads nodded. They looked like a rugger scrum in an American film receiving last-minute instructions from their captain. Soon they would fall upon us like a ton of bricks and gouge us. I began to feel rather alarmed. “Now, whatever happens,” said Sabri in a low voice, tremulous with emotion, “do not surprise. You must never surprise. And you don’t want the house at all, see?”

  I repeated the words like a catechism. “I don’t want the house. I absolutely don’t want the house.” Yet in my mind’s eye I could see those great doors (“God,” Sabri had said, “this is fine wood. From Anatolia. In the old days they floated the great timbers over the water behind boats. This is Anatolian timber—it will last forever”). Yes, I could see those doors under a glossy coat of blue paint.… “I don’t want the house,” I repeated under my breath, feverishly trying to put myself into the appropriate frame of mind.

  “Tell them we are ready,” said Sabri to the shadows and a bare footed youth flitted across the road to where our adversaries had gathered. They hummed like bees, and the cobbler’s wife detached herself from the circle—or tried to, for many a hand clutched at her frock, detaining her for a last-minute consideration which was hissed at her secretively by the family elders. At last she wrenched herself free and walked boldly across the road, entering Sabri’s shrine with a loud “Good morning” spoken very confidently.

  She was a
formidable old faggot, with a handsome self-indulgent face, and a big erratic body. She wore the white headdress and dark skirt of the village woman, and her breasts were gathered into the traditional baggy bodice with a drawstring at the waist, which made it look like a loosely furled sail. She stood before us looking very composed as she gave us good morning. Sabri cleared his throat, and picking up the great key very delicately between finger and thumb—as if it were of the utmost fragility—put it down again on the edge of the desk nearest her with the air of a conjurer making his opening dispositions. “We are speaking about your house,” he said softly, in a voice ever so faintly curdled with menace. “Do you know that all the wood is …” he suddenly shouted the last word with such force that I nearly fell off my chair, “rotten!” And picking up the key he banged it down to emphasize the point.

  The woman threw up her head with contempt and taking up the key also banged it down in her turn exclaiming: “It is not.”

  “It is.” Sabri banged the key.

  “It is not.” She banged it back.

  “It is.” A bang.

  “It is not.” A counter-bang.

  All this was not on a very high intellectual level, and made me rather ill at ease. I also feared that the key itself would be banged out of shape so that finally none of us would be able to get into the house. But these were the opening chords, so to speak, the preliminary statement of theme.

  The woman now took the key and held it up as if she were swearing by it. “The house is a good house,” she cried. Then she put it back on the desk. Sabri took it up thoughtfully, blew into the end of it as if it were a six-shooter, aimed it and peered along it as if along a barrel. Then he put it down and fell into an abstraction. “And suppose we wanted the house,” he said, “which we don’t, what would you ask for it?”

  “Eight hundred pounds.”

  Sabri gave a long and stagy laugh, wiping away imaginary tears and repeating “Eight hundred pounds” as if it were the best joke in the world. He laughed at me and I laughed at him, a dreadful false laugh. He slapped his knee. I rolled about in my chair as if on the verge of acute gastritis. We laughed until we were exhausted. Then we grew serious again. Sabri was still fresh as a daisy, I could see that. He had put himself into the patient contemplative state of mind of a chess player.

  “Take the key and go,” he snapped suddenly, and handing it to her, swirled round in his swivel chair to present her with his back; then as suddenly he completed the circuit and swiveled round again. “What!” he said with surprise. “You haven’t gone.” In truth there had hardly been time for the woman to go. But she was somewhat slow-witted, though obstinate as a mule: that was clear. “Right,” she now said in a ringing tone, and picking up the key put it into her bosom and turned about. She walked off stage in a somewhat lingering fashion. “Take no notice,” whispered Sabri and busied himself with his papers.

  The woman stopped irresolutely outside the shop, and was here joined by her husband who began to talk to her in a low cringing voice, pleading with her. He took her by the sleeve and led her unwillingly back into the shop where we sat pointedly reading letters. “Ah! It’s you,” said Sabri with well-simulated surprise. “She wishes to discuss some more,” explained the cobbler in a weak conciliatory voice. Sabri sighed.

  “What is there to speak of? She takes me for a fool.” Then he suddenly turned to her and bellowed, “Two hundred pounds and not a piastre more.”

  It was her turn to have a paroxysm of false laughter, but this was rather spoiled by her husband who started plucking at her sleeve as if he were persuading her to be sensible. Sabri was not slow to notice this. “You tell her,” he said to the man. “You are a man and these things are clear to you. She is only a woman and does not see the truth. Tell her what it is worth.”

  The cobbler, who quite clearly lacked spirit, turned once more to his wife and was about to say something to her, but in a sudden swoop she produced the key and raised it above her head as if she intended to bring it down on his hairless dome. He backed away rapidly. “Fool,” she growled. “Can’t you see they are making a fool of you? Let me handle this.” She made another pass at him with the key and he tiptoed off to join the rest of her relations in the coffee-shop opposite, completely crushed. She now turned to me and extended a wheedling hand, saying in Greek, “Ah come along there, you an Englishman, striking a hard bargain with a woman.…” But I had given no indication of speaking Greek so that it was easy to pretend not to understand her. She turned back to Sabri, staring balefully, and banging the key down once more shouted “Six hundred,” while Sabri in the same breath bellowed “Two hundred.” The noise was deafening.

  They panted and glared at each other for a long moment of silence like boxers in a clinch waiting for the referee to part them. It was the perfect moment for Sabri to get in a quick one below the belt. “Anyway, your house is mortgaged,” he hissed, and she reeled under the punch. “Sixty pounds and three piastres,” he added, screwing the glove a little to try to draw blood. She held her groin as if in very truth he had landed her a blow in it. Sabri followed up swiftly: “I offer you two hundred pounds plus the mortgage.”

  She let out a yell. “No. Never,” and banged the key. “Yes, I say,” bellowed Sabri giving a counter-bang. She grabbed the key (by now it had become, as it were, the very symbol of our contention. The house was forgotten. We were trying to buy this old rusty key which looked like something fitter for Saint Peter’s keyring than my own). She grabbed the key, I say, and put it to her breast like a child as she said: “Never in this life.” She rocked it back and forth, suckled it, and put it down again.

  Sabri now became masterful and put it in his pocket. At this she let out a yell and advanced on him shouting: “You give me back my key and I shall leave you with the curses of all the saints upon you.” Sabri stood up like a showman and held the key high above his head, out of her reach, repeating inexorably: “Two hundred. Two hundred. Two hundred.” She snapped and strained like a hooked fish, exclaiming all the time: “Saint Catherine defend me. No. No.” Then quite suddenly they both stopped, he replaced the key on the desk and sat down, while she subsided like a pan of boiling milk when it is lifted off the fire. “I shall consult,” she said briefly in another voice and leaving the key where it was she took herself off across the road to where her seconds waited with towels and sponges. The first round was a draw, though Sabri had made one or two good points.

  “What happens now?” I said, and he chuckled. “Just time for a coffee. I think, you know, my dear,” he added, “that we will have to pay another hundred. I feel it.” He was like a countryman who can tell what the weather will be like from small signs invisible to the ordinary townsman. It was an enthralling spectacle, this long-drawn-out pantomime, and I was now prepared for the negotiations to go on for a week. “They don’t know about the water,” said Sabri. “They will let us have the house cheap and then try and sting us for the water-rights. We must pretend to forget about the water and buy the house cheaper. Do you see?” I saw the full splendor of his plan as it unfolded before us. “But,” he said, “everything must be done today, now, for if she goes back to the village and makes the gossips nothing will be consummated.” It seemed to me that she was already making the gossips in the café opposite, for a furious altercation had broken out. She was accusing her husband of something and he was replying waspishly and waving his arms.

  After a while Sabri whispered: “Here she comes again,” and here she came, rolling along with sails spread and full of the cargo of her misfortunes. She had changed her course. She now gave us a long list of her family troubles, hoping to soften us up; but by now I felt as if my teeth had been sharpened into points. It was clear that she was weakening. It was a matter of time before we could start winding her in. It was, in fact, the psychological moment to let out the line, and this Sabri Tahir now did by offering her another hundred (“a whole hundred,” he repeated juicily in a honeyed voice) if she would clinch the dea
l there and then. “Your husband is a fool,” he added, “and your family ignorant. You will never find a buyer if you do not take this gentleman. Look at him. Already he is weakening. He will go elsewhere. Just look at his face.” I tried to compose my face in a suitable manner to play my full part in the pantomime. She stared at me in the manner of a hungry peasant assessing a turnip and suddenly sat herself down for the first time, bursting as she did so into heartrending sobs. Sabri was delighted and gave me a wink.

  She drew her wimple round her face and went into convulsions, repeating audibly: “O Jesus, what are they doing to me? Destruction has overtaken my house and my line. My issue has been murdered, my good name dragged in the dust.” Sabri was in a high good humor by this time. He leaned forward and began to talk to her in the voice of Mephistopheles himself, filling the interstices between her sentences with his insinuations. I could hear him droning on “Mortgage … two hundred … husband a fool… never get such an opportunity.” Meanwhile she rocked and moaned like an Arab, thoroughly enjoying herself. From time to time she cast a furtive glance at our faces to see how we were taking it; she could not have drawn much consolation from Sabri’s for he was full of a triumphant concentration now; in the looming shadows he reminded me of some great killer shark—the flash of a white belly as it turned over on its back to take her. “We have not spoken of the water as yet,” he said, and among her diminishing sobs she was still able to gasp out, “That will be another hundred.”

  “We are speaking only of the house,” insisted Sabri, and at this a look of cunning came over her face. “Afterwards we will speak of the water.” The tone in which he said this indicated subtly that he had now moved over on to her side. The foreigner, who spoke no Greek, could not possibly understand that without water-rights the house itself was useless. She shot a glance at me and then looked back at him, the look of cunning being replaced by a look almost of triumph. Had Sabri, in fact, changed sides? Was he perhaps also planning to make a killing, and once the house was bought.… She smiled now and stopped sobbing.