Secrets Under the Sun

by Nadia Marks

  If once in a while Olga, matriarch that she was, chose to impose her authority around the house, Katerina could be heard to whisper under her breath, ‘No wonder a man never lasted in this house – her “lordship” saw to that.’ But the irritation that flared up at times between the women rarely lasted long; the respect and love they all shared always won out over the disputes, and besides, Katerina tended to agree with Olga. Except for Padre Bernardino and her beloved Adonis, most males did seem unworthy of admiration. The padre, who was a regular visitor to the home and a source of comfort and support especially when the children were young, was loved by all in the Linser household.

  ‘I imagine there are some decent and reliable men out there,’ Olga would lament, ‘but apart from my father and grandfather I never came across any.’

  The day Franz Linser died was the saddest day of Olga’s life.

  After Olga had thrown Ivan out, Franz found himself once again the head of the household. Although still involved in the family business he had hoped the time had come for Olga to take over. He had never considered himself as a patriarch and always encouraged his daughter to be as active in business as himself, or any man.

  ‘One day I’ll be gone,’ he would tell her, ‘and you, flower of my life, will be running everything.’

  ‘You are still young, Papa,’ Olga insisted, refusing to contemplate the possibility that her father might ever leave them. ‘We still have years ahead of working together.’

  ‘I am getting old, Olga mou, there is no denying it.’

  ‘You are as fit as you always were,’ she told him. ‘Besides, the girls are still young, Papa, they need me around – and they also need you, so you’d better make sure you stay with us until they are grown up at least.’

  Olga was the first to notice that Franz’s coughing had got worse. A lifelong enthusiastic smoker he coughed most of his life, so everyone was used to his raspy voice and throaty laughter, which more often than not ended in a coughing fit. But she was worried, insisting he saw the doctor. ‘I’ve had this cough all my life,’ he told her. ‘It’s got worse these days because of the change in the weather. It will pass.’ But he knew that this was different. The first time he spat blood he ignored it. It’s nothing, it’s the strain of coughing too hard, he told himself. When the blood continued he quietly took himself off to their family doctor who confirmed the severity of his condition. Still he chose to say nothing to his wife and daughter but instead threw himself into coaching Olga in the ways of their business.

  ‘You are the new generation, Olga, you will bring new blood, new ideas to Linser Textiles. I am getting tired and old, it is your turn now and then you can pass it down to your own girls.’

  Franz managed to hang on till he felt Olga was ready to take on the business, before he finally let go. Olga was inconsolable. She blamed herself. She knew how stubborn he was – she should have insisted he see the doctor earlier. His loss hit her hard, but she was her father’s daughter and she threw herself into work the way he would have wanted her to.

  7

  Larnaka, 1954

  By the time they were in their teens, like most other young girls, Anita and Sonia dreamed of little else but their wedding day, much to their mother’s disappointment. Olga was trying to bring up her daughters to be cultured, multi-lingual and open-minded with European values as she had been raised, so the girls’ conventional view towards marriage was something of a blow.

  ‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ she cautioned them. ‘Live a little first, have some fun, my girls! I was in a big rush and look how that turned out …’

  ‘You didn’t do too badly,’ they chimed. ‘You got the two of us out of it, and you didn’t stop having fun either!’ Olga never hid her love affairs; on the contrary she wanted her daughters to know that women had as much right as any man to live the way they chose.

  Her mother, on the other hand, held the opposite view. She prayed for her daughter’s sins, as she referred to Olga’s liaisons, and begged the Holy Mother to guide and protect her granddaughters. Regular visits to the Catholic church and conversations with Padre Bernardino also provided her with support.

  ‘Times are changing,’ the priest would advise Ernestina. For a Catholic priest the padre seemed to know a lot about life and its perils. He divulged little about himself other than that he came from Spain and had left his politically turbulent homeland to run the Catholic Church of Our Lady of the Graces in Larnaka.

  ‘Gone are the days when girls were kept under lock and key,’ he’d continue, ‘but so long as they still have their faith they will be fine.’

  ‘If it was down to me I would keep them under lock and key,’ Ernestina would reply, ‘but then again if I can’t control my own daughter what chance do I have with my granddaughters?’

  Olga had grown up in a Larnaka where liberal values and a cosmopolitan atmosphere prevailed, influenced by the port’s international trade and its various consulates. With her father’s encouragement and approval Olga had grown up to think for herself and act accordingly. Now, she was trying to instil the same values in her daughters. But by the time the girls were coming of age the social consensus had shifted towards conformism and convention.

  Both Anita and Sonia longed to be friends with their peers and fit in with them, but as hard as they tried, their mixed ancestry showed and they were thought ‘different’. This often worked in their favour, especially with boys who viewed them as foreign and exotic. Sonia especially capitalized on her otherness, Anita less so. Sonia liked to be different; she was more amenable to her mother’s advice.

  ‘I want to get married,’ she told Olga when she questioned their desire for matrimony, ‘but first I want to have fun.’

  ‘That’s my girl!’ Olga approved.

  ‘You behave as if we live in Paris or Berlin,’ Ernestina would scold Olga when she was tutoring the girls on the ways of independence. ‘What example are you giving to your girls and what do you think people say about us?’

  ‘I am giving my daughters the only example that counts, Mother – that they are as good and free as any man!’

  Anita was first to fall in love. She was a shy young woman, nervous and unsure of herself, forever in the shadow of her younger sister, who was not only beautiful but confident and headstrong like her mother.

  Mario was eighteen and in his last year at the Larnaka Gymnasium. She was a year older and had already graduated from the American Academy where she and Sonia had been educated. She was now studying music with dreams of becoming a concert pianist.

  He fell in love with her as she passed the small house where he lived with his family, on her way to a piano lesson with her music teacher in the next street.

  Most boys were aware of the Linser girls; he never imagined she would ever be interested in him. She was different from any girl he knew; she looked like a fragile exotic bird. She was otherworldly, her complexion as ethereal and pale as the moon, accentuated further by her dark hair. It took him almost a year to summon up the courage to approach her.

  One spring afternoon just after Easter, when the temperature had started to rise and the red poppies and yellow daisies were claiming every field and every garden on the island, Mario realized he was in love.

  He saw her again walking past his house with her music books under her arm as always. She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress, a Linser print her mother had designed especially for her; the pattern of red poppies on a background of pale blue was as cheerful as spring itself, with a red sash that showed off her slender waist. Her hair was tied back with a white ribbon. He knew then that she was the girl for him and that next time she passed he had to speak to her.

  Anita was used to Sonia having all the attention and adulation from boys and Mario’s approach a few days later took her by surprise.

  He had been sitting on the veranda for more than an hour waiting for her to come round the corner, so the minute he saw her he leapt into action.

  ‘Kalispe
ra!’ Good evening, he said, suddenly almost falling onto the street in front of her.

  Instead of replying, Anita started back in shock, let out a scream and dropped her books.

  ‘Kalispera,’ she eventually replied, flustered as she bent down to pick up her books at the same time as Mario, with the result that they bumped their heads together.

  ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry,’ he mumbled, feeling like an awkward fool while Anita blushed down to her bare arms.

  It didn’t take long for romance to blossom, although Mario worried that she would think him unworthy of her.

  ‘My parents are poor people and your family is the aristocracy here,’ he told her when they first started courting.

  ‘I don’t care who your family is or how much money they have,’ she replied. ‘Only people count, Mario, and you are a very good person!’

  Olga and Katerina were fond of young Mario too, and more than pleased to see the change in Anita; she had been a withdrawn child and a shy adolescent and it was good to see her happy at last. Ernestina, on the other hand, spent even more time in church, praying for her family’s souls.

  ‘I knew that this would happen if you didn’t take control,’ she complained to Olga. ‘Like mother like daughter! Where will this end? I don’t see a ring on the girl’s finger either! Ah! Madonna!’ she cried out, lifting her eyes to the heavens and making the sign of the cross. ‘The younger one will be doing the same soon and what will we do then?’

  Sonia at seventeen already had plenty of boys interested in her. But unlike Anita, who was truly in love, nobody had totally stolen her heart yet, so for peace of mind she preferred to keep her affairs a secret from her grandmother and play all her admirers one against the other. She was a highly popular girl, and when not at school she indulged in secret rendezvous. She knew that Olga wouldn’t mind too much, but she also knew better than to upset her God-fearing grandmother.

  ‘Sometimes I can’t believe Nonna is Mama’s mother,’ she complained to Anita.

  ‘Mama takes after grandfather, you take after Mama, and I take after Nonna,’ Anita laughed. ‘You don’t care what anyone thinks, and I do – well I do when it comes to boys at least!’

  ‘You’re only young once,’ Sonia quoted her mother, ‘and I intend to have fun before I settle down.’

  ‘You’ll get your fingers burned and have your heart broken if you carry on like this,’ Anita warned, sounding like her grandmother. But Sonia had a mind of her own. However, there was one boy Sonia liked more than most; his name was Nicos. But still, she had no intention of committing herself yet.

  Olga was both happy to see her eldest daughter in love and relieved that the couple were in no rush to be married. The boy had brought a sparkle to her girl’s eyes and colour to her cheeks, yet Olga was deeply concerned, with good reason.

  The political climate in Cyprus, as elsewhere in the postwar years, had become increasingly turbulent and there were clear warning signs of an imminent uprising against the British colonial rule. Olga was a well-informed woman, and news of such uprisings in Africa, Malaysia, and all over the British Empire were beginning to alarm her. Mario’s clandestine involvement and activities with the underground network of freedom fighters that was spreading through the island was the source of Olga’s anxieties. Involvement with the struggle could spell trouble for her family and business – her relationship with the British administration had always been congenial, and she had to keep it that way. She didn’t always agree with their colonial tactics but kept her opinions private and her profile low. She had to protect her interests, and as a woman and the head of the family she knew her position was delicate.

  ‘These are dangerous times,’ she warned her daughter one day when they were having a family discussion about the political situation. ‘Mario could get himself arrested or worse.’

  ‘You don’t understand, Mother,’ Anita replied with youthful fervour. ‘Someone has to do something! We must struggle with all our powers for the liberation of our country from the English yoke!’ she zealously recited parrot-fashion the movement’s mantra, which she had learned from Mario and his family. Patriotic blood, and in Anita’s case also romantic love, was running through most young people’s veins and their passion was infectious.

  ‘It’s true!’ Katerina said, shaking her head. ‘Show me a young man or woman who is not part of the movement! I agree with Anita that we have to do something for our country, but I worry too …’ She let out a long sigh. ‘I just wish we could do it peacefully.’

  The main participants of the movement, which called itself EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Struggle), were young Greek men, and students of both sexes, most of them in their last years of high school. The preparation for the revolution, or ‘the struggle for freedom’ and enosis union with the Greek motherland, as they liked to call it, involved mainly the distribution of anti-British leaflets and other literature, and slogans graffitied on walls wherever possible. The latter task fell mainly to young boys and girls, who stole out secretly at midnight or dawn to daub their messages to incite the people. The distribution of arms and ammunition was carried out by older partisans.

  Archbishop Makarios, the much-loved and respected leader of the Orthodox Church, was a supporter of the struggle for independence, and his exile by the British, who deemed him an agent provocateur, inflamed the people’s rebellious mood further. Most people were swept along one way or another by the growing impetus of the movement and supported it, if not actively, then certainly in spirit. Olga’s worry was that Mario would influence Anita and his links with the patriotic movement would bring risk to the rest of the family. At the same time, she had her own views about the imminent struggle. Anxious though she was about the implications of such a shake-up, and reluctant to voice them to anyone, she was convinced that the time had come to put an end to the imperial rule.

  ‘It’s time for change,’ she told her mother in the privacy of their home, ‘but I’m not so sure that union with Greece is the answer. Independence should mean independence!’

  The young people branded as terrorists by the British proudly called themselves freedom fighters. Most families like Mario’s included someone who was involved with the struggle and secretly condoned or supported it. A brilliant student with good writing skills, Mario was assigned the job of helping to write and distribute propaganda literature.

  ‘We have to throw out these colonial oppressors and be reunited with our motherland Greece,’ he told Anita passionately, holding tightly onto her hand. ‘This is the twentieth century and there is no room for imperialism any longer! We must attract the attention of the world!’

  Anita wholeheartedly agreed, despite her mother’s concerns. ‘Cyprus would do well to stay independent,’ Olga would insist whenever there was a discussion in the home, but it seemed that most people disagreed with her.

  ‘We will have a delivery of pamphlets in a few days,’ Mario told Anita one afternoon as they walked along the promenade. ‘We will need a safe place to store them until distribution. Do you think your mother would agree to hide them for us?’

  ‘I’ll ask,’ Anita replied, knowing that the person she would ask would be Katerina. Though Olga sympathized with the struggle, she was also relieved to be outside the British radar of suspicion. This was largely due to the family’s elite status, foreign name and Olga’s excellent command of the English language. She was a businesswoman and the head of her household and her responsibilities weighed heavy on her shoulders, so as much as Olga disapproved of the British colonial rule, she went along with the neutrality game.

  ‘They think they are masters of the universe,’ she might tell her mother once in a while behind closed doors. ‘They finally gave up India, and now it’s time for the rest of their colonies.’ But Olga preferred to keep her opinions within the confines of her home. She didn’t want trouble or to attract attention.

  The banging on the door was harsh, loud and insistent. A dog nearby started barking, settin
g off others in the distance. The noise echoed in the still of the night, rudely awakening everyone.

  ‘Open up!’ came the forceful order in English, along with more hammering at the door.

  ‘SEARCH! Open up!’

  Katerina was the first to grab her dressing gown and she hurried to unbolt the front door, followed by Olga.

  ‘Open up NOW!’ the voice persisted. Olga peered out into the night through the half-open door at the soldier standing on the front step. He pushed past her followed by four others.

  ‘Search!’ he said again to the terrified women who had all gathered in the hall in their nightclothes.

  ‘What seems to be the problem, officer?’ Olga asked in her best English.

  ‘Search!’ the command came again loud and clear from the soldier in charge, while the others stood in the hall gripping their rifles.

  ‘On what grounds?’ Olga demanded, standing tall and proudly throwing her head back in defiance.

  ‘We have information that you are harbouring a terrorist,’ he said and gave the order to start the search.

  Anita felt her knees give way as she clung tighter to her sister.

  ‘You will find no such person here!’ Olga snapped at the soldiers as they spread around the house. Katerina darted a look at Anita, fear rising in her throat. Mario might not have been there but the leaflets she had agreed to hide were all tucked away in a concealed compartment in her closet. Olga was unaware of this, as the two women had decided to act without her consent.

  ‘I will help you because I believe in the struggle,’ Katerina had told the couple when they came to her for help, ‘but I know it would be against Olga’s wishes and that is killing me … I just hope to God she never finds out.’

  Katerina waited and trembled; her senses were on edge and she was feeling wretched twice over. If they found the literature Mario would be doomed … and Olga? How could she ever look her in the eyes if she knew that she had betrayed her. They had taken good care with Mario to hide the bundle. They removed a plank of wood that created a false floor at the bottom of her wardrobe, hiding a secret storage place. In went the package and they then replaced the plank with meticulous care, covering it with shoes and clothes.