by Nadia Marks
‘He was older than me,’ his father would laugh goodnaturedly, outnumbered. ‘He wouldn’t listen to what I had to say – I was just a kid. You, on the other hand, my son – you are still young, so I hope to influence you …’
And so the discussions would go, without agreement.
That market day, they were doing very well and by the afternoon they had sold out of everything.
‘We need more grain,’ his father said, and glanced at Bernardino. ‘There are two sacks of wheat left in the cellar.’
‘I’m on my way, Father,’ the boy replied, eagerly grabbing his bicycle and heading for their house on the outskirts of town.
Moments after Bernardino entered the house by the back door and hurried down the steps to the deep cellar, the first wave of German bombers appeared in the skies over the town. When he emerged from the darkness, blinded by the bright light, he blinked in disbelief. Surely he was dreaming. In the distance, where he had just been, flames were reaching to the sky; the town centre was ablaze. He stood paralyzed, gazing at the rising clouds of smoke, trying to make sense of what he was witnessing and what might have happened in the time between him leaving the town and entering the cellar.
Apparently there had been a bombing raid, and now a new wave of fighter planes was approaching. Within moments they were over the town, almost skimming the tops of the trees and dropping bombs. Horrified, he looked on as the planes turned towards the outskirts of town. The sound of explosions and gunfire rang deafeningly in his ears. He dropped to his knees, sobs shaking his body. He had no alternative but to retreat to the safety of the cellar.
Trembling, he stayed underground for what he imagined to be days, not hours. Finally, he re-emerged, but this time, without a care for his safety, he rushed to the town. Sobbing, he fought his way through the streets reduced to rubble towards the square. The planes had retreated but had left behind a scene of utter carnage and devastation. The town was destroyed.
Desperately Bernardino searched for his family but to no avail. Dead bodies lay all around; some burned to death, some still alive but mutilated. The square, which only a few hours earlier had been full of life and laughter was now a bloodbath surrounded by a wall of fire; the only sounds audible were screams, moans and weeping. In the distance, staggering around amongst the bodies, was Father Ignazio, the local priest, his clothes in tatters and his face bleeding and blackened.
‘What happened, Father?’ the boy cried. ‘Who did this? Why?’
‘They dropped bombs, they shot bullets, they destroyed us.’
For hours Father Ignazio, with young Bernardino’s help, tended to the wounded, giving the last rites to the dying and praying for them.
Katerina sat motionless as he spoke, her eyes full of tears. Finally, when he stopped, she leaned across and touched his hand which lay on the table clenched into a fist. His face was ashen, his eyes haunted. At her touch he relaxed and held on to her.
‘I never imagined … I never knew …’ she whispered. She wanted to give him comfort but no words came to her. They sat a long time without speaking; the only noise the sound of the pot gently simmering on the stove. Then he began again, his voice deep and quiet.
‘You see, Katerina, my country was a very troubled place for many years; the aftermath of war is endless and the worst kind of war is a civil one; it scars our bodies, our minds and the land itself. These scars never heal. I pray to God it never happens here.’
She swallowed her tears; she wanted to ask questions, she wanted to know more, but she didn’t dare lest she stopped his flow. She knew nothing of Spain or its wars. All she knew was that there had been a treacherous war involving the whole world and that Greece had suffered something similar to what the padre was describing. The Second World War had hardly affected Cyprus and besides, she had been just a girl then. But the recent events on the island were making everything she was being told all the more real and vivid.
He paused for a long while, both of them lost in contemplation. Then he began to speak again.
‘I was troubled and conflicted with my faith for a long time after that, Katerina. My father’s words kept coming back to me. I felt duty-bound to honour his wish, as if to punish myself for being alive while they were all dead.’
Katerina sat silently and waited.
‘I rejected the Church for a long while, Katerina, but I never lost my faith. I joined the republicans to fight Franco, to try and stamp out their evil,’ he hesitated a moment, ‘and … during that time, I … got married.’
‘Married!’ Katerina whispered the word to herself as if she had never heard it before. ‘Married?’ she said again, out loud this time, the question hovering on her lips.
‘Yes … I was married,’ he replied, ‘for just six months. Then Franco’s nationalists killed her too; gone like the rest of my family. She was three months pregnant.’ He looked down at his hands lying on the table. ‘Carmen …’ he said in a whisper, ‘her name was Carmen.’ He spoke the name so gently, so sweetly, it melted Katerina’s heart. She reached for his hand again. ‘After she died I knew that my destiny would now be with the Church and to help people who carried pain in their hearts as I did, and away from Spain.’
He leaned forward in his chair and looked at her for a long while.
‘I have not spoken of this to anyone apart from my bishop, and in confession,’ he said, searching her face.
She was deeply moved; he trusted her. He had chosen her – Katerina! – to open up to, though she was nothing compared to him, or her mistresses in the Linser family. She was a simple peasant woman, a maid, even though the household never treated her that way. How many times had she wished for him to confide in her and tell her about his life, his country, his world? Never had she imagined she would be privy to such intimacies or hear such despair. She felt honoured, and above all she valued his trust.
From that day on the relationship between the two changed. Padre Bernardino continued to visit the Linser home as he always had, but when he and Katerina were alone they would behave and talk as friends. They would speak freely, share stories, and he encouraged Katerina to speak of her past too.
‘My father, unlike yours,’ she told him, ‘was a brute, and my mother in her weakness colluded with him. They were not killed like your family, but they were dead to me long before they died.’
It was his turn to reach for her hand, an intimate gesture that neither of them would ever make in front of others.
‘You have a loving family here, Katerina,’ he said, ‘even if it’s not your real one.’
‘Olga, the girls, and grandmother Ernestina, have been my people since I was thirteen years old. They are more real and loving than my birth family ever was.’
‘What about your siblings?’ he asked. ‘What happened to them?’
‘Many are dead,’ she replied, pained by the memory. ‘Perished in the malaria epidemic, and some still live in the village.’ She sensed his unease. ‘You must think me harsh …’ she said, feeling the guilt she fought so hard to banish return. ‘The remorse I felt for abandoning them to their miserable fate has never left me, even if I have never stopped sending them money. But, I always ask myself, was that enough?’
‘I don’t judge you, Katerina …’ he said and reached for her hand again. ‘You had a hard start in life. You did what you could; you are a good person. Your father sold you like a sack of wheat, you owed him nothing.’
‘I owe everything to Olga,’ she replied. ‘She has been like a mother and a father to me and as good as any friend.’
‘But forgiveness is always good for the soul; maybe one day?’
‘I have forgiven my mother, it’s true. She too was a victim. But I cannot forgive him, not yet anyway. My mother and father might have given me life, but Olga gave me love, hope and a life!’
9
Olga was seriously concerned about Anita’s activities and feared for both of her daughters. As time passed, political agitation against the island’s
colonial status was worsening; the independence movement was entrenched and persisting with new tactics all the time. Sporadic violence had escalated into full-blown guerrilla warfare; explosions, raids and random ambushes were part of everyday life. Greek Cypriot EOKA members had taken refuge in the mountains, fighting the British occupying troops, while in the towns, curfews, searches and house arrests by the English army were becoming the norm. Everyone lived with the dread of implication and Olga knew that her daughter’s associations with activists made them a target for suspicion; she feared for the safety of everyone in her household.
‘I want to send the two of you to Vienna for a period of time till all this is resolved,’ she told them one day, at a loss to know how to protect her family. She knew that Anita was dedicated to the cause, although after Mario’s death she too had accepted that she had to be careful, if only for the sake of her family.
‘A little time away will do you both good,’ said Olga, trying to persuade her eldest daughter – she had no problem with the younger one. ‘Besides, you both want to study music and where else better than the birthplace of Mozart?’
Anita would have none of it.
‘I am perfectly happy studying with Kyria Magda,’ she told her mother defiantly. ‘I do not need to go to Vienna!’ Olga knew there was nothing she could do or say to make her change her mind, but she was determined that she would keep at least one of her girls safe.
Sonia, who had been given cello lessons from the age of nine, was now ready to start full time at the music academy. She shared neither her sister’s reluctance for travel nor Anita’s passion for the struggle for freedom; as far as she was concerned it got in the way of her own liberty. She had inherited her mother’s free spirit, and perhaps a little recklessness from her father, and the prospect of travelling to Vienna thrilled her; she couldn’t wait to get away,
Olga knew there was no time to lose; Sonia had to go, and go soon. She turned for help to some members of the Linser family still living in Vienna, with whom she had kept in touch over the years. Arrangements were made swiftly. Sonia was enrolled in the Vienna Academy of Music and it was agreed she would stay with Great-aunt Heidi, who lived in an old apartment close to the centre of town.
The young woman was overjoyed: freedom at last! No more bombs, curfews and tears from Anita – all to be left behind. She would be free to laugh, dance and be happy again. All that political unease on the island was getting in the way of her having any kind of fun. She was setting off for Europe, the magical place she had longed to visit since childhood. She was well acquainted with Olga’s stories of travels with her father, and her mother and grandmother had often talked about sending the two girls to study there. Even though she had hoped to make the journey with her sister and would miss her company in Vienna, going alone was fine too – Anita was far too serious these days. The thrill of the new was finally in sight for her.
‘What about Nicos?’ Anita asked her sister, knowing of Sonia’s ongoing romance with the boy.
‘He’ll have to wait, won’t he?’ came her reply. ‘First things first …’
‘You are very fickle, my sister,’ Anita sighed.
Nicos, Sonia’s official suitor, was considered something of a hell-raiser in the town, as much of a pleasure-seeker as she was, and neither cared too much about politics. The two had known each other since elementary school and had pledged to marry eventually, but until then they were content to allow each other a degree of freedom. They were temperamentally and physically suited; both were athletic in physique: he, a keen footballer, she, the best gymnast at her school. They made a handsome couple, heads turned wherever they passed, but they were in no rush to settle down.
‘So long as you don’t fall in love with a German boy and stay there,’ Nicos had said to her when she first told him of her departure. They were sitting on a pebbly beach on the outskirts of town discussing their future, smoking cigarettes and drinking whisky from a silver flask that Nicos carried around with him.
‘I don’t like German boys,’ she said, laughing, and picked up a stone to throw into the surf.
‘And how many German boys have you met recently, Miss Sonia, in order to know that?’ he retorted, pulling her towards him for a kiss.
‘Greek boys are much more to my liking,’ she said, kissing him back, ‘and … well, perhaps the odd English soldier?’ she teased him.
‘I know you! A good-looking boy always turns your head, so just be careful!’ He took a swig of whisky and passed the flask to her.
‘I can’t help it if I have good taste in men!’ She wriggled out of his arms still laughing and stood up.
‘You can have your fun,’ he said, pulling her down beside him again, ‘and I will do the same, but when you return we will marry.’
‘So long as you don’t fall in love and marry someone else before I come back,’ she replied, landing a kiss on the tip of his nose.
‘I promise! You are the girl for me …’ he said lightly, knowing better than to seem too earnest with Sonia, as they rolled on the pebbly beach in each other’s arms.
During Sonia’s absence Anita turned to Katerina for even more support; their dedication to the political cause united them further and they continued to be active in any way possible. Katerina’s loyalty to Olga was great but so was her loyalty to her country and she was not prepared to renounce the latter altogether. Literature was still being secretly written and distributed and the two women often joined the group of young sympathizers who met at Mario’s mother’s house. Olga contrived to look the other way to avoid hearing any incriminating information.
Costas was a newcomer; no one knew much about him. He had arrived in Larnaka from Nicosia a few months back. Apparently he had been employed as a clerk in a government office but, as he explained, given the deteriorating political situation he had quit the British bureaucracy and was looking for another job.
‘I’d rather find a job as a labourer,’ he said, ‘than be paid by the English.’ He and Anita struck up a friendship.
‘He is a true comrade,’ she told Katerina when they first met. ‘His dedication and passion reminds me somehow of Mario.’
Katerina did not agree; from their first meeting she felt an intense mistrust towards this stranger.
She had sharp instincts and a keen intuition, and they were both troubling her.
Since meeting Costas, Anita had started to emerge from her melancholy, and Katerina was loath to damage this newfound recovery by voicing her reservations. The only person with whom she could discuss the matter was the padre.
‘There is something about this man that doesn’t ring true to me,’ she told him. ‘His sincerity seems false. Of course I have nothing to go on apart from my gut feeling, and that is not enough. Perhaps,’ she continued, ‘it’s my loyalty to Mario that makes me feel hostile.’
‘She does seem to be much brighter, more alive these days,’ the padre told her. ‘Perhaps it’s best not to say anything, better to wait and see …’
So Katerina decided to keep her thoughts to herself and wait.
Sonia had been gone nearly a year and winter was once again on its way. The sun was still warm in the cloudless early-morning November sky and a fresh breeze was blowing into the kitchen through the open window as the women in the Linser household prepared their breakfast. Katerina had laid out freshly baked bread, butter, honey and black olives while Anita was making coffee for everyone; always a time-consuming task since each of them liked to take it a different way. Turkish coffee has to be heated with the water on the stove, and each cup has to be prepared individually according to the quantity of sugar a person desires. Ernestina liked hers glygo, sweet, Olga preferred it metrio, medium, while Anita and Katerina took theirs sketo, no sugar at all.
‘I think we should all compromise and take our coffee the same way, it would save so much time!’ Anita joked and poured the first cup for her grandmother.
‘That will never happen!’ Olga retorted, cutting t
he bread into thick slices for toast. She had decided to enjoy a leisurely breakfast with her family that morning, and go to the factory a little later than usual. The last two weeks had been relatively peaceful in the streets and the atmosphere in the house was cheerful. Strains of a piano playing Chopin drifted into the kitchen from the wireless in the library, soothing troubled nerves.
‘How long has it been since I heard that polonaise?’ Ernestina asked, looking at her daughter. ‘Anita hardly plays the piano any more … it feels like old times today. A moment of peace for once.’
‘I know, Mother,’ Olga replied. ‘We need some respite, we have all been living on our nerves.’
No sooner had Olga spoken than the music on the wireless was abruptly interrupted by the serious voice of a presenter making an emergency announcement. The women’s good humour was instantly shattered. Orders had been announced by the authorities, they were being informed over the airwaves, for each and every occupant to line up outside their homes to be picked up by army trucks and taken to an unnamed location for questioning. Once again fear gripped their hearts. What did this mean, where would they be taken? The same message was now also being broadcast through loudspeakers out in the street.
The four women exchanged fearful glances, their appetite instantly gone. With trembling hands Anita put her cup on the table and walked to the window. Two British army lorries were already parked outside.
No one had any idea what this meant, yet in less than an hour the Linser women together with their neighbours had assembled in the street and were being loaded up on the trucks like cattle. Women and children, young and old sat huddled together in the back of the truck guarded by armed soldiers acting on orders. They waited.
The men were to be transported in the other army vehicle. Nobody understood what was happening or why. Later they discovered it was the men who were under suspicion and were being questioned, the women and children were just being detained for no apparent reason but to keep everyone together.