by Nadia Marks
‘After I graduated from the teachers’ training college I was lucky to get a job teaching in a village school,’ he continued, as Stella started to serve him some food. ‘It was a strange turbulent time then. The British were in Cyprus, they’d been running the island for decades and people were fed up. It was the 1950s and the rebellion started looming around the time I got my first job.’ Lambros’s eyes took on a faraway look as his memories returned in a rush. ‘Everyone wanted the British out, some more, some less, but on the whole people had had enough of their colonial rule, and of course the English didn’t like that, so they retaliated by starting to turn Turks against Greeks and vice versa, a way of control. You know what they say, the divide and rule tactics . . .’ Stella nodded and stretched across to put some food on her father’s plate.
‘Eat, Papa,’ she said, seeing how he was reliving his past and deeply involved with his story. ‘You’ve been talking a lot, you must be hungry.’
She knew about the struggle for independence from the British – her parents had told her about it many times – but what concerned her now were the friendships that had suffered as a result.
‘I’m never as hungry as I used to be, Stella mou,’ he mused, popping an olive into his mouth. ‘Since your mother died I don’t have the same appetite, she was such a good cook.’
‘I know, Papa, we all miss her cooking but it must be hard living on your own after all these years.’
‘Living alone is not a problem, I’m fine with that,’ he said, pouring himself a glass of water from the jug. ‘What’s hard is that I miss her, and the older I get the more I miss the past, the people, I mean, but then again most of them have gone now.’
‘Do you think Orhan is gone too?’ Stella asked, reaching for his hand. ‘Did you ever find out what happened, why he left so abruptly? From what you say about him it was out of character.’
‘I believe it was because he couldn’t face the family’s anger. About, you know, what my sister did . . . He probably felt responsible, somehow.’
‘Because of the religion, you mean?’
‘Perhaps, yes, he was so devout himself, perhaps he thought we’d all blame him. I don’t know.’ Lambros closed his eyes, took a deep breath and leaned back on his chair.
‘Do you think it’s worth trying to find him? Bury the past, try to find out what happened?’ Stella said, leaning her elbows on the table towards her dad. ‘You never know, he might be thinking the same about you.’
‘I don’t know, my girl. It was all such a long time ago, so much has happened, we are different people now, and there was quite a lot of bad blood between Turks and Greeks in the years that followed, especially after I left Cyprus.’
‘I don’t know, Papa,’ Stella replied. ‘I don’t think people change that much, real love and friendship don’t die, or at least I like to think so.’
‘The trouble is, my girl, during those years of the struggle for freedom from the British, it affected many Greek families who were friendly with Turks. When I was growing up, even though there was already some hostility between the two communities, your grandparents never let it get in the way of their friendship. They ignored any bad feelings that might have been brewing, their friendship with the Terzi family was too strong for that. But after Anastasia did what she did, then it was impossible. I do think your grandmother would have wanted to make peace with Hatiche Hanoum but what with the political situation and Anastasia abandoning the family, it wasn’t possible for her, and then it was too late. People talked and pointed fingers, even my aunt Penelope wasn’t very sympathetic . . . it was hard for your grandmother.’
‘Did you go back to the village again after what happened?’ Stella asked.
‘No, and I missed it so much. Your grandmother gave our old house to her cousin who was looking after it. We were doing well in Nicosia, we didn’t have any need for money, but my aunt in the village was struggling.’
‘And Hatiche Hanoum and Leila – none of you ever saw them again?’ Stella asked, deeply saddened by this tale of lost love and friendship.
22
Cyprus, 1950
After staying briefly with his imam’s family, and before finding permanent lodgings, Orhan took a room in Büyük Han, an ancient inn which a few years earlier had been used by the British administration as a prison and had now become a refuge for poor families who had nowhere else to live. The Han was situated within the old Venetian walls, close to the sixteenth-century Gothic cathedral of Saint Sophia which had been converted into a mosque; Orhan would spend most of his day there, returning to the Han only to sleep. The Constandinou family house, though barely two or three miles away, might as well have been the other side of the island; people would rarely cross the town and venture outside the walls without a good reason. Private cars were still a novelty, owned only by the wealthy and the English, so foot or bicycle was the preferred transport. Orhan had even less reason to leave his neighbourhood for fear of coming across Lambros or any of the other members of the family.
Gradually, guided and helped by his mentor, the young man started to settle into his new life; he moved into permanent lodgings close to a smaller mosque where he began to preach. Yet he was still plagued by feelings of guilt and heartache. Anastasia was continually on his mind and he was torn by conflicting emotions. Eventually, with time and prayer, he found it in himself to forgive her and harbour only loving feelings towards her. His spirits would soar whenever her face came to mind until, as the years passed, try as he would to picture her eyes, her smile, her hair, it became harder to recall her features, but he refused to let them fade. His commitment to her memory remained.
Lambros’s graduation came as a relief from the sadness and grief that had descended on the family in Nicosia. The young man’s academic success lifted their spirits for a while, turning the focus onto him instead of lingering on the calamity and shame Anastasia had brought to them all, but it didn’t last long. When Lambros was appointed to a teaching post in a village school on the other side of the island some hundred miles away from Nicosia, Maroula was plunged into gloom once again; now, both of her children were gone. Not only did she miss them more than she could say, her estrangement from Hatiche weighed on her and added to her sorrow. Fond as she was of Penelope, her sister-in-law had never been a substitute for her Turkish friend, and Maroula often found her mind travelling to happier times in the past when they had all lived as one family. When separation was unimaginable and the promise of love and friendship was as real as life itself.
In such a short time she had suffered a double loss; she had lost her daughter and her ‘sister’ – and when Maroula was in that particular frame of mind she imagined herself back in the village making peace with her old friend. She could do nothing about losing Anastasia, she told herself. Her girl had chosen a new life and left without looking back. Perhaps one day she would regret her actions and return; until then they had to live with the loss and hope. But Hatiche was still in the village and she too must surely be lamenting the loss of their friendship. Though she was often troubled by these thoughts, Maroula never shared them with anyone nor took action, as she knew the views of the household, especially of Penelope, who had been the first to lay the blame and her anger on the Turkish family.
‘They corrupted her,’ she had said. ‘Her friendship with Orhan was not appropriate. I always said as much, but no one would listen. That boy turned her head with his preaching.’ Although Maroula harboured some silent misgivings about Penelope’s theory, her daughter’s actions were indisputable and her sister-in-law’s words cast doubt in her mind, causing her to alternate between condemning her daughter and blaming the Turkish family.
Lambros’s anger was more stubborn than his mother’s; he concluded that Orhan’s behaviour proved his guilt, and therefore there was no room for reconciliation or forgiveness. Andreas was the only member of the family who would sometimes quietly express to Maroula in private his regret about the rift between the two familie
s. He did not share his sister-in-law’s views about Orhan. The boy was indeed extremely pious with his five times a day salat, his dietary rules and observation of the festivals, but he had never preached his religious beliefs to others.
‘I think we have to put the blame on our daughter,’ he would tell Maroula. ‘It’s no one else’s fault, no matter how much we wish it was,’ he would add, wishing he was wrong and that some outside force had pushed her into her actions. And of course, whether or not Andreas realized it, an outside force beyond the girl’s control had indeed pushed her to act as she did; it was the force of Eros, which strikes unexpectedly and indiscriminately without taking account of race, family or creed.
‘We were never able to control our daughter,’ he would tell his wife and shake his head with exasperation.
‘That’s true,’ Maroula replied with a heavy heart. ‘The only person she ever listened to was Hatiche, and she should have stopped her. But then again, no one could stop that girl once she made up her mind.’
Lambros’s appointment to the village school was arranged relatively soon after graduation and the move came as a welcome diversion from the oppressive mood that hovered over the family home. While in Nicosia he had brooded over the prevailing events and often worked himself into a state of anger towards both his sister and Orhan, but now he was able to escape from the family’s unhappiness. As well as the great distance between the village and Nicosia, he would be among people who knew nothing about him or his family, so no judgement could be passed.
On arriving at the village, he soon discovered that as the schoolteacher his reputation preceded him; he was regarded with great respect and reverence, second only to the village priest, not just by the pupils but by the whole community.
The village was newly established, a cluster of some twenty-five or thirty houses which had been built by the British administration to accommodate a group of rural families, mainly shepherds, who had been living a primitive life in mud-brick dwellings scattered all over the surrounding hills, fending for their livestock. When their flocks of sheep and goats had been feeding on land due for cultivation and had started to damage and deplete the terrain, the authorities had to take action. Situated on the side of the mountain against a backdrop of hills, the new village had magnificent panoramic views of the sea, and was complete with a little square, a schoolhouse, kafenion, and a small chapel. Any objections or suspicions that the families might have harboured at their relocation were immediately dispersed once they were presented with their new homes. Lambros’s arrival was received with delight and he was welcomed with open arms. Most of the villagers couldn’t read or write and were grateful that their children would have the chance of an education within easy reach. Previously, any child wanting to attend school had to travel to nearby villages and many didn’t bother.
As in most small villages around the island, the schoolhouse consisted simply of one large room that accommodated the entire six academic years. School commenced from the age of six and continued to the age of twelve. The classes were separated into six rows of desks, each representing one year of pupils. Very rarely was there more than one row for any one year: the attendance of children in a small village was never very high.
Although Lambros was spared the burden of large numbers of pupils in his charge, dealing with the different levels of teaching according to ability and age was challenging and kept him fully involved in his work. Nor did his duties as teacher stop at the classroom door. The young man soon discovered that he was expected to act as mentor and adviser, family therapist and parental figure to the children as well as to the adults, who were trying to adjust to life in their new community. Although he was a young man, his experiences in the modern world surpassed any knowledge that these rural people had, though while living among them Lambros was soon to discover the many virtues that their primitive existence had given them. Their acceptance and tolerance of each other, which stood in sharp contrast to the townspeople he had been living with, impressed him greatly.
These people, like the community he had grown up with in the mountains, were mixed, with both Turks and Greeks living together in even greater harmony than in his own village, and to his great surprise he also found out that there were even a couple of cases of intermarriage. He made this discovery on his first day at the school while taking the morning register. First on the list of children’s names was a six-year-old girl named Azra, who Lambros mistakenly thought must be mispronouncing the name Anna because of her young age and the lack of her two front teeth. Then to his further surprise he found there was also an older pupil called Ali.
‘My father is Turkish,’ the boy said in Greek Cypriot dialect when Lambros asked about his name.
‘Do you speak Turkish too?’ Lambros enquired, curious about this mixed heritage.
‘A little,’ the boy replied, ‘but we all speak mainly Greek.’
The six-year-old girl, Lambros found out later, had a Turkish mother and Greek father, and to his further amazement he discovered that this was not uncommon or frowned upon. Lambros gave this phenomenon a great deal of thought. Given his family’s feelings and own experience on the subject, he tried to work out why this community had such tolerant views compared to the rest of the island. He finally concluded that the primitive and basic way the villagers had lived up until now had contributed in bringing them even closer to one another.
Mixed marriages, he was soon to find out, were not the only aspect of behaviour that was apparently tolerated in this community. Fidelity, as it was viewed by the traditional God-fearing communities he was familiar with, didn’t seem to apply here either. A few months into his stay in the village Lambros was relaxing with a coffee in the kafenion when he noticed one of the villagers, a man named Pavlis, sitting at a table holding his head in his hands, with a glass of zivania in front of him and apparently lamenting something. Two men sitting on either side of him appeared to be consoling him.
‘Maybe it’s time to let her go,’ Lambros heard one of the men say.
‘You suffered enough, my friend,’ the other man added, firing Lambros’s curiosity further. Since both men spoke quite loudly he concluded this was not a particularly private matter, so ignoring his newspaper he paid attention to the conversation.
‘How many times is she going to do this to you?’ the first man said again and reached for the bottle on the table to fill up their glasses. ‘She’s not worth it, my friend,’ he added and swallowed his drink in one gulp.
‘Show her the door,’ the second man agreed. ‘You don’t want a woman who’s going to keep doing this to you.’
‘Says who?’ Pavlis suddenly piped up, glaring at his friend through bloodshot eyes, evidently from crying. ‘I do want her, damn it!’ he burst out and thumped his fist on the table.
‘Do you?’ both men said in unison.
‘Yes, I do!’ Pavlis repeated. ‘Everyone else wants her, but she’s married to me! Why should I let her go?’ He reached for his glass, drained it and slammed it hard on the table. ‘Besides,’ he said, his voice loud enough for all in the kafenion to hear, ‘I love the devil woman!’
Lambros could hardly believe his ears. Never in his life had he imagined hearing such a public declaration of infidelity without pride or shame, or such a conversation between three men about a woman, and not just any woman, but a wife.
While Lambros sat eavesdropping in the kafenion he prepared himself in case he might be asked to intervene in this domestic situation, as people had asked for his help in the past. However, in this case no one approached him and the wife, as expected, returned to her husband after a day or two and all was fine once again.
What had transpired, Lambros found out later, was that Pavlis’s wife was a hot-blooded sensual wench who despite being married to poor old Pavlis would also look for her sexual gratification elsewhere once in a while. This time she had apparently fallen for a younger man and the lovers had run away to the forest. Although Pavlis was unhappy about her
behaviour he hoped she would return after a few days, as she always had.
‘She has the hot blood in her veins,’ he would explain when she lapsed and ran off with a man who took her fancy. ‘Nothing you can do about hot blood.’ Although Pavlis’s wife’s behaviour was exceptional, people apparently tolerated it, putting it down to her nature and accepting that it was for herself and her husband to sort out. Pavlis’s wife did indeed love him and never deserted him permanently for another man, but what intrigued Lambros most about this story was that it apparently didn’t reflect on Pavlis’s manhood or stigmatize him; if anything, people treated him with compassion.
With time, Lambros realized that he couldn’t judge the people he was living with by his own moral standards or his ethics. These people he had been employed to teach and help had lived for generations in what townspeople would consider to be feral conditions. They had their own rules and moral codes which often failed to conform to anything Lambros had known or understood until then, and if truth be told he decided their way of life was more honest.
When he first arrived at the village he was glad to be among strangers, in a context where there was no fear of being judged; now he had also begun to consider his situation from a different perspective. Judging by what this community tolerated and accepted, were Anastasia’s actions so abominable? After all, her overriding motivation had been love. He started to look at the predicament from all sides and then his thoughts turned to Orhan; but try as he would, he could not see why his friend had acted the way he did. His behaviour, Lambros concluded, was inexplicable. The only way to find out what had made this upstanding young man, who Lambros had thought he knew so well, behave so uncharacteristically could be by meeting and talking to him. His experience in the village brought him ever closer to this conclusion and he made up his mind that once he returned to Nicosia he would try to find his friend. His time and work in the village was now coming to an end; he was satisfied he had done all he could for the community, and it was now time to think of himself, to move on.