by Nadia Marks
The letter from London which found its way to the village and eventually into Lambros’s hands was to turn the young man’s plans for the future upside down and permanently transform his life. The sender was the president of the newly formed Orthodox church of Agios Andreas in the English capital and its contents were as unexpected as snowfall on a summer’s day. Lambros held the envelope with great curiosity, examining its foreign stamp and trying to fathom who could have sent it, before he at last tore it open and started to read.
We now have quite a large number of Greek Cypriots living in London, mainly in the north of the city, whose children need to learn the language of their motherland, otherwise they will grow up speaking only English. For this reason we must establish a school and we believe you are a suitable person to help us undertake this valuable mission for our community.
Lambros stood open-mouthed, trying to grasp what he was reading. Apparently, the Greek Orthodox community in London had decided to set up a school affiliated to the Greek church, and to his amazement he had been put forward as the most fitting person to head the initiative. Reading on, he discovered that the man who had recommended him so highly for the job was his uncle Nicos Christou, a first cousin of Maroula’s, who had convinced the church committee that his young nephew would be the ideal candidate to head the school project.
A successful restaurateur who had immigrated to London after the war, Nicos Christou was a generous benefactor to the church and had originated the idea for a school. His large donations and respect from the community had secured him the ear of the archbishop and church committee, so his suggestion that his teacher-nephew from Cyprus should fill the appointment to the school was met with approval. He promised to undertake all of the young man’s expenses and lodgings and his contribution to the church would be unpaid. As a wealthy man, Nicos Christou would take care of his nephew financially. He had been running his popular Greek restaurant in the predominantly Cypriot area of Camden Town in north London for years and had recently concluded that as he wasn’t getting any younger it was time to bring in someone else to help him.
‘I’ve done my share of hard work, and so have you. In a few years we can take a back seat,’ he told his wife, a good-natured woman who had helped to build their business and whose biggest regret was her failure to bear her beloved Nico any children. ‘Keep it in the family,’ he added, reflecting that his dear cousin’s son who had a good education would be the perfect choice to help with the restaurant and start the school. ‘The boy is a teacher and I hear he is very clever. How different can it be, running a school or a restaurant? It’s all a matter of brains, isn’t it, and here he can do both! When the time comes he can take over.’
23
London, 2008
The next time Stella paid her father a visit was on a Sunday morning. A week had passed since she was last there. This time she found him sitting indoors: the summer rain was good for Lambros’s garden, he told her when she walked in, but not for him.
‘If I was in Cyprus now we’d be walking on the beach, my girl,’ he announced when he saw her.
‘I’ve been thinking, Papa,’ Stella said, propping her umbrella against the big pot of scented geraniums by the front door, ‘maybe we should all go next month. If the weather carries on like this, staying in London for the summer is pointless.’
Lambros ushered Stella into the sitting room, where he had been busy studying the Radio Times.
‘What else can I do with this weather but watch television?’ he shrugged, pointing at the magazine and pulling a face.
‘Come on, let’s make a coffee and sit down; moaning about the weather isn’t going to do any good, is it?’
‘You’re right,’ he agreed, giving a little chuckle. ‘Come and tell me more about this plan of yours about escaping to Cyprus.’
Soon father and daughter were settled on the sofa. Stella kicked off her shoes and stretched her legs, making herself comfortable in the hope of more family history from Lambros. He had been so expansive during her last visits that she was eager for more.
‘So, how have you been, Papa?’ She wanted to prompt him without making it too obvious.
He hesitated. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about our conversation, what we talked about last time we met,’ he said. ‘It got me thinking about the old days.’
‘Me too,’ she said hopefully. ‘Want to talk about it?’
‘I was remembering about when I first came to England. You know, before I met your mother.’
Stella put down her cup, folded her arms and leaned back on a cushion, ready to hear more. This part of her father’s life she was more familiar with; her mother had often talked about the days of the restaurant, the years of his teaching. Stella was hungry to hear about the old days before they came to London, her mysterious aunt Anastasia, Orhan, and the circle of friends and family who were at last becoming familiar to her.
‘You know, Stella, when my uncle Nicos sent for me I was troubled . . . it wasn’t an easy decision to make. On the one hand it was the opportunity of a lifetime. On the other, I had enjoyed running the village school more than I could say. But I also knew that if I stayed I would be destined to move from village to village and eventually the novelty would fade and I’d be fed up with it.’
‘But going to England was a huge move, Papa. You were going to emigrate, how did the family take that?’
‘Your yiayia was distraught, but I kept telling her it wasn’t that different from living in the village all that way across the other side of the island. The year and a half I was posted there I didn’t go home, not once. But she still cried and wailed, convinced that once I’d gone to England she would die and never see me again.’
‘Not so surprising, though, is it?’ Stella replied. ‘I guess she thought that she was now losing both of her children.’
‘You’re not wrong there, my girl,’ Lambros replied, leaning back on the sofa and closing his eyes. ‘She was right, my poor old mum. I only made it back to Cyprus once after I left and that was when she was ill and dying and I rushed back to see her.’ Lambros took a deep breath and looked at his daughter visibly saddened by the memory. ‘As if it wasn’t enough for her to be separated from her children, the knowledge that she also had a grandchild that she had never laid eyes on really tore her apart. She died totally heartbroken.’
Stella couldn’t imagine not seeing her own children for more than a week. On the occasions when they had gone on holiday without her she had missed them terribly, although they kept in touch with her via their mobiles. These days, unlike the past, Stella thought, the idea that you would leave your family and country never to return was inconceivable, yet then, it happened all the time, breaking many mothers’ hearts and her poor grandmother was one of them.
‘When I went back to Nicosia to prepare for England,’ Lambros continued to reminisce, ‘I went looking for Orhan. I decided I wanted to see him before I left. But I didn’t find him. I just didn’t have enough time, you see, I had to leave quite quickly, but I should have looked harder. Once I arrived in London I realized how small Nicosia was and that it shouldn’t have been so hard to find him . . . but I never did.’
‘How about trying to find him now?’ Stella said, reaching for her father’s hand. ‘He might still be there; better late than – you know – never, as they say. We can try together, what do you think?’
24
Istanbul
After Hatiche and Leila left to return to Cyprus, Anastasia wrapped herself again in a dark cloak of depression which she did her best to shrug off for the sake of her baby.
Before the winter gloom and cold set in she forced herself to venture to Pera, to visit Myrto and her mother and show off her boy.
‘This is Andreas,’ she said, handing him to the older woman, who reached for the child the minute she entered the shop. ‘I called him after his grandfather, my father,’ she explained, her voice trembling slightly.
‘He is adorable, Maşallah,’ the
woman cooed, cradling him in her arms. ‘Phtou, phtou’ – she made the customary spitting sound to fend off the evil eye – ‘may God and the Panayia, our holy mother, protect him always.’
‘What a little beauty,’ Myrto added, waiting for her turn to hold him. She looked at Anastasia: ‘He has your eyes, my friend, such a beautiful colour, but the rest of him? I can’t tell . . . does he take after his papa?’
‘It’s too early to tell,’ she replied quickly, avoiding the question.
Despite her constant anxiety that her identity would be discovered, Anastasia continued to visit her friends in Pera while the weather permitted. Although she found solace and comfort in their company she felt tension too; as much as she loved being among these Greeks, she was also content in her new life with her baby. She acknowledged that her love for Enver was now different from the heady passion she had felt when they first fell in love, but she still cared for him, and he had given her the most precious gift of all; he had given her their beloved boy and for that she would be eternally grateful to him. Despite her regrets for what she had done to her family she accepted that it had been all her own doing. Nobody had forced her into this life. She only wished she didn’t have to be so secretive, splitting herself between the two cultures, but that too was her own doing and that too she had to learn to manage on her own.
As time went by and her reluctance to entirely relinquish her Greek identity became clear to her, she realized that in order to stay loyal to her origins, she must abide by two religions in secret and accept that she had no option but to learn to live a kind of double life. With her Greek friends in Pera she was a Christian; with Enver and his kind she was a converted Muslim. She managed well enough, but as her boy grew so did her anxiety; her dilemma was what to do about him. It was not something she could discuss freely with her husband; as far as he was concerned his son was a Muslim and that was the end of it. But Anastasia begged that her son must at least learn to speak her language.
‘I need to be able to speak to my son in Greek. I want him to know something of where I came from,’ she explained.
Enver understood; after all, he was a man who had been raised in England by a mother who spoke no other language than Turkish, and she too had brought him up to be familiar with their heritage.
‘You’ll talk behind my back,’ he mock-complained. ‘How would I know what you’re saying?’ But he was an educated man and, Anglo-Turk that he was, he couldn’t object seriously to her wish. Anastasia discussed none of her other concerns with him; her religious inclinations had to be kept to herself.
‘It’s time we moved from this little pigeonhole of an apartment,’ Enver announced one day, soon after the boy had started to walk. ‘I can afford it and we should live according to my status,’ he added proudly. He was far too busy with work to look for a suitable property, he informed Anastasia, and so the task would fall on her shoulders. This turned out to be the perfect distraction and diversion from her melancholia: as time passed, her depression gradually lifted and she threw herself into setting up a new home and bringing up her son. Their new place was not far from their old apartment, still central and fashionable, but instead of living in two small rooms with a roof terrace she now had a leafy garden hidden behind an entire house with rooms enough to accommodate a large family.
Anastasia’s inability to fall pregnant again caused her no end of heartache, and for Enver it caused no end of disappointment. She felt she was made for motherhood. Never had she felt happier or more complete than when she was with her child. Enver felt he should be the head of a big family and longed to have at least three sons, even if his friends kept pointing out there were never any guarantees.
‘Look at me,’ one of them said, a fellow doctor, ‘I have four daughters and still waiting for a son, at least you have a son!’
‘Yes, I know,’ Enver replied, ‘but as my old mother used to say, one child is like no child.’
‘From what I understand, aren’t you an only child yourself?’ the friend asked.
‘Yes, and that’s the reason why my mother lived in fear of losing me, you see. If you have only one child, if something happens to that one, then you have no child!’
‘It’s a strange theory,’ the other doctor replied. ‘I say be thankful and praise Allah for what you do have.’
Anastasia knew that her husband was disappointed in her for not being able to give him any more sons, or any more children at all – but who in those days would have even entertained the idea that it could be Enver’s fault? She longed to be with child again and often found herself wondering how it was possible that she conceived the very first time she made love with Enver, yet, now try as she would, she was as barren as the desert. She tended to conclude that her passion for him was the reason for her earlier fertility and that perhaps now that Eros had departed, something in her had perished too. Another thought that preoccupied Anastasia was that if Enver was Orhan, he would be grateful for what God had granted him and not wish for more. In fact, she often caught herself considering what Orhan would say or do when she deemed that Enver was being unreasonable. She longed for her old friend’s wisdom and advice, she yearned for his friendship and unconditional love. Once in a while she would write him a letter which she sent to Leila, asking her to pass it on.
He too wrote back to her through his sister, but his letters were always short and courteous, not representative of the Orhan that Anastasia had known and loved. She explained this to herself as due to his position as the pious, respectable imam that he now was, little knowing the real reason – that his heart still ached for her and he dared express no more in case he should reveal too much. She missed him greatly with the sisterly affection she had always harboured for him, wishing with all her might that Orhan was still in her life, watching her boy grow and passing on his wisdom. Since this was out of the question, then she would see to it that her son grew up knowing about her beloved friend who had been such an influence during her own young life.
Hassan Andreas was growing up to be healthy and strong and very much his mother’s pride and joy, answering to both names, depending on who was addressing him. With the Greeks he was very much Andreas; with the Turks, Hassan.
However, while Anastasia was content with running her home and bringing up her child, the sorrow of abandoning her family and her faith was never far from her thoughts. At times the sadness flooded her being so completely that she thought she would drown if she didn’t shake it off. Then she would take herself off to Pera to the Greek Orthodox church and light a candle and afterwards make her way to the shop to visit Myrto and her mother. There she could breathe again and recover her equilibrium before returning to her Turkish life. She resigned herself to the fact that she was condemned to a life of confusion and conflict.
While her son was small she would take him along to Pera. The boy spoke Greek as well as she did, she made sure of that. If any mistakes were made, they were put down to their Cypriot dialect, and he loved the fuss the Greek women made of him. But as he grew older and more independent and spent his days at school, Anastasia would most often make these visits alone. There were many times when she felt the urge to confess, to tell Myrto and her mother about the secret she was carrying, about her inner conflict, but shame and fear prevented her. She was certain that she would be rejected, denounced; if her own parents had forsaken her, why would these strangers understand and forgive her? No, she could not afford to lower her guard. Their friendship was precious to her as it was all she had from her old life; she could not lose it.
25
Cyprus
Maroula never recovered from the loss of both of her children. All she had ever wanted was to see her daughter married to a good man and to help her to bring up her babies. For her son, all she had ever hoped and prayed for was that he would become the scholar he was destined to be and make them all proud. Instead they had both vanished to the dreaded xenitia, the distant foreign lands that would swallow them up for ever on al
ien soil.
‘I will come back and visit you often, Mother,’ Lambros tried to console her. ‘Please don’t cry.’ But she sobbed and wailed, clutching on to his sleeve while they all waited at the port in front of the ship which was to take him away on his long journey to England.
As it turned out, Maroula wasn’t wrong. Once Lambros arrived in London and settled into his new life and his work, the journey back home was delayed year after year and the one and only time he saw his mother again was to be the last.
The note was delivered to Maroula by Bambos himself. Leila had begged the old bus driver to take it to the Constandinou family by hand and of course, realizing the gravity of their circumstances, he was more than willing to oblige.
‘It’s addressed to you,’ he told Maroula, handing her the envelope, ‘but I think it’s meant for all of you.’
She held it with trembling hands and after Bambos left she went straight to the kitchen. She felt a great need to sit down before she tore the envelope open and started to read.
‘Please come quickly, please let’s bury everything that separates us before we have to bury her . . .’
The note was short, just a few brief hurried words, but it said more than Maroula could bear to read. In no time she had packed a bag and hurried to the shop to inform Andreas that she was leaving for the village. She hadn’t made the journey home for years and the tightness she felt in her throat while sitting on the bus made it hard for her to breathe.
Hatiche had been unwell with heart problems for the best part of two years, Leila told her when she arrived, and during the last few months her health had become noticeably worse, but as always, her mother refused to accept she had anything seriously wrong with her and put the back pains and fatigue she suffered down to her workload. The tailoring business was thriving, and she and Ahmet, with additional help from Leila, laboured all hours of the day and night to meet the demands of their customers. Hatiche’s regret that she had so far been unable to find a suitable match for her daughter plagued her and she blamed it on herself for not providing her with a good enough dowry; now that their business was thriving, she was determined to work doubly hard to attract a husband for her girl.