Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island (14 page)

Pearce Hubbard’s own house was hardly less delightful. It was virtually next door, and it was here that we convened for that first memorable dinner by candlelight, given flavor and shape by good food and better conversation, and extended far into the night in a garden full of the scent of limes. Here they gave me news of other friends with a Cairo or Athens background who had just passed through or were due to arrive, each with his burden of information. Patrick Kinross, for example, whose book on Cyprus is not likely to be superseded as a brief and extraordinarily comprehensive sketch of the island and its problems, was due to visit them next week. Later Freya Stark herself would come.… It was clear that Austen Harrison had built himself a khan or caravanserai on one of the main highways of the world.

In them at least Marie found guides and advisers in the formidable task of building the “perfect house for a writer to live in”; they tempered her enthusiasm without damping it, and kept her as far as possible within the golden mean. The three of them, in fact, shared one quality in common: they were all magpies. And traveling about as they all did they were able to indulge their taste, and bring back to Cyprus a bewildering medley of
objects, from Egyptian
musarabiyas
to Turkish mosque-lamps. They were steadily stripping the Arab world of its chief treasures, as Pearce said, and soon their houses in Cyprus would have everything, except the mosaics of St. Sophia. My own ambitions were more hedge-hopping and my means forbade me to indulge in such delightful fantasies—happily perhaps. But I enjoyed these treasures vicariously, so to speak, and appreciated nothing more than one of the great palavers which went on when one or other of the friends had arrived back in Cyprus with something exotic—Persian tiles, Indian fabrics, a Kuwait chest, or simply perhaps the design for a window or door triumphantly stolen from Fez, Algiers or Istamboul. Its position in her house which as yet did not exist, was a subject of the most earnest, heart-warming debate.

We drove back that night from our first meeting with the “hermits of Lapithos” with a profound content, and as the moon was late and high, turned off the road to spend an hour in the owl-haunted ruins of Lambousa, an old church standing in magnificent desolation upon the echoing stony beach below Lapithos. Here, walking about in the ruins, eating the sweet brown grapes we had stolen from Pearce Hubbard’s table we talked of our houses, of the books we were going to write, and of the lives we should be able to live here in the sun: within reach of each other on this eloquent range of hills. The owls whistled and the sea banged and rubbed under the moon. We were full
of the premonitions of a life to be lived which could offer, not merely leisure in sunlight, but a proper field in which to read and reflect, deploy words and study. Marie was to leave for India next morning (she always left like this, without a word of warning, to reappear after a month or two as suddenly) and felt disinclined to sleep, so we drove back along the silent coast and down to the little mosque, blazing like a diamond on the rocky peninsula opposite her wattle hut. Here we bathed in a sea still full of cold currents, smarting to the flesh, and drank the last of a bottle of red Chianti which we found in the hut. The dawn was breaking before we were ready almost, rushing out of the night-sea beyond Cape Andreas, a steeply mounting flush upon the bronze faces of the mountains. A dense dew lay upon everything as we drove back through the silent fields to Kyrenia for breakfast. There were to be many such mornings, many such evenings spent in good fellowship and wine, before the vagaries of fortune and the demons of ill luck dragged Cyprus into the stock market of world affairs and destroyed not only the fortuitous happiness of these friendships but, more tragically and just as surely, the old tried relationships on which the life of the little village itself was founded.

But none of this was as yet apparent upon the face of things—and the brown smiling summer with its gross damps and fierce sun led us towards the languid flowering autumn of the year, hinting in the ripeness of figs and grapes, the emergence of snakes and lizards, of the
winter to follow. Marie and Pearce vanished. Boris and Ines came. The work on the house was well advanced and I moved in, the better to supervise, to extract a poet’s pound of flesh for every penny spent—I was getting short of money. But the plan was maturing and the place itself becoming even more beautiful than our haphazard plans and sudden afterthoughts had let me dare imagine.

The two floors of the house now began to represent themselves in their true colors as winter and summer floors. Below, a great fireplace, small kitchen, study and bedroom; above, the indescribable terrace which would later be shaded by its own vine; a large rambling old-fashioned studio room, a small hall with a fireplace, and an alcove set deep behind a pointed arch from the window of which my small daughter, if she sat up in bed, could gaze out at Turkey and see the fort of Kyrenia framed like a watercolor. Brick by brick, stone by stone, window by window, I watched it all put together by my friends with a sense of familiarity that one has sometimes when a poem “comes out” of its own accord like an equation, without having to be tortured or teased. It all flowed from the magical black moustache of Michaelis, the brown fingers of “the Seafarer,” the lisp and stammer of “the Bear”; and as the work went on my neighbors dropped in to appraise it and to exchange pleasantries with their friends and relations who were building it. Here, too, in autumn came visitors and there was a fine fire of
flesh-rosy carob wood to greet them, whose flames jumped and glowed on the old doors and moldings and screens. A few shelves of books too gave the sense of permanent habitation.

In that warm light the faces of my friends lived and glowed, giving back in conversation the colors of the burning wood, borrowing the heat to repay it in the companionable innocence of unpremeditated talk. Freya Stark, whose journeys to the wilder parts of Turkey brought her happily to Cyprus
en route
, illustrated for us the wit and compassion of the true traveler—one, that is, who belongs to the world and the age; Sir Harry Luke, whose gentleness and magnanimity of soul were married to a mind far-reaching and acute, who was fantastically erudite without ever being bookish, and whose whole life had been one of travel and adventure; Patrick Leigh Fermor and the Corn Goddess, who always arrive when I am on an island, unannounced and whose luggage has always been left at the airport (“But we’ve brought the wine—the most important thing”).

They brought with them fragments of history and legend to set against the village lore; Sir Harry meditating on the double-sexed Aphrodite whose priests wore beards and whose worshippers inverted their dress—and wondering whether the extraordinary number of hermaphrodites on Cyprus did not perhaps betoken some forgotten race, bred for the service of the temple. Through them I caught a glimpse, not only of Cyprus
as she is today, but of the eternal Cyprus which had for so long attracted the attention of travelers like them. And the biography of a saint heard from the lips of Sir Harry married like a cloth with the same story heard from Michaelis in his dialect form, so that my notebook became cross-hatched with material drawn from both. Let me add a page or two from it, since it lies to hand.

(a)
From the balcony, towards four, by westering sun light: plum-dark mountain roses: green wooden table in the rain: slurring of bees: chime of tea-cups: H.L. talking well about King Harry and the building of the Abbey which lies below anchored against the side of the cliff, bruise-grey. “Both Latin and English are poorer than Greek in having only one word for life, ‘vita’ and ‘life,’ whereas Greek has two, ‘Zoe’ and ‘Bios.’” He described the way the Levant had undermined the Gothic north—religion foundering in license. Even the good fathers of the Abbey lapsed, were found to have several wives. A bishop had to ride up here on a mule to tick them off!

(b)
The only oath binding to vampires, according to Manoli, is “by my winding-sheet.” But Cyprus is not rich in vampires, is richer in saints. Estienne de Lusignan in his “Description” says there are 107 island saints, not counting those whose names he does not know, and of foreign saints whose bodies rest in Cyprus, 315. There are six monasteries in happy possession of some wonder-working icon or holy relic.

(c)
This morning woke, believing that the house was on fire, but it proved to be the sound of silkworms feed ing in Lalou’s little house—a noise like a crisp forest fire traveling through dry scrub as the little creatures gnawed their way through the great parcels of mul berry leaves. Lalou says that the white mulberry in my garden is excellent for feeding. Up to the second molt they are fed with leaves from the ungrafted mulberry. They have never heard of lettuce leaves for feeding silk worms, it seems.

(d)
Scene of the wildest comedy next-door when Fran gos in an excess of high spirits picked up the cherished motorbike of his son-in-law and proceeded to jug gle with it. He tripped on a terrace and suddenly the machine flew into the apricot tree where it lodged pre cariously—it is only a two-stroke. Screams, yells, drama. If it fell out it would be broken. Ludicrous attitudes of Frangos climbing tree with rope to snare it before it fell. Son-in-law in tears. A safe landing, however, with a smart blow on the shin for the son-in-law which put Frangos in a good humor for the rest of the day.

(e)
The silkworms die with a dreadful crackling and sobbing and a noise of sinews being ground; the family sit round the great copper cauldron and skim off the product on to hand looms—great spools of butter-colored silk thick as a man’s thigh. And Lalou sings in the high true voice. “Though my lover come from never so far away, my heart will recognize him by his smile.”

(f)
Last night the sound of the front door closing upon breathless chuckles and secretive panting, then the voice of Paddy Leigh Fermor: “Any old clothes?” in Greek. Appeared with his arm round the shoulders of Michaelis who had shown him the way up the rocky path in darkness. “Joan is winded, holed below the Plimsoll line. I’ve left her resting halfway up. Send out a sene schal with a taper, or a sedan if you have one.” It is as joy ous a reunion as ever we had in Rhodes. After a splendid dinner by the fire he starts singing, songs of Crete, Ath ens, Macedonia. When I go out to refill the
ouzo
bottle at the little tavern across the way I find the street com pletely filled with people listening in utter silence and darkness. Everyone seems struck dumb. “What is it?” I say, catching sight of Frangos. “Never have I heard of Englishmen singing Greek songs like this!” Their rev erent amazement is touching; it is as if they want to embrace Paddy wherever he goes.

(g)
“Enosis and only Enosis.” I was able to test my theory of Greek character again tonight. Returning late I was hissed at from a dark doorway. “Don’t go up now. Manoli is drunk and might do you harm. He is waiting up there.” It sounded alarming but I pressed on up the dark road. Manoli was standing in the rosy glow from the tavern door, swaying a bit and twirl ing his moustache. “Ah,” he says as he catches sight of me, “Ah! Here is the foreigner.” His wits are all awry and he looks vaguely reproachful, that is all. I catch hold of his arm and whisper in his ear: “Never
say that Greece and England drew the sword upon each other.” He suddenly seemed to come to himself. “Never,” he repeated indistinctly. “Never, my friend! Never!” Crossing himself. And before he can muster enough national feeling to change his mind I slip past him into my own front door. Though they have written Enosis on every wall in the village, so far nobody had touched the walls of the house, three of which are on a public highway. I point this out to Andreas. “Of course,” he says. “That would be unneighborly. And another thing. You know we all love the English. There is nothing anti-English in Enosis.”

(h)
H.L. on St. Hilarion, whose identity appears to be in some doubt. A pity, because the site demands a saint with a biography. He is, however, supposed to have retired to the castle and died there. His body was taken to the Syrian desert by a disciple and placed in a monastery he had founded. Neophytus Rhodinos says it was stolen by “certain ascetics,” while Makhairas hints that the body found in the castle was a later one. Where is it now? It is hard to say. Manoli has two fables of buried treasure, and a Princess asleep in a rock which he associates with the castle. H.L. quoted De Mandeville, however, and I looked him up: “And in the castell of amoure lyth the body of Seynt Hyllarie and men kepen it right worshipfully.” Estienne de Lusignan, just to bewilder us, says the castle was originally built for Cupid; that demons and unclean spirits, his satellites, dwell there. St. Hilarions virtue drove them out, and
his cult replaced that of the Love God. I prefer the Crusader name of Dieudamor.

(i)
To Larnaca through an extraordinary landscape reminding one of Plato’s God “geometrizing”: low hills, almost perfect cones with leveled tops suggesting the Euclidean objects found in art studios. Wind erosion? But the panel of geometrical mounds seems handmade. And the valleys tapestried with fat-tailed sheep, plots of verdure, and here and there a camel train and palm tree. A strange mixture of flavors, the Bible, Anatolia, and Greece.

(j)
The Mesaoria combines every extreme of beauty and ugliness; barren, sand-bedeviled, empty, and under moonlight a haunted waste; then in spring bursting with the shallow splendors of anemone and poppy, and cross-hatched with silk-soft vegetation. “Only here you realize that things pushed to extremes become their opposites; the ugly barren Mesaoria and the verdant one are so extreme that one wonders whether the beauty or the ugliness has not the greater power.”

(k)
Ownership of trees. To Zeus belongs the oak. Knowledge was “the eating of the acorn.” Hermes owned the palm, and later Apollo both palm and laurel. Demeter the fig tree—the sacred phallus of Bacchus was made from the wood. The sycamore was the Tree of Life for the Egyptians. The pine tree belonged to Cybele. Black poplars and willows are especially connected with the winter solstice, therefore with Pluto and Persephone;
but the white poplar claims Hercules who brought it up from the shades. I can find nothing about the mulber ries and tangerines.…