Markos had met Nikos Sampson once when he had been active in the original EOKA. Born in Famagusta, Sampson had made a huge impression on the teenager. He was masculine, handsome and charismatic, and men and women alike adored and feared him in equal measure. He had a reputation for being a killer, and wore his ruthlessness like a birthmark. It was part of him, as ineradicable as his steely gaze.
Markos knew that Sampson would not be handing out any amnesties to people who had resisted the coup.
News soon filtered through that the hospitals in Nicosia were overflowing with wounded. Running battles had been fought in the streets. Machine-gun fire and sometimes tank cannon were still occasionally heard throughout that day. In crowded corridors doctors struggled to save the dying, whether they were Makarios supporters, EOKA B, or perpetrators of the previous day’s army coup. Wounds were wounds, and once flesh was torn apart by bullets and shrapnel, it did not matter to whom it belonged. The medical staff scarcely had time to register names or look at faces as they cleaned and swabbed and tightened tourniquets. Every doctor and nurse, whether Greek or Turkish Cypriot, had their personal view on what was happening in the streets outside, but performed their tasks without discrimination.
As snippets of news came into the salon, Emine became increasingly anxious. That morning she had noticed that Ali’s bed had not been slept in, and she could no longer put aside her suspicion that he was involved in the TMT. As more reports of fighting and the wounded came in, she realised that her hands were shaking violently. She put down her scissors.
‘Why don’t you go and find Hüseyin?’ suggested Savina. ‘He might know something.’
Emine found her son raking the stretch of sand in front of the terrace.
‘Where was Ali last night?’ she asked.
Hüseyin continued with what he was doing without looking up. If he met his mother’s eyes, she would see that he knew something.
He shrugged.
‘Hüseyin! Look at me.’
Her voice was raised and one or two people glanced up from their sunloungers.
‘Mother!’ he hissed, embarrassed.
‘I want to know!’
Costas Frangos appeared on the terrace and beckoned him over.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Hüseyin said.
He hurried away, leaving his mother standing alone on the sand.
Back in the salon, Savina took one look at Emine and insisted that she go home. She was in no state to work.
Even before she opened the door to her house, her heart soared. She could hear Ali’s voice. He had returned.
‘Ali! Where were you? Why didn’t you come home! We have been so worried.’
She was torn between a desire to slap him hard and hold him tight. She chose the latter, weeping all the while.
Halit was sitting in the corner, quietly clicking his
tespih,
his worry beads.
‘Why did you go?’
‘I had to,’ Ali said, his voice cracking. He pulled away from his mother. ‘They might kill our people.’
‘But you’re still a child. You’re too young for this!’ Emine was beside herself. ‘Promise me you’ll
never
go again …’ she pleaded.
‘I can’t,’ he replied.
Irini and Vasilis were still up when Markos arrived home late that night. He had shut the nightclub earlier than normal, as only a handful of hotel guests had turned up. The ones who had come drank plenty to help calm themselves, but did not stay long. Normally, the stage was strewn with flowers by the end of the evening, but tonight only one basket of carnations had been sold.
At first Markos did not see his parents, sitting silently in the darkness of the
kipos
, but then he noticed the glow of his father’s cigarette.
‘Father?’
‘
Leventi mou
,’ cried Irini, as Markos appeared at her side. She got up to hug him.
‘Irini,’ remonstrated her husband. ‘He’s only been at work.’
He was right, but her anxiety had been building steadily during the course of the day. They had neither telephone nor television, and the radio was not telling her what she wanted to know.
Markos sat down with them and poured from a half-empty carafe of
zivania
in the middle of the table. Irini had persuaded Vasilis not to drive to the smallholding that day.
‘I didn’t think it would be safe,’ she explained to Markos. ‘But I had hoped things would have settled down by now.’
‘What made you think that?’ interjected her husband.
Vasilis Georgiou had been at the
kafenion
, and his speech was slurred. He had spent all day listening to rumour, news and propaganda, and had returned to fill his wife with new anxieties.
‘There’s a civil war going on out there!’ he said, thumping the table. ‘They’ve rounded up lots of Makarios’ men. And your mother is none too pleased about that.’
Vasilis Georgiou was one of a large number of people who had turned away from Makarios when the Archbishop no longer put
enosis
at the top of his agenda, but it was only when drink got the better of him that he opened his mouth on the subject. He had no respect for his wife’s sentimentality over the man. He knew that Christos, like himself, was for
enosis
, but he was uncertain about his elder son.
‘Don’t exaggerate!’ replied Markos. ‘You’re just upsetting
Mamma
.’
‘Well what do you think is going on, then? You know nothing shut up all day with those foreigners … who are you to say what’s happening …’
Vasilis Georgiou was rambling drunkenly. Markos put his arm round his mother.
‘It’s Christos …’ she said quietly, appealing to her older son.
‘Hasn’t he come home?’
Irini shook her head.
‘He will,
Mamma
, don’t worry. Everything will be fine. He came back yesterday, didn’t he?’
‘I have an awful feeling,’ she said. ‘I had a dream last night. A terrible dream.’
She looked away. There were tears streaming down her face.
‘I know where he is,’ she said at last. ‘He’s fighting with … those men.’
A few uncomfortable minutes passed. Markos was silent. Vasilis lit another cigarette.
Irini went inside to bed. Listening for any footstep, any sound of her son returning, she lay awake until morning staring at the ceiling.
Just before dawn, the cicadas quietened down. Between now and the moment when the dogs began to bark and cocks crowed, there was utter silence. How could a civil war be raging with such total stillness? She persuaded herself it could not be true. Christos would walk in at any moment.
During the morning, tension built up. Hour by hour, scraps of news, real and fabricated, circulated. Sometimes the rumours exaggerated the severity of events, sometimes they underplayed it. Christos had not returned, and when Vasilis went to check at the garage, he discovered that he was not at work for the second day.
Everyone turned up for work at The Sunrise as they had been instructed by Savvas Papacosta, but the atmosphere was tense. Guests bombarded the reception staff with questions.
‘How is this going to affect us?’
‘Will our flight home be delayed?’
‘Will we get a refund if we leave a day or so early?’
‘Can we keep the same room if we can’t get a flight?’
They were all anxious, self-interested, suddenly feeling a long way from home.
Emine and Savina were alone in the salon that morning. Frau Bruchmeyer, as punctual as ever, appeared at midday for her monthly trim. She kept her silver hair short and gamine, a style that only suited a woman with such cheekbones.
‘Good morning,’ she said cheerfully.
Emine helped her into a gown.
‘Good morning, Frau Bruchmeyer,’ she responded. ‘How are you today?’
The question was automatic. Emine was totally preoccupied.
‘I’m very well, thank you,’ came the reply. ‘But I think I am alone in this.’
‘You might be,’ said Savina. ‘But most of our customers haven’t shown up, so we don’t really know …’
Frau Bruchmeyer’s head was tipped back in the sink for Emine to wash her hair, but she continued to speak.
‘I don’t like the sound of what is happening,’ she said. ‘But I think we should all carry on as normal.’
Emine dared not open her mouth to respond.
When her hair was trimmed and dry, Frau Bruchmeyer gave them both a shilling and left. It was lunchtime now and she would take her usual table by the pool, unperturbed by the morning’s developments.
Making the excuse to herself that the telephone lines were only working sporadically that day, Aphroditi gave up waiting for a phone call from Markos. She knew from the brief conversation she had had with Savvas in the morning that they must continue as though everything was normal, so she dressed carefully, as usual – delicate yellow silk and topaz jewellery – and left for the hotel.
Markos did not seem to be around, so she went down to the hair salon to see Emine and Savina. Perhaps he would turn up a little later. For her, there was nothing in the world that mattered more than a few stolen minutes with this man, and she clung to the hope that he might feel this way too.
Emine and Savina saw a very different Aphroditi from the ebullient woman to whom they had become accustomed in the past few months. She was tense and unusually silent.
‘Perhaps she wishes she was in England with her mother.’
‘She looks peaky to me …’
‘Oh Emine! However she looks, you’re always imagining she’s pregnant! She’s just worried, like everyone else!’
Freshly coiffed, Aphroditi went up to reception. There was still no sign of Markos, and she killed time talking to the staff and a few guests who were loitering in the hope of finding out some new information. The dolphins still frolicked in the fountain.
Eventually she approached Costas Frangos.
‘Have you seen Mr Georgiou today? My husband was hoping to see him at the building site later.’
‘No, Kyria Papacosta,’ he replied. ‘As far as I’m aware, he hasn’t been in since he locked up the nightclub. That must have been at about one this morning.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, turning away. She was certain that he could read the agitation written on her face.
Aphroditi drove home. As she went up Kennedy Avenue, the main road that ran behind the hotels, she passed a group of National Guard troops. They were in control of Famagusta now. There had been little resistance of the kind that had been put up in Nicosia.
Inside the apartment, she switched on the radio. The newscaster reported that across the island things were generally quiet now. Aphroditi turned it off, put a record on the hi-fi and poured herself a sweet vermouth. With the shutters still down, she stretched out on the sofa, sipped slowly and stared at the phone, willing it to ring.
As Carly Simon sang, the alcohol took effect. Aphroditi closed her eyes.
It was dark when she opened them. The glow that had penetrated the shutters had gone, and night had fallen. She sat up. The needle had got stuck.
‘
You’re so vain … vain … vain …
’
It must have repeated a hundred times, but she had been oblivious.
Only the sound of the telephone could penetrate her dreams. It was ringing.
She leapt up and snatched the receiver from its cradle, her heart beating. She was about to say Markos’ name when she heard her own.
‘Aphroditi!’ It was her husband’s voice.
‘Savvas,’ she said, breathlessly. ‘How was your day?’
‘Bloody terrible. Half the workforce didn’t show. None of the deliveries arrived … Markos Georgiou didn’t bring the cash I asked for …’
It was as if the true significance of the coup had not even registered with Savvas.
Aphroditi glanced at the wall clock. With a jolt, she saw that it was nine p.m. She must have missed that day’s reception. Had Markos been waiting for her?
Savvas was still talking.
‘Just tidying up some paperwork here first and I’ll call in at The Sunrise on my way home. I’m not letting all this …’
While listening to her husband’s complaints, she had been watching images flicker on the television screen. There was an old Melina Mercouri film showing.
‘Savvas,’ she said. ‘Have you heard any news?’
‘No,’ he answered firmly. ‘What’s the point? That lot won’t tell us the truth in any case.’
‘It’s just that …’
Her husband detected the note of anxiety that had crept into Aphroditi’s voice.
‘Look, I’ll be back about midnight,’ he said abruptly. ‘Don’t fret. Things have already settled down again, as far as I know. As long as we can keep going here, everything will be fine.’
Savvas Papacosta seemed oblivious to anything outside the barbed-wire boundary of his building site. Apart from gold and precious stones, everything they possessed had now been liquidated and poured into the project. Even the income from The Sunrise and the sizeable loan he had taken out were not enough to fund the current phase of construction. All he wished for was to hasten the day of the opening. Only then would he begin to recoup this enormous investment.
‘See you later, then,’ Aphroditi said. She heard a click at the other end.
She was shivering. The air-conditioning had chilled the apartment to freezing point, so she lifted the shutters and went out on to the balcony for some warmer air.
Why hadn’t Markos been to the site? she wondered. And why hadn’t he called her?
There was no way of finding out.
If she had turned on the radio again, Aphroditi would have discovered that the Turkish government was asking Britain to intervene. The Greek-backed coup in Nicosia, as far as the Turks were concerned, was a final move towards
enosis
, something they would not tolerate. Like her husband, she was too preoccupied with personal concerns to be aware of the danger she and everyone else on the island were in.
The night air was still. All over the town, other sleepless people sat out on their balconies gazing out into the darkness and up at the stars. The temperature had not dropped below forty degrees that day. Markos was sitting with his mother, holding her hand and trying to reassure her.
The Özkan family were all awake too, wondering what the next day would bring.