She realised immediately that he did not speak Greek, and when she tried some English, that did not work either.
‘Famaguthta?’ he asked, his missing front teeth giving him a curious lisp.
As if there was anywhere else to go, thought Aphroditi.
She nodded.
They walked side by side. Aphroditi’s shoes were giving her blisters, but she plodded along determinedly. Gradually the city loomed larger in front of them and she began to make out the individual buildings, low-rise apartment blocks and houses.
The landscape around them was flat. They passed a few ruined homes and some empty, unlit farmhouses. It was now about midnight and the temperature had dropped. She wished she had worn a thicker coat. Even though they were walking quite briskly, she began to shiver. Fear was taking hold of her.
Only when they were a hundred yards or so away did she notice the fence. She turned towards her guide to see his reaction and saw that he was prepared. He was removing some cutters from his pocket.
The silence was heavy. She recalled her last moments in the city, when everyone was taking flight: the noise of car engines, hooting horns, shouting, the roar of aircraft overhead. Now there was nothing. All she could hear was the thumping of her heart.
Quickly and efficiently he snipped the wires and let her through, not bothering to rejoin the pieces. Presumably they would return the same way.
Then she heard voices. Turkish.
Her guide grabbed her by the wrist. Instinctively she pulled away from him, confused and alarmed. Up until now he had seemed less rough in his ways than the first two men she had encountered, and it took her a moment to realise that this man was not wanting to steal her watch. He was merely pointing at it, making stabbing gestures as if trying to tell her something.
Although he was speaking very quietly, he was miming as well, tapping the watch face and holding up two fingers. Aphroditi understood that she would have to be back in two hours. She also realised that the voices she had heard were coming closer and the toothless Turkish Cypriot was handing her over to someone new.
Two Turkish soldiers sauntered into view. When she looked round, Aphroditi saw that the previous guide had already disappeared. It was all she could do to remain upright. She felt as if her trembling legs might collapse beneath her.
One of the soldiers, his arms folded contemptuously, looked her up and down silently. He was thickset and had a moustache. The other one, slightly taller and fairer, lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply before addressing her in Greek. She felt it was a good sign.
‘What do you want here?’
It was the only question that mattered, but she had not expected to be asked. The answer she gave could not be the truth, but she had to say something.
‘I want to see our hotel,’ she said.
‘Our hotel …’ he repeated.
The other soldier laughed. Aphroditi realised that he understood Greek too, and he also parroted her words. The notion of what was now meant by ‘our’ clearly amused them.
‘So let’s go to
our
hotel then, shall we?’
Their disdainful sarcasm was threatening enough, but when one of them put his arm through hers and began to steer her along, fear began to rise within her.
‘Shall we go down to the sea?’ he asked.
Aphroditi nodded. She was fighting back her tears now. Whatever happened, she must not allow them to see how afraid she was.
The second soldier took her other arm and they strode along like the best of friends, though they were both taller and their steps much longer than hers. She was struggling, her blistered feet now bleeding, though she could not look down to see them.
‘
Parakalo
. Please,’ she entreated quietly. ‘I can’t keep up with you.’
The soldiers said something to each other in Turkish but did not slow their pace. In spite of their displays of mocking friendship, they pretended not to hear.
Sandwiched between them, Aphroditi surveyed the dilapidation of the streets. Weeds were growing between the paving stones and the shops were derelict. There was not enough time to take it all in. This was not the city she knew. It was a place she did not recognise. Its soul had gone.
Several times during their march to the seafront, they met other groups of soldiers and stopped for a few minutes. Aphroditi’s lack of understanding of the Turkish language fuelled her sense of fear. If only she had been more diligent and bothered to learn more than the basics, it might have helped her now.
Her appearance had already caused her some shame and embarrassment in Nicosia, but now she was grateful for the way in which her shapeless clothes made her look like countless middle-aged women. Most of the soldiers they encountered were momentarily curious about this dowdy Greek Cypriot in a shabby mackintosh and headscarf, but then ignored her completely.
They seemed to have all the time in the world to chat, light each other’s cigarettes and pass around a bottle of whisky. None of them were expecting any action. It was clearly just a formality to be patrolling these empty streets, where the only other living creatures were rats and mice. Drunkenness was not going to prevent them from fulfilling their almost non-existent duties.
What bothered Aphroditi most at this stage was that she only had two hours in the city. Time was ticking away, but she knew it would be unwise to point this out.
When the first of the hotels came into view, the taller of the soldiers asked her:
‘Where is “our” hotel, then?’
The stockier one spoke to her more aggressively.
‘
Pou?
’ he repeated. ‘Where?’
She had a momentary thought that it might be better not to lead them to The Sunrise, as they might then imagine she had more money. She dismissed the idea, however. Now that she had come all this way, she might as well reach her destination. The smallest possibility that she might see Markos or even be able to work out what had happened to him kept returning to her. It gave her just enough courage to stop her from falling to her knees and pleading with the soldiers to take her back to the wire.
‘It’s called The Sunrise,’ she said. ‘It’s down towards the end of the beach.’
For a few moments the soldiers jabbered between themselves. She had felt their mood change. As before, she had no idea what they were disagreeing about, which only made the situation more frightening.
Even with their unsympathetic pace, Aphroditi knew that ten minutes’ walking still lay ahead. The only thing that had kept her feet moving was hope, but as she took in the state of the city and realised that nobody could possibly be living there, her energy began to drain from her. They walked down Demokratias Avenue and Ermou Street, where the once-gleaming plate glass of her favourite shops was now jagged and broken. Almost everything had been wrecked.
When they got to the strip of hotels, she could see that some of them had smashed windows, but she was not sure if this had been caused by the earlier bombing or if they had been broken into.
In the distance, she could make out The Sunrise. It was still standing, apparently intact, but very eerie in the darkness. She was so close now, only a hundred yards or so away. It was strange how energy could return with hope or excitement.
The soldiers stopped outside a small guest house opposite the hotels.
‘We’re going for a break now,’ said the taller one. ‘These friends of ours will get you where you want to go …’
It was the fourth time Aphroditi had been handed over to someone new, but the look of dismay on her face did not appear to register with them. Two other soldiers had appeared on the pavement next to her. They were older than the first pair; their crinkly hair had streaks of grey. One of them was wearing a greatcoat over his uniform.
Even from several feet away, Aphroditi could smell alcohol on their breath. One of them reached out and chucked her under the chin. She felt the sharp scratch of his fingernails.
He said something in Turkish and the others laughed.
The first two soldiers must have told them where she wanted to go, and the new ones began walking towards The Sunrise. She followed them meekly. She gathered that they did not speak any Greek.
On the roof of the hotel, Vasilis and Halit were on watch. A few days earlier they had noticed that soldiers were newly billeted in a guest house a short distance away. Markos had insisted that they increase their hours on duty.
Their stomachs were full of good food and Vasilis had enjoyed some wine from the hotel cellar. They kept each other awake by talking; over these past months, there was little they had not told each other of their lives. They were vigilant, though, and took their job very seriously. Although their view was obscured by the hotel next door, they kept a close eye on the soldiers’ movements.
‘So how often do you prune?’ Halit was asking, running his
tespih
through his fingers.
‘Well, it depends on rainfall …’ answered Vasilis. He was sprinkling water on the tomato plants that they were cultivating on the rooftop.
Vasilis’ citrus orchard remained his favourite subject, and although Halit had given his up when he had left Maratha to bring his family to Famagusta, he dreamed that he would have trees again one day.
As the men talked, they always faced towards the street, keeping a lookout. Occasionally a vehicle would drive in their direction and turn off opposite the hotel, up a side street that eventually led out of the city. Very occasionally soldiers went past the hotel on foot.
‘Vasilis! Look!’ Halit whispered, interrupting the other man’s flow. ‘Down there!’
Three figures were coming from the left and stopped in front of the railings of the hotel.
‘It’s all locked up, Halit. Nobody can get in.’
‘I know, this place is like a fortress, but …’
‘Don’t worry, my friend. Papacosta was prepared.’
Another second passed.
‘Pass me the glasses,’ said Halit. ‘There’s something odd.’ There was a note of real anxiety in his voice.
Early on in their stay at The Sunrise, when they’d agreed that they needed to keep watch, Hüseyin had come back with a pair of binoculars that had been dropped in the street. They were army issue and powerful enough for them to identify uniforms and faces even in a low light.
‘Two soldiers,’ said Halit. ‘But there’s a woman too.’
‘A woman? Are you
sure
?’
‘Take a look!’
Vasilis saw that there was indeed a woman walking behind the two soldiers. The men sauntered, their gait swaggering. They were apparently indifferent to her.
He drew back from the parapet of the roof, anxious not to be seen. Halit remained poised and still, following their progress as they approached.
Aphroditi saw that they were almost at The Sunrise. It looked so unfamiliar, and the railings that surrounded the hotel so unfriendly. She had never seen the gates closed before. At more than eight feet in height, both railings and gates were unscalable. Looking through, she could see that the main doors were also still protected by the iron grid and that this had not been forced open.
The soldiers remained on either side of her as she stood in front of the bars, looking in at the intense blackness of the windows. They were talking over her head. She wished she understood even a word.
Halit, hidden in the shadows, tried to focus on the three of them. It was hard to make anything out, with the lines of the bars across their faces.
Perhaps, thought Aphroditi, if she could get them to take her round to the other side of the hotel, facing the sea, there might be a means of getting in. With no common language, all she could do was point. Unless she found a way of getting inside the hotel, her mission would have been futile.
One of the soldiers bent down and said something to her. His face was half an inch from hers and the overpowering combination of bad breath and acrid sweat made her heave. He noticed her recoil and it seemed to infuriate him.
Seizing her arm, he pulled her roughly away from the iron fence. Without warning, his apparent boredom and indifference seemed to have turned into aggression. The other soldier was also shouting at her now. He spat on the ground just in front of her feet.
Still holding her arm, the first soldier hauled her into the passageway to the side of the hotel. This was where Aphroditi had wanted to go, but not like this.
From the rooftop, Halit watched the trio disappear out of sight. He had heard the soldiers’ shouts. The sound had carried all the way up to the rooftop.
‘I don’t know who she is,’ he said, ‘but I wish we could help her.’
‘We can’t,’ said Vasilis. ‘It’ll put all of us in danger.’
‘But we need to alert Markos and Hüseyin! They should know there are soldiers right next to us.’
‘You go! I’ll stay up here. Give me the binoculars.’
Unbeknown to any of them, Markos had gone out that night. As he came southwards down the main road in front of the hotels, the soldiers had already turned into the passageway. Their rough voices alerted him to their presence and he knew his route home was blocked. More than that, he had left the fire door on the latch.
He ducked into the side road opposite The Sunrise and crouched in a doorway. From his hiding place, he could see into the passageway. He realised that there were two soldiers and they were not alone.
In between them was a third person, much smaller. Not a child, but probably a woman. She was caught in the middle of them, held so tightly that there was no question of her getting away. Her feet scraped the ground. She was being dragged.
Then he heard screaming.
Up on the roof, his father heard it too. Aphroditi was screaming as hard as she could. In Greek. In English. Just in case someone, anyone, might hear.
Halit had knocked on Markos’ and Hüseyin’s doors. He did not want to rouse the women, so he had not banged hard. Hüseyin had appeared immediately, but they could not get a response from Markos.
Hüseyin left his father behind as he sprinted upstairs to the roof.
‘You won’t be able to see them from here,’ whispered Vasilis. ‘They’re out of sight. Almost directly below us.’