The Sunrise (6 page)

She was well aware that General Grivas had returned from exile. What neither she nor her husband knew was that Christos had joined EOKA B.

‘Come and have your coffee,’ she said, smiling at Markos.

Irini Georgiou adored her firstborn son, and he in turn was always attentive and affectionate towards his mother.

‘
Mamma
, you look tired today …’

It was true: the dark shadows beneath her eyes were purple-black. Irini Georgiou had not been sleeping well. The past few mornings she had been more exhausted when she got up than when she went to bed. She said it was her dreams. Though they were often illogical and full of tumult, she believed they told her the truth. Whatever anyone claimed, whatever words were used, she believed that peace was contained in the atmosphere. It was an aroma rather than a political situation. Her dreams were telling her that peace was threatened.

When the struggle against the British had ended and the Republic of Cyprus was created, there had been a welcome period of uneventful peace and quiet for the Georgiou family. They were idyllic years of tending their land; of enjoying the quiet rhythm of village life, where birdsong was the only sound that interrupted the silence; of following the pattern of the seasons, the variation in temperature and the welcome arrival of rain. There was space for everyone, land enough to feed them all and warmth between themselves and their Turkish Cypriot neighbours. The only difficulty in their lives had been to manage Vasilis Georgiou’s pain, and his inability to work longer than a few hours a day.

The peace was short-lived and tranquillity was murdered at the same time as their Turkish neighbours, in an act of violence perpetrated by Greek Cypriots. In spite of what their leader, Makarios, said, did and agreed with other politicians, being close to the place where their neighbours had been attacked and killed destroyed Irini Georgiou’s peace of mind. Although her sleep had always been dream-filled, it was now haunted by nightmares. It was then that they moved away from the village. Vasilis drove back each day in his small pick-up truck to tend the land, but Irini Georgiou always stayed behind in Famagusta.

Markos followed his mother into the over-cluttered home, where variously patterned armchairs stood on ornately woven rugs. Markos’ eyes ached at the sight. He could understand why his father spent so much time away from home, some of it tending to the smallholding they had retained and some of it at the
kafenion
, where he went to see his friends and play
tavli
. Either would be more relaxing.

Markos kept his own apartment entirely without clutter. He had few possessions. Everything had to have a practical use. Bric-a-brac, which gave his mother security, was anathema to him. Even a floral cloth that she wanted to put on his table, ‘to pretty the place up a bit’, was more than he could bear.

‘Such a disturbed night,
leventi mou
,’ she said as she put the little cups down in front of them.

She often confided in Markos about her dreams. Her husband, who slept like the dead, was uninterested in such things. He had left an hour before.

‘And last night there were such angry voices too,’ she added. ‘I don’t know what took place exactly,
leventi mou
, but nothing good, nothing nice.’

Her son did not like to tell her that she had probably been disturbed by a real argument, between Christos and his friends. It did not seem worth upsetting her in this way. If the subject of
enosis
ever came up, Irini moved the conversation away. She did not want her sons to have anything to do with politics or violence. They had threatened to tear the island apart in those awful years, and she still believed they could. Nothing had been truly resolved.

Markos stroked his mother’s hand, which rested on the table. Her skin was paper thin and there was a graze across her knuckles. He ran his fingers across it.

‘What did you do,
Mamma
?’

‘Just got a bit scratched cutting back the vine,’ she answered. ‘Nothing serious. It takes a long time to heal when you’re my age.’

Markos looked down at his own smooth skin. His father always had rough, lacerated hands too and it was something he wanted to avoid for himself.

Nowadays, when Markos went to the barber for his regular trim (though he was growing his silky hair much longer that summer), he also had his nails manicured. His cuticles were neatened and the nails filed. There was not a speck of dirt beneath them. With their daily massage in olive oil, they looked innocent, almost childlike. For Markos, these perfect hands demonstrated his success, showing that he never held anything heavier than a pen.

‘
Tse! Tse! Tse!
’

His mother was feeding Mimikos with his seed.

‘
Tse! Tse! Tse!
How are those plants I gave you?’ she asked, hardly pausing between talking to her bird and to her son. ‘Have you remembered to water them?’

He smiled. ‘
Mamma
, you know I haven’t. I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy …’

‘Working so hard,
leventi mou
, working so hard. No time even for a nice girl?’

‘Oh
Mamma
…’

It was a joke between them. She was always hopeful. Every mother loved her son, but Markos’ beautiful looks made him easy to adore. She caressed his cheek as she had done ever since he was a baby, then allowed him to take her hand and kiss it.

‘I’m just holding out until I meet someone as beautiful as you,’ he said teasingly.

‘Yes, my sweetheart, but don’t leave it too long.’

Like any mother she was a little impatient. Their daughter was two years married now but she would be very happy if her elder son found himself a wife. Things should happen in some kind of natural order, and besides, he was now twenty-eight.

She was proud that her son had a job in the smartest hotel in town. It had been one of the consolations of moving from the country to Famagusta. She had always recognised that Markos would not be satisfied with a slow, humdrum life caring for orange trees. He might not have achieved good grades at school, but he was bright and she was sure that he had a promising future ahead of him.

Markos rose to leave.

‘Look how smart you are!’ she said, running her fingers down his lapel. ‘You look so wonderful in that suit! Like a real businessman.’

‘It’s the grand opening tonight,’ he said, taking her hand. ‘The Papacostas are having a reception and they’re expecting lots of VIPs.’

‘How exciting.’ His mother beamed with pride that her son would be at such a gathering. ‘Who’s coming? Tell me who will be there.’

His mother lived vicariously through her son’s career. She had never been to The Paradise Beach and knew it was even less likely that she would ever visit The Sunrise, but she always wanted to know what went on in these big hotels. Irini Georgiou would buy the next edition of the local newspaper and cut out pictures of the event, which would almost certainly be on the front page.

‘The Mayor and his wife,’ said Markos nonchalantly. ‘Lots of politicians from Nicosia, plenty of businessmen, friends of Mrs Papacosta’s father, even some overseas visitors …’

‘And will the nightclub be opening?’ she asked.

‘Not tonight,’ said Markos. ‘Tomorrow.’ He looked at his watch.

‘I’ll go and water your plants later,’ Irini said. ‘And I’ll starch your shirts – they’ll be in your wardrobe.’

She was already bustling around clearing the cups, wiping the table, dead-heading a geranium, peering into her canary cage to check if she had put in enough seed. Soon she would start preparing lunch. The whole family appreciated her cooking, especially Panikos, who had put on considerable weight since the marriage. Maria would come down to help her, and her son-in-law would arrive home from his electrical shop at midday, just in time to eat.

‘I must go,’ Markos said, kissing her on the top of the head. ‘I’ll come and tell you all about it, I promise.’

Between now and when the sun set, there was not a moment to waste. By the time it was dusk, the island’s biggest social event of the year would be well under way.

T
HE SUNRISE WAS
filled with the scent of hundreds of lilies and the perfumes of as many glamorous women. Gowns were in jewel colours, jewels were in all colours.

The guests were greeted at the entrance and then directed down a crimson carpet that led them towards the frolicking dolphins. Here they were served with ice-cold champagne and then ushered past the murals, which they stopped to admire.

The plaster pillars were entwined with flowers. As night fell, they would also be illuminated.

Dozens of waiters in white jackets circulated with platters of food. The head chef, with a staff of twenty-five in the kitchen, had laboured tirelessly since dawn to create a colourful array of canapés with liberal use of gelatine, piping and puff pastry. They had worked like robots, mechanically cutting and garnishing so that each piece was neat and precise and bore no resemblance to anything home-cooked in traditional Cypriot style. There were tiny vol-au-vents, delicate morsels of foie gras and prawns to be speared with cocktail sticks. The chef was French and his inspiration was Escoffier. He instructed that everything had to be decorated like a dessert. If it could not have a cherry on top, there must be a few grains of caviar, or a tiny speck of tomato to add a finishing touch.

The combined volume of several hundred voices all speaking at once meant that the twelve-piece band was unheard, but the musicians persevered, knowing that later in the evening when the crowd thinned out their carefully rehearsed repertoire would be appreciated. They had been flown in the previous day from Paris, one of the many things specially imported for the occasion. Savvas Papacosta wanted the reception to reflect the international aspirations of the hotel, and the twang of a bouzouki would undo this with a single note. This, indeed, was a sophisticated affair.

Everyone was naturally drawn towards the terrace outside, where there was a suspended centrepiece, an arrangement of white flowers that spelled out the name of the hotel. In front of this stood their hosts, waiting to welcome them.

Aphroditi, in a floor-length ivory gown, seemed to glow from within. Coiled round both of her upper arms were white gold bracelets each with the face of a snake, one with rubies for eyes, the other with sapphires. Some guests thought she looked like a mermaid, others saw Cleopatra’s influence. Every woman in the room studied her enviously, analysing the detail closely: the diamonds that dripped from her ears, the dress skilfully cut on the bias that flowed around her body, the way in which the sequins caught the light as she moved, the gold sandals that occasionally peeked through the slit in the hem, the hair wound into a chignon. Emine had created a perfect hairdo for the evening and the women speculated on the number of grips and pins. In spite of their secret admiration, the comments they made to their husbands were reductive and universally scathing.

‘And who does she think she is? Everything is just so
exaggerated
…’

What the men saw was the whole, the vision, an overall impression. They saw a faultlessly beautiful woman, but knew not to disagree with their wives.

Standing by Aphroditi’s side, waiting for exactly the right moment to begin the speeches, Savvas watched the guests surveying what he had created. What he wanted more than anything was to impress them with the quality of what they saw. He had worked every waking hour for several years to complete what they were viewing in a mere hour and could feel their amazement at what he had achieved. Finally, he began to relax.

After the speeches had finished – Savvas, the Mayor and then a member of parliament – congratulations and exclamations flowed as generously as the champagne. When Savvas felt that everyone had had enough time to marvel at the overall impression, politicians, local worthies and potential guests were taken on personal tours. They saw the ballroom, the dining rooms and reaching it via the mirrored lift, the penthouse suite. Every facility was pointed out, the source of the marble tiles, even the thread count of the linen.

Costas Frangos, the hotel manager, and his two assistant managers left guests in no doubt that the quality of everything at The Sunrise was in an entirely new league for the island. It was indisputable. Overburdened with facts and figures, they hastened back to the reception to have their glasses refilled. Beyond question, Famagusta seemed to have grown richer in front of their glinting eyes, and almost all of them saw a personal benefit for themselves.

The wives of the men who owned the neighbouring hotels, however, were eager to find fault. First of all they criticised the food.

‘So hard to eat! Everything’s so fancy! So fiddly.’

Then they turned their attention to the hotel’s decor.

‘That floor! And as for those dolphins …’ whispered one.

‘Do you think guests will actually
like
all that fringing … and those drapes? And why
have
they tiled the pool like that?’ breathed another, almost in earshot of the Papacostas.

These women found their husbands unusually quiet, burdened by the knowledge that they would now be obliged to upgrade their own facilities. Whatever question marks hung over the taste with which The Sunrise had been decorated, the reality was that this new hotel was superior to all the rest. It was not a matter of opinion. It was bigger and grander and, if the canapés were anything to judge by, even the cuisine was going to put the other hotels to shame.

Meanwhile, the government minister was fulsome in his praise. ‘Kyrie Papacosta, may I congratulate you on what you have achieved here.’ He adopted the tone of a person speaking for others as well as himself. ‘I firmly believe that The Sunrise will raise the status of the whole island.’

He offered his hand to Savvas and the flash bulbs went off all around them. Aphroditi Papacosta, standing close to her husband, felt the heat of the lights and for a moment was blinded by their brightness. The photographers could already tell that it would be an image of her alone that would dominate the front of tomorrow’s paper. The editor would be more than happy to relegate the picture of the portly politician to an inside page. ‘The Sun Rises on Famagusta’ would be the headline on the front page.