Bitter Lemons of Cyprus: Life on a Mediterranean Island (9 page)

She let out a yell. “No. Never,” and banged the key. “Yes, I say,” bellowed Sabri giving a counter-bang. She grabbed the key (by now it had become, as it were, the very symbol of our contention. The house was forgotten. We were trying to buy this old rusty key which looked like something fitter for Saint Peter’s keyring than my own). She grabbed the key, I say, and put it to her breast like a child as she said: “Never in this life.” She rocked it back and forth, suckled it, and put it down again.

Sabri now became masterful and put it in his pocket. At this she let out a yell and advanced on him shouting: “You give me back my key and I shall leave you with the curses of all the saints upon you.” Sabri stood up like a showman and held the key high above his head, out of her reach, repeating inexorably: “Two hundred. Two hundred. Two hundred.” She snapped and strained like a hooked fish, exclaiming all the time: “Saint Catherine defend me. No. No.” Then quite suddenly they both stopped, he replaced the key on the desk and sat down, while she subsided like a pan of boiling milk when it is lifted off the fire. “I shall consult,” she said briefly in another voice and leaving the key where it was she took herself off across the road to where her seconds waited with towels and sponges.
The first round was a draw, though Sabri had made one or two good points.

“What happens now?” I said, and he chuckled. “Just time for a coffee. I think, you know, my dear,” he added, “that we will have to pay another hundred. I feel it.” He was like a countryman who can tell what the weather will be like from small signs invisible to the ordinary townsman. It was an enthralling spectacle, this long-drawn-out pantomime, and I was now prepared for the negotiations to go on for a week. “They don’t know about the water,” said Sabri. “They will let us have the house cheap and then try and sting us for the water-rights. We must pretend to forget about the water and buy the house cheaper. Do you see?” I saw the full splendor of his plan as it unfolded before us. “But,” he said, “everything must be done today, now, for if she goes back to the village and makes the gossips nothing will be consummated.” It seemed to me that she was already making the gossips in the café opposite, for a furious altercation had broken out. She was accusing her husband of something and he was replying waspishly and waving his arms.

After a while Sabri whispered: “Here she comes again,” and here she came, rolling along with sails spread and full of the cargo of her misfortunes. She had changed her course. She now gave us a long list of her family troubles, hoping to soften us up; but by now I felt as if my teeth had been sharpened into points. It was clear that she was weakening. It was a matter of
time before we could start winding her in. It was, in fact, the psychological moment to let out the line, and this Sabri Tahir now did by offering her another hundred (“a whole hundred,” he repeated juicily in a honeyed voice) if she would clinch the deal there and then. “Your husband is a fool,” he added, “and your family ignorant. You will never find a buyer if you do not take this gentleman. Look at him. Already he is weakening. He will go elsewhere. Just look at his face.” I tried to compose my face in a suitable manner to play my full part in the pantomime. She stared at me in the manner of a hungry peasant assessing a turnip and suddenly sat herself down for the first time, bursting as she did so into heartrending sobs. Sabri was delighted and gave me a wink.

She drew her wimple round her face and went into convulsions, repeating audibly: “O Jesus, what are they doing to me? Destruction has overtaken my house and my line. My issue has been murdered, my good name dragged in the dust.” Sabri was in a high good humor by this time. He leaned forward and began to talk to her in the voice of Mephistopheles himself, filling the interstices between her sentences with his insinuations. I could hear him droning on “Mortgage … two hundred … husband a fool… never get such an opportunity.” Meanwhile she rocked and moaned like an Arab, thoroughly enjoying herself. From time to time she cast a furtive glance at our faces to see how we were taking it; she could not have drawn much consolation
from Sabri’s for he was full of a triumphant concentration now; in the looming shadows he reminded me of some great killer shark—the flash of a white belly as it turned over on its back to take her. “We have not spoken of the water as yet,” he said, and among her diminishing sobs she was still able to gasp out, “That will be another hundred.”

“We are speaking only of the house,” insisted Sabri, and at this a look of cunning came over her face. “Afterwards we will speak of the water.” The tone in which he said this indicated subtly that he had now moved over on to her side. The foreigner, who spoke no Greek, could not possibly understand that without water-rights the house itself was useless. She shot a glance at me and then looked back at him, the look of cunning being replaced by a look almost of triumph. Had Sabri, in fact, changed sides? Was he perhaps also planning to make a killing, and once the house was bought.… She smiled now and stopped sobbing.

“All this can only be done immediately,” said Sabri quietly. “Look. We will go to the widow and get the mortgage paper. We will pay her mortgage before you at the Land Registry. Then we will pay you before witnesses for the house.” Then he added in a low voice: “After that the gentleman will discuss the water. Have you the papers?”

We were moving rather too swiftly for her. Conflicting feelings beset her; ignorance and doubt flitted across her face. An occasional involuntary sob shook her—like
pre-ignition in an overheated engine which has already been switched off. “My grandfather has the title-deeds.”

“Get them,” said Sabri curtly.

She rose, still deeply preoccupied, and went back across the street where a furious argument broke out among her seconds. The white-bearded old man waved a stick and perorated. Her husband spread his hands and waggled them. Sabri watched all this with a criti cal eye. “There is only one danger—she must not get back to the village.” How right he was; for if her rela tions could make all this noise about the deed of sale, what could the village coffee-shop not do? Such little concentration as she could muster would be totally scattered by conflicting counsels. The whole thing would probably end in a riot followed by an island-wide strike.…

I gazed admiringly at my friend. What a diplomat he would make! “Here she comes again,” he said in a low voice, and here she came to place the roll of title-deeds on the table beside the key. Sabri did not look at them. “Have you discussed?” he said sternly. She groaned. “My grandfather will not let me do it. “He says you are making a fool of me.” Sabri snorted wildly.

“Is the house yours?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you want the money?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want it today?”

“Yes.”

My friend leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the cobwebs in the roof. “Think of it,” he said, his voice full of the poetry of commerce. “This gentleman will cut you a chekky. You will go to the Bank. There they will look with respect at it, for it will bear his name. They will open the safe.…” His voice trembled and she gazed thirstily at him, entranced by the story-book voice he had put on. “They will take from it notes, thick notes, as thick as a honeycomb, as thick as salami” (here they both involuntarily licked their lips and I myself began to feel hungry at the thought of so much edible money). “One … two … three,” counted Sabri in his mesmeric voice full of animal magnetism. “Twenty … sixty … a hundred” gradually getting louder and louder until he ended at “three hundred.” Throughout this recital she behaved like a chicken with her beak upon a chalk line. As he ended she gave a sigh of rapture and shook herself, as if to throw off the spell. “The mortgage will have been paid. The widow Anthi will be full of joy and respect for you. You and your husband will have
three hundred pounds.
” He blew out his breath and mopped his head with a red handkerchief. “All you have to do is to agree. Or take your key.”

He handed her the key and once more swiveled round, to remain facing the wall for a full ten seconds before completing the circle.

“Well?” he said. She was hovering on the edge of tears again. “And my grandfather?” she asked tremulously. Sabri spread his hands. “What can I do about
your grandfather? Bury him?” he asked indignantly. “But act quickly, for the gentleman is going.” At a signal from him I rose and stretched and said, “Well I think I …” like the curate in the Leacock story.

“Quick. Quick. Speak or he will be gone,” said Sabri. A look of intense agony came over her face. “O Saint Matthew and Saint Luke,” she exclaimed aloud, tortured beyond endurance by her doubts. It seemed a queer moment to take refuge in her religion, but obviously the decision weighed heavily upon her. “O Luke, O Mark,” she rasped, with one hand extended towards me to prevent me from leaving.

Sabri was now like a great psychologist who divines that a difficult transference is at hand. “she will come,” he whispered to me, and putting his fingers to his mouth blew a shrill blast which alerted everybody. At once with a rumble Jamal, who had apparently been lurking down a side street in his car, grated to the door in a cloud of dust. “Lay hold of her,” Sabri said and grabbed the woman by the left elbow. Following instructions I grabbed the other arm. She did not actually resist but she definitely rested on her oars and it was something of an effort to roll her across the floor to the taxi. Apparently speed was necessary in this
coup de main
for he shouted: “Get her inside” and put his shoulder to her back as we propelled her into the back of the car and climbed in on top of her.

She now began to moan and scream as if she were being abducted—doubtless for the benefit of the
grandfather—and to make dumb appeals for help through the windows. Her supporters poured out into the road, headed by a nonagenarian waving a plate and her husband who also seemed in tears. “Stop.” “You can’t do that,” they cried, alerting the whole street. Two children screamed: “They are taking Mummy away,” and burst into tears.

“Don’t pay any attention,” said Sabri now, looking like Napoleon on the eve of Wagram. “Drive, Jamal, drive.” We set off with a roar, scattering pedestrians who were making their way to the scene of the drama, convinced perhaps that a shotgun wedding was in progress. “Where are we going?” I said.

“Lapithos—the widow Anthi,” said Sabri curtly. “Drive, Jamal, drive.”

As we turned the corner I noticed with horror that the cobbler and his family had stopped another taxi and were piling into it with every intention of following us. The whole thing was turning into a film sequence. “Don’t worry,” said Sabri, “the second taxi is Jamal’s brother and he will have a puncture. I have thought of everything.”

In the brilliant sunshine we rumbled down the Lapithos road. The woman looked about her with interest, pointing out familiar landmarks with great good-humor. She had completely recovered her composure now and smiled upon us both. It was obviously some time since she had had a car-ride and she enjoyed every moment of it.

We burst into the house of the widow Anthi like a bomb and demanded the mortgage papers; but the widow herself was out and they were locked in a cupboard. More drama. Finally Sabri and the cobbler’s wife forced the door of the cupboard with a flat-iron and we straggled back into the sunshine and climbed aboard again. There was no sign of the second taxi as we set off among the fragrant lemon-groves towards Kyrenia, but we soon came upon them all clustered about a derelict taxi with a puncture. A huge shout went up as they saw us, and some attempt was made to block the road but Jamal, who had entered into the spirit of the thing, now increased speed and we bore down upon them. I was alarmed about the safety of the grandfather, for he stood in the middle of the road waving his stick until the very last moment, and I feared he would not jump out of the way in time. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply through my nose: so did Sabri, for Jamal had only one eye and was unused to speeds greater than twenty miles an hour. But all was well. The old man must have been fairly spry for when I turned round to look out of the back window of the car I saw him spread eagled in the ditch, but quite all right if one could judge by the language he was using.

The clerks in the Registry Office were a bit shaken by our appearance for by this time the cobbler’s wife had decided to start crying again. I cannot for the life of me imagine why—there was nobody left to impress; perhaps she wanted to extract every ounce of drama from
the situation. Then we found she could not write—Grandfather was the only one who could write, and she must wait for him. “My God, if he comes, all is lost again, my dear,” said Sabri. We had to forcibly secure her thumbprint to the article of sale, which sounds easy, but in fact ended by us all being liberally coated with fingerprint ink.

She only subsided into normality when the ratified papers were handed to Sabri; and when I made out her check she positively beamed and somewhat to my surprise insisted on shaking hands with me, saying as she did so, “You are a good man, may you be blessed in the house.”

It was in the most amiable manner that the three of us now sauntered out into the sunlight under the pepper trees. On the main road a dusty taxi had drawn up and was steadily disgorging the disgruntled remains of the defeated army. Catching sight of her they shouted vociferously and advanced in open order, waving sticks and gesticulating. The cobbler’s wife gave a shriek and fell into her grandfather’s arms, sobbing as if overtaken by irremediable tragedy. The old man, somewhat tousled by his expedition, and with grass in his eyebrows, growled protectively at her and thundered: “Have you done it?” She sobbed louder and nodded, as if overcome. The air was rent with execrations, but Sabri was quite unmoved. All this was purely gratuitous drama and could be taken lightly. With an expressive gesture he ordered Coca-Cola all round which a small boy
brought from a barrow. This had the double effect of soothing them and at the same time standing as a symbolic drink upon the closing of a bargain—shrewdly calculated as were all his strokes. They cursed us weakly as they seized the bottles but they drank thirstily. Indeed the drive to Lapithos is a somewhat dusty one.