The Med (28 page)

“Glad you asked that, sir. No, this building isn't designed to be defended. Few U.S. missions are. We feel since both sides are our friends, we won't need to worry about defense. We can close ourselves off from the street, we have an iron gate for that, and there are always the local police in case of trouble. No sir, I think that'll be sufficient.”

“Are you sure? The embassy in—”

“You have a point there, Joe, and I'm going to look into it this very morning, that's a promise,” said Persinger smoothly, and went on. Susan had to admire the way he shunted the man aside, leaving him still standing but with nothing left to say. “Any other questions? No? Then, thank you, and I'll be about my business.”

His pep talk over, the ambassador disappeared back into his offices. But his attempt to calm them had made her nervous again. When Nan had finished her hot drink she drifted up past the desk, wanting to see these gates for herself. At night, coming in, she hadn't noticed them.

An iron gate?
she thought, when she stood behind it, looking out past the back of a silent guard. They were light metal, filigreed like a New Orleans balcony; compared to the stone walls into which they were set they seemed flimsy. The marines who stood by them, on the other hand, looked as rough and heavy as the walls, and for that she was glad.

A current of cool air came through the bars. She glanced back into the hallway. Smoke-hazed, filled with people, it seemed cramped, almost fetid, although she knew it was not; no one had been there more than a day. But it was a bit close, and the air from outside was fresh, smelling of rain. She moved the last few feet to the gate. One of the guards glanced back at her; he grinned. “Getting tired of indoors?”

“Yeah, a little.” She leaned her head against iron, against the smoothness of many coats of black enamel. The metal was thin, but she was grateful for whatever protection it offered.

She looked into a deserted street. The roadway glistened with rain, and there was still mist in the air. The unaccustomed cold made her shiver. Above the buildings she could see the gray underbellies of clouds, seeming to scrape the tops of the hotels. A storm, yes, the weather was turning mean; the orchards would get their rain, and more wind than they wanted. How wet it is, she thought. I thought it was supposed to be dry here.

She was about to turn back to Nan when one of the guards straightened and stepped up to the gate, looking out.

“What is it, Corporal?”

“People coming, Sergeant.”

“Locals?”

“No, don't think so—”

They were Americans, ten or a dozen of them; she couldn't see whether they had driven up or walked; they were just there suddenly. The younger marine—the corporal—talked to them through the gate for a few minutes. The discussion became heated, with ID cards and drivers' licenses thrust through the openwork. When he finally drew back the bolt, the gate opened inward to a press of bodies. He had time for only a brief glimpse at IDs. One of them shouldered past Susan, a dark man, dropping his passport back into a sport coat; their eyes met briefly, then he was past, inside. The next face Susan saw was Moira's, and her friend saw her at the same time. They met with a tight hug, and she could feel Moira's dampness, her shivering.

“Betts! I'm so glad you made it here. Is Nan with you?”

“You bet she is.” Susan held her roommate at arm's length, studying the bruise that marred the Ox's perfect complexion. “I figured you'd stay at the digs, out of the way! What happened to your face?”

“It's turned bad out there,” said the archaeologist, looking back into the crowd that pressed still against the gate; the guards had regained control, were letting them through one by one now. “Michael! I'll be inside, with Susan here.—Yeah, even in the hills. They won't talk to us anymore, and the man who owned the land ordered us off. I don't know why … on the way back, some people tried to stop our car, and there was a fight. Anyway, the airport's closed, so we decided it would be best to come here.”

“I'm glad you did. But I hope you brought something to eat.”

“Uh-oh.” Moira winced. “Food problems?”

“Looks like there might be. There are a lot of people here.”

“Yeah, I see that. Well, we didn't bring much to eat, but does wine count?”

Susan had to laugh. “It's certainly a plus.”

*   *   *

Cook, Moira's grad student, had a small radio. They lay around on Susan's blanket and listened to it through the morning. They could hear Turkish being spoken, but none of them knew it, so they stayed with the Greek stations, and later found a British Forces broadcast in English. Both sources agreed that tension was building hourly along the line of demarcation. The British said that a move forward was imminent. The Greek-speaking stations agreed, but added, in strident accents, that if an advance beyond the cease-fire line began, the army and people would resist, and that Athens, the mother country, would not stand back this time.

“I don't get it,” said Susan. “Why would the Turks attack? They already have half the island, and only about a third of the Cypriotes are Turkish.”

“It's all for show,” said Moira. “Why do men make wars, anyway? To prove they have balls.”

“I think it's a little more serious than that,” said Michael, opening his mouth in Susan's presence for almost the first time. He had a gentle smile, long, sun-bleached hair that fell over his forehead and sprang up in a cowlick, and she liked him immediately. “Probably the new Turkish leadership. They want something to unify the country, and they're generals—war is a natural. Don't forget, this island's only fifty miles from Asia. The Turks owned it for a long time. It goes back and forth. Our bad luck to be here when it's happening again.”

“Not everybody seems to take it as fatalistically as you do,” said Susan. She nodded at the radio, where a speaker was holding forth on blood, fire, and resistance to the last bullet.

“It's their home,” said Moira, and changed the subject, looking at Nan, who was sitting up, looking sleepy. “And how's my niece doing? Feeling better this morning, huh?”

“Hi, Moy-ra!” Nancy shrieked. “Mikey! Where's your bottle?”

“We've got to empty one first,” grinned Michael, patting his clinking knapsack.

*   *   *

There was very little for lunch. Canned soup, a few more cookies, and that seemed to be the end of the embassy's supply. She took Nan back to the kitchen for the promised cereal, but it was gone. Someone else's child, there were three or four others among the families camped in the crowded hall.

The afternoon wore on much like the morning. They hung above the radio, their sole source of news, until Nancy, growing costive, demanded they turn it off. Susan was glad enough to comply. After a while her daughter napped, and Michael brought out a pack of cards. They played whist and passed one of his bottles of
rodakino
around through the afternoon and on into dusk. It was too sweet, and she only sipped at it. The corridor darkened gradually, and around the four of them as they played the other people prepared for sleep. Ms. Freed came out to snap on the lights, but nothing happened. The power had gone off sometime during the afternoon.

It was a little after that, as if the gradual withdrawal of day was a cue, that the far-off shooting began again. Susan suspended a hand rich with royalty—it was almost too dark to distinguish jack from queen—as they turned to the courtyard windows to listen. More shots, drifting, it seemed, above the low roofs and into the open windows on the wind; and then, closer, the sound of shouting.

“A real
Kristallnacht,
” said Moira softly. She shuddered.

“Riots?”

“Not that harmless.” The archaeologist was biting her lip, looking at the falling darkness outside the windows. “It's going to be bad. I can't say Moslems are my favorite people, but I wouldn't want to be one tonight in Nicosia.”

“They'll kill them?”

“At least beat them, burn their houses and shops. There aren't many here anymore. Most of them went to live on the eastern side of the island. But there were a few that stayed. They had homes here, too.”

They listened somberly, each imagining him or herself at the mercy of a crowd like that.

They tried to go back to cards, but Susan could not concentrate. She found herself still listening, and from time to time she heard the sounds of guns again. And then shouts.

“Jeez, they're getting closer, aren't they?” said Moira.

“Maybe it's the wind,” said Michael, but as they suspended play again to listen Susan felt sweat trickle along her forehead. They were closer, all right. Maybe on the next street over—

Something flickered at the corner of a window.

“I can't take this.” Michael jumped up, upsetting the bottle; sticky wine gushed over the blanket. “Oh, hell. Moira, can you get this? I've got to see what's going on. I'm going up to the gate.”

“Be careful, Mike.”

“Sure.”

He left. Moira mopped at the stain with a tissue, gave up, and tipped the bottle back for the last swallow. “Jeez,” she said again. “You don't think they'd bother us, do you, Betts? These people don't have anything against Americans that I know of.”

“You're the expert here, not me,” said Susan; but she was thinking,
and what about the people who tried to stop you on the road, Moira? The ones who gave you that bruise?

The shouting beat at their ears again, louder, the sound of a dangerous surf. Looking toward the courtyard windows, Susan felt the pasteboards tremble in her hands. Fear? Yes. She was afraid. It had been growing all afternoon, since she had seen the gates.

Perhaps the embassy, the shelter of the flag, was not inviolate.

The flicker was stronger now.

Michael returned. He pushed his hair back. “Everything's cool out front,” he said. “A crowd went by there awhile back, but they didn't seem to notice the embassy. Or care. The shouting's coming from down the street.”

“Man, that's good news. But what's with the fire?”

“It looks like part of the city's burning.”

It was then, for the first time, that Susan was sure something bad was going to happen. She knew it all at once, deep inside, and reached out to shake Nan awake, pulling her daughter into her arms.

“Calm. Please stay calm,” someone was shouting. “We have everything under control. No one has any reason to disturb us. Please, you're quite safe here.” It was Persinger, the ambassador; his bald head shone in the light of a portable lantern at the counter. From outside the flames grew brighter, flickering through the windows and into the corridor.

Above his voice, above the whispering of the refugees, came another spatter of shots. Five of them, spaced out, almost like a signal. They were close, just outside, and around her she heard the muttering stop and then rise again, louder. In front of them, like a scene lit for the stage, the sweat-shining face of the ambassador gleamed in the firelight as his mouth smiled and talked on.

The two marines who had been off watch came running from the offices, carrying rifles. They slowed as they came abreast of Persinger, looking at him for direction, but he simply waved them on, toward the gate. As she hugged Nan, watching, Susan saw the ambassador's face change as he looked after them. The smile faded, flickered back up, and then left his face. Without it he looked blank and slightly surprised. He pulled his coat down and sucked in his belly. He rubbed his mouth, glancing back at the people who had filled his once-cool and peaceful post. Then he nodded slightly, the first thing she had seen him do that seemed to be done for himself, not for the observation and consumption of others.

He turned and went with short bouncy strides after the marines. Behind him she saw the dark man she'd noted earlier rise from a seat along the wall and follow him toward the gate.

Michael got up, too. “Where do you think you're going?” said Moira instantly.

“See if I can help.”

“That's their job. They—”

“There's only a few guys to hold the fort. One more might make a difference. Stay here with them.” He, too, moved into the flickering darkness, toward the shouting.

“Are they coming in here, Mommy?”

“No, Bunny. Don't worry, Mikey and the soldiers will stop them.”

“Who is it out there? Bad men?”

She looked down at her daughter's frightened eyes, and smoothed with her hand the drops of moisture at the edges of her forehead. Bad? She hardly knew how to answer … she had never, reading the papers back home, really thought of attacking an American embassy as bad. It was only natural, the outcome of a policy that supported any oppressive regime, any dictator, so long as he claimed to oppose Communism. She had thought it a form of popular justice.

But could you feel the same way, when you were one of the frightened people inside?

And how did you explain the difference between war, and dissent, protest, justified revolt to a child? Good and bad … that was a child's distinction. In this night an enemy identified himself by the primeval differences, language, race, even appearance. “I don't know, Nan,” she said at last. “I don't know who they are or what they want.”

“Will they hurt us?”

“No, of course they wouldn't,” Susan said; but she wished there was someone who could tell her that with all the conviction of an adult to a three-year-old.

Several minutes passed. Huddled in the near-dark, the refugees waited. Susan felt helpless. It enraged her. Give
me
a rifle, let
me
stand at the gate … then she thought of Nan. No, her place was with her daughter.

If only Dan was here …

The shouting came again, louder. She couldn't make out words. The flickering light of torches or street fires wavered redly against the courtyard windows. Huddled back in the corridor, behind a hundred other frightened civilians, she and Nan could only hear what happened. They couldn't see the gate, but they could hear the shouting that came again and again, louder, then the shattering of glass and a closer glow of fire, a stink of oil and flame.