The Sunrise (15 page)

When the band stopped, there was rowdy applause from both hotel guests and staff. Nearly two hundred of them had been caught up by the music and the mood. Such a sense of euphoria could not be created to order; it was something almost supernatural.

It was the night she watched Markos dance that she began to see him as someone other than her husband’s right-hand man. When he came off the dance floor, strands of shiny black hair sticking to his forehead, his temples glistening, eyes sparkling, clearly exhilarated by the energy of the
zeibekiko
, she could not tear her eyes away. She took a step towards him.

‘Oh, don’t come too close!’ he laughed. ‘I’m giving off heat like a lamb on a spit!’

He had taken off his jacket, and sweat had soaked through his shirt.

It was the first time he had told her not to come too near, and it was the first time she had wanted to.

They were close enough to feel each other’s warmth.

Many of the guests came up to thank Aphroditi before they dispersed, some of them planning to continue their evening in the nightclub. It was exactly midnight.

Apart from the waiter clearing tables, Aphroditi and Markos were the only ones left in the room.

‘You must go,’ said Aphroditi.

Without thinking, she touched his elbow. It was a spontaneous gesture and one that was immediately withdrawn.

‘My senior barman said he would open up tonight,’ said Markos, smiling at her. ‘But he’ll be expecting me there soon. We have a good act on tonight.’

‘Well I must leave too,’ she added quickly. ‘Thanks for helping with the dance demonstrations.’

She hurried, slightly agitatedly, across the foyer and went outside. It had been very hot in the ballroom and her face shone with perspiration. She stood on the hotel steps inhaling fresh air deep into her lungs.

Markos saw Aphroditi standing outside the glass doors to the hotel, car keys in hand. He had been anticipating her touch, and at the very moment when it happened, an idea finally crystallised.

T
HROUGH THE WINTER
Markos had fulfilled his promise to Christos. Once or twice a week his younger brother gave him a small package neatly tied up with brown paper and string and addressed to one of their many distant cousins who had moved to London. Every Cypriot who had left still craved the fruits of their native island, and friends and family shipped their needs to them on a regular basis. Two thousand miles from home, they continued to re-create home flavours, which depended on aromatic herbs grown in their grandmother’s soil, honey from their own mountains and olive oil from the family grove. It was incomprehensible to them all that in England olive oil was regarded as medicinal and only found in small quantities in pharmacies.

He put the packages inside his briefcase or under his arm, sometimes both, and took them to The Sunrise. If he passed his mother on the way out, she would not ask questions. She knew that dozens of relatives looked forward to these essentials, and often took her own to the post office.

The chances of Markos being searched by the police were minimal, and these packages were unlikely to arouse suspicion. Once at the Clair de Lune, he immediately went down to the vault and removed the previous day’s takings. He then placed the parcels inside the safe and went to the bank to deposit all the cash.

When Christos wanted the packages – sometimes three or four might accumulate – Markos retrieved them and dropped them off at his garage. Not once did he ask about the contents. That way he kept both his conscience and his hands clean.

Both brothers knew that these terrorist activities demanded as much secrecy as possible. When Irini asked, which occasionally she still did, Markos had no trouble looking his mother in the eye and assuring her that they were all safe and that this time round he would not throw himself behind the cause.

‘I’m much too old to be running around with a gun,’ he said teasingly one day as he drank his coffee, sweetened just as he liked it.

‘But you’re only—’

‘Twenty-nine! I’m getting on a bit now,
Mamma!
’

Irini Georgiou laughed.

Markos was by no means old, but the man behind the renewed movement for
enosis
was, and at the end of January General Grivas died suddenly, aged seventy-four.

Grivas’ death did not mean the end of the terrorist movement. Instead it marked the beginning of increased involvement from the Greek military junta in Athens, who began to send more officers of its own to Cyprus. It was the excuse they had been looking for and presented the perfect moment for accelerated interference in Cypriot affairs. If they decided to get rid of Makarios and put in their own people,
enosis
could be achieved quite swiftly, as long as the Turks kept out of it. This was their thinking.

As the troop numbers rose, so did Papacosta’s new hotel. The New Paradise Beach was a vast concrete shell that cast a great shadow into the sea. Papacosta could only see its beauty, but other hoteliers were shocked by its scale and ugliness. It grew visibly each day, with Savvas demanding long hours from everyone on site. The more income that flowed into The Sunrise, and particularly into the Clair de Lune, the faster the new hotel could progress. Additional labourers were taken on as the building climbed ever higher.

Savvas was rarely seen at The Sunrise now, but Aphroditi had ceased to mind. Nowadays, when she got ready to go to the nightly reception, she realised that she was looking forward to the evening. It no longer seemed a duty. The way Markos greeted her each evening reinforced that feeling, and when they went in to eat dinner her courtesy was now sincere, and she made sure to thank him for pulling out her chair.

Once spring had carpeted the mountains with wild flowers and the fields were verdant with bright shoots, the head chef wanted to celebrate. In mid April, a Gala Dinner was held: ‘Farewell to Winter’. It was a theme that provided plenty of inspiration, and the ballroom was lavishly decorated with orchids, poppies and hyacinths. Even for this event, Savvas could not find time.

Winter had been mild, with only the lightest sprinkling of snow on the Troodos Mountains, and Frau Bruchmeyer had continued to swim each day at dawn, her lithe, ageless body cutting a channel through the calm, oily sea. Tonight she sat at the top table on Markos’ left, her muscular arms still showing last year’s tan.

The menu that night was
fruits de mer
, with sculptures created from lobster, langoustine, scallops and prawns. Oysters had been flown in from France, and there was even caviar and smoked salmon. It was a colourful display, celebratory, glamorous and lavish, and the wine waiters successfully pressed their clientele to accompany their food with champagne.

Markos paid Frau Bruchmeyer plenty of attention. For half an hour or so Aphroditi saw only his back and was obliged to engage in conversation with her neighbour, an elderly Cypriot who had once been a politician and a good friend of her father.

‘I miss him,’ said the man. ‘It must have been such a shock.’

‘Yes, it was,’ replied Aphroditi, hoping the conversation might not have to last too long. ‘My mother still hasn’t really got over the loss.’

‘Does she live all on her own?’ asked the man’s wife, leaning across and fixing Aphroditi with a penetrating stare.

‘Yes,’ replied Aphroditi defensively. ‘She didn’t want to return to Cyprus. I did try to persuade her.’

‘Well, it’s understandable after what happened …’ interjected the man, making an unwelcome reference to her late brother.

The three of them continued eating in silence for a few minutes.

‘Perhaps if a little Papacosta comes along, she might change her mind,’ said the wife brightly. ‘I couldn’t be more than a mile from my lovely grandchildren.’

Aphroditi knew that her mother did not like this woman, and she could see why.

‘Personally I think she’s made a good decision and I don’t think she’s going to regret it,’ said the husband. ‘It’s just not safe any more. What with all the rumours at the moment, who’s to know what’s going to happen?’

Aphroditi cut in.

‘Rumours?’

‘Don’t bother Kyria Papacosta with your worries,’ interjected the wife. ‘I am sure she has heard what’s going on.’

There was another pause.

At this moment, Aphroditi felt something on her shoulder. It was Markos, touching her lightly to get her attention.

‘Kyria Papacosta,’ he said. ‘Look!’

He was holding out a hand; there, in his palm, was a tiny pearl, the size of a split pea.

‘I nearly broke my tooth,’ he beamed. ‘It was in one of my oysters!’

He dropped it in his glass of champagne to clean it, fished it out with his fork, dried it with his napkin and presented it to Aphroditi.

‘Here,’ he said. ‘A miracle from beneath the waves. Like Aphroditi herself.’

Aphroditi flushed slightly. Savvas had given her dozens of pieces of jewellery over the past years, but none with such a flourish. She picked it off his palm and examined it. It was smooth in texture but rough in shape – and still cool from the champagne.

‘Thank you,’ she said sincerely. ‘I shall treasure it.’

She put it away in her purse, meaning what she said. Her heart was beating hard.

Although everyone was almost drunk on the quantities of rich seafood, there was another course yet to come. The ex-politician and his wife left before dessert to make their way back to Nicosia. It was a long way to drive at that time of night and he had clearly been anxious all evening.

‘It’s not so safe on the roads at the moment,’ was his parting remark to Aphroditi.

Aphroditi rarely left the flourishing town of Famagusta. She visited the shops and The Sunrise and then drove the few hundred yards home, always listening to a music channel rather than the news. She was almost as cloistered as the tourists, whose days were spent in carefree innocence.

As soon as the couple were out of earshot, Aphroditi quizzed Markos.

‘What was Kyrios Spyrou talking about just now?’

‘When?’

‘He mentioned that things weren’t very safe.’

‘Some people just enjoy unsettling others,’ said Markos, nonchalantly. ‘I really don’t think you should worry.’

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of waiters with dishes of syllabub. Markos knew perfectly well what the man had been referring to. Army officers were still arriving from the Greek mainland, while EOKA B members were growing ever bolder in their activities and springing attacks on government supporters.

Cyprus was like a vine leaf that looked opaque and green in the hand but held up to the light was lined with veins. The threat of violence coursed invisibly through the island, and while its sunny, sensual image continued to attract visitors, conspiracies were being hatched and whispers clandestinely exchanged behind closed doors.

Markos moved between the two co-existing worlds. The kaleidoscopic tourist playground of blue sky, warm sea, bikinis and cocktails was real enough, but where the sun did not penetrate, there were shadowy places where activities of a different kind took place. Though he never opened the parcels that he ferried on an almost daily basis now, Markos knew that they must contain the toolkits for terrorism, usually stolen from the police: guns, ammunition, detonators and other ingredients for bomb-making. Carefree holidaymakers had no idea what was happening around them, and in the case of The Sunrise, beneath their rooms. The vault was now an arsenal.

By keeping a foot in both worlds and appearing uninterested, non-committal even about current affairs, Markos aimed to ensure he would always be on the winning side. He certainly did not want to be drawn into any political discussions with Aphroditi.

While cutlery was being fussed over and a few glasses removed, Markos used the hiatus as an opportunity to change the subject.

‘Kyria Papacosta,’ he said, ‘what is that perfume you wear?’

Aphroditi flushed slightly. Theoretically, the question was as impersonal as asking who had designed her jewellery, but the knowledge that she had engaged one of his senses other than sight suggested something more.

‘It’s Chanel. Chanel No. 5.’

‘So chic!’ he said.

She laughed, easily pleased by the compliment. For months now Savvas had hardly seen her when she went out, let alone noticed what fragrance she was wearing. He never saw her dressed for the evening, and was usually in bed when she returned home, getting a few hours’ sleep before rising again at five.

They had left the banqueting room and were standing in the foyer.

‘Good night, Kyria Papacosta,’ Markos said. ‘I should be getting downstairs.’

‘Markos,’ said Aphroditi. ‘Can I ask you something?’

He waited, wondering.

‘Would you mind calling me Aphroditi? Except in front of staff, of course.’

Markos nodded. ‘I’d be delighted.’

‘I know it’s only a name, but …’

‘Can I ask you something too? About a name?’

Aphroditi gave him a quizzical look.

‘Am I really forgiven?’

‘For what?’ she asked, disingenuously.

‘For the name of the nightclub!’

‘Yes, Markos!’ she smiled. ‘You know you are.’

She noticed him run his fingers through his hair. It was an unconscious gesture and she had seen him do it before. This time, it made her heart skip a beat.

‘Will you come and see one of the acts some time?’ he asked, with an expression as vulnerable as a lost child’s. ‘Then I’ll know you mean it.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ll come tomorrow.’

Aphroditi turned to leave. Most of the other guests had gone now.

‘And by the way,’ she said, trying to maintain her composure, ‘thank you for the pearl.’

In no time, Aphroditi was back in her apartment. She removed her jewellery, slipped off her dress and slid between the sheets. For three hours she listened to Savvas’ breathing, only sleeping once she had heard him get up, dress and leave.

When she eventually woke, her mind full of half-remembered images and dreams, light was streaming through a gap between the shutters. It was midday.