The Sunrise (27 page)

‘The baby came early … the same day as the Turks.’

Emine clasped her hand over her mouth.

‘It must have been the anxiety that set off the labour. And Christos being missing,’ continued Irini.

‘Is he …?’

‘Yes,’ said Irini. ‘Still missing. And Ali?’

‘No sign,’ responded Emine, trying to hold back tears. ‘That’s why we’ve stayed. I can’t go until he comes back to us.’

Panikos appeared. He spent most of his time looking after Maria and playing with little Vasilis in the back bedroom. They only came out to the living area when it was time to eat. The irrepressible sounds of baby and child had less chance of carrying into the street this way.

Irini noticed immediately that he was ashen-faced. He did not seem to register that there was another woman in the room.

‘Panikos, what is it?’

‘The baby …’

‘What’s wrong?’

Before the answer came, Irini had pushed past him and into the bedroom.

Even in the semi-lit room, she could make out the anxious features of her daughter’s face. She was cradling the baby, who was unusually silent.

‘
Kori mou
, what’s happened?’

Maria looked up at her mother and her eyes were full of tears.

Irini put her hand on the baby’s tiny head.

‘
Panagia
mou!
She’s burning up.’

‘And she hasn’t fed all day.
Mamma
, I’m really afraid …’

Irini had already left the room and a moment later returned with a bowl of cold water. She started to sponge the baby’s head.

‘We need to cool her down,’ she said. ‘Otherwise she might have a fit.’

‘She already did …’

‘She needs some penicillin,’ said Panikos.

‘And how are we going to get that?’

‘We’ll have to find a way. There’ll be some at the hospital.’

The baby was very still and wan. Even little Vasilis sat quietly, sensing his parents’ anxiety.

‘I’ll have to try and find some.’

Irini stroked her daughter’s hair and then followed Panikos out of the room. She could see the look of desperation on her son-in-law’s face.

Emine was standing outside with Hüseyin waiting to leave. Irini explained the situation.

‘I’ll go with you,’ said Hüseyin to Panikos. ‘It will be safer.’

Panikos did not hesitate. They had never met before, but he was grateful for the offer. He did not feel confident about doing it alone. He had been unfit and overweight for a long time, pampered for years first by his own mother and then more so by his mother-in-law.

It was late afternoon when the two of them set off. The hospital was on the other side of the city, so they would have to make their way cautiously. They were bound to see soldiers en route.

They moved silently, Hüseyin going ahead and scouting, beckoning Panikos to follow when he knew it was safe. When they reached the hospital, they encountered their first major obstacle. Peering through the iron railings, they could see that the doors were ajar, but the gates themselves were firmly padlocked.

‘Wait!’ said Hüseyin. ‘I’ll have a quick look round the perimeter. There might be another way in.’

Five minutes later, he was back.

‘This way!’

He led Panikos to a place where the railings had been prised apart, but he had not considered the man’s size. The space was not wide enough and Panikos knew there was no point in trying. Climbing over the top of the railings was even less of a possibility.

‘I can go alone,’ said Hüseyin. ‘But I don’t know what I am looking for.’

The minutes were ticking by.

Panikos felt inside his pocket and found a scrap of paper and a blunt pencil. He remembered the name of the penicillin from when little Vasilis had once been sick. He wrote it down and handed it to Hüseyin.

‘Can you read that?’ he asked. He was not referring to the legibility of his handwriting.

Hüseyin took the paper without answering and scanned it.

Panikos immediately realised that Hüseyin was perfectly able to read Greek and was embarrassed.

In a moment Hüseyin had slipped through the railings. Panikos watched him sprint across the gravelled area and disappear round the corner.

The wide corridors and wards were as eerily deserted as the rest of the city. There was a certain amount of destruction but it was hard to tell if this was wanton or caused by people leaving the hospital in a panic. Trolleys had been overturned and contents spilled from cupboards. Medical files were scattered across the floor.

Hüseyin had no idea where he was going. In his entire life he had never needed a doctor, so even the sour smell of antiseptic was unfamiliar to him. He ran down a corridor until he reached a set of signs. One of them read ‘Pharmacy’. He would try that first. Otherwise he would see if he could find the paediatric ward. Perhaps drugs for children would be stored there.

The pharmacy had already been broken into. There were shattered bottles everywhere and cartons emptied of their pills. Abandoned syringes lay on the surfaces. The room was cold. Although electricity had generally gone off in the city, a generator had obviously kicked in at the hospital.

Hüseyin retrieved the piece of paper and began trying to compare what Panikos had written against the labels on the drugs that remained in the cupboards. None of them matched.

He ran back into the corridor and followed signs to the children’s ward.

There was less chaos there. Rows of small beds were still neatly made up and Hüseyin noticed a box of toys in the corner. Someone had bothered to put them away before leaving. Doctors’ coats hung on a row of pegs and a stethoscope was coiled up on the desk like a snake.

Hüseyin tried the nearest cupboard. Bandages. Blood pressure monitors. More stethoscopes. He realised that he was not going to find what he was looking for here.

Recalling that the drugs in the pharmacy had been stored in a cold room, he began to look for a fridge. He found it soon enough, in a small back room; inside were rows of bottles, dozens of them with a name that matched the one that Panikos had written down. Hüseyin stashed four in his pockets. There was probably nowhere to keep anything cool in the Georgiou house so he left the rest. He could always return if more was needed.

Within moments, he was back at the entrance and round the corner. Panikos was waiting.

They got home as quickly as the corpulent Panikos’ pace would allow. He knew that every moment counted with sick babies. If theirs had another febrile fit, it could be fatal. His attempts to keep up with Hüseyin left him breathless, and by the time they were home, he was doubled up with the exertion.

It was Hüseyin who tapped discreetly at the door and entered first. He handed Irini the bottles.

With a teaspoon, Maria fed the baby tiny drops of the liquid. Little Irini’s breaths were rapid and shallow. Her grandmother continually dabbed her with a damp cloth.

‘We have to try and cool her down,’ she insisted.

That night, there was little change.

Maria was as silent as the baby. Panikos paced up and down. Irini wrung out her cloth again and again, praying constantly. Her hands were busy so she did not cross herself, but she looked up at the icon from time to time. At least while the baby was warm, they knew she was alive.

As ever, Vasilis sought comfort in
zivania
.

Late that night, Markos reappeared. He had bags of provisions with him.

‘What’s wrong,
Mamma
?’ he asked. He could see instantly that she was distraught.

‘The baby! She’s so ill. I think we might lose her …’

Markos sat with his father to have a drink.

With such an anxiety hanging over them, he decided to wait until morning before telling them his news. He had learned something that day that was going to have serious consequences for them all.

By morning, the baby’s temperature had begun to drop. Life was returning to her. Maria wept, this time for joy.

Irini took her little namesake from her daughter’s arms and walked about the room with her. She made little sounds now. This seemed a miracle after the previous day.

They continued to administer drops from the bottles. It was unscientific, but they knew it was curing her.

Maria was exhausted and lay on the bed to sleep. The first thing she saw when she woke up an hour later was her mother’s smile.

‘She’s going to be all right,’ said Irini. ‘I think she wants feeding now.’

The baby nestled against her mother’s breast and suckled. It was the first time in more than thirty-six hours. She was clearly out of danger.

By evening, everything was back to normal and even Maria found herself able to eat again. Markos felt it was a suitable time to give them some news. He was using information like a tincture, knowing that a small amount at the right moment would have a huge effect.

‘We’re not going to be rescued yet,’ he said. ‘Or at least it’s not going to be for a while.’

There was a look of dismay on his mother’s face.

‘But …’

‘How do you know?’ demanded Vasilis.

Twenty-four-hour-a-day incarceration with his wife and enforced absence from both the
kafenion
and his citrus grove were making him more irritable than ever. Markos had found some more
zivania
for him and there was a plentiful supply of tobacco, but Irini had told him to put away his
komboloi,
his worry beads. They were a little too noisy.

‘I overheard something …’

‘From who?’

‘Turkish soldiers … they were standing outside a shop when I was inside. What I heard means that we might have to stay here a while longer.’

‘But why? What do you mean?’

Markos sketched out a map of Cyprus on a scrap of paper and drew a line across it.

‘As far as I can tell, this is what they’ve done,’ he said.

For the first time, they all understood that they were inside a huge zone occupied by the Turks.

‘From the way they were talking, I think we’ve been completely outnumbered.’

‘But there’s still fighting?’ asked Panikos.

‘It seems so,’ said Markos.

‘Those
poustotourtji
!’
It was the strongest word Vasilis could use against the Turks. ‘And now we have some living next door!’ he spat. His prejudice against Turkish Cypriots had deepened.

‘Without Hüseyin,’ said Panikos, ‘we wouldn’t still have the baby with us.’

Vasilis put down his fork.

‘What do you mean?’

‘She would have died,’ he said emphatically. ‘He not only found the medicine but I probably wouldn’t even have reached the hospital safely in the first place.’

Vasilis carried on eating in silence.

Irini smiled. Her little granddaughter had been saved by Emine’s son.

Amongst other provisions, Markos had brought back some semolina that day, so she made
siropiasto,
a sweet cake, and sent him to invite the Özkan family round.

Halit refused to come. Irini and Emine accepted that there might never be a day when their husbands would sit down at the same table. The men made the conflict personal and blamed each other for what had happened. By contrast, the women blamed themselves.

‘We’re all at fault somehow,’ said Emine. ‘Aren’t we?’

‘When something has been going on for so long,’ reflected Irini, ‘it’s impossible to say who started it.’

Now that they were round the table together, Markos asked Hüseyin if he had other sources of supplies in addition to the shop where he had left the note. The younger man was cautious. He did not want to give away the details so he answered vaguely, describing an area in the north-west of the city without mentioning street names.

Irini was passing round plates of cake.

‘I think I need to lose a little weight,’ said Panikos, his hand on his rotund belly. He pushed away his share.

Hüseyin and Panikos exchanged a smile.

‘Can I have it?’ asked Mehmet, running up to the table. Up until now he had been on the floor playing a game with Vasilakis. Mehmet had enjoyed this immensely. Making up the rules and being looked up to by the toddler was a new experience. The last few weeks had passed very slowly.

‘With pleasure,’ said Panikos, handing his slice of cake to the little boy.

I
N THE CAMP
at Dhekelia, there was no cake. Sometimes there was not even enough bread, and conditions were worsening each day.

Like many there, Aphroditi was sick. Hundreds had been suffering from dysentery, and bacteria rampaged indiscriminately across the generations, from old people to the newborn. There were fresh graves on the perimeter of the camp.

Aphroditi was already slim, but after ten days of violent illness, her grubby dress hung off her. For a few days she was taken care of in a medical tent, lying on a low army bed in the airless space, from time to time doubled up with pain and nausea. Markos was constantly on her mind. She tried to remember his face. When it did not come easily, she questioned whether he was even still alive.

She had not taken off her jewellery since coming into the camp. There was no reason to remove it and nowhere safe to store it. She played constantly with her pendant. It always felt warm, and she held in her mind the last person apart from her who had touched it. She imagined that somewhere deep beneath the layers of her own fingerprints, Markos’ remained.

Aphroditi had not looked in a mirror since the last glance she had given herself in the apartment all those weeks ago. It was strange to care so little, a change in her as unexpected as the affection she had developed for the Frangos children.

When her condition gradually improved, she returned to the squalid tent she and Savvas now shared with Costas Frangos and his family.

They had expected to be away for a few days, but it was now five weeks since they had arrived in the camp. Savvas had heard that people were beginning to return to their homes in Nicosia. There was currently no possibility of anyone going back to Famagusta, and many were travelling to relatives or friends who were prepared to give them accommodation.

‘Let’s leave,’ said Savvas. ‘The sooner we get out of here, the better.’