Barbed Wire in Aphrodite’s Garden
A NOVEL
by John Bandler
Summary
Cyprus, 1955-1957. Love and courage collide with bigotry, decadence, and revolution in ethnically divided Cyprus as British control crumbles. A teenage schoolboy battles his mantle of cowardice, a tycoon’s illegitimate son rebels against his Greek heritage, and a young womanizer seeks redemption as a guerrilla-assassin.
(161,000 words)
Literary Presentations
Finalist: Writers’ Union of Canada 2006 Short Prose Competition
Between a Polonaise and a Nocturne (in Greek)
Irakles meets Fulya. Their first encounter. Translation: Eirini Zacharidis. Thanks also to John Vlachopoulos, Dinos Mavromatis, and Polychronis Koutsakis.
Excerpts
Chris and Odysseas with ‘Suleiman’ (By the River—Prolog)
Claire and Jane with Stavros (On the Beach)
Chris and Rebecca (On Rebecca’s Doorstep)
Stavros and Chris (On the Roof)
Sokratis and Claire (In a Restaurant)
Fulya with her brother Mehmet (In the Van)
Irakles and Fulya (In a Private Cove)
Chris and Rebecca (In Rebecca’s Bedroom)
Chris and Odysseas with ‘Suleiman’ (By the River—Prolog)
Odysseas flailed to the edge of the pool, clawed at the lip, and slipped back into the murk. Perhaps his feet were stuck to the bottom.
Christakis willed his legs forward to help his brother, but they didn’t obey.
Oh, why did they have to come out today without Stavros? Stavros wouldn’t be
afraid.
“Stand back,” a man’s voice said.
One moment he was over there, now he was here—the man who’d been watching them
from the other side of the riverbed. The man leaned into the water, yanked
Odysseas out by the scruff of the neck, and laid him out in the mud. Limp.
Christakis’s eyes clouded. He cowered and scrunched his eyes, using his hands to
wipe his tears while hiding the sight of his brother. “Is he dead?”
The man kneeled down and put an ear to Odysseas’s mouth. “He’s still breathing.
What’s your name?”
“Christakis, Christakis Ikonis.”
“Run, Christaki. Get help. But don’t tell anyone you saw me.” The man’s
voice became loud. “Do you hear? If you do and they catch me, I’ll escape again,
come after you, and kill you.” The man splashed handfuls of brown water at
Christakis. “Don’t look so stupid. Did you hear me?”
Christakis felt piss streaming down his leg. “I don’t want to die,” he sobbed.
“Remember, Christaki. You never saw me, or I’ll take your mother and
stick her into that prison over there so the prisoners can take turns fucking
her. Then I’ll find you and kill you.”
Claire and Jane with Stavros (On the Beach)
[Claire] Reluctant to spoil her makeup by dousing in the sea, but unable to settle, Claire had dragged her chair and copies of Vogue and Illustrated London News into and out of the sun. Fuchsia lips. Matching toenails. With wisps of sun-bleached hair that accented her arms. Unlike the local talent, a natural blonde. Not bad for a thirtyish English bird, albeit a NAAFI accountant’s wife. Packaged today in a form-fitting tan bikini that toned with oiled skin. From afar, it should be difficult to tell that she wasn’t naked.
Still, she envied Jane’s Devonshire cream skin set off by jet hair. On jaunts
into the pistachio-green sea, neither a volume of Dickens nor a Bronte sister
could shield Jane’s tits from gapers. A straw hat might shelter her head from
the inferno, but the swirling waters did little to quench those adolescent and
not so adolescent groins.
Jane’s blue eyes alone
merited a detour.
Jane or her? Which of
them had reeled in this so-called Stavros?
Chris and Rebecca (On Rebecca’s Doorstep)
The wrought-iron gate
squealed open.
[Chris] His head slumped back
onto his knees. She mustn’t see his face.
“Is Fulya all right?”
she asked. She clanged the gate shut and approached. “Look at me.” She touched
his shoulder. “Why, you’re teary. Have you come to give me bad news?”
Stavros and Chris (On the Roof)
[Stavros] “The English bashed me with rifle-butts and beat me with sticks.” With one arm Stavros gripped him, with the other Stavros slapped him, backhand, hard across the face. One side, then the other, then another round. “Her father sleeps by an open window. You’ll fling the grenade into his bedroom.” Stavros slapped him again. “Are you paying attention to me?”
He [Chris] tasted blood. His bandaged hand had stopped aching, but his
back had flared up. He could duck. Roll off the roof. Would those knuckles
thwacking his face ever stop? Dear God, anything for relief. Stavros had
cracked.
Stavros (In the Hospital)
Stavros fired a five-second burst into Hadjipavlou’s face. The traitor’s
head split open. Blood and brains splattered the whitewashed wall behind the
bed, onto the floor and over his wife. Pigswill. Women shrieked. For a moment,
it seemed that the red slop might backsplash onto Stavros. He shut his eyes, his
senses numbed. He wasn’t usually so close.
Sokratis and Claire (In a Restaurant)
As he tested the Bordeaux that Loizos had placed before him, he wondered whether Claire’s arsenal also included dish-smashing. Rule number three—unsettle her by hinting that her secret was out anyway. “Rumor in the coffee shops is that the Englishman was the target, that he’s an intelligence agent.”
She frowned behind a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Who cares about the bloody
target? You Cypriots randomly shoot unarmed people in the back anyway. Women
included.”
“Take heed. I’d hate to see unfortunate pictures of you on the front page. Mr.
Alistair McKay will surely be struck again.”
“And poor Stelios Hadjipavlou. He was a much handier victim trapped in his
hospital bed.”
You Cypriots. Women. Blah, blah. Best ignore her sarcasm.
He could hardly explain that Hadjipavlou, apparently culpable of dipping a
greedy mitt into the British purse, also leaned politically too far left of
center. That in today’s politics, right-wing Hellenism tipped the balance of
prudence for Greek Cypriots. And that when clandestine initiatives required a
payoff, a Hellenist should better be caught giving than receiving. “Yes,
Hadjipavlou. The hospital. Dreadful. He was a good lawyer, with a dear wife. I
used his services. Perhaps there was a connection between your McKay and
Hadjipavlou.”
She alternated between cigarette and wine.
Of course she lusted after something. Something tangible. Women always did. And
he was there today to meet her needs as well as his own. He’d cleared the rest of his day, just in
case, wondering what her call for a meeting would uncover. She sought a favor,
certainly. Maybe she’d tried but couldn’t deliver him her NAAFI husband. Perhaps
she wanted the milksop executed—with his EOKA contacts an easy matter to
arrange. Clean. Arms length. Reggie could be the victim of one of those “random”
shootings in the back that so angered her. If her dullard hadn’t already pissed
himself into extinction.
Retribution for the loss of her friends he’d leave to God.
More mundane—perhaps
some merchant had cheated her and she needed redress. Yannakis could handle
that. Perhaps she had a problem with the bureaucracy. An official needed a
bribe. Yes, she likely needed money—women always wanted either romance or money.
She pressed her
wineglass to her lips. “I need money.”
To give her Reggie a
nudge? For that she’d need a cattle-prod not cash. “May I ask what for?”
“Does it matter?”
Most surely, dear lady, if it smacks of disadvantage to yours truly. “Why can’t you get the funds from your worthy husband?”
Fulya with her brother Mehmet (In the Van)
Darkness was complete as Mehmet and Fulya left Nicosia and headed towards Kythrea. Mehmet broke his uncommon silence once to ask her the time and to check his own watch. At Mia Milea they left the whoosh of the tree-lined asphalt. The van swayed and hopped along the dirt towards the Kyrenia Mountains.
“I know,” she said. “We’re headed for Koutsovendis. The mountains are steep and
lonely. It’ll take hours. Please turn back.”
“The curfew will keep the Greeks indoors. I’ve painted out my sign. Nobody will
know who we are.”
“Then why don’t we go the usual way?”
But Mehmet remained silent. The flat grit turned to stony, sheer ups and downs.
Mostly up. They stopped on a crest, temporary peace from the jolts and jerks of
their crawl. Mehmet unloaded a box from the back of the van and disappeared.
Could she take a peek at Irakles’s letter? No time. Her brother was already
returning. They proceeded further into the hills. She wondered why of all days
he would choose this one to delay their drive home. But she dare not ask again.
He’d lie. Under the new emergency regulations, there was only one
penalty for possessing a firearm, even for Turks. Death.
Hadn’t she overheard her father say that any person who consorted—what did
consort mean?—with a person carrying a weapon also faced death?
She closed her eyes, feigned sleep and tried to block the discomfort of their
drive. What would happen when Mehmet found out about her and Irakles? Mehmet
would be livid—order her not to see him. To see Irakles she’d have to lie.
To her father, to everyone. It wasn’t fair—no one minded Greek boys with English girls.
Chris’s Jane wasn’t just pretty. That day in the car, she’d looked so awfully
fierce too. In England, Irakles would have lots of pretty girls to pick from.
Sexy blondes in tight turtle-neck sweaters. Just like in films.
Her stomach knotted. Was it jealousy or the smell of petrol in Mehmet’s van that
had brought on her nausea?
In September, Chris had missed piano because of a cut to his hand. In October,
Miss [Rebecca] Ouzanian’s erratic changes of schedule had frustrated any
meeting. Perhaps Miss [Rebecca] Ouzanian had been trying to keep her away
from Chris. This month, the dusk-to-dawn curfew for Greek boys in response to
Black November had also worked against them. Fulya had noticed, though, that
Chris tried to cross paths with her outside his appointed class time. But
Mehmet’s vigilance had thwarted them. She remembered her glow when, standing by
the roadside, Chris had held up an envelope as her van rattled past. Finally,
today, Chris had burst into Miss [Rebecca] Ouzanian’s studio . . .
Why did engines creeping uphill have to sound like dogs in distress? And why did
wheels slip and make stones ping under the van?
Her legs ached—her satchel was jammed between her ankles, its flap undone so that, should they make another stop, she could sneak out Irakles’s letter. She’d hardy finished a single one of its mass of pages. But the night was so dark. She vowed to spend the rest of it reading and rereading them. Fragments floated through her mind.
I felt like I’d lost you; polonaise, nocturne; to drift away in a
chocolate-filled barge (oh, that’s not pathetic, Irakles, it’s wonderful!); a
bolt of joy, . . . Why did traveling deck-class mean you wouldn’t see porpoises
race the ship? Did big fish really race ships? What was ‘deck class’ anyway? Do
you have funny little wrinkles when you smile? I bet—, he wrote. Bet what? I bet
you do or I bet you don’t?
She pulled her pony-tail over her shoulder and brushed its end against her
cheek. Please be loyal, Irakles.
Irakles and Fulya (In a Private Cove)
She wiggled, opened her eyes and drew the coat over her leg. “I don’t know why I’m doing this.” She scanned the horizon. “I’ll get sucked under by the waves.”
“Here’s the
plan. You’ll wade in towards me. First, you’ll put your face into the water and
blow bubbles. Then, you’re going to hold your breath and let yourself sink, eyes
closed of course, so you can feel how easily you float. Then I’m going to pull
you towards me so you can feel the water rushing against your face. Ready?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ll have to take
that coat off.”
“You go in—I’m coming.”
She waved him away from her.
Irakles, submerged to his neck, steadied himself against the swell. He held his breath as Fulya, with her back to him, slowly unbuttoned her beach coat.
Chris and Rebecca (In Rebecca’s Bedroom)
He downed his wine in a gulp, banged down his glass and charged toward the bedroom. He whacked the door with the book. “I’m coming in,” he yelled and flung open the door.
She was sitting at her dressing table in bra and panties. “What’s wrong?” she
said without looking away from the mirror.
Christakis (Chris), a Greek-Cypriot teenager
Stavros, his cousin
Irakles, his friend
Jane, an English girl
Claire, Jane’s stepmother (English)
Rebecca Ouzanian, an Armenian-Cypriot piano teacher
Fulya, a Turkish-Cypriot girl
Sokratis, a tycoon, Irakles’s real father
Elena, Sokratis’s wife
Alistair, a British military intelligence agent
Harry Lawrell, an English teacher
Panaretos, a priest
Bambos, a terrorist
Fivos, a terrorist
I grew up in the British Crown colony of Cyprus during its pre-independence days.
This work of fiction draws on years of research, including newspaper archives of the time, and on-location interviews and meetings with Cypriots, including teachers, writers, professors, public and private figures, policemen, soldiers, politicians, and guerrilla fighters. I have attempted to faithfully render geographical locales, public or notorious figures as well as accepted historical events.
A Partial List of Special Thanks
For their confidence and trust, the many Cypriot fighters that I have interviewed, both Greek-Cypriot
and Turkish-Cypriot.
Also . . .
Eleni Christoforou,
Makarios Drousiotis, Eleni Hapidou, Dinos Mavromatis, John Vlachopoulos.
Carl Ballstadt,
Catherine Bush, Wayson Choy, Brian Henry, Shyam Selvadurai.
Regina Haggo, Diana
Lawton.
Nick Markettos, Arif Hasan Tahsin, Christos Tifas, Kyriakos Vassiliou, Eirini Zacharidis.
Valerie Burke, John Hewson, Steven Jacklin, Janet Myers, Theresa Sansome, Maureen O'Connor, Ross Pennie.
And numerous dear friends, old and new.
Principal References
Makarios Drousiotis, Lawrence Durrell, Charles Foley, Harry Scott Gibbons, Christopher Hitchens, Nikos Kazantzakis, Costas Kyrris, Harry Luke, Penelope Tremayne, The Press and Information Office (Nicosia), Cyprus Mail, The Times of Cyprus.
John Bandler, “Bitter Lemons and Barbed Wire,” On Miracle Ground XIV: Durrell and the Archive: The Modernist Milieu, The International Lawrence Durrell Society, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada, June 25-29, 2006.
John Bandler, “Durrell’s Cyprus—Tainted Observations on the Colonial and Postcolonial,” ACLALS Conference: Literature for Our Times, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, August 17-22, 2007.
Finalist: Writers’ Union of Canada 2006 Short Prose Competition
“Let the Japanese Do Kamikaze,” John Bandler, Finalist,
Writers’ Union of Canada 2006 Short Prose
Competition for Developing Writers
These Excerpts for the Web
Carl Ballstadt, Janet Myers, Kathryn Smith.
Keywords
EOKA, TMT, MI6, Volkan, Makarios, Grivas, Dhigenis, Cyprus, Greece, Turkey, Britain, colonialism, terrorism
Contact
john@bandler.com