The Sunrise (16 page)

She sprang out of bed, slightly disoriented, and tripped over her bag, which she had left on the floor. Suddenly remembering what was inside, she opened it up, took out her purse and looked for the pearl. It was still there, wrapped in a torn-off shred of napkin, knobbly, irregular and smaller than any diamond or gemstone she owned. Its eccentric imperfection was its charm, like a mongrel puppy loved for its lopsided features.

She found a velvet pouch to keep it safe and put it in a drawer with all her other valuables, smiling at the memory of how it had been given to her, and warm with excitement that it had been given to her at all.

In spite of attempts to occupy herself with trivial bits of shopping and unnecessary errands, Aphroditi found that Markos was constantly on her mind. She replayed the moment when she had seen him with his sister and now recognised that she had been jealous. She conjured up the memory of him doing the
zeibekiko
and recalled how animated he had been. Images of him filled her mind, and in all of them he smiled. For a moment she wondered if the presence of his small gift in the drawer had not cast a spell.

She killed time until the late afternoon, when she could change and go to the hotel. She dressed once, then again, and for a third time, uncertain about what to wear. Bright coral? Electric blue? Vivid yellow? A rainbow of outfits lay discarded on her dressing room floor. Eventually she chose lilac. It would complement the decor at the Clair de Lune. Amethysts and diamonds would go perfectly that night.

Markos had had a productive day, taking several hundred pounds to the building site to allow Savvas to settle some large debts with cash, returning a number of packages to his brother and meeting with an importer to place an order for two hundred and fifty crates of fine malt whisky. With the mark-up in the club, he would make thousands of pounds from reselling it. It was a good day, but he knew the best of it was to come.

Aphroditi arrived a little earlier than usual. She was already in the terrace bar when Markos appeared for his duties, and they mingled separately until it was time for dinner. Aphroditi did her best to engage her companions in conversation. Markos could sense the effort she was making to keep her back to him. Her interest in the guests on her other side was patently artificial.

Aphroditi was willing time to pass. Eventually it was eleven p.m.

‘Are you still going to pay a visit to the Clair de Lune?’ Markos asked her. ‘You haven’t changed your mind?’

‘No,’ answered Aphroditi. ‘Of course not.’

For an hour or so she sat with Frau Bruchmeyer and some Americans, enjoying a French singer whose voice was sexier than Sacha Distel’s. She took as long as possible to finish a gin and tonic, and then it seemed the appropriate moment to leave. Other hotel staff would find it strange if she stayed much longer.

Markos read the moment that this thought went through her mind and immediately approached the banquette where she was sitting.

‘Can I get you ladies another drink?’ he asked.

‘Yes please,’ chirped Frau Bruchmeyer.

‘I think I should go,’ said Aphroditi.

‘Let me accompany you out,’ answered Markos immediately.

Turning first to bid Frau Bruchmeyer and their companions good night, she followed him to the door that would take them to the internal stairs to the foyer. As soon as it closed behind them, she felt Markos take her hand in the darkness. Her fingers automatically folded round his.

Rather than going straight up the stairs, Markos led her through another door that was concealed behind a curtain. A narrow corridor led from here to the vault. Here in the small semi-lit space he turned to Aphroditi and kissed her. The eagerness of her response was just as he had anticipated.

Although it was for different reasons, this was unquestionably what they both desired.

Fifteen minutes later they were in the foyer, and Markos held open the door of the hotel to let Aphroditi through. They used neither surname nor Christian name on this occasion. There was no goodbye.

Trembling so violently that her keys rattled in her hand, Aphroditi got into her car. She wound down the window and sat for a few minutes trying to control her shaking. After a few moments, like a drunken driver, she managed to stab her key into the ignition. She reversed awkwardly out of the space and drove very slowly home.

Markos meanwhile had returned to the Clair de Lune, where the evening was in full swing. Everyone loved the singer. It would be a lucrative night and he could picture Savvas passing his eye over the numbers on the balance sheet and being satisfied. Tonight, though, Markos felt he had taken his share. The real satisfaction was his.

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING,
Markos was early at the hotel as usual. He noticed Frau Bruchmeyer in reception, a small case by her side.

‘You
can’t
be leaving me!’ he exclaimed dramatically, striding towards her. ‘Where are you going?’

‘To Germany,’ she said, smiling. ‘Just for a week. For a wedding.’

‘I’ll miss you!’ said Markos.

Frau Bruchmeyer blushed slightly.

‘Let me help.’

Markos picked up the suitcase and escorted her outside into the sunshine. With a click of his fingers, a taxi was summoned.

Once he had waved her off and the car was out of sight, he went back into reception.

Later that day, he and Aphroditi met in Frau Bruchmeyer’s apartment. Throughout that week, while she was in Berlin, they knew they would not be disturbed by chambermaids.

At first it did not occur to Aphroditi that anyone would question her increased presence at The Sunrise and find it strange. She was heedless of the risk and abandoned herself utterly to her passion for Markos. Something had ignited in her and she behaved in new and reckless ways.

Then, as the day approached for Frau Bruchmeyer’s return, a sense of anxiety crept in. She had to dream up a scheme that would give her a reason to be at The Sunrise during the day.

It was Markos’ idea in the end. She would make an inventory of paintings and other artwork in the bedrooms and then purchase some expensive reproductions of
objets d’art
for the more luxurious rooms. Americans especially would love that, and they could charge more if they advertised them as ‘Gallery Suites’.

‘It’s a stroke of genius,
agapi mou
,’ she said as they lay together on Frau Bruchmeyer’s bed the day before she returned.

There was often a day or two between the departure of one guest and the arrival of the next, during which time a room would be unoccupied. Each day Aphroditi asked for the keys to those rooms.

Markos was effectively the financial director of the hotel now, so no one questioned the fact that he accompanied Kyria Papacosta to draw up proposals for the acquisition and display of the new purchases. Everything would need to be estimated – the cabinets, the lighting and the items themselves – and Markos wrote up the contract and budget for each element. Calculating the necessary increase in room rates to give a swift return on the outlay would be his job too.

With Savvas preoccupied with his work, his wife lost herself in her obsession for Markos. It no longer bothered her that her husband did not notice her. This now became an advantage. She realised that her feelings for Markos had long since been there, but now he was the focus of her every waking hour.

Each time, as she waited in the room designated for their assignation, she felt her heartbeat must be audible to the world. At the moment when the door opened, her legs were sometimes so weak she could scarcely stand.

They were careful to leave the room separately. Markos always took the lift and Aphroditi the stairs. She had grown more afraid that someone would notice, but this anxiety allowed her to maintain her coolness towards him whenever they were together in public. Staff at The Sunrise were well accustomed to the apparent dislike between Kyria Papacosta and Markos Georgiou, and their formality provided the ideal camouflage for their affair. Neither Costas Frangos, who was a continual presence in the hotel, nor the head waiter, nor the bar staff detected any change in their behaviour towards each other. On the surface their hostility seemed to have intensified. Waiters would notice that during the reception they never spoke, and when they were together on the Salamis thrones for dinner, they would sit almost back to back.

Emine and Savina would not have recognised the rather stiff figure who dined in the ballroom each day. When she was with them for her daily coiffure, she was radiant and full of laughter.

Savvas’ reliance on his right-hand man seemed to be increasing, and Markos’ day would often be interrupted by a call from the boss.

‘Get here in five minutes, would you?’ It was an order rather than a request.

The air inside the site office, a makeshift cabin perched on the edge of the building site, was always dense with dust and cigarette smoke, and Savvas had to shout above the noise of construction work. This made his manner seem additionally rude.

‘You need to improve on margins in the terrace bar this week, and I want you to squeeze a bit more from the Clair de Lune before the end of the month.’

Savvas never expected a response. He simply assumed that Markos would go back to The Sunrise and carry out his instructions.

Markos had no trouble concealing his annoyance with Savvas, but each time he made love to Aphroditi, he thought of it. As Savvas’ demands on Markos increased, so did Markos’ demands on Aphroditi.

Lost in the labyrinth of this new passion, Aphroditi became less and less aware of what was going on outside The Sunrise. She never made time to listen to the news or read the papers. She was oblivious to the events that unfolded daily during June as the police located stolen weapons and arrested members of EOKA B.

When Markos read these reports, he always held his breath in case he should see his brother’s name. He also knew that in spite of the talks that were going on, there had been violent clashes between the Greek and Turkish communities, with injuries on both sides.

‘Did you see it in the papers,
leventi mou
?’ asked his mother. ‘About the troubles in Agia Irini? There were lots of people hurt.’

‘You mustn’t worry too much,
Mamma
. The politicians are having discussions,’ Markos said, trying to reassure her.

‘But why don’t they stop these things happening?’ she asked.

‘It was some kids daubing something on a wall. They just wanted to provoke a bit of trouble!’

Irini kept her radio almost constantly tuned into CyBC. At this moment, Makarios was reassuring the Turkish Cypriots that there was ample space for them all to live in peace together, and publicly blaming EOKA B as well as those outside Cyprus for aggravating the situation and jeopardising the independence of the island.

‘President Makarios is such a wise man,’ said Irini. ‘I hope everyone will listen to him in the end.’

‘With the volume up this high,’ said Markos affectionately, ‘they won’t have a choice.’

‘All those people plotting against him,’ she said, crossing herself. ‘But God is protecting him, I know it.’

He adjusted the radio slightly and gave his mother a quick peck on the cheek before leaving.

Irini Georgiou’s faith in Makarios, in God and in the Church never wavered.

One morning in June, even Aphroditi became aware of a new danger in Famagusta. While she and Markos were lying naked in a bedroom on the fourth floor, with the window open to let in a breeze, they heard the sound of an explosion. It was one of ten bombs that went off in the city that day, all of them planted by EOKA B, targeting government buildings and Makarios supporters. Suspects even included some members of the National Guard, and they were quickly rounded up and put into custody. Those accused of feeding and sheltering them were also taken in.

Throughout the month, police were hot on the trail of anyone involved in EOKA B, discovering caches of arms and making further arrests, not only of bombing suspects but also of those responsible for a sizeable arms theft at a National Guard recruitment centre.

Markos continued to be anxious about his brother, but his concern was mostly for himself. If Christos was arrested, the police might want to talk to him too. They were successfully extracting confessions and repentances.

Every night, Markos knocked with trepidation on his brother’s door. Christos opened it smiling. Though the police were trying to close their net, he was proving too wily for them.

One day, a week or so later, as he emerged from the lift at The Sunrise, Markos saw Costas Frangos hastening towards him.

‘I’ve been looking for you!’ the hotel manager said. ‘Kyrios Papacosta is wanting you. He’s telephoned three times already. Can you go and see him at the building site? He asked if you could get there as soon as possible.’

Markos acknowledged the request with a slight nod of the head and immediately left the building. It was eleven o’clock in the morning. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror. There was a tiny spot of pink lipstick on his collar. Savvas would not look at him for long enough to see it, but he himself would know it was there, like the trace of Aphroditi’s perfume that he could still smell on his skin.

He drove slowly.

‘I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,’ he said to Savvas, with convincing sincerity. ‘It’s been a busy morning.’

‘Just a few points today,’ said Savvas brusquely, the last quarter-inch of a cigarette smouldering between his fingers. ‘Let me know about the rise in nightclub takings, would you? I need another eight hundred for wages this month and we have to find it somehow. Otherwise we’re going to have a problem on our hands.’

That annoyed Markos as much as anything. Why did people say ‘we’ when they meant ‘you’?

Silence, as so often, was his best weapon.

‘And do you know anything about these rumours?’

There was a small pause as Savvas sipped some water.

‘Rumours?’

‘About what all those Greek officers in the National Guard are up to?’