have discovered unaided. I’m grateful to my friends Andrew Jacovides and Bruce Thomson for alerting me to the wonders of Ikaria and Pam Bertschinger for sharing some of her Ikarian experiences.
Finally, I give thanks to Raphael, and to two marvellous Greek Cypriot women, my friends Maro and Aegli, for sharing some of their inspiring knowledge and wisdom with me.
Read on for an extract of Between the Orange Groves by Nadia Marks – an emotional and sweeping historical novel spanning decades in the lives of two families from different religions on the island of Cyprus . . .
Prologue
London, 2008
‘There never was a more loving friendship than ours . . .’ Lambros said, his eyes filling with the memory. ‘Nowhere on the island could you find such good friends as the two of us, despite our differences. Orhan and I would do anything for each other, we were family . . . we were like brothers. How could we let our friendship perish like that? It’s unforgivable!’
Stella sat silently, listening to her father talk. She had heard these stories of love and friendship repeated many times over the years but she never tired of hearing them. She took pleasure in his tales from a far-off country, marvelling at the bond that had so closely tied those two boys and their families together. From a place and a past that was opening up to her through his words. Yet in contrast to the pleasure she received from her father’s stories, the melancholy of recounting them invariably ended with the old man shedding tears of sadness.
Father and daughter were sitting in the garden among the roses, basking in the sun on an unusually hot day in early June. Stella had come to visit him. This was her favourite month and even on days when the sun didn’t grace them with an appearance, nature always did her best. This peaceful garden in north London was bright with flowers and sweet-smelling herbs, thanks to the hours Lambros spent tending them.
She came to visit her father often now that Athina, her mother, was gone, even though she knew he could cope perfectly well on his own. While her mother was alive her parents had always been busy, forever dashing off to something or other. It had been a constant source of frustration that they were less available for her than she would have liked them to be. She missed the old family house in the leafy London suburb favoured by many Cypriots and where her parents made their home when they first got married. She and her brother had been born there, her own children spent most of their pre-school days there with their yiayia when Stella was working. She missed her mother, she missed having little children, she missed the old days. Now that her father was alone she enjoyed recalling some of those times with him. Her visits gave them the chance to talk of the past, to remember. Lambros especially needed more than ever to recapture his youth, his friendships, a time of innocence and love, before he came to England, before he married and had a family . . . before he became someone else.
Stella had grown up with her father’s stories from his youth but these days she was hearing them more often.
‘We have to do something about it,’ she told her brother one day while the two of them had lunch together. ‘Honestly, Spiros, all he talks about when I see him now is Orhan. He remembers the old times, their youth, and what happened – and then he cries. What could have happened that was so bad to make an old man cry like that?’ Stella looked at her brother.
‘I know . . .’ Spiros replied, ‘I noticed it too and can’t imagine. You’ve got to get him to talk about it; he’d tell you.’ He gave Stella a little smile. ‘You’re good at that.’
‘I’ve been thinking we should try and find him, bring the old men together.’
‘You’re right,’ Spiros mused. ‘Since Mum died he talks about Orhan and the past a lot. Do you think he’s a bit depressed?’
‘No, I don’t think he’s depressed, I just think he is very sad, and that’s why I think we could try and find Orhan. You never know, he might still be alive.’
‘He’s the same age as Dad, isn’t he?’ said Spiros, reaching for his glass of wine. ‘Eighty-something isn’t so old, especially for these old Cypriot boys.’
The next time Stella went