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lace mat and postcard sent by a friend had been given a home and, just as before, the icon of Agios Neophytos was in pride of place. Irini felt safer this way, almost cocooned within memorabilia.
    Among the photographs displayed in their apartment was a portrait of General Grivas, alongside an image of President Makarios, a wedding portrait of the Georgious and pictures of Markos, Maria and Christos as babies. Irini’s adoration of Makarios had increased now that he no longer supported
enosis
. Sometimes the photograph of Grivas, though, was turned to the wall. She said it was an easy mistake to make when dusting. She hoped that her husband had not been involved in any of the assassinations that had taken place, but she had never dared to ask.
    She was well aware that General Grivas had returned from exile. What neither she nor her husband knew was that Christos had joined EOKA B.
    ‘Come and have your coffee,’ she said, smiling at Markos.
    Irini Georgiou adored her firstborn son, and he in turn was always attentive and affectionate towards his mother.
    ‘
Mamma
, you look tired today …’
    It was true: the dark shadows beneath her eyes were purple-black. Irini Georgiou had not been sleeping well. The past few mornings she had been more exhausted when she got up than when she went to bed. She said it was her dreams. Though they were often illogical and full of tumult, she believed they told her the truth. Whatever anyone claimed, whatever words were used, she believed that peace was contained in the atmosphere. It was an aroma rather than a political situation. Her dreams were telling her that peace was threatened.
    When the struggle against the British had ended and the Republic of Cyprus was created, there had been a welcome period of uneventful peace and quiet for the Georgiou family. They were idyllic years of tending their land; of enjoying the quiet rhythm of village life, where birdsong was the only sound that interrupted the silence; of following the pattern of the seasons, the variation in temperature and the welcome arrival of rain. There was space for everyone, land enough to feed them all and warmth between themselves and their Turkish Cypriot neighbours. The only difficulty in their lives had been to manage Vasilis Georgiou’s pain, and his inability to work longer than a few hours a day.
    The peace was short-lived and tranquillity was murdered at the same time as their Turkish neighbours, in an act of violence perpetrated by Greek Cypriots. In spite of what their leader, Makarios, said, did and agreed with other politicians, being close to the place where their neighbours had been attacked and killed destroyed Irini Georgiou’s peace of mind. Although her sleep had always been dream-filled, it was now haunted by nightmares. It was then that they moved away from the village. Vasilis drove back each day in his small pick-up truck to tend the land, but Irini Georgiou always stayed behind in Famagusta.
    Markos followed his mother into the over-cluttered home, where variously patterned armchairs stood on ornately woven rugs. Markos’ eyes ached at the sight. He could understand why his father spent so much time away from home, some of it tending to the smallholding they had retained and some of it at the
kafenion
, where he went to see his friends and play
tavli
. Either would be more relaxing.
    Markos kept his own apartment entirely without clutter. He had few possessions. Everything had to have a practical use. Bric-a-brac, which gave his mother security, was anathema to him. Even a floral cloth that she wanted to put on his table, ‘to pretty the place up a bit’, was more than he could bear.
    ‘Such a disturbed night,
leventi mou
,’ she said as she put the little cups down in front of them.
    She often confided in Markos about her dreams. Her husband, who slept like the dead, was uninterested in such things. He had left an hour before.
    ‘And last night there were such angry voices too,’ she