“Aishe is going on vacation.” Under this code name, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus began on July 20, 1974, after the treacherous coup of the junta colonels. It seems that after 50 years, this celebration lasted too long. They have become the regime and threaten to become “normal”.
This year marks 50 years. And the days also coincide. It matters; Probably not.
For those who remember, the round anniversary doesn’t even matter. Unless 50 years is a long time. Too much. More than we can handle.
Those who lived through them and those of us who grew up with the stories.
But these stories are slowly fading into oblivion. They risk becoming the stories of others, too distant to still harm those who hear them today.
After all, who can be hurt by something they never knew?
How can you call a house you’ve never lived in “your home”?
How can you feel that this is your place, a place where you have never played, never been beaten, never bled, never laughed.
Agathi is often in Marfa. To see her house. The house she showed photos of to the Turkish Cypriots at Ledra Palace before the barricades opened, looking for someone to tell her if they knew who lived inside.
The house she entered as a bride in 1969 and was forced to leave in 1974. The house she calls her home, the one she’s moving into, but she’s only lived in it for five years.
This is related to the Turkish Cypriot refugees who were “forgiven” by them after 1974. People who entered the hospitable space found to eat, drink, sleep, but as guests, not as hosts. Because it wasn’t their house.
Their children learned to call Agatha’s house “their house”, because they never knew their own. But also open Agatha’s door and tell her that this is “your house too.”
They also learned to walk to their home in Paphos and Limassol. In the parents’ house. They know what it’s like to knock on your door and expect to be welcomed into your “home” as a guest.
I have been with Agathi to Marfa many times. But this time was the most difficult for me. The house is under renovation. So that it can be inhabited further.
All things are collected and stored so that Agatha can take whatever she wants.
And yet, upon entering the wardrobe, they forgot their daughter’s toy and the candle from their son’s baptism. The granddaughter of the husband and wife who took over the house also played with the toy when she was little.
Agathi left the house holding a candle and a toy…
To return to Limassol. In Palemedia. Ahmet’s wife, who now lives in her own house, fled from where.
And somehow, after 50 years, everything is so far, but also so close. And where you say that the wounds left scars, but were closed, suddenly it hurts so much that you can’t breathe.
And that’s how “Aisheva’s vacation” becomes unbearable.
Polina is 35 years old. He was not born in Marfa. He doesn’t go to Morph. He can’t go to Morph. She does not see “her home”. A house he never lived in but had to play in his yard. He should have fallen on his ladder.
Refugees in Cyprus raised their children in a strange way. They were taught to love the life they would have lived if there had been no coup and invasion.
The house they would have had if the coup and invasion hadn’t happened.
To think of returning to a place where they were not born or lived, but for some strange reason they always imagine something better than what they had in their new reality.
With a mind that plays strange games and makes you connect with places and things you’ve never known or experienced.
To imitate the experience and sighs of others. Those who told you about it. Your grandparents, mom and dad. And finally they become yours.
Look for photos, black and white, small, reddish, in the early years of color film.
Fight to put yourself in the picture. As if you were there.
And life always has a sense of ephemerality. Anticipation of return. In what you do not know, but it is definitely better. It has to be better.
And so life passes with a sense of immutability.
Until you return to “your” house…
I wanted something that we have not yet achieved. To tell the truth, even the truth that hurts us. So that we can look in the mirror.
To educate the younger ones.
So that we don’t experience them anymore.