Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
It is elegant, the traditional sideboard called `Seyfol` in Turkish… It is in Trikomo, in a house, waiting for peace…
I read the story from the article of Canan Sumer who writes in Afrika newspaper… I speak with Semen Yonsel Saygun who is the leader of KTOS, the Turkish Cypriot Teachers' Trade Union… It is her parents who have this `seyfol` and I learn the details of the story…
Canan Sumer, in her article of 30th November 2015, writes:
`They used to live in a house that smelled of the sea before 1974 in Larnaka… They were a happy family with two children…
The father, Yuksel Dervish Ali had been an auxiliary police with the British for some time and then he had begun working at the Cyprus Petroleum Refinery… Throughout his life he would be a `demirci` (ironworks) as well as doing many other jobs… He would be one of the first workers at the `Industrial Holdings` (formed after 1974 in the northern part of Cyprus, consisting of various factories left behind by Greek Cypriots – S.U.) but due to his character of being in opposition, he would be the first to be thrown out of these holdings that had become a `farm` for the ruling National Unity Party UBP at that time… He would emigrate to England with his family, trying to make a living there for some time…
On the 21st of July 1974, he had been taken as a prisoner of war by Greek and Greek Cypriot soldiers.
`They would take the men at the Trabi gymnasium and the women and kids to the Cennet Cinema. We did not know what would happen to us. A day after they would send the women and children to their homes. After being held as prisoners for 65 days, we would cross to the northern part of the island under UN supervision…`
A little while later the whole family would be reunified in the northern part. They would go to the village they are told they would be settled. This would be Trikomo, the village of Grivas, the founder of EOKA.
Mr. Yuksel and his family would settle in an empty Greek Cypriot house.
I was a guest in that house over the weekend…
I was so much impressed from the warmth and sincerity of this family…
We ate kebabs made by Mr. Yuksel among the whispers of the olive trees and the smells of sardinias in the garden.
Among the smoke of the kebab, there was a sun brick house with old wooden door and windows that looked worn out – it looked like a secondary house in the garden and it was as though it was waiting for me to ask about it…
"We lived together for a long time here, with an old Greek Cypriot couple who had not left their house. We shared the same garden. Their names were Stavros and Maria… Stavros was a very quiet, nice gentleman. His wife Maria was afraid of Turks and would not come close. We would chatter in Greek with Stavros quite often. He would tell me of the old times of his village… I would tell him about our old days in Larnaka… The panayiris, the music concerts and even the sea had a different beauty in Larnaka. Our friendly chats must have attracted the attention of one of the Turkish officers that one day as we were chatting in the garden, he would approach me with some rage and said, `What the hell are you talking with him?!` reprising me… And I would say, `I am just poking around to see if he is hiding some guns, commander!` in order to send this Turkish officer away…` explains Mr. Yuksel and we all laugh!
The same officer would sometimes come to Stavros and said to him, `I might kill you and bury you here!`
The chicken that Mr. Stavros had would be often painted to white and red by some Turks around them.
`They were doing this in order to make them uncomfortable so that they would leave… They were not trying to harm them…` Mr. Yuksel explains.
His daughter Semen asks her father, `What about that Turk who had raped that old Greek Cypriot woman?`
Mr. Yuksel in a far and sad voice says, `She had been an old, nervous woman. She was alone who had no one around her… It was a sad affair… I wish such things never happened.`
Semen says, `This was perhaps one of my worst memories, the cries of that woman who had been raped, the policemen coming…`
One day Stavros and his wife would take a few pieces of clothing with them and would go under UN supervision to cross to the southern part of the island…
But something would go wrong so they would not be able to cross and would come back to their village… Until they would be back, those around their village would loot their house, taking all of their furniture…
When the old woman would come and see her house completely empty, she would feel very bad and would start crying… All those who took their furniture, seeing her like that, would bring back all that they had taken…
`Maybe they were ashamed of themselves` I say out loud and the wife of Mr. Yuksel, Ms. Ozgul says, `What shame? In those days there was no shame or anything! There was no humanity left!`
Since they had no peace of mind, Stavros and his wife would decide to go to the southern part. And while they were leaving, they would give to Ms. Ozgul a `Seyfol` (sideboard) as a safekeeping and saying `Let this stay with you, if there is an agreement and our daughter or our angoni come here, you may give it to them…`
And they would leave, never to return to their village…
We eat the `galobureki` made by Ms. Ozgul for us and I think about this sideboard…
And I feel that the motifs of bird over the `seyfol` are singing, waiting for the angoni of Stavros and Maria… Just as I am waiting for peace, without losing heart…`
I call Semen after I read this article and she tells me that in fact, after the checkpoints opened in 2003, the daughter and the angoni had gone to Trikomo to their house and had seen the sideboard. That they live in Larnaka… That Stavros and Maria have both passed away…
One of the angoni would ask Semen's father to sell them the sideboard…
Mr. Yuksel, the father of Semen would say, `What sale? It is yours! Take it please, it is yours already…`
They would promise to come back and take it after a solution in Cyprus and they would leave…
They would also say to Semen's family that both Stavros and Maria was speaking of them fondly…
The sideboard remains in the house in Trikomo, waiting for peace to come… Like so many of us…
26.12.2015
Photo: The sideboard (seyfol) that belonged to Maria and Stavros from Trikomo...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 24th January, 2016 – Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment