Chapter 1
Please let me continue it is embarrassing for some because I cannot stop now. I have gone too far to do so. I am fearing the unpleasant there seems to be nothing else but to continue for me.
I am almost in a desert adding to all that there is constant housework. I am doing the rounds as if rolling all over the place and my hands are doing the heavy work.
We all take on many loads. Mine was the one with the loaded gun. I seem to think as yet I load another machine, load of clothes. Then I reminisce as if the stars open.
From that machine, the past comes alive. My very own window is like a time machine and the whirlpool of the wash appalls me. I like dirty clothes.
I am almost done because my family has deserted me. Socially inept they said an embarrassment. No longer an asset. then I came out as a bore. That is not good.
I was unpleasantly surprised by my reception. There was no one coming forward to greet me. I said as many times as possible the time has come to come clean. They had been laughing at something When they saw me they just stopped.
"Does it mean I am on the carpet for this?" I had said things about their family as well as mine. We are hobnobbing with the nobility and you are destroying us.
In something like secretive glances, they will not speak who their patron was. They just spark off fires as if the glint of gold.
Were they laughing at me?
I am in something of a quandary. What is the quest Where did I stop? I think you are all Mr. Collins. I laughed. Someone lunged toward me and then stopped.
"Was this a knife job?"
"Certainly not, these are not the times of former days. Knives are not us."
Something said to me sit down and believe.
"I am not here anymore, I am never going to be."
I do not stop. The sisters said they wanted to glance over their pay and I was in there spoiling it for them as usual.
What does it take to stop me? Someone nearly drove into me last night. I went to do something.
"What a do-gooder you are."
"Always searching for the truth."
"We prefer to let sleeping dogs lie."
We were surrounded by them. Bikers and all the rest came and played the juke machines. All the family there wearing their leathers. Then they spent the night thinking about how to make us starve.
"Zeks should starve," Kamil said he had a right he had a will.
"She drops scissors on my brow and I became stupid and she still survives." Kamil roared.
"You stupid fool telling lies about us all."
Zeks was satisfied he would kill her. But I was not having any of that. I was young and feisty and she was a mother. My first ever mum.
My uncle Kamil. I thought with sincerity maybe he would change his mind and forgive and forget? Being seventeen helped.
I am sitting.
I waited so long. Such a hurry to last. I will never make this workout. Where did the family start? Great grandma Em.
"History is annoying."
Annoyance is the word.
Em was a former slave. She was a bought woman and she knew her place. Just one crown and the result is one child.
She was a bought woman? Of course a former slave a serving girl in the house of Huseyin. He did not love her and grew to respect her strength.
Worked from morning till midnight and then did not rest there as well.
Did many jobs because Huseyin was a man who went ambling into life.
She collected the rent from the tenants. Her husband was a well-to-do. He did no work he did the brain work.
Life is rock bottom. Then we are buried.
He was set up. A problem they knew he could never solve. Huseyin destroyed his Em. His wife. Because she is more popular than he is and more efficient.
"Bought a serpent into the house." He would wail.
Huseyin was as a man somewhat wanting no woman would have him.
Bills and such stuff. He would give her the money and she would pay for everything she had to do he sat in the office snoring. And they did nothing wrong. He refused to speak anything but money. A self-made man is a bore.
I sided with great grandpa Huseyin even copying his walk.
"Snow is going to rain in your garden."
"I will whip you, whippersnapper."
His stick out and he would try to run.
The thing was there is nothing like to last a lifetime. The knowledge that Great Grandma Em had been the woman whose work and dedication made the family possible.
She enriched us. Made the future possible.
Alas her husband was not kind to her. He treated her so vilely and constantly sent his man to her throat with knives.
Sheer evil can reside in a good marriage. And such that she could not speak because of her fear? No, he cut her tongue off.
"She speaks too much now she can lul-ulu," he said in an unkind manner.
Huseyin gave her a silk dress then the silk dress became an issue.
She said after thirty-three years of working in a homespun apron-like dress having a silk dress made her priceless.
All because of a silk dress.
I am sorry for any disturbance about this issue and the thoughtlessness of speaking about what had happened to her.
Well, it was a useless marriage.
I think that seeing as she was beginning to resent Huseyin and eventually it spread like a disease.
His mouth foamed and he spat bloody anger.
The hot ashes of their marriage sent them to cover.
The erosion of a marriage is somewhat what it was. He was drunk and had the hots for anything.
Battered wives?
In the 1930's there was no such thing in Cyprus. Battered meant one was married. It was with pride woman showed off their wounds.
They begin to lose.
"Their kid.?" Gold was the unfortunate offspring.
"Everything."
"That is right when someone has a violent marriage what do the kids take to?"
They take flight. Gold was eleven when she was to be married off. She did want so much to marry well. She was eager. Too eager everyone said.
"You are revolting."
"Air our dirty linens in public." They all say.
I could see all the sheets hanging on the line.
Incest?
What no way.
Her father went a bit wild. Such a nice clean smart daughter he had compared to his wife.
"He had gone berserk mid-life crisis."
He could not believe he married Em.
He married her he could not believe that he married her. One daughter and she a fool. Rotting into madness he wanted grandchildren. But why not have a child by his child? So his life would not be wasted.
The house that has fallen.
I can change anything but the past.
"I am too frightened to go out." Sighed her mum Em.
Nothing in the cupboard. Nothing remained of their marriage but fear.
"I would like my child as a second wife."
Em had to do something Em do something. She arranged a donkey ride to another house. Em had no other reason than to save her daughter.
"Our daughter is mad," said Em.
Huseyin laughed. His laugh echoed throughout time.
"Well, what is the point?" of saying that. "Too late now." they were chatting on the veranda in the heated night.
Just before the Second World War hit the world.
It is such an ordeal almost like grief has found an outlet.
The donkey came too late the baby had arrived.
Sent Em to her lover and she did not realize did not know why he sent her out.
She went with more alacrity than usual and he could indulge being with his own daughter. She loved it less than usual and loved him less.
That night would she bear fruit he went hopeful as usual.
Fruits of madness bear the richness of spoils and they destroy. The barren years would follow but that was not the night that they spent.
The madness of the darling was sure to mark her life.
Lust and satisfaction glinted in his eyes.
When a father abuses his child what does the mother do?
"Let us have a party."
