[et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]
[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”]<\/p>\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/markos.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are hollowed out. Even the Turkish police that sit outside our structures change after a while. The wonder at being stationed here is eventually replaced by a carved-out look. Our hollowness is contagious.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But this man standing at the barbed border, forbidden from entering, is a different kind of hollow. It is not one carved by gradual time. It is sudden and jagged in the way lightning strikes and misshapes an olive tree.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In the early afternoon light of autumn, the man\u2019s face is sallow. He stares up at my building. I notice, as I always do, the scar halfway down his neck, in line with his right ear. It is a scar I had thought time would disguise yet it remains apparent, a misshapen circle like a small melting coin. His once convex pride is now as concave as his body.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n He is alone this time. No wife, sons, daughter, no friends from faraway places. His tears are demarcation lines down his sandbag cheeks. I say demarcation because his fate was secretly marked out a long time ago by a smoking, gambling nurse; one the villagers liked to say was a skliro karithi<\/em>. Tough as an almond not a walnut, she would correct them, try and crack an almond shell with your teeth.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now the man is biting the wire. The guard stands up from his reed chair, jolted out of his inert alertness. He warns the man sternly with a Turkish word although it doesn\u2019t matter what word. Tone is language in such circumstances. They know the man, he has been frequenting enough in these recently opened parts of Ammochostos\u2014 or Famagusta, if you prefer. But they do not know Pavlos Charalambous like I do, like he now knows himself. I have often wondered if certain moments would ever arrive, like people returning to this land. But I never thought this moment would arrive for Pavlos, when his own past, twisted like the cords of birth, would unbury itself, release itself. I could never reveal his secret. Secrets do not ooze from our decrepit buildings. We are porous, absorbing what we see and hear. We harbour secrets, especially us spirits of abandoned hotels in this occupied land which isn\u2019t occupied. By humans . . . <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n ….. (complete publication of story forthcoming)<\/p>\n\n\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column] (Extract) [et_pb_section admin_label=”section”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”] \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are hollowed out. Even the Turkish police that sit outside our structures change after a while. The wonder at being stationed here is eventually replaced by a carved-out look. Our hollowness is contagious. But this man standing at the barbed border, forbidden from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n If I had a voice in the way Pavlos Charalambous has, I would tell him everything I saw and heard that night. I saw what I should not. Heard what I should not. The talks in private rooms so different to the talks in public spaces. The faces in private so different to the faces in public. The affairs, the illicit ones, the clandestine, the young lovers coming in for an hour or two, the local girls with English soldiers. But mostly, it was couples on holiday, the newly married and blossoming families. The sounds floating into me were so joyous, that some days, I felt that I was made of laughter, sky and sunlight from all the anases,<\/em> the gasps borne from joy, pleasure and relaxation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>But I, the three star Edem Hotel, was not one of the illustrious hotels on the actual shoreline entertaining the dazzling. ABBA did not sing within my walls, nor did Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton recline on my lounges nor Brigitte Bardot soak the sun from my pool. Neither was I like The King George hotel where Elytis and Seferis\u2019 hearts swelled with peninsula-blue. I do not lie directly on the Ammochostos bay. You will find me further in, on a rise of earth surrounded by a handful of citrus trees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yellow were my walls, like the custard dessert served after the prawn cocktails and steaks. My building did not have ornate balconies with red geraniums, nor sweeping arches. I was, and still am, square, four storey and unassuming, the lone hotel on this mound overlooking the primary school at the bottom and further off, the small cemetery. There was a beautiful lobby, the heart of me, with a large crystal chandelier that is still here in a corner crushed like cocktail ice. Not all my rooms are intact but still, I have fifty rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>For three years the most pain I absorbed were tourists bemoaning sunburn, blistering red flesh. The manager would command one of the bell boys to dash down to the sea front to Karoullas Pharmacy for more of the chemist\u2019s home-made lotions. They stocked them on the shelves of my utility rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>Then, July 20th <\/sup>1974 (remember, human time label). The first invasion in Nicosia. Overnight, the laughter and sighs of joy became rheums of anxiety curling into my walls, ceilings and floors. Curfews set in, the tourists awaiting transport and flights back home. Fear enveloped us all. Yes, even we spirits of buildings feel fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>The sands whirled and shifted and the fleeing, the emptying of Ammochostos began. The invaders saw opportunity, this glittering land there for the taking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em> Eivres to siko, sikosto<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you find the fig, filch it.<\/p>\n","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eriniloucaides.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\t\t\t[\/et_pb_row]
\n\t\t[\/et_pb_section]<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"