17 Archbishop Kyprianou
A small house built from mud bricks on Archbishop Kyprianou Street in Cyprus is perhaps the only home I have known that has breathed like a person. It woke with the sun and was quickly alive with the smell of Cypriot coffee, the sound of flip flops moving quickly on concrete floors, and the rhythmic noise of an old plastic broom clearing away the dust that had gathered overnight. It was my yiayia’s house, built by her husband in 1950, wounded by bullets in 1974, and left empty for the first time in 2010.
Although I wasn’t there for the first four decades of its life, this unassuming home became the backdrop of my summers and then my first home when my mum and I moved to Cyprus in the early 2000s. As is often the case, my memories of these summers have no distinct timestamp. As the distance between my current life and my childhood has grown, these memories have merged into one hazy vision of striped pastel bedsheets, whirring ceiling fans, crickets serenading us at night, salty halloumi on toast, family members noisily letting themselves in, and sharp smells of jasmine, lemon, and heat.
I remember drinking Coca Cola from a can with a straw, groups of people sitting outside on white plastic chairs, gas canisters in the garden, and faded pink clothes pegs holding the plastic tablecloth to the table. I remember the endless ticking of the sewing machine, the creaky metal swing, and waiting for 3pm to watch the only English TV shows on offer – The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air followed by Superman. I remember finding my mum’s copies untouched of The Chronicles of Narnia on the shelves and reading them on the dusty floor with an Peach Ice Tea. I remember the bright yellow chairs with only one arm rest, said to have been taken from the local cinema, and I remember the aunts, uncles, cousins and the many characters who, although I was never sure where they fit in the family tree, were there regardless.
Thinking about this house now, I think it represents a microcosm of this often-misrepresented island; behind the shiny tourist facade, Cyprus, and this house, is rough around its edges. It’s warm and welcoming, but dusty, disheveled, and often detached from the rest of the world. It can also be incredibly cold. Despite what the travel brochures say, evenings in November and December can chill you to the bone with houses wholly unprepared for the harshness of dry, cold nights. I’ve never understood why people didn’t install heating in their homes but then again, very few British homes have air conditioning – each country’s inhabitants preferring to grin and bear the irregular extremes in the hope that it won’t be as bad next year.
And yet, despite cold spells and casual chaos, this house was teeming with warmth, never clearer than when we would gather outside for an occasion – or maybe just a Sunday – to roast lamb and potatoes in the outdoor fourno, the many plastic tables and mismatched chairs moved to create one long table, still not large enough to hold all the food served. The adults would argue, gossip and smoke, and the children would run around the disheveled yard, peaking at the syrupy desserts and seeing how many Coca Colas they could drink before being found out.
In the years since my summer visits came to end, I’ve lived in many flats around the world, always attempting to make these temporary spaces my own, but I haven’t yet achieved what 17 Archbishop had in spades – that illusive sense that gives buildings, and countries, their charm – the imperfect, chaotic, and entangled lives of the communities that exist within them.
