International fiction: Keepers of a lighthouse watch in horror as World War II is fought on the sea

It must have been seven or eight years earlier. I was not yet at school when my mum took us to Sazak to show the house she was born and raised in. Like all the stone houses watching the sea from the hilltop, its doors and windows had been plundered. “It was blue,” she mumbled, “The door was blue, as blue as the sea. Daddy had painted it with çivit. Our village had been founded here, on this hill, to protect it from the pirates, so they wouldn’t raid the village or kidnap its people. Daddy loved the sea; he’d painted our door blue so he’d feel closer to it. ‘Look, the sea’s come to our door!’ he used to say...”

She’d pointed to the purple silhouette on the horizon in answer to my “Where are the people of this village?” I’ve never forgotten her silent, sniffling sobs. That day, my mother had virtually turned into a little girl my age, dragging us behind her as if we were playing house, in and out of houses through absent doors, and catching up with the phantoms of absent neighbours lingering in the ruins.

My next visit to Sazak was last year. This time it was my nana who was prepared to walk for hours just to see her old village once more in this lifetime. As she had wandered amongst the ruins, that old woman had grown younger in contrast to the village that had grown older. It was like being in an ancient town where people had lived long ago. But it hadn’t been centuries. Only years. The roofs were gone; looking for the gold supposedly buried by the rums, treasure hunters had dug holes everywhere. Even bored into hearths and taken chimneys apart to see if there was anything hidden there. It was like every memory and all that had gone had perished under a massive landslide.

The church’s roof was missing too. “Your school’s roof was repaired with the tiles taken from our church,” nana had said, “Of course, your school used to be a church too...”

I may have found it strange that she would lay claim to the infidel’s church as “our church”, but had bitten my tongue all the same. Her brimming eyes had scanned the terraces invaded by scrub, “No vineyards nor market gardens left; it’s all ruined!” she’d sighed. Her voice trembled as we approached their house; with faltering footsteps apparently reluctant to face reality, she murmured breathless prayers. Stepped in with a besmele to be greeted by a fig tree in the middle of the house. The crickets fell silent and a great big lizard slithered away to hide under a rock. Nana moved slowly, moaning, alone with her memories, aged palms stroking the stone walls in a blessing. She, too, wept in silence like my mum.

I don’t recall how long we stayed surrounded by the four bare walls of the home she was finally reunited with twenty years later. She talked to herself from time-to-time and cried from time-to- time. She would never have got up unless I’d said, “Nana, let’s go now; it’ll get dark.”

We saw a young woman in black from top-to-toe when we walked out; she was wandering alone like a wraith amongst those bleak ruins. Skipping over the scattered stones, she said, “Kali mera!” and then “Merhaba!” in a charming accent. “You this place know? I looking Sofia and Estifanos house.”

Looking her from top-to-toe, my nana asked warily, “What are you gonna do with Sofia’s house, bre?” The children of the departed rums were rumoured to be coming back for their buried gold at the time. My nana must have taken this woman to be one of them. Or was she suspicious because we heard so many spy stories all the time, with a war on and everything?

“You Sofia know?” the woman asked, her eyes sparkling with anticipation, “I Sofia daughter Nerissa!”

With a yell, my nana launched into a long, impassioned flood in Greek, trying to cover her mouth gaping in astonishment. All I could work out was the last word in her sentence: Sofia, and that’s only because the young woman had already said it. But my nana’s delight deflated all of a sudden and that cloud of suspicion returned to her eyes: “But Sofia didn’t have a daughter, though, just a very naughty son! He was a right handful too!” The young woman started laughing; it was so lovely! “You Nikoli know? He my big brother, megalos adelfos. I in caïque to Chios born!”

On hearing this, my nana shrieked as though she’d been poked in a sore spot and burst into tears. The two women hugged; nana’s tears infected the other; sobbing and slapping each other on the back, they wailed. Talking non-stop all the while, practically without drawing breath, desperate to fit all those years into a few minutes.

The occasional word in Greek would slip out of my nana; now it was the opposite. I’d never heard her speak almost entirely in Greek like this before. And whom would she talk to, anyway?

I was seeing an ecnebi for the first time in my life. That black dress may have made her look older, but she could have been no more than twenty. With large eyes set in the middle of an oval face, shapely eyebrows, milk-white skin like those ancient statues, and coal-black hair escaping from under her scarf, she looked lovely. Pointing at the white ship sailing towards Chios, she said something animatedly and my nana exclaimed, “Whaat? really?” before lapsing back into Greek. It seemed that the heated conversation would never end.

My nana led her to a ruin not far from our old house. I tried to follow, but nana stopped me by grabbing my arm. “Leave her alone with her home. We’ll wait outside.” So, I watched discreetly, looking in the window. Her calves were revealed when she knelt down as if to pray. It was the first time I was affected by a woman. Perhaps it was also the fact that she was a stranger, not only a stranger but an ecnebi that had stirred me: a beautiful ecnebi... First, she crossed herself, looking at the wall opposite. Then, when I expected her to pray, she broke into a heart-rending tune in a melancholy murmur, softly rocking on her knees. It sounded like an elegy. I was so enchanted by her voice that when I realised she was actually singing in Turkish, my jaw dropped. It was a lullaby I’d never heard before.

Ak tülbentlere doladığım beşiklerde büyüttüğüm ninni kızıma ninni ninni yavrimu ninni.

Afterwards, she stayed still in silence before she lifted the stones on the floor and her slender fingers started digging. I must admit, it did make me wonder if she wasn’t a treasure hunter. But all she did was place a little bit of earth into a tiny velvet pouch she’d taken out of her sash.

The sun was about to be reunited with the sea as we set off downhill. My nana insisted she stay with us that night and I was silently willing her to accept. But a green Willys stood waiting at the start of the earth road; the driver from Çeşme put out yet another boredom cigarette. They gave us a lift to the entrance of the village.

Hugging Nerissa as they parted, my nana said in Turkish, “Give my love to your mama, to Sofia.”

Excerpted with permission from The Lighthouse Family, Firat Sunel, translated from the Turkish by Feyza Howell, Penguin.