On the outskirts of a mountain village in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus, Lakis Zavallis, 72 in September, is scrambling about a rocky roadside hillside looking for an imitation-leather grip he had first used when he was a law student in London in the early 60s.
Some 40 years ago he was a lieutenant commanding a diminishing platoon of weary Greek Cypriot National Guardsmen when he hid the bag under the overhang of a rock. They had just been ordered to make what he thought might be a temporary withdrawal from a forward position and he wanted to lighten his load. In it was the English paperback edition of Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward and a sweater, for even during the island's scorching summers the Kyrenia range gets chilly at night when you're dodging mortar bombs by living in a hole in the ground.
Continue reading... |
| READ THE ORIGINAL POST AT www.theguardian.com |