MORNING SERIAL
“PEOPLE really had a thing for walls in the twentieth century, don’t you agree?”
“They do seem old fashioned now,” I said.
“That’s what this island is all about,” Lou laughed. “One day I’ll take you to see Famagusta.” “Famagusta? What’s that?” “The abandoned city.” “Quite a melodramatic nickname.”
“Not a nickname. It’s a ghost town. Cut in two by the wall and abandoned overnight in ’seventy-four. It’s like Pompeii, only no ash. Just cars in the roads, streets overgrown. A real zombie apocalypse type place. You can’t go in there, but you can look at it. Now that is a place you won’t be able to take binoculars.”
“No?”
“The armed guards aren’t protecting anything in Famagusta.”
“So what are they doing there?”
“Well, the official line, so I’m told, is something to do with protecting the demarcation zone, but if you go down to the beach you’ll see gun turrets, and when they see you, they’ll aim at you until you’re gone.”
“I don’t need to go there,” I said.
Lou laughed. “They won’t shoot you. They just want you to know they see you.”
“It all seems a bit highlystrung.”
“Well, that’s what I mean. All seems a bit much.”
“So what’s your conspiracy theory?” I said.
“I wouldn’t call it that. Maybe more of an urban myth.”
“Go on.” We had sunk by this point to sitting on the floor behind the boulder, in total hiding from both tourists and military.
“The story goes that Famagusta was never totally abandoned, and that in actual fact it’s become something of a town of robbers and thieves. That’s the romantic way of putting it; the children’s bedtime story version.”
“What’s the grown up version?”
“The grown up version is that there is a secret tunnel into Famagusta and the Russian Mafia use it as a hiding place for those most wanted by various authorities.”
> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com