MORNING SERIAL

The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond

“WELL, the Greek Cypriot government used them as symbols of hope, but also as symbols of horror, to rub the Turkish noses in the unholy f***ing mess they had created. But amidst all this, the thirty babies grew to be thirty children, and then thirty adults, and every day they became, more and more, thirty folk heroes.” “And Furkan is one of them?” Tara nodded solemnly. “Furkan has tried to do good with this. He has his businesses, but most of what he makes he puts back into the community, and helps out people in need. Others of the thirty did good too. Some not so good. Some did pretty bad.”

I looked at Tara’s face, and it looked a thing filled with the weight of ancient wisdom at that moment.

“God,” I said. Something came to me at that moment, and I’m not sure why, but it seemed something implanted the question in my mouth. “Is Stelly one of them too?”

She looked at me. “Nobody knows what Stelly is,” she said. But she didn’t deny it.

“So what is Illie’s interest in these Golden Orphans?” I said.

Tara lit a cigarette. “He wants to meet them,” she said. “One by one.”

“All of the Golden Orphans?” “This island is built on legends. Aphrodite rose out of the sea off the coast of Paphos – Cypriots do legends well. So there’s nothing to it. But as it goes, the rumour was that there were more than thirty, and that the others hid in what is now the demarcation zone.”

“In Famagusta?” “Thereabouts. But it’s all a myth. They call it the ghost town, so I suppose they had to put some ghosts in it.”

“But babies?”

“Grew up feral. Quite the bogeyman story.”

“I’ve heard there is a tunnel.” Tara’s tears had dried up, and she blew her nose in a paper napkin.

“There’s no tunnel,” she said. “There’s no anything. It’s not unusual for people to want to talk to Furkan about these things. There was a time when people used to come to his door with sick family members, for Christ’s sake.”