The Nicosia House That Made Me Slow Down and Notice Life

A little warning before you read on. This chapter contains a touch of adult humour. Please forgive me, but the conversations between my good friend Spyros Zavro and I have always been full of laughter, and this memory would probably never have resurfaced without one of those conversations.

Spyros and I are both Nicosia boys. We grew up in different parts of the city, walked many of the same streets, and shared that mischievous Nicosia sense of humour that never seems to leave us, no matter how old we become.

Every time we get together, one memory leads to another. Before long, we’re laughing so hard that one of us has tears in his eyes, while everyone else around us wonders what on earth is so funny.

This old photograph did exactly that.

It suddenly transported me back more than sixty years, to a narrow street in the Arabahmet that I walked almost every weekday on my way to primary school.

I first saw this photograph years ago after it was posted by Ole Christensen, who I believe was from Holland and served with the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus during the mid-1960s. When Facebook reminded me of it recently, I recognised the house immediately.

There was no hesitation.

“I know exactly where that is.”

For a moment, I wasn’t seventy-one years old anymore.

I was twelve again, with my schoolbag strapped to my back, walking through the familiar streets of old Nicosia on my way to school.

The streets were alive every morning. Shopkeepers swept the footpaths outside their stores. Housewives chatted from balconies. Somewhere in the distance, you could hear a donkey cart, a bicycle bell, or a radio playing Turkish music drifting from an open window.

Then there was this house.

Above its front door hung a small black sign with one strange word.

Umumhane.

At twelve years of age, I couldn’t even pronounce it properly, let alone understand what it meant.

But I certainly noticed something else.

The smell.

Goodness me…

I’d never smelled perfume like that before.

It wasn’t the gentle scent my mother might wear on a special occasion. This was something completely different. Thick, sweet and powerful. It seemed to spill out onto the street long before you reached the front door.

In my innocent young mind I remember thinking,

“This must be what sin smells like.”

So every school morning, as soon as I reached that part of the street, I’d quicken my pace.

Sometimes I’d almost run.

I wanted to get past that mysterious house as quickly as possible.

That worked perfectly…for about a year.

Then something happened that every boy eventually discovers.

Curiosity quietly arrived.

Funny how boys change without even noticing.

Instead of speeding up, I somehow found myself slowing down.

Not much…just enough.

I had also started noticing the occasional United Nations soldier walking in or out of the building. That puzzled me.

“What could possibly be inside?”

Naturally, my imagination began filling in the blanks.

Perhaps it was a bar.

Or perhaps some kind of club.

Perhaps somewhere the UN soldiers went to relax after duty.

Then one day the front door opened.

Standing there was a glamorous woman with enough makeup to light up the whole street.

She smiled warmly at one of the soldiers as though she had been expecting him all day.

Well…even I could work out that one plus one made two.

From that day onwards, my walk to school became just a little slower whenever I reached that corner.

Now don’t get the wrong idea.

I never saw anything scandalous.

Every now and then, when the front door opened, I’d catch a brief glimpse inside and notice several elegantly dressed ladies sitting quietly, waiting.

That alone was enough to convince my thirteen-year-old brain that I’d solved one of life’s great mysteries.

Whether I actually had or not is another story.

Mind you, don’t let me fool you into thinking I was the perfect little schoolboy.

I certainly wasn’t.

I wasn’t exactly an angel. Like most boys growing up in old Nicosia, I got up to all kinds of mischief—sometimes more than my fair share. Climbing where I shouldn’t, exploring places that weren’t meant to be explored, pushing my luck, and occasionally finding myself in trouble seemed to be part of growing up. Looking back now, I smile because those little adventures taught me far more than sitting quietly ever could.

But this was different.

This wasn’t about being cheeky or trying to get into trouble. It was simply the curiosity of a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy beginning to notice that the adult world was full of mysteries he didn’t yet understand.

No one tells you exactly when childhood begins to fade. It doesn’t happen overnight. One day you’re racing your mates through the streets, climbing walls, kicking a football, or worrying about your homework. Then, almost without noticing, your eyes begin to see the world a little differently. Things that never caught your attention before suddenly become fascinating.

That little house in the Arabahmet became one of those moments for me.

It wasn’t the house itself that slowed me down.

It was growing up.

The Arabahmet has changed enormously since those days.

Many of the old houses have disappeared or been restored. The people who lived behind those doors have long since gone, and the street itself is much quieter than I remember.

But whenever I see this photograph, I don’t think about what happened inside that house.

I think about the little schoolboy walking past every morning with his schoolbag strapped to his back, trying very hard to understand a world that was slowly revealing itself to him.

One day he hurried past that mysterious house.

A year later, he slowed down.

Not because he understood life any better, but because he had reached that age when curiosity begins to replace innocence.

Thank you, Ole Christensen, for preserving this wonderful photograph.

Without it, another tiny piece of old Nicosia might have remained hidden somewhere in the dusty corners of my memory.

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