Songbirds

Author: Christy Lefteri
Publisher: Bonnier Books UK
Reviewer: Beryl Eichenberger
Christy Lefteri  has a poetic, almost mystical style with a depth and passion that is woven into every word. She is the daughter of refugee Cypriots whose first book  “The Beekeeper of Aleppo’ won international acclaim as it highlighted the plight of refugees.  In ‘Songbirds’ she tackles the theme of migrant domestic workers in Cyprus, and their treatment, a subject all too familiar. It is a story of loss, entrapment and love which is heart-breaking in its reality. 

Lefteri has the talent to draw out the ugliness of society and bring a face to issues.
Maids, domestic workers, au pairs, call them what you will, we are all familiar with the women who make our homes run smoothly. But how well do we know them? Have we an insight into where they came from, their lives, their families, and individual stories? This is the hired help, invisible, faceless, unobtrusive, bound to their employer.  
For these women, who leave their home countries full of hope, they seek a life where they can provide for their families back home, but also free themselves from the shackles of poverty. Or so they are lulled into thinking.
As Lefteri introduces us to a middle class life in divided Nicosia , Cyprus,  we meet Nisha, the trusted maid of Petra, the busy optometrist with a nine-year old daughter, Aliki. It is the Sri Lankan woman who has brought Aliki up, is devoted to the child, and runs the household for the emotionally distant Petra. Because her husband died shortly before the birth of Aliki, Petra has a strained relationship with her daughter.  For Nisha coming to this far land is for the future of her own daughter Kumari back in Sri Lanka, her contact with her only through the light of a phone.  When Nisha vanishes, leaving her passport, precious things and Aliki behind, it is Petra and Yiannis, Nisha’s lover, who realise this is out of character. Yiannis, a poacher with his own sad history,  nets the tiny songbirds, an illegal delicacy, to make a meagre living.  Trapped into this by the loss of his wife and business his future is bleak until Nisha.
No one seems to care about her disappearance least of all the dismissive, racist police. But how well do they all know this quiet, exotic and responsible woman? ‘I had started to see the rhythm of these women with new eyes – how the whole neighbourhood pulsed with their activity. They had been invisible to me before Nisha had gone missing….’
And as Petra and Yiannis start their search a heartbreaking story unfolds, one that will change their lives forever.
Lefteri crafts a spellbinding book, she takes you to the heart of this divided city, to the cruel and unfeeling employers and the inherent racism that separates these women from the residents.  They are trapped by a past that seems insurmountable, just as the songbirds are trapped by the inescapable nets thrown around them. But it is also a story of a mother’s love, and the parallel that exists between employer and employee if only we opened our eyes and ears to the song that is being sung.  
Disturbing as it is, the reader is kept entranced. Lefteri has researched her subject matter intricately and, with its descriptive writing, she unlocks the beauty of surroundings contrasted with the bleakness of the ‘maids’. ​