Sabri Tahir; Figure in Lawrence Durrell Memoir

Sabri Tahir, 76, roguish Turkish Cypriot who was immortalized in the Lawrence Durrell book “Bitter Lemons.” Durrell, the India-born son of British citizens, lived in the mountainside village of Bellapais in northern Cyprus during the 1950s, a tense period when armed groups challenged British colonial rule and pressed for union with Greece. “Bitter Lemons,” published in 1957, was Durrell’s impressionistic account of his life there. One of its most memorable episodes is Durrell’s account of how a real estate dealer and “terrestrial rogue” named Sabri the Turk helped him acquire his house in Bellapais. The house was ramshackle--its only occupant was a cow--but it offered a magnificent view. Tahir waited days for the most opportune moment to approach the owner, then laughed until he cried when he heard the asking price. He closed the deal with the promise that Durrell would pay in “notes--thick notes, as thick as honeycomb, as thick as salami.” Then he made sure the taxi carrying the owner back to the village had a punctured tire to avoid any chance for second thoughts about the sale. Durrell, who later moved to France and wrote “The Alexandria Quartet,” died in 1990. His Cyprus house still attracts fans. Tahir, who lived on the edge of the law for most of his life, survived a car bomb attack in 1990 and a shooting in 1996 that left him in a wheelchair. His only son was stabbed to death in 1981 in the Orient Hotel, a rather seedy establishment owned by Tahir. On Monday Tahir was shot four times in the head in the same hotel and died later in a Cyprus hospital. The alleged killer, a 24-year-old former bodyguard, surrendered to police.