Nektaria Anastasiadou’s writing has appeared in The Huffington Post, Al-Monitor, Daily Sabah, Mashallah News, Panoply, East of the Web, Sixfold, The Shanghai Literary Review, Eclectica, and The Eastern Iowa Review. In 2019, one of her short stories was included in the American Fiction Anthology and she won the Zografeios Agon, a prestigious Greek-language literary award established in Constantinople during the late Ottoman Empire. She also received an honorable mention in Glimmer Train’s Spring 2017 New Writer Contest and in Ruminate’s 2015 Short Fiction Contest.
She lives in Istanbul and A Recipe for Daphne is her debut novel.
A Recipe for Daphne
Nektaria Anastasiadou
This electronic edition published in 2020 by
Hoopoe
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
One Rockefeller Plaza, 10th Floor, New York, NY 10020
www.hoopoefiction.com
Hoopoe is an imprint of The American University in Cairo Press
www.aucpress.com
Copyright © 2020 by Nektaria Anastasiadou
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978 977 416 979 3
eISBN 978 164 903 001 6
Version 1
1
Preparation for an Encounter
What the man in white called cerebral arteriosclerosis and vascular dementia, Fanis called preparation for an encounter with divinity.
“You’re just a little confused,” said the man. He withdrew the icy metal thing he’d been holding to Fanis’s chest. “That’s common after a syncope. You’re going to be okay.”
Fanis took a deep breath: the place smelled of iodoform and humiliation. He could hear restrained murmurs, offensive beeping, and somebody emptying his insides. It wasn’t what he expected of Hades. His vision was still blurry, but he was able to make out a golden caduceus on the man’s lapel. “My God,” he said. “Is it you? And why are you speaking Turkish?”
“I’m sorry,” said the man. He had the deep bass voice that Fanis had always wanted. “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Dr. Aydemir.”
“A doctor? But that staff belongs to Hermes, not to doctors. Asclepius’s staff—with just one snake—is the symbol of medicine. Which makes you an impostor, sir.”
Dr. Aydemir glanced at his watch. “Do you know where you are?”
“Of course I do. I’m in the City.”
“Which city?”
“There’s only one. Istanbul.”
“And just where in Istanbul are you?”
Fanis looked around. He saw a nurse’s foot—in an ugly white shoe—peeking out from beneath the flimsy yellow privacy curtains. “The German Hospital,” he said.
“Good,” said Dr. Aydemir. “Do you know what day it is?”
“June 4, 2011. The day I was supposed to meet a god.”
The doctor smiled. “It’s true that some people think of me that way. But I’m human after all.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Fanis, suddenly aware that they had dressed him in one of those awful paper gowns.
“Did you mean,” said the doctor, “that you thought you would die today? It’s not time to worry about that yet. Medications can treat your condition.”
Fanis, however, did not believe that multicolored pills could cure anything. Apart from sporadic aggravations such as erectile dysfunction, that was.
The doctor took out his mobile phone. “Perhaps I misunderstood. Maybe you’d like me to send for a priest?”
Fanis rolled his eyes. He knew the fellow was only trying to be considerate, but the question irritated him. Everyone had noticed the Greek name on Fanis’s chart and the religious classification on his identity card: Christian. Those were his minority tags, his marks of non-Turkishness. And so, when he had mentioned an encounter with divinity, the doctor had assumed that he was referring either to death or to churches. Yet Fanis had seen the cause of the illness in his dreams, and he knew what it meant: it was time to unbind knots, loosen tongues, and release what had been kept hidden. The divinity who would help him was neither Christian nor Muslim, but Hermes, the god of transitions and boundaries and the patron of shamans, travelers, thieves, storytellers, and liars.
Still, Fanis realized that this young pup would never understand. So he said, “That’s not necessary. Just give me your side of the story.”
“Excuse me?”
“The prognosis, the treatment, and all that ho-hum.”
“Right.” The doctor sat on a rolling air-lift stool and crossed his long legs. “Let’s start with the arteriosclerosis. The risks are ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke—”
“Death, you mean.”
“Yes, as well as vascular dementia. Thank God, you’ve managed to avoid a stroke so far, but from the symptoms—confusion, difficulty making decisions, restlessness, agitation, memory issues—it seems you’re already in the early stages of vascular dementia.”
“So it’s all over?”
“Not necessarily. I suggest you reduce your fat intake—”
“Impossible.”
“Then you’ll at least have to take these medications.” Dr. Aydemir tore five prescriptions from his pad.
Fanis was unable to read the snake-track writing. “What are these?” he asked.
“Just a few things to lower your cholesterol and blood pressure, and help prevent cognitive decline and a potentially fatal stroke.”
“Can I take them with Viagra?”
“You take Viagra?”
“Didn’t they tell you? That’s why I came. I want a prescription.”
“At seventy-six?”
“Why not?”
“You mean you still—?”
“Of course.”
“Shouldn’t you be spending time with your grandchildren?”
“I don’t have any. My late wife—may God give her rest—couldn’t conceive. But I’m going to remarry as soon as I find a beautiful woman of my own kind. Rum, that is.”
The doctor stared at Fanis. He probably didn’t even know that the word Rum was a Turkified version of the Greek word Romios, which meant Roman. At best, Dr. Aydemir thought of Fanis in the terms of the rest of the world, as an “Istanbul Greek,” which implied that his forebears hailed from Greece and not from Istanbul. Aydemir surely didn’t know—because almost no one did nowadays—that many of Istanbul’s Greek-speaking Rums were descendants of a native population that had lived in the City since well before AD 330, the year in which Constantinople became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Fanis explained, “The Patriarch says we should all have three kids to perpetuate our race. I probably won’t manage so many. I’d be happy with just one son to carry on the Paleologos name. It’s Byzantine, you know.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think it’s a good idea. You’ve got more important things to worry about now.”
“What could be more important than that?”
“Listen. It’s imperative that you begin taking these medications today. Not tomorrow, today. Otherwise your condition could worsen rapidly. You’re still a vibrant man. I don’t want to see you lose your independence.”
“And the Viagra?”
The doctor sighed. “We’ll revisit the subject at your next appointment. Two weeks from today, okay?”
The doctor shook his hand, lifted the yellow curtain, and disappeared. A male nurse handed Fanis the clothing and accessories that had been neatly stored in a cabinet at the foot of the examination table: a crisp shirt, creased pants, a gold-buckle
d belt, and well-polished shoes. Thank God no one had stolen his watch. It was still on his left wrist, and his wedding ring—along with that of his dead wife—was safe on his right ring finger. After tying his silk handkerchief around his neck, Fanis thanked the nurse and left the hospital through the back entrance in order to reduce the chance of being seen by acquaintances.
Once outside, Fanis turned right into Turnacıbaşı Street. While walking beneath the grapevines that crawled over electric lines and drooped like pearls on a woman’s chest, he tried to decide whether he should follow the doctor’s advice. Fanis wasn’t against sleeping pills, necessary antibiotics, or romantic helpers. After all, those weren’t things you took every day. But chronic medication was another thing altogether. Once you go down that road, he had always said, there’s no coming back. You’re on the fast track to more and more disease. But if the alternative was a stroke that could put him in Baloukli Nursing Home, where he would spend his days staring at the ceiling, muttering incoherently, and doing his business in a bedpan? Then what?
He entered the Turnacıbaşı Pharmacy, whose floor-to-ceiling wood and glass cabinets were filled with sinister little boxes. “Is anyone here?” he asked.
“Be out in two minutes!” shouted the pharmacist from the back room.
Fanis went outside and petted the two homeless Kangal-mix dogs that lived nearby. They lifted their dirty heads, sniffed his air, and leaned into his caresses. Fanis’s neighbors were stingy on love, but at least they kept the beasts fed and watered. Everywhere you saw the bottoms of five-liter plastic bottles that had been cut to make water dishes for dogs and cats. Across from the pharmacy, an artist had made a cat bed from an old pink suitcase and a green pillow, and she had placed a pot of carnations beside it so that the cat would imagine he was lounging in his own private garden.
“How I would love to be that cat,” said Fanis in Greek.
“Me too,” replied a voice, in the same language. Fanis looked up. A full-figured woman with black hair so curly it was almost horizontal gave him a quick smile and a flash of her dark eyes and scampered off.
“Madame,” he called out, but she didn’t turn back.
Fanis looked through the open door. The pharmacist still hadn’t appeared. Fanis stuffed the prescriptions into his pocket and took off toward the narrow pedestrian byway into which the woman had turned, but he made it all the way to Çukurcuma Street without another glimpse of her. He sighed and glanced down the hill toward the Galata Tower, rising like a party hat above the peninsula. The view was especially touching at that time of day, when the orange light of sunset zigzagged over the tile-roofed buildings of Pera.
Suddenly a beat-up black sports car came whizzing around a curve in the road. Fanis was obliged to jump backward in order to avoid being flattened. The car skidded to a stop.
The buff young driver opened his window and said, “Sorry, Uncle.”
Fanis kicked a tire. “You’re going to kill someone!” he shouted.
“It’s not my fault they made these streets for mule carts and carriages!”
The car sped off. Miffed that he had lost the curly-haired vixen and also afraid of falling prey to the next rapscallion on wheels, Fanis hurried into the crook of the side street embracing the local mosque. Before him was Çukurcuma Antiques, the shop he had owned and operated for thirty-eight years and sold in 1996.
He popped his head inside, scanned the fifties retro furniture that was now passed off as “antique,” and said in Turkish, “Attila! Good evening, son, how are you?”
Attila put one hand on his hip and waved with the other. “Mr. Fanis!” he called. “Come in for a tea.”
“Thanks, but I don’t have time right now. Did a woman with black curls come this way?”
“Skirt-chasing again, Mr. Fanis?”
“Never. Have you seen her?”
“Maybe. She climbed the hill toward Firuzağa Mosque, but you’ll never catch up. Why don’t you come in? I’d like to get your opinion on some carpets.”
“Another time, son.” Fanis hurried toward the next shop, which specialized in antique kitchen counters and basins. Ten or twelve heavy marble pieces leaned against the wall, like uninscribed tombstones. Fanis wondered how many of the meals he had eaten at departed friends’ houses had been prepared beside those very sinks. Such a macabre thought. He drove it from his mind, scurried past the graveyard of oblong kitchen vestiges, and hung a left up a steep hill. Before continuing up Ağa Hamamı Street, where red flags and election placards waved from the lampposts, he caught sight of a nest of crazy black curls behind the great jars of preserved onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, and lemons on the shelves of the pickle-shop vitrine. He crossed the street and stepped inside the aquarium-like store, but the curly hair he had spotted from afar turned out to belong to a chubby teenage clerk.
“Good afternoon, dear,” he said. “A small jar of pickled sea herb, please.”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” said the girl, “but the greengrocer next door has fresh sea herb. Why would you want to buy pickled when you can get fresh?”
“So true,” said Fanis. “But cleaning fresh sea herb is a woman’s job.”
“You don’t have a wife?”
“No. Do you know anybody who might be interested?”
The girl stared at him for a moment, then put the jar of sea herb in a blue plastic bag, rang up the purchase, and wished him a good day. Fanis stepped out into Ağa Hamamı Street grinning: the girl was far from attractive, but it had been fun to tease her a little. He looked this way and that, but the dark woman had disappeared. His little flirtation in the pickle shop had cost him the chase. Oh, well. He probably ought to return to the pharmacy, anyway. Fanis continued on his way, now in such a good mood that he forgot to avert his eyes when he passed the cul-de-sac where Kalypso, his lost fiancée, had lived. As much as Fanis loved his neighborhood, he hated the hill leading to that dead end of deserted and now reoccupied houses. Especially the one that had belonged to Kalypso. For a second he thought he heard the Roza Eskenazi record that Kalypso used to play when her mother wasn’t home. Fanis stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. No, he hadn’t heard Roza. The music was just something similar coming from the barbershop. He took another few steps toward the pharmacy and stopped again, this time grasping a streetlamp for support. He wondered why he should prolong his life with pills when Kalypso was—perhaps—waiting for him in the next world. Besides, he couldn’t come to terms with having to buy one of those plastic pill boxes with a separate compartment for each day of the week, and he was sure that all doctors were liars. Thinking things over for just one more day couldn’t possibly cause any harm.
He did an about-face and walked straight to the trendy bakery and tea garden that had recently reopened, after an extensive renovation, behind Firuzağa Mosque. He went inside and scanned the glass cases of lira-sized cookies in dozens of flavors—apple, coffee-filled-chocolate, pistachio, cherry-jam surprise, almond, fig-and-walnut, apricot-and-hazelnut, and orange-vanilla. The decision was easy. Cherry jam had always been his favorite. While waiting in line, he examined the tea garden’s décor. Its walls were done in tastefully modern white brick. Its counters, tables, and signs were faced in a material that resembled golden oak or pine. He applauded the decorator: there was hardly any plastic in sight.
Having placed his order, Fanis collected his tray of tea and cookies, stepped onto the patio that stretched between the north wall of the bakery and an abandoned Ottoman cemetery, and settled down at a small wooden table shaded by a great linden tree and an awning with the shop’s name—Neighbor’s House—printed in whimsical brown letters.
While nibbling a cherry-jam surprise, Fanis overheard a woman’s voice speaking the pure City Greek of the mid-twentieth century. He took a short breath of the linden-flower-scented air. Could it be her? He looked toward the other side of the crowded patio. The woman with curly hair was nowhere in sight. Again he heard Greek, this time coming from a ba
lding, stubble-faced fellow in a pocketed fishing vest. Fanis felt the visceral attraction of a foreigner to his own kind and to a home that had vanished despite his never having left it.
The fellow in the fishing vest was his friend Julien Chevalier, of course, a retired music teacher descended from one of the old French Levantine families. Beside him sat Aliki Marouli, a sweet but unsightly Rum widow, whom Fanis had known forever. He waved.
“Come join us,” Julien shouted. “Unless you’re waiting for a lady friend, that is.”
Fanis picked up his tray and set out for the other side of the patio. On the way, a gray cat tangled itself within his legs and caused him to trip on the slate pavement. He caught himself, but his tea spilled all over the tray.
“Damn cat,” said Julien. “Someday it’s going to kill someone.”
“Ungrateful beast,” said Aliki. She pressed the knuckle of her index finger to the bottom of her nose so that the rest of her hand covered her mouth—a nervous vestige from the days when one could be reprimanded for speaking Greek in the street. “That cat’s already made me trip twice. Next time I’ll probably end up in the hospital.”
“Speaking of hospitals,” said Julien, “how did it go?”
“Not so well,” said Fanis. “I had a little episode while I was there.”
“Episode?”
“I blacked out. Briefly.”
“Is something wrong?” asked Aliki.
“No, the tests were fine. It was just nerves. The doctor says I’m as healthy as can be.”
Aliki scrunched both eyes into a joyous double wink. “You always were.”
“Anyway,” said Fanis, momentarily disturbed by the crinkle of the prescriptions in his pocket, “the doctor gave me another good twenty years at least.”
“More tea?” asked a waitress.
“Yes, please, Emine,” said Julien. When the young lady had gone back inside, he said, “See her? Another girl gone religious. The baseball cap is only for work: she’ll leave here in a headscarf.”
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