“How’s it going?” asked Uncle Mustafa, poking his head into the office.
Kosmas jumped to his feet. “What time is it?”
“Twenty past four.”
“Damn it. I’m going to be late with that cake.”
Kosmas wheeled the cake trolley out of the freezer, drove lollipop sticks into the fourth tier, settled the fifth on top, and gave the cake a slight jiggle to test its structural integrity.
“Finding that recipe is going to take a while,” said Kosmas to Uncle Mustafa. “It’s almost impossible to skim Hamdi’s books because you might miss something, so you have to really read, and his writing is so fascinating that you get swallowed up by the palace history and completely forget what you’re looking for.”
“All things in good time,” said Uncle Mustafa. “Except that cake. If you’re late with that, we’re in big trouble. Because we want to expand, remember?”
Kosmas nodded and began sticking prepared lilies into the dowel-enforced green florist foam at the base of Mr. and Mrs. iPhone’s cake. He nestled some flowers close to the foam while allowing others to extend slightly over the black-rimmed plate. Another masterpiece. He was going to get that next-door shop space. And he was going to find the Balkanik as well. It was simply a matter of perseverance.
Kosmas folded the protective box flaps up and over the cake and suddenly realized he hadn’t given any thought to where he would take Daphne that evening. It had to be something special. Things were going well, better than he could have expected, but every time he hinted that Daphne should stay past Sunday, she changed the subject. He loaded the cake into the refrigerated delivery truck, returned to the kitchen, and picked up his cell phone. Just as he was about to push the call button, he heard a knock at the back door. He opened and found Daphne wearing dark sunglasses even though the sun had already slipped behind the buildings of Sıraselviler Avenue. He wrapped his hands around the base of her neck and pulled her toward him. “This is a pleasant surprise,” he said.
“I gave Paul the road, as my aunt says. We broke up.”
“Are you okay?”
Daphne took off her dark sunglasses. Her eyelids were swollen. “I’m fine. I was just a bit shocked when I found out that he’d taken up with somebody else. A putana. Literally.”
Kosmas felt as if his chest were being wrung out, like a towel. What was wrong with him? This was what he wanted, but . . . Plan B. That was it. He wanted Daphne, but not if he was her second choice now things hadn’t worked out with the American.
“My aunt said I shouldn’t tell you because it would lower me in your eyes,” said Daphne, “but I can’t help it.”
“Nothing would ever lower you in my eyes,” said Kosmas. He bit his bottom lip. There was no longer a rival, he repeated to himself. This was no longer a fling. But she’d been crying for another man. He felt a burning sensation in his stomach. He released Daphne and grasped the counter.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“It’s probably just indigestion . . .”
“I’ll get you a glass of water.”
And to think that today he’d been going to tell her he loved her.
She grabbed a glass and filled it from the demijohn. “Here,” she said, handing it to him.
He set the glass on the counter without even taking a sip. “I don’t want to be your Plan B.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I was going to break up with him anyway. I’m upset because my pride was hurt, not because he broke my heart.”
Kosmas stepped backward. They had to leave that kitchen, breathe some fresh air, get some perspective. Otherwise he might say something he’d regret. “Wait here,” he said.
He hurried into the lavatory and put on the blue dress shirt his mother had ironed for him that morning, after he told her he would be going out on his last date with Daphne directly after work. Upon hearing the word “last,” Rea had recovered from the knee pain that had prevented her from ironing that week. She had gone straight to her board, ironed a blue shirt with perfect arm creases, and said, “Tell Daphne I wish her a wonderful trip!”
Returning to the kitchen, Kosmas took Daphne’s hand. “Come on. I want to show you something.” They rode the Vespa to Galata and parked outside a tourist shop that sold hammam towels, soap, and evil-eye charms. He led her through the tower square, which was frustratingly crowded. Western tourists and bohemian Turks sat in the cafés, loitered on benches, took photos, and smoked profusely. They rounded the corner of the old Genoese wall and found themselves at the foot of the nine-story, cone-capped tower whose solidity had always impressed Kosmas. He hadn’t been inside it in years, but he remembered the feeling of pride and certainty that its view had given him as a schoolboy. Up there, he knew that the City belonged to him just as much as he belonged to it. He could look down on the place where his ancestors had lived for centuries and know that, whatever obstacles stood in his path, he could always rise to the occasion. Perhaps Daphne might feel the same way.
They climbed the outer steps, bought their tickets, and took the elevator to the fifth floor, from which they climbed another two flights up a narrow medieval staircase. Kosmas led Daphne along the narrow and crowded observation deck to the side facing the Old City. From there one could observe the Golden Horn, the low tourist boats sliding under the Galata Bridge, the Ottoman palace of Topkapı nestled in the trees of the Byzantine peninsula, the dome of Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque with its six minarets, and the sun descending through the pollution haze. Seagulls swooped, dove, and squawked. Horns honked on the busy streets of Lower Galata. The wind, now salty, clean, and unmixed with cigarette smoke, lifted and tangled Daphne’s hair.
She pointed toward a row of old Ottoman houses at the foot of the tower. “Look at all those beautiful oriel windows. I wonder if I’ll ever get mine.”
“You will if you move here,” said Kosmas, embracing her from behind so that the tourists wouldn’t jostle her. He wouldn’t say how much he wanted her to remain in Istanbul. That was her decision now. She had to make it without his help.
Daphne remained silent. An especially strong gust rushed up from the Bosporus. A seagull on its way past the tower hovered before them, unable to advance despite the energetic flapping of its wings. “I’m in love with the City,” said Daphne.
“Love isn’t a little of this and a little of that,” said Kosmas.
“What are you talking about?”
Kosmas felt the burning in his stomach again. “It’s total and complete, Daphne, no bullshit. Solve your problem with this guy, then decide what you want.”
She reached behind her, took his cheeks in her hands, pulled his head down, and kissed the scar above his brow. “I’m in love with you,” she said.
“That’s not the impression you gave an hour ago.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Kosmas realized that his jealousy was ruining the moment. He had to get control of himself. “I love you, too, Daphne. But our love has to be steadfast. Like this tower.”
She returned her gaze to the minarets of Hagia Sophia. “I’m thinking of coming back here to stay.”
Kosmas squeezed her more tightly. He didn’t want to let her go, not then, not ever. But he needed to know that she was just as sure. “Moving here requires decision and determination,” he said.
“I know. And my parents are against it. Would you visit me in Miami? If they met you, then maybe . . .”
Kosmas felt his throat contract. “I’m booked for weddings through Christmas.”
“January, then.”
Daphne had the stubbornness of a camel. Which meant that she was Istanbul Rum through and through. Kosmas yielded: “In January.”
19
The Nightingale and the Seagulls
The second week in september, Selin finally said that she was coming to the Panagia to hear Fanis chant. She promised to arrive shortly after the start of vespers. Twenty minutes into the service, however, she was nowhere to be se
en. Fanis gave up hope: Selin had to have been delayed at rehearsal. But then, just after the bishop descended from his throne in a tizzy because no one was helping him with his robes, Fanis turned to his left and saw the top of Selin’s curly head. She might even have been standing there the whole time, shielded by the throne.
After the service, Selin waited in her place until the parishioners had withdrawn for tea. Then she picked up her violin case and approached the cantor’s stand. “Outside we have the nightingales,” she said to Fanis. “Inside we have you.”
Fanis felt his cheeks flush. “So you liked it?” he said, fishing for more.
“Your voice exudes optimism.”
Her glassy-eyed wonder made him feel like a sultan. He stepped down from the cantor’s stand.
“Really,” she said. “It’s sexy.”
Now that was the best compliment anyone had ever paid him. Even better than the nightingales and optimism. But Fanis didn’t allow his imagination to scamper about like a five-year-old on a sugar buzz: just because she found his voice sexy didn’t mean that she actually found him sexy.
“And that hat,” she whispered, shaking her hand playfully, as if she had burned it. “Wow. Slightly fez-like, but black velvet. Orhan would love it.”
She always had to spoil things by mentioning Orhan. Never mind. It helped keep Fanis grounded. He would have liked to introduce her to everyone in the church tea room, but he decided that he ought to protect her reputation. So he said, “Hungry?”
“I made leek fritters last night,” she said. “Why don’t you come by my place and try them?”
“Perfect,” said Fanis. “I made stuffed grape leaves this morning. I’ll bring them over.”
He hung up his robe and stuck his cantor’s hat into a boutique bag to take home for some spot cleaning. They hurried out, around the far side of the church so that they wouldn’t be seen and called back. Just before they reached the gate, Fanis reached for her violin case. “Let me take that,” he said.
“Please. I carry it all the time. It’s very light.”
“You shouldn’t,” said Fanis, taking the handle.
“Thanks,” she said. “I guess I was getting a little tired.”
“I know what I’m talking about,” said Fanis. “A famous soloist like you shouldn’t have to serve as a hamal.”
They plodded through the tunnel of towering houses whose edges were made smooth by the coal smoke coming from the poorer apartments. The cold had set in early that autumn, making heating necessary in the evenings. The damp, soot-stained pavement outside the greengrocer’s shop was littered with scallions and lettuce. Fanis and Selin rounded the bend to their part of the street and found it completely dark: the electricity had gone out.
Fanis climbed his stairs with the aid of his key-chain flashlight and grabbed the stuffed grape leaves, a paper-wrapped package of garlicky beef pastırma, and a jar of his favorite pickles. Once over at Selin’s place, he insisted that she sit down at the kitchen table and relax with a glass of Cappadocian Chardonnay while he, by the light of Selin’s super-bright kitchen flashlight, made a lettuce, mint, carrot, and walnut salad, drizzled it with pomegranate concentrate and olive oil, and warmed the fritters on the gas stove.
“Ach,” said Selin, putting her feet up on a stool. “This is just what I needed.”
You’re just what I needed, thought Fanis. But then he remembered his resolution: friends. He tasted a leek fritter and said, “Magnificent . . . the dill, the subtle white cheese, so well combined with the egg—” Just then there was an angry outburst of seagull screeching. “Poor things,” he said. “When I was young, they feasted on fish in the Bosporus and squawked peacefully. Now they have to pick at garbage dumps. They’re as angry as the rest of us.”
“There must be a new nest up there,” said Selin. “Things were quiet when I moved in, but now I hear them going at it morning and night.”
Fanis stuck wooden spoons in the salad and transferred the fritters to a serving plate. “I bet they’re saying, ‘This isn’t the Istanbul of our ancestors. The City is ruined, polluted. We used to live the dolce vita here. Now everything has gone to the devil.’”
Selin laughed. If Fanis were trying to seduce her that would have meant he’d reached a milestone. Fanis picked up the salad and the plate of fritters. “It’s ready. Just grab the stuffed vine leaves for me, dear, will you?”
Over a candlelit dinner, they talked about her work. The Mendelssohn concerto had been so well received that the orchestra’s conductor wanted Selin to prepare for a January performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D Major.
“Which is wonderful,” she said. “It’s sentimental, but very uncomfortable. Both Monsieur Julien and my boss say that it never gets easier, no matter how much you practice.”
Fanis looked up at the ceiling corner onto which Selin’s shadow was projected by the candlelight. He took a sip of wine, savoring its hints of honey, orange, and vanilla. “During my first years of cantoring,” he said, “I found that the most beautiful hymns really strained my voice. But with time, I began to feel the sound pass through me, like it didn’t even come from me. I was just a vessel, a channel. Perhaps that might happen with you as well.”
Selin looked into his eyes and smiled with admiration. “It’s so good to talk to someone who understands.”
Just then the windows across the street illuminated, the television clicked, and the refrigerator resumed its humming. Fanis reached for the light switch, but Selin said, “Leave it off. It’s nice like this.”
Fanis crossed the room and took a CD from the case, but in the dim light he couldn’t tell what it was. He turned on the player, inserted the CD, and tried to think of something banal to say: “I forgot to serve the pastırma and pickles! Let me go get them.”
“Just sit,” said Selin. “We don’t need anything else.”
Fanis returned to the table. The first piano notes of “The Delicate Rose Of My Thought,” a classical Turkish love song, sounded through the chilly September evening. The strings joined the piano, and Selin began singing along with Sema Moritz about the nightingale of her heart.
“I’m enchanted,” said Fanis, when it had finished.
“It’s always been one of my favorites. But my voice is nothing in comparison with yours.”
“Don’t be silly. You sing very nicely.”
“What we really need is a voice and violin duet,” she said. And then, as if she had remembered something, she took out her J.S. Phillips violin and played the first notes of a piece that Fanis recognized instantly: Özdemir Erdoğan’s “Teacher Love,” a bittersweet duet between a young violinist and her much older instructor. Fanis dutifully sang his part about counting the days until their lessons. Then, on a sudden impulse, he replaced the twenty years of the original lyrics with the number of his and Selin’s gap: thirty-three.
Selin’s eyes darted from her violin to his face as soon as he said it. She had definitely noticed. As soon as the song was over, he turned on the lights and said, “I’ll just do the dishes before I head home.”
Selin replaced her violin in its case, took a liqueur set from a cabinet beside the black leather sofa, and said, “Leave the dishes. Let’s have some of Mom’s strawberry brew.”
The friendship experiment was in jeopardy. If they went on like this, he would undoubtedly make a move, Orhan or no Orhan. So he said, “Another time, dear. I’ve got to get up early for . . . for . . . a doctor’s appointment.”
He hastily kissed Selin goodbye and tiptoed down the stairs. He had hoped to slip out of the building discreetly, but he met Madame Duygu, Selin’s landlady, on the raised ground-floor landing.
“Mr. Fanis,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” he returned. “Especially at this hour.”
“The people under the garret complained about the artiste. She was playing loud music and, apparently, she has an animal. A tomcat that makes all sorts of noise. I sp
ecifically said I don’t allow pets.”
“I don’t know what they heard, Madame Duygu,” Fanis said, “but I can assure you that the lady has no cat.”
“And the sounds?”
“It must have been the seagulls.”
“The seagulls?”
“They don’t just squawk, my dear Madame Duygu. They have a language all of their own. Sometimes it’s like a dog barking, sometimes a cat howling, and sometimes even like construction hammering or a monkey laughing. I study them in my spare time.”
“Are you all right, Mr. Fanis?” Duygu looked him over and sniffed the air. “You smell like . . . women’s perfume.”
“Please, Madame Duygu,” said Fanis, tickled that she might think him capable of seducing Selin. “I’m seventy-six.” He smiled, bowed, and skipped down the last few stairs.
20
The Test of the Package
Kosmas spent all his non-working hours that autumn at his office desk. Not only was he determined to find the Balkanik, but he also wanted to translate the recipes for use at the Lily and perhaps even publish them. For, Kosmas reasoned, even if Hamdi hadn’t recorded the Balkanik, his other culinary treasures had to be preserved for posterity.
Finally, on a cold night in early January—when Kosmas was about three-quarters through the last volume—he came upon something that resembled the famed pastry. The handwriting was minuscule but clear, running right to left in boxy little figures, but the page was not in good shape. There was a brown stain in the lower right-hand corner. The ingredient measurements had been hastily crossed out and annotated more than once, and wormholes pierced the assembly directions. Kosmas stuck his nose to the brown stain and inhaled: the mold overlay was strong, but he was sure that beneath it he smelled chocolate. And then he saw a scribble in the margin: Balkanik. Kosmas felt the sudden joy of discovery, the sensation that everything would fall into place.
A Recipe for Daphne Page 22
