“Odd flavoring for a wedding cake,” said Muharrem.
“It’s not for a wedding cake,” Kosmas replied. “It’s for something personal, an old recipe called the Balkanik.”
“Haaa,” said Muharrem. “It was divine. But not everybody used Orchis tuber, you know. The creams must have different flavors, but it’s up to you to choose.”
“I’d greatly appreciate it if you could get me some. I need it for—”
“A lady. Understood. How much do you need?”
“A kilo.”
“I’ll give it to you at cost, Kosmas. But you know, it’s almost as expensive as gold . . . ”
“How much?”
“590 lira per kilo.”
A week’s rent, thought Kosmas. But he’d need at least a kilo for his experiments. “No problem.”
“I’ll send it over now.”
Half an hour later, a delivery boy brought a packet wrapped in white tissue paper with gold stars. Inside was a plastic bag of starchy white powder. Destiny was doing all it could to help.
On Monday evening, after completing his cake orders and regular tasks, Kosmas experimented with variations of the light choux pastry dough, different-flavored creams, and fondant icings. By Wednesday, he had gone through so much butter, flour, and chocolate, so many eggs and nuts, that Uncle Mustafa feared they would have to place special orders so that the bakery would have enough supplies to finish the month. On Thursday at teatime, Uncle Mustafa and his friends gathered to critique the day’s experiments: “Good, but not like it was,” they said. “Pretty, but not like it was. Almost, but not quite.” Kosmas repeated his mantra to himself: İdare. You can manage this.
He passed Thursday and Friday nights at work, struggling not only with Hamdi’s Ottoman script, but also with the challenge of achieving a taste that he had only heard about and never experienced. All the while, memories of Daphne—the smoothness of her skin on the inside of her thighs, the way her hands fit completely inside his, and the lovemaking that had occurred atop the very table on which he worked—kept breaking his concentration and causing his hands to tremble. On the night before Daphne’s expected arrival, Kosmas was so tired that he could hardly stand up. He had to pull a stool to the counter in order to pipe the last creams. Sometime past ten, he stepped outside to calm his nerves with a shot of raki. As he sat in the alley, listening to the scratching of the crickets in the sidewalk weeds and the angry yakking of the seagulls that nested on the building’s roof, Uncle Mustafa opened his bedroom window and called, “Shall I come down?”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” said Kosmas. “I probably didn’t get it this time either.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Uncle Mustafa descended in black loafers and pajamas, cut the pastry with the care of a contest judge, and inhaled. “A delicate balance of discreet flavors,” he said. “Firm but thin pastry. From the scent I’d say you used the organic flour, didn’t you?” He took a small bite, closed his eyes, moved it around his mouth, and pronounced his verdict with a blind smile: “This takes me back in time.”
Kosmas grabbed Uncle Mustafa’s shoulders, kissed his waxy forehead, and stepped out into the alleyway. He stretched his hands up to the navy blue sky. “Thank you,” he whispered, turning in circles.
Uncle Mustafa called Muharrem the candy-maker. He also rang the doorbells at the nearby apartment blocks where his brother and backgammon partner lived. Then he put the teapot on the stove for their expected visitors and made a strong double coffee for Kosmas, whose hands were shaking from fatigue and over-excitement. Only with an immense effort did Kosmas manage to sip the coffee without spilling too much of it into the saucer.
Ten minutes later, Muharrem arrived, wearing his white lab coat. His expression was inquisitive and serious, like that of a doctor making a bedside visit to an ailing patient.
“Thanks so much for coming,” said Kosmas. “I’m so sorry for the late—”
Muharrem held up his hand to quiet Kosmas and said in French, “Que’est-ce qu’il y a?” What’s the matter?
Uncle Mustafa served him a slice of the pastry. “Your opinion, Master,” he said.
Muharrem’s white mustache prevented Kosmas from seeing whether he smiled or not, but his eyes brightened. He washed his hands, like a surgeon preparing for a procedure, carefully picked up a clean fork from the steel counter, and swirled it in the creams. “Excellent consistency.” He took a bite. “And it seems to me—from the cardamom, which adds a hint of supplication—that you’re not just trying to win the lady, but to win her back?”
“Yes,” said Kosmas. “But I was only following the recipe, so I can’t claim that I actually intended—”
“Even following is a creative process,” said Muharrem, decisively.
“Did I get it right?
Muharrem took another bite. “From a historical standpoint, yes. This is a very nice version. From a romantic standpoint . . . why don’t you ask these fellows?”
Two pajama-clad old men filed inside. They rubbed their eyes and gratefully took the teas that Uncle Mustafa passed out. A few minutes later, after the caffeine and fluorescent lights had awakened them from their television-watching stupor, they tasted the Balkanik.
Uncle Mustafa’s backgammon partner—a withered man in a white prayer cap—leaned dreamily back against the refrigerator and said, “This reminds me of Eleni, my first love. We kissed in the boiler room while playing hide-and-seek.”
Uncle Mustafa’s fat brother sat down on a box of almond flour, causing Kosmas and Uncle Mustafa to exchange fearful glances about the fate of the box’s contents. He said, “It reminds me of my neighbor, Janet Benchimol. She broke my heart when she packed off to Israel.”
Uncle Mustafa said, “It’s everything we lost.”
Κοsmas slid his hands into his hair, pulling at its roots until it hurt. The pain meant that this was real, that he hadn’t fallen asleep and dreamed his success.
“The most important opinion, however,” said Muharrem, “will be hers.”
Eleven hours later, only four and a half of which were spent in fitful sleep, Kosmas stepped into Neighbor’s House, said good morning to the young employees setting up behind the counter, and proceeded to the patio, where Julien sat at the only table ready for customers. Kosmas carefully set a fresh, boxed-up Balkanik on the table and collapsed into one of the canvas patio chairs.
“What’s that?” asked Julien.
“A treat I made this morning,” said Kosmas. “For Daphne’s name day.”
Julien opened the flap of his wool overcoat and revealed the jacket of a double-breasted suit. “I put on my Sunday best for the occasion, and I looked so good that I got nostalgic for a Catholic mass. But San Antonio smelled like a goddamn funeral, and the dull hymns almost put me to sleep. I didn’t feel any of the sanctity I remember from my childhood. So I came straight to Neighbor’s House to keep company with the bones.” Julien nodded toward the cemetery, where renegade tea-garden napkins waved like flags on last year’s dead stems. Over the winter, discarded water bottles had collected in the cemetery’s corners. Kosmas remembered Daphne’s Facebook pictures of Miami’s spotless, manicured parks. He was embarrassed by Istanbul’s litter. Fortunately, red tulips were pushing up between the rubbish and crooked Ottoman obelisks. They were a small consolation, at least.
A cool wind blew into the tea garden, ruffling the branches budding over their heads. Julien shivered. “What’s that smell?” he said, sniffing.
“Do I stink?” said Kosmas.
“Not exactly. Kind of like mahleb bread baking in a wood oven.”
“You mean I smell like a pâtisserie.”
“It’s not bad. Really.”
“I showered and changed, but sometimes the Lily sticks to me.”
“Calm down. You’re dressed like a GQ fashion plate but still you’re a wreck. Why don’t you run down to the pharmacy for some eye drops?”
“I already tried some,” said
Kosmas. “They didn’t help.”
“If I’d been in your place—” Julien began.
“But you weren’t,” said Kosmas. “So it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t care whether it matters. You listen to me. It’s time to stop jerking off and get the girl, do you hear? Otherwise you’ll end up a sorry old man like me, drinking café-au-whiskey for breakfast.” Julien stood. His chair scraped across the flagstones as he pushed it back. “Here they come,” he said.
Kosmas looked up the street. There was Daphne, walking arm-in-arm with her aunt Gavriela, who seemed to be lecturing her about something. Kosmas’s eyes traveled over the face he had seen only through a computer screen for the past nine months, the hair that had grown at least ten centimeters since he had last seen it, and the body he remembered better by touch than by sight. Daphne wore a red, unbuttoned gabardine coat and clean, pressed gray pants, the hems of which were “cleaning the pavement,” as his mother would say. She had clearly lost weight. Kosmas was struck by how small she was, how delicate. Inside the Skype screen, everything seemed so big.
Kosmas stood but remained rooted to the slate pavement. Julien crossed the patio and embraced Daphne. “I wish you many years, my girl! May you have all that you desire, and in your bed, fire!”
Daphne laughed.
“Health and happiness!” said Kosmas.
Daphne approached him with a sleepy smile. She raised her hands to his shoulders, but as he embraced her, her arms somehow got in the way. He couldn’t tell if it had been an awkward move on the part of an exhausted woman, or if it was an effort to push him away. He kissed her cheeks, disappointed that she had shown more enthusiasm for Julien.
“Looks like we need tea,” said Gavriela. “Dark as rabbit’s blood.”
But Kosmas couldn’t wait for the tea. He said, “I need to show Daphne something.”
Gavriela pulled her dark glasses down her nose and glared at Kosmas over the top of the lenses. “I don’t think—”
Kosmas interrupted: “We won’t be long. I promise.”
He took Daphne’s hand in his. Skype could keep a relationship breathing, but it couldn’t give you touch. How he had missed her warm hand. As soon as they turned the corner onto Akarsu Yokuşu Street, he pulled her close. She turned her face slightly to the side, so that her chin dug into his chest. Her forehead smelled of jet fuel and cheap airplane soap.
“You came straight here, didn’t you?” He squeezed her, as if he were trying to push her body into his, to make it part of him so that she could never leave again.
She took a step backward, forcing him to loosen his embrace. He noticed a wrinkle between her ribbon-like brows. Her mouth was tightly closed. She caressed his cheek, but her expression remained troubled. “We need to talk,” she said.
“Let me show you something first.”
They started down a sloping street that led to the terrace overlooking Nusretiye Mosque. Because it was early, the tables of the tea garden at the edge of the terrace were still empty. A few faces could be seen in the windows of the apartment buildings above, but there were no passersby. Kosmas looked out to sea. A red ship trailing white foam was sailing between the mosque’s two baroque minarets. He leaned on the terrace railing, facing Daphne. “I’m really sorry. My mother’s troubles took me by surprise. I overreacted. And then there was just so much to do at the pâtisserie. . . . I should have come, even if it was only for a little while.”
The wind blew Daphne’s hair into her eyes. She peeled the strands from her face, twisted them, and stuffed the coil into the back of her loose coat. “I’m torn,” she said. “I like that you take such good care of your mother, but her prejudices are . . . strong, to say the least. She doesn’t want me anywhere near you.”
“She doesn’t want anybody near her son. She’s jealous. Your father is just an excuse. But she’ll come around, I promise.”
“Even if she does, I’d never be able to live in the same apartment with her.”
“Look up there,” said Kosmas. He spun Daphne around and pointed to a grand white apartment block with stacked oriels on every floor from the first to the sixth.
“Built in 1897,” he said. “See the oriel on the sixth floor? That’s mine. I moved out of my mother’s place over a week ago. I wanted to surprise you with a furnished place, but I haven’t had time to buy anything but a bed. It’s still a mess.”
Daphne stared upward. The blue sky and a few wispy cirrus clouds reflected on the windowpanes. The wind whistled in the corbels of the first floor. She said, “The oriel must have some view.”
“It’s yours.”
Daphne continued gazing at the building with an expression of wonder. “Your mother?”
“Busy with Dimitris. And you don’t have to worry about her visiting us. It’s a walk-up. You’ll see the whole City from up there without ever setting eyes on her.”
Daphne smiled. “It sounds perfect. But what does she think about me moving here?”
Kosmas reached for the railing. “You decided?”
“I got into Bilgi. On a full grant. They want more people working on oral minority history.”
Κοsmas’s heart beat more quickly. That piece of news opened the way to a life together—in the City. “You couldn’t do better,” he said. “Congratulations.”
He slipped his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and kissed her. It was a long, energetic kiss, like those of their nights at the Lily: tongues, teeth, lips, all mixed up in a passionate struggle. Kosmas lost himself in her so completely that it took him a few moments to remember where they were—in public, where everyone could see. He pushed the baby hairs back from her forehead. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too. But you didn’t answer my question. What will your mother think about me moving here?”
“She knows you’ve come for a visit. She didn’t say anything negative.”
“Lack of negative isn’t necessarily positive, just an improvement.” Daphne drew her fingertips over the scar on his forehead.
“I’m so sorry I upset you,” he said.
She placed her hands on his sides, where his love handles used to be. “Would you come to Miami if things didn’t work out here? After I’m done with the PhD?”
He looked past Daphne into the unofficial park below, where a few poor migrants were cooking their Saturday lunches on grills forbidden by the municipality. A vendor was circulating with a round tray of fresh mussels and lemon wedges. Kosmas inhaled the scent of the park’s pine trees. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his city, but losing Daphne would be even more painful. “I know we can work things out here,” he said. “But if not, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
She nuzzled her face into his chest. “It’s good to be back.”
“There’s something else,” he said. “I’ve been learning to tango.”
“That’s sweet of you, but . . . tango caused a lot of problems in my last relationship.”
Kosmas felt as if he were sinking into the pavement. He had tried so hard to please her.
“If you get into tango,” she said, “you’ll want to dance with other women.”
“Never. I only want to dance with you. I only want to be good enough for you. Do you want to see what I’ve learned?” He stood tall and waited. As Daphne fit her hand into his, he felt like laughing and weeping at the same time. He encircled her back. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder blade. Kosmas led Daphne in a simple tango, without any other music than that which he heard in his heart. She felt different in his arms now. It was as if their bodies were conversing, inviting and replying, giving and receiving, yet moving as one. And Daphne, instead of wearing a mask of patience, was now relaxed, smiling even, enjoying herself.
They danced the length of the sidewalk at the edge of the ridge, avoiding its potholes, the curb, and a stunted tree that pushed up from a little square of earth in the middle of it. Daphne added adornments: foot taps and circles, as well as tiny caresses of
his shin with the tips of her shoes. They ended on one axis, leaning into each other, supporting each other. The tension of Kosmas’s lessons with Perihan had dissipated. Joy and ease had taken its place.
“Maşallah!” someone called. It was the Arabic expression of joy at events willed by God. Kosmas looked up. A kerchiefed old woman was leaning out of her window. “You dance beautifully!” she added.
Kosmas waved in appreciation, then looked into Daphne’s eyes. Her arms slid from the dance position into a true embrace. “There’s still something I don’t get,” she said.
“What?”
“You’ve done so much to please me. You moved out, you learned tango, you’re trying to find that recipe. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to get on a plane and come to Florida?”
Kosmas sat on the cliff railing—perhaps an imprudent thing to do in Istanbul, where everything was always breaking—and said “Everything I told you is true. My mother’s health issues, work. And I would have come to Miami if it weren’t for those things. But if I’m really honest . . . when I was in Vienna . . . or any time I’ve been outside the City . . . I didn’t feel like myself anymore.”
She settled into his arms. “I know what you mean.”
More than anything Daphne wanted to see his new place—their place—but if they went up now, she was sure they wouldn’t come out until the following day. She inhaled the sweet, woody pâtisserie aroma of Kosmas’s skin, gave him a final kiss, and said, “We’d better go. My aunt asked Selin and Fanis to meet us at Neighbor’s House. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”
Warmed by the dance and Kosmas’s embrace, Daphne took off her coat.
“I’ll take that,” said Kosmas. “Ladies shouldn’t have to carry anything.”
How she had missed his chivalry. And how she had missed the City. On the airplane she’d worried whether she had made the wrong decision; whether her mother was right in her comparison of Turkey to Germany in ’thirty-nine; whether she had just thrown her life away for a man who hadn’t quite committed to her. But now that she was here, she knew that both Istanbul and Kosmas were home.
A Recipe for Daphne Page 29