A Recipe for Daphne by Nektaria Anastasiadou (reading well .txt) 📕

for an instant. Then she took the seat offered by Julien and said, “So that’s why you were so obsessed with the crease in your pants.”

Kosmas dumped the slumbering gray cat from a chair and settled down beside his mother. “Nothing escapes you, Mama.”

Rea switched to Turkish: “Ben malımı bilirim.” I know my goods.

“Don’t worry, son,” said Aliki, scrunching both eyes at Kosmas. “Her aunt told me she’s coming today.”

“Are you dating her?” asked Rea.

“No.” Kosmas held up two fingers and mouthed the word tea, but Emine, the waitress, ignored him.

“Well,” said Rea, recovering a little, “at least Daphne’s one of ours.”

“I probably don’t have a chance, Mama, ours or not,” said Kosmas.

Aliki leaned back in her chair and swung her legs, like a child. “How could any girl not fancy a strong, handsome gentleman like you?”

Rea folded her freshly manicured hands on top of the table. “She’d have to be out of her mind.”

“Selin,” said Fanis, “let me introduce you to Rea, Dimitris, and Kosmas. Friends, I’d like you to meet our star violinist, Selin, who speaks French like a native. She is also an expert in the lotus.” He looked Selin in the eye for a second, wondering if she would realize that he was referring neither to the flower nor to the tattoo, but to one of his favorite Kama Sutra positions. Alas, there was no sign of recognition. Fanis quickly changed tack: “Excuse me, Madame Emine! A second round of tea, please.” Then to Selin, “Yours must be cold by now. A hot tea will cool you off. That’s what the Arabs say, anyway.”

Selin put her hand on Fanis’s forearm for a split second, provoking a tingling sensation that shot all the way to Fanis’s groin. “Thanks, Mr. Fanis,” she said, “but my doctor said only one per day.”

Julien explained, “She recently had an operation to close a hole in her heart.”

“Now that’s the operation I need,” whispered Fanis.

Selin leaned sideways. He could smell a sweet, spicy perfume whose name he could not recall. Her curls brushed the tip of his ear. “I’m warning you,” she said, in a seductive tone, “I’m dangerous. Before men came and went through the hole, but the next one will have to stay.”

For a second Fanis wondered if he should leave Daphne to Kosmas and pursue this feisty one instead. In an attempt to determine her religion, he asked whether her name was the Turkish Selin or the French Céline, which were almost identical in pronunciation, and he received an answer he had not expected: she was not French at all, but a Turkish Jew. Fanis felt a sudden thrill, as if he were standing on the edge of a precipice, looking downward. He had always wanted to have an affair with a Jewish woman. He’d had plenty of Rums, a few Levantines and Armenians, one Turkish widow, and even a Sri Lankan waitress, but not one Jew. At last.

“How nice,” he said. “I go to Neve Shalom Synagogue occasionally. I love the chant, so much like ours, but more refreshing.”

“That’s rather unusual, isn’t it?” said Selin. “I mean, a Rum going to synagogue?”

“Certainly it is. But I passed by one Friday evening years ago and was enchanted by the melody. I’ve been hooked ever since.”

“I’d like to hear you chant sometime,” she said.

“Perhaps you will. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the roots of our ecclesiastical chant are Jewish. In the depth of history, our traditions meet. So why shouldn’t they meet again in the present?”

“True,” said Selin, looking into his eyes as if no one else were present. “I bet I’ll even understand a little.”

“You speak Greek?” said Fanis, unable to believe his luck.

“I learned from a Rum boyfriend.”

“Are you still together?”

Selin giggled, like a mischievous jinn. “No, Mr. Fanis. I haven’t seen him since I was eight. Our summer houses were next to each other on Prinkipos Island. He also taught me how to pee like a boy into a laundry drain so that I didn’t have to go home to use the restroom.”

“How naughty,” said Fanis. The childhood boyfriend had been an unconventional type: just like Fanis.

“We got in trouble for rusting the drain, and I had to relearn how to pee like a girl, but I can still understand Greek.”

“Could we have met in Turnacıbaşı Street recently? I thought it might have been you, but when you started speaking Turkish with the professeur I wasn’t sure.”

Before Selin had a chance to reply, Dimitris interposed, “Do you speak Ladino?”

“Yes,” said Selin. “But none of my nieces and nephews can. They’re all learning English instead. My generation is probably the last of the Spanish speakers.”

“What a pity,” said Aliki, covering her mouth. “It’s the same for all of us. My daughter married a Muslim. Her children understand Greek, but they’re too lazy to speak it. If you want my advice, marry one of your own. Otherwise, your traditions and identity will be lost.”

The conversation about marriage and continuity dragged on, but Fanis found himself unable to concentrate on what Selin was saying. Her voice washed over him, pulling him inside its current, spinning him around, floating him on its crest. Was this the beginning of a second infatuation? Or was it a “declining ability to pay attention,” yet another symptom of vascular dementia? Sometimes it was so difficult to know the difference between love and degeneration.

“Good evening, everyone!” said Gavriela, breaking the trance.

Daphne was standing beside her aunt in a straight day dress just like the ones that Fanis remembered from the sixties, when he was a comfort to women whose husbands had gone to Greece to find a job and a small apartment before sending for the family. My God. How could he have allowed himself to be distracted by the violinist? A woman like Daphne could raise the dead. Marriage with her would be a renaissance not only for him, but for their community as well.

In an expert hustle and bustle,