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

phone number. Fanis looked left and right, grabbed the card, and stuffed it into his wallet. The waiter delivered the plate of cookies that Fanis had ordered before the girls’ arrival. Just the thing to soothe his excited nerves. He wouldn’t want to risk an ischemic stroke.

Ten minutes later Fanis left Neighbor’s House. With Selin’s card in his wallet, he felt as if he was floating rather than walking. Selin Kerido, querida mia, he repeated to himself. Not that he planned on giving up Daphne, but it couldn’t hurt to have Selin “in reserve,” as young Greeks were fond of saying. Fanis descended the hill into Çukurcuma, but he was too excited to return home. So he kept walking, taking the polluted air in deep breaths, and he reached Yeni Çarşı before he realized it. He was so euphoric that he didn’t think of the police captain until he had almost stumbled upon one of his chickens. Fanis instinctively took a step backward. Then, buoyed by Selin’s attentions, he rounded the corner and entered the alley.

“Good evening,” said Fanis, resisting the urge to grab the captain by his shirt and throw him against the lamppost.

“Good evening,” returned the man in the Panama hat. “Isn’t it a bit hot for that scarf?”

“I don’t feel the heat,” said Fanis. But I did feel it on the night of September 6, 1955, when you refused to help my fiancée’s father.

The captain retrieved another stool from his entryway. “Have a seat. I’d enjoy some company.”

Was this old-style Turkish hospitality, or had the captain recognized him? Either way, Fanis had no intention of sitting with the man as if they were old friends. “Thank you, but—”

The captain shouted to his wife, “Semiha! Two teas. We have a guest.”

Fanis felt his lower legs begin to tremble. “How long have you lived here?” he asked, suspicious about why the captain had returned to the old neighborhood.

“Just a few weeks. We were further down before. We took this place because we had trouble climbing the stairs of the other. You know how it is. And you?”

“I’ve lived here my whole life. On—” Fanis hesitated. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to tell the truth. “On Sıraselviler,” he said.

“It’s not the same place we were born into,” said the captain.

Semiha’s rubber clogs thumped on the entryway tile. She brought teas “dark as rabbit’s blood,” as Fanis’s mother used to say, as well as a plate of butter cookies. “Welcome,” she said.

“Well I find you,” said Fanis. “I’ve put you to trouble, and I really can’t stay . . .”

“None at all.” Semiha set the tray on the stand beside her husband. “I made these cookies an hour ago. My mother used to say that if you want company, you should bake.”

“Wise woman,” said Fanis, sitting. “Health to your hands.”

Semiha bowed and withdrew inside the house.

“Married?” said the captain.

“No,” said Fanis. Thanks to you.

The tinkle of spoons hitting the sides of tea tulips echoed through the alley.

“It’s not good to be alone,” said the captain. “A man needs someone to make his food, someone to say good morning to, someone to drink a tea with, someone to give him medicine when he’s sick. Isn’t that right?”

Fanis bit his tongue so hard that he could taste blood. He didn’t want to lash out right away. He wanted answers first.

“You mentioned that you lived further down,” he said. “A friend of mine had a meyhane further down. The Petridis Winehouse. Do you remember it?”

“Do I remember it? I was its best customer. Their raki was something else.”

“Do you remember the owner as well?” Fanis rasped. His dry mouth stuck to each word.

The captain tossed a handful of seed to his clucking chickens. “How could I not? It’s too bad he left, too bad they all left. That was the beginning of the end of our Istanbul.”

“I was engaged to that man’s daughter,” said Fanis. He expected some sort of reaction. The captain had to have heard something about Kalypso. As much as her family had tried to hide it, rumors had eventually spread.

“Were you? I can’t say I remember the family. You didn’t marry?”

“No,” said Fanis. He could feel sweat accumulating on his palms. “The meyhane was destroyed and the family dishonored. They picked up and left for Canada.”

“Things were better when the Rums were here.”

The hypocrisy! Fanis rose to his feet. His tea tulip smashed onto the curb. “How dare you?”

“Friend, what—”

“The worst part of it,” said Fanis, trying to control his urge to pummel the man, “do you know the worst part? The worst part was that her father, Tasos Petridis, went to the police station to ask for your help, and you—a regular customer who was never allowed to pay!—you kept him waiting for an hour. You said you couldn’t spare the men, and then, and then . . .”

The captain also stood. He set his empty glass on the tray. “Friend—”

“No!” Fanis kicked the curb. “I am not your friend!” His whole body was shaking. He wondered if the stroke was coming. He had to hurry. “Tasos Petridis was beaten unconscious as soon as he left the station. That’s why he wasn’t with his daughter when . . . when it happened. That’s why they were all alone.” Hot tears pooled in Fanis’s eyes. Afraid that his voice was about to break, he added, almost in a whisper, “And I have never forgiven you.”

“Please, brother, have a seat.”

Fanis fell back onto the stool. Otherwise he would probably have collapsed and shattered on the cobblestones just like the tea glass.

The captain called to his wife, “Sugar, collect the birds and bring us more tea.” As Semiha herded the chickens and the rooster through the entryway and into the back garden, the captain asked, “What’s your name?”

“Fanourios Paleologos.”

The captain took off his sunglasses. “You sought me out on purpose?”

“No,” said Fanis, feeling the resurgent helplessness of that night. “I followed you for years, and then, after I married,