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

“Of course. And could we have a grilled gilt-head sea bream?”

Kosmas bounded upstairs and relieved himself. As he hummed the Greek happy-birthday song, with which he always timed his sudsing, he gave himself a pep talk. Relax, you can turn this around. Maybe Gavriela forced her out, and maybe the dance lesson will be a disaster, but look at the other side of things: it will prolong the evening. And the boyfriend? He’s on the other side of the world.

Kosmas held out his hands to the attendant, received his squirt of lemon cologne, and rubbed it in while descending the stairs. “Everything okay, Mr. Spyros?” he said.

“More than okay. I’ve been looking into Daphne’s pretty eyes the whole time. Remember that when you get to be my age. No one can stop you looking into a woman’s eyes, no matter how old, ugly, or married you are. Bon appétit, kids.”

Over the next half-hour, the itinerant vendors provided so much entertainment that Daphne did not reopen the tango subject. First a man came by with a box of butterflies and a microscope. Daphne paid him fifty cents for a peek. After the sea bream was served, a lottery seller wearing a paper crown approached their table. Fortunately his attention was diverted by a news segment on the muted television mounted above Spyros’s head. In large red letters at the bottom of the screen was the headline “For a day or forever, everyone needs an escape.”

“I’d choose forever,” said the vendor. He held up his ticket roll one more time. Kosmas lifted his chin. The vendor moved on.

“Would you escape if you could?” Daphne asked Kosmas.

“Maybe. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live in a place where nobody cares what my religion is. To go and be a foreigner somewhere for real. What about you?”

“I’ve done it. For the summer, that is.” There it was again, the sweet tone, clear, without the smallest bit of hoarseness. “Could we go to that tango lesson?”

She’d turned him into marzipan paste. No longer able to resist, he said, “All right. But after that we’re going for dessert.”

The dance studio was a two-minute walk from the restaurant. They climbed six floors through a cigarette-stinking stairwell to the penthouse studio. A small woman—the teacher, it seemed—herded Kosmas, Daphne, and the other prospective students to the room’s center. First they learned how to walk by sliding their feet across the floor, brushing one ankle past the other. Easy enough. Kosmas thanked God there was no hip motion, yet he couldn’t understand so much insistence on walking.

“Stop!” the teacher shouted. “Time to learn the embrace.”

Daphne encircled Kosmas with her left arm and spread her fingers over his back. He had no idea what to do with his right arm, so the instructor assisted by wrapping it around Daphne’s back, just beneath the shoulder blades, all the way to the armpit, and ever so close to . . . Don’t even think about it, Kosmas told himself.

“Walk in time to the music!”

Kosmas took hesitant steps lest he tread on Daphne’s feet. Soon, however, he realized that Daphne was never in his way. He moved with greater confidence, pushing the body that leaned forward to meet him, and walked straight into a wall. Renewing his efforts, he navigated a corner and experienced a brief fifty seconds of enjoyment, as if he had awakened from a bad dream. He listened to the sound of Daphne’s breath in his ear, took in the floral scent of her hair, and glanced at her low décolletage as the fabric of her dress shifted over her breasts. This must be why men learned to tango.

“Change partners!”

Daphne left Kosmas and approached the next cavalier, a Harrison Ford lookalike who was no beginner at all, but rather the obliging brother of a lady who wanted to try the dance. The music began, but Kosmas couldn’t concentrate. Getting his new partner to go anywhere was like trying to push a mountain. Worse yet, Kosmas stepped on her foot twice while trying to catch glimpses of Daphne in a close embrace with the Lothario on the other side of the studio.

“Careful,” said the woman.

“Sorry,” said Kosmas. “Can you give me a minute?”

He took a short break and observed the other couples. They seemed uncomfortable with the touch of a stranger and held each other at arm’s length, but Daphne had closed her eyes and fit her forehead into the valley of her partner’s left temple. She was obviously no beginner at all because she responded with precision and sometimes even foot adornments to her partner’s seductive directions. Still, despite his jealousy, Kosmas couldn’t help being turned on by the way her round behind moved in the tight-fitting dress. The evil-eye charm slid over her shoe strap, catching the candlelight. On turns, her skirt swirled upward, revealing a few centimeters of thigh. But she was in the arms of another man, damn it. Was Argentine tango truly an art form or just some sick kind of sadomasochism invented to torture watching partners? Just when Kosmas thought he could bear it no longer, he heard clapping. The lesson was over.

He needed a drink. While the teacher distributed brochures, Kosmas went to the studio bar, ordered a glass of wine and a bottle of water, and took them to the table where Daphne awaited him. “Having fun?” he said.

“Lots. It’s a great venue, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.” He swilled half the glass of vinegar-tasting wine. “Ready to leave?”

“Dessert?” said Daphne, following him out.

Kosmas pondered where to go. He remembered the new Saryan. The traffic along the coastal road would be terrible at that time of night. Still, it was the only place—outside of his own shop—where he enjoyed eating sweets.

“You’ll see when we get there,” he said.

They found a taxi in the boulevard behind the studio. For a few minutes Kosmas was pleased with himself for having spared Daphne further walking, but soon a truck cut off the taxi,