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

someone else. Daphne’s eyes were glassy. He crouched at her feet and took her hand. “I’ve been a beast, upsetting you like that,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t care that your father’s Ottoman. So is Uncle Mustafa, and he’s been like a father to me since mine died.”

“And your mother?”

“Let me handle that.”

“You don’t look so sure.”

“It won’t be a problem. I’m really sorry.”

“It’s partly my fault, I guess,” said Daphne. “I should have told you from the start. I wanted to, but it just seemed awkward.”

So she hadn’t meant to deceive him. He rose to standing. Half the restaurant was staring at him. The drunk women applauded. He bowed, took his chair, and said, “How about I take you to the Lily for dessert?”

The pâtisserie kitchen was more stylish than Daphne had expected: it had old-fashioned cement tile flooring, yellow cabinetry, ceramic brick backsplashes, and baroque molding framing a daring black ceiling.

“It’s the only place where I really feel at home,” said Kosmas, cracking a high window. “We redid the kitchen just a few months ago. Uncle Mustafa gave me carte blanche.” He scrubbed his hands, lit the oven, donned his double-breasted chef coat, and rolled up his sleeves. “What will it be?”

“Something from Vienna.”

“Apple strudel?”

She nodded.

Like a soldier under orders, he piled ingredients onto the central steel table: flour, apples, butter, sugar, lemons, oil, cinnamon, rum, breadcrumbs, an egg, and finally raisins. Daphne sat on a high stool and watched while he combined the dough ingredients by hand, transferred the ball to the floured countertop, and worked it with firm, rhythmic movements. He roasted the breadcrumbs in butter, cored and sliced the apples with speed and precision, and mixed them with lemon juice, a shot of rum, and a few spoonfuls of sugar and cinnamon. An hour before, Daphne hadn’t been sure if she wanted the relationship to go any further. But watching him now, she couldn’t help thinking that he was rather dexterous.

He floured a tea towel, opened the dough with a rolling pin, picked it up, and stretched it over his fists. When the circle had reached a transparent, leaf-like thinness, he transferred it to the tea towel, trimmed the rough edges with scissors, and spread the apple mixture on top. After folding a pastry edge over the filling with the care of a father covering his sleeping infant, Kosmas lifted the tea towel, causing the pastry to roll. For a second Daphne wondered if he would care for his children—perhaps their children—with similar tenderness. Then she reminded herself that this was the same guy who had just flipped out about her father’s religion.

Slow down, she said silently.

Kosmas buttered the seam, twisted, cut, and tucked the ends. Finally he transferred his creation, still swaddled in its tea-towel hammock, to a baking sheet and set it in the oven. Selin was right. Kosmas knew what he was doing in the kitchen.

“May I?” said Daphne. She amassed the trimmings into a ball and began rolling out the dough, just as their neighbor Josefina had always done with leftover bits. Kosmas leaned against the refrigerator, crossed his arms over his chest, and fixed his gaze on . . . her breasts? Or her dough rolling? She asked, “What are you looking at?”

“You’ll blush like the apples if I tell you.”

Daphne leaned even further. Kosmas’s gaze deepened, leaving no doubt. She sprinkled the dough with cinnamon and sugar, rolled it, cut it into slices, and said, “That’s what our Cuban neighbor used to make with the scraps.”

Kosmas transferred each pinwheel from the counter to a buttered baking tray, which he placed in the oven, on the shelf above the strudel. Then he slipped behind Daphne and turned off the industrial fluorescent lights, leaving the kitchen dark except for the warm orange glow of the oven. A moment later Daphne felt his hands on her hips. They caressed her lightly, almost imperceptibly, slowly rose over her back to her shoulders and neck, and finally descended to her breasts. She turned within his embrace. He entwined his hands in her hair, kissed her, and bit her bottom lip. She took a deep breath of the sweet apple-and-cinnamon steam as he pulled her blouse over her head. He lifted her onto the steel counter, beside the hot oven, and stood back to observe her. His eyes traveled over her bare chest. It was more arousing even than touch, as if he was already making love to her in his mind. He kissed her on the mouth, inhaled the scent of her neck, and kissed her mouth again. She wrapped her legs around him, locked her ankles behind his waist, and pulled him toward her.

17

The Song of the Siren

On wednesday evening, fanis opened a window to let the place air while he was at tea. Just as he was about to draw the sheer curtain, however, he heard a great tumbling of plastic. He looked across the way to the garret. So far the new tenant had kept well hidden behind half-closed shutters, but now there she was, bustling about the apartment with her hair tied up in a red bandana like a West African queen. She was shouting all sorts of profanities in a language that seemed familiar, but which Fanis could not make out.

Could it be?

Fanis remembered Selin’s card. He had not yet called because he always allowed at least seven days to pass between receiving a phone number and using it. How many days had it been? Four? Five? Six at most. She would undoubtedly think he was hungry if he called her now, and a woman must never think that. And then there was the distasteful possibility that she only liked him in a daughterly way. But what if it was her? And what if he missed the opportunity to help her settle in? Fanis decided to make a small exception to the rules of the chase. He would call. She didn’t have his number, anyway.