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

way to Bostancı left a trail of white in the Sea of Marmara. Üsküdar, on the opposite shore, was lit up bronze and gold in the last strong rays of sunset. Its windows looked as if they were on fire. Kosmas had chosen the apartment for Daphne, who loved oriels. The kitchen was narrow, the floorboards creaked, and the rent was ridiculous, but the building was a beautiful example of late Ottoman architecture. It had high ceilings, floral carton-pierre wall decoration, original flooring and tiles, and richly carved woodwork. Kosmas could already imagine Daphne sitting on the window bench, drinking Turkish coffee with him, watching the Bosporus traffic, or studying some history book—perhaps Edmondo de Amici’s Constantinople. They were going to be happy here . . . if he could convince her to give him another chance.

Kosmas picked up his phone to call her. He selected her number, but instead of pushing the button, he just stared at her name. According to Fanis and Selin, Daphne was due back in Istanbul in one week. But it would only be a flash Holy Week and Easter visit—eight days in total. Kosmas wondered if her secrecy about the upcoming visit stemmed from her desire to surprise him or from second thoughts about their relationship. Perhaps he should call, tell her about the apartment, and convince her to stay with him. But begging probably wasn’t going to help anything. He decided to wait until she arrived to tell her about the apartment. He would walk her in—blindfolded—and present her with a fully furnished place, empty dresser drawers for her clothes, and bathroom shelves that awaited women’s creams and powders. He’d even buy a pair of slippers and place them by the door, ready for her bare feet. Size 37.

Kosmas dropped the phone back onto the oriel cushion, set the empty mug on the box beside him, and closed his eyes. His moving day had not gone well. He had expected that Rea would give him a few household things, cook and package a couple of days of food, perhaps even accompany him to the furniture store. But since Dimitris had moved in, Rea had been distracted. She had stopped making cheese pies for Kosmas’s afternoon snack, and she no longer cared whether he watched their favorite TV shows with her. She’d spent his moving morning at the hairdresser’s. Later she had called to apologize for her forgetfulness and offer to bring Kosmas dinner, but when she learned that the apartment was a sixth-floor walk-up, she sighed and said, “Why don’t you come here instead?”

Kosmas was too tired to descend the stairs at that point, but he couldn’t complain: one of the main reasons he’d chosen the flat was that it was entirely inaccessible to his mother. He sat up, transferred his empty mug to the herringbone parquet, and picked up his pocketknife to open the small package beside him. It wasn’t one of the boxes from his mother’s house, but rather something that Uncle Mustafa had sent over with the delivery truck. Kosmas cut through the tape, opened the flaps, and found Hamdi’s three volumes of recipes. It had to be some sort of mistake. Kosmas called Mustafa. “Uncle?” he said. “Your grandfather’s books were delivered to me.”

“Of course they were.”

“But shouldn’t they be kept in the Lily’s safe? Until you find a better place than beneath your bed, at least?”

“They’re my housewarming gift,” said Uncle Mustafa.

Kosmas felt his throat constrict. “But these are family heirlooms . . .”

“Correct,” said Uncle Mustafa. “You’re family, and they’re yours.”

Kosmas stared at the books, caressed the smooth leather binding. They had an entirely new charm now that they were his.

“But there’s a condition,” said Uncle Mustafa. “You’re not going to let them sit on a shelf like museum pieces. I want them to smell of cinnamon until your dying day.”

“Not just cinnamon,” said Kosmas, his voice wobbly with emotion, “but also nutmeg, chocolate, mahleb, vanilla, and every other sweet thing in my kitchen. I promise.”

The gift helped Kosmas to refocus. Despite the moving mess, he had to perfect the Balkanik for Palm Sunday, Daphne’s name day. Although he’d been experimenting since January, the variously flavored creams still didn’t complement each other as they should. For that reason, he had hesitated to add orchid-root cream, even though Hamdi’s recipe contained it as a flavor option. To Kosmas, the addition of orchid root would be a cacophonous overload. Furthermore, Orchis mascula and Orchis militaris roots, grown only in Turkey’s Kahramanmaraş region, were now so rare that their export had been banned. Even within Turkey, genuine, unadulterated Orchis tuber powder was a precious commodity. But it was the only thing that Kosmas hadn’t yet tried.

He remembered that Muharrem, the septuagenarian owner of the famous candy shop in the Balık Pazarı, sold a very expensive orchid-root drink called sahlep in the winter months. Muharrem was too much of a traditionalist to use anything but the purest ingredients in his sweet, warm, rosewater-flavored sahlep. So Kosmas called the shop and explained that he was using a recipe that demanded pure Orchis tuber powder of the finest quality.

“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.