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

Kosmas reached for the railing. “You decided?”

“I got into Bilgi. On a full grant. They want more people working on oral minority history.”

Κοsmas’s heart beat more quickly. That piece of news opened the way to a life together—in the City. “You couldn’t do better,” he said. “Congratulations.”

He slipped his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck and kissed her. It was a long, energetic kiss, like those of their nights at the Lily: tongues, teeth, lips, all mixed up in a passionate struggle. Kosmas lost himself in her so completely that it took him a few moments to remember where they were—in public, where everyone could see. He pushed the baby hairs back from her forehead. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too. But you didn’t answer my question. What will your mother think about me moving here?”

“She knows you’ve come for a visit. She didn’t say anything negative.”

“Lack of negative isn’t necessarily positive, just an improvement.” Daphne drew her fingertips over the scar on his forehead.

“I’m so sorry I upset you,” he said.

She placed her hands on his sides, where his love handles used to be. “Would you come to Miami if things didn’t work out here? After I’m done with the PhD?”

He looked past Daphne into the unofficial park below, where a few poor migrants were cooking their Saturday lunches on grills forbidden by the municipality. A vendor was circulating with a round tray of fresh mussels and lemon wedges. Kosmas inhaled the scent of the park’s pine trees. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his city, but losing Daphne would be even more painful. “I know we can work things out here,” he said. “But if not, I’ll do whatever it takes.”

She nuzzled her face into his chest. “It’s good to be back.”

“There’s something else,” he said. “I’ve been learning to tango.”

“That’s sweet of you, but . . . tango caused a lot of problems in my last relationship.”

Kosmas felt as if he were sinking into the pavement. He had tried so hard to please her.

“If you get into tango,” she said, “you’ll want to dance with other women.”

“Never. I only want to dance with you. I only want to be good enough for you. Do you want to see what I’ve learned?” He stood tall and waited. As Daphne fit her hand into his, he felt like laughing and weeping at the same time. He encircled her back. She wrapped her arm around his shoulder blade. Kosmas led Daphne in a simple tango, without any other music than that which he heard in his heart. She felt different in his arms now. It was as if their bodies were conversing, inviting and replying, giving and receiving, yet moving as one. And Daphne, instead of wearing a mask of patience, was now relaxed, smiling even, enjoying herself.

They danced the length of the sidewalk at the edge of the ridge, avoiding its potholes, the curb, and a stunted tree that pushed up from a little square of earth in the middle of it. Daphne added adornments: foot taps and circles, as well as tiny caresses of his shin with the tips of her shoes. They ended on one axis, leaning into each other, supporting each other. The tension of Kosmas’s lessons with Perihan had dissipated. Joy and ease had taken its place.

“Maşallah!” someone called. It was the Arabic expression of joy at events willed by God. Kosmas looked up. A kerchiefed old woman was leaning out of her window. “You dance beautifully!” she added.

Kosmas waved in appreciation, then looked into Daphne’s eyes. Her arms slid from the dance position into a true embrace. “There’s still something I don’t get,” she said.

“What?”

“You’ve done so much to please me. You moved out, you learned tango, you’re trying to find that recipe. Wouldn’t it have been easier just to get on a plane and come to Florida?”

Kosmas sat on the cliff railing—perhaps an imprudent thing to do in Istanbul, where everything was always breaking—and said “Everything I told you is true. My mother’s health issues, work. And I would have come to Miami if it weren’t for those things. But if I’m really honest . . . when I was in Vienna . . . or any time I’ve been outside the City . . . I didn’t feel like myself anymore.”

She settled into his arms. “I know what you mean.”

More than anything Daphne wanted to see his new place—their place—but if they went up now, she was sure they wouldn’t come out until the following day. She inhaled the sweet, woody pâtisserie aroma of Kosmas’s skin, gave him a final kiss, and said, “We’d better go. My aunt asked Selin and Fanis to meet us at Neighbor’s House. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

Warmed by the dance and Kosmas’s embrace, Daphne took off her coat.

“I’ll take that,” said Kosmas. “Ladies shouldn’t have to carry anything.”

How she had missed his chivalry. And how she had missed the City. On the airplane she’d worried whether she had made the wrong decision; whether her mother was right in her comparison of Turkey to Germany in ’thirty-nine; whether she had just thrown her life away for a man who hadn’t quite committed to her. But now that she was here, she knew that both Istanbul and Kosmas were home.

They reclimbed the street to Sıraselviler Avenue and approached the patio garden of Neighbor’s House, where their friends had gathered beneath the linden tree. Their table was strewn with boxwood branches, which, Aunt Gavriela had explained in the taxi from the airport, was the Istanbul substitute for palms and laurels. Evidently Fanis and the others had come directly from the Palm Sunday liturgy.

Rea, with her head cranked toward the street, spotted her son before anyone else and shouted, “Kosmaki, stay right there! I want to talk to the young lady.” She fumbled for her sparkly pink cane and pushed herself to her feet with Dimitris’s