“Why did you come back?”
For a second Fanis didn’t know. Then he collected himself: “To ask why you didn’t help people who treated you so well. To ask how you could stand by and do nothing when your neighbor’s shops were being destroyed and their homes invaded. To ask what gives you more of a right to this place than we have. To tell you how I suffered when my fiancée—”
“Murat Aydın,” said the man, holding out his hand. “Retired librarian.”
“I don’t understand,” said Fanis. “You’re not Tayyip Aydın? You’re not the police captain?”
“Tayyip was my brother.”
Fanis examined the man’s bulging nose, the deep lines in his forehead, the trim mustache, the way he squinted in the afternoon light. It was all Tayyip Aydın. Was he lying?
“Listen, friend,” said the man. “I can’t answer your questions.”
An escapee chicken toddled outside and nudged her owner’s pants leg. Murat tossed her a few cookie crumbs. “There was a Rum family in our building,” he said. “We played hide-and-seek with their children when we were young. My mother and I hid them in our apartment during the pogrom. We thought that Tayyip would also help our neighbors.”
“But why,” whispered Fanis, “why didn’t he?”
For a few moments, Murat stared at the chic twenty-somethings sipping cappuccinos in the tourist café across the street. Then he straightened his back and said, “When Tayyip was a teenager, he worked as an errand boy for a haberdasher, a Rum with a huge belly. Mr. Takis. Not a bad guy, but he would order meat from a neighboring restaurant every day for lunch, whereas Tayyip ate bread and olives in the back room, like a hungry mouse. That bothered Tayyip. Later he became a policeman and started believing all that propaganda about the Rums being a threat to Turkey. I’m sorry for him, friend. Sorry for all of it.”
Fanis had readied himself for a confrontation. He had even thought they might come to blows. The apology, however, refreshed the pain, the betrayal, the disillusion. A sob escaped him. The chicken startled, flapped her wings, and sped back into the building.
“Don’t worry about the glass, brother,” said Murat. “It’s an evil eye broken. Someone must have been jealous of you. Better the glass than your health. Semiha! Bring some cologne!”
Semiha hurried outside and squirted lemon cologne into Fanis’s extended hands. He looked at her like a helpless child, unable even to rub his palms together. She poured some cologne onto her own hands and applied it to his forehead and cheeks. Then she grabbed a broom and began sweeping the shattered glass while Murat held a shot of raki to Fanis’s lips. Fanis recovered from his stupor after one swallow, which seemed to go in through his mouth and exit through his eyes. Murat set the glass on the doorstep.
“Let it go,” he said. “Let it go.”
“The captain?” said Fanis.
“He died in a car accident eighteen years ago.”
Fanis surprised himself by saying something that he had always thought impossible: “May God have mercy on his soul.”
“I don’t know if he’ll get it, but thank you for saying so.” Murat took a sip of raki from Fanis’s glass. “You know, I was imprisoned afterwards, when they tried to blame it on the Leftists and rounded us up. I was accused of being one of the rioters. My brother had me released. He wanted me to worship him as a hero for that favor.”
“What was he like?” asked Fanis. “I don’t mean at his job, or when he went to football games. What was he like at home? Forgive me, I know it’s impolite to ask, but I’ve always wondered.”
Murat took another sip of raki. “Up until the pogrom, I thought he was a good guy. You know, the kind who’d stick up for you, who wouldn’t push you around or blame you for things he shouldn’t. He was good for a game of backgammon or for a night out at the meyhanes. A quiet type. The change was sudden.”
“The change?”
“It happened when he was promoted to captain. Whether he was wearing his uniform or not, he knew that everybody was paying attention to him. He became so arrogant. Even tried to kick me out of the house because I kept company with Communists. He calmed down a bit when he married and had kids, but our Tayyip—the good kid—was gone forever.”
Semiha returned with more tea. “Come, Uncle,” she coaxed. “Tea heals.”
Fanis downed half the steaming glass. It soothed the pain in his throat.
Murat went inside and came out with a scrap of paper. “That’s my number,” he said, “but you can drop by anytime. We’re always here.”
Fanis put the paper into his wallet, next to Selin’s card, and shook Murat’s hand.
10
The Tango
Over the past few days, Kosmas had managed to lock his keys into the house, lose his public-transport card, drop a tea tray on his mother’s favorite rug, and fold salt instead of sugar into the batter for Hungarian Dobos torta. Fortunately, Uncle Mustafa was working beside him at the time and caught the mistake. “Yemek çok tuzlu olursa,” he said in Turkish, “aşçı aşıktır.” If the food is too salty, the cook is in love.
Kosmas leaned against the giant stainless-steel refrigerator and ran his palm over his forehead. “If things go on like this,” he said, “my life is going to fall apart.”
The corners of Uncle Mustafa’s mustache rose into a smile. “Name?”
“Daphne. Every time I’m near her it’s like the whole world fades into darkness. All I can see is her.”
Uncle Mustafa continued piping cheese onto the dough rounds that would become mini cheese pies. “I assume you haven’t called her.”
“Am I that predictable?”
Uncle Mustafa raised his thick black eyebrows and set down the pastry bag. “Son, there’s only one remedy. Call her and ask her out. If you don’t get over your fear
