Fanis left the shop and walked home at a brisk pace. He was so absorbed by his analysis of the Daphne situation that he forgot all about his new neighbor. He cursed the moving truck blocking his street and stormed straight upstairs. Without even peering across the way to the garret, he put Sinatra’s Swing Easy! on his 1955 Magnavox Consolette, turned up the volume, and paced the living-room floor. It was always while listening to the Sultan of Swoon that he came up with his best plans and strategies.
12
The Island of Antigone
Seagulls swooped and dove alongside the ferry, riding the air currents as if they, too, were on their way to the islands. Daphne turned her face into the wind. The air didn’t smell like Biscayne Bay. It was less salty. Cleaner. Fishier. And the waves in the Sea of Marmara were more like lake ripples than Florida’s swells. Up ahead, a gray church dome rose above the ceramic-tile roofs and white clapboard mansions of Antigone. Speedboats anchored in the island’s harbor slid heavily over low waves and wakes. Wooden fishing barks tied to the quay bobbed merrily, pulling on their lines, like dogs straining on leashes.
A gust of wind caught Daphne’s straw fedora. Kosmas, sitting beside her, grabbed it just in time. “Hang on to that,” he said.
“Time to make our way downstairs,” said Gavriela. She put on her ultra-dark, post-cataract-operation sunglasses and held out her hand to Daphne. “Let’s go, little mama.”
The friends pushed their way through the crowd and down the stairs to the boarding deck. A few impatient daredevils, including a headscarved woman carrying a newborn baby, scorned the rickety gangway and leaped over the gap between ship and shore. Nobody seemed to have any sense of order or lines.
“It’s always a mess like this,” said Julien, as soon as they had made it across to the quay. “Kimin siki kimin götünde.”
“Professeur!” snapped Gavriela.
“What? You can’t tell whose dick is in whose ass is a perfectly good Turkish saying. Part of the culture.”
Gavriela clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Come along. Let’s not keep Aliki waiting.”
As they walked, Daphne took in the resin scent of the pine trees. She noticed cats sleeping on the steps of Italianate villas, behind metal dumpsters, and on café chairs. There wasn’t a car or bus in sight. Stray dogs lazed wherever they wished, even in the middle of the street, and moved only at the sound of oncoming hooves. Instead of automobile horns, one heard the harmonious ringing of phaeton bells. It was hard to believe that the island was, administratively at least, part of Istanbul. No longer afraid of pickpockets, Daphne lifted her bag from its tiresome crossbody position and let it dangle from her shoulder. She tore a jasmine tendril from a plant spilling over a picket fence, inhaled its sweet perfume, and asked, “Are we going to have a chance to see the rest of the island?”
Kosmas stopped walking. Suddenly decisive, like a ship’s captain announcing a change of course, he said to the oldsters, “Daphne and I will see you all later. We’re going on a phaeton ride.”
Fanis clapped his hands. “Just what I had in mind.”
“Perfect,” said Rea. “I love phaetons.”
“Don’t get too excited,” said Kosmas. “Daphne and I are going alone.”
Rea leaned heavily on her sparkly pink cane. “But I can’t walk to Aliki’s without you.”
Dimitris stepped between Kosmas and his mother. “Don’t worry, Ritsa. I’ll take care of you.”
Kosmas winked at Dimitris. “You see, Mama. True men have solutions for any problem. Mr. Dimitris, you’re a star.”
Kosmas flagged down a passing carriage. As it slowed to a stop, Daphne noticed the odd contrast that Kosmas’s small triangular rear made with his thicker middle. She couldn’t help comparing it to Paul’s ideal proportions. Kosmas had turned out to be a nice guy, but Daphne still didn’t feel an overwhelming physical attraction.
“How much for the big tour?” Kosmas asked the driver.
With one hand resting on the brake wheel and the other clutching the whip and reins, the shabbily dressed driver replied, “Forty lira.”
Kosmas nodded to Daphne. Impressed that Kosmas hadn’t even tried to bargain, she climbed beneath the phaeton’s tasseled roof. As soon as she had settled onto the soft cushion of the basket, however, she realized that the phaeton was more attractive from afar than from inside, especially in the summer heat: not that she expected the horses to be fragrant, but their stench was overwhelming, as if they hadn’t been bathed or cared for in years. Kosmas jumped in with her. The driver made a clucking sound to the horses, and they left the oldsters behind.
Daphne tried to forget the excrement smell by focusing her attention on the landscape, the houses, and their oriel windows. Her grandmother’s wooden house, as she had seen it in a photo, had boasted an oriel supported by corbels. As a little girl, Daphne would look at that picture and imagine herself sitting in its window, watching the street below or reading a book.
“Do you see that old lady up there?” she said, nodding toward a woman with an arm dangling over her oriel sill.
“Probably Rum,” said Kosmas. “She’d have to be Rum—or Jewish—to have an old house like that. That’s what I love about Antigone in the summer. You can even hear Greek and Ladino coming from open windows. It’s like smelling the rich aroma of tsoureki bread wafting out of bakeries at Easter time.”
Kosmas lowered his arm onto the back of the basket. Daphne felt the heat of his skin through the wicker. His fingers bumped against her bare shoulder. For a second, she almost wished he would put his arm around her instead of the basket. And then she heard three loud, squeaky vibrations.
“What was that?” she asked.
“An expression of the horses’ appreciation of their master,” said Kosmas. The warm gas reached their nostrils. Daphne covered her face. Kosmas gave
