Early the next morning, Fanis grabbed a towel from the dresser and crept down the hallway to the bathroom. Thank God, he made it without being heard. He cranked the shower lever to its hottest setting, stripped, and stepped inside for a good think session. While letting the hot water run over his face, he decided the Kalypso thing wasn’t going to be enough. He had to come up with a better excuse. As soon as his chest was fully sudsed, he recalled Julien’s crush on Aliki. Although the professeur flirted outrageously with women young enough to be his granddaughters, he still hadn’t made a move on Aliki because he was afraid of ruining the friendship. Fanis hated to betray Julien’s trust, but ultimately he would be doing a good turn to both his friends by setting them up.
Fifteen minutes later Fanis entered the kitchen fully dressed, his belt drawn more tightly than usual. Spread before him were savory pastries, garden tomatoes, plates dressed with cheeses, tiny ceramic bowls with homemade jams, and a freshly brewed pot of black Turkish tea. Fanis sighed. He tasted a small portion from each plate, just as he used to dance one song with every girl, but he was as distant as he would have been with a beauty he had pursued and possessed the night before. After his second cup of tea, which he drank scalding hot, he declared that the breakfast had been “nectar and ambrosia” and announced that he had to be off to catch the ten-thirty boat because his godson was arriving that afternoon for a two-day visit—his standard getaway excuse.
“At least eat your breakfast,” said Aliki.
Fanis glanced at his watch. “I had a wonderful time yesterday, a thousand thanks, but the ferry—”
“You said we’d talk in the morning.”
“Yes, I did, didn’t I?” Fanis noticed a smudge of blue eye shadow on Aliki’s cheek. Apparently she’d missed the mark. He finished his tea. “Listen, Aliki, you’re a lovely woman, inside and out, but, you see, it’s . . . the professeur.”
“Julien?”
“Yes. He’s in love with you. Has been for years.”
Aliki threw down her napkin. “Please. He tells me I’m too fat for the chairs at Neighbor’s House.”
“It’s an odd way to flirt, I admit. But Julien has a thing for full-figured women. You see, he confessed his feelings, and from that point on, it becomes a matter of honor for me to step aside.”
Aliki squinted. “Fanis Paleologos, are you lying to me?”
Fanis leaned toward her, looked directly into her eyes, and said, “I would never do such a thing.”
“This is nonsense,” Aliki snapped. “If the professeur likes a woman, even remotely, he doesn’t hesitate.”
“He doesn’t hesitate when he’s joking, but when he’s serious it’s a different thing altogether.”
“Then why hasn’t he spoken to me?”
“Perhaps for the same reason that you never said anything to me. When you’ve been friends for a long time, it’s awkward.”
Aliki’s cheek began to twitch. “But I never caught even a hint, not for a second. . . . Are you sure?”
“What can I say, Aliki? You’ve stolen some hearts yourself, though you’re too humble to notice.”
She sat back in her chair, dazed. “Even if it is true . . . that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to be sighing aman, aman for him. I mean, I can’t just cancel my feelings for—”
“Shh!” Fanis put a finger to her lips. “All I’m saying is think about it. For me. Now”—he tapped his watch—“I had a fabulous time. A thousand thanks for everything, but I must be going or I’ll miss the boat.”
“Are we still on for next Saturday? You know . . . the antiques?”
He air-kissed her forehead and said, “I’ll call you.”
14
An Unexpected Suitor
“HOW WAS THE TRIP TO the island?” asked Uncle Mustafa, entering the Lily’s kitchen on Monday morning with a tablecloth-swaddled package.
“Couldn’t have been better,” said Kosmas.
Mustafa extended the bundle. “I think I found something. Under my bed.”
Kosmas unwrapped it: inside were three heavy old books. Kosmas opened the first. The edges of the moldy-smelling leather binding were worn. The title page read, in the old Ottoman script that was unintelligible to most modern Turks: Recipes of Hamdi the Pastry Chef. Kosmas thanked God that he had taken those Ottoman classes four years ago.
“Your grandfather’s?” said Kosmas.
Uncle Mustafa winked. “Yep. Second pâtissier of the last sultan. Some of his colleagues were Rum, so it’s possible that he learned to make the Balkanik from them.”
Kosmas looked at the date beneath the title: 1320. He added a round six hundred to the Islamic Hijri date, which placed the book in the early 1900s, the last years of the Ottoman Empire, exactly as Uncle Mustafa had said.
“I can’t read a word of it,” said Mustafa, “so I don’t know if the Balkanik is actually in there. Good luck.”
Kosmas hugged Mustafa, rewrapped the books—they were far too precious to be left around the kitchen—and placed them in the pâtisserie’s safe.
“Now get going,” said Uncle Mustafa.
Kosmas looked at his watch. It was already half past nine and he had a cake consultation at ten. He hurried up the hill to the Maison Café, an upscale Grand Avenue restaurant that his mother’s friends considered pretentious and ridiculously expensive. Kosmas rather liked the Maison’s stylish blend of retro floor tiles, pine tables, potted ferns, exposed industrial ceilings, and whimsical chandeliers. He admitted that the food prices were only appropriate for Istanbul’s elite, but as long as his clients stuck to tea and coffee, he could happily spend a few hours in the place.
On that day, however, the happy couple—a bald, chain-smoking, phone-obsessing middle-aged attorney and his seemingly career-less twenty-year-old socialite fiancée—had ordered a full Turkish breakfast, detox juices, and cappuccinos, from which they took no more than a few sips. Apparently,
