Now, however, Kosmas was surprised to see that his mother had actually done what he had asked. “Thanks, Mama,” he said. “It means a lot to me.” He kissed her wrinkly, baby-powder-scented forehead.
Usually she grinned like a little girl when he did that, but this time her expression remained blank. “The whole time I was in the bank,” she said, “I was thinking it’s far too early for you to propose. Has Daphne said she wants to get married?”
Just the week before Daphne had said “I don’t want a city that was built for me. I want one that was born for me. You are my city.” Kosmas had therefore supposed that she would say yes to his proposal.
And yet, now that his mother had asked . . . Daphne did always shy away from the topic of marriage. “No,” Kosmas said to Rea. He peeled off his damp Puffa jacket. “I want it to be a surprise.”
“But it’s too soon. You could scare—”
“Where are they?”
“There.”
Kosmas looked around the living room. In October, his mother had brought in a painter. Not Mr. Ahmet the mold specialist, but a cheap laborer recommended by Aliki. The man had repainted the wall behind the television, but the mold had returned, just as Kosmas had said it would, and now it was blossoming in gardens of pinkish-orange circles. Kosmas would have to call Mr. Ahmet.
“Where?” said Kosmas.
“On the sideboard. Near the Christmas tree.”
The arrangement that Rea called a “tree” was a vase filled with holly branches and Christmas ornaments. Beside the vase was a small silver tray lined with one of Kosmas’s grandmother’s crocheted doilies and crowned by a thick silver wedding band and a thinner gold one. His grandparents had maintained the old Byzantine ring tradition: women wore gold because it represented purity, beauty, elegance, and rarity; men wore silver, the symbol of strength. He picked up his grandfather’s silver ring and slipped it onto his left ring finger, where it would be worn during the engagement. Then he tried it on the right, to which it would be transferred after marriage. The fit was slightly big.
“It needs to be resized,” he said. “I know an Armenian goldsmith in the Grand Bazaar, a friend from the army. I’ll take it to him tomorrow.” He looked up at his mother. She was staring at him with both hands flat on the package. “What’s that?”
“Something from Daphne. Addressed to me.”
“Why don’t you open it?”
“I’d like you to read the return address label first.”
Kosmas looked at the sticker. In the left-hand corner was a picture of a dog with three legs. Probably from one of those animal-protection organizations to which Daphne belonged. “It says Humane Society, Mama. Maybe that’s a dog she helped save.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Rea. “I mean her name. Daphne Zeynep Badem. Would you explain that, please?”
Kosmas sat down on the sofa and wiped his hand over his tired eyes. “Her father is Ottoman.”
Rea leaned forward. The package slipped from her knees and landed with a crackly thud on the floor. “How could you have kept this from me?”
“I didn’t keep it from you. I just don’t see why it matters.”
“Why it matters? I’ve been called an infidel my whole life. Even the most modern and cultured among them always have the word infidel on their lips. The second they think we’re not listening, that’s what they call us.”
“What about Uncle Mustafa?” said Kosmas. “He took care of us after Father died. You never lacked anything while I was in Vienna. Did he ever call you an infidel? And what about your friend the cobbler, or Madame Vildan, who brings you the newspaper every morning?”
“I’m not saying they aren’t good people. Just that they never forget we’re different. And neither should we.” Rea slipped her hand inside her blouse, over her heart, and looked furtively around the room, as if she were worried that they weren’t alone.
“Mama, are you okay?”
She kneaded her chest beneath the collar bone. “My aunt used to pretend we were all the same. Her door was always open to Ottoman women. But in fifty-five, when the rioters broke into her house, destroyed everything in sight, and smashed her pearls with a hammer, one by one, neither those women nor their husbands made any attempt to intervene. My aunt never invited anyone into her home ever again. She had learned her lesson.”
Kosmas knelt at his mother’s side and put his hand on her knee. “But Daphne’s mother is Rum, and so is Daphne.”
“That’s not what her identity card will say. They’ll register her as Muslim. You’ll see.”
“And even if they do, so what?”
“If you have children—”
“They’ll be Christian, Mama.”
“And if she divorces you and marries a Muslim? Have you thought of that? Have you thought of how your children will be raised?”
“I’m not even engaged and you want me to think about divorce?”
“You have to think about everything before you marry!”
“Mama, she’s an Orthodox Christian, period.” Kosmas scratched his head with the aggression of a flea-bitten dog. “Even if her identity card says otherwise, that’s what she is. Who cares about the government’s stupid categories?”
Rea fumbled for her cane and inadvertently knocked it onto the parquet floor. Kosmas snatched it up and handed it to her. “Please, Mama.”
Their eyes locked. It seemed to Kosmas that the fine lines running down and outward from beneath Rea’s lower lids had both increased and deepened. Her upper lids drooped like elephant skin. Behind her clear brown pupils, however, Kosmas saw a scared little girl. “Mama?”
Rea lifted her chin in silent reply: No.
Kosmas slid the ring off his finger, returned
