17

The Song of the Siren

On wednesday evening, fanis opened a window to let the place air while he was at tea. Just as he was about to draw the sheer curtain, however, he heard a great tumbling of plastic. He looked across the way to the garret. So far the new tenant had kept well hidden behind half-closed shutters, but now there she was, bustling about the apartment with her hair tied up in a red bandana like a West African queen. She was shouting all sorts of profanities in a language that seemed familiar, but which Fanis could not make out.

Could it be?

Fanis remembered Selin’s card. He had not yet called because he always allowed at least seven days to pass between receiving a phone number and using it. How many days had it been? Four? Five? Six at most. She would undoubtedly think he was hungry if he called her now, and a woman must never think that. And then there was the distasteful possibility that she only liked him in a daughterly way. But what if it was her? And what if he missed the opportunity to help her settle in? Fanis decided to make a small exception to the rules of the chase. He would call. She didn’t have his number, anyway. If he heard a mobile phone ringing across the way, or if he suddenly saw the new neighbor search for something, he would stay on the line. If not, he would hang up and try again on Thursday.

He settled into the street-facing armchair in the oriel, dialed, and waited. He heard the ringing on his end, but not on hers. Steady, he told himself. The connection might take a few seconds. And then, suddenly, faintly, but surely: a custom ringtone that was devilishly familiar—Witchcraft.

The beauty grabbed her phone. “Allo?”

Fanis said in Turkish, “Selin, my princess, why didn’t you tell me we were going to be neighbors?”

“Who is this?”

“Look across the way.”

Selin stuck her red-kerchiefed head into the sunlight. “Fanis?”

The informal use of his name—without the respectful “Mr.”—thrilled him. “What would you say if I brought over a snack?” he said.

“It’s a mess here right now, so I’d rather—”

“Perfect. I’ll be over in an hour.”

While brushing his teeth, Fanis thought about his telephone conversation with Gavriela earlier that afternoon. In colorful Istanbul–Greek idiom, Gavriela had conjectured that, on their date the previous night, Kosmas and Daphne had finally eaten it. “Good digestion, then,” Fanis had replied, hardly able to conceal his jealousy. After hanging up, he had devoured an entire box of bitter almond cookies as a consolation. But now, as he rinsed his mouth with saltwater and anticipated spending time with Selin, he was significantly less bothered by the defeat.

Once outside, Fanis took a deep breath of Istanbul’s polluted air and skipped off to the meatball shop, where he ordered two portions of meatballs and potatoes, and a tomato salad with plenty of parsley and absolutely no onion. He took his time climbing Selin’s stairs, for he wanted to be neither out of breath nor sweating when he knocked on her door. Selin opened in a short, strappy yellow dress, without the kerchief, and with her hair doing its crazy dance in the air current.

Fanis had always enjoyed the range of expression allowed by a simple cheek kiss. There was the air kiss, which was nothing more than a chicken-like motion of the neck; there was the perfunctory cheek tap for people you semi-liked; the full cheek press for your good friends, beloved family members, and people you hadn’t seen in a long time; and finally the true kiss with lips planted firmly on both cheeks. When Selin performed the last—and when Fanis simultaneously understood that her seductive perfume of almond-tree blossom, vanilla, and jasmine had been recently applied—he suddenly felt so lightheaded that he had to lean against the doorjamb for support.

Selin welcomed him inside. “Excuse the mess.”

“Shall we eat while it’s warm?” said Fanis, pretending not to notice the pile of scattered CD cases at the foot of a red art-deco armchair.

“Absolutely. But I’ll have to move some stuff.”

She was about to pick up the large box on the dining table when he said, “Don’t, my soul. Let me get it.” He sucked in his abs, took a deep breath, and made a tremendous effort not to show any sign of strain while transferring the box to a coffee table made from a piece of polished driftwood. He made a show of protest when Selin followed with the second box, but inwardly he thanked her for sparing him another show of prowess.

“Let me clean up the table,” said Selin, bustling off to the bathroom. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t find any of my hand-embroidered tablecloths, and I have such a nice collection . . .”

She was in a flutter over his arrival. Just a few weeks ago, her demeanor might have made him feel smug about his ability to seduce women. But now that Daphne had shown a preference for Kosmas, Fanis was feeling insecure.

Selin returned with a wet cloth and began wiping down the table. As she did so, her dress rose over the backs of her tanned thighs. Fanis lost his appetite for food. He tried to distract himself by looking at the pile of spilled CDs, but there, on top of various violin albums, was Songs for Swingin’ Lovers! He picked up the CD case. “My dear,” he said, “I heard the ringtone, but I thought it was a fluke. Are you truly a fan of the great Voice?”

“Of course.” Selin switched on the player and put in the CD. Fanis recognized his moment. He pulled out Selin’s chair, wished her good digestion, and, standing in the center of the living room, gave her a dinnertime serenade. He clapped his hands to the opening notes of the first track, just like he’d seen Frankie do in a televised concert, and then, playfully bouncing his shoulders, he sang “You Make Me Feel So Young.”

A schoolgirl smile overcame Selin’s house-moving fatigue and puckered her cheeks with dimples. She was so amused that she snapped her fingers to the beat. At a break between stanzas, Fanis had to scold her, “Eat! Eat!”

“Your voice is incredible,” she said, when the song had finished. “It’s as if Frankie’s come to visit.”

“You’re kind.” Fanis bit into a fried potato. “But it’s not difficult to sing well when one has inspiration.”

Selin flushed red. “Thanks for bringing dinner. I haven’t properly cleaned the kitchen yet, and—”

“Do you have an apron?”

“What for?”

“I’m going to tackle that kitchen while you eat, dear. I’m as titiz as any old Rum housewife. I disinfect everything.”

“You can’t be serious.”

Fanis stood, took off his navy linen jacket and watch, and rolled up the sleeves of his favorite sky-blue shirt. “Perfectly serious.”

“I can’t let you do it.”

“You eat and have a little nap,” said Fanis. “I’ll do the kitchen, and then we’ll finish the rest of the house together.”

“You’re an angel,” she said.

The word was balm. He felt his cleaning wings sprouting already. He resisted the temptation to kiss her and slipped away. While she ate and rested, he scrubbed the little kitchen so thoroughly that even his obsessive-compulsive mother would have approved. By the time Selin woke from the long nap that she had insisted she would not take, Fanis had washed and put away all the dishes and pans that he’d found in the kitchen boxes. Hearing Selin stirring, he lit a burner, roasted a cup of Mehmet Efendi coffee, and, still wearing a pink apron over his off-white linen pants, served it to her on the modernist driftwood coffee-table.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, Fanis,” she said. “You sing, you clean, you make coffee.”

“I also cook,” he proudly announced. “I make a mean chickpea pilaf.”

Selin rubbed her eyes like a child, unwittingly causing her mascara to flake. “All day I was wondering how I was going to have the strength to perform Friday night. But after that little rest, and with all your help, life seems manageable again. How can I thank you?”

Fanis sat on the sofa beside her. “Since the day we met, I’ve been waiting for you to invite me to a concert.”

“Friday, then, at Lütfi Kırdar. There will be a ticket for you at the box office. But that’s hardly enough to repay you for all you’ve done.”

“Maybe you’re right. How about a backstage visit as well, after the performance?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“Go inspect the kitchen, then, and I’ll tackle that pile of CDs. I’m dying to see what you’ve got.”

Fanis spent the rest of the evening—as well as the following day—serving as Selin’s special helper. He sorted CDs, cleaned the bathroom extractor fan, drilled holes in the wall for hooks, ironed and hung curtains, brought breakfast, fixed the almost-broken hinges on the bedroom cupboards, and unplugged the bathroom sink with a plumbing snake. By Thursday evening, he was as exhausted as a corpse and had to take two aspirins for his aching head and put himself to bed at nine o’clock, but Selin was well worth the trouble. On Friday morning, he took his old tuxedo out of the closet and was surprised to find that it still fit him. He knew he would be overdressed, but he also knew that Selin would be in an evening gown, and he wanted to be worthy of her, even if it was only from afar.

Fanis had planned on arriving at Lütfi Kırdar early but, as he walked up Sıraselviler Avenue, he realized that he ought to buy a bouquet. So he took a shortcut down Meşelik Street, past the headquarters of the stately neoclassical building that housed the Constantinopolitan Society of Cantors, of which he was a proud member. He hurried on, but when he came to the student entrance of the Zappeion Lycée, he paused and gazed for a moment at the blackened stone gate. That was where Kalypso had gone to school. The Zappeion’s pupils were now so few that a separate student entrance was considered superfluous. The door was locked and chained. Such a shame. Fanis remembered how Kalypso would come sauntering through that gate at the end of the school day. He remembered how, after their engagement, he would often bring her a single flower: a rose, a lilac branch, a sprig of orange blossom, which she’d stick under her headband or in her ponytail. Once, during their walk home, she had pulled him into an alley and kissed him passionately. He’d given her daisies that day. They had caused him to sneeze as they kissed. So embarrassing.

And then, just as quickly as he had slipped into his reverie, he pulled himself out. He didn’t want to be late for the performance. He hurried past Holy Trinity Church, hung a right into Taksim Square, and headed toward the tents of the gypsy women who sold flowers by the Ottoman-era reservoir. When he finally settled on unconventional orange snapdragons, the fat gypsy in saggy shalwar pants tried to charge him fifteen liras for the flowers and an extra two for gift wrapping.

“Is that the tuxedo price?” Fanis snapped. “Or perhaps you’ve forgotten that your neighbors sell exactly the same flowers you do.”

The next gypsy, having noted the failure of the first, said twelve liras. The last, a pretty young lady with a baby strapped to her chest, asked for ten. Fanis nodded. As he scurried away with the bouquet, the pretty gypsy called out, “Hope Grandma likes them!” Fanis made a mental note never to buy anything from her ever again.

While waiting at the bus stop at the foot of Gezi Park, he glanced at his watch. He’d still make the performance, but there wouldn’t be time to use the men’s room. He concentrated on his bladder for a moment. Nothing there. That was a relief. Ten long minutes later, the bus arrived, and Fanis stepped up for his daily dose of humiliation. As soon as he swiped his retiree bus pass, an automated male voice said over the loudspeaker, “We thank you for giving priority to our elderly and handicapped passengers.” A young fellow—whose tight nipples were vulgarly showing through his thin T-shirt—immediately offered his seat. Fanis turned up his nose, proceeded to the middle doors, and remained standing to prove that he was not in the least bit elderly.

He arrived at Lütfi Kırdar just a few minutes before the start of the performance, collected his ticket, and made his way through the shiny granite entry hall.

“Your seat number, sir?” said an usher.

“I have no idea,” said Fanis. “It was a gift.”

The young man took his ticket and winked. “Somebody loves you then, Uncle. Follow me.”

The usher escorted Fanis to a center seat in the front row. What a treat, he thought, although he would probably come out with a stiff neck. He simpered at the middle-aged couple next to him and ignored their top-to-toe scan of his tuxedo. He had only a minute to glance at the program before the lights dimmed: the first piece was to be Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. He strained to catch a glimpse of Selin as the string players filed in. Alas, in the front row, all that one could really hope to see was the conductor’s ass. Just when Fanis had given up hope, Selin entered, wearing a flowing white gown instead of the black worn by the other female musicians. She stood—rather than sat—to the left of the conductor.

There was no orchestral introduction. There was only Selin, jumping straight into a virtuosic passage with a discreet accompaniment from her peers. Half of her black curls were pinned to the crown of her head; the rest bounced and snapped with every movement. During a brief orchestral section, she let her violin and bow float down to her sides while she stared up at the ceiling, as if making some sort of tortured supplication to the gods. Then the piece became more playful, more tentative, and Fanis wondered if she was trying to tease him. Fireworks seemed to spring from the violin, and for a second Selin raised her head like a warrior. Fanis lost himself in the relentless exchange between light-hearted passages and savage intensity, and he realized, as Selin performed the finale, that he had hardly known anything about her until that evening. Selin Kerido was not just any line violinist, but a highly talented soloist. Fanis felt a swell of pride before a strong undercurrent of self-doubt nearly drowned him: she had to have dozens of admirers, which meant that she was even less attainable than he had thought.

After the concert, Fanis waited for her at the stage door with the bouquet of orange snapdragons. When she came to meet him, he said, “Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor has just become my favorite piece of Romantic period music. You were majestic.”

She kissed him on the cheek, complimented his tuxedo and his original choice of flowers, and led him into the wings. There she introduced Fanis to a tall, fifty-something bassoonist with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. “Fanis,” she said, “I’d like you to meet my dear friend Orhan.”

Dear? Was this the guy who was giving her the hickeys?

The bassoonist, who had obviously not heard Selin well, said, “Pleased to meet you, sir. I absolutely adore your daughter.”

Selin cleared her voice. “He’s not my dad—”

“Oh, Uncle, excuse me,” said Orhan. “My ears are still ringing from the concert!”

Orhan patted Fanis on the back, held an imaginary phone to his ear—whatever that meant—sent Selin an air kiss, and rushed off. Other introductions followed. Like Orhan, the rest of Selin’s colleagues treated Fanis like a harmless old man, who could never aspire to possessing such a goddess. But he was proud just to be called a friend.

“Come,” said Selin to Fanis, at a pause in the tide of musicians. “I want to show you something.”

She led him onto the empty stage. The lights were still so bright and blinding that the seating areas of the theater disappeared into semi-darkness. Fanis had the impression, even though the place was probably still a quarter full, that he and Selin were alone.

She took him to the left side of the stage. “That’s my regular chair,” she said. “Yours for now.”

“Concertmaster?”

Selin gave one short, downward nod. “A guest soloist usually does the concertos, but I got a lucky break when the scheduled soloist cancelled.”

“I love a successful woman.” Fanis loosened his collar and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. Those damn lights were hot. Or was it the cerebral arteriosclerosis that was causing him to sweat?

“Now tell me all about that piece you just played,” he said.

“Only you would say that,” said Selin, her face illuminating from within. First she spoke of the piece’s cyclic form and the various plagiaries that ensued after its success. Then she lightly tapped his knee and said, “But I’m getting ahead of myself. Well before he began to compose, Mendelssohn wrote that a violin concerto was running through his head and that the beginning of it ‘gave him no peace.’”

“Sounds like vascular dementia,” said Fanis.

“Excuse me?”

How could he have let that slip?

“A bad joke,” he said. “A friend of mine has the disease. What I meant was that the concerto overwhelms, almost like an illness. I was completely absorbed while you were playing, but in an interior way, like I was traveling inside myself.”

Fanis snuck a peek at the hickey on Selin’s neck. It was as prominent as ever, perhaps even a little redder. Surely the bassoonist was the perpetrator. Annoyed, he said, “You must be exhausted. Let’s get you home.”

They took a taxi back to their neighborhood. When they finally pulled into Faik Paşa Street, Fanis stuffed a bill into the driver’s hand and trotted around to Selin’s side to open the door. Seeing the embarrassed expression on her face, he offered his hand in a brotherly manner and said—before she had a chance to tell him that she would invite him up if it weren’t for such-and-such—“Goodnight, dear girl. You were marvelous this evening.”

He rushed inside his building without a backward glance, leaned breathless against the painting of the goddess Athena, and said to Hermes, “You see? I finally have an attractive female friend. Not that I’d say no to her becoming more but . . . friendship is a big step for me. I hope you’re proud.”