Cardamom Café – Part 2: The Library Windows

The drawings covered the whole table the next morning: long, pale lines of a library built into a hill above the Bosphorus, with reading rooms stepped down the slope like terraces and walls of glass facing the water.

"The windows are too big," said Selin, leaning over the paper with her coffee.

"They're meant to be big," said Kaan. "People should be able to see the ferries while they read."

"People will be too busy looking at the ferries to read."

"Then they'll read about the ferries," said Kaan, and grinned. "That's the point."

She laughed, and tapped the drawing with one finger. "Make the middle window smaller. Put a bench there. Somewhere someone can sit alone and not be watched."

Kaan looked at the spot she had chosen, and then at her.

"That's a good idea," he said quietly. "I'd been thinking about that bench for weeks, and I didn't know how to say it."

"You can say it now," said Selin. "I'm not very scary."

"You're terrifying," said Kaan, and his voice was warm. "You made me redraw the entire terrace in one morning."

By noon the café had filled with the lunch crowd, and the drawings had been pushed to the edge of the table, and the coffee had gone cold. Ayşe waved at Selin from the counter with an expression of enormous satisfaction.

Kaan picked up his cup and drank the cold dregs without complaint.

"Can I ask you something?" he said.

"Yes."

"Why did you never tell me your name? You've been pouring my coffee for a year."

Selin set down her cup. "Because I was waiting for you to ask," she said. "And you didn't. You just drew the ferries."

"I'm asking now," said Kaan, with a small, shy smile. "What's your name?"

"Selin," she said. "Selin Yalçın. And I've been wanting to hear you say it since the first day you ordered without sugar."

He laughed, softly, and the sound seemed to fill the quiet corner of the café.

"Can I ask you something else?" said Kaan.

"Yes."

"Would you come with me to the ferry terminal on Sunday, and sit on the bench in the middle of the window, and tell me if people can read there?"

Selin's breath caught. "Yes," she said. "But only if you promise to let me choose the seat, and not sit next to the window with the terrible view."

"Deal," said Kaan. "Can I kiss you? Here, in the corner, where nobody in Kadıköy has ever been allowed to see us?"

"Yes," said Selin. "And if I say stop, you have to drink the terrible coffee from the machine in the back."

"That's cruel," said Kaan, and leaned in.

He kissed her gently, his hand warm against her cheek, the taste of cardamom and cold coffee between them. Selin's fingers curled into his sleeve, steady and sure, and the ferry horn sounded faintly across the water, long and unhurried.

When they parted, both of them were smiling.

"Green?" he asked.

"Green," said Selin. "Very green. Now finish the drawings, Kaan. The bench needs to be exactly the right height."

"It's the right height," said Kaan. "I measured it on you."

"Did you?" said Selin, laughing, and pulled the drawings back across the table, towards the window and the sea.