Every tattoo in this special collection was designed to address one person only: the ex-love. The dumped and the despondent, the hurt and the irate brought a picture of the ex-love they wanted to banish from their lives forever but somehow could not stop loving. Auntie Zeliha then studied the picture and ransacked her brain until she found which particular animal that person resembled. The rest was relatively easy. She would draw that animal and then tattoo the design on the desolate customer's body. The whole practice adhered to the ancient shamanistic practice of simultaneously internalizing and externalizing one's totems. To strengthen vis-a-vis your antagonist you had to accept, welcome, and then transform it. The ex-love was interiorized-injected into the body, and yet at the same time exteriorized-left outside the skin. Once the ex-lover was located in this threshold between inside and outside, and deftly transformed into an animal, the power structure between the dumped and the dumper changed. Now the tattooed lover felt superior, as if the key to the ex-love's soul was in his or her hands. As soon as this stage was reached and the ex-love lost his or her appeal, those suffering from abiding heartache could finally let go of their obsession, for love loves power. That is why we can suicidally fall in love with others but can rarely reciprocate the love of those suicidally in love with us.
Istanbul being a city of broken hearts, it didn't take Auntie Zeliha long to expand the business, becoming legendary particularly among bohemian circles.
Now Asya averted her eyes so as not to have to stare any longer at her mother, the mother whom she had never called "mom" and had perhaps hoped to keep at a distance by "auntifying." A surge of self-pity engulfed her. What an unpardonable injustice on the part of Allah to create a daughter far less beautiful than her own mother.
"Don't you understand why Asya doesn't want any cake this year?" Auntie Zeliha said when she had finished with the inspection of her manicure. "She's just afraid of gaining weight!"
Though she knew too well what a big mistake it was to display her temper in front of her mother, Asya yelled furiously: "That's not true!"
Auntie Zeliha surrendered with a puckish twinkle in her eyes, "All right, sweetie, if you say so."
Only then did Asya notice the tray Auntie Feride was carrying. There was a big ball of meat and a bigger ball of dough. They were going to have 7nantli for dinner tonight.
"How many times do I need to tell you I do not like manta?" Asya bellowed. "You know I've stopped eating meat." Her voice sounded strange to her, hoarse and alien.
"I told you she was afraid of gaining weight." Auntie Zeliha shook her head and brushed away a strand of black hair that had fallen across her face.
"Haven't you ever heard of the word vegetarian?" Asya shook her head too but resisted brushing away a strand of hair, for fear of imitating her mother's gestures.
"Of course I have," Auntie Zeliha said, squaring her shoulders. "But do not forget, my dear," she continued in a softer voice that she knew would prove more persuasive, "that you are a Kazanci, not a vegetarian!"
Asya swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry.
"And we Kazancis love red meat! The redder, the greasier, the better! If you don't believe me, ask Sultan the Fifth, isn't that so, Sultan?" Auntie Zeliha tilted her head toward the overweight cat lying on his velvet cushion by the balcony door. He turned toward Auntie Zeliha with squinted, misty eyes as if he had fully understood and approved the statement.
Reshuffling the deck of tarot cards, Auntie Banu chided from her corner, "There are people in this country so desperately poor that they wouldn't even know what red meat tastes like, if it weren't for the alms benevolent Muslims give them during the Feast of Sacrifice. That is the only time they can have a decent meal. Go and ask those destitute souls what it really means to be vegetarian. You should be grateful for every morsel of meat put on your plate, because it is a symbol of opulence."
"This is a nuthouse! We are all nuts, each and every one of us." Asya repeated her mantra, only this time her voice was drenched in defeat. "I am going out, ladies. You can eat whatever you want. I am already late for my ballet class!"
No one noticed that she had snorted the word ballet as if it were some sputum she had to spit out but was simultaneously disgusted at not being able to control the urge to do so.
FIVE
Vanilla
Cafe Kundera was a small coffee shop on a narrow, snaky street on the European side of Istanbul. It was the only bistro in the city where you wasted no energy on conversation and tipped the waiters to be treated badly. How and why it was named after the famous author, nobody knew for sure — a lack of knowledge magnified by the fact that there was nothing, literally nothing, inside the place reminiscent of either Milan Kundera or any one of his novels.
On four sides there were hundreds of frames that came in all sizes and shapes, a myriad of photographs, paintings, and sketches, so many that one could easily doubt if there really were walls behind them. The whole place gave the impression of being erected on frames instead of bricks. In all the frames without exception shone the image of a road. Wide motorways in America, endless highways in Australia, busy autobahns in Germany, glitzy boulevards in Paris, crammed side streets in Rome, narrow paths in Machu Picchu, forgotten caravan routes in North Africa, and maps of the ancient trade routes along the Silk Road, following the footsteps of Marco Polo-there were road pictures from all around the world. The customers were perfectly happy with the decor. They thought it was a useful alternative to useless chats that led nowhere. Whenever they didn't feel like chatting, they would pick a frame, depending on the angle of the table where they sat and on where exactly they wished to be zoomed on that specific day. Then they would fasten a bleary gaze on the chosen picture, little by little taking off to that faraway land, craving to be somewhere in there, anywhere but here. The next day they could travel elsewhere.
No matter how far away the pictures could take you, one thing was certain: None of them had anything to do with Milan Kundera. When the place was newly opened, one theory ran, the author had happened to be in Istanbul, and on his way to elsewhere he had fortuitously stopped by for a cappuccino. The cappuccino wasn't so good and he hated the vanilla biscuit they brought with it, but he had soon ordered another one and even done some writing, since nobody had disturbed or even recognized him. On that day, the place was baptized under his name. Yet another theory claimed that the owner of the cafe was an avid reader of Kundera; having devoured all his books and had each one autographed, he had decided to dedicate the place to his favorite author. This could have been the more plausible contention had the owner of the cafe not been a middle-aged musician and singer who always looked tanned and athletic, and who had such deep dislike for the printed word that he did not even bother to read the lyrics of the songs his band played on Friday nights.