The shop is four tables wide. Maybe five if you count the one wedged against the door that no one sits at because the door keeps opening. The walls are tiled in a blue that might have been brighter twenty years ago, and the fluorescent strip overhead does that thing where it buzzes just below the frequency of conversation. I like it in here. It smells like butter browning past the point of caution, like sugar catching on copper.
The künefe comes in a shallow metal dish, still bubbling from the press. The cheese inside pulls apart in long, reluctant threads. The shredded pastry on top is crisp for exactly eleven seconds before the syrup finds it. Crushed pistachio scattered like an afterthought, but the green against the gold is too perfect to be careless. I burn the roof of my mouth on the first bite. I always do. The sweetness is not polite. It's the kind that sits in your chest and stays.
The coffee arrived in a copper cezve, poured into a cup the size of a whispered secret. No sugar. The grounds settle slowly and I watch them like weather. Outside, the call to prayer ended a few minutes ago and the street has that particular quality of aftermath, the hum after the note. Voices in Turkish, a scooter, someone laughing in a courtyard I can't see. My camera sits on the table next to the saucer, lens cap on. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a photograph is not take it.
I've been in Istanbul four days now. Long enough to stop looking at maps, not long enough to stop getting lost. Tonight I don't need to be anywhere. The man behind the counter refills my water glass without asking. Obrigada, I almost say, catching myself. The languages tangle when I'm tired. When I'm content. I suppose those feel similar right now.
