The Turkish Delight | لقمة القاضي
"A widower visits a sweet shop in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. The confectioner who serves him offers more than lokum—she offers a taste of what he's been missing."
The Turkish Delight
لقمة القاضي
The Grand Bazaar overwhelms.
Colors, sounds, smells—sixty streets, four thousand shops, centuries of commerce. I'm lost within minutes of entering.
Then I find her shop.
"Buyurun, welcome!"
She's behind a counter of sweets—lokum in every flavor, baklava glistening with honey, halva in towering blocks.
She's also beautiful.
Fifty-ish. Generous figure wrapped in a purple headscarf. Smile that could sell sweets to a man who hated sugar.
"You look lost," she says in accented English.
"I am."
"Then sit. Tea first. Then we find your way."
Her name is Aysel.
Widow, like me. Running her late husband's sweet shop for the past decade.
"He taught me everything," she says, pouring tea. "How to make lokum. How to temper chocolate. How to read tourists."
"What do you read in me?"
"Sadness. Old sadness. The kind that settles in your bones."
"My wife died four years ago."
"I'm sorry."
"She loved sweets. Turkish delight especially. I came to Istanbul to..." I don't finish.
"To remember."
"To say goodbye."
She feeds me samples.
Rosewater lokum. Pistachio baklava. Something called kazandibi that melts on my tongue.
"Good?"
"Incredible. How long have you been making these?"
"Twenty years. Since my marriage." She smiles sadly. "Now it's all I have left of him."
I return the next day.
And the next. And the next.
Each visit, we talk more. Share more. The pretense of buying sweets fades into something realer.
"Why do you keep coming?" she asks.
"The lokum."
"Liar."
"Your company."
"Better. But still not the whole truth."
"I don't know the whole truth," I admit. "I just know that when I'm here, the sadness quiets. And when I leave, I count the hours until I can come back."
She's quiet for a long moment.
"The shop closes at eight. Come then. I'll cook for you."
Her apartment is above the shop.
Small but warm, filled with the smell of whatever she's cooking. Turkish food—köfte, rice, roasted vegetables.
"Sit," she commands. "Eat."
I obey.
The food is incredible.
We eat at her small table, knees almost touching. The conversation flows—about our spouses, our losses, the strange paths that led us both to this moment.
"Do you ever think about... again?" she asks.
"Again?"
"Marriage. Love. All of it."
"I used to think I was done," I say. "That Joan was it. The end."
"And now?"
"Now I'm sitting in the apartment of a beautiful woman who's made me feel more alive in a week than I have in four years."
She sets down her fork.
"Ahmed—"
"I'm not asking for anything. Just telling you the truth."
"What if I want you to ask?"
The first kiss tastes like rosewater.
From the lokum we had for dessert. Sweet and unexpected.
"We shouldn't," I murmur.
"We're widows. We've earned the right to 'shouldn't.'"
She leads me to her bedroom.
Simple, modest, a Quran on the nightstand. She sees me looking.
"I'm not a saint," she says. "I pray five times a day and I'm about to commit zina. Allah will judge us both."
"Let Him. I'll plead temporary insanity."
She laughs—and pulls me onto the bed.
I undress her slowly.
Layer by layer, revealing curves that have been hidden for too long. She's soft everywhere—breasts that spill into my hands, belly that yields to my touch, thighs that part for me like I belong there.
"Beautiful," I breathe.
"I'm old."
"You're perfect."
I worship her.
With my mouth first—kissing down her body, learning her sounds. When I reach between her thighs, she gasps.
"It's been so long—"
"Let me take care of you."
I do.
She comes against my mouth.
Turkish curses mixed with my name. Her hands in my hair, her body arching, years of loneliness spilling out in waves of pleasure.
"Inside me," she gasps. "Lütfen. Please."
I enter her slowly.
Feeling every inch, watching her face. She's tight—widowhood and time—but wet enough that I slide home.
"Allah—Ahmed—"
"I know. Me too."
We make love like it might be our last chance.
Desperate, grateful, healing. All the years of loneliness burning away in this bed above a sweet shop in the Grand Bazaar.
"Don't leave," she whispers as we finish. "Don't go back to America."
"I have to."
"Then take me with you."
"You'd leave Istanbul?"
"I'd leave anywhere for this." She presses her hand to her heart. "For feeling again."
"Aysel—"
"Marry me. Properly. Let me cook for you every day, not just tonight."
"This is crazy."
"Yes."
"We've known each other a week."
"Yes."
"You'd give up everything—the shop, your home—"
"I'd give up everything to feel like this again." She kisses me. "Wouldn't you?"
I would.
God help me, I would.
"Yes."
One year later
Aysel runs a sweet shop in Boston now.
Turkish delights in a New England town. The locals love her. The other Turkish expats worship her.
"Happy?" I ask.
"Happier than I've been in a decade."
"No regrets?"
"Only that I didn't meet you sooner."
She makes me lokum every anniversary.
Rosewater. The flavor that was on her lips the first time we kissed.
"Afiyet olsun," she says. Bon appétit.
"Teşekkürler, my love."
Alhamdulillah.
For getting lost in the right bazaar.
For sweets that led to sweeter things.
For Turkish delight that tasted like second chances.
The End.