The Bastard of Istanbul

Asya Kazanci is composing articles for her Personal Manifesto. It’s Sunday morning and her aunts, including Zeliha, won’t leave her alone. They force her to join them for breakfast. Later that day, they will pick up an American from the airport—Mustafa’s stepdaughter. Asya doesn’t understand the fuss that the family is making for this stranger, and she resents how Grandma Gülsüm persistently defends Mustafa’s distance from the family. 

Auntie Banu tells a story to ease the tension. She tells them about a man who traveled around the world to escape Azrail, the angel of death. The man sees Azrail in Cairo and flees to “a small, sleepy town in China” (131). When he arrives, he finds Azrail waiting for him in the first tavern he visits. Azrail greets the man and says how surprised he was to meet him in Cairo when it had been his destiny for them to meet in China. 

Auntie Banu then buys simit (circular bread encrusted with sesame seeds) for breakfast—the Kazanci family tradition. She buys an extra one for “the missing sibling,” Mustafa (132). Auntie Banu tells the family another story about a crabby weaver who refuses the Ottoman sultan’s offer of baskets of wheat that will turn into golden coins.