“No way,” I said in a clipped voice. “That is not going to happen. You can forget about it right now. I’d rather stay filthy than have one of you watching me taking a bath.”
Raph shrugged, his black eyes glittering with amusement. “It is a logical solution,” he said, struggling to keep a sardonic smile from stealing across his hardened face. “But I would never impose against your wishes.” He gave a short, mocking bow and backed away, leaving me to square off with Michael.
Behind me, Enoch gave a snort. “She’s surrounded by people in there, Michael. Let her go. Set a time and place to meet and be done with it.”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Fine. We’ll split up here. You’re going to go around the other end to the women’s entrance. Pay with this,” he said, thrusting a credit card into my hand. “They’ll issue you a cloth and slippers and take you into the camekan. It’s like a locker room. You’ll change there and then make your way into the main baths. You’ll see what to do once you are there.”
He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently. A shimmer of heat ran through my body. He looked at me intently, as if he were trying to memorize my face in case we never saw each other again.
“Don’t let yourself get trapped alone.”
“It’s just a bath,” I whispered, my voice catching in my throat. My skin was singing at his touch, the heaviness of his hands upon my shoulders the only thing keeping me grounded.
You have more to fear from him than from anything that could happen to you in those baths, Henri whispered.
Michael’s voice cut off Henri’s taunt. “Promise me.”
I nodded and looked down at the ground, my morning encounter with the Fallen an all-too-real reminder of the danger I faced. “I promise.”
“We’ll give you an hour. Come to the fountain when you’re done.”
He released me and waited for me to go.
“Enoch?” I said, turning behind me to find the old angel leaning into his cane.
“Don’t worry,” he said, grinning. “I’ll make sure neither follows you in.”
“Thank you,” I said, grateful he was on my side.
I turned and started walking toward the side of the hammam. Now that I was close to the complex, I could see how the two ends were composed of alternating white and red bricks, towering above the deep pink walls of the two inner domes. The entire building was topped with a slate gray that matched the cloudy sky.
The feeling of eyes boring into my back made me pick up my pace as I made my way toward the women’s entrance.
I turned the corner, out of sight, following the discreet signs. There was no line. I climbed down a staircase, taking a deep breath before slipping through the massive wooden door.
I found myself in a high-ceilinged hall, steps leading down into a square, sunken room lined with low cushions. The interior was bright and clean, calming cool white walls reaching up two stories to a tidy dome bathed in blue. Polished wood, gold as it caught the light of scattered lamps, glowed from the upper floors. Brass plaques and stained glass warmed the walls, giving the place a cozy feel. Across the room, up the stairs and behind a polished wooden desk, stood a lone attendant. She was wrapped in a turquoise skirt and top, her glossy black hair falling in waves beneath her shoulders. She smiled expectantly.
“English?” she asked, scanning me up and down as I crossed the room and climbed the stairs to her.
“No, American,” I answered, my gesturing hands broadcasting my nervousness. She caught a glimpse of my reddened skin, and her eyes flamed with curiosity. But just as quickly, she looked away, burrowing in her desk in pretended distraction. My cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and I pulled the sleeves of my sweatshirt over my fingertips.
The woman pretended not to notice, keeping up a cheerful chatter. “For you the distinction is so important. American, British—you have fought wars to be what you are. But for me, it means nothing. You read your services in English, no?” She looked up from her desk, her eyes twinkling, and handed me a laminated menu. I scanned it quickly, looking for the simplest thing I could find.
“This,” I said, pointing and showing her the card. “The basic service, please.”
She nodded, taking the card from me, her eager eyes taking in the shiny skin on my fingertip. “No special needs, then?” She waited politely for me to respond. When I said nothing, she nodded her head and continued on. “Your attendant’s tip is included in the price, Miss. If you would like to pay now?”
I dug into my pocket and handed her the credit card. She took it from my hand, and I noticed how elegant her slender, manicured fingers looked next to my dirty, scarred skin. Ashamed, I snatched my hand away.
She turned behind the desk and smoothly executed the payment, and then offered me a pile of fluffy linens.
“This is your first time in a hammam, yes?” She didn’t even wait for me to answer before continuing. “Come with me.” She whisked me up a flight of wooden stairs, a study in grace, guiding me to one of the airy, rattan-like cubicles against the corridor.
“This is your changing room. You can leave your clothes inside. Put these on,” she said, handing me a neat pile of slippers and fabric. “You may come back down when you are ready to meet your attendant.”
I peered around the inside of my personal locker. Empty hooks awaited towels and discarded clothing. I laid out the things she handed to me. The linen unfolded into a towel-sized wrap of thin, purple cotton, white fringe decorating each end.
Swiftly, I pulled my clothes off, stacking each piece into a neat pile on the bench. I didn’t look at myself in the mirror; I didn’t want to see the welts of angry flesh, the hardening scar tissue that I knew marked my body. Instead, I wrapped myself snugly into the towel, fastening and refastening it about my chest, and slid my feet into the too-tight slippers, clearly not made for large, corn-fed American girls. I tugged at the wrap, which barely covered my thighs. Resigned, clutching the thin fabric about me, I headed down the stairs to meet my waiting attendant. Michael’s words of caution hurried me along.
She was dressed in a smart, dusty-rose uniform. Stretching out her hand, she beamed at me. “Come. I will show you.” She grasped my hand firmly and led me through a narrow arched door.
I felt an immediate change in temperature as I slipped into the next corridor. The air behind me swirled, chilly and dry, as I moved deeper into the moist heat that was beckoning from the other side of the narrow space. I looked up and saw that the ceiling here was considerably lower than that of the changing room—no dome here, just a hallway. Beads of perspiration began to form above my lip. I dragged an arm across my face and kept walking, careful not to slip on the increasingly slick floor. My attendant gripped my hand more tightly, checking that I was safe. To my side I noted the deep marble sinks, stacked with thick towels. Another attendant, standing against the wall, smiled shyly and murmured something encouraging, pointing toward the next door.
Unsure, I followed my attendant and stepped through.
A grand space opened up before me, a pristine hall, soft white marble for the first six feet, then stucco soaring high. The space was softly lit by ruby red glass lamps tucked into niches in the wall and shafts of daylight that pierced the steamy air from above. I craned my neck and saw the ceiling was made up of several domes or half-domes, each pierced through with small, star-like windows, so that, even on a gray day like today, the interior of the baths seemed to glow. Little rivulets of condensation dripped around each opening, marring the perfect white. I squinted and noticed that the biggest, central dome was topped by a glass eye, letting in even more light. I followed the shaft to where it ended on a large, inlaid marble table in the center of the room, an intricate design of squares, octagons, and shooting stars in black, gold, and pink marble. Women lay on their stomachs or backs, some resting peacefully, a big mound of bubbles hiding everything but their heads, others being scrubbed vigorously by young women dressed in halters and sarongs. Still others were being p
ummeled and pounded, their sighs testament to the thoroughness of the massages they were receiving.
The navel stone, I thought, satisfied to have figured it out.
I scanned the perimeter of the room, noticing the deep niches set back from steps, each punctuated by gray-streaked marble basins. Gleaming brass fixtures shone through the steam.
“Here,” my attendant whispered softly, guiding me slowly across the floor and up a set of steps. She turned the handles, and water gushed forth into the basin, a new rush of steam rising up. She gestured for me to take off my wrap and sit on one of the low marble benches that lined the room. I hesitated, but she nodded, miming the routines of bathing to spur me on.
I let the towel drop to the floor and shivered despite the heat of the steam room. Her eyes grew soft. She stared frankly at my scarred body, murmuring to herself in words I could not understand.
I bent down to snatch the towel back, wanting to hide, but her hand grabbed mine, stopping me.
I looked up, and her eyes were kind.
“I’ll take care of you,” she said, rubbing my hand gently until I dropped the towel and settled back into my seat. I let the warmth emanating from deep under the bowels of the room sink into my bones. She smiled quickly, dipping an elaborate golden bowl into a deep sink and motioning for me to drop my head. I did, closing my eyes, letting the heat of the hammam lull me. Hot water trickled down my neck and back, then all over me, as my attendant dipped and poured, dipped and poured, the sounds of the running water and soft swooshing sounds of the furnace soothing me.
My relaxation did not last long, however, as a stream of ice-cold water dumped over my head and ran down my back, shocking me back awake.
My eyes flew open to find my young attendant smiling sweetly. “Shock therapy,” she said, shaking off my attempt to end the session right then and there.
She dipped her ladle back into the running water and poured it around my shoulders and all over my body, delicious heat sinking into my tired muscles. I could feel the tension slipping away as she poured the water, again and again, the rhythm of it soothing my body into relaxation once again.
“My name is Ays,” she said, pointing to the charm around her neck that spelled out her name in delicate gold. “Now your turn,” she insisted, handing me the bowl. “I will be right back.”
I snuck a few glances about me as I tried to replicate Ays’s perfect rhythm. A few women were tucked up in alcoves like mine, chatting away, mindlessly dunking and dumping their bowls full of water, as they gossiped in quiet voices, every now and then turning the water faucets to refill their basins. I sank deeper into my seat, letting my eyes flutter closed. The clank and whir of the mechanical workings deep in the belly of the hammam punctuated the silence, as did the call to prayer floating out over the square.
I felt a hand tapping my shoulder. I opened my eyes to see Ays, now dressed in a sarong. She winked, taking the bowl from my side and moving swiftly to repeat the dousing with which she’d started. She ran her fingers over my limbs, twisting me this way and that, having me stand and turn before her. Tutting softly, she picked up my hand and led me, like a baby, to the great marble table in the center of the room, where my wrap had already been spread out next to a big silver bucket, gesturing for me to lie down on my back.
My self-consciousness gone, I stretched out on the towel, feeling the heat from the furnaces below seeping into my body, my eyes fluttering shut.
“No scrub. Too tender,” my attendant whispered in my ear, her fingers lightly dancing across my scars. “But I will fix you.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to wonder what she thought. I just wanted to give myself over to the steam and the heat. Through the echoes, I could hear my attendant talking to herself as she prepared.
“Very soft,” she whispered, and I was conscious of her hovering over my body. “Very soft,” she said again, reassuring, laying her hands upon my back.
I heard a soft whirring in the air above me. Then, big dollops of warm suds fell about me. Whir, plop. Whir, plop. She was weaving a long white cloth through the air, then deftly slinging it across my body, never actually touching me but depositing mounds of soap bubbles in her wake until I could no longer see any of my body. When she was satisfied I was sufficiently soaped up, she dropped her cloth back into the bucket and began to work.
Deftly, as if I were an infant, she picked up my limbs and moved me about, wiping away the grime from days of travel. Her hands never ceased, bending me this way and that, rinsing away the soap with torrents of hot water. Swiftly, she whisked away my wet towels, wrapping my clean parts in fluffy new ones, so that I was entirely protected in a warm cocoon of cotton before she moved on to the next part of my body. I sighed, sinking deeper into relaxation, wondering at her skill.
As she washed my body, she began to tell a story.
“The sultan once loved his concubine so much he made her his wife. Very unusual to do this. He stopped visiting the harem, all for love of this wife. He gave her everything. He even built this hammam in her honor, so that all the staff at mosque could come and bathe here. But the wife, Hurrem—you call her Roxelana—she was never satisfied. She wanted more. More buildings. More jewels. More power. Never happy, this Roxelana. The sultan was a powerful man in his own right—some say the best ruler in the all of Ottoman history—but Hurrem wrapped around his brain like a snake.”
A dollop of suds fell on me as she continued her tale.
“This sultan had a son by another woman. This son was loved by the people and was to be the sultan’s heir. But Hurrem wanted the throne for her favorite son. She whispered in the sultan’s ear and convinced the sultan to kill his best advisor. Then she whispered some more, and convinced him to order and witness the death of his own heir.
“Turn over,” she whispered. Dutifully, I flipped myself over, easing onto my stomach.
Whir, plop. Whir, plop. She prepared me for the next round of bathing before taking her story back up.
“But still, this Hurrem was not satisfied. No, to be satisfied she had to kill her other son, and his four boys, to be sure that her favorite son was safe upon the throne.”
My blood ran cold.
“See?” My attendant asked sweetly, never pausing in her ministrations. “Love can make you do terrible things. It can twist one’s mind, so that it is no longer possible to tell right from wrong. It can cause one to destroy what should be cherished. But even such a terrible love can leave behind great beauty,” she said, giving me another dollop of soap. “Like this hammam.”
She fell into quiet humming, then, folding me this way and that while I pondered her story. Was it a warning? Would I be the thing Michael destroyed? I pushed my curiosity and foreboding away, telling myself there was no deeper meaning in the tale, so that I could surrender to the lull of the bath.
After several minutes, she finished her ministrations with a final wipe of a cloth. I lay there on the hot marble table, swaddled in warm towels and in a state of complete bliss, oblivious to my surroundings. Then, she leaned over and whispered to me again.
“Yes, love does terrible things,” she repeated, tracing the scars that criss-crossed my skin as if she already knew the truth of their origin. “But now I will fix you.”
Shock rippled through me, but before I could react, she was unwrapping the towels covering my back. I mumbled a slight protest, as she exposed me once again to the wet air of the hararet, trying to push myself up off the stone to ask her meaning. Firmly, she pushed me back onto the marble. Then, her hands began fluttering across my skin, barely touching me before moving to the next spot, and the next. The scent of roses, lavender, and rosemary surrounded me, and I breathed in deeply, feeling the ageless peace of the hammam sinking into my soul, pushing all other thoughts out of my mind.
My attendant was murmuring to herself, now, a slight, singsongy sound that rose and fell with the movements of her hands. The rhythm and the heat were intoxicating; so much so that I didn’t notice
when she began going deeper into the muscle, kneading and pulsing my broken body.
I gasped at the pain as she began to work the knot in my neck and tried to push myself up. She stopped me, laying a steady hand on my shoulder. “Hurt now, better later,” she whispered into my ear, easing me back down onto the marble slab. “Trust me. Okay?”
I paused, unsure, before I nodded for her to continue, bracing myself for the pain.
Her skillful fingers began working again, drifting over each part of my body, unerringly finding each knot. She would ease into it, trying to learn the secrets my muscles held, and then coaxing and persistent, would undo the fear, doubt, and regret that lingered there. As my body fought to hold onto its pain, clenching and protesting her touch, her voice would rise into song, as if she could dash away the memories my body held with the lightness of her tune. Each tightly held hurt came undone, chased away by her swift fingers, until she finished, leaving me weeping silently into my towel.
“You will be okay,” she whispered, pulling a dry towel up around me and patting my shoulder in a last, comforting gesture before moving away, back into the folds of steam that circled the hararet.
I lay there, wanting nothing more than to curl myself into a ball. While the bath and massage had given my aching body and skin relief, my doubt about Michael had rushed to the surface, leaving me feeling raw and exposed. The twisted logic of the harem and its safety, the separation of women and men into their different worlds, suddenly seemed appealing, especially with the words of my attendant, a warning really—“love does terrible things”—echoing in my mind. I didn’t want to leave this sanctuary. But I knew I couldn’t stay. Michael was waiting for me, and his warnings about being trapped alone were insistently worming their way to the front of my consciousness, urging me to hurry.
I pushed myself up, clutching my towel close. Mindful of the slippery floors, I shuffled across the open space toward the door. I left behind the magical peace of the steamy dome and slipped through the arched exit, a small sign pointing the way back to the changing rooms. As I did, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.
Dark Rising Page 7
