The Hammam

The Hammam

Echoes. Wet echoes. That’s all that can be heard. The original sound is lost in the dome above you, escaping out of the carved holes in the ceiling and into the faint sunlight that peeks in and reflects off the slick, warm stone of the floor.

I sit naked, waiting, sucking in the steamy air slowly so that it doesn’t burn my nose. I have come on a weekday, late, so there are only five other women in the great bathing room. I can tell that two of them are new travelers who know little of the conventions of the hammam by the way they are shyly wearing striped and polka-dotted bikinis. I look across the room and see an older woman, an employee of the hammam. She is completely nude and wet from the bath. She strides across the room confidently, her broad thighs shivering and her sizable belly hanging. I see in her a pride that seems to be an essential part of Turkish women. The bikinis of the girls seem so silly and insecure when compared with this dignified display.

My eyes wander around the stone walls of the hammam. They are white marble with cream colors in their depths. All of the stones are warm, heated so that they are comfortable to sit upon. Along the walls are metal faucets that pour water from open mouths into marble sinks when the handle is turned. I see two other girls, both slender Asians, washing themselves with water from one of these sinks.

Its name is Cagaloglu Hamami. I love this name, so full of the silent Turkish g’s that I cannot pronounce. Its age can be felt in the energy of the place, and I am not surprised that this is the oldest of all the Turkish baths in Istanbul. It seems as if time has paused here. Without clothes, the modernity of a person is lost. I could be sitting in an ancient hammam from the time of the sultans. Indeed, it seems as if these women washing us have been living in the bathhouse for centuries, quietly washing and scrubbing the beautiful, quiet women who come to be cleansed.

When my bather comes, I lie in the middle of the room and am washed like a baby. I relax, allowing the rough textures of the scrubbing cloth to exfoliate me. The sharp, lemony scent of the soap stings my nostrils slightly. Afterwards, the woman smiles and takes my hand as she leads me to a sink and rinses me off. My whole body is pulsing with lively circulation. I feel as if I have a new skin.

After I leave, the cold January wind strikes my warm cheeks, but I take no notice. I am filled with the peace of those wet echoes that, in my mind, will never cease in the ancient Turkish hammam. My body has been cleansed, my spirit soothed.