Cathedrals of the Flesh (3 page)

I raised an eyebrow, playing along.

'I am
just now
excavating a Turkish bath in this
very
garden.' Kemal spoke slowly and clearly, emphasizing all the adverbial words like a posh Englishman. I made a mental note
to ask if he'd spent his formative years at Eton.

'Last month I started to dig over there,' he said, pointing to a large rectangular hole in the ground covered by a bamboo
roof about fifty yards away. 'I wanted to make a pottery studio using the walls that had been my sister's house, but I needed
to dig deeper in the ground so it would be cool like a cellar in the summertime. After a day of digging, one of my workmen
hit a floor about six feet under this ground level we see today. I had no idea what it was, so we kept digging a broader swath
to see just how big this floor might be. Then we hit what I'm sure must be drainpipes.' He paused so I could register the
import of this discovery. 'A most incredible thing. The drainpipes crisscross the floor. Surely it must be some kind of very
old Turkish bath. What else could account for the presence of all of these drainpipes?'

'Well, that sounds entirely plausible,' I said, assuming the mantle of distinguished archaeology professor. 'Can I have a
look?' Seven years ago, I'd taken a semester of Roman art and archaeology. Though I'd napped through most of the interminable
slide shows, I'd perked up during the Roman bath section. And in my hazy recollection, drainpipes did not a bath make.

'Yes, yes, of course. So, now, really, what an incredible coincidence to meet. Have you read
The Celestine Prophecy?
A most amazing book. Meeting you is something straight out of that book.' I apologized for not having read
The Celestine Prophecy
but agreed that it was a huge coincidence our interests should so overlap.

'Come. Let's have a look at the thing.' He jumped up, and the rest of the tea party, still discussing the soccer deaths, looked
over at us.

Kemal, with what I'd later see as a charming social ineptitude, wasn't going to explain our field trip to his guests, but
sensing the question marks on everyone's faces, I said, 'Kemal and I are going on an archaeological excursion.'

I followed his long, sandaled legs to the last of the houses on the semicircle.

'Are all these houses yours?' I asked.

'For the time being, yes,' he responded with the indifference of someone either too rich or too eccentric to care.

We reached the 'dig area.' To the untrained eye, it was a gaping pile of rubble covered by a lean-to bamboo roof. To my untrained
but optimistic eye, it looked like the contours of a modest bath built sometime during the reign of Justinian, circa fifth
century A.D. This made sense, because Tuzla's first settlers were fifth-century Byzantine monks, according to Mehmet. Kemal
waved to the two workers and greeted them:
'Sel
â
m. Ne var ne yok?
^y
One guy, in dirt-covered jeans and a T-shirt, removed a wheelbarrow full of debris from the pit. The other guy swung a pickax
at random parts of the floor in what looked more like an anger management exercise than a careful attempt to unearth buried
booty.

'Meet my archaeologists,' Kemal declared proudly. Call me conservative, but their methods seemed crude, more exorcism than
excavation. There were no field notebooks normally kept by archaeologists, no division of the area into trenches and buckets.

Kemal jumped down into the pit and offered me his hand. This was the fast-paced, intuitive world of archaeology I had dreamed
of since
Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Here on the shores of the Marmara there were no permits to file and no authorities to meddle. Hey, Kemal and I
were
the authorities. We stood side by side, six feet below modern ground level, in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot moldy pit strewn
with debris, discussing things we knew nothing about, comparing ill-founded theories, and planning how to proceed.

Kemal touched a pile of terra-cotta tablets stacked one on top of the other.

'Now what would these be? If this is the floor that we're standing on, why would rows of little pillars line the floor?'

'Well,' I said, trying not to sound too pleased with myself, 'these piles of terracotta tablets were called
pilae.
The Romans invented
pilae
to support the floor over the hypocaust system — that's the underground heating system. So here in this hypocaust area, the
heat from the furnace would float around and heat the floor laid on top of the
pilae.
Ancient radiant heat. Pretty ingenious, eh?' I was surprised that all this was waterlogged in my brain. Why didn't I remember
more important things like my bank balance or the birthdays of friends?

Kemal marveled at my intelligence or something on the floor. 'So you agree this really is an ancient bath?'

'Yes. But what else was in the area during ancient times? Why would the Byzantines have built a bath in this particular location?'
I asked.

'This area is called Monaster, because of the fifth-century monastery that was here. Actually, my stone house was the last
building used as a monastery. Just think — from monks to me.' He winked at me. 'Oh yes, and this area used to have productive
salt mines. Tuzla actually means "with salt."'

Kemal and I invented an elaborate theory that this was once the bath for the workers of the Tuzla salt mines. After a long
day of collecting salt under dark and claustrophobic conditions, Greek-speaking workers found warmth, light, heat, and rest
in this little jewel of a bathhouse under the watchful eyes of the celibate monks. The bath's location near the salt mine
explained why the design was small and functional as opposed to the more grandiose marble-paved hamams in central Istanbul.

'Do you think there is any way I could get the bath up and running again?' Kemal asked. 'How much do you think it would cost?'

'I really have no idea. I suppose it depends if you want to restore it with the original heating system or if you want to
refurbish it as a more modern hamam. You could reline the walls with marble, the same marble you've redone the house in, and
then put in some sort of furnace. It could be really lovely with just a very simple restoration. Or you could mount a dome
on top and maybe install some windows in the side to look out onto the Marmara.' A daydream took shape in my head as I suggested
these alternatives to Kemal. Maybe Marina and I could do a practice run restoring Kemal's ancient bath. With all these empty
houses, living on-site certainly wouldn't be a problem.

Suddenly Kemal's excitement turned to paranoia. 'You're not going to tell anyone about this?' he asked. I was demoted from
co-developer to potential informer.

'Kemal, what do I look like, the archaeological police?' He narrowed his light blue eyes. Was it, I wondered, the trench coat?
'If you let me help you excavate the bath, I promise I won't tell the authorities,' I teased, charmed by Kemal's suspicion.

We returned to the tea party; Baksim reminded Kemal, to my complete surprise, that I might be interested in renting his city
house in Ortaköy.

'I will give Baksim the key so you can go have a look tomorrow,' Kemal said to me.

We had emptied our teacups, and the sun lowered across the water. It was time to make haste back to Istanbul.

Kemal waved good-bye and said, 'I hope you'll like my house.' Baksim, Mehmet, and I lingered for a few minutes, playing with
dogs. A moment later Kemal intercepted us at the gate, his face even more drawn and serious than before. 'Don't tell anyone
what you saw here, OK?' Baksim and Mehmet tried not to laugh; apparently Kemal was prone to these mini—anxiety attacks. I
kissed him on both cheeks and promised not to turn him in. He blushed and said something about 'necessary precautions.'

On my second day in Istanbul, I'd met a charmingly neurotic man with an ancient bath in his backyard who was going to rent
me his 'city' house. In the process of meeting all these new people, we had discussed personal situations — I knew all about
Mehmet's wife and Baksim's prospects, and I'd gleaned that Kemal was unattached. Not once had I mentioned that I had a serious
boyfriend whom I lived with back in New York City. I just put off mentioning Charles, again and again, until it crept up on
me as something I was hiding. But the omission was easy enough to justify. Being in Istanbul was a delicious adventure, and
I wanted to put a protective white sheet over anything that reminded me of home.

Just when I thought the day could not be any more perfect or serendipitous, Baksim said, 'Let's just say a very quick hello
to my aunt and uncle before heading back into Istanbul.'

We ventured from Kemal's bohemian fantasy world to the manicured, refined world of Mehmet's uncle and aunt, where tea appeared
magically, sugar cubes and all, and drawing room conversation followed the predictable lines of weather, traffic, and tennis.
His aunt and uncle were the Turkish equivalent of Connecticut WASPs or English landed gentry. They were tidy, genteel people
in their late fifties, the kind of people who wake up early, play tennis, and have card games with the neighbors. Baksim's
uncle and I quickly fell into a conversation about hamams. One thing I immediately noticed about Turks was their highly extroverted
interest in other people. Turkish people hold up much more than their end of the conversation. It was effortless and completely
delightful to socialize in this country.

'I wonder very much what is left of hamam culture,' Baksim's uncle said wistfully. 'Well, there's someone I know with whom
you should definitely speak. Her name is Tiilay Tascioglu, and she wrote a gorgeous book called
The Turkish Bath
several years ago. It explains the origins of hamams and hamam culture and has some magnificent drawings and photographs.
She's a very accomplished woman, and I'm sure she'd love to meet someone with similar interests. Hold on just a moment and
I'll find her telephone number for you.' Baksim smiled at me from across the room. Yes, his Nescafé prophecy had come true
- the trip to Tuzla had been an amazing start to my research.

In the twilight car ride home, it struck me. Both of my chance encounters, with Kemal's physical bath and with Tülay's book
on the history of hamams, were encounters with hamams as historical, antiquated remains to be dug up and written about. I
was in Istanbul to uncover the vibrancy of an ongoing bathing culture. What was I about to walk into? Were today's hamams
an 'unhygienic business,' in Kemal's words, or would I find otherworldly atmospheres of steam and glistening marble, private
palaces to the body? Had the ancient communal baths been replaced by modern spa culture servicing the individual? I hoped
not.

The very next evening, I called Marina from my new home in Ortaköy.

'You're not going to believe where I'm staying. I'm in a four-story town house with portholes for windows!'

'Excellent,' she said with breathy approval. 'Where?'

'In a little town along the Bosphorus called Ortaköy. It's only about twenty minutes from Sultanahmet,' I said, referring
to the center of Old Stamboul where the Romans created Constantinople and the Ottomans Istanbul.

'Have you been to any hamams yet, the ones we talked about?'

'Not the ones we talked about,' I said, so ecstatic about my windfall living situation that I'd momentarily forgotten about
my more pressing mission. 'It took two days to get settled, and then on the suggestion of Kemal and Baksim, I went to a place
called Galatasaray. They told me it was the safest bet, but it was kind of sordid,' I said, remembering the
kese
scrub performed with a mitt that smelled like Gorgonzola cheese.

'Oh no, you didn't go to Galatasaray. That's the worst.'

'Thank God. I was getting worried that the best hamams are in France.'

'Go to Sultanahmet tomorrow, and try Ca
alo
lu and Çemberlita?. Both are very touristy, but will give you the flavor and scale
of a real Ottoman hamam. So how did you end up in this apartment, I mean town house?'

'Marina, you won't believe this. The first morning I was in Istanbul, I met a character named Kemal who has an extra city
house, of all things, that he's rented to me for as long as I want to stay here.'