The House in Smyrna (7 page)

What's your name? I asked.

Sihem.

What?

Sihem.

It took me some effort and three or four tries to pronounce her name correctly. She knew I was nervous. It was obvious: my eyes were shot with fear. I felt like bursting into tears at that moment, begging someone to get me out of there. She too felt uneasy, though less than I did, which was why she was almost able to disguise it. We came from two different worlds, and our awkwardness with each other was a constant reminder that I was a foreigner. But we slowly bridged the gap, and I began to feel more at ease, willing to participate in the stages of the ritual.

There must have been ten or twelve women there. They all, without exception, stared at me unabashedly. They laughed among themselves, whispering words that I didn't understand. I couldn't tell if they were happy about my presence or not. Although I didn't want to be, the truth is that I was an intruder. Sihem was still holding my hand. We crossed the first room, which wasn't as hot, and went to the second, where the exfoliation would take place. She gave me a plastic mat to sit on so I wouldn't come into contact with the ground. I sat on it (not without a little revulsion) and hugged my legs to my chest. While I waited, Sihem filled a bucket of water, mixing hot and cold. Suddenly, she threw the water over me all at once. I hadn't expected it. The water went into my nostrils and I began to cough. She was unfazed and went about her work without hesitation. Using soap paste, she scrubbed my body from head to toe. I relaxed a little and even thought that the soap, which made my skin slippery, felt nice. Then I had another bucket of water thrown over me, but this time I held my breath.

The others were doing to one another what Sihem was doing to me: they all scrubbed, exfoliated, and threw water over one another. Only one older woman was bathing alone, over by the wall to the left of the room. She was chubby, her belly spilling over in rolls. I wondered if that was why no one was helping her. Maybe. But maybe not. Maybe she was unhappy. Or maybe she just liked being alone. I imagined a story for each of the women around me. I invented husbands, betrayals, children, travels, work, loneliness; I invented sadness and happiness; I envied them and felt relieved I wasn't one of them.

One of the women caught my eye. Long, brown hair, fleshy lips. She was younger than most of the others there, soaping herself as if she were caressing her body. She didn't say a word, but interacted with whomever she had to. Her body was perfect, with the most beautiful breasts I had ever seen, ever wanted to touch. Small, round nipples. A sensual body that didn't care if it was sensual. I tried not to be conspicuous, but she noticed. I was afraid to invade her space, to be inconvenient. She made it clear that no, I wasn't being inconvenient. On the contrary, she stared at me too, studied me with the same lack of shame. Amid bodies oblivious to sexuality, bodies merely given over to cleansing, we established our bond.

Sihem shook my feet. She wanted me to lie on my back, which I did without hesitation. She started scrubbing me with a glove, so hard that I thought my skin would bleed. With worried eyes, waving my hand, I asked her to be gentler. She laughed and, ignoring my request, went back to work, as if to say that I didn't understand a thing. If the choice to be there was mine, I'd have to surrender to the experience and leave my own customs outside. She didn't say a word, but she didn't need to either. She merely led me through the process as she saw fit, unconcerned that my wishes might be different. I resolved to put an end to the stand-off. Trying to impose my own ideas on her would get me nowhere. I decided to relax and make the most of it. Not least because I soon got used to the scrubbing and it stopped hurting. It even felt nice on my legs and tickled a little.

When she finished exfoliating me, Sihem made me stand and look at the ground. Pieces of skin were scattered about like lengths of string. See all that spaghetti? I laughed. Spaghetti? It did bear some resemblance, but it was weird imagining pieces of spaghetti being sloughed off my body. She made a point of showing me that I had much more dead skin than the other women, as if to say: See how clean we are? It struck me as slightly ironic. After all, when I arrived the place had seemed so terribly filthy, and suddenly there I was being accused of uncleanliness. I was dirty because I had more pieces of ‘spaghetti' than the others.

Still mesmerised by the beauty of the young woman I had just discovered, I imagined what it would be like to touch her radiant skin, because after exfoliation it is smoother, softer. Our connection was explicit. She smiled at my awkwardness, at how ill at ease I was with such a new experience, and I smiled in response, happy that she was there, in the same room, witness to my first Turkish bath. I smiled at her beauty, enchanted by her delicacy, almost laughing out loud: I had never seen such a beautiful woman before.

As I stood up, another bucket of water was thrown over me. I already felt confident enough to scrub my own body in front of everyone. I asked Sihem if I could pour the bucket over myself. She filled it again and handed it to me with a self-satisfied look, certain that the fact I was enjoying the ritual was her achievement. I noticed the other women looking at me, and some of them started to give me some tips, explaining what I should do through gestures. I imitated them diligently. Suddenly, one walked over, handed me her glove and asked me to scrub her back. I trembled. I didn't have the slightest idea how to do it. I was afraid. She sat there waiting for me to exfoliate her, as Sihem had just done to me. Tired of waiting, she turned around, took back her glove, and waved her hands in the air, explaining what I was supposed to do. Nothing complicated; all I had to do was start. The glove was rough and a certain amount of pressure had to be applied for it to be effective. I felt as if I was hurting her, but it was evident that I wasn't. She was used to it and probably came to the
hammam
once a week, as was the custom in her religion. I was already growing tired when she asked for the glove back and gave me a smile of approval.

In the other room, the heat was more bearable. That was where I was given the massage. Lying on my belly, I felt Sihem's hands working the knots out of my muscles. I was tense, as usual. My lower back hurt, my neck and shoulders were stiff, rocks embedded in my body. Are you carrying the world on your shoulders? she asked me. I told her that people always asked me that, but no, it wasn't the world. I was carrying my past, I was carrying a story that wasn't mine, which was why I was there in Turkey. I told her that my grandfather had emigrated from Smyrna. That I was there in search of my past and to look for the old family home. She listened with attention and it was as if in that moment we became equals for the first time.

So you're Turkish?

Not exactly.

Do you speak Turkish?

No.

Not at all?

Absolutely nothing.

But you're Turkish anyway. You look Turkish — I had already noticed your features.

Crack, crack
, went my bones and I sighed with relief. She was a little heavy-handed for my small body, and I was a bit uncomfortable, but there was no way I was going to complain, much less now that our connection had been legitimised. After I told her why I was in Turkey, she made the massage even more intense, as if doing her part to help me free myself of the past. I felt that she wasn't just loosening up my muscles, but also fighting against everything I had just told her.

The young woman left while I was lying on my belly. I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye, to look into her eyes one last time. By the time Sihem finished the massage, the woman had simply gone. Anxiously, I looked for her. She couldn't have disappeared like that. How could I continue my journey without her? Without those breasts that I had never touched? Without the mouth that I had never kissed? No, she couldn't have left without saying goodbye to me.

I think Sihem had spent more time with me than was usual. I was exhausted from the trip, from so many new things. Exhausted just to think about what lay ahead of me. Would I find my ancestors' home? Would the key still be the same? I tried to believe in the story I had invented for myself, a story that I was still inventing — the only one capable of providing me with any answers, perhaps the craziest story of all, but also the most real. I didn't know to what extent my grandfather's stories were true, to what extent what I was experiencing now was true. I didn't even know if my journey was real. It seemed that the closer I got to the facts, the further I got from the truth.

Today I masturbated thinking about you with another woman. For heaven's sake, am I going mad?

We weren't in the hospital anymore, but in a hotel in the city of Baltimore, in the United States. I thought you were still asleep and opened the curtain only a crack, so as not to wake you. Outside, the city glimmered. You heard me moving about the room and asked if I was up. Yes, it's almost nine o'clock, I said, glancing at the clock on the nightstand. Your eyes were closed. I'm going to open the curtains, I said. It's a beautiful day out. You didn't say a thing, and it occurred to me that I was the one who shouldn't have said anything. I saw you opening your eyes and then closing them, opening them again, closing them again. That was when it dawned on me that maybe it made no difference, and I realised that your open eyes didn't linger on anything. They were like two lost marbles, like an instrument that you didn't know how to use. I saw it, and I didn't say anything. I watched you and noticed that as I looked at you, you didn't look at me. We'd never look into each other's eyes again. Like in a film in fast motion, I began to imagine everything that you'd never see again: the sun outside; the cities of the world, with people walking, bumping into one another, hurrying past, or just strolling along; the dogs; the birds. You'd never again see Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema, Copacabana, the beach, the sunset, the moon rising over the ocean, the trees. You'd never again watch films; you'd never read another book. And when my hair grew long or when I cut it off, or when I bought new clothes, or put on weight, or got pregnant, or grew old, you wouldn't see it. You wouldn't see a thing. Ever again.

Mother? I blurted out, almost shouting, as if calling for help. Mother? I said, almost crying, almost collapsing, as if hearing you speak might stop me.

Yes? you said, without any enthusiasm in your voice.

I think I'm going to get something to eat, a sandwich or some yoghurt. What would you like?

Anything, you said. I'm not hungry.

Okay, maybe I'll buy some fruit, a banana or an apple, I said as I got dressed, my eyes full of tears. I just wanted to get out of the room so I could cry without you hearing me. And I did, from the hotel corridor until the moment I returned with two sandwiches and a banana. When I came back, you were still lying in bed, in the same position, opening and closing your eyes. I left the paper bag on the table next to the television and lay down next to you. We didn't touch the food.

Mother? I said, this time in a steady voice, as if my tears had carried away my fear.

What? you said, eyes wide open, unblinking.

You can't see anything anymore, can you?

You didn't answer, just shut your eyes, and it was your mouth that cried, your downturned lips. Then I hugged you tightly, very tightly, and said: Everything will be okay, you'll see. I listed all the things you could do without seeing: there was still lots of music to listen to; I'd read you stories, newspapers, novels, poetry; we could talk a lot, eat yummy things, and drink good wines; you could dictate to me everything that you wanted to write; you could imagine all the films that you wouldn't see, because in your head you could still see lots and lots, you could still see whatever you wanted. Lying there like that, you listening in silence as I enumerated all the things you could do, we invented a world for ourselves for the last time, we created the world we would live in for the last time. We still didn't know that in two weeks it would all be gone, that in two weeks you wouldn't be able to see or imagine, or listen to music, or taste good wines, or hug me, or hear the many many stories that I wanted to tell you.

I had two names on a piece of paper: Raphael and Salomon. The surname was exactly the same as mine. These were the people I had to look up when I got to Smyrna. According to my grandfather, it wouldn't be hard to find them, because it was a small community and he'd received news of them only a few years earlier from some cousins in France. Yes, maybe the channels would be open and I'd find them easily, but then what? What was I supposed to do after I located them? I was afraid I wouldn't know what to say, that I wouldn't have anything to talk about with those people of whom I knew nothing. I knew that in some way, at some point, we crossed paths on the same family tree. But what did they do? What did they think? How did they live? Would we have any affinities, subjects of mutual interest? Or would they be as foreign to me as the people I saw in the streets of Istanbul, as the people I had come across by chance and whom I would probably never see again? I was hesitant, but at the same time anxious to find out what was going to happen on this journey, in the story I was telling myself.

When you leaned over to whisper sweetly in my ear, I knew you were going to ask me to do something: Tomorrow, I want you to go out for the day and only come back in the evening. I want you to wear a miniskirt without anything underneath. Yes, you heard me: I want you completely naked underneath.