The Ottoman Bath Keeper | حارسة الحمام العثماني
"She maintains the last traditional hammam in Thessaloniki. He's the historian documenting what remains of Ottoman Greece. Their research becomes immersive."
The Ottoman Bath Keeper
حارسة الحمام العثماني
The Bey Hamam is five hundred years old.
Most tourists don't know it exists. The Greeks don't advertise Ottoman history.
I keep it alive anyway.
I'm Ayşe.
Fifty, Greek-Turkish, the last keeper of Thessaloniki's hammam. My family has tended it since the empire fell.
Professor Dimitri wants to study it.
He's fifty-five.
Greek historian specializing in Ottoman heritage. Unusual for a Greek to care about Turkish history.
"Why do you maintain this place?"
"Because history shouldn't be erased."
"That's politically complicated here."
"Truth is always complicated."
He returns every week.
Documenting the architecture, the water systems, the centuries of steam.
"You know more than any book I've read," he admits.
"Books forget the feeling. I remember it."
"Does anyone still use it?"
"Some Turkish families. Some curious Greeks. Mostly it waits."
"Waits for what?"
"For someone to remember why it matters."
"I could help. Write something. Bring attention."
"Attention is dangerous. The nationalists don't want reminders of Ottoman Greece."
"That's why it's important."
"You'd risk that? For a bathhouse?"
"For history. And maybe for you."
The first kiss is in the steam room.
Five hundred years of stone witnessing. He tastes like curiosity and commitment.
"This is unexpected," I say.
"History is full of unexpected connections."
"Greeks and Turks—we're not supposed to..."
"We're not 'Greeks and Turks.' We're Dimitri and Ayşe. That's enough."
He undresses me in the warm room.
Marble heated by centuries, water flowing through Ottoman channels.
"Beautiful."
"Dimitri—"
"Let me show you what this place was built for."
We make love where sultans bathed.
The steam surrounding us, history watching.
"Ya Allah—"
"Thee mou—"
Languages blending, bodies merging.
Three years later
The hammam is a protected site now.
UNESCO recognition. His book sparked international interest. We run it together.
"Happy?" he asks.
"Clean." I laugh. "Finally clean."
"That's a bath joke."
"It's our history."
Alhamdulillah.
For baths that survive.
For historians who care.
For steam that brings together.
The End.