Cathedrals of the Flesh (26 page)

east 10th revisited

Back at my empty New York apartment, home did not feel like home anymore. After six months of travel, I had the new, invigorating
sense that home could be anywhere. All I needed were the essentials of a well-packed bag. This kind of liberation was disorienting.

I called Marina for counsel. She was having her own issues in London. Her problems with Colin had gone way beyond his unwillingness
to speak Russian, and her job was a tedious intermission between vacations.

'Marina, we both need to make a change,' I advised by phone. 'Come visit. Any bank holidays coming up?'

'Actually,' said Marina, sounding chipper, 'the Queen Mum's birthday is just next week and we have a long weekend. Let me
see if I can get a good fare.'

I trusted Marina to get a good fare, and a week later there she was, yelling up to my fourth-floor walk-up, and wearing pink
silk trousers and an embroidered pink sweater and carrying a tiny bag.

'Did you just bring shoes?' I asked.

'Your apartment looks like a photographer's studio,' Marina said. Since Charles had moved out, the place looked empty and
the bare white walls and hardwood floors made my small loft look more like a white seamless backdrop than a place for cozy
dinners.

'I'll take your head shot later,' I said. 'I know you just got here, but I think a field trip to East Tenth is in order.'

'Oh God, no, not that place.'

'Why? You've never actually been inside.'

'Isn't that the place Natalia and I wouldn't set foot in last year? And you stood on the stoop for fifteen minutes trying
to convince us it was safe?'

'Exactly. You said it was "too close to the earth.'" That was Marina's euphemism for skeevy. I continued, 'Trust me, I spent
many cold nights there before I left for Istanbul. Yeah, it's a little grimy, but it has a soulful quality, and it will purge
the toxins from your system.'

If nothing else, I knew my audience. Marina was a sucker for detoxification, adhering religiously to a quarterly detoxification
that involved prolonged dietary and alcoholic sacrifice.

'Oh, all right, but I'm bringing my own towel.'

'Marina, we've visited some very
close to the earth
places together in Istanbul and Moscow. East Tenth is no worse.'

'It's all relative. In Russia the bar is considerably lowered, and in Turkey at least water is constantly flowing.'

On East 10th Street, between First and A, hangs a white sign that says, 'Russian Turkish Bath,' a replica of the original
from when it first opened in 1892. In 1900, New York City contained forty-two commercial bathhouses, largely owned by Jews
and called
shvitzes,
just like this one. Izzie Sirota, my great-grandfather, frequented these types of sweating establishments, where he'd rub
shoulders with his favorite actors of Yiddish theater — Boris Thomashefsky and Maurice Moscovitch. Now East 10th and a few
holdouts in Brooklyn are the only
shvitzes
to survive the encroachment of gyms, spas, and lavish home bathrooms. With five thousand members and a tightly knit group
of regulars, East 10th still offers the camaraderie, gritty intimacy, and heat-induced relaxation of the old New York steam
baths.

The faint scent of eucalyptus hit us when we walked in, a reassuring smell in the face of a grungy reception room and changing
area. A television blared the evening news in the café. Several customers wearing navy bath coats sat on brown plastic chairs,
eating cold, mayonnaise-drenched salads. Marina and I left our watches and wallets at the check-in, bought two bottles of
cold water, and put on bathing suits. I wore a blue sports suit and Marina a black leotard. Not once on my trip had I needed
a bathing suit. Marina clutched a thick hunter green cotton towel, and I grabbed a handful of the threadbare brown towels
no bigger than dishrags. We descended the steep, slippery steps to the basement steam compound. Within roughly 1,200 square
feet, they managed to fit a ten-yard blue-tiled plunge pool and four rooms of different heat.

Marina inspected the plunge pool by sticking her head toward the water and inhaling deeply, and rather loudly, through her
nose. Some of the old guys, the regulars, squinted their eyes at her, wondering if this uppity visitor might be from the board
of health. 'It reeks of chlorine, and the water isn't flowing. This is not good,' she declared. I understood her alarm. East
10th can come across as a run-down, poorly funded YMCA if you don't have a special place in your heart for its history and
soulfulness.

After a quick shower, we headed straight to the Russian room, which at 215 degrees Fahrenheit is also called 'the Oven.' On
this Tuesday evening there were a few other women, mostly dancers, but the average client was a man over fifty, generally
named Abe, Morty, or Saul, with a hairy watermelon-size gut and a Brooklyn accent. We sat on the second tier of pebbled concrete
benches. Marina decorously placed the towel, folded up like a cushion, on the concrete. The only light source - an exposed
light bulb - cast the room in shadows.

'This place is growing on me,' admitted Marina. 'Look at those guys over there. They look like
Gorky Park
extras.'

'I think I recognize that guy,' I said, pointing to a hulk of a man, tall and wide as a walrus. We could overhear his conversation
with two other Central Casting mobsters; in fact, East 1Oth would be the perfect place to cast a Russian-themed
Sopranos.
They were standing next to the furnace, each wearing long, baggy swimming trunks with brown towels thrown over their shoulders.
They were comparing linoleum costs and quality. Marina drank some water, and I rubbed peach enzyme peel on my face. A few
minutes later, the walrus man approached us and asked if either of us wanted a platza, the same veynik body-thwacking treatment
Natasha had taught me in Moscow. He was a hobbyist, he said, and would be glad to provide us with a free service. Giving platza
is a nice 'hobby' for an old man because it requires a topless suppliant. We demurred, but I was sure I recognized him from
previous visits.

'I've seen you here before, right?' I asked.

'I'm here almost every night,' he said. 'The name's Morty Hirsh.'

The legendary Morty Hirsh! A construction contractor, former owner of the famed Luxor Baths in Midtown, and the great
shvitzing
aficionado of New York City. Whenever someone at the bath had a
shvitz-related
question, someone always piped in, 'Morty will know.' And here he was, in the flesh - in a lot of flesh. I seized the opportunity
to ask him about the history of this place. I'd always been mystified by East 1Oth's lack of upkeep, and Morty seemed eager
to chat.

'Oh, where to begin. Let's see, in the 1940s, this place was owned by a guy by the name of Jumbo, a big fat guy.' Morty cleared
his throat. 'He sold it to a guy who worked in Brooklyn at Silver's, another popular bath, and his name was Fat Al.'

'Fat Al?' Marina asked doubtfully. This was not her scene.

'Yeah, Fat Al. He was about three hundred pounds. His family was in the notions business on Thirty-eighth Street, buttons,
zippers, that sort of thing. Then Fat Al died giving a platza treatment, he had a heart condition. Fat Al had loved the
shvitz,
but his family just wanted to sell the place, so they sold it to three partners — that would be David, Boris, and a third
guy who got out early. Then the feud started in the early 1980s.'

'What was the origin of the feud?' asked Marina, suddenly intrigued.

Morty lowered his voice. 'These are just rumors, but what I've always heard is that David and Boris accused each other of
not turning over the common receipts, something like that. Then a friend of mine, a lawyer, he's known as Fat Ralph, another
big guy, came in to arbitrate. He set up the alternate week program, whereby David and Boris take turns running the bath and
share the common charges. That's been the arrangement for almost fifteen years now.'

Marina and I looked at each other apprehensively, apparently thinking the same thing: 'I hope that doesn't happen to us,'
joked Marina.

'Marina, unless you abscond with our start-up capital to buy Caucasian rugs, I think we'll get along famously as business
partners.'

'The rugs will be for our collection at the bath,' she said, and already I could see she was calculating the potential to
write off antique kilims and carpets. Collectors, I am convinced, are as compulsive as gamblers.

'Marina, are we bathers or businesswomen? Do we love baths too much to open one? A brick-and-mortar establishment might fall
short of our vision of the perfect bath.'

Morty, who was sitting close by, piped up, 'I bought the Luxor because I loved baths so much I had to own one.'

Both Marina and I dared not ask him how it panned out.

epilogue

So where does this leave me? Marina and I are no closer to opening our bath. My bath odyssey, instead of answering all my
questions, left me with an entirely new and much longer set of questions. As I tried to make sense of where home was and what
I wanted to do for the next fifty years, I kept remembering the last chapter of a book my father had force-fed me at fifteen.
When most other parents were passing along old J. D. Salinger paperbacks, my father thought nothing could shape an adolescent
mind so well as Samuel Johnson's hit from 1759 —
Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia,
about a young prince who wanted to leave the 'happy valley,' his Utopian home, in search of wisdom. The final chapter began
with the all-time perfect chapter title: 'The Conclusion, in Which Nothing Is Concluded.'

A sense of closure, completion, tidily closing the lid on any search, is as sweetly naive as buying into happily ever after.
Rasselas searched for happiness and wisdom, I searched for the perfect bath - OK so I wasn't exactly his second coming, but
still I related to the intrepid prince's curiosity. Curiosity follows a compounding principle, end

The trip became about the baths themselves, not about the business of baths; and 'my bath' became a jigsaw puzzle of all I
saw that was great. Despite my initial handicap as a pragmatic American, I soon realized that I was approaching the baths
just like many modern spa-goers approach spas. I was too focused on results. Many American spas place too much emphasis on
the one-on-one treatments, the guru, and quick fixes. Baths also offer specific treatments, but mostly the treatments are
general, aimed at overall well-being. Baths were places for relaxation, regeneration, occasional childhood regression, socializing,
whimsical debauchery, and most of all, just free-spirited fun. Relaxation is not something you can study, nor is quiet reflection
quantifiable. And these were the kinds of moments I found and savored inside the baths, not imagining blueprints or calculating
profit margins on products and treatments.

Yes, somewhere in Russia I abandoned my pragmatism. Where better to leave practicality behind than amid unfightable chaos?
And though I felt as if I were a living cliche of the newly enlightened American abroad, I started to get off on simple joys
like nibbling salty volba in between dehydrating banya sessions. I even stopped asking people what they did for a living -
a sure conversation stopper, especially in Turkey and Russia. Who cares where your money comes from? It's not nearly as important
a question as 'How do you make baklava?' or 'Where is your favorite banya?' These are the questions that animate people, make
them talk fast and gesticulate wildly.

I expected to learn concrete things during my tour: optimum ceiling heights and floor plans, loofah suppliers, Turkish marble
dealers, and recipes for modern elixirs of nectar and ambrosia. I did learn where to buy the softest
pestamals
in the Covered Bazaar and how to use a veynik from Natasha, the Martha Graham of birch bough choreography, but what I'll remember
in five years' time goes much deeper than practical knowledge.

Hanging out with crazed Russians, quiet Finns, and solemn Japanese in baths where people shared sensations - through nods,
smiles, maybe a couple of words - was the ultimate satisfaction, a rare community of kindred spirits. Savoring apple tea,
obsessing over the demise of the Roman baths, inhaling lavender stewing in hot water, and contemplating quivering pines from
the warmth of an outdoor onsen were all pleasures I had never experienced in America. And maybe — and here was the rub - they
were pleasures I never could have enjoyed in America, so obsessed was I with tomorrow and getting there faster.

At most of my stops along the way, people went to the baths simply because it was part of their identity, part of what made
them Finnish, Japanese, or Russian. The sauna, onsen, and banya are simply an unquestioned part of how they relax and relate
to friends and family.

I no longer feel that I need to open a hamam to justify this trip or my existence. Marina is Eastern and never felt a need
to justify anything. I suppose I am catching on. For me now, it is about the baths and not about re-creating the baths for
New Yorkers, much though I loved and still love the idea. Maybe we'll still do it, open a Turkish-Japanese bath, but it really
doesn't matter.

The same way some people traipse through flea markets collecting ceramics or textiles as a lifelong hobby, I will always visit
public baths. The baths I have already experienced became like familiar friends whom I'll continually revisit until I'm a
wrinkly old lady. A long list of novel curiosities remains — the ultimate old-school hamam in Aleppo, Syria; maybe the Italians
were still bathing in high Roman style at Montecatini; I had never gotten to visit an Aalto sauna or dance naked at midnight
around a Russian banya. Luckily, I have my whole life to collect baths. And I know Marina will be there, too.