Nobody's Child by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch Read Free Book Online Page A

her clients all day.
    â€œGood morning, Sophie Hanum,” said Kevork, bowing his head slightly.
    â€œGood morning, dear,” she said, smiling at Kevork, then regarding the other people in his group.
    â€œWhy are you coming on women’s day?”
    Kevork usually came to the bathhouse with his father on Thursdays, but some nine-year-old boys still came on Tuesdays with their mothers. It was a borderline age to be let into the women’s baths. “My father is away right now,” said Kevork with a tremble in his voice. What Armenian in the village wasn’t coming to the bathhouse with a changed family circumstance?
    Sophie Hanum frowned and thought a moment. “There is no doubt you need a bath,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She looked at the rest of the people in the group, and her eyes rested on Onnig. “Very well,” she said. “You can go in. You’ll be good company for the little one.”
    Kevork sighed with relief. He didn’t want to go all alone on men’s bath day. Mariam handed Sophie the fee for the baths and the extra towels and they walked in.
    They were each led to separate rooms where they removed all of their clothing, then they were sudsed and soaped and shampooed and rinsed by bath attendants until their skin was pink and their hair shone clean. They met back up in the common area, where there was a huge pool of steamy water.
    The bathhouse was a sociable place, and people gathered there for gossip as much as for cleanliness. Many people walked around completely naked, while others were loosely covered with silk wrap-arounds. It was bad form to be too bundled up in a bathhouse because it made others ill at ease. Without their clothes on, the children looked no different than the Turks. Even though everyone knew who they were, they were accepted without hostility. Even Anna was treated with courteous disregard.
    Young children screamed and splashed, while their mothers and grandmothers looked on fondly. Onnig grinned for the first time in days and pulled Marta and Kevork into the warm water with him.
    Stepping into the warm water brought back so many happy memories for Kevork, but it also reminded him of everything he had lost. When Kevork still came to the baths with his mother, he would meet up with Taline and his other friends. Sometimes, Taline would bring an air-filled sheep’s bladder with her, and they would float on it together to the middle of the pool. But when he looked through the steamy dampness now, he didn’t recognize a single playmate. It also felt very odd coming to this place without either his mother or his father. As the water swirled around him, Kevork felt like he was washing away his past.
    Mariam’s reaction was quite different from Kevork’s. She was used to going to the baths in Marash with family members and she missed them dearly, but this unfamiliar bath did not evoke memories.
    It confused her to watch the reaction on the women’s faces when she walked in naked to the pool area. She knew the Turkish custom of women sizing up other women in the baths for the men in their families, but she didn’t consider herself a woman yet. It also surprised her that they were sizing her up so intently, when she was just an Armenian.
    Turkish men never got a chance to see what prospective brides looked like under the veil, and many stories circulated about rich men being tricked into marrying the ugly sister. The fact that women bathed together naked gave them a certain power over their men. First wives would try to ensure that their husband did not take on a second wife who was threateningly beautiful, and mothers tried to ensure the opposite.
    Mariam blushed with embarrassment at the envious whispers and glances she was receiving. Mariam turned and looked at Anna. She was shocked to see bitterness on the woman’s face, a mixture of anxiety and disapproval. That upset Mariam. After all, what had she done?

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