Free Cathedrals of the Flesh by Alexia Brue

friendship was dwarfed by a desire to be alone
     with Kemal talking about sailing in between Aegean Islands. Baksim pulled up a chair and regarded us suspiciously. After a
     moment of uncomfortable silence, I cut a dolma in half and made a weak attempt at a joke.
    'Did you know that Turkey has the richest kitchen in the world?' I asked, parroting a statement that Baksim had drilled into
     me over the four preceding weeks. Turks never tire of reminding foreigners that Turkish cooking is the apotheosis of countless
     traditions.
    Baksim was not amused. 'What are you two up to?' he asked.
    I had guilt written across my face, and so did Kemal, I suppose, though he always looked guilty. We weren't doing anything
     wrong - well, not really - yet there was something unmistakably complicit between us. Charles was far away in New York and
     would never know about this; and Kemal's on-again-off-again girlfriend, Sebnem, was studying in New York. Who knows, maybe
     they were having an affair. Neither Kemal nor I was being true to our New York flames, yet we were somehow being true to ourselves.
     I was exploring something I'd forgotten about — chemistry, longing, electricity. It had been too powerful to say no to, yet
     it wasn't enough to stay for.
    Sitting across from Kemal, defending myself against Baksim's insinuations of infidelity, I felt as if I were witnessing my
     parallel Turkish life, an alternate reality in which I could be the wife of a profligate but very charming Turk. And in this
     one moment I had to choose - was it going to be life in Turkey or a return to the familiar stability of New York? How, I wondered,
     could I even compare Kemal to Charles? Charles was three times the person that Kemal was, yet it was Kemal who starred in
     my fantasies, whose face I saw at odd moments during the day. It was clear that I could stay in Turkey. But to do what? Well,
     actually there were a lot of things I could imagine doing in Istanbul. But I wasn't ready to unpack, not here, not in New
     York. No, I wanted to keep the furniture covered for a little while longer.
    Kemal's bath, the proximity to antiquity, fueled my desire to wander back in time to the origin of bathing culture, the ancient
     world. The Greeks initiated and the Romans later perfected a cult of the bath that has never since been equaled. I at least
     wanted to wander through the ruins.
    Remains of Roman baths dotted the Roman Empire from England to Jerusalem. The trick would be finding a dig and archaeological
     team willing to accept an interloper into their fold and where work was currently under way. From my days as a classics student,
     I still had a few connections, and a volley of e-mails directed me to dig near Korinth, once an important city in ancient
     Greece and later in Roman-occupied Greece. As luck would have it, a study tour was about to arrive for three weeks on-site,
     and if I didn't object to following to their rigorous twelve-hour-a-day study schedule with lots of housekeeping duties, I
     was more than welcome to join in the fun.
    The bath in question was in Isthmia, one of the four Olympic sites that dotted the Peloponnese. It was a large Roman bath,
     called a thermae, built over an original, mysterious Greek bath, so I would get a taste of what Edgar Allan Poe termed 'the glory that was Greece,/
     And the grandeur that was Rome.'

ancient korinth :
    the emperor's new baths
    Bring quickly from the cupboard oil to anoint him and towel to rub him, and other things necessary; and then bring my guest
     to the nearest baths, for I know he is weary of so long and difficult travel.
    - Apuleius, The Golden Ass
    In Greece the rocks are eloquent: men may go dead but the rocks never.
    — Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi
    I flew into Athens on a dry, dusty day in May. This was my first trip to Greece, my belated 'semester abroad.' The plane's
     descent across the ancient port of Piraeus and through the shadow of Mt Olympus felt like a magic