Then one day she appeared at the singer’s door as if nothing had changed, inviting her to spend the afternoon at a fancy hammam in Kokkinia. “It has Armenian attendants, marble basins and a depilatory room,” she said, trying to sound enthused. Kivelli had never acquired the habit of bathing in public, taking care of her personal hygiene with others in attendance. In Smyrna they’d had a large bathroom with a marble tub long and deep enough to drown in. There was no need to travel for the luxury of cleanliness, no need to show other girls what was hiding under her ruffles. She knew how they talked: any perceived defect spread so quickly through the town that the matchmaker was making excuses for it before the girl’s hair had a chance to dry. It wasn’t so different at Kyria Effie’s. Kivelli had never understood why women were so vicious to each other, but she did now. It was the comparisons they feared, the desire they could imagine when they saw their rival’s body.
