An assassin’s thigh in the Lebanese hammam

Tripoli, Lebanon

Let me be clear. I do not strip naked for anyone, generally only a select few. So, to be told to disrobe in full view of others, my modesty protected by a lookalike beach towel held by an Arab, was not something I had expected. It was Tripoli, northern Lebanon, and I had decided to visit its one functioning hammam. Before I entered, I thought hammams were designed for washing. By the time I left I realised they were a life experience.

The Hammam Al Abd is tucked away at the far end of a tiny alley, an offshoot from the thriving gold market that has kept Tripoli financially solvent for centuries. Akram, my companion for the day, had looked doubtful as we entered. He checked me in at the hammam’s counter-top reception.

“Hammams are not so popular now,” Akram said, as I was shown to an ornately cushioned seat on a far platform, in a room about the size of a squash court. “The younger generation prefers spas.”

I looked around me. The hammam was at least 300 years old, looked it, and had its skills honed to perfection. First, came my disrobing. There is no chance of staying modest in a hammam, especially one that is largely male. Ladies were only allowed entry on prearranged occasions.

The Arab who checked me in was also the one who held the fouta (towel), while I pranced from foot to foot behind it trying not to expose my manhood. First the belt and button, next the fly, finally the wriggle from my trousers. The fouta-holder was well practised, averting his bemused gaze at exactly the right moment. In a jiffy, he had wrapped the beige linen fouta around me, and I was ushered further into the hammam.

To take a hammam is a series of steps. Step One, public disrobing, was now complete. I had no clue about Step Two except I was led to a room slightly smaller than the first. I clutched my fouta in desperate modesty, fearful it would slip off, while on my feet were undersized plastic sandals. I prayed silently that the previous wearer had been verruca-free.

“Sit!” instructed a voice, waiting for me in this inner sanctum. “I am Majid.”

Majid was a spirited fellow in his fifties, paunched, balding, and was pointing at a nearby stone bench. Beside the bench was a stone basin filled with warm water and on the surface of the water floated two aluminium bowls. From Majid’s waving gesture I understood immediately what he wished. This was Step Two and I was to soak myself with water.

Soaking in a hammam means soaking. I took one bowl that was overflowing with warm water and hesitantly poured it over my head. Frustrated by my caution, Majid sighed and took over instantly. A water cannon would not have done better. Within moments I was waterlogged from top to toe.

“Lie there!” Majid then ordered, pointing to a decorated octagonal platform in the centre of the chamber. I was about to enter Step Three.

At home, I am the washer-upper, so if anyone knows about pan-scourers, it is me. I have never thought what it was like to be the pan. Step Three showed me, as Majid set to work on my partly clad body with a rough, goat-hair mitt, the kese. This was the gommage. Five minutes of abrasion later, I looked in need of a skin graft and was searching for the Exit. No chance. There is no escape from a 300-year-old hammam.

Anyway, Step Four was around the corner and was welcomed in by Rahim, an Arab in his mid-thirties. He was short-haired and stubbly, clad in a reveal-all fouta, but was otherwise bare-chested, bare-footed and significantly larger than me. There was no disobeying Rahim.

“Come!” he ordered. Like a puppy, I followed.

I was led into a stone-walled room the size of a broom cupboard, but with a domed ceiling punched with small holes through which Lebanese sunlight was streaming. Rahim had placed a couch in the middle of the minuscule room, covered the couch with navy-blue rubber sheeting and had washed down the sheeting with a film of slithery soap.

“Off!” Rahim instructed, pointing to my fouta, the only item that preserved my modesty. Moments later I was fully naked, standing before an Arab I had only just met. Rahim looked me up and down with disapproval. At least he did not laugh.

I am uncertain about massages by strangers in Lebanese hammams. Rahim’s hands were up and down my legs, arms, back and belly, slithering and kneading through frothed, soapy water. I tried to relax but failed completely. Yet ten minutes later it was over, my fouta back in its place, and my modesty recovered. Rahim helped me from the slithery couch and indicated the door. “Steam!” he stage whispered. Step Five sounded serious.

At the Hammam Al Abd, steam means steam. I opened a small door in a far shadowy corner, and a hot mist hit me. I could see nothing and was in a pea-souper. Closing the door behind me so the steam would not escape, I peered into the unpeerable. I imagined a thousand Rahims lurching at me through the mist. Nothing. No sound beyond the gentle hiss of piped steam - no shadows, no silhouettes. I reached behind, fumbling for the stone wall, and then slowly groped my way around the inside of the room, allowing my arms to drop lower, until I touched the smooth outline of a horizontal stone platform. I guessed it was designed for sitting.

I let my hands slide side-to-side on the stony platform to check where I would sit. Then, unexpectedly, I felt an edge where horizontal became upwards vertical. Stone? I checked again, although this time I fumbled. Hell, this was no stone. It was, it was…something grunted. I was groping human flesh.

I screamed at that moment as if I had received an electric shock. In the see-nothing steam room, I had squeezed a human thigh. There was more than just me in the mist.

“I’m sorry,” I stuttered in the clearest English I could muster, praying I had not fondled a Lebanese assassin. In an instant, I was out the steam-room door and headed for hammam Reception.

I arrived there out of breath and certain I had survived a life-threatening moment. That is the problem with Lebanon. The land is so crazy, but wonderful too, that you can believe anything of it.  In its northern city of Tripoli, you simply do not fondle strangers’ thighs in public.

“Enjoy it?” asked Akram when I appeared in Reception. He was unaware of the drama that had just been played out and I was not about to confess.

“Sort of,” I answered, hoping my doubt sounded convincing.

As I rapidly donned my trousers, I pondered if a Lebanese hammam was something I would recommend. The Hammam Al Abd, after all, had been offering its full scrub for three easy centuries and knew everything about scrubbing. The modesty dance on arrival, the soaking, Majid’s goat-hair gommage, Rahim’s slithery massage, and the assassin’s thigh in a steam room.

Repeat it? I am unsure. An experience? Of that I am certain.