Paper and Steam

Last Sunday was our first wedding anniversary. My parents sent us a copy of the Oregonian, the best “paper” gift we could have asked for, especially since it came packaged next to a big tin of coffee. “Coffee” here is a rarity, and is generally synonymous with “Nescafe” or any other vile instant granule posing as true brew. The most frightening part is that I’ve started to look forward to that taste in the mornings – anything to kick out the bad dreams, I suppose. As soon as our gift arrived, we boiled some bottled water, made a pot of real coffee in a French press, and read the paper cover to cover. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so excited to see the news source so often referred to as “The Daily Fishwrapper,” or “The Bore-egonian.” I think Paul even read the ads.

For ourselves, though, we had a different treat in mind. We pedaled our bikes to the river on the basis of a vague memory that there were fancy hotels along its brick-walled banks. We thought maybe a short vacation – one night in luxury – might be just the thing. As it turned out, not only was there a fancy hotel, it was THE fancy hotel, the cheesily-yet-aptly-named “Shangri-La,” a five-star affair full of crystal prisms and enormous halls, lush elegant carpets and quiet attendants in rustling, high-cut silk. As we rode to the front doors, we were dressed to the ones, as it were, in torn black jeans and sweatshirts and chili oil stains. My hair was in some disastrous pony-tailed mess, and we were immediately barked at by an immaculate parking attendant in white gloves who couldn’t allow filthy bicycles to clutter the sidewalk. We wandered inside to make a reservation, and he literally hid our bikes behind a bush, out of sight of respectable patrons in nice cars and cabs.

When we returned days later, we were transformed by the will to play. A few trips to a local tailor and cloth merchant had laden our bags with custom-made finery: a short, traditional qi pao dress in brown silk with rose piping for me; a 1920s-style Hong Kong gangster suit jacket and a breathtaking dark wool overcoat for Paul. Although the cost of our stay translated to what in the States would be a room in a Motel 6, by Chinese standards we became refined rock stars of the highest magnitude. We entered the doors this time with the bows and scrapes of bellhops slicing open a path, my heels clicking on marble then silent on the thick interior rugs.

Our room was elegant, beautiful, with a grim view of the haze and endless construction that is Chengdu’s urban skeleton. We had a glass-walled shower and a deep, deep tub. There were mirrors everywhere, and hidden indirect lighting that cast a warm glow on the endless copper fittings and edges and silver spoons. A scent of something floral hung lazily on the air, inviting us to relax. The bed was enormous and covered in too many pillows. There were cups of jasmine tea.

We lolled about in the downstairs lounge, reading, sipping, nibbling. Sounds dissipated upward into the cavernous reaches above full windows and crystal chandeliers shaped like diamond knives and raindrops. Trees cut spare figures outside, shielding the eyes from traffic and leading instead to the slow grey waters of the river. Women brought things on linen covered trays and we folded ourselves into enormous couches and read and read and read. Later there were elaborate meals, cocktails, lounge singers from Cuba, young men doing wild acrobatics with copper teapots. We were happy, sparkling, conversant, beautiful. People stared at the tall, sexy couple. We had hours and hours, seemingly days of pure escape, romantic glasses of champagne, deep, happy sleep. This was our paper anniversary. Yet what sticks in our minds the most, the key to it all, was not the lavish attention of the service, not the simple perfection of the food, nor the precision of the cocktails, or even the way our clothes described our bodies in flattering detail. It wasn’t even the glamorous room, although that was wonderful and classy and an ideal stage for our own, private memories. But playing wealthy is not our favorite game. What we both long to return to is the steam.

On the fourth floor of the Shangri-La hotel is a spa, which includes a weight and cardio room, a vast, warm, mirrorlike swimming pool that looks out glass walls onto city lights, a private space for yoga, pilates, or meditation, and then the locker rooms, separated for men and women, and apparently ignored by the majority of guests. It was in this complex that we spent the most time, and that we returned to in the morning; we would live there if we could.

When you enter this part of the hotel, you step into a dimly lit corridor staffed by a smiling woman who hands you a key bracelet color-coded according to gender, and who has you sign your name and room number on an elaborate document resembling a diploma, complete with padded leather presentation folder. You are then gently guided along a hallway with embedded showcases glowing gently with a variety of healthy products for sale, offers of massage or paraffin wax, bathing suits for those who forgot their own. A turn leads you past the perfect, lonely pool, guarded by a silent attendant with no one to save. Another turn, past a sloping stand of bamboo, leads to the workout room, a dreamlike affair of state-of-the-art machines arranged thoughtfully according to muscle group and designed to provide a complete exercise circuit with a minimum of negotiation on the part of the guest. The machines are spaced for privacy and are oiled and maintained to the point of effortless movement beyond their weight – as if they were brand new, just imported from a planet that knows no friction. Quiet, chic music plays softly, barely audible enough to fill the silence and cover sighs of exertion that a guest may emit, masking biology with an artful electronic pulse that suggests India and Japan and runway fashion shows. The cardio machines each come with a television screen and a hundred channels in a variety of languages, a set of headphones with neat, hygienic ear coverings in a sealed plastic baggie, and a user interface that can speak in English, Chinese, Japanese, French. There are tidy pyramids of fluffy blue towels everywhere, and stacks of water bottles arranged like miniature hydration armies, ready to attack thirst at a moment’s notice.

We exercised. This experience alone was worth every yuan we had spent, our bodies starved for use and tests of endurance. We lifted and climbed and pedaled and stretched, breathed and breathed and breathed. An uncharacteristically beefy Chinese man in a white shirt hovered around us, replacing our towels when we sweat on them, bringing us fresh bottles of water and price sheets, should we want to become permanent members of the gym after our stay (for roughly $6000 a year; no, thank you). He was clearly bored beyond reason, and practically followed me into the women’s locker room when we had finished our workout, chasing me down to take my towel. “There are big towels inside,” he said. “Do not worry about your small towel.”

I passed through one heavy door into what amounted to a privacy-guarding airlock, filled with an unwieldy large bamboo in a pot and the faint smell of root mold. Then, the next door led me into the bath house.

The very phrase “bath house” makes me swoon. Some of my favorite memories have involved houses of bathing, of heat and water and sweat and skin and scrubs and sluices. In Morocco, it was the weekly trip to the hammam, all darkened tile and shadowy female shapes splashing about in the warmth of the public baths, the rich earthy smell of the bildi olive oil soap, the fierce hiding we received from the matrons who ran the women’s days, held tight on their slippery laps, their pendulous breasts swinging, the enormous arms pumping and scraping, removing layer upon layer of our dead skin until we emerged, pink and exhausted and gleaming, striding through the filth and catcalls of the streets with our heads wrapped in towels. In San Francisco, my dear friend Audrey took me to the Japanese baths, a pristine and meditative affair full of quiet and great pitchers of water with slices of cucumber floating inside. There we squatted on stools and were refreshed by huge downpours from overhead faucets; we lounged in warm and cool pools and steamed like pale white buns in the basket of the hot room. The Turkish baths on 10th Street in New York, blessed in their occasional co-ed tolerance, were memorable for their whippings of oak leaves and traditional ice pool for polar bear spirits, the odd conversations one could have with strangers, separated at most by a meager white towel. Even the film “Spirited Away” managed to show the mystery and specific pleasure that is a ritualized or thoughtful wash.

This bath was no exception. I was alone inside, but for the flicker of an attendant who fussed about outside my view, straightening fluffy stacks of already perfectly straight towels the color of lapis, plucking invisible lint from dark surfaces. I found myself in a maze of wooden lockers, surrounded by the same quiet, mesmeric music as in the yoga room, my steps lightened by a permeating scent of something exotic. Here and there live orchids lay strewn about on bare horizontal surfaces. I have acquired a new love of orchids, as my Chinese name means, roughly, “Orchid Elegance,” a conceit bestowed upon me by my Mandarin teacher. More bottles of water were arranged in delicate triangles, lit from behind by hidden lamps. Everything had the faint eroticism of Georgia O’Keefe’s less obvious work, a subtle, smiling appreciation for things vulvar and secret. I located the locker with the number stamped on my pink key bracelet, and opened it to find hangers, a mirror, and perfect little plastic slippers in three different sizes: teensy (think “golden lilies”), Chinese, and Western. The Western pair were generously large, and fit just fine.

A discreet sign indicated in several languages that clothing was not required, nor was it, in fact, appreciated. It requested that I make my leisurely way to the showers before enjoying the rest of the watery delights, which I did. There was a long bank of them, each open to the air above but private behind smoked glass. Glass bottles of lavender-scented toiletries were available everywhere within hand’s reach, and I stepped into a shower to be greeted with a marble floor, a cedar bench, and two showerheads: one handheld with a variety of useful settings, and one of the overwhelming Brazilian sort, the great blazing sun of showerheads, a disc the size of a hubcap that drenches from directly above with the gentle strength of a tropical downpour. Bliss.

Being fully lavenderized, I wrapped myself in a new blue towel and stepped into the sauna, which was circular and wooden, built traditionally with cedar planks and wooden pillows, a glowing brazier of volcanic rocks, and a rustic pail with a wooden ladle for pouring water onto the stones. Having exercised so recently, I quickly became dizzy and a little thirsty, so I left the dry heat and took up two of the expectant bottles of water waiting for me at the door. I then entered the steam room.

There is something about steam. It is both frightening and soothing, suffocating and cleansing. The steam room was also round, with a third of the wall dewy glass made translucent with condensation. The rest was a pale white stone, the color of bleached bones or driftwood. In the center sat a small pillar that came up to my waist. A dim light glowed from within, which illuminated just enough the swirls of mist and moisture that hung suspended in the air, as if in space. It was like stepping into a moment in the future, a lonely, encapsulated era wherein humans turned to artificial means with which to breathe, to become clean; the stone was carved into angular seats so no matter where you positioned your body, you were facing the glowing column, contemplating its unearthly aspect, a small idol erected for an alien spirit. A faint hiss emitted from the source of the light, the water escaping into the air, and the entire room seemed to shimmer with a faint mechanical vibration, as if we were in the belly of an enormous ship, or the building itself had a heart of engines and cogs. I drank water, and drank, and drank. Looking down at my arms, I could see the moisture beading up on my skin, coming from both inside and out. The heat was enormous, coming right to the edge of that oppressive fear, the inescapable feeling of breathlessness, but not going past, remaining instead euphoric and light. Time must have passed. As I sweat and drank and was saturated in the moisture from the air, I became thinner and thinner, like cloth, as if the liquid were able to pass freely back and forth through my skin, as if my entire body respirated water, as if I had become made of the same stuff as lichen or aquatic creatures, made of gills and fibers and minerals and water and water and water. I breathed deeply, allowing the steam into my lungs, which now seemed like biological artifacts, no longer useful in this futuristic world of steam. I sighed.

When I closed my eyes finally and saw stars dancing on the surface of my lids, I knew it was time to leave. I stepped quietly out, weightless, surrounded by tiny lights and orchids. More fresh towels, drying, dressing, lavender oils and lotions and ear buds and combs. I left noiselessly, passing whirlpools and heated stone lounges, only to find Paul sitting at the corridor exit, enjoying a glass cup of ginger tea poured from a glass pot, warmed by a candle. We didn’t speak, but only smiled. I tell myself that if only I could have this every day, this exercise, this watery resurrection, I could become beautiful and quiet, that everything would always be okay.

~ by knifemaker on December 4, 2007.