Under the Glass Stars

The central pool of the hammam was a shallow lake of white marble, warm to the touch even in the chill of the late hour, reflecting the star-punctured dome above like a second, inverted sky. Steam clung to the air, thick enough to taste, smelling of rosewater and old stone. It was a room built for silence, for the slow exhalation of the body, but tonight it held only the scratch of charcoal on paper and the soft scuff of boots.

I stood by the marble *göbek taşı*, the heated plinth in the center, my hands tucked into the sleeves of my wool coat. I had a list in my head: three measurements for the width, two for the height, one for the curvature of the ribs. It was how I kept the world from dissolving. My husband had left me this place, and this list was how I kept it intact.

Then he stepped out of the shadow of the mihrab. Felix. He was tall, his shoulders broad enough to fill the narrow doorway, wearing a grey suit that had seen better days. He did not look at me. He looked at his notebook. He adjusted his spectacles with a thumb that bore a permanent smudge of ink, a small, careless mark on a man who cared about everything else. He was the inspector sent to erase me.