I, The Divine

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The water stands ready. Bath foam, Caswell-Massey Bain Moussant, scent of gardenia. She prepares for the bath with her current book, Naipaul’s A House for Mr. Biswas, a bottle of Crystal Geyser, her Sony cordless phone, and a Granny Smith apple — she loves to eat apples in the bath. Beethoven’s string quartet in C sharp minor by the Tokyo String Quartet fills the room, not a great recording, but more than adequate.

White tiles rise only halfway up the walls of her small bathroom, followed by light blue enamel paint. Half of a wall is covered with postcards of paintings: the Comtesse D’Haussonville by Ingres from the Frick, the great Portrait of Cosimo I de Medici by Pontormo from the Getty Museum, The Order of Release by Millais from the Tate, and her favorite painting of all time, The Toilet of Venus by Velázquez from the National Gallery in London. Her faux marble sink, two faucets, one hot, one cold, like the English sinks. On the shelf below the mirror, Crest toothpaste, an Oral-B toothbrush, Listerine mouthwash, dental floss — have to keep up her almost perfect teeth. Mint soap from S. M. Novella di Firenze. Henna for her hair from Lebanon, two hairbrushes and a hair dryer.

She steps into the tub. It is smaller than the one in Beirut. Still, she remembers being lost in that tub, totally immersed, she remembers trying to get clean. She scrubbed herself with the loofah, over and over, as if there was some dark stain and she Lady Macbeth. Out, damn spot. She was dirty, all of her. She wanted to rub herself raw, remove any traces of herself. She wanted out of her skin. She wanted to be a different person, a better person, her tears adding salt to the bath. She scrubbed her arms, her legs.