The Midwife of Venice (30 page)

Tarzi said, “Hatice will have that son of yours healthy in no time.”

The room smelled of swaddling cloths. In the corner, huddled against a bolster, was a girl. She was small as a ten-year-old. She did not sit up when they entered the room or acknowledge Tarzi’s greeting. At first, Hannah thought she was one of Tarzi’s daughters, but when Hannah’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, she made out the squirming outline of a baby struggling for nourishment at the girl’s breast. After a moment of trying without success, the baby spit out the nipple, gave a frustrated cry, but then latched on again. Hatice was fair, like most Circassians, and so pale that she looked as though leeches had been left on her too long.

“Hatice, this is Hannah. She has a difficulty we must help her with. Her baby”—she gestured to the still form on Hannah’s back—“is in need of milk.”

Hatice did not raise her head. She held Tarzi’s baby with one hand, the legs and bottom without support, indifferent to whether the infant suckled or not. Hannah sniffed the air, recognizing the odour of vomit in the cabin. Hatice’s other hand patted the head of a little girl about two years old who lay drowsing beside her. It seemed the pitching of the ship had affected them all.

Several other girls of various ages sprawled on the luxurious cushions, wedged together so snugly it was not easy to see where the body of one child ended and another’s began.

“Hatice,” Tarzi said in a loud voice. When the girl did not look up, Tarzi said, “She is a lazy girl. I will rouse her.”

“The poor girl is sick herself. The motion of the boat is making her ill.” Hannah went to where Hatice lay and put a hand on her brow. “She is clammy.” Taking Gülbahar
from Hatice’s unresisting arms, she held her out to show Tarzi. “Look, your own child is growing weak.”

“Hatice was healthy this morning when we boarded. She was frolicking with Gülbahar, playing her flute, singing to my other girls.”

“What she needs is a reviving infusion.”

Tarzi picked up a piece of sticky
lokum
from a tray on the floor. She offered a candy to Hatice, and when Hatice did not respond, Tarzi asked Hannah, “What should we do?”

“We must nurse her back to health.” Hannah opened the porthole. A cool breeze flowed in.

“Poor girl. Here we are, sunset on the first day of the journey, and already there is sickness.” Since there were no men around, Tarzi’s veil was draped around her shoulders like a cowl.

Tarzi and Hannah moved Tarzi’s children to their own bunks and settled Hatice on a separate berth. Hannah helped Hatice pull off her
feradge
of embroidered silk. “Tarzi, I have fenugreek and blessed thistle. Take them from my bag and make a tea with hot water. It will give her strength.”

Tarzi returned a few minutes later with a cup of strong-smelling tea. She held it to Hatice’s lips. “Drink, my dear. This will help you regain your health.”

When Hatice had drunk her fill, she fell asleep and remained that way for nearly an hour, while Matteo fussed and Tarzi’s girls lay still. When she awoke, she was much restored and the vacant look in her eye was replaced with grateful relief when she saw Hannah. She was ready to feed
Matteo. Hannah passed the baby to her. Hatice fumbled with her breast, and after a false try, Matteo gave a few weak sucks but then appeared to fall asleep.

“Come on, do not give up.” Hannah tickled the soles of his feet.

Matteo recommenced, this time getting more of the nipple and areola into his mouth. Hannah bent as close as she dared without disturbing them. A bubble of saliva formed on his lips and his cheeks continued to work in and out, his mouth maintaining a hold on Hatice’s nipple. After a few more pulls, Matteo went limp and fell asleep. Hannah was delighted to see a trickle of milk pooling in the corner of his mouth.

B
Y THE TIME
Isaac’s leaky skiff reached the
Provveditore
, dawn was breaking, sending fingers of red light skittering through the morning fog. The stevedores from a large-bottomed barge laboured to offload their cargo of wheat and timber. Thank God for the delay, thought Isaac. Perhaps my luck is changing. The captain strode along the portside of the ship, watching as the men sweated in the cold air.

Sweat stung Isaac’s eyes and he could hardly grasp the oars for the pain of his newly formed blisters. Water leaked into the stern of the skiff, leaving the only dry spot under the bow. Although mist shrouded the harbour
in grey light, it was not so dense that he could not be spotted. He headed toward the seaward side of the vessel, as far from the stevedores as possible. If he was quick about it, he might reach the ship before he was observed from the decks above. It was his only chance, since the captain and crew were preoccupied with the loading of the cargo. The stevedores were shouting and cursing as they heaved sacks of wheat and timbers. As often as Isaac had heard the local dialect in the last several months, it still sounded as sibilant as though all the vowels had been worn away.

He pulled so hard on one oar that it splintered into pieces just as he came alongside. With both hands outstretched, he grasped the ship’s cladding to prevent the skiff from banging into the side of the
Provveditore
.

The huge vessel dwarfed Isaac’s tiny craft. To Isaac she seemed as tall as the Basilica San Marco. From the decks above he must appear as a bit of flotsam. Keeping to the seaward side of the ship, Isaac craned his neck to watch the fore and aft decks crawling with dozens of men, all as busy as ants. A sailor leaning over the side tossed a single crumb to a black-headed gull. The bird grabbed it in mid-air, and then, when no more was forthcoming, flew off to try his luck at a ship anchored farther out in the harbour. Hanging just above his head, and banging against the oak sides of the ship in rhythm to the waves, Isaac spotted a ladder fashioned of barrel staves and rope. If he stood upright, he could just grasp the bottom rung and haul himself up.

But first he must assemble the debris in the bottom of the boat, ensuring enough air would reach all layers of the wood and seaweed. With shaking fingers, he rubbed two sticks together over a few wisps of dead grass. When he was rewarded by the sight of a spark and a column of thin smoke from the grass, he added the desiccated pine cones and fibrous seaweed he had collected from the beach. He waited until it started to smoulder and then blew on it until a thick coil of smoke rose from the damp wood of the hull. When the detritus burst into flame, Isaac gave the skiff a shove with his foot and scrambled up the ladder.

Hand over hand he climbed, his toes smashing against the side of the boat with every rung of the ladder. When he reached the top, crouching so that he was not visible to anyone on deck, Isaac peered down to the waterline. Orange flames rose from the skiff, turning it into a floating torch. From the rigging, he heard a man scream, “Fire! All hands on deck.”

Men were everywhere. All was confusion. The sailors, who until a moment ago had been occupied flinging sail bags and cargo into the hold, setting the rigging, spicing rope, and mending torn sails with evil-looking curved needles, now raced to the side and peered down at the burning skiff banging against the hull of the
Provveditore
. Two men had the presence of mind to fill buckets and heave the water at the boat.

Soon they formed a brigade and were hurling water over the side at the burning skiff. No one took any notice of him as Isaac hauled himself over the guard rail, scurried
across the deck, and lowered himself into the dark cargo hold. Dropping to all fours, he landed on something soft and yielding: the dead body of a rodent. He crawled between the stacked timber and sacks of dried beans, until the familiar smell of the sheep piss used to fortify the fabric directed him to the sail bags. He felt his way over to the largest of the bags, which probably held the replacement for the mainsail, and tugged the mouth of the bag open. He rearranged the sail as best he could by hollowing out a space for himself and then climbed in, gathering the mouth of the bag around his chest. He draped the opening loosely around his head like a cowl. The reeking canvas put him in mind of Joseph.

From the deck above, sailors grunted as they filled more water buckets to dump onto the burning skiff. Some were shouting in Veneziano, some in Maltese.

He checked his pouch, lumpy with cocoons, dangling from around his neck. They were safe and dry. His thoughts turned to more pressing matters. What if he had done his job too well and the ship caught fire? But after several moments of noise and shouting, he heard a boat being loaded with men and the decks above grew strangely quiet. Isaac climbed out of the sail bag and cautiously stuck his head up through the hatch.

The deck was deserted. Hammocks, which should have been filled with resting men, swung empty between the cannons and swing guns on the bow. He crawled to the side and peeked over. The crew was jostling for space in a huge pirogue filled with water casks, which Isaac realized
they were taking back to shore to be refilled with fresh drinking water. His plan had worked better than anticipated. The men were going ashore to replenish their water supplies and perhaps to quaff a last quick drink in the tavern before casting off.

He returned to the hold, the dark, cramped space that would be his home for several weeks. The sailors would sleep on deck at night. He must remain in the bag at all times with the overhead hatch cover always closed, otherwise the crew would stumble and fall into the hold when they got up to piss. Not even when the cook came down to fetch provisions would Isaac see a sliver of light, because he would be at the bottom of the sail bag. For the entire journey his days and nights would be spent in darkness.

He propped the hatch cover open with a scrap of wood and took a quick look around his new home. Between bolts of silk, well wrapped in coarse muslin, were wedged containers of cinnamon, pepper, ginger, and nutmeg—all worth more than a seaman’s life. From Araby were fragrant ambergris, musk, and attar of roses. Hidden deeper within the hold must be gold, Indian diamonds, Ceylonese pearls, and opiates. Isaac poked his nose into a sack of salt, the insignia of Ibiza stencilled on its side, and took a pinch between his thumb and forefinger. How good it tasted on his tongue, as sharp and briny as a kiss. A sigh of contentment escaped his lips. Perhaps he would survive. Maybe he would live to see Hannah again. He helped himself to another pinch.

As he was about to bring it to his mouth, he heard a scream. At first he thought it was a cormorant caught in the rigging, but then it came again, shriller this time. He edged over to the hatch and craned his neck. All he could see was the top of the mizzenmast.

He climbed a couple of rungs of the ladder of the hold and looked up. The scream came from overhead, below the crow’s nest, the round lookout from which, if the voyage succeeded, in three months a sailor would shout out, “Land ahoy!”

A cabin boy, his blond hair whipping in the wind, hugged the outermost end of the yardarm, the mast that ran perpendicular to the mainmast. Isaac saw the boy’s terrified expression as he clung, arms hugging the mast, his legs working violently as they kicked into empty space. As he fought to maintain his purchase on the yardarm, a rope wrapped itself around his ankle. The more the boy struggled, the tauter grew the rope.

After struggling for several moments, the boy lost his grip, and he slipped from the yardarm and fell. Isaac gasped, anticipating the sound of a thud on the foredeck. As the boy fell, instead of smashing ten paces to the deck below, the rope on his ankle broke his fall and held him fast. Swinging back and forth, the boy let out a long, keening scream of pain.

Isaac watched with horror as the boy, no more than eleven or twelve years old, swung upside down. With every roll of the ship his head thudded against the mast.

His heart pounding, Isaac glanced around the deck, ready to drop out of sight when one of sentries heard the
boy and rushed to his aid. He crouched behind the bilge pump, but not a soul came into sight. The sailor on watch had either passed out from wine or gone ashore with the rest of the crew.

The boy’s moans grew fainter, hardly as loud as the whimper of a newborn. One could easily mistake them for a seagull or the whine of the windlass raising the anchor. Isaac knew he should return to his snug sail bag and pull a fold of canvas over his ears to muffle the child’s death throes. He had a decent chance of remaining hidden until the ship reached Venice. Should he sacrifice his only chance of freedom for this child who was neither friend nor relative?

The Torah teaches that when you kill a man you murder not only him but all of his heirs and descendants for generations to come. Was the opposite true? By saving the boy would Isaac save all of the boy’s progeny? Whatever the answer to this question, Isaac could not return to his sail bag. He walked to the base of the mast. The rigging resembled nothing so much as an elaborate cobweb, ensnaring the boy as a spider holds a fly.

Isaac began to climb using hands and feet and even his teeth to maintain purchase on the rigging. Hand over hand, he scrambled, the rope cutting into his blistered palms and feet. The wind picked up, and in response, the ship rocked to and fro. He continued his ascent, fixing his eyes on the swaying figure of the boy overhead.