The Harem Midwife (14 page)

All Cesca yearned for were her hundred ducats. She had earned them by putting up with Leon all those years. Foscari could fling himself off the
Aphrodite
for all she cared. She had no need of a partner. “I already have a plan, which will require all of my cunning.”

Foscari rose and stood behind her chair. “Don’t refuse me.”

She stiffened, afraid he would sweep a dish or serving platter out of reach, but instead he massaged her shoulders, working his fingers under the neckline of her dress.

“We are alike, you and I.” He took the pins from her hair and let it fall down her back, combing through it with his fingers. “You can relax and be yourself with me, my dear.”

Cesca almost laughed. Be herself? Left to her own devices, she would devour every morsel of food in this cabin, then steal every ducat in that little trunk she spied stowed under his berth.

“Just listen to what I have in mind. The Levys are Jews, living in a neighbourhood inhabited by other Jews. I would be conspicuous if I were to go there and make off with the child. You, on the other hand, if I am not mistaken, will be playing the role of Isaac’s beloved sister-in-law, Grazia, which I am sure you will do admirably. Once in their house, you will confirm the child’s identity and find the proof we need to establish that he is indeed the son of my dearly departed and very wealthy friend Conte Paolo di Padovani. Then, you will bring the child to me.”

She needed nothing from Foscari except a bit of food to sustain her until they reached the port of Constantinople. “No,” she said. Cesca licked the grease off her fingers and, reaching down, wiped her hands on her petticoats. “Unlike you, I do not have any highborn friends to fish me out of trouble should I get caught. I shall stick to my own plan.”

Cesca had eaten so much she felt like a snake that had swallowed an entire donkey. She leaned back in her chair, wishing she was alone so she could loosen her stays. Slowly the terrible lassitude that hunger produces was leaving her. She was growing stronger. Her will had returned. Her hands, which had been so dry that when she pinched the tops, the skin stayed in peaks, were now becoming pliant and soft.

“A good strategist alters her tactics to accommodate new situations, just as a good sailor reefs in his sails in response to strong winds. You shall be handsomely rewarded for your assistance. My dear friend the Conte was rich as Croesus. He owned a palazzo on the Grand Canal,
warehouses bursting with goods from the Levant. He possessed a villa on the Brenta River that brought an income of several thousand ducats a year. He also owned two merchant ships that sailed the Eastern Mediterranean transporting spices and silk from the Levant.”

Foscari picked a blond hair off the shoulder of her velvet dress. “Imagine—life in Venice! As legal guardian of the boy, I shall reside in the family palazzo on the Grand Canal. Attend splendid parties. Entertain nobles and merchant princes. For you, silken gowns and ropes of pearls.”

Cesca said, “To live in luxury, then to have it snatched away when the boy comes of age and can legally manage his own affairs? Is that not worse than not having riches at all?”

“Good heavens, Francesca. Children are such delicate creatures. Anything can happen to them.”

It was the first time he had called her by her full name, and in his mouth it sounded like a caress.

“I cannot help you,” she said. “I hope you understand.”

“I am afraid that it is
you
who fails to understand,” said Foscari. “You see, I know how Leon died. You, my dear, killed him.”

WHEN HANNAH ARRIVED
home in the Imperial carriage, Isaac was standing at the gate, wearing the same look of greeting he wore when she returned from the
mikvah
once a month, cleansed and ready for him.

He helped her down the steps of the carriage, unfastened her veil, and kissed her. The red carnations growing in a clay jardinière at the entrance to their home gave off a spicy fragrance. “You are tired, my
ketzele
. Come inside. Tell me what was so important at the palace.”

Once inside, Hannah kicked off her shoes and thrust her feet into felt slippers. Isaac led her upstairs. It was late, and
Matteo was sound asleep. She threw a cloth over the parrot cage to keep the night draft away, then shrugged off her tunic and trousers and let her nightgown drift over her head. The silk was cool and smooth on her body. Isaac had ordered the nightdress from Venice. It was an absurd garment, impractical and feminine, a frothy confection trimmed with seed pearls. Hannah wore it on those twelve nights of the month—after the completion of her courses, after she had been to the
mikvah
—when the law permitted them to couple. Other nights, when it was forbidden, she donned a plain muslin gown worn thin from many washings.

Isaac took her hairbrush off the
cassone
and began to brush Hannah’s hair with long, even strokes. Her muscles loosened and her eyes closed. How like Isaac to know what would relax her. They had been married fourteen years now, and still he petted and fussed over her like a bridegroom. Isaac, like the Sultan, would be incapable of performing with another woman. Hannah was certain of it. Why would he desire another woman when their lovemaking was such an exquisite exchange of pleasure?

“Matteo went to sleep without difficulty?” Hannah asked. She spoke casually, hoping to forestall his questions about her visit to the palace, which she knew would come soon.

“He refused to go to bed, so I lulled him to sleep by telling him for the thousandth time the story of my enslavement on Malta—the suffering and deprivation, how I had to eat unkosher food. He loved that part and wrinkled up his nose in the most adorable way. Then I told him how I sat in the square and wrote letters for illiterate
farmers and how I rescued the cabin boy from the rigging of a ship.”

This was Isaac’s way of reassuring her that he was capable of looking after Matteo when she was out working as a midwife. “And then how I rescued you?” Hannah added.

“That is the part he enjoys best.” Isaac put down the hairbrush, took some almond oil from Hannah’s linen bag, and rubbed his ankles with it. It had been more than two years since his enslavement and Isaac still found his skin tender where the shackles had carved angry red bracelets into his flesh. He could not wrap the straps of sandals around the tender skin because the lightest pressure was painful. When he walked on the rough cobblestones of the street in the felt slippers she had made for him, Hannah noticed a slight … not a limp, but a tentativeness, as though he were walking on hot coals. But he never complained.

“Maybe Matteo is too young for such violent tales, Isaac. He has an overheated imagination, which you do nothing to discourage.” She often wondered whether it was Isaac’s stories that excited the child’s nightmares. Would it not be better to tell the folktales of Nasreddin, the gentle old teacher who dispensed commonsense advice from the back of his little donkey? Or let the child tire himself out pretending to be a tightrope walker on the low rope Isaac had strung for him in the garden between two mulberry trees?

“The stories had the desired effect. He fell asleep with his blanket under his cheek.” There was no need to ask Isaac which blanket. It was the one from Venice with his birth father’s crest embroidered in gold thread. It was made
of wool finer than anything attainable in Constantinople. She should have destroyed the blanket, which had grown worn and frayed, but Matteo loved it. Besides, it was never out of his grasp long enough for Hannah to fling it into the fire. Though Matteo was too young to understand this, the blanket was the only thing he had in his possession from the family he was born into.

“He has a desire to know about the past—his own and mine,” Isaac said, picking up her hairbrush again. “And someday when he is older, we must tell him the truth about his family.”

It was a discussion they had had many times.

Hannah said, “As far as Matteo is concerned, you are his father and I am his mother.” Her worst fear was that someday, someone would arrive on their doorstep, a long-forgotten relative perhaps. This person would knock and announce,
I will take the boy now
.

Isaac took the teapot off the brazier in the corner. He poured two cups of steaming black liquid into glasses and handed her one. Tea was costly but they were not yet so short of money that they could not afford their nightly glass together.

“So tell me. What happened at the palace tonight?”

He wanted a full account of the events. Her stomach filled with dread. What would she say?

Hannah slipped off her nightdress and lay on the bed. “Not a confinement. Just some business with Mustafa,” she said. Before he could question her further, she tried to change the subject. “Have I ever mentioned I often have
dreams about babies? I find them in the wall niches of our house where the old owner used to store his turbans. I open a drawer and there is a baby staring up at me. Babies appear in the garden roosting in the mulberries, flattening their branches. I trip over babies on the floor when I get up in the night to check on Matteo. I find them swimming happily in the water in the stifling pots. Babies emerge from our silk cocoons like pupae. I swaddle and wrap and wash them all. I no sooner put one to breast than ten more appear.”

Isaac laughed. “How fruitful you are in your dreams.”

It was a jest, meant kindly, but in the most important aspect of her life, Hannah had not been fruitful. Her failure to conceive was a subject they trod around like a boulder in the middle of a road. After so many years of marriage, it seemed unlikely she would ever be pregnant.

“What do
you
dream of, Isaac?” Hannah asked.

“You,” he said, and kissed the small of her back.

Hannah burrowed her face into the goose-feather pillow.

Isaac retrieved the
bahnkes
from the cupboard near the window. He heated the cups with a candle, inserting the flame and waiting until the cup began to smoke and turn sooty from the flame. Cradling each glass with a towel, Isaac applied them, one by one, to her back, waiting for her response—a grunt of pain if too hot or a sigh of contentment if just right. He always did this when she returned from the palace. It was as though he wanted to dispel all of the accumulated tension from her body. When he finished, there were seven glass globes spreading warmth and drawing out the pain from her back. She must look like
one of those strange animals from New Spain that carried their young on their backs. The glasses tinkled against each other in rhythm to her breathing.

Their heat drew out her exhaustion. She wanted to savour the moment, to feel the tension seep out of her and luxuriate in her husband’s attention. But she knew that at any moment, she would have to fend off Isaac’s questions.

“Something must have happened tonight to make you so on edge.”

Because she could not hide anything from him, Hannah said nothing.

“I worry about you, Hannah. Your work at the harem is all well and good, but if something goes wrong …? A difficult travail, a baby born with a club foot or born blind. When tragedy strikes, people always blame the one closest to hand.”

Bending her leg and taking her foot in his hands, Isaac began to rub, using his thumbs to press into her arch and between her toes. “Why did Mustafa send for you?”

Isaac was not one to let a subject rest. She was going to have to tell him.

“I’ve done something you will not approve of,” Hannah said.

“I was afraid of that.” He let go of her foot.

“Mustafa asked me to verify the virginity of a young Circassian slave. She is to be a gift from the Valide to the Sultan to tempt her royal son away from Safiye. The palace needs heirs.” Hannah fell silent remembering the sight of Leah, her sheared head and narrow green eyes, and her
animal posture on the window ledge. Then, after Mustafa’s departure, her tears and the rush of words.

“And? Did the girl pass the test?” Isaac walked his fingers up and down the backs of her thighs.

If she could not trust Isaac, there was no one in the world she could trust. “I lied,” Hannah said. She lifted her head from the pillow, turned to meet her husband’s gaze.

His hands stopped abruptly. “You
lied
to the Valide?”

“She’s a Jewish girl, Isaac. One of us. The nomads slaughtered her mother and father before her eyes and then took her captive.” The
bahnkes
cups pulled at her flesh. “I … I told the Valide the girl was intact.”

“But she was not?”

“She was not,” Hannah said.

Isaac’s dark eyes looked at her, first puzzled, then angry. “How could you do this? Do you realize what the Valide will do when she discovers the truth? You’ve put the whole family in jeopardy.” As though to busy himself, Isaac rose from the bed and tended to a candle that had gone out near the brazier. He relit it from a fire ember, but a breeze from the window extinguished it again, leaving a gamey stink in the room.

“If I had not lied, Mustafa would have sold her to one of the brothel-keepers down by the port.”