The Harem Midwife (23 page)

Hannah began to apologize, but Ezster shushed her. “The Evil Eye has been placated. Anyway, we are Jews. We
do not worry about such nonsense.” She often forgot that in Constantinople, fear of the Evil Eye was all-consuming.

There was a long silence, during which Hannah considered how to broach the subject that was on her mind. Good, the bath attendants had left the room. She turned to Ezster and Tova.

“There is something weighing on me that I must talk to the two of you about.” Ezster, for once, did not interrupt but sat quietly waiting for Hannah to continue. “Leah, the girl in the harem who sent you a note for me? She is in a great deal of danger.”

“Because?” asked Ezster.

“She is with child.”

“But surely that is good news,” said Tova.

“Not when the baby will be born only five months after she coupled with God’s Shadow on Earth, and not when I am the midwife who vouched for her virginity.”

Tova gasped. Ezster looked as if Hannah had just slapped her in the face. “But Hannah, why would you have done such a thing?” asked Ezster.

“Because I did not know she was pregnant when I examined her.”

“But you knew she was not intact,” persisted Tova.

Hannah looked at the floor. “I did. I took pity on her, knowing if she was found out, she’d be sent to the whore-master at the docks. Her entire family, her whole village was killed. She and her child are the last of a long line. And she is one of us. She is a Jew.”

“Do you understand what you have done?” Ezster
asked. “Do you know the danger she is in? That
you
are in with her?”

“I must get her out of the harem,” said Hannah.

Tova was the first to get to the point. “Why should my mother and I risk our lives for a girl we don’t know?” Tova looked down at her belly. “I would like to help, but look at me. I have a child on the way and five more little ones at home needing me, plus a husband.”

“I lied for the girl,” said Hannah. “It is my fault. I know that. I have asked too much of you. I am sorry.”

Tova and her mother exchanged looks.

“Oh, Hannah.” Ezster was quiet for a moment and then said, “We will help, if there is a way.”

Tova reached out a hand and took Hannah’s in her own.

Hannah was speechless for a moment. When she regained her composure, she said, “I thank you both from the bottom of my heart.” Then, she began to explain her plan.

Ezster’s head was shaking before Hannah had finished. Ezster, who was as much a force of nature as the strong winds that blew across the Bosporus during the winter months, said Hannah’s plan had no chance of succeeding.

“What can go wrong?”

Ezster ran her fingers through her wet hair. “Everything. But if you do it my way, we have a small chance.” Ezster talked and Hannah listened. She concluded, “I will talk to this girl and tell her what she must do.”

In less time than it takes to recite the
Shema
, the twice daily Jewish prayer, the three women had concocted a plan that was risky, but also, Hannah had to admit, brilliant.

IT IS A
fine thing to save a life, Hannah thought, as she walked through the First Courtyard. Jews believed that if you saved someone, you not only saved that person but all of his or her descendants as well. That included Leah’s baby, which must have quickened by now.

The midday sun was barely past the minaret of the Fatih Mosque.
Please God
, Hannah prayed
, by sunset when this day is over and our plan executed, may we all meet at the
hoca
’s stall at the market—Ezster, Tova, Leah, and me. Let there be no disasters, no mishaps, no tragedies. Let our plan unfurl as smoothly as a roll of satin ribbon
.

The sun made her feel dizzy, and with the dizziness came a loss of confidence. Why would such a ludicrous
plan work? The likelihood of things going wrong when everything had gone wrong for so long overwhelmed Hannah. For a peppercorn, she would have turned on her heel and left the palace as quickly as her feet would take her. But Leah was counting on her. The timing would be crucial. They were like acrobats performing on a high-wire. They must work together as a team and perform their parts to perfection.

Hannah thought of Matteo and his low-slung tightrope in their garden. Many times he had fallen, but with great determination he had at last managed to teeter along the entire length of the thick rope. He had persisted. So would she.

Hannah’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of buzzing. Flies were gorging on two severed heads on the Example Stones. A man’s head on the western pillar was stuffed with straw, the nose bulbous, the forehead low, a filthy turban askew over one eye. His mouth was open in a rictus of a scream. The head on the eastern wall was that of a young woman, her veil drooping from one ear, her matted hair falling around her face. Her eyes were open and staring straight into Hannah’s. She paused at the Fountain of the Executioner. She remembered a story Isaac had told her. Long ago, a deranged old sultan decided to replace all of his odalisques for the pleasure of selecting new ones. He ordered the deaf-mutes to strangle every girl in the harem. A week or so later, a sponge diver came across hundreds of sacks in the sea, weighed down with stones. The limbs of many of the women had come free from
their sacks, and the diver witnessed the spectacle of hundreds of bloated arms waving in the currents like phantoms reaching up to embrace him. The man never again touched water, not even to bathe before prayers.

Hannah dipped her hand in the fountain and patted cool water on her forehead. Suppose Ezster and Tova could not come? Suppose they had decided the risk was too great? Suppose, and this was the most absurd of her fears, they went to the Valide and turned Hannah in for treason? As Hannah walked through the Gate of Felicity, her legs trembled. If she did not cease these gloomy thoughts, terror would cloud her thinking and render her as witless as a chicken. As she walked toward the harem entrance, Mustafa approached, keys dangling at his waist.

He greeted her warmly and said, “Ezster told me to expect you. Of course, you will have tea with me after Ezster’s storytelling?”

“I would be delighted.” She smiled. Her stature at the harem had grown in the months since her first visit. Hannah had become—what was the correct word? Not exactly a friend to the Valide. The word
friend
implied a relationship of equals, and of course one could not be an equal to so august a presence. But Hannah sensed she amused Nurbanu, a woman who seemed to consider the most ordinary goings-on in the Venetian ghetto as exotic as a jungle in Afrika, and regard Hannah, because she was a Jewess, as equally exotic.

Mustafa lumbered in front of her, ordering the workmen plastering the walls of the new kitchen ovens to retreat.
Men must not be present when a woman passed through the garden into the harem. One hapless young worker with a board of mortar on his head dropped his implements in his haste to depart. Hannah tripped over a trowel and stumbled. Mustafa grabbed her arm and chastised the young man. Poor fellow. Later, he would be beaten for his carelessness. She persuaded Mustafa to linger at the menagerie to watch the monkeys even though she disliked their skinny arms and clever, pinched faces. She didn’t wish to arrive in the harem before Ezster and Tova.

Suddenly, from the other side of the walls of the harem, as welcome as the music of a lute, Hannah heard the colicky bray of Fikret, Ezster’s donkey. Fikret always carried Ezster’s bundle of candles and trinkets slung over his back, the sack as round and taut as Tova’s belly. In a few hours, when they left the harem, Ezster’s bundle would be empty.

It was not difficult to guess why Mustafa permitted a donkey in the gardens. Oh yes, Ezster peddled small luxuries to the ladies, and yes, she was the wife of a respected man, but it was her talent as a storyteller that gave her privileges others did not enjoy. Who could resist her sagas of Anatolia in the days before Osman I swept down from the plains—tales of daring and love, of warriors, horsemen, battles, and love matches? And, as if that were not enough, she knew tales from
One Thousand and One Nights
, and the adventures of the donkey-riding philosopher Nasreddin. Ezster always held everyone spellbound.

Hannah and Mustafa passed through the hamam on their way to the reception room. Around the pool were a series
of small rooms furnished with divans and cushions for changing clothing, for depilatory treatment of female parts, for private gossiping and giggling. And dallying. Naturally, these healthy girls grew wanton and childlike without any responsibilities in their lives except to remain docile and beautiful. Of course, there were rumours about their lasciviousness. It was often jested that the cooks in the harem kitchens were under strict orders to send in no uncut cucumbers, carrots or long radishes because of how they would be used by these lusty young ladies. Hannah did not believe the gossip, which seemed to her nothing more than the fantasies of those who kept these girls in their gilded cages.

In the reception room off the hamam the audience had gathered—the Valide, the ladies, and the eunuchs. There were twenty or so girls fanned out in a semicircle around Ezster, who was settled into her cushion like a hen in a straw nest, her chicks huddled around her.

The young girls, about twenty in all, perched on cushions. Their kaftans of shimmering green and yellow and purple silks moved like butterflies in the breeze. Ezster was mid-story, gesturing as she spoke. Tova held Ezster’s props—her scarf and her cane—ready to hand them to her mother when the time came to illustrate the dramatic points. Mustafa stood to one side, leaning against the door leading to the baths. The Valide sat above the rest of the women on an elevated divan. She wore a white silk gown embroidered with black horses, their tails picked out in green and purple thread, so finely done that had it not been for the colours, they could have been real. The Valide smiled in response to
something Ezster was saying, but everyone knew the Valide’s moods could change from benevolent to furious as quickly as a falcon changes the direction of its flight.

On her right side, in the place of honour, sat Leah. The Valide personally supervised Leah’s wardrobe, or so reported Ezster. The Valide had made good her promise. She had given Leah her necklace of diamonds—each one as perfect a stone as could be found in the Empire. Leah wore the necklace over a black velvet kaftan. The rise of her pregnancy pushed at the loosely bound sash around her waist, a sash of silk studded with semi-precious jewels.

Hannah felt a stab of fear. She caught Leah’s eye and mouthed in Hebrew,
Have courage
. Hannah felt protective of Leah and of the small being growing within her. She hoped the baby would inherit Leah’s bravery—if it survived.

The Valide finally noticed Hannah and nodded to her, her fine black eyes dancing with life. When Ezster finished her tale, the Valide said, “Come and sit. Ezster is about to begin a new tale.”

By the Valide’s outstretched hand, Hannah understood there was no need to crawl before Her Highness this time.

Hannah approached and bowed, then kissed the Valide’s hand and pressed it to her forehead. Mustafa did the same and took his place on one of the cushions near Ezster. One would have thought that the Valide had enough drama in her own life to keep her imagination forever satisfied, but she never missed one of Ezster’s sessions.

The ladies of the harem had evidently been listening to Ezster for some time before this pause. The sticky
lokum
had disappeared from the platters, the fried dumplings lay in crumbs, and the
yufka
pastry was broken and scattered. Of the pomegranate pulp, which had been beaten into sheets, then dried, cut into pieces, and dredged in sugar, all that remained on the silver serving trays was a piece the size of Hannah’s little finger.

Ezster turned in Hannah’s direction but did not acknowledge her. The sack by Ezster’s feet sagged, no longer stuffed with her merchandise. Tova walked through the group of women, only her eyes showing above her silk
ya
ş
smak
, as she silently collected coins for the payment of her mother’s wares. Her
pelisse
was uniquely vibrant—stripes of yellow, pink, and green. Her belly was even more protuberant than it had been last week when Hannah had seen her in the
mikvah
. Hannah would not have been surprised if Tova began her travail right before her eyes. One more thing that might go wrong.

Ezster took a sip of tea and began a new story. “This legend of a young maiden and her lover has no beginning and no end. The maiden’s lover was killed at war. After his death, the girl was transformed into a white swan, rather like the one who swims in the garden pond over there.” Ezster gestured toward the fountain in the garden outside. “Did the lovers find each other again in the hereafter? I like to think they did.”

The Valide’s eyes were fixed on Ezster. “Was the maiden very beautiful?” she asked.

Kübra, the slave girl, entered and, bowing low, offered Nurbanu a tray covered with balls of ground pistachio
nuts and honey flavoured with saffron. Nurbanu waved her away.