The Harem Midwife (6 page)

As they walked, Mustafa’s shadow leapt against the tiled walls like a puppet in Karagöz, the popular marionette theatre. His shadow appeared more graceful and lively than he did, swaying on his pattens, high shoes designed to be worn in the steam baths. Clearly, she was not here to prepare a girl for a couching. Mustafa was not carrying his red volume,
The Book of Couchings
, in which he recorded all of the Sultan’s trysts.

Mustafa asked, “How is the best midwife in Constantinople tonight?”

“You mean the best in the entire Empire?” They always bantered like this.

“You are right. I stand corrected.”

“I am very well, thank you,” she said, wishing he would hurry up and tell her why he had sent for her.

They made their way past the gardens, with their beds of tulips with names like Glitter of Prosperity, Beloved’s Face, Rose Arrow, and Increaser of Joy. In truth, she disliked these
Ottoman tulips with their etiolated petals, which looked as though they had been trimmed to dagger points. How much lovelier the rounded, chalice-shaped tulips of Venice, their glossy pink petals as inviting as the palm of a baby’s hand.

Hannah’s penchant for all things Venetian, nay, her aversion to all things Turkish, was a characteristic against which she struggled. The tulips were a perfect example of what Isaac referred to as her “failure to appreciate the splendours of the Ottoman Empire.”

They walked past the menagerie of elephants, tigers, and monkeys. The odour of what the jungles of Afrika must smell like pervaded the gardens, a musk-heavy but not unpleasant smell, disguised in part by the spicy scent of carnations and fresh white bread baking in the ovens nearby. Night air was known to be unhealthy but Hannah took a mouthful anyway, enjoying the coolness. On the other side of the menagerie, Hannah saw a familiar sight. The spider monkeys awoke inside their gilded cages, shrieking and rubbing their genitals in that disgusting way of theirs, then spitting like the wizened old carpet sellers in the bazaar. Hannah would have giggled had she not been so preoccupied.

There is no need to worry, she told herself. The worst that had ever befallen her in the palace was a nibble from the giraffe in the menagerie. The creature had an unsettling habit of arcing its long neck and reaching over to nuzzle her, which made her want to bathe. The first time it had occurred, she jumped and gave a scream, not out of fear—there was little about the gentle beast to frighten her—but out of
surprise at the touch of its flabby, prehensile lips. Now, instinctively, she made a wide circle around its low enclosure.

A careless worker had left a pile of bricks in the path and Mustafa took her arm to guide her. “Building, always building,” he said. “This time it is ten new kitchens with lead-domed roofs to replace those destroyed by fire last year. The ovens will be large enough to roast an entire herd of oxen.”

Hannah said, “A sultan never dies when he is building.” She had heard the expression often and decided to try it out herself.

Mustafa paused for a moment and turned to look at her. Had she offended him by referring, however obliquely, to the Sultan’s death? Mustafa’s face revealed nothing. This was the way of Ottomans. Venetians were direct and never shrank from telling you what they thought about family, religion, and politics. Ottomans, especially around foreigners like Hannah, kept their own counsel.

“How many people live in the Imperial Palace?” Hannah hoped it was not a rude question.

“Five thousand, from the Sultan to the lowliest pot scrubber in the scullery to the odalisques to the Valide herself. All must be fed.” Odalisques were taught to play instruments, to embroider, to sing and dance, to learn the erotic arts—all in the hope of one day becoming concubines for the Sultan. They were lovely girls, some purchased at the slave market near the Hippodrome, some sent as gifts for the Sultan from governors of the far-flung provinces of the Empire.

Hannah and Mustafa skirted a small apricot tree where a peacock wearing a gold necklace roosted, crushing the young boughs with its weight. They arrived at the outer entrance to the harem, the Arabalar Kapısı, where beeswax candles flickered in onyx sconces affixed to the high walls.

Hoping to prompt the usually voluble Mustafa to reveal more, Hannah said, “It is late. Suat had difficulty passing through the streets.”

Mustafa offered no comment.

Unable to restrain herself, she asked, “It must be an urgent matter for the Valide to call me out at this time of night. A birth, perhaps?”

“Not a birth, unfortunately. I have a different task for you.” He stood in front of the Gate of Felicity, the entrance to the harem, making no move to reach for the collection of keys that dangled at his side. “Do not look so apprehensive. You will know what is required. It involves that orifice you are so familiar with.”

At last, Mustafa took an ebony key from the chain at his waist. Even then he hesitated, looking as though he were weighing what to say, before speaking. “A new slave girl has arrived,” he ventured, as he fitted the key into the lock and gave it a turn. “This girl you are about to meet is the Valide’s gift to her son. Leah is—how to put it—rebellious? She is a tough little thing, filthy and evil-tempered. You must excuse her appearance. We have not managed to tame her sufficiently to bathe her or comb the knots from her hair.”

This was very odd. The harem had scores of slave girls to wash, scrub and render presentable any new arrivals,
even intractable peasants. In any case, most girls from the slave market were only too happy to find themselves in this earthly paradise of marble and gold cloth and jewels and savoury foods. Why would Hannah be called to help with such a matter? They walked through the Gate, passing by the open door of the guard room of the black eunuchs’ living quarters where they ate and slept when not on duty guarding the ladies of the harem.

“What is it you wish me to do?” Hannah asked as they walked through the courtyard, the mosque of the black eunuchs on her left.

Mustafa made no reply.

“If she is so difficult, why was she purchased?” As soon as the remark passed her lips, Hannah realized it was not only far too direct but also a criticism of Mustafa, who had no doubt purchased the slave girl on behalf of the Valide. Isaac often cautioned her to be more circumspect in her dealings with those in the harem.

“Meet her,” Mustafa said, “and you shall have your answer.”

They arrived at the inner gate of the harem, which was framed with a black-and-white stone arch and gold calligraphy adorned with quotes from the Qur’an. Mustafa’s slow gait and the way he nervously felt for the clanging keys on his girdle betrayed his uncharacteristic anxiety. Hannah tried to see past the gate but saw only a yawning maw of blackness. Many slave girls had passed through these portals, but none had left—at least not alive. There were only two ways to depart: in the mourning shroud of the dead, or in a burlap sack snugly tied at the neck and
weighted down with river stones, to be hurled into the Bosporus by the palace death squad, the deaf mutes. Just as the eunuchs in the harem had had their private parts cut off, the deaf mutes had been rendered deaf by spikes rammed in their ears and mute by having their tongues cut out. In the dark of the night, these thuggish brutes drew silken cords around tender young throats, thrust their bodies into sacks and tipped them into the waters.

Mustafa’s torch sizzled and spit shadows against the walls of the corridor. Trying to see past him was like trying to see past a giant, swaying cart rumbling down a narrow, rutted road. He wobbled in his pattens. They were crafted of inlaid silver and mother-of-pearl. They reminded Hannah of
chopine
, the high, elegant shoes the grand ladies of Venice favoured to keep them elevated from the mud of the streets. Her own feet, in leather slippers turned up at the toes, made a shushing noise on the hard marble, a counterpoint to his staccato clatter.

Mustafa addressed her in a hushed tone. “She will not speak, nor eat. She does nothing but sob and moan and act as though she had arrived in the worst prison in the world instead of heaven on earth.” He put a hand out to steady himself against the wall. “You remember Nilia, the Nubian slave girl who works in the baths? This vixen you are about to meet scratched Nilia’s face when she tried to bathe her.”

There were robust eunuchs to hold the girls for the sometimes harsh beauty procedures, or discipline them when they violated one of the many rules of the harem. Why not use one of them? Hannah twisted the velvet pouch around her
neck. The ceiling felt lower, the air mustier, and the walls closer. When would Mustafa disclose her task?

Suddenly Mustafa’s torch burned out, but he continued walking. His voice seemed to come from far ahead of her. “Before we waste any more time on this girl, I must know for certain whether she is a virgin. Otherwise, I will be only too happy to sell her to the Arab brothel-keeper down by the docks. Let
him
try to civilize her.”

Hannah leaned to one side, feeling Mustafa’s presence only because of the shift in the air and the sound of his fumbling with the enormous ring of keys. She heard him insert a key into the lock of a small door. She heard the creak of rusty hinges and felt the cold metal of the door as she groped her way in behind him.

Fate has a way of making us accomplices to evil, Hannah thought, while Mustafa struck at a tinderbox and lit a candle in a wall sconce which lent a flickering light. Pinpricks of light drew attention to the golden quill jutting from his turban and the gemstone on his thumb.

I have learned my lesson, Hannah thought. I want no part of whatever cruel scenario is about to unfold. She remembered another night long ago in Venice and what had flowed from her reckless decision to disobey her rabbi and accompany the Conte, her son Matteo’s natural father, to his home. She and Isaac were not, in fact, Matteo’s real parents, though they kept this a secret from everyone in Constantinople. On that night, the Conte’s gondola took her to the palazzo on the Grand Canal where the screams of Matteo’s mother greeted her. Hannah had been called
to help the Conte’s wife give birth. And she had saved both mother and child. Afterwards, there had been nothing but the silent, lonely ride back to the Jewish ghetto.

The events of that night had turned her life to chaos. When the Conte and his wife died of the plague, Hannah rescued the boy from his uncles, who wanted him dead so that he would never inherit his father’s estate. From this experience, Hannah had learned that one ill-considered act could propel her on a dangerous course from which there was no escape. She was grateful to have Matteo, of course, whom she and Isaac had adopted as their own. But still, her folly haunted her, and a small voice inside her wondered if tonight, yet again, she was taking a path she might later regret.

The flickering light from the sconces on the wall reflected on Mustafa’s skin, oiled with butter as he peered into the small room.

“Where is the girl from?” Hannah asked.

“She comes from some horrid place in the Circassian Mountains. I expect one village is much like the next.” Mustafa gave a wave of his plump, ring-covered hand. “The Valide admires these Circassian girls, but some are as wild as the mountains from which they spring. Although I must admit they can be lovely. And this one is as remarkable in her looks as she is in her—what shall we call it—spiritedness?”

His voice was wistful. Perhaps Mustafa still desired the pleasure a woman could give to a man. What torture he must endure to be surrounded by the most beautiful girls in
the Ottoman Empire, unable to lay a finger on any of them. She hoped he had a woman he visited from time to time, a woman who knew the secrets of how to pleasure a eunuch.

“Did her family sell her?”

Mustafa had once told her that poor sheepherding families—one could only pity them—often had to sell a child to the slavers who passed through their villages. The droughts had been severe for the past year. As the pastures dried up and turned brown, daughters of the peasantry flowed into the city’s slave market.

When Hannah concluded years ago that she could not conceive, she thought of purchasing a young, healthy girl as a servant and then giving her freedom when she came of age, but Isaac would not hear of it. He had been a slave one terrible year on the island of Malta and believed that everything to do with the buying and selling of human flesh was wicked. It did not matter that Hannah would have nurtured the child and freed her from slavery. For Isaac, this was not enough.

“This girl was not sold by her parents. She was captured,” said Mustafa. “You know what those marauding Yürüks are like. They would have left nothing behind but the chimney stacks.”

Stolen from her family, just as Isaac had been stolen from her. It was not difficult to imagine the dreadful things the girl had been subjected to. Isaac had confided to her so many of the harsh privations of his enslavement. Even now, he sometimes awoke in the night in a pool of sweat, the sheets sticking to his body. Isaac was
a grown man and a very strong one. This was a girl, perhaps little more than a child.

Hannah waited, but Mustafa let his comments hang in the air.

“How uncharacteristic of you, Mustafa, to reveal so little. They say you know the details of every girl in the harem. The girls joke that you are so well informed that a mouse cannot poke its twitching nose out of a hole without you knowing the number of whiskers it sports.”

“Do not believe everything you hear. I know very little—especially about this girl.”

Not even Hannah’s attempts at levity, it seemed, would loosen his tongue.

“The Valide will present this girl to the Sultan very soon. Many hopes rest on her. First, however, we must know for certain whether she is intact. The Valide requested you specifically to conduct this examination. It is a great honour, as you know.” Ezster had told Hannah that the Valide was keen to find her son, the Sultan, the perfect girl, but dear God, why did Hannah have to be involved?

As Mustafa fumbled for another key from around his waist, Hannah realized why she had been called. Any of the palace midwives had the skill to ascertain whether or not a girl’s hymen was whole. But in a palace of intrigue, lying, and double-crossings, the Valide trusted only Hannah to tell her the truth.