The Harem Midwife Read Online Free PDF Page B

looked back at their house and spacious grounds. They had bought the property from a prosperous arrow-smith whose workshop had handily converted into a workspace for looms, trays for mating moths, drying cocoons, and all the paraphernalia of silk-making, including an orchard of mulberry trees in the back. The purchase came with a parrot, Güzel, which Hannah could hear screeching even from a block away. Soon after they took possession of the house, it became apparent why the arrowsmith’s wife had left the creature behind. This beautiful bird from Afrika, with lustrous grey plumage and a tail of vivid red, knew no greater pleasure than to lure an unsuspecting person to its perch. Then it would stretch out its scrawny neck waiting for a caress. As soon as a finger appeared, the bird would slash with its black beak, leaving behind a bleeding cuticle or punctured thumbnail. The creature would then fill the house with shrill, human-like cackling while it squatted on its perch, shifting its weight from one scaly leg to the other.
    Isaac turned Hannah toward him and straightened her veil. As a Jewess, she was not required by law to wear a veil,but at certain times it suited her to pass for Muslim. Now, she wanted to avoid the attention of roving gangs of Gypsies only too happy to gawk at the Imperial landau and the woman inside. She wore a silk dress and pearl earrings. The silk was from their workshop, of course, spun from their own worms, woven by Isaac on their loom. The cloth had been dyed in a vat of madder and oak kermes and turmeric to give it a reddish hue.
    Suat held open the carriage door. Hannah gathered her skirts, and Isaac handed her into the compartment and closed the door behind her. He leaned up through the carriage window to kiss her goodbye, patting the velvet pouch around her neck, adjusting it so it nestled next to her skin. Isaac wore a matching pouch. Even Matteo, their son, wore such a pouch. Without the constant warmth of their bodies, the silk eggs would fail to hatch and provide a new crop of pupae for the next mothing season.
    Isaac smelled of lemons. He regularly rubbed lemon juice on his hands to remove dye used for the silk. In the light from the pine-pitch torch, his eyes shone.
    “Good night, my darling,” he said. “All will be well. Administer a poultice, mix up an herbal decoction, place your cool hand on an anxious forehead, and soon you will be back.”
    Isaac’s optimism usually steadied her, but now, when all the signs pointed to an urgent situation—the time of night, the closed carriage, the impatient way Suat was glancing from the mare to their house and back again—it made her nervous.
    Constantinople had been the start of a new life for her and Isaac. They had used the ducats Hannah had brought from Venice to purchase their ample house. Jews were permitted to buy property in the city. Even more startling, Ottoman law permitted married women to own their own property. Hannah had not imagined such a thing was possible.
    “Give Matteo a kiss for me,” she said.
    A feeling of peace came over her as she thought of Matteo, her three-year-old son. Early this morning through half-closed eyes, she had seen him at the doorway of their bedroom, trailing his blanket. She pretended to be asleep. He folded himself over on all fours, head down, knees pressed together. Then he rabbit-hopped to their bed. Without saying a word, he squeezed himself between her and Isaac and pulled the covers over all of them. She hated to leave knowing that he would likely wake in the morning calling for her, but what was she to do? Hannah could not possibly refuse a summons from the Imperial Harem.
    Before she had a chance to blow Isaac a kiss, as was their custom on parting, Suat clucked to the mare and they were off. Hannah was flung back, hitting her head on the roof of the carriage as they lurched into the narrow cobblestone street.
    Later that night, when she returned from the palace, she would recall the