The Harem Midwife (17 page)

Hannah heard her husband give a sigh of resignation, knowing she would not let the matter rest until morning.

“Under the terms of their marriage contract, Grazia is entitled to the return of her dowry upon Leon’s death. It is a common provision to ensure a widow is not left impoverished. Since Leon loaned me the money, I must pay it back to her now that Leon is dead.”

So that was the reason Grazia had come. Hannah knew nothing of marriage contracts. Isaac had married her without a dowry, a fact he had the grace never to mention. “How much do you owe her?”

“A hundred ducats.”

“What?” Hannah sat upright in bed. “We can never repay that. We arrived from Venice with nearly a hundred and fifty golden ducats, more than enough to purchase the house and workshop. We had some left over, did we not?”

“Shh, not so loud. You will wake Matteo.” He met her eye at last. “I needed more. For equipment, for the ten hectares in Kadiköy to plant a mulberry orchard. When
the silkworms died, I had to replenish our stock. There were only a few dozen healthy worms to be had. Prices were high. Then I had to hire Möishe. A silk shop must have an experienced weaver and dyer.”

Hannah was reluctant to say more for fear he would frown at her the way other husbands frowned at their wives, as if to say,
You are merely a stupid woman. Finances are not your concern
.

“Why did you not tell me?”

“I worried enough for both of us. Why should you have fretted as well?”

She knew all too well the temptation of keeping the truth from her husband so he would not worry. “So Grazia has come to collect her money,” she said. “Money we do not have and have no hope of getting.”

How complicated and ugly everything had suddenly become. Before Grazia’s arrival, before Hannah had known of the loan, she wanted nothing more than to protect Leah from the Sultan’s attentions. Now, she had a chance to earn enough to pay off this debt, but only if the coupling took place between the Sultan and Leah. Now she was in the terrible position of benefitting if the couching proceeded.

“How will we ever repay her?”

“I do not know.”

“What is the worst that can happen?”

“Grazia goes to court, gets the bailiffs to come and sell our house and everything we own.” He spoke without hesitation, so Hannah knew he had been mulling this over.

Not long ago, Hannah had given several silver coins to a neighbour, a young widow whom she passed on the
street with her children, sitting among piles of clothes and baskets of food, as bailiffs carried out furniture, clothing, sacks of flour—anything of value that could be sold to satisfy her debts.

“Grazia is my brother’s widow,” Isaac said. “She will agree on a compromise. Perhaps we can pay her back slowly. We will talk to Rabbi Yakov ben Asher. He is a wise man. He will decide what is best for us all. The three of us will go as soon as possible.”

Rabbi Yakov? Hannah was about to protest but stopped herself before she said something she might regret. Rabbi Yakov’s sermons were long and tedious. His eyes were weak from poring over the Torah all night in dim light. His hands shook with palsy. She had refused to let Isaac take Matteo to him to be circumcised. A shameful state of affairs was the result. Matteo was over three years old and had yet to make his first covenant with God.

From the garden came the hoot of an owl. That sound had once comforted her, as part of the cadence of the night, like Isaac’s gentle snore or Matteo turning over in bed on his mattress or the rush of the tide entering the port at Eminönü. Now, the owl’s cry sounded to Hannah like a mourner at a funeral procession.

HANNAH WAS IN
such a state of anxiety that she felt like a mother in labour. Rabbi Yakov ben Asher had the power to make binding orders on all issues, both civil and criminal. The Ottoman government cared little about the Jews as long as peace prevailed in the
mahalle
and everyone paid their taxes. But the Rabbi was ill with influenza. There was nothing to do but wait for his recovery, which was taking too long. Meanwhile, during the nearly two months since Grazia had arrived, the two women moved warily through the house, neither of them wanting to discuss what was so present in both their minds. Hannah went about her daily chores and watched helplessly as both
her son and her husband seemed to fall deeper and deeper in thrall with Grazia. Her influence in the household grew stronger with each passing day. She sought Isaac’s opinion on a variety of matters, from whether it would rain, to what he would like for his supper. She cooked Matteo special dishes, singing him to sleep at night. She helped Möishe set up the warp and weft on the looms. Her nimble fingers rapidly unravelled silk cocoons, a tedious task.

Isaac had begun consulting Grazia in business matters, as she had a clever head for figures. She was keeping his ledgers for him, something Hannah had once tried without success. She had no knowledge of how the long columns of figures were supposed to be arranged on the page; her addition and subtraction was neither rapid nor accurate. When she added more than ten numbers together, she got several different answers. When Hannah asked Isaac why he encouraged Grazia to sit poring over his books night after night, he said, “So she could see for herself the workshop is not prospering and that we have no money to pay her.”

It was not necessary to strain one’s eyes over ledgers. Any fool could see Isaac’s many bolts of printed silk—the entire output of his shop for the past six months—were gathering dust in a backroom just beyond the workshop. Exquisite material that shimmered like the wings of a butterfly. Fabric that would fetch a fortune in Venice languished for buyers here in Constantinople where the price was so low that Isaac could not sell it without sustaining a loss.

As for Leah, all Hannah knew—from the Valide’s messenger who had arrived out of breath on her doorstep
yesterday—was that the couching would take place in three days. The Imperial carriage would fetch her. As to how the girl was adjusting to life in the harem, even Ezster, with her consummate gift for ferreting out palace gossip, had no news of her.

Hannah had not told Isaac that she was soon to go to the palace. Once, she would have confided in him. Now, he was so worried about money she did not want to add to his burden.

The couching would proceed unless Hannah could think of a means to prevent it. The thought of Leah, no more than a child, coupling with the Sultan filled her with distress even if it meant Hannah would receive the Valide’s gratitude as well as a rich reward. If only she had had an opportunity to counsel the girl, explain what was ahead of her, perhaps give her an opium pill to make the experience less disturbing.

A knock at the front door interrupted her gloomy thoughts. It was Myriam, the Rabbi’s wife, to say the Rabbi had recovered and would see them. They were to go to his study immediately. The three of them hastily donned their best clothes and left the house, walking in silence the short distance.

First Isaac, then Grazia, and finally Hannah filed into the Rabbi’s cramped study, which looked as though it had not been dusted since the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. The Rabbi was hunched behind a table piled with books. Distracted, thin from his illness, more filled with tremors than ever, he nodded as they entered the stuffy room.

Rabbi Yakov ben Asher, rabbi of the Poli Yashan shul with a congregation of a hundred Ashkenazi and Romaniote Jews, husband of Myriam, father of five daughters, three living, stroked a beard so long and sparse that it looked like a dusty cobweb tossed over the front of his black robe. He was old, at least sixty, and his hair was more grey than black. His shoulders were rounded as a soup tureen, his skin so dry his face appeared powdered with chalk. In short, he looked like a rabbi.

Isaac had once remarked to Hannah that Rabbi Yakov was so spindly it was a miracle he could stagger with the scrolls of the Torah from the Holy Ark to the
bimah
, the pulpit. Myriam, the
rebbetzin
, had told Hannah that when she and the Rabbi joined together, they did so through a hole in the coarse blanket he threw over her first. “It is as though he is forcing himself to couple with something foul,” she said through her tears. “No matter how often I go to the
mikvah
, I am never pure enough for him.” Rabbi Yakov was not a man who cared for women.

The Rabbi rose and hugged Isaac. He concealed the tremor in his hands by patting Isaac’s back. He looked at Hannah and Grazia, not moving to touch them. This was to be expected. He shoved some books and papers from the bench in front of his writing table.

“Sit,” he ordered, as though to a group of Yeshiva students. His suit smelled of rosemary and peppermint leaves, to repel moths. Underlying this pleasant smell was the even stronger odour of smoked herring.

Hannah sat first, her mouth so dry she would have been
grateful for a sip from the water jug on the Rabbi’s desk, but he did not offer it to her. Isaac sat next to her, looking as stern as Moses. Grazia sat to Hannah’s left. She must have been apprehensive too, judging from the way her hands twisted in her lap.

From behind his desk the Rabbi fixed them with his sharp, black eyes. “Well, what can I do for you?”

Books teetered on his table—some opened, some closed, all well-thumbed and stacked in jagged towers that threatened to crash to the floor. Hannah had not known there were so many books in the universe and wondered if there was sufficient knowledge in the world to fill them.

The Rabbi rocked back and forth in his chair. He studied Grazia, taking in her smooth blond hair and perfect skin. If he was puzzled to see a woman dressed as a Jewess who did not appear in the least to be Jewish, he gave no sign of it. Isaac must have explained that Grazia was a convert.

When no one spoke, he cleared his throat and said, “Let me see if I can guess what has brought you here. Difficulties can come in many forms but mostly there are two varieties—those that can be solved by great lashings of money and those that cannot. I would say that from everyone’s grave expressions, you three have money trouble. Am I right?”

“We welcomed Grazia, our sister-in-law, into our house a month ago,” began Isaac. “We have been happy for her company. But now we have a dilemma.” At the Rabbi’s prodding, Isaac explained—Leon’s death, Grazia’s arrival in Constantinople, the marriage contract, and the debt owing to Leon and now to his widow …

After a few moments, the Rabbi made an impatient circle in the air with his finger urging Isaac to get to the point.

“I find myself at a loss,” said Isaac. “Grazia insists on immediate and full payment.”

The Rabbi stroked his beard. “The amount owing?”

“A hundred ducats.”

The Rabbi whistled. “An impressive sum. Enough to buy golden
Kaddish
cups and feed all the poor Jews in the city for a year.” He looked at Grazia, “Let me see this fancy marriage contract of yours.”

“Leon and I signed it a few weeks before our wedding,” Grazia said. She took the document from her bag and placed it on the desk, smoothing open the heavy parchment to reveal a border of peacocks, their tails draping the sides of the page.

The Rabbi rubbed his hands on his jacket and then took the parchment. “These are Hebrew characters, as you know.” He pointed to the outer border of letters. “The rest of the contract is written in Aramaic.” He pointed to a scrawl. “That is your signature at the bottom?”

“Yes,” replied Grazia.

The Rabbi squinted. “And who is this witness?” he asked, pointing to another signature.

“I do not remember,” said Grazia, shaking her head.

“You do not remember your own witness?”

Grazia rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It might have been, let me see, my father or one of my uncles or …” Her voice trailed off.

The Rabbi gave an impatient wave of his hand to silence her, then, muttering to himself, read aloud, moving his
finger from right to left along the Aramaic script. He translated as he read, beginning with the preamble,
“In the Creator’s name may they build their house and prosper …”
He paused at a line in the middle and looked up at Grazia. “You brought a considerable dowry to the marriage. And, yes, the contract stipulates that the money be returned to you upon Leon’s death.” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you and Leon have children?”

Grazia shook her head.

The Rabbi looked at Isaac. “You have been to the money lenders?”

“Yes, and I have been turned down by everyone,” said Isaac.

Grazia opened her mouth as though she wished to add something to Isaac’s remark, but the Rabbi motioned for her to be quiet. He leaned back in his chair.

“And you, Hannah, what do you think about this situation?”

Hannah was startled. Since when did a Rabbi ask a woman’s opinion on anything? “It is just as Isaac says,” she replied. “We do not have her money, but she can live with us until the money can be found. Grazia and I get along like sisters.” Did not sisters squabble at times, feel jealousy and suspicion of each other? “I would be happy for her to stay with us as our honoured guest until Isaac is able to raise her money.”