The Harem Midwife (3 page)

Even with the carriage at a standstill, the bells jingled in rhythm with the mare’s heaving sides. They were intended to warn everyone on the street that an Imperial carriage approached and all within hearing distance must scuttle away lest they glimpse a woman from the harem. But who except midwives like Hannah or women of the worst sort would be foolhardy enough to venture into the streets after dark? What on earth could be so important as to warrant coming to Hannah’s door so late? Not a birth at the Imperial Harem, that much was certain.

Two years ago, shortly after Hannah and Isaac had arrived in Constantinople from Venice, the very same carriage had come to her door to take her to the Imperial Harem for the
confinement of Safiye, the Sultan’s beloved wife with whom he had been besotted since he had first set eyes on her many years ago. Some said she had bewitched him. How astonished Hannah had been that night to hear the carriage come to a halt in front of their house, a dwelling far grander than anything they could have afforded in Venice. In Venice, they had lived in a cramped one-room flat hidden behind the heavy wooden gates of the ghetto.

Her Constantinople neighbours had peered curiously from behind their latticed balconies as Hannah rattled off in the carriage that night.

She had not been prepared for the sight of the Imperial Harem—the black eunuchs, the vast rooms, the brilliant blue and white Iznik tiles, the swooping roofs of the pavilions, the delicate sherbet made with snow packed in burlap and then transported by cart from Mount Olympus, several hundred kilometres away.

Only the blood and the screams of the birthing mother had been familiar. Poor Safiye had laboured valiantly but her travail ended in disappointment. How had Hannah—a Jewess, a foreigner, a newcomer to the city, a fugitive from Venice—come to the attention of the palace? She had her friend, Ezster Mandali, to thank. Ezster, a Sephardic Jew, a pedlar to the harem and confidante to the Valide, had recommended Hannah’s skills to the Sultan’s revered mother. Someday, may God be listening, the palace would buy silk tents from her husband Isaac’s workshop. Naturally, the palace had several midwives already—capable country women with placid smiles who steadied mothers on the
birthing stool and allowed Allah’s hand to do the rest. This was not Hannah’s way. Hannah relied on herbs, used different instruments, and asked questions of those with more experience than she possessed. She gave courage to the faint of heart, poured strength into the weak, and gave hope to the discouraged.

When Hannah had alighted from the carriage the night of Safiye’s confinement at the Imperial Palace, a fleet-footed slave girl from Aleppo grabbed her hand at the entrance to the harem and together they raced through the gardens, past the Valide’s private hamam, the steam baths, until they reached the Sultana’s birthing kiosk, specially prepared for the event. It was draped with panels of embroidered silk set with rubies, emeralds and pearls, depicting harmonious scenes of the heavenly gardens of paradise. The quilts and bedcovers were red. Suspended over the divan hung an embroidered bag which Hannah knew contained the Qur’an. At the foot of the divan was an onion stuffed with garlic and impaled on a gold skewer. This was to ward off the Evil Eye. The gold washing bowls, porcelain ewers, and other utensils rested on low lacquered tables. A variety of sweetmeats and sherbets were arranged on thin grey-green celadon dishes. Hannah later learned the Sultan and his family all ate from such dishes as a precaution. The glaze of the tableware turned black upon contact with poison.

Hannah should have felt awed by the splendour of the pavilion, the ceiling supported by marble colonnades, the floors of cedar and sandalwood giving off the most delicious fragrance, the gossamer textiles, the richly dressed
attendants, slaves and concubines, but all she could think was how grateful she was to have her birthing spoons, the silver forceps that had helped her liberate many an obstinate baby from its mother’s womb.

Several women surrounded the Sultan’s wife, Safiye, as she laboured on her birthing stool, all of them trying their best to relax her by rubbing her back and her hands, by holding golden beakers of lemon water to her lips. But the space at Safiye’s right was empty. Her mother-in-law, the Valide, was conspicuous in her absence. It was a known fact that the two women had no affection for each other. Idle tongues speculated on the reasons why.

Hannah went to the basin of hot water in the corner and washed her hands. She wrung out the cloth the slave girl handed her, moved through the other women surrounding the Sultana, and took the open space to Safiye’s right. She wiped the woman’s forehead. The Sultana grasped the arms of the horseshoe-shaped birthing stool while the usual palace midwife, a stout woman from Amasia, cried out three times without conviction, “
Allah Akbar
”—God is most great.

Hannah nodded to the midwife, who took her cue and retreated to a corner of the kiosk.

Safiye was mad with pain, her eyes rolled back in her head. A young odalisque stood by helplessly, patting her hand. Hannah noted with approval that the birthing stool was fashioned of walnut, the sturdiest and luckiest of woods. The odalisque caught Hannah’s eye and gave a small shake of her head. It told Hannah what she needed to know: the Sultana’s travail had been long and unproductive.

In Constantinople, birthing was always a social occasion. All the women of the harem, from the most beautiful concubines to the lowest slave girls, were present in the room. Surrounding them were storytellers, eunuch dwarfs, jesters, jugglers and musicians. That night an astrologer sat off to the side, studying his chart. To Hannah’s annoyance, he muttered, “Not an auspicious time to be born.”

Crouched on a rush mat in the corner was an old woman performing a lead pouring. As the molten lead sizzled in her pot, the crone gave a toothless grimace and shrugged, indicating that the lead had hardened not into bright, clean shapes, which would have been a good portent, but into misshapen, twisted forms. Hannah was grateful that Safiye was in the midst of a birth pang and not aware of the ill omens surrounding her.

A dwarf dressed in a red turban and green kaftan approached Hannah and pulled a silver coin from behind her ear.

“Please,” said Hannah, “let us all stand back and give Her Excellency some air.” She turned to an old woman with a long nose like those from the town of Sinope on the Black Sea. Hannah knew she had been the Sultan’s wet-nurse years ago, and asked, “How far apart are the pangs?”

“Since the last call to prayer, two minutes apart. We have tried everything. The child has no way to come out. The
djinns
have sewn her womb closed.”
Djinns
were the tiny demons that tormented and interfered in every event, causing endless misfortune.

“Shush,” said Hannah, hoping the wet-nurse was mistaken.
“A mother’s mind is easily discouraged by the words overheard during her travail.” She felt a surge of protective affection for Safiye. If this crowd of onlookers could not be optimistic, could they not depart and allow Hannah to get on with the task of saving this stubborn baby?

Safiye had more to worry about than simply birthing this child. Her only son, Mehmet, aged fifteen, was delirious with typhus and might not live to hear the call for morning prayers. If there ever was a time when the Empire required a male heir, it was now. Hannah stood for a moment studying the contorted face of the woman writhing on the stool. It was a lovely face but not a Venetian one. Long black hair, blue eyes, a rarity in this world of dark eyes and flat, high cheekbones. Rumour was that she was from Rumelia and had been brought to the palace when she was twelve.

Many busybodies thought Safiye overly interested in affairs of the state and other matters of no concern to women. Some feared the Sultan relied too much on his wife for advice. Whatever the truth of it, she would not be eavesdropping at the grilled window of the Privy Council, listening to state secrets, anytime soon. If Safiye survived, this birth would weaken her for months to come.

Kübra, a slave girl dressed in a plain blue kaftan with a long braid down her back, approached Hannah and said loudly, “Safiye must scream more softly. The Valide is trying to pray and finds the noise unsettling.”

Hannah opened her mouth to protest, but the girl, bending low as if to readjust her belt, said in a whisper only Hannah could hear, “The Valide wishes me to convey her
thanks for your assistance last month in a certain matter.” The girl cast a sympathetic look at Safiye and walked off in the direction of her mistress’s private quarters. Hannah was touched by the Valide’s message, but tried to put the embarrassing event out of her mind and concentrate on Safiye.

The dwarf, swaying from side to side, turned clumsy cartwheels around Safiye. He bobbed up behind her birthing stool and then performed a somersault, as though fired from a cannon. How anyone could imagine that a woman in labour would enjoy all of this noise and confusion, Hannah could not comprehend. At home in Venice, the birth room was a hushed, secluded space, with only a midwife and perhaps the labouring woman’s mother and mother-in-law. Here the entire harem believed a mother’s suffering was cause for celebration. Perhaps if the confinement was an easy one such antics would comfort and divert the labouring mother, but when a labour was difficult, it could only make matters worse. And suppose in the end, there was no reason to rejoice? Suppose the confinement concluded with a dead mother or a dead baby? Or both? A crowd would only amplify the sorrow.

Hannah motioned to a nearby musician playing a stringed instrument. “Play something soft and soothing. Her Excellency is tired. Help her to relax between her pangs.”

Hannah rubbed almond oil on her hands and bent her head close to Safiye’s ear. “I am Hannah. I have come to cajole this baby out of you.”

The Sultana tried to smile but her lips quivered. “I am in so much pain. Is there something you can give me?”

Hannah took Safiye’s hand. Opium would deaden the
pain but it would also weaken the birth contractions, and this child had already dawdled in the birth passage too long. “Let us first see what can be done without opium. The poppy sometimes slows the baby’s breathing.”

“In that case, I will manage.”

“Brave and wise,” said Hannah as she squatted in front of the birthing stool. She waited for a pang to pass and then felt Safiye’s abdomen, moving her hands up and down and around. The child’s head was in a good position. A steady pull from the birthing spoons might ease it down farther. Hannah pressed her ear to Safiye’s belly. The baby’s heartbeat was slow and faint.

Hannah loosened the drawstring of her linen bag and took out her birthing spoons, which had been fashioned in Venice by a silversmith. They resembled two soup spoons with shallow bowls and gently curved handles, fastened together in the middle by a removable pin. Hannah blew on them for luck and cradled them in her hands to warm them. Her reflection in the spoons showed a drawn, white face with large black eyes, surrounded by a cloud of dark hair. She recited the prayer she always murmured at such times: “If it pleases God, may I do no harm.” Then she said softly to Safiye, “The birthing spoons are of no use if you are sitting upright. I know it is not the custom to give birth in a prone position, but if you lie down I can reach inside you and grasp the baby’s head.”

When Safiye nodded weakly, Hannah motioned two slaves to help the Sultana onto the divan and settle her into a reclining position.

Safiye’s eyes widened when she saw Hannah’s birthing spoons. “You plan to use those?”

“Do not be frightened. I have done this many times before.”

The jugglers ceased tossing balls; the astrologer looked up from his charts; the dwarf’s gymnastics came to an abrupt halt. Everyone was staring at Hannah as though she were a magician.

Hannah announced, “This is an instrument to help ease the child into the world. You will see.”

A look passed between Hannah and Safiye.

The Sultana nodded. “If it will help my son.”

All labouring women wished for a son. None had more need of one than Safiye. Hannah unhinged the spoons and worked first one and then the other into Safiye’s passage until Hannah could feel them slipping into position, the baby’s temples cupped in the shallow bowls of the spoons.

“Now, push.”

Safiye gave a grunt and tried her best.

Hannah gently compressed the spoons and as the womb contracted, she pulled. The baby’s head emerged. Hannah felt a wave of relief. The Sultan was a small man, built low to the earth, with a large head and broad shoulders. If his baby shared these traits, it would not bode well for his wife’s confinement.

At the next contraction the shoulders should have slipped out, then the rest of the tiny body. But that did not happen. There were two more pangs accompanied by much pushing and groaning, yet the shoulders would not emerge.

Hannah said, “Do not lose courage. You and I are working together and with God’s help will get this child born.”

The Sultana groaned in reply.

Not for the first time, Hannah was struck by the absurdity of a fully formed baby trying to pass through such a tiny orifice. It was a blasphemous notion, which many might construe as a criticism of God’s design. “Take a deep breath. Rest while you can. Your pangs are good and strong. It will not be long now.”