The Harem Midwife Read Online Free Page B

and beating their drums to camouflage the child’s screams. If they would only cease their terrible racket, maybe a solution would occur to her. The baby was in agony, the tiny red face a mask of pain. To do anything would be better than to do nothing. She must act.
    Hannah set the baby down on a cushion. The child was slippery with blood and mucus and the white waxy substance that covers all newborns. Covering her hand with a cloth, Hannah grasped the baby’s upper arm and rotated it until she heard a soft popping noise. This noise, coupled with the child’s screams, made Hannah’s ears ring and herbody grow hot and then cold. She swallowed, wishing for a breeze off the Bosporus to penetrate this pavilion, which had grown stuffy with the aloes burning in a gold censer and the breathing of too many people and the crackling and spitting of hymeneal torches. So much pain, so much blood. But the child was no longer crying.
    Safiye lay with her eyes closed, sweat dripping down her face. “A healthy child?” she asked.
    “A happy outcome. You are blessed.” Hannah held the baby up to face the crowd, clutching its slippery body firmly under the arms. All eyes were fixed on the newborn.
    The band fell silent, tambourines on the floor, drums abandoned. The fiddlers stood with their horsehair bows hanging at their sides. A number of the women of the harem withdrew handkerchiefs from the long folds of their tunic sleeves and began to cry quietly. Everyone was exhausted and relieved. No one dared to praise the beauty or vigour of the child for fear of attracting the Evil Eye.
    Hannah laid the baby down on a cushion and rubbed it with a cloth, watching the little chest rise and fall. Finally, the diviner murmured, “Ugly little thing.” There were a few grunts of assent, then a silence so profound that Hannah could hear the gibbering of the monkeys from the menagerie far away in the Third Courtyard.
    The only other sound was the infant, breathing noisily, its tiny pink body still filled with birth fluids. Hannah withdrew her iron knife from her linen bag, preparing to cut the birth cord. Then she realized her error and put the knife down. The Sultan must perform this ritual. He would namethe boy. He would face Mecca, his son raised in his arms, and he would recite the Call to Prayer and the Declaration of Faith. Hannah signalled to Mustafa, the Chief Black Eunuch, who had just entered the pavilion and now approached the Sultana’s divan.
    “Would you advise the Sultan of the birth of his s—”
    Hannah’s request was cut short by Mustafa’s hand on her arm. He pursed his lips and shook his head, glancing at the infant. Hannah followed his gaze. For the first time she saw what she had been too busy to notice before but what had been appallingly obvious to everyone else in the room—the swollen lips of female genitalia.
    There was no need for the Sultan’s attendance. No need to announce the royal birth by firing off the cannons outside the Walls of Justinian. No need to do anything, except to bathe the little princess and nurture her until she was of an age to make a good marriage. Raising a girl, as the old proverb went, was “like planting a fig tree in the neighbours’ garden.”
    Hannah cut the cord and then handed the child to the young wet-nurse. The girl carried the child to a golden basin filled with warm, fragrant water and gently washed her. Then the wet-nurse placed three sesame seeds on the infant’s navel for good luck. She swaddled the child and wrapped her in a blanket. She tied a blue-beaded amulet to the baby’s shoulder over the spot that had caused such anguish. Someone placed a bottle of sherbet with a piece of red gauze tied over the top next to Safiye. Had it been wound around the bottle’s neck, it would have signified thebirth of a boy. A braid of garlic was hung over the golden cradle to keep away the Evil Eye.
    One more thing had to be done. Hannah turned to the exhausted mother on her divan.