The Midwife of Venice (10 page)

In her weariness she slumped against the wall, but winced and drew herself upright as marble moulding jabbed her in
the back. She shook the Conte’s shoulder, waking him up. “I have wonderful news for you. You have a fine, healthy baby, one with all his limbs and a cap of fine reddish hair.”

He stared at her, seemingly unable to absorb what she was saying.

“A healthy child,” she repeated. “Shall I show you?” When he made no reply, she asked, “Have you been here all night?”

“How is Lucia?” He rubbed his eyes. His voice was subdued, as though expecting bad news.

“She is alive but has had an unhappy time.”

“But she will recover?”

“Perhaps, if it is God’s will.”

“I swear if Almighty God spares my wife, I will never bed her again.” He got to his feet and shook himself awake.

Jews had experience in the art of restraint. No marital relations were permitted for twelve days of the month during the woman’s unclean period, or for forty days after the birth of a child. But Christians, it was well known, demonstrated little self-control in the marriage bed.

“You are tired,” Hannah said. Risking the impropriety, she rested a hand on his forearm and gave a slight pat. “In truth, if she lives, I do not think your wife will conceive again. This will be your only child. Come and bid him welcome. He is enjoying his first meal.”

“You did say a boy?”

“Yes, may God be praised, a fine and healthy one.”

The Conte grabbed her in an embrace so strong she felt her ribs compress. He lifted her off the ground and twirled
her around the corridor. The folds of her blue
cioppà
flew out around her.

“Please,” she said.

The Conte grinned and set her down. “God’s blessing on you, Hannah. After all these years, I now have an heir. You have made me a very happy man.”

They entered the bedchamber, still scented with the coppery odour of blood. The Contessa lay under her quilt, shivering. He glanced at the baby suckling at Giovanna’s breast and then went to his wife’s side and sat on the edge of her bed. He picked up her hand and massaged it in his own.

“My darling, thank you for this child. May God restore your strength and make you well enough to dance at his christening party.” He bent and kissed her forehead. “Now sleep.”

Although Lucia continued to shake with fever, her eyelids fluttered open and she smiled at him.

When the baby appeared to be sated, Hannah took him from Giovanna and walked over to the bed. She held the infant out to the Conte, who bent to peer into the baby’s sleeping face.

“Can you see him, my darling?” he said to his wife. “A boy. A beautiful, red-faced boy.”

Lucia gave no sign that she heard her husband.

The child curled his hand around Hannah’s finger and waved with the other at the dawn’s light. She continued to offer the child to the Conte, saying the words she had said many times before at confinements. “God, thank you for
sparing this baby’s life and may the child just born grow to be …” She halted, at a loss. She had been about to say “a Torah scholar,” but recovered herself in time and concluded, with only a slight stammer, “a blessing to his parents.”

The Conte was not the first father she had encountered to show apprehension. She pitied him. He had more reason than most to fear the baby’s death.

Still the Conte did not hold out his arms for his son. Instead, he lowered his head and turned away. Hannah heard the catch in his voice when he spoke.

“He is as fragile as porcelain. Swaddle him well.”

Hannah gave the baby back to Giovanna, who began wrapping the infant in long, narrow strips of fabric.

The Conte took a handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “You will think me unfeeling not to hold my child, but I am too old for another disappointment. Some of our other babies lived, too. A girl for a fortnight, then a baby boy for a few days. I loved them. I could not help myself. Maybe my love for them lured death to their cradles. I will not demonstrate my affection yet, lest I make God jealous. When he is older and I am certain he will survive, it will be different.” He gave Hannah a look. “Will he live? He is as small as a puppy. Do I have reason to hope?”

“I think love, as much as milk and amulets and prayers, keeps babies alive,” Hannah said. “It is not natural to withhold love from a child. When death sees him protected by a strong, loving father, she will keep her distance. And if, God forbid, the baby dies, at least he will have known your love.” Hannah wanted to take the Conte in her arms and
comfort him. But even if he were a Jew from the ghetto, it would not have been proper for her to do so. Instead, she said, “He is pink now, but he is too hot, perhaps with fever, perhaps with the exertion of being born. If he lives, he will grow into a man with a great deal of endurance. A child’s character is forged by his journey into the world.”

Giovanna finished wrapping the baby and, settling back onto the chair, began to nurse him once more. Jacopo entered the room with a suddenness that caused Hannah to start. When he bent down to peer at the baby, the infant lost his latch on Giovanna’s nipple and began to fuss.

Jacopo straightened and said, “A wrinkled, wizened little wonder he is.” He sat on a chair beside the Conte on the side of Lucia’s bed. “Congratulations, brother. You have a fine son.”

Hannah wished he would leave; his presence made her uncomfortable. Moreover, it was not fitting for this man, who was not the father of the child, to be insinuating his way into the birth room. Giovanna must have been in agreement, for she glowered at him and turned her body, shielding the baby from his view.

“Jacopo,” said the Conte, “Lucia is exhausted. Perhaps you can come tomorrow when she has composed herself.”

But Jacopo did not move from his chair.

Ignoring his brother, the Conte leaned forward to speak to Hannah. The face of the dignified nobleman was gone. Hannah saw only a man in pain.

“Tell me, Hannah, how should I protect this infant? If I can do anything to ensure the baby’s safety, I must know.”
He turned to Jacopo again and motioned to him to leave, but Jacopo remained where he was.

“I want to hear how this Jewess will answer you,” Jacopo said.

Hannah said, “I have a silver amulet in my bag, one that is said to keep away Lilith, the slayer of newborns.” She reached into her bag and held out her
shadai
in the shape of a baby’s hand. “It has been of great assistance at times like these.”

The Conte asked, “Can I persuade you to give it to me?”

“When I tell you the story of how it came to me, you will understand why I must refuse you.” It was a story that was well known to everyone in the ghetto.

“Many years ago, in the ghetto on a bitterly cold winter evening,” she began, “a baker’s wife found a baby in a rush basket abandoned under the portego near the Banco Rosso. The infant was blue from exposure and screaming with hunger. Since she discovered the baby on a week-night, when the ghetto was filled with gentile visitors either borrowing money or shopping for second-hand clothing or gemstones, she was not certain whether it was Jewish or Christian.”

The Conte bent toward her, eyebrows drawn together. It was not her custom to speak so frankly in front of a Christian, but under his attentive gaze, her shoulders relaxed and the words tumbled from her mouth.

“Nor could she understand how the baby had survived. She unwrapped the infant and examined the child’s linen for clues to its identity. Then this
shadai
fell out of
the swaddling cloths.” Hannah passed the
shadai
to the Conte, who took it and held it between the palms of his hands. “And she understood it was this that had protected the infant from freezing February rains and ravenous canal rats.”

The Conte dangled the
shadai
, suspended on a slender red cord, between his fingers. The amulet caught the light of the candles and shimmered as it moved, no bigger than a newborn’s hand.

The Conte glanced up at Hannah, his head inclined, a hand clasped around his bent knee, as though he had nothing more important in the world to do than listen to her. “And how did you come to have it?”

“That half-frozen bundle left to die was my mother.” To Hannah’s surprise the Conte’s eyes moistened and, in response, her eyes did as well. “This
shadai
has safeguarded every baby in my family, including my sister, Jessica, who was born with the birth string wound around her neck. The amulet saved my sister, but not our mother, who died a week later of childbed fever.”

“We have that in common, my dear,” the Conte responded. “My mother died giving birth to my youngest brother, Niccolò, whom you saw playing cards with Jacopo when you arrived.” He reached over and patted her hand. “I understand you must keep it. Someday, you will require it for your own baby.”

He must have surmised from her home that she had no children. She replied, “May your words lodge like wax in God’s ear.”

“But may I borrow your amulet?” asked the Conte. “Giovanna will return it to you when the period of confinement is over.”

“Let me see it, brother.” Jacopo took the
shadai
from the Conte. “What manner of writing is this?”

She wanted to snatch it out of his smooth, manicured hands, but replied, “Hebrew. It is inscribed with the names of the three angels who protect newborns. That”—she turned the amulet over and showed him the other side—“is the Star of David.”

“So you would have us believe a Jewish amulet will protect a Christian baby?” Jacopo said. He turned to the Conte and said, “Brother, I think this is a way to place a spell on your child.”

What reply could one make to such a remark?

Before she had a chance to frame an answer, the Conte asked her, “So you believe we pray to the same God?” He held out his hand for the charm, which Jacopo tossed back to him. The Conte polished the
shadai
on his sleeve.

“It is the same God for both Jew and gentile babies,” Hannah said. “The mother through her blood provides the red of the baby’s skin, flesh, hair, and back of the eye. The father provides through his seed the white parts—bones, sinews, nails, whites of the eyes, and the white matter of the brain. But God, and only God, breathes life and spirit into a child. That is the part that makes the child human.”

Jacopo opened his mouth to speak, but she continued, “It is the partnership of man and woman and God that creates a new life.”

“Yes, I believe you are right.” The Conte appeared exhausted. “But you have not vouchsafed a reply to my earlier question. May I borrow your
shadai?”

It would be dangerous to leave it in this household with Giovanna and Jacopo, she knew. But she had an uneasy feeling that the child needed protection. “Yes, you may have the loan of it.”

“Please give me directions for its use,” said the Conte.

“Tuck it into your child’s blankets and keep it with him at all times. Now is the period of greatest peril. The amulet will do its part, but you must perform yours. The child should be kept inside at all times, the windows to his bedchamber shuttered against the night air. The circle of salt that you see here around your wife’s bed? Place a similar circle around his cradle. Replenish it daily—not the servants, but you. This will protect against Lilith. Most important, all strangers must be kept away, especially …” The word on the tip of her tongue had been
Christians
, but to her relief the word
strangers
sprang to her mind and she seized upon it instead. She wanted to add that the child should be bathed in warm water from time to time and rubbed with a cloth, but she knew she would make better use of her breath by using it to cool her soup on the Sabbath.

Giovanna sat rocking the child, so relaxed that Hannah feared she would lose her hold and drop him to the terrazzo floor. The woman looked as though she was about to make a comment but had thought better of it.

As though cradling a mourning dove, the Conte di Padovani enclosed the amulet between his hands. He rose
from Lucia’s bed and moved to Giovanna. Gently, he placed the hammered silver on the baby’s chest. The child twitched in response, dropped Giovanna’s nipple, and gave a little cry.

“See the bubbles of milk forming on his lips?
Che tesoro
. He is a marvel,” he said.

“An angel with the devil’s kiss on his forehead,” said Jacopo, indicating the red marks left by the birthing spoons.

“Nonsense, Jacopo, it is the goodbye kiss from the Angel of Death. She knows she has been thwarted.”

The Conte reached into his breeches and took out a gold ducat. “Here, Giovanna, for your good work. You must tell no one what you witnessed tonight. Do I have your word?”

“Of course, Master.” Giovanna shifted the baby to one side and dropped the gold piece into her apron pocket.

Then the Conte turned to Hannah, reached into his shirt and took out a purse, and counted out two hundred ducats. Handing them to her, he said, “You have earned not only my money tonight, Hannah, but my gratitude as well. No one but you could have saved my wife and baby.”

Hannah heard Giovanna give a low grumble of discontent. She would worry about her later.

Hannah felt her face growing warm under his praise.

“You risked your life and the lives of your people,” he continued. “You have repaid me well by giving me something more precious than gold ducats.”

Maybe it was because she was fatigued, or maybe it was the effect of the Conte’s kind words, but in that instant Hannah felt like a new mother herself. She had
gambled everything to earn this money, just as Isaac had risked everything to sail to the Levant. If only he were as fortunate as she.

“Now you have the means to save your husband,” the Conte said. “Go home. You are tired.” He went out to the corridor and retrieved his cloak, which was in a heap on the floor, and returned with it. “You have loaned me your amulet; let me loan you this cloak against the cold air of dawn. My gondolier will see you safely home. Forgive me for not accompanying you myself, but the rest of the family is waiting downstairs for the news.” He arranged the heavy cloak around Hannah’s shoulders and once again she felt the heft of it weighing her down.