The Midwife of Venice (28 page)

Isaac lifted the side of the boat and crawled under. It stank of stagnant water, sodden wood, and dead fish. Sharp rocks dug into his backside. Isaac lay there, breathing as quietly as possible in the salt-thick air, waiting for the men to leave. But the footsteps came nearer, boots scraping along the stony beach.

“Here, Luigi,” said a slurred voice. One of the soldiers slumped onto the hull of the skiff, which took his weight with a creak of protest. “Have some wine. She will be along any moment.”

“Are you sure?” asked the other soldier.

“Ever know a whore to refuse drink or a few
scudi?”

The boat hull sagged under the weight of the first man and then the weight of both soldiers. Isaac worried that at any moment, the wood might splinter.

Soon he heard the sound of a woman giggling, and a voice calling out, “Hullo?”

“Here she comes. Let us save a swallow of wine. Do not drink it all.”

The one called Luigi said to his companion, “Go take a walk.”

Isaac felt the ribs of the skiff creak with relief as one soldier stood up and walked away.

“Come here, my darling. Let us see what you have under that pretty frock of yours.”

Isaac curled into a ball under the boat, his hands over his ears, while the whore coaxed Luigi to greater and greater pleasure. The boat trembled with their exertions, and Isaac was sure that the writhing couple would crash through the rotten hull on top of him. But by some miracle the boards held, and after much pleading with Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and St. Ursula, Luigi let out a cry and rolled off the hull, landing with a thud on the sand.

Through a crack in the slats, Isaac could make out the dark beach, although the moon had slipped behind a cloud. There was the flicker of a fire several
brachia
down the beach and the smell of fish drifted over to him. He could almost hear Gertrudis laughing to herself as she witnessed his humiliation.

The second soldier returned and slapped the strumpet on her rump, loudly anticipating his turn. He positioned her on the hull.

King of the Universe, Isaac thought, these gentiles fuck like feral cats. Soon Isaac’s ears rang from the moaning and high keening sounds that issued from above his head. It was as though the second soldier were being tortured by the Chief Inquisitor instead of being serviced by a strumpet.

Suddenly there was the sound of splintering and the hull nearly gave way, tumbling the soldier and his whore, still joined together, onto the jagged rocks. With moist sounds, they uncoupled and, bare-arsed, charged yelping to the sea.

Isaac hoisted up the boat and rolled out from underneath it. Just as he was about to make good his escape, the three returned, laughing and passing a bottle back and forth. Before they could see him, Isaac scuttled crab-like several paces along the beach until he found a boulder to crouch behind. He hunkered there so long his right calf muscle began to spasm. He massaged it, and his leg relaxed. He thought of Gertrudis. How satisfying it would be to wring her lovely, long neck. He forced himself to put this thought aside. His fury would keep.

Isaac looked around the cove. The only skiff was Gertrudis’s, now abandoned by the soldiers and their
putà
, who, he could see, were ambling down the beach, heading into town. He had no choice. He ran back to the collapsed skiff. He found the portrait of himself trampled by the soldiers and slammed it against his thigh to remove the sand.

The
Provveditore
would be casting off at dawn. He worked frantically. There was no cover, no welcoming thickets of brush, not even a stand of spindly poplars where he could drag the boat while he worked on it. He tore the sketch into strips and, making a compound of sand, seaweed, and bark from the pine stumps, bound together the pirogue, now more like a raft than a skiff. After a few hours, he was ready to haul it into the water. It wobbled unsteadily. Some water leaked in, but it did not sink. Perhaps it would suffice. Isaac glanced out into the harbour, where the high-decked galleon bobbed on its anchor line, so close but so out of reach, a couple of pine-pitch torches burning from her bow.

The sky grew dark with rain clouds. Soon it began to pour. Wind blew the sand so hard that his mouth was gritty with it. Waves in the harbour swelled as high as the walls of St. Elmo. The moon was nowhere to be seen; it would be only about two hours before first light. Should he risk setting off in this leaky vessel? The words of the philosopher Maimonides rang in his head:
The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision
. And besides, what choice had he?

As he worried how he could sneak aboard under the watchful eyes of the sentries, an idea occurred to him. Isaac scooped up in his arms a pile of dried seaweed and twigs and tossed them into the bow of the boat, the only place likely to remain dry. When the boat was halfway into the water, he snatched up the oars on the shore and jumped in. He began to row, the muscles of his back heaving with
the effort. At first the boat went in circles, but when he slowed down and concentrated on rowing with equal strength on both oars, it followed the course he set toward the
Provveditore
. He struggled for what seemed like hours, making slow progress. To the east, the sun was beginning to make its presence known, casting red light on the water. Dawn was beginning to break. Soon it was light enough to see the crew on the yardarm, setting the sails. How could he steal on board undetected?

Then he heard a sound that filled him with dismay—the clanking, groaning sound of the windlass. The crew of the
Provveditore
were weighing anchor, preparing to cast off. He was too late.

H
ANNAH CLUNG TO
the deck railing of the
Balbiana
, dressed as a Christian in one of Jessica’s gowns of blue silk. It was the only one she had been able to find in Jessica’s
cassone
that was modestly cut. The dress gave off her sister’s familiar scent of lemon and bergamot. It made Hannah want to weep.

After leaving the di Padovani palazzo under cover of night, she had stolen back to Jessica’s house. She had thrust into a trunk clothes, her birthing spoons and ducats, and packed food. Of the two hundred ducats the Conte had given her, she had about one hundred and fifty ducats left after she paid her passage to Malta and bought provisions
for the trip. Whether this would be sufficient for Isaac’s ransom she had no idea.

If only it had been possible to bring the goat onto the ship. She didn’t know how she would feed Matteo on this long voyage, which would take two or three months depending on the winds. But she had had no time to grieve or to think, only to act. At dawn she found a gondolier who, for a sum substantial enough to ensure his discretion, transported her and Matteo to the docks for the sailing of the
Balbiana
. They were the last to leave the port of Venice. By order of the Council of Ten, the city was now in quarantine.

Milk, she thought, as the deck of the ship rose and fell under her feet—she must find more milk for Matteo. Her dwindling supply of goat’s milk would keep him alive for only one more day. He had not cried since they had cast off a short while ago.

If only Jessica were here, she would know what to do. But Jessica would soon lie in a mass grave on Lazzaretto Vecchio, along with hundreds of others who had succumbed to the plague. Here, on the restless deck of this shifting, pitching three-masted galleon, there was no wet nurse, or even a goat, to provide nourishment to a child.

Her fellow passengers, Greeks, Armenians, Turks, Persians, and Jews, as well as Venetians, clustered at the rail watching as the pillars of San Marco disappeared from sight. Standing next to Hannah was an old man, an Armenian, draped in a flowing caftan and coughing from catarrh. Hannah stepped onto a pile of hemp rope to peer over the high sides of the galleon. Holding on to the rail
with one hand, Matteo tucked in her arm, she watched as the Basilica di San Marco receded into the distance.

Through the cacophony of people chatting, gulls screaming overhead, and ropes thrumming against the sails, the distant bells of the
Marangona
chimed six o’clock, signalling the beginning of the day. To the east, the fiery ball of the sun began to lift itself from the sea, rising above pinnacles, domes, and towers. Above the tangled finials of San Marco, it paused and winked while the water made clapping sounds. To the west, like the spine of a sea monster, the waves arched and broke over the shores of the Island of Guidecca. The Laguna Veneta, the Venetian lagoon, was choppy. The wind teased the azure water into white wavelets.

Overhead, the
Balbiana
‘s three square sails bellied and then fell slack from gusts of wind that began and stopped, came and went, without pattern. The breeze whipped the ends of her red scarf into her mouth. She plucked them out and then, using the advantage of her increased height on the coil of rope, turned to study the crowd.

Matteo whimpered.

“I saved you at your birth, and I saved you from your uncles. Now I wonder if I can save you once again.” He was pale, his legs so thin and his arms so flaccid that they flopped lifelessly when Hannah shifted him from one arm to the other. She transferred the
shadai
from around her neck to his. Had she worked so hard to save him only to lose him to starvation?

Hannah, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand, scrutinized one woman after another, dismissing each one
in turn. And then, on the other side of the deck, she noticed a lady, Venetian judging from her velvet dress and blonde hair done up in twin coronets, who bore a small object in her arms. Hannah let go of the rail, climbed down from the rope, and pushed her way toward her. Just as she was about to place a hand on the woman’s arm, she looked more closely at the bundle and realized it was a brown spaniel wrapped in white muslin. She backed away, treading on the feet of another woman, who reached out and grasped Hannah by the shoulder to steady her.

This woman was dressed in a
pelisse
, a floor-length gown of silk, as green and iridescent as a hummingbird’s breast. Over her face was a veil that did not permit Hannah to see more than her black eyes.

When Hannah smiled and apologized, the woman replied,
“Maşallah.”
After Hannah had regained her footing and greeted her in turn, the veiled woman bent forward to examine Matteo. She tickled him under his chin. When he did not respond, she said, “Your child is ill,
hanim effendi
. He hardly moves.”

“I have no milk.”

“May Allah have pity on him. Where is his wet nurse?”

“That is a story that does not bear telling. Suffice to say, I have only some goat’s milk growing sour in a bottle. Enough for one more day, no more.”

“A boy?” When Hannah nodded, the woman said, “Then you have been given a gift.” She gave a slight shrug. “I, to my regret, have produced only girls. Six beautiful but useless girls.”

“Perhaps next time.” Hannah wondered at the woman’s perfect command of Venetian, which she spoke with only the faintest hint of an Ottoman accent.

The woman patted her stomach and shrugged. “But how does one escape Allah’s will?” She bowed her head and said, “My name is Tarzi.” A gust of wind blew her gown against her body, and Hannah noticed that she was lush in the plump, sensual way of the Turkish women she had glimpsed in one of the markets in Dorsoduro.

“I am Hannah.”

“Forgive me for saying this, Hannah
effendi
, but do you not think you have been reckless to embark on such a trip without a wet nurse?”

“I had little choice in the matter.”

“In his condition, a slight fever or grippe could take him.”

Hannah felt like replying,
Do you think me so simple as not to have thought of this?
Instead she said, “I was giving him suck until a few days ago and then my milk dried up. By then it was too late to find a suitable nurse to accompany us.” The lie came easily to her. In truth, she had had no time to plan anything other than how to get Matteo onto the
Balbiana
before the
Prosecuti’s
soldiers returned to Jessica’s house and seized both of them.

Tarzi said, “You were nursing him
yourself?”
She sounded astonished by the thought.

Jessica would have known how to handle a woman such as this one. A mere tap of Jessica’s fan on the woman’s solid arm and Tarzi would have become less haughty.

“I was brought to bed a month ago with my last daughter, Gülbahar.”

“So you have a wet nurse?”

“Of course,” said Tarzi. “Hatice is an
ikbal
, a Circassian slave from the mountains. Slender, but tough as a mountain cat.” Tarzi tied the ends of her veil behind her head to keep them from being whipped about by the wind. Above them, the sails gave a thump as the wind filled them.

“My husband gave me Hatice when my eldest daughter was born.”

“You are fortunate,” said Hannah. No one in the ghetto could afford slaves; no one in the ghetto wore jewels of the size and perfection that Tarzi wore.