The Harem Midwife by Roberta Rich Page A

replaced his turban on his head, squared his shoulders, mounted the stool again, and extended a hand up to the girl.
    For his forbearance, he was rewarded by the sound of a throat being cleared and then a splat of saliva on his cheek. This insult was followed by a stream of curse words in Hebrew and instructions on what Mustafa could do with his quill.
    God my rock, protect me, Hannah thought. This girl, who seemed more suited for the Sultan’s menagerie than his couch, was a daughter of Israel. For a Jewish girl to speak so was an embarrassment for all Jews. It was Hannah’s conceit—she supposed that was the right word—to believe that Jews acted better than gentiles and better than Muslims.
Judge not that thee be not judged
, as one of her gentile neighbours would say. The words echoed in Hannah’s mind. Leah must have suffered greatly to act in this way. Sympathy would serve better than a sharp reproof.
    In Hebrew, Hannah called up, “You are lucky Mustafa did not understand what you invited him to do with his quill.”
    The girl gave a snort. “You speak Hebrew?”
    “I would not be much of a Jew if I did not.”
    Again in Hebrew, Leah shouted at Mustafa. “May hyenas crawl up your asshole and eat their way to your throat!”
    He got off his stool and backed away from the window ledge, then looked at Hannah.
    Hannah, pretending not to understand what had been said, took a cloth from her bag and gave it to Mustafa to wipe his cheek. Then he got back up on the stool and this time lunged for the girl. Quick as a snake, his fingers wrapped around her ankles. Leah struggled against his hold, lashing out, thrashing and bucking. A smell of sweat wafted down, the acrid scent of an animal fighting for its life. Mustafa held fast. Hannah could not look. She did not want to see the girl fall and hear her land with a thud on the stone floor.
    When she heard nothing but the growls and the grunts of a struggle, Hannah finally turned. The girl had lost her grip on the grille of the window. Now her fingers were curled around the curtains. Mustafa was bent over, still balancing on the stool, his hands braced on his knees, panting.
    “I am too old for such antics. I shall call a couple of eunuchs. They will subdue her before she harms either herself or us. If that does not succeed, there are always the Janissaries.” The Janissaries were the elite private corps of soldiers who guarded the Sultan. They would lose no time in hauling the child unceremoniously to the floor and packing her off to the prison cells under the slaves’ hospital.
    “Give me a chance,” said Hannah. “Leave me with her a moment.”
    Mustafa stepped down from the stool. “May Allah be with you.” Then he bowed and backed out of the room.
    Hannah heard him turn the key in the lock as he left.
    Why must Mustafa lock her in? She had had a horror of being locked in small rooms ever since she was a child and heard the story of a man, thought to be dead, who had been thrown into a coffin, the lid fastened shut, and buried alive. The beating of fists could be heard several houses away but no one dared come to his aid. Now she knew how this man had felt.
    Just as she was about to take Mustafa’s place on the stool, something landed on her head. The girl was flinging what looked like a cloud of filaments onto the floor. Yarn? Shreds of her garment? Charred lamp wicks that a lazy servant had tucked along the window ledge?
    The girl’s face appeared from behind the curtain. Hannah saw large, wide-spaced eyes staring down at her. Green, the green of the sea, the green of the first trees to bud in spring. Green eyes in a land of black-eyed women. Not even the Valide herself could claim this distinction. The girl was indeed extraordinary.
    On Leah’s face was the look of both predator and prey, of falcon and rabbit. Her gaze never left Hannah’s face. Hannah knelt and scooped up a handful of the strange substance from the floor. It was hair. Long, lovely, shiny