by Roberta Rich
All the things she had meant to say to him, all the speeches she had rehearsed on the many nights when she could not sleep for craving him, all the words of love she had saved up for his ears … not a word could she remember.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, she stood, simply drinking in the sight of him. Isaac turned to her, his dark eyes luminescent with joy. He was grinning so broadly she could see he did still have all his teeth, still strong and white after all the deprivations he must have endured.
He said, “So you are real. I was afraid you might be one of those visions I have from too little food and water.”
They walked over to the quiet corner of the square under the olive tree where he had sat penning letters so many times, and he helped her to sit on the log and then took a seat beside her. He leaned forward and drew back a corner of the blanket.
“A child? How did you come by him?”
Matteo squirmed in her arms.
“Isaac,” Hannah said as his eyes fixed on the baby, “I have brought you a son.”
“My God, our last night. Did we conceive him then?”
Since Isaac had been away for nearly a year, of course he would assume the child was his. Perhaps it was wisest to let him or she might lose him a second time. But a marriage based on a lie has no more substance than a house built on sand. She took a deep breath.
“I saved his life, but, no, I did not give birth to him.”
“Then who are his parents?” Isaac asked.
“His mother and father are dead.”
Isaac looked as though he wanted to ask another question, but Hannah interrupted him.
“I am not his mother. I could never be unfaithful to you.”
He waited for more.
“Isaac, I have so much to tell you, so much to explain, but before I do, tell me that you will take this child as your own.”
Isaac looked pensive for a moment. “How did he survive the journey?”
“By fate and God’s intervention.”
Isaac fingered the shadai hanging from its red cord on Matteo’s neck. “He is a Jewish child?”
“As you will see the first time you view him without his swaddling bands, he is a gentile.” She paused. “But we can raise him as we wish. We will make him ours. We shall have him circumcised. We shall immerse ourselves in water, the three of us. Here in Valletta, if you wish, before we depart.” Her voice was firm. “He has no one else in the world except us.”
He was staring at her with an expression of amazement, whether because of her words or because of the vigour behind them, she did not know. She forced herself to stop talking, willing him to say the words she wanted to hear.
At last, Isaac spoke. “We have longed for a son, you and I. Perhaps God at last has heard our prayers.” He looked at the child and laughed with delight as Matteo grabbed his thumb and sucked on it. “He is beautiful.”
He took Matteo from her arms and untied his lace cap, revealing curly wisps of hair. He cupped the child’s head in one hand, smoothing the reddish hair off his forehead with the other. Isaac’s eyes filled.
“I will raise him as my own. He will be my own son, as though from my own flesh.”
Hannah felt herself relax, the air reaching deep into her lungs, the first full breath in a long time.
“But how did you come to have this child?”
“I will tell you the whole story later,” Hannah said. “There is no hurry.” She reached into the linen bag at her feet. “There is something else.” She took out the purse of ducats and showed them to Isaac. “You married me without a dowry, but I have one now. What we do not have to pay over to the Knights for your ransom will go to starting a new life for us.”
Isaac said, “The Knights will free me for fifty ducats. I have caused them nothing but headaches since I arrived.”
“The same Isaac. Everywhere you go, a pain in the tuchas.”
Isaac tore his eyes from Matteo and looked at her. “You are not the only one with a treasure.” He passed Matteo to her and then untied a pouch from around his neck and showed her the contents: twenty or so hard white cocoons, smoother and slightly larger than a robin’s eggs.
“What are they?”
“Silkworm cocoons from healthy stock. Something to help us make a new life.” Isaac closed the bag and placed it around his neck. “Silk is beloved everywhere—except,” he said with a laugh, “on this barren island. Although that may change. The stout nun who spoke to you at the slave auction? Sister Assunta is my new business partner, God help me.”
“The Rabbi said you would be dead before I reached you,” Hannah said.
“And the Society for the Release of Captives offered me my freedom months ago if I signed a divorce. But without you, what was the point of freedom?” He released one hand from the child to caress her face. “And here you are. No longer my little ghetto mouse.”
Hannah placed her hand on Isaac’s. “We cannot return to Venice.”
“So where shall we start this new ducat-filled life of ours?” Isaac asked.
“Wherever babies are born.” With her birthing spoons to coax out babies who had grown too contented in their mother’s wombs, she could make her way anywhere in the world.
“You are a bringer forth of life, my Hannah.”
“You are talking blasphemy. Only God can do that.” She leaned against him, feeling the heat of his body along her side. She had been so long without him.
“You ask where I wish to go,” she said. “The Ottomans treat Jews well. In Constantinople we could own any kind of business, not just second-hand clothing or moneylending as in Venice. We could buy land, live in any quarter of the city, work at anything we pleased.”
Isaac considered her words. And then he nodded slowly, an idea growing. “We could start a weaving workshop …” He told her about the convent and Sister Assunta and her plans for fabricating silk thread.
“In a few days,” said Hannah, “the Balbiana sails for Constantinople. It will mean many more weeks of pitching and rolling, but with you, anything will be bearable.”
“And the child? Who will give him suck?”
“I have kept him alive this long,” Hannah said. “I will find a way.”
She smiled at him and then lowered her eyes and noticed the lesion on Isaac’s ankle from the leg shackle. When they were alone she would rub it with almond oil. It would heal with hardly a scar, just as, in time, her memory of Jessica’s death would grow less painful.
It was immodest, but she pulled him closer and kissed him despite the throng of people in the square. As she pressed her body against his, she felt herself grow warm in a way that had nothing to do with the setting sun beating down on her bare head. She felt his hands, once so smooth, now callused and stained with ink. Hannah ran her hand across his ribs.
“Like a washboard. I have my work cut out, getting the meat back on your bones.”
“And you?” he replied. “Not exactly fat.”
They held the child between them on their laps and he cried now in protest from the pressure of being squeezed. They moved apart, but only slightly. Their hands remained clasped, the three of them forming a tight circle.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I first came upon the idea of writing about Hannah as I was wandering through Venice. I ended my walk having a correcto and hamantashen cookies in the Jewish Ghetto Nuovo in Cannaregio. I was struck by how closely this small island resembled a movie set, with its open square, only a wellhead to break the expanse, and narrow, knife-sharp buildings enclosing the campo on three sides.
In the 1500s, as more and more Jews arrived from northern Europe, Spain, and Portugal, the tiny apartments shrank even more as they were partitioned into cramped living quarters, rather like a cake sliced into small and smaller pieces as unexpected guests arrive. Floors were added, and eventually the city government permitted the Jews to expand to two additional islands, Ghetto Vecchio and Ghetto Novissimo.
In trying to imagine what d
ay-to-day life must have been like, I thought of women raising large families in overcrowded conditions. This led to thoughts of midwifery and, from there, to the notion of birthing spoons. I then had to imagine how these birthing spoons would be used and who would be wielding them. And so the idea of The Midwife of Venice was born.
Did such a midwife exist? I like to think so, although in my research I never came across a reference to such a woman. This is no doubt because the history of women, their fortitude and accomplishments, is written in water.
If you are interested in further exploring this fascinating era of history, I include a list of readable and interesting books from my research.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Midwife of Venice has been a labour of love. I wish to thank all of the many people who have helped through its conception, long labour, and birth:
To my wonderful agent, Bev Slopen, who has been a source of encouragement and advice for many years. I thank her for her persistence, wisdom, and insight.
To Nita Pronovost for being the kind of old-fashioned literary editor whom I thought had gone the way of books with marbled endpapers and hand-set type. She smacked this manuscript on the bottom not once but many times until she got it to breathe and turn pink. Instead of birthing spoons, her tools were warm support and meticulous attention to detail. Her insights showed me where to go, how to get there, and how to know when I had finally arrived.
To Rhoda Friedrichs, Professor of European and Medieval History at Douglas College, my special thanks for suggesting not only scholarly references but plot ideas; to Minna Rozen, Professor of Jewish History, University of Haifa, for answering my questions about Jewish law and customs; and to Lee Saxell, Professor of Midwifery at the University of British Columbia, for explaining how babies come into the world.
To all the many wonderful writing teachers I have had the pleasure of studying with over the years: William Deverell, Joy Fielding, James N. Frey, Jonathon Furst, Elizabeth Lyons, Bob Mayer, Barbara McHugh, Kim Moritsugu, Anne Rayvals, Peter Robinson, and John Stape.
To my writers’ group: Carla Lewis, Sandy Constable, and Sharon Rowse.
To my friends: Katherine Ashenburg, Lynne Fay, Shelley Mason, Jim Prier, Gayle Quigley, Elana Zysblat, Gayle Raphanel, and Guy Immega for their help and support.
To my much beloved daughter and insightful reader, Martha Hundert.
To my stepdaughter and talented editor, Kerstin Peterson.
And to my great friend and gentle critic, Beryl Young.
To the art department at Random House/Doubleday for sending my baby out into the world with such a beautiful face, and to Bhavna Chauhan for championing my book and offering editorial support.
And finally, to Ken, my husband and best friend, who has always known how to keep the pot boiling, the stakes high, and the disbelief willingly suspended.
FURTHER READING
Andrieux, Maurice. Daily Life in Venice at the Time of Casanova. New York: Praeger, 1972.
Ashenburg, Katherine. The Dirt on Clean. Toronto: Knopf Canada, 2007.
Brown, Patricia Fortini. Private Lives in Renaissance Venice. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
Butler, E. A. Silkworms. Aberdeen: University Press Aberdeen, 1929.
Calimani, Riccardo. The Ghetto of Venice. Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 2005.
Chojnacki, Stanley. Women and Men in Renaissance Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.
Cohen, Elizabeth S. and Thomas V. Daily Life in Renaissance Italy. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2001.
Cohen, Mark R. (translated and edited by). The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Davis, Robert C. (ed.), and Benjamin Ravid. The Jews of Early Modern Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
Defoe, Daniel. Journal of the Plague. New York: Indy Press, 2002.
Klein, Michelle. A Time to Be Born: Customs and Folklore of Jewish Birth. New York: Jewish Publications Society of America, 2000.
Laven, Mary. The Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken Vows in the Renaissance Convent. London: Penguin Books Ltd., 2003.
Lawner, Lynne. The Lives of Courtesans in Venice and Rome. New York: Rizzoli International Publishing, 1991.
Mee, Charles L. Daily Life in the Renaissance. New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., 1975.
Plumb, J. H. The Italian Renaissance. New York: First Mariner Books, 1961.
Pullan, Brian. Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975.
Roden, Claudia. The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York. New York: Knopf, 1996.
Rosenthal, Margaret. The Honest Courtesan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Roth, Cecil. History of the Jews in Venice. Schocken Books, 1976.
Ruggiero, Guido. The Boundaries of Eros. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Tenenti, Alberto. Piracy and the Decline of Venice 1580-1615. New York: Longmans, 1967.
Tuchman, Barbara. A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. New York: Ballantine Press, 1987.
Wills, Garry. Venice: Lion City. New York: Washington Square Press, 1971.
Zeigler, Philip. The Black Death. New York: Harper Perennial, 1971.