Free The Midwife of Venice by Roberta Rich Page B

finger. Seizing a candle from the table next to the bed, she cauterized the severed end of the cord, which made a
pfsst-pfsst
sound when she held the flame to it.
    Fitting her mouth over the baby’s, Hannah sucked mucus from its nose and mouth and spit it on the floor. The infant remained limp.
    Giovanna returned with the basins and said, “Just use a damp cloth. Immersion in water is not good for a child. It will die and all our hard work will be lost.”
    Hannah knew of the Christian indifference to bathing. The Rabbi had told her once—in jest, perhaps—that when a Christian baby is baptized, an old priest dressed in smelly black robes pours water from a chalice over his head and declares that forever more the child is relieved from the responsibility of bathing.
    “It is not to cleanse but to bring the child back from the edge of death.”
    Giovanna said nothing, but watched as Hannah plunged the tiny form into the basin of warm water, then into the basin of cold water, back and forth.
    Come. Breathe, child. A life of ease awaits you. Fine clothes, private tutors, loving parents, a palazzo on the Grand Canal. All that is required of you is to suck air into your little body and then exhale it. Try. It is not so difficult
.
    “The child should be christened,” said Giovanna.
    “I will blow smoke into the lungs.” Hannah took the same candle she had used for cauterizing, held it above the baby, careful not to let the tallow drip onto its chest, and through pursed lips blew the smoke in the direction of the baby’s face. She did it several times, but the child remained blue and lifeless. Perhaps a dish of singed rosemary under the baby’s nose? But there was no time. She grabbed it by the feet and, holding it upside down, slapped its bottom and back, careful to keep the slippery body suspended over the bed.
    “I am doing my part, God. Please help me.” Holding the small body, she made a plunging vertical motion as though scrubbing clothes on a washboard. “By all that is great and good, breathe.”
    “Only God can give him life,” said Giovanna.
    “Tonight He needs my help.”
    “You blaspheme.”
    Hannah righted the child, but its colour was no better. Again she submerged the infant into cold water, the waxy coating nearly making the tiny body slither from her grasp. This time, the shock of the freezing water elicited a shrill cry of outrage. Hannah’s shoulders sagged with relief, and she placed the baby on the bed.
    “May your screams be heard all the way to the Piazza San Marco.”
    As the baby wailed, its colour turned from purple to pink. The birthing spoons, lying on the end of the bed in plain view, had left tiny red marks on either side of the babe’s forehead. It would do her no good if Giovannasnatched her spoons and presented them as evidence to the Inquisition. She grabbed them and thrust them, sticky with mucus and blood, into her bag.
    She heard a faint moan from Lucia, and said, “Your child lives. I will attend to you in a moment.”
    Turning her attention back to the baby, she scrubbed off the layer of waxy cream with a rough cloth. The infant was large, the private parts so swollen it took Hannah a moment to realize he was male. The slate blue eyes in the wrinkled face opened. He would be a beauty—if he continued to breathe. Seeing the tiny abdomen rise and fall like the soft belly of a kitten, Hannah smiled with joy. He was plump, with strong, even features, a high brow, and full cheeks. His hair would be reddish when it dried. How unlike the dark, complaining babies of the ghetto, who entered the world red and protesting, born instinctively sensing that a life of struggle awaited them. She held the child to her breast and rocked him as he appraised her, clenching his tiny fists.
    “Bring the candle closer, Giovanna. Let me examine this little man.”
    Giovanna obliged and held the light high, illuminating the baby’s skin, which now bloomed a healthy pink. She did not want to put