Free The Harem Midwife by Roberta Rich Page B

She rubbed them together to warm them. She had no stomach for the job that lay before her, but she had no choice.
    Leah’s toes were splayed as though they had never known the confines of sandals, much less the soft kid slippers with upturned toes favoured by the ladies of the harem. Where was the dazzling and eager virgin to awaken ardour in the loins of God’s Shadow on Earth, ruler of half the world? Where were the ample breasts, the pearly skin, and the voluptuous figure of a fully formed woman in her prime childbearing years? Hannah reached in her bag again and drew out a cotton sheet. She unfolded it, let it billow and then float down to settle on the girl. Leah drew it up to her chest until it covered her chin. Even in her presentstate, a scalp red with angry gashes, legs dotted with insect bites, Leah was beautiful. A beautiful child. What could be done to help her?
    Hannah spoke softly. “Lie back.”
    The girl sat rigidly.
    Hannah waited.
    Slowly, Leah eased herself into a reclining position, then curled into a ball, her face turned toward the wall. Hannah wondered if the girl had been violated by the Yürüks, a tribe notorious for their brutality.
    Hannah spoke in a coaxing and gentle tone. “You are from the Circassian Mountains?”
    Leah turned toward Hannah and nodded. Around her neck was a leather lanyard, which had been broken and then clumsily retied. She reached for it and showed Hannah a
nazar boncuğu
of milky blue stone, an amulet against the Evil Eye. “My grandmother gave this to me,” she said, rubbing it against her cheek.
    “Which town are you from?” It made no difference, except to encourage the girl to talk. Hannah knew nothing of Circassia and could not have named one village in the entire region. She knew only that it lay somewhere beyond the Black Sea. A few hundred Jews lived there in poor, isolated settlements. The men herded sheep; the women wove rugs on backstrap looms during the winter to sell at spring market.
    “It is nothing but starving dogs, burnt huts, and charred bones now.”
    “And your family? What of them?”
    “I saw my father’s corpse desecrated in a
buzkashi
game.”
    Dear God. The Yürüks were the fiercest of the nomadic tribes, their horses the swiftest, their men the most savage. “Mercy upon you. I am so sorry.” Hannah laid a hand on Leah’s shoulder. “You are a brave girl.”
    “My grandmother used to say the same thing.”
    Hannah arranged her equipment on a linen cloth next to the divan—bandages, herbs, vials of oil, silk thread, needle and scissors. The birthing spoons remained in her bag.
May they not be needed for this girl for many years
, she prayed.
    Hannah glanced at Leah’s face. The girl stared at the ceiling, blinking and fighting back tears.
    Hannah asked the question she dreaded the answer to. “Were you violated?”
    “The Yürük who captured me dragged me to his tent high in the mountains so that he did not have to share me with the other men. He threw me down in front of his fire. He ordered me take off my clothes. He stared at me so long I thought his eyes would scorch the skin off my bones.”
    Hannah wanted to put her hands over her ears so she would not hear the rest. But if the girl had been dishonoured, there was no point in putting her through the ordeal of an examination. “And then?”
    “I picked up a knife from the ground and cut off a lock of my hair. I handed it to him. Among the Yürüks, this signifies a plea for compassion.” Leah fixed her green eyes on Hannah, who could imagine the directness of Leah’s gaze discomfiting even a Yürük.
    “He tied my hair around the hilt of his dagger. He did not strike me again. He made a bed for me in the corner from a smelly camel skin. Then he told me to sleep. In the morning he fed me sheep’s yogourt sweetened with honey and announced he would make his fortune from me.”
    Hannah’s heart was breaking. “You need not tell me the rest.”
    “He sold me to Arab