“For me, Auntie?” Esmikhan turned to Nur Banu.
“It was Safiye’s idea.”
“No one can deny the Quince’s skill,” Safiye said.
“Bordering on magic,” Nur Banu concurred.
The room was warm. Why did I shiver?
Nur Banu continued: “The Quince well deserves her place as attendant to the births of princes and princesses.”
My lady said: “To have the Quince sent to my lying-in, even just for an hour or two, even if she did no more than hold my hand...Why, this is an honor.”
“Honor for a woman,” Safiye said, “equal to the honor for a man if your husband the Vizier puts in an appearance at the circumcision of his son.”
“Well, you shall have her,” Nur Banu said. “In your house as a permanent guest, working her magics day and night against miscarriage and injury from these very early months.”
“Auntie, this is an honor indeed.”
“For the Sultan’s first great-grandchild, you should have expected no less.”
Was there a subtle jab here by the older woman at Safiye’s continued childless state? Safiye turned with dignity to an open window, above such pettiness, and my lady moved quickly lest any offense be attributed to her failure as a hostess.
“Thank you,” my lady said. “And thank you, Quince. We can make room for her, Abdullah, can we not?”
Before I had time to reply to my lady’s deference, Safiye ingressed, “Oh, my dear Esmikhan. You don’t ask a khadim if the arrangements are to his liking. You tell him how things are going to be.”
Where I had seen no difficulty with this extended visit before, with Safiye’s snipe I suddenly had a most desperate one. But how to express my unease? The rummage through my brain left me speechless for a moment.
“You will see, Abdullah, that the Quince is made comfortable in the room next to mine.” Flawlessly, my lady took her cue from Baffo’s daughter.
“As you will.” I bowed with stiffness as if I’d never made such a movement in my life before. Desperate for excuse, I continued, “But I must remind you, lady, the workmen for the summer rooms have stored their tiles and plaster there. It would take all day to clear it.”
Safiye’s glance read, Well, then, you’d better get started right away, hadn’t you, eunuch?
She said nothing, however, as if yielding graciously herself to the Sultan’s granddaughter, who said, “Of course, Abdullah, you’re right. But then the Quince must sleep with me in my room. You won’t mind, madam, will you?”
“Not at all. This way I can better judge the instant, Allah forbid, anything should go amiss.”
“It is most gracious of you.”
As she spoke these words, my lady failed to see a glance that passed between the Quince and—of all people—Sofia Baffo. I was more determined than ever to stop this new arrangement in our home, but I could think of no way to do it. By this time, too, Esmikhan had already slipped her arm into Safiye’s and was leading the way toward the divans and the lattices thrown wide against the heat.
Safiye said: “If you’d like, Esmikhan, the Quince can tell you right today if it’s a boy or a girl you’re carrying.”
“Can she?” Esmikhan turned with such excitement to the midwife that the gauze of her head scarf stuck to the pink flush on her windward cheek. “Can you really do that, madam?”
“You doubt my skill, lady?”
“No, no. Of course not.”
“Because such predictions are the easiest part of a midwife’s work.”
Esmikhan caught a reproving glance from me, swept her hand in a studied gesture of welcome and said: “But first, you must all sit down. Make yourselves at home. Please. Welcome. Guests belong to Allah as well as to the hostess.”
So the women draped their skirts around their feet as they tucked up on the various divans according to their status. My lady, however, who’d been pressing her hands together in order to contain her excitement, could no longer. She blurted out: “I should love to have you read the signs for me with your art, madam, if it is the will of Allah.”
Having seen that thrill in my lady’s face, how could I begrudge her her midwife?
II
From a saffron-colored square of silk the midwife had given her, Safiye sprinkled a good cook’s measure of salt into the pale part of my lady’s dark hair. The well-ground crystals—none larger than the head of a pin, not a cook’s coarse lumps—glinted with anticipation, like sequins in her curls.
Meanwhile, Esmikhan sat and blushed and squirmed to have every eye on her with her head uncovered, as she usually only bared it in the bath. Her locks were still sweat-damp and -dented into the shape of the cap she twiddled now between her fingers. She hadn’t been on such display even as a bride.
“She squirms,” the Quince diagnosed.
“She is only nervous,” Safiye protested, putting an arm about her friend’s brocaded shoulders. “Aren’t you, my dear?”
Esmikhan made the effort not to be, and only blushed the more.
“She doesn’t itch,” Safiye declared.
“She does, but she restrains herself with a princess’s restraint “the Quince countered. “The salt doesn’t itch your scalp, does it, Esmikhan?”
“No, no, not yet,” my lady replied, as though determined to create an itch if that would please.
“You see? It should itch like lice, didn’t you say, Quince?”
“No, it doesn’t itch. Is that bad?” Nervousness washed from my lady’s face to give place to a pallid fear.
“It’s been long enough now,” Safiye urged the midwife. “She doesn’t itch.”
“She doesn’t itch,” the Quince conceded with a shrug. “She carries a boy.”
The company let out its bated hope in an audible sigh. “A boy! Mashallah! A boy!” They exclaimed all round and took turns congratulating their hostess.
Over this pleasant confusion, I saw Safiye shoot slivers of almond eyes at the midwife, some
