“Since she couldn’t treat herself, Mercada decided to go and see Jilda la Vieja—Old Jilda—in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City. Jilda was ancient, perhaps a hundred years old, maybe more, and was thought to be a wise woman with whom even Ashkenazim consulted.
“One morning after Raphael and Gabriel left for the market and the rest of the family had gone off about their business, Mercada took her basket and walked down Agrippas Street to Jaffa Road, and from there until she saw the walls of the Old City and Jaffa Gate. When she reached Jilda la Vieja’s yard, there were dozens of people who had been sitting on stools for hours, waiting their turn to see the old healer. There wasn’t a single free stool, so she sat down on the stone steps in the entranceway and waited.
“Wai de mi sola, she thought. It’ll be hours before it’s my turn to see the old woman and I’ll have no choice but to go back home empty handed. She opened the Book of Psalms she carried with her and began reading. At times like these, she was glad that unlike many of her relatives and neighbors, she could read and write. When they were young, her husband had taught her the Hebrew letters, and it was revealed that she possessed a brilliant mind. Whenever he brought home the HaZvi newspaper, she was able to read the news and discuss it with her husband. Once she even attempted to gossip with him about Ben-Yehuda’s son Itamar’s love affair with Leah, the beautiful daughter of Senor Abu Shadid, that all of Jerusalem was talking about, but he had silenced her with a gesture.
“He, of course, concealed from her the fact that the love story between the Ashkenazi and Leah the Sephardia was giving him sleepless nights. Times are changing, he thought to himself. Now Senor Abu Shadid has no choice and his daughter is marrying an Ashkenazi. Who knows, perhaps if I’d told my father about the blue-eyed Ashkenazia … And then he’d banish the notion, knowing that for all the money in the world his father would not have broken the agreement with Mercada’s father to marry their children. Not only that, he would never have consented to a marriage between his son and an Ashkenazia. And though whenever he shared Mercada’s bed he never experienced the feeling that had shot through him when he was struck by the Ashkenazia’s blue eyes, and even during all the years of their marriage he had never felt excitement when his body touched his wife’s, Raphael knew that all in all, fortune had smiled on him and that the good Lord had given him a wonderful wife and mother.
“As Mercada studiously read the Book of Psalms, her body swaying back and forth as she brought the pages to her lips and kissed them, something disturbed her concentration. On a stone wall nearby, a young girl was sitting, swinging her legs. The sound of her heels hitting the wall was driving Mercada crazy.
“‘Could you stop banging your feet?’ she asked the girl. When the girl raised her head and stared at Mercada, Mercada saw the bluest eyes she’d seen in her life, set in a face that was a perfect oval with blond hair in a flawless braid. Wide-eyed on seeing the breathtaking beauty of the girl, who looked back at her as if seeing right through her, Mercada felt uneasy. The girl’s stare bewildered her. She got up from the steps and sat down again, confused, unable to remember why she’d spoken to her in the first place. And then it hit her: This girl isn’t a girl at all. She’s an evil spirit! This girl is Lilith, the one that makes Ashmedai, king of the demons, seem a guiltless saint. She immediately picked up her basket, hurried out of Jilda la Vieja’s yard, and spat three times, tfu-tfu-tfu, her feet quickly carrying her out of the Old City. All she wanted was to get home as fast as possible. Nine times, so her mother had told her, you must repeat the Song of Ascents nine times so that your wish comes true. She had never prayed more fervently, never been more convinced that she had just encountered the evil eye in person, Lilith, may her name and memory be erased, Lilith, who was biding her time to harm her loved ones. The red thread she had tied around her loved ones’ wrists had not driven Lilith away, hija de un mamzer!
“She resolved to expel the evil eye, and the next day went to see the Kabbalist Rabbi Shmuel of the Eliyahu Hanavi Synagogue in the Old City. The Kabbalist prayed and read the Talmud deep into the night, and Mercada brought him and his disciples steaming hot tea and her home-baked bizcocho.
“‘Rabbi Shmuel,’ she said, ‘I have come to you to exorcise the evil eye that is on me and my family, and because of which I know no peace.’
“The rabbi took Mercada into the yard, lit a fire, and ordered her to stand over the flames with her feet apart and say her name, her mother’s name, and her grandmother’s name. He closed his eyes and said a prayer, and then all at once the embers glowed and sparks shot in all directions. Rabbi Shmuel opened his eyes, looked deep into hers, and told her to repeat the words of the prayer and supplication after him. When he finished, the embers stopped spitting sparks and the fire went out, and the rabbi said, ‘You were right, Senora Ermosa, there was a big evil eye on you. But now it is all over, it has flown with the wind, we have exorcised it completely, and with God’s help you are clean. Go back to your husband and children, and may you be healthy.’
“Mercada was filled with a sense of purity. The glowing embers, the sparks, the crackle of the wood as it was consumed by the flames, the kindly eyes of the Kabbalist rabbi, and the sight of Mount Moriah from his yard all made her feel that she had been cleansed. She thanked the rabbi and left a substantial sum of money in the box in his doorway. Before returning home, she stopped at the bagno, immersed herself in the ritual mikvah, and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving to Senor del mundo. When she got home she felt as pure and white as a bride on her wedding day.”
* * *
“As the Ermosa family business flourished, the shop became too small to hold all the goods as well as the customers that frequented it, so when two adjoining shops became vacant after their owners passed on one after the other, Raphael purchased them, and Gabriel broke down the dividing walls.
“Raphael handed over the reins to Gabriel and stopped working in the shop almost completely. Instead he would sit in his wooden chair in the doorway leaning on his cane, twisting the curls of his beard that was now white, playing with his worry beads, and looking on satisfied at the growing number of customers, and at his son, who managed the shop so well.
“One day Gabriel came to the shop with white aprons, tied one around his waist, and told Leon and Leito to do the same. ‘Like in America,’ he explained to his father, who looked at him in astonishment. ‘Now,’ said Gabriel, ‘now we have to give the shop a name, like in America.’ And the next morning a big sign was put up over the shop: RAPHAEL ERMOSA & SONS, DELICATESSEN.
“The shop continued to thrive and the family’s financial situation significantly improved. The family’s other children also found their way in life: Clara was married and expecting her first child, Avraham and Matzliach opened a carpentry shop, Shmuel was still studying in a Talmud Torah school, and I, Allegra, who had gotten married while Gabriel was still in America, moved to Tel Aviv with my husband Elazar and gave Mercada and Raphael two grandchildren, may they be healthy, without the evil eye.
“That was when Mercada told Raphael, ‘It’s time we found a bride for Gabriel. The boy is twenty already and until he’s married his little brothers won’t get married either.’ Raphael gave his approval and Mercada considered the list of possible young women. It wasn’t difficult. After all, the Spaniols lived in a tight-knit community and knew one another well, and they sometimes even married distant relatives. She thought that Estherika, the daughter of Shlomo Molcho, a relative three times removed, might be a suitable match. The community’s rabbis encouraged marriage within the family on condition that the couple were not blood relatives, so that defective children wouldn’t be born, God forbid. Over the years, as the Spaniol community had dwindled, they feared that their sons and daughters would marry spouses from other communities, heaven help us.
“‘Before you start thinking about a bride, sit down and talk to your son,’ Raphael ordered Mercada.
“‘What’s to talk about?’ she replied. ‘His tim
e to marry has come, and I’ll find him the best bride of all the young girls in Jerusalem.’
“But still, she took her son aside for a talk. He was her dear son, her pride and joy. She had raised all her children wonderfully. ‘They were born one after the other,’ she liked to say, ‘without a break, the way God wished it.’
“She didn’t speak of the four children who had died at birth or before they were a year old. I’ve already told you, Gabriela querida, that the death of babies in those days was nothing out of the ordinary. Your nono Gabriel had been named after the Angel Gabriel so he would protect him and ensure that he not die, God forbid, before the redemption of the firstborn ceremony. Even after the other children were born, Mercada treated him as if he were her only son. When he went to America, she missed him so, and no one was happier than she when he returned. She felt sorry for Leon, whose son had chosen to stay in America. ‘I’m like Mother Goose,’ she said. ‘I like my young under my wing.’ Now she was resolved to find the most suitable bride for Gabriel.
“‘Hijo querido,’ she told him, ‘it’s time we made a wedding for you.’
“He didn’t resist and didn’t argue. He knew his time had come, but of all the girls he knew, there wasn’t one he liked. While friends and relatives his own age had married one after the other, and Moshe, his friend who was like a brother, had married in America, and Clara and I, who were both younger than him, were also married, Gabriel remained a bachelor. He gave his consent to our mother, and right away she started on the task of finding his bride.
“‘In two months we’ll have a wedding,’ she told her husband. ‘All the girls in Jerusalem are standing in line for your son.’ She knew her son was a desirable groom. He came from a respected family whose financial situation was far better than that of most families in Ohel Moshe, Mazkeret Moshe, Nahalat Shiva, Sukkat Shalom, and the Old City together. He was good-looking, educated, and he’d lived in America. She took her time and visited the homes of many young girls. Girls of sixteen and seventeen from wealthy and respectable homes were first on the list, and afterward she narrowed them down based on their appearance. A girl who was too thin was immediately disqualified; one who dared to raise her head and look her straight in the eye was considered too forward; an educated girl was also frowned upon. They, she told herself, are not sufficiently obedient and certainly won’t submit to my authority. She also judged the prospective brides by the refreshments served in their homes. Those who served tea and bizcocho were disqualified, but if they set a full table for her and the prospective bride’s mother kept on filling it with delicacies, and both mother and daughter urged her to taste this and taste that until she was sated, the candidate would immediately be advanced on the list.
“‘I’ll find the best bride, the most beautiful of all the Jerusalem girls,’ she told Raphael when she came home exhausted from another round of visits. ‘I shall choose the girl who is to be the mother of my grandchildren, and I’ll scrutinize her until I deem her worthy of joining the Ermosa family.’”
* * *
“Raphael was sitting in his usual place in the shop doorway. After many days of rain the sun had finally come out and its warm rays caressed his face. The strong fragrance of freshly picked oranges from the coastal groves mixed with the aroma of spices and the smell of fresh vegetables, fish, and meat. The familiar scent of the market filled his nostrils, and as Raphael drank them in, he felt happiness spread through him.
“Then he saw them approaching: an older woman dressed in black from head to toe, limping and clasping the hand of a younger one, whose blond hair was twisted in two braids around her head. Something about them drew his attention, and his eyes followed them until they stopped in front of the shop. When the older woman’s eyes caught his, his heart skipped a beat. Dio que me mate, may God strike me dead. He felt the blood pounding in his temples and gripped the arms of his chair. He recognized her with certainty. The woman’s body was slightly hunched and thin, her face wrinkled, but her eyes, even though they were somewhat dulled, were the same blue eyes that had first bewitched him twenty years earlier. He inhaled deeply. Upon meeting his stare, the woman had immediately looked away, grabbing the girl’s hand and urging her to quicken her pace, but by the time Raphael was back to breathing normally, the two women were again in front of the shop, arguing in Yiddish. The young girl wanted to go in, but the older woman was hesitant. Suddenly the girl raised her eyes and stood as if transfixed. Raphael followed her gaze to see what had caught her attention, and then, fearful, he saw that it was Gabriel.
“From behind the counter, Gabriel’s eyes locked onto the girl’s and his jaw dropped. The knife that he had been using a moment earlier to slice cheese seemed suspended in midair. Raphael looked back at the girl, and to his amazement she didn’t avert her eyes from Gabriel’s gaze as she should have. Dio santo, she’s bewitching him, the awful thought flashed through his mind. The way her mother bewitched me. It all happened in a second. Soon enough the mother was dragging her daughter out of the shop, but the girl turned her head as she was pulled away, not taking her eyes off Gabriel, who was standing as if paralyzed. Gabriel immediately regained his composure and started after them, but he was stopped by Raphael’s thunderous voice. ‘Donde vas? Where are you going?’ Gabriel didn’t answer and went back to his place behind the counter. They didn’t speak about what had transpired, about the woman and her daughter. And for the first time since he had married her, Raphael didn’t share what had happened in the shop that day with Mercada.
“That night Raphael was beside himself and didn’t sleep a wink. The image of the dybbuk from Safed remained before his eyes. Despite the oaths he had sworn, he found himself thinking about her again and again. She had come here with her daughter, hija de una putana, to haunt him and his son. He would not let that happen. He’d drive her out of the market if he had to. Anyway, maybe it was all just in his head. Maybe he was only suspicious of his son because of what he himself had felt all those years ago. He sighed and asked himself what he would tell Mercada if his restlessness woke her up. But she was sound asleep, never imagining that this was the last night she would sleep peacefully.”
* * *
“That hadn’t been the first time Rochel had spotted Gabriel in the market. But since they never went into Raphael Ermosa & Sons, Delicatessen—they could only afford the basics—Rochel had otherwise only seen him from a distance. If her father found out she’d been looking at a man, and a Sephardi one at that, he’d cut off her braids and lock her up in the house until she died.
“Rochel was considered to be a strange girl. Unlike her sisters, she disobeyed her mother and refused to help with the housework or look after her little brothers. For most of the day she’d sit on the steps and stare dazedly at the children playing in the yard or at the women hanging their washing on the line.
“‘Rochel, kim aher,’ her mother would call, but she’d pretend not to hear, and her mother’s words would be lost to the sounds of the students’ praying in the nearby yeshiva and the hubbub of the yard.
“‘Rochel, kim aher,’ the children would mimic her mother and pull her braids. What hadn’t her parents done to drive out the evil spirit that possessed her! Her father brought a Kabbalist from Safed to exorcise the dybbuk, but she’d resisted, stomping her foot and screaming like a lunatic until they were forced to tie her to her bed. With her parents’ consent, her big brother beat her, but that hadn’t helped either. In the end, Rochel realized that she would do well to cooperate with her parents and agreed to go to the strange old Spaniol woman in the Old City for livianos treatment.
“Rochel hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the man in the market, his broad, white smile, the dimples creasing his cheeks. She could feel her heart pounding when she thought about him, the blood climbing through her veins and flushing her face. And she, who always preferred sitting on the steps and staring at the sky, she, who refused to help her mother with the washing, cleaning, and taking care of her littl
e brothers, now she jumped to carry her mother’s basket to the market for the Shabbat shopping each week.
“One day, when her mother stopped at the Arab woman who sold oranges, she sneaked away and stood outside the shop as if examining the sacks of dried fruit, every now and then glancing at the handsome man behind the counter. She blushed when she saw him smile at customers and the two dimples on his cheeks deepen. Before she even heard her mother calling, she moved to slip away so he wouldn’t notice her. But he did notice her, and their eyes met. She saw how his brow furrowed as he unashamedly studied her. And she, instead of averting her eyes, stared back at him! If her father or brothers had seen her, they would have beaten her half to death. If her mother had understood what was happening in her wildly beating heart, she would have sheared off her braids, shaved her head, and sent her to the Ratisbonne Monastery to live with the nuns, as she’d threatened so many times in the past.
“And now that Rochel had caught his eye, she was determined to go back. The following day, while her mother was busy in the kitchen and her sisters were looking after their little brothers, she crossed Mea Shearim Street, hugging the walls and praying she wouldn’t run into her father or big brother or, God forbid, a relative or friend, and walked to the Mahane Yehuda Market.
“The shop was full of customers, so nobody noticed Rochel standing by the counter waiting her turn. Not even Gabriel, who was busy attending to shoppers. And then, when her turn came, he looked at her and almost fainted at the sight of those blue eyes boring straight into his. He was beside himself. He was dumbstruck.
The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem Page 8