The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

by Sarit Yishai-Levi

  No wonder the child hated her and didn’t give a damn about her. Children felt everything. You couldn’t fool them. It was lucky that Rachelika had come into the world, thank God, and now she had, she finally felt they were a family.

  When she’d told Gabriel that she was expecting, he had been happy and said, “With God’s help, Rosa.”

  “With God’s help, I hope we have a son,” she said.

  “A son, a daughter, whatever we have will be welcome,” he replied. And so it was he was not disappointed when another daughter was born. He was a man among men, her husband, a mensch, as the Ashkenazim say.

  When Rachelika started to stand and walk, Rosa was again with child, and that time too Gabriel came to her without her being able to prepare herself. Like the time when they conceived Rachelika, on this occasion she helped him enter her, and this time too she got pregnant right away.

  I’m like a vaca, a cow, she thought. Each time I have intercourse with my husband I get pregnant. If he’d come to me more often I’d have given him twelve children by now, with God’s help. How she had prayed that this time she wouldn’t get pregnant, that Gabriel would go on trying and come to her again and again, and perhaps with God’s help if his body was close to hers, then his heart would come closer to hers too. Nobody had ever taught her about the ways of love, so she didn’t know whether the way Gabriel came to her was an act of love. Did all husbands not lay their lips on their wife’s body when they were with her? And did they really not kiss her like they kiss in the cinema? She had never kissed, never been kissed, and had never complained.

  And after Becky was born, may she be healthy, Gabriel never came to her again.

  * * *

  The three girls grew up to be beautiful and were Gabriel’s pride and joy. He’d buy them the most exquisite clothes in the most expensive shops in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and return from his journeys to Beirut with suitcases full of gifts. He’d swell like a peacock when people complimented him on his daughters. On Shabbat morning, Rosa would take the girls to the women’s section in the neighborhood Magen Zion Synagogue. When they arrived, Gabriel would raise his eyes in their direction, and no matter where he was in the service, he would always smile at them and wave. The women in the women’s section would compliment Rosa on her husband who loved his family so much, but Rosa knew that the smiles were not for her. They think I have a perfect marriage, so let them think, let them look. Just don’t let them put the evil eye on me!

  Time flew by and reports of the charming and successful daughters spread throughout Ohel Moshe, Mazkeret Moshe, Zichron Yaakov, and the Mahane Yehuda Market: The eldest, Luna, was the beauty queen; the second, Rachelika, had her father’s intelligence; and the third, Becky, had a heart of gold, she’d give you anything. Give her a chocolate, she’ll take it out of her mouth and give it to her sisters.

  Mercada, whose other children had each named their first daughters after her, hadn’t said a word about the only one of her children who didn’t grant her that honor. In bed at night, when she had her daily conversation with Raphael, she’d tell him, “He’s punishing me, your son. He comes to visit me in Tel Aviv from time to time, but apart from hello and good-bye, he doesn’t say a word. He comes, sits on the balcony with his sister, looks at the boulevard, and leaves, and if he does talk, he never looks me in the eye. The truth is, Raphael querido, I don’t look him in the eye either. I’m an old woman, Raphael, and I don’t have the strength for fighting, but in my heart I can’t forgive him for you leaving me. Since you’ve been gone, Raphael, I have no life. I just sit here and wait to be there with you. I miss you, I miss Jerusalem, I miss my children and grandchildren who live there. I miss the life we had before Gabriel and the Ashkenazia putana ruined it. I’m in Tel Aviv, but my heart is in Jerusalem. I want to go back to my house in Ohel Moshe. I don’t like Tel Aviv or Allegra’s white house. Twenty-five steps, would you believe it, Raphael? You have to climb twenty-five steps to get to the door.

  “I don’t like the people here in Tel Aviv either. They’re all new, recently arrived from Europe. And if there are any of ours, they’ve become Ashkenazim. I don’t like the girls, who have no shame, walking around naked in the street. And I don’t like going to the beach. It’s full of English walking on the promenade with Jewish girls, God help us. I only like the boulevard. I sit on a bench, feed the pigeons, remembering how I’d sit with the vizinas under the tree in our yard in Ohel Moshe. Would you believe, Raphael, that all I do now is feed pigeons? No more livianos, no more charity, no more people coming to Mercada’s house for advice. So I sit on a bench all day feeding pigeons, that’s what’s become of me, so how can I forgive your son? How can I forgive him for destroying our family and destroying our life and taking you from us, querido mio, when my heart is broken from missing you so much?

  “Now he’s named his second daughter after the mother of the feia, the ugly one. So be it. I sometimes think that perhaps the time has come for forgiveness and pardon, Raphael, but my pride won’t allow it, and my heart, which to this day hurts remembering the day you left us, won’t let me. And your son, I won’t drive him away and I won’t tell him to stop visiting me in Tel Aviv, but one good word he won’t hear from me. Only his daughter, the one he named after the moon, the naughty one, may she be healthy, manages to make me smile. When they came in the summer, I went down to the boulevard with her and we fed the pigeons together, and all of a sudden the child climbed into my lap and hugged me tight and her smell reminded me of Gabriel’s smell when he was a baby, and my heart melted. And then when I raised my head, I saw Gabriel standing on the balcony watching us and he looked sad, and I knew that his heart hurt like mine. So may he be healthy and name his second daughter after the mother of the orphan from Shama. I can live with it.”

  When Mercada heard that Gabriel had decided to name his third daughter Rivka after her, she sighed. What’s done is done, she thought. Now that baby Rivka has arrived, it’s time to lay down the swords. From now until her last day she would welcome her son and his family when they came to visit. She would be kind to her clumsy daughter-in-law, and she would love her son’s precious daughters. On the day she heard about the birth of baby Rivka, she decided to visit her son and his family in Jerusalem. It’d been years since she’d visited her city, years since she’d seen her house, years since she’d been in her neighborhood. But when the day came and the hour approached and her daughter was about to take her to the bus station, Mercada told her, “Olvidalo, forget it. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “But why, Mother?” Allegra asked. “Gabriel will be waiting at the bus station on Jaffa Road, and Rosa has readied the house in your honor. The whole family will come to see you, and all the vizinas and cousins and everyone you love in Jerusalem will come to see you.”

  “Basta!” Mercada ordered. “Don’t talk nonsense. I’m not going and that’s that.”

  “But Mother querida, isn’t it time to stop this hostility? Now the baby has been born and Gabriel gave it your name, it’s a sign. Don’t you understand? It’s a sign that he wants to end the anger too.”

  “Let him end what he wants,” Mercada grumbled. “I’m not going!”

  And so Allegra went to Jerusalem by herself. Gabriel was waiting with Rosa and the three girls at the bus station. Luna and Rachelika were wearing their best dresses, shiny shoes, muslin stockings, and hats with pompons. The baby in the pram was an angel, her face pure, and when she opened her eyes Allegra was astonished to see her mother’s eyes, those of the grandmother who hadn’t wanted to come and see her, the one who couldn’t find forgiveness in her heart, the one whose pride had made her look shriveled and ugly. Allegra’s rage burned inside her. From day to day the old woman had become unbearably embittered and surly.

  Not a muscle moved in Gabriel’s face when he saw Allegra coming down the bus steps by herself.

  “Gabriel querido,” she said to her brother, “don’t take it personally. Our mother’s as stubborn as a mule.” He picked up
Luna and Rachelika and immediately started walking up Jaffa Road. Rosa, who seemed lost, remained behind with the pram and stared inquiringly at Allegra.

  “Go, go with him,” Allegra said. “I’m going back to Tel Aviv. I only came to tell you that Mother isn’t coming.” But before she could finish her sentence, Gabriel turned around and said, “Heideh, Allegrita, what are you waiting for? Let’s go home. Rosa prepared a royal banquet. We won’t throw food out just because some stubborn old woman decided to stay in Tel Aviv.”

  Allegra’s heart lurched when they reached the family home and she saw the fine table laden with delicacies for his mother’s visit. Already sitting at the table were close relatives: Mercada’s children and grandchildren and the extended family and friends and neighbors and even the mukhtar, they had all come to welcome Mercada whom they hadn’t seen in Jerusalem for years.

  “My mother isn’t coming,” Gabriel told them all. “She decided that it’s better for her in Tel Aviv, but we shall eat and drink and celebrate Becky’s birth, so heideh. L’chaim!”

  For exactly seven days he had called his third daughter Rivka. On the eighth day, the day that Mercada didn’t come to Jerusalem, he called her Becky, and from then on so did everyone else.

  Gabriel continued visiting his mother in Tel Aviv every few months, and every now and then he brought his wife and daughters too. He never mentioned the day she hadn’t come to Jerusalem, and she didn’t either. Allegra told her about the sumptuous meal, all the family and friends, how he hadn’t flinched when she told him his mother wouldn’t be coming, how he had deflected people’s inquiries as to why Mercada wasn’t there, and how he had mingled with the guests, urging them to eat, drink, and rejoice, pouring them more and more wine. “For every glass he poured, he poured one for himself,” Allegra said. “And by the end of the meal he was as drunk as a lord. Standing on the table and swaying like a Sukkoth lulav, he sang, ‘Rock, whose stone our life sustains,’ until he collapsed and fell into the arms of the guests.”

  Mercada listened to her daughter’s account but didn’t utter a word.

  * * *

  Ill winds were blowing in Palestine and morale was at a low. The British, at whose arrival everyone had rejoiced, proved to be worse than the Turks.

  “The Scots,” Gabriel snorted with contempt every time they’d talk about the English, “don’t like putting their hand in their pocket.” To which Rosa would immediately add, “May their name and memory be erased.”

  The Jewish girls who went out with the English were the talk of the town. In almost every neighborhood there was a girl who went out with the English and brought down great shame on her family. In Ohel Moshe there were rumors that Matilda, the daughter of the Franco family, was with an English officer. “An expert in the splits,” they’d say of her. “Tfu, she does the splits for the English, curse them.”

  One evening, as the neighbors sat in the yard drinking tea with bizcochos, Tamar said, “If I was in Victoria Franco’s shoes I wouldn’t let Matilda step out of the house.”

  “And what should she do, may her sins be forgiven?” Rosa asked. “Lock her in the house and tie her to the bed?”

  “Those cursed goyim, catching all our good girls!” Tamar went on.

  “Those girls are giving the Jews a bad name, and for what? Nylon stockings? Perfume? Coffee? Isn’t it a shame for Victoria and Meir Franco? Poor things. You don’t ever see them around anymore because of the shame that one’s caused them,” Rosa said.

  “They say the Lehi group is capturing those girls and shaving their heads,” Tamar added.

  “God save us. It’s lucky that my chiciticas are still young and we can still keep them at home.”

  “Tfu, the goyim, may their name be erased. What are you saying, Rosa? There isn’t a million-to-one chance that a daughter of Gabriel Ermosa would go with the English,” said Tamar, shocked.

  “Pishcado y limon, leshos, of course there’s no chance, but go figure. Matilda was a good girl too, and see what’s happened to her.”

  More than anything else Gabriel despised the Jewish girls who went out with the British. “Whores,” he’d call them, and that was the first time Rosa had heard her husband use bad language. “Perverted, rebellious girl,” he’d curse Matilda and warn Rosa, “Don’t let her anywhere near the girls, you hear? Not even to say hello to the whore.”

  “But Gabriel,” Rosa tried, “how can you not say hello? We’ve known her since she was born. Meir and Victoria Franco are like family to us.”

  “Excuse me, Rosa,” he replied with his usual restraint, “we were not born family. We’re neighbors, and we behaved toward them like family, and now with that girl of theirs, the whore of the English, we choose not to be their family. Anything, you hear, Rosa, I’m prepared to forgive anything, but not a Jewish girl who goes out with Englishmen. That I do not forgive!”

  Unlike Gabriel, Rosa did not hate the girls who went out with the English.

  Unlike him, she could understand how a girl whose family suffered financial hardship would do anything to help her parents. Meir Franco, miskenico, had been out of work for a long time. He’d sit at home and there’d be no food on the table, and Matilda, she brought them coffee and biscuits and surely other goodies too, maybe even money, God help us. It wasn’t Matilda’s fault, it was the Ingelish, may they go to hell. They had everything you could think of in their canteen, while the children of this country were going hungry. Her and Gabriel’s situation was all right, thank God. They and the girls had everything good in the world and the country, praise be, but she wasn’t blind. What, she couldn’t see that their neighbors had less than they did? Sometimes they didn’t even have meat for Shabbat dinner.

  “How happy we were when the Ingelish came,” she said to Tamar. “How we wanted to get rid of the Turks. We thought the Ingelish come from Europe, they’re more human than the Turcos animals, but what can you do when they’re both a plague on us.”

  “Don’t say that, Rosa,” Tamar said. “Even though the English are bastardos, you still can’t compare them. The Turcos, tfu on them, with their black mustaches like brooms, they frightened children and old people. And how they whipped people, tach-tach-tach. Anyone in their way would get a dose. And they’d go into Souk al-Attarin-in the Old City and overturn the fruit and vegetable stalls for no reason. And the Kishle prison, God save us. Anyone the Turks put into the Kishle wouldn’t come out alive, and if they did they’d be majnun, mad until they died. Like miskenico Nachum Levi. One day a Turco grabbed him for no reason and put him into the Kishle. He came out after maybe six months and then he went to Ben Hinnom Valley below his mother’s house in Yemin Moshe and slept in caves. He grew a beard and hair down to his waist, and every time he came up from the wadi he’d frighten the children. Abu Lele, they called him, like the demon. And when his mother saw him like that she died of grief, and it was all because of the Turks, may their name be erased.”

  Rosa remained silent, not telling Tamar about the night the Turks banged on the door of her parents’ house, may they rest in peace. She didn’t tell about how she and baby Ephraim were wakened and how the Turks turned over the whole miserable room they lived in, and how, with a whip they lashed her parents’ backs, even though they were already ill with the cursed sickness and could hardly stand. How she pushed Ephraim under the bed and lay on top of him and put her hand over his mouth so he wouldn’t make a sound. She almost choked him, miskenico. She didn’t tell how the Turks dragged her father into the yard and warned him that if he didn’t give up his sons Nissim and Rachamim to the military authorities, they’d hang him at Damascus Gate.

  The Great War was at its height, and the Turks were constantly abducting Jewish children and forcing them to join their army. There wasn’t a mother who saw her son after the Turks seized him. By that point, Nissim had already been in America, having escaped on a ship from Jaffa, and Rachamim had been in hiding. Rachamim, who was fifteen, was determined not to join the army even if it cost him his
life. He’d sworn that even if they hanged him, he would never join the Turcos’ army. Rumors of the camps set up by the Turks for Jewish deserters reached Jerusalem. It was said that there was a camp near Haifa where they worked them at hard labor like Pharaoh did with the Children of Israel in Egypt, from dawn to death. The deserters built the big railway for the cursed Turks and died from the hard labor, hunger, and disease, and mainly from the beatings.

  Rosa never told a soul about that night. A month after the Turks burst into her parents’ house, there was a knock on their door in the dead of night. Her parents woke up, opened the door, and then a shout was heard that tore the heavens above the Shama neighborhood. Her mother, who was already very sick, fell to the stone floor and passed out, and Rosa lifted the frightened Ephraim in her arms, trying to figure out what was happening. At daybreak, when the sun began to rise over the mountains, the whole family and all their neighbors made their way in a silent procession from the Shama neighborhood in Ben Hinnom Valley to Damascus Gate in the Old City. In the square by the gate she saw her brother. She would never forget that scene: Rachamim hanging from the gallows, his head on his chest; his curly hair she so loved was matted, his beautiful eyes were closed, his tall, thin body a marionette on strings. No, she could never forget that scene. It was etched in her memory forever. The next day, the picture appeared in the newspaper, and although she couldn’t read or write, she stood near Jaffa Gate begging, and with the few coppers given to her by passersby she bought a paper and cut out the picture of the hanged Rachamim. To this day she kept it in her secret box together with her mother’s pendant, a blue stone framed with gold. Someday, when Rachelika got married, she’d give her the pendant and the clipping of Rachamim. Rosa knew Rachelika would look after what was important and precious to her. Perhaps someday she’d tell about Rachamim and that night, but not now. Except for Ephraim, no one knew, and anyway, he was always so drunk he could barely remember his own name.