The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

by Sarit Yishai-Levi

  Gabriel looked at both of them—his wife standing with her daughters at the entrance to the hall, his mother surrounded by her children and grandchildren on the opposite end—and his heart lurched. For the thousandth time he asked himself how his mother could have become so cold that she’d married him to a woman he hadn’t loved for even one day of his life.

  He didn’t contemplate it further, for the lovely Luna was approaching him, linking his arm, her beauty lighting up the darkness of his thoughts. Arm in arm he walked with his beloved daughter to greet their guests and receive their blessings. As he gazed proudly at his Luna, who on the day she was born was illuminated by the moon and God had restored love to his heart, a thought flit through his mind: Perhaps it isn’t so terrible that Mother married me to a woman I have never loved, for it is she who bore me Luna, she who bore me Rachelika and Becky, my wonderful daughters, my very soul. Suddenly flooded with great tenderness, Gabriel passed Luna into her sisters’ arms, took Rosa’s hand, tucked it under his arm, and said to her, “Heideh, Rosa, let’s go and see our eldest daughter get married.”

  * * *

  Six months later Rachelika and Moise were also married in a modest ceremony held in the yard of Moise’s parents’ home in the Maghrebi Quarter. Gabriel was heartbroken, but the more he had examined his financial situation, it became clear that he couldn’t afford to rent a hall for them as he had for Luna and David.

  “God forgive my sins, there’s no justice in the world,” Rosa said to Rachelika. “You work like a horse in the shop, you abandon your dream of being a teacher in order to help your father, and who gets a princess’s wedding? Luna, who doesn’t do anything for anyone except herself.”

  “Mother, why do you say things like that? If I’d been married first I would have had a wedding in a hall too.”

  “You, mi alma, you are oro, gold. You’ve never been jealous of your sister, but if God forbid it had been you who was married in the Menorah Club and she had to get married in a yard in the Maghrebi Quarter, wai wai wai, what a scene she would have made. She would have turned the world upside down.”

  “Well, it’s not her who has to get married in a yard, it’s me. And for me, even getting married in a synagogue with only a quorum present would have been enough. So why get angry when there’s no need?”

  “Miskenica Rachelika, even when you deserve to be number one you’re number two, that’s why I’m angry.”

  “Basta, Mother, if it weren’t for Luna I wouldn’t have even gotten married. It was she who introduced me to Moise. It’s all thanks to her and David.”

  7

  GABRIEL LAY IN HIS BED listening to the silence of the house. He was still unused to the emptiness. He missed the commotion that had filled it when his three daughters had all lived there. But they’d grown up and that was the way of the world. The fledglings left the nest, that’s how it was. At one time young people would carry on living with their parents for the first year of marriage at least, but young people had become modern. They rented a room and embarked on their lives. Perhaps it was better that way. It hadn’t done him any good, living with his mother. His mother—it’d been a long time since he’d heard from her. He hadn’t seen her since Luna’s wedding. She hadn’t attended Rachelika’s. She’d said that traveling all the way to Jerusalem was hard for her, and Allegra had apologized on her behalf.

  In the past, once a month he’d receive a letter from Allegra with an update on the family and his mother, who’d become a cantankerous old woman. But now the mailman brought letters from Allegra only infrequently. How long had it been since he’d last heard from her? Two, maybe three months. Today he’d sit down and write her despite his shaking hand. What once took him five minutes to write now took an hour, and he’d get annoyed. He couldn’t stand not having control of his hand, of his life.

  The situation with the shop was bad. It was difficult to obtain stock, nobody went to Lebanon or Syria anymore, and commerce with the local Arabs had also ceased. Even the women from the Arab villages had stopped coming to the market with cheeses and olive oil. The scarcity of goods and customers alike had brought the shop to the brink of total disaster. Despite their ambition, poor Rachelika and Moise hadn’t been able to restore the shop to its former glory. Yesterday they’d come to see him with more bad news.

  “Papo,” Rachelika said, “Moise and I have to talk to you about something important.”

  “Then talk, queridos, say what you have to say.”

  “Senor Ermosa,” Moise began, “times are hard, there are no customers in the shop, and even when there are, we don’t have anything to sell them. We’ve finished everything that was in the sacks and we have nothing to replace it. Today we had about five customers and they left empty-handed.”

  Gabriel sighed. He didn’t want to hear this. He couldn’t bear it. The shop had been his father’s and grandfather’s before him. Why, why had it fallen to him to bring the family business to ruins? He couldn’t even pass it down to the next generation.

  Rachelika and Moise were silent, conscious of Gabriel’s pain. Rachelika embraced her father and kissed him. “Papo, these aren’t only hard times for us. The market stalls are all empty.”

  “Don’t tell me that the market’s empty,” Gabriel said.

  “It’s empty, Papo. People come and go but there’s nothing to buy. People come to our shop, a delicatessen, to spoil themselves, not for bread, not for a tomato, not for meat. Ask the butchers, Papo, ask the grocers. There’s nothing.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Mordoch came with an offer,” Moise replied.

  “The devil take him, don’t mention his name to me!”

  “There’s no choice, senor. Nobody will make us a better offer these days.”

  “What has that son of a whore got to say? What’s he offering, the thief?”

  “He wants to buy the shop.”

  “I’m not selling!”

  “Papo,” Rachelika said, “if we don’t sell, we’ll lose the shop anyway. The shop will be closed. How can we pay taxes? Where will the money for food come from?”

  “That shop,” Gabriel said, “is the pride of our family. There never was and never will be one like it in all Jerusalem. My mother, your Nona Mercada, will never forgive me if I sell it.”

  “With all due respect to Nona Mercada, Papo, when was the last time that Nona Mercada showed us respect? When did she show any interest in the shop, in her son and granddaughters?”

  “Silence!” Gabriel rebuked her. “How can you speak like that about your grandmother?” But in his heart he knew Rachelika was right. For years now his mother had neither considered nor respected him. Yet his upbringing had prevented him from repaying her in her own coin. “Honor thy father and thy mother”—how many times had they pounded that into him until it was deep in his blood? He wished that his mother would demand of herself what she had demanded of him all his life.

  “Papo, if we don’t sell the shop to the Kurd, tomorrow we can start begging in Zion Square,” Rachelika’s voice shook him out of his reverie.

  “You’re exaggerating, querida,” Moise remarked gently. “Begging? I’m young. I’ll find work.”

  “Where? Tell me, Moise, where will you find work now? What will you be? A balaguleh pushing a handcart? A plumber putting his hands into people’s shit?”

  “I wish I was a plumber. Do you know how much money a plumber makes? I beg your pardon, Senor Gabriel,” he said, turning to his father-in-law with a smile, “but Rachelika’s right. Putting my hands into people’s shit really wouldn’t suit me.”

  “And now you have to clean up the Kurd’s shit. The Kurd who from the day I first met him has put me deep in shit. Tell me, hijos, why would the Kurd want to buy a shop that’s not making money? What’s his interest? That man doesn’t do anything without good reason. I don’t trust him. I wouldn’t even if my life depended on it.”

  “We’ll meet with him, Papo, you, Moise, and me, and we’ll ask Luna’s David
to come too, and we’ll all face him in a united front. We’ll hear what he has to offer and then decide.”

  And so it was. A few days later Rachelika invited Mordoch to Gabriel and Rosa’s house. He came as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, smiling in every direction, smooth-talking Rosa, complimenting her on her borekitas. “On my life, Madam Rosa, there aren’t borekas like these in all Jerusalem. Why don’t you sell them in the shop?”

  Rachelika felt he was just pushing her buttons. He knew that they hadn’t been selling anything in the shop for a while.

  They sat around the big table with Gabriel at its head, the Kurd at the other end, Rachelika and Moise on one side, and David and Luna on the other.

  “Go ahead,” Gabriel opened the proceedings. “What are you offering?”

  “Gabriel, my dear friend, times are hard, nobody knows what tomorrow may bring. The English bastards are in cahoots with the Arabs, every day there’s a new trouble. Maybe war will break out tomorrow, maybe the Arabs will massacre us all, perhaps we’ll slaughter the English. It’s impossible to know what will happen, isn’t that so?”

  “Get to the point, Mordoch,” David said impatiently. “We all know what’s happening around us, so why are you beating around the bush?”

  “Patience, habibi, I’ll get to it. With your permission, first allow me to explain the situation to Mr. Ermosa, who hasn’t left the house for a long time.”

  Gabriel felt the blood draining from his body. How dare this Kurd insult him in his own house, at his own table. How dare he present him as a worthless object. But before he could bring his thoughts to his mouth, Luna burst out at the Kurd: “Who are you to tell my father that he hasn’t left the house in a long time? How dare you sit here in our house and insult my father!”

  “I’m not insulting him, God forbid. Did you hear me insult him? All I said was that it’s been a long time since the honorable Mr. Ermosa was in the shop.”

  “He hasn’t been to the shop for a long time because we’ve been there instead,” said Rachelika, quickly coming to her father’s defense. “A man reaches an age, Mr. Mordoch, when he has to stop working, and now we young ones are continuing in Father’s footsteps.”

  Hearing his daughters springing to his defense, Gabriel couldn’t contain himself any longer. “You’re being far too delicate with our guest,” he said. “I have never thrown anyone out of my house, but now I want you to get up and get out!” He pounded the table with his fist.

  Silence descended on the room, but the Kurd had seemingly not heard Gabriel and went on. “Why get angry, Mr. Gabriel, it’s bad for the health. All I meant to say was that times are hard and there’s no point in holding on to a shop that’s like a bottomless pit. Not only is it not bringing in any money, it’s taking money you don’t have. So all I want to suggest, Mr. Ermosa, is that I buy the shop and get you and your family, may you all be healthy, out of trouble. Believe me, Gabriel, I’m doing this in the name of our partnership in the halvah factory. I’m doing it out of respect for you, because I want you to live the rest of your life with dignity and with enough money to provide for your wife and marry little Becky, may she be healthy.”

  Something in what the Kurd said calmed them all down. Ever so slowly Gabriel recognized that despite his smooth talk the Kurd had a point, that he really had no choice but to sell the shop. Rachelika and Moise had already understood this, while David couldn’t have cared less. He hadn’t understood why he was being involved in a family matter of no concern to him. His father-in-law’s shop in the Mahane Yehuda Market had never interested him. But Luna couldn’t restrain herself. “We’re not selling anything!” she shouted. “That shop is the pride of our family, the pride of our father. It was our grandfather’s and our great-grandfather’s when it was still in the Old City market. There’s nothing for you here, so go and scout the other market traders.”

  Nobody said a word. Nobody dared contradict what Luna had said. They had been taught not to argue in the presence of strangers, and for Rachelika, that upbringing was even stronger than her fierce desire to shut Luna up. But as soon as Mordoch stood and took his leave, not before asking them to reconsider his offer, Rachelika could no longer hold back. “Since when have you been such a big maven about the shop?” she fired at Luna. “When was the last time your beautiful feet walked through the market? It’s beneath your dignity to sell smoked fish, and all of a sudden you talk about respect?”

  “The fact that you work in the shop,” Luna retorted, “doesn’t mean that I don’t have a say. I grew up in the shop, and if we have to sell, then it would be better to sell it to an Arab than to the Kurd! He’s been plotting to buy the shop for a long time, you said so yourself, and now you want to sell it to that snake?”

  “Why, do you know of anyone else who wants to buy it?” Rachelika replied. “Who’ll buy a shop today except that stupid Kurd, another useless merchant.”

  “Rachelika querida,” Gabriel said, finally intervening, “he’s far from stupid and even further from being a useless merchant. Forgive me, querida, but it’s your father who’s stupid. It’s your father who’s the useless merchant.”

  “God forbid, Papo, it’s because of the hard times. Why are you putting what’s happening in the shop on yourself? You made Raphael Ermosa, Delicatessen, the most splendid shop in the Mahane Yehuda Market.” Rachelika’s voice was choked with tears, and Luna’s eyes too became watery.

  “Listen to me carefully, hija mia,” Gabriel replied, his voice shaking, “and all of you listen: Your foolish father lost the halvah factory to the Kurd without getting a grush in return. Your worthless merchant of a father didn’t check where the money from the factory was going. He listened to all the ‘good’ advice from the Kurd, who told him not to come to the factory so as not to confuse the workers, who told him not to trouble himself about the factory because he’s got his shop in the market to worry about and he should let the Kurd manage things for both of them. And what happened in the end? Your fool of a father got the worst of both worlds. That’s how it is. If you lie down with dogs, don’t be surprised if you get up with fleas.”

  “So you don’t want to sell the shop to the Kurd either?” Rachelika asked.

  “What’s this either? Me especially! What was it that Lunika said? It’s better to sell to an Arab than to a Kurd.”

  “Well, that’s settled then, we’re not selling,” David summed up impatiently and got to his feet.

  “Just a minute,” Moise stopped him. “We haven’t finished here.”

  “If David’s not interested, let him go,” Luna said. “He didn’t really want to come anyway.”

  “Luna!” David fixed her with a glare that frightened Rachelika. What was with that look? she thought. Not a year had passed since her sister’s wedding to David Siton and that was how he looked at her? What was going on between those two?

  “David,” Moise went on, “unless you want to hear what I have to say, you can go.”

  David went back to his place and sat down. Rachelika couldn’t help but notice that Luna had slid her chair away from his.

  “Senor Ermosa,” Moise continued in his soft voice, “everything you say about the Kurd is true, and I understand why you don’t want to sell him the shop.”

  “He’s a snake in the grass,” Gabriel interjected.

  “I know, senor. Unfortunately I’ve come to know him. But who else will buy the shop at a time like this? Who’s doing business right now? Because of the situation the shop is liable to stand empty for the next few years. He’s right about one thing: We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and maybe war will break out and all the men will have to go off and fight, and maybe the market will be closed down because of the war, and maybe and maybe and maybe. So please forgive me, Senor Ermosa, but even if you’re right, we have no choice. We have to sell the shop to that dog.”

  “Can I say something?” asked Handsome Eli Cohen, who was sitting on the couch with Becky and so far hadn’t taken part in the discu
ssion. They all turned toward him. Over the past year he’d become like one of the family.

  “Yes, young man, what do you have to say?” said Gabriel, who had come to like Becky’s boy.

  “I couldn’t help listening to you all, and with your permission I have to give you my opinion.”

  “Tfadal, please do,” Moise encouraged him.

  “It seems to me that the Kurd is a smart businessman,” Handsome Eli Cohen said as he rose from the couch and stood by the table. “He doesn’t want to buy the shop right now with the situation so bad for no reason. He’s got plans, he knows what he’s doing. He’ll buy the shop cheaply now in order to sell it at a profit when things get better. I’ll bet he’s got dirty money stashed away. If you decide to sell the shop, you should find out first what his plans are and act accordingly.”

  “So what do you suggest we do, young man?” Gabriel asked, indicating with a hand that he should take a seat at the table.

  “If you agree, Senor Ermosa, I’ll run a few checks of my own on the Kurd and get back to you with some answers.”

  “Wonderful, anybody can make decisions about the shop now,” David said.

  “He’s not anybody!” Becky said, annoyed. “He’s my boyfriend! And when I turn seventeen, with God’s help, he’ll be my husband!”