The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

by Sarit Yishai-Levi

  The ambulance arrived within a short time, its siren deafening the whole street, and my mother, who’d regained consciousness, was laid on a stretcher and rushed to the hospital.

  It took Nona Rosa a week to take all the splinters out of my small body, and all that time my grandfather didn’t speak. He didn’t even ask how my mother was.

  “Dio santo, Gabriel,” Rosa said, “why don’t you keep quiet a bit. You’re giving me a headache with all your talking.”

  But he ignored her banter and stayed silent. Even I couldn’t get a smile out of him.

  * * *

  My father came home from the garage in the middle of the day irritable and edgy. When Nona Rosa asked what he was doing home, he replied rudely, “Leave me alone.”

  My nona was shocked. He’d never spoken to her with such a lack of respect. Even my nono, who seemed to spend most of his time immersed in himself, raised his eyebrows.

  Father went to the kitchen sink, washed off the engine oil with Ama detergent, put on clean clothes, and sat down at the table.

  “What is there to eat?” he asked Nona Rosa.

  “Habas con arroz,” she replied.

  “Beans and rice again?”

  “Well, where can you get meat, querido? There isn’t any, not even on the black market.”

  “If you have the money you can buy anything on the black market,” he answered angrily.

  “So whoever has money will buy on the black market. We don’t have any money, it’s finished,” my nona said. “So eat up. It’s filling.”

  “Beans give me gas and I’ve become Chinese from so much rice.”

  “Querido, it’s all there is. There’s nothing else.”

  “Fine,” my father said and got up from the table.

  “Where are you going? Maybe spend some time with your daughter?”

  “I’m taking Gabriela with me,” my father said. He lifted me out of the playpen, sat me in the pram, and we left the house.

  My father walked aimlessly down Agrippas Street, pushing my pram. His stomach was rumbling, and as he walked past the Taraboulos restaurant on the corner of King George Street and Jaffa Road, he was almost tempted to go in. He liked the strawberry-flavored jelly they served for dessert, but he knew that a meal cost quite a few lirot that he didn’t have, and he gave up on the idea.

  He had to talk to somebody, tell them what had happened that morning at Yitzhak’s garage. He had to get it off his chest. He decided to go and see Moise at police headquarters in the Russian Compound. Moise worked as a groom in the stables there.

  He pushed the pram down Jaffa Road, passing the Pillars Building and Zion Square, and when he reached the Generali Building, he stopped and pointed at the lion carved into the facade. “Say hello to the lion,” he said in a baby voice and told me the story of the lion, who every night, when no one could see, came down into the street, did a peepee, and went straight back to its place atop the building.

  He passed the Magen David Adom station and the Russian church with its green cupolas as he continued on toward police headquarters. The policeman at the gate was a friend from the British army days, and Father stopped to chat for a few minutes, letting him shower praise on me. Then he headed for the stables. Moise was standing there in his work clothes and rubber boots, cleaning a hoof of one of the horses.

  “What guests! And how’s our bonica today?” he said, stroking my cheek. “And you, David, you have time to take the child for a walk in the middle of the day? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “I’m out of work,” my father replied.

  “What?” said Moise in disbelief.

  “I resigned. I told Yitzhak to go to hell, him and his garage.”

  “You resigned? This is no time to be out of a job.”

  “I’d rather die of hunger than work for that dog.”

  “What are you saying? He’s your brother!”

  “He’s my brother? He’s Amalek! All of a sudden he’s a big shot.”

  “Have a glass of water,” Moise said. “Calm down.”

  “How can I calm down?” David said angrily. “I feel like I’m going to explode. I’ve kept quiet for a long time about the way Yitzhak behaves. Almost from my first day there he treated me like an ordinary worker, as if we didn’t grow up in the same house.”

  “Well,” said Moise, trying to pacify him, “work is work…”

  “That’s just it, there’s no work. There are hardly any cars coming to the garage. Even the Jewish Agency cars that came for regular servicing only come if they’re running on their wheel rims. So because there was nothing to do I was sitting reading Yedioth Ahronoth, and all of a sudden Yitzhak comes at me, snatches the paper out of my hands, and shouts, ‘You damned parasite, as if it isn’t enough that I’m keeping you on, you read the paper in the middle of work!’

  “‘There isn’t any work,’ I tell him. ‘What do you want, that I pretend I’m working just for show?’

  “‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘There’s no work, so go home.’

  “I look at him, I can’t believe my ears, and ask him, ‘You’re firing me?’

  “‘No,’ he says, ‘you’re firing yourself. You said yourself there’s no work.’

  “I feel like I’m going to blow up at him any minute. The bastard knows what the situation is at home, he knows I’m supporting my wife’s family right now, and he says, ‘Go home.’ But I hold back, swallow my pride, and tell the little nobody I used to carry piggyback, the one I slept in the same bed with when we were kids in our parents’ house, ‘I need the job.’

  “‘Money doesn’t grow on trees,’ he tells me. ‘And I’m not Rothschild. If it wasn’t for Mother, I’d have sent you packing a long time ago.’

  “I’m defeated, he’s trampled the little dignity I had left, but I know I can’t leave, I absolutely can’t be without a job, so I try again, almost begging: ‘Izak,’ I say, ‘for the sake of our father, may he rest in peace, don’t do this to me.’ And he turns his back on me and says, ‘It’s only for the sake of our father, may he rest in peace, and our mother, may she live long, that I hadn’t already fired you. I’m holding on to you here and you’re not ashamed to read Yedioth during work hours, and in front of the other workers yet. One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel, and you’re spoiling all the workers for me.’

  “Now I can’t hold myself back any longer. He’s standing with his back to me as if I’m nothing. I’m seething. I’ve never felt so humiliated, and by my own brother. I tap him on the shoulder, and as he turns around, I punch him in the face and break his nose. He starts yelling like a lunatic, but I’ve already taken off the stinking overalls and thrown them on the floor. I stand there in my underpants and shout, ‘If there’s one rotten apple in the Siton family, it’s you. Our parents raised a whole pile of wonderful kids, each one a success, and you’re the only rotten apple in that pile!’ And I run out of there. I swear, Moise, I’ll never, ever speak to that bastard again. Even if my mother gets on her knees and begs me, I won’t speak to him.”

  “He really is a bastard,” Moise said.

  “I went home and our mother-in-law, may she be healthy, started in with her questions. She’s a nudnik too. Our father-in-law was in his chair, and even though he hasn’t said anything for a long time, I felt he too wondered why I was home in the middle of the day.

  “I didn’t even have lunch, our querida mother-in-law made habas con arroz and I was so edgy I insulted her, miskenica, as if she’s to blame for us not having the money to buy meat.”

  “Are you hungry?” Moise asked.

  “Starving.”

  “Let’s go to the cafeteria and get something there. On me.”

  All this time I was sitting in my pram, engrossed by the horses and garbling happily. In the heat of telling his story, my father had forgotten I was there and I, riveted as I was by the animals, didn’t disturb him. It was only after he’d poured out his heart to his friend that he remembered me, bent down, and kissed me on
the forehead. “If it wasn’t for the child,” he said to Moise, “I’d go to Tel Aviv and start over.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “There’s more. I’d get on a boat and go to Italy, look for Isabella, and fix what I ruined.”

  “Halas, enough,” Moise said. “Haven’t you got that Italian girl out of your head yet? I thought the story with Isabella was over.”

  “I did too, at least I hoped it was. But I miss her more than ever. From day to day I realize what a mistake I made.”

  “What are you missing, David?” asked Moise, dropping the horse’s hoof to the ground, patting it on the rump, and releasing it to its stable. “The happy days after the war in Venice? When we were young and carefree and had no commitments? When the Italian girls threw themselves at us, when Isabella gave herself to you for a bottle of perfume, a pair of stockings, and the meat and vegetables you bought for her family? If she was one of ours, we’d say she’s a slut.”

  “I loved her, Moise.”

  “Love isn’t taking a girl to the cinema and dance clubs and cafés. Love isn’t riding bikes and making love at night without being married and you have to do it quietly so her parents won’t hear you.”

  “Yahrebetak, damn you, I shouldn’t have told you all that. I shouldn’t have let you in on my and Isabella’s secrets. Now you’re throwing it all in my face as if I’ve committed a crime.”

  “I’m just trying to bring you back to reality.”

  “And I’m trying to forget reality. What kind of reality is it when only less than three years ago I was free and happy and loved a wonderful woman who loved me in a way that Luna never will?”

  “Do you know what love is, David?” Moise said quietly. “Love is choosing a wife to be your life companion. Love is building a home together, getting up in the morning, going to work, making a living, raising children—that’s love. The love you’re missing is a fantasy that was fine for you when you were a young man after the war in Italy. You’re missing something that wouldn’t have lasted for one day after your discharge from the British army, something that wouldn’t have survived for a minute after you brought her to Jerusalem. Wake up, my friend, my brother, stop yearning for something that was never yours. Be realistic, accept what you have.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” David said. “You have a healthy wife who loves you and pampers you and is waiting for you with a hot meal and a kiss when you come home every day. And what do I have? A wounded wife in the hospital, a baby who’s growing up without a mother, and a couch in my in-laws’ living room. And worst of all, Moise, worst of all is that I can’t see an end to it. I can’t see that Luna really wants to get better. Sometimes it seems to me that she’s happier with her wounded friends at Hadassah than at home with me and Gabriela.”

  “Basta!” Moise said. “Don’t talk rubbish. Who doesn’t want to be healthy? What, can’t you see how much she’s suffering? She can hardly move.”

  “Maybe I’m wrong,” David said painfully. “But every time I went to visit her I had the feeling that she preferred the company of her wounded friends over mine.”

  “She lived with those people in the hospital for a long time, David. It’s only natural that she’d feel close to them. It can’t be helped that the damned war ruined your relationship. But both of you, you and her, be grateful she’s alive. She could have been killed, and then what would you have done, a widower with a baby? You have a short memory, my friend. It wasn’t long ago that you almost lost not only your wife but your daughter as well. You should go to the synagogue every day and say Birkat Hagomel, the blessing of deliverance, instead of fighting with your brother and losing your job.”

  “I’ll look for a new job.”

  “Maybe join the police? They’re recruiting new people all the time.”

  “It’s not for me, Moise. I’d go crazy if I had an officer over me telling me what to do. Don’t you remember how many times I got on the wrong side of the sergeant in the British army?”

  “David, my friend, you’ll go even crazier if you don’t have a job to go to and you’re under Rosa’s feet all day. You’ll go crazy and she’ll drive you crazy. In the meantime, let’s go eat,” Moise said. “They have jelly here that’s much tastier than at Taraboulos.”

  * * *

  The austerity period in Israel did not bring good news for David, who couldn’t find work. Every day he’d go off to the employment bureau and sit for hours with the other job seekers, but there were no offers. He told the woman there that he wanted a clerical job and wasn’t interested in manual labor.

  Yisrael Schwartz, his friend from the British army who’d found work at the agricultural school that had been established in Ein Karem, invited him to visit and pick fruit in the heavily laden gardens the Arabs had left behind. Yisrael lived on the upper floor of an abandoned Arab house.

  “What do you think of my palace?” Yisrael asked him.

  “It’s a real palace!” David agreed. “You got all this from the agricultural school?”

  “It comes with the job. If you’re interested, they’re looking for workers. I can arrange it for you.”

  “Get me a house and a job? What would I do?”

  “We’ll find you something, it’s a great opportunity. Where else could you get a house and a job?”

  “I’ll have to speak to my wife,” David replied. “But now let’s walk to the gardens.”

  “There’s no need to walk,” Yisrael said. “They’re right here, below the house.”

  They went down the stairs and through the arched gate into a grand garden overlooking the cultivated terraces and the Church of the Visitation, which stood tall and proud on the side of the hill facing them, its bells ringing loudly.

  “My God,” David exclaimed. “Just look at this fig tree. It’s bending under the weight of the fruit!”

  “Go on, help yourself, enjoy. Fill this,” Yisrael said, handing him a big straw basket.

  As if possessed David started picking figs from the tree, putting one into his mouth for each one he picked. “Yinal dino, goddamn, they’re so tasty,” he told Yisrael.

  Vines laden with grapes climbed on latticed fences, and David picked bunches of juicy grapes until his basket was overflowing.

  “Here, fill a crate too,” Yisrael said.

  “What can I do with a crate?” David laughed. “How will I get it back to Jerusalem?”

  “I’ll take you in the jeep.”

  “God save us, you have a jeep as well, you bastard? You’ve really done well for yourself.”

  “You can too. Just make up your mind.”

  “I have. Now I’ll just have to persuade my wife.”

  “Talk to her, tell her what a great deal this is.”

  “Believe me,” he told Yisrael, “you’ve made me a very happy man.”

  They loaded the crate and the basket into the jeep and Yisrael started it up. On the way to Jerusalem they stopped in the Bayit VeGan neighborhood. Yisrael said to David, “I have another surprise for you. There’s a potato field here.” David jumped out of the jeep and started pulling potatoes from the ground.

  Rosa couldn’t believe her eyes when David came through the door with his friend, their arms full of fruit and potatoes.

  “What’s this?” she muttered excitedly. “Did you rob a bank?”

  “No,” David laughed, happy to see his mother-in-law’s joy. “It’s from Ein Karem and Bayit VeGan.”

  “It’s from what the Arabs left behind?” she asked.

  David nodded.

  “God be praised, miracles still happen in this world.”

  * * *

  Yisrael Schwartz wasted no time and arranged for David to meet the agricultural school’s manager. David hadn’t yet had a chance to talk to Luna, but the more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea of moving to Ein Karem. He saw it as an opportunity to rebuild their life in a house of their own. Even if they paid him a low wage, there would always be fruit on the t
rees and vegetables in the field.

  “We’re looking for someone for the school’s carpentry shop,” the manager told him. “And I understand you were a carpenter before the war.”

  “That’s right, sir, I was. And a good one too.”

  “In that case, the job’s yours. You can start tomorrow. You will, of course, have the same conditions as Yisrael. You can choose one of the houses in the village and live there with your family, and we’ll give you a jeep for work and trips into Jerusalem.”

  David could feel his heart pounding wildly. It was too good to be true. A house, a job, and a jeep!

  “You’ll fall in love with the place. The scenery’s breathtaking, the air’s clear, and when the church bells ring it’s a dream.”

  “You’ve convinced me,” David said, shaking his hand. “Now I have to go convince my wife.”

  David was thrilled. He couldn’t wait for the moment he’d tell Luna he’d found a job and a house.

  In the afternoon, as Luna was about to leave to visit her hospital friends again, David said, “Instead of going to the hospital today, how about a matinee?”

  She was surprised. It had been a long time since she’d gone to the cinema and since her husband had invited her to go to a matinee.

  “Heideh, Luna,” he urged her, “nothing will happen if you don’t go to the hospital for once.”

  “All right,” she said. “They’re showing Singing in the Rain with Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds at the Edison. I hear the song on the radio all the time.”

  Luna was in a fine mood when they left the cinema later that day.

  “Did you see how he dances, Gene Kelly? How he sings? ‘I’m singin’ in the rain,’” she sang and imitated Gene Kelly’s dance steps, forgetting her pain.

  David laughed and clapped his hands. “Bravo, Luna!” This was the Luna he remembered. Although money was tight, he’d made the right move by asking her to go to the cinema. He’d have to cut down on cigarettes and shopping in the market for Rosa, but it had been worth it. Luna was in just the right frame of mind for what he was about to tell her. Now he’d take her for coffee and cake at Atara, which had been their favorite haunt before the war. The good old days. All that now seemed so far away as if it had happened ages ago, not just a few years. So much had changed since the last time they’d had coffee at Atara, since they’d danced the tango at Café Vienna, since they’d been married at the Menorah Club.