The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
Page 49
It’s becoming gloomy and starting to rain. I pull my coat around me and recall autumn last year. Autumn in London, where I crossed Regent’s Park, treading carefully on the golden leaves so as not to crush their beauty, enjoying the orange-gold vista of the park. I raised my eyes to the sky, inhaled the fresh, chilly air, glanced at the treetops as the leaves were carried in the wind. I’d never witnessed such a magnificent sight. My twenty-second birthday was just around the corner, and I was standing at the height of my youth, a yellow woman shedding her leaves, defeated.
I sat down on the carpet of golden leaves and played with them, taking fistfuls and sprinkling them over my head, my face, my body like rain. There I was, another link in the chain of cursed Ermosa women: Mercada, Rosa, Luna, Gabriela. Luckily, Rachelika and Becky had been saved from the curse; luckily they’d had sons. Luckily I was the only daughter born to that generation of Ermosas, the only and last daughter, because the curse would end there. I would not have children, I’d decided. The woman who’d marry my brother, the women who’d marry my cousins, would not carry the curse. I would be the last woman of the Ermosa tribe so the curse could be removed.
* * *
The rain’s stopping, and a patch of blue sky is revealed from behind the clouds. I raise my eyes heavenward and fill my lungs with the good smell that comes after rain, the rain that like Rachelika and Becky also washed my mother’s grave. With the hem of my coat I wipe the raindrops from the stone.
I’m alone. My family has gone down the steps to the road where Handsome Eli Cohen’s black car and my father’s white Studebaker Lark are waiting, and into which everybody will pile like sardines and drive to Rachelika’s house for the customary meal.
It’s a bit frightening in the cemetery, and a shiver runs through my body. I look right and left to make sure there’s nobody around, and only then, once I’m sure that no one can see what I’m doing, I take a red lipstick from my purse and carefully apply it to my lips in the shape of a heart the way my mother used to, drawing the lipstick in careful strokes, trying to keep within the lines. I bring my mouth to the gravestone and kiss it gently, leaving the print of my red lips on the cold white stone, breathing a little life into it. I remove the cellophane from the bouquet of flowers and spread the red carnations all over the slab.
“Ima,” I whisper, and kiss the stone again for the last time.
I go down the steps to where my family are all standing by the cars.
And that’s when I see him. I’m stunned, not quite believing my eyes. “What are you doing here?” I ask as he walks over.
“I saw the announcement in the paper.”
“And you’ve been here the whole time?”
“The whole time.”
“Are you coming?” Ronny calls to me before he gets into my father’s car.
“You go ahead,” I tell him. “I’ll be there shortly.”
The cars drive off and Amnon and I are left on our own.
“You know,” I say, “when I was standing by my mother’s grave I was thinking of you.”
“Really?” he asks. “What were you thinking about?”
“I was thinking that once upon a time I had the opportunity to love and I blew it.”
“There isn’t a day in my life,” he says quietly and looks into my eyes, “when I don’t think about that missed opportunity.”
I stare into his big eyes and fall into his arms. Then he holds me away from him a little and says, “So how are you?”
“I’m good now, but it’s been unbelievably bad.”
I tell him about Phillip, about my mother and her dead lover. And I tell him that I know my mother has brought him back to me because I’ve stopped being angry.
Amnon doesn’t say anything. He just hugs me and it’s as though I’m exactly where I should be.
It’s pitch-black on Har Hamenuchot. The dead have gone to sleep. Below us on the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv road a swarm of cars is flowing, their headlights dancing. We sit down at the foot of my mother’s grave.
“And you,” I whisper, “what have you been up to all this time?”
“I ran away from you as far as India,” he says. “I was on a long journey with myself. I searched for relief from the pain, from the sense that something was missing. At first I was angry with you. Afterward I became angry with myself. I asked myself over and over why I hadn’t fought for you, why I’d given up.
“I traveled all over India. I went to Manali and Dharamshala, the Himalayas, Kasol and the Parvati Valley. I went south to Rajasthan and in the end I reached the paradise called Goa. And there, where the tide’s ebb and flow soothes one’s soul, where the jungle kisses the golden sands of the beach and the cows lie in the sun just like the people, I made up my mind to do three things: shave off my beard, go back home, and look for you. Your father told me you were still in London and taught me a word in Ladino, paciencia. So I took a deep breath and waited patiently. I knew you’d come back, and I knew that when we reunited we’d be together. I’m not leaving you again, Gabriela.”
“And I thought I’d lost you forever,” I whisper, “that my one chance had been taken from me. I thought I’d never love again. And here you are. You’ve come back.”
I kiss him, melting into his arms. It’s a miracle, I think to myself in awe. Here I am feeling love exactly where Becky told me I would: between my belly and my breasts.
Acknowledgments
My late father, Mordechai Yishai, waited a long time for me to finish writing this book so he could read it. I also awaited the moment when I would be able to hand him the manuscript with a dedication.
My father died a few months before the book was published. I do not have the words to thank him for the many hours he sat with me, telling me his Jerusalem stories and reliving an entire period with infinite love and patience. I treasure those moments. It was my father who chose the name Ermosa for my fictional family.
And when I think of my father, I always think about my mother, Levana Yishai, née Nachmias. They always come to me together. So it was in their lifetime and so it is after their death, and not a day goes by without me thinking of them both.
I owe a profound debt of gratitude to my beloved wise aunt, Miriam Nachum, my mother’s sister, who gave me all the time I asked for, taught me Ladino words and expressions, and time traveled with me to the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s. Thanks to what she related to me, those years took on shape, form, and life before my very eyes.
All my life my mother told me to observe her cousin Ben Zion—“Bentzi” as he was known in our family—to learn from him, broaden my knowledge. And I indeed learned and broadened my knowledge. My thanks to author Ben Zion Nachmias, from whose wonderful book Hamsa I learned about the customs of Jerusalem and the city’s atmosphere at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Thanks to the various generations of the Nachmias and Yishai families for the inspiration and love they have heaped upon me since the day I was born, especially my two brothers Raffi and Alon.
Special thanks to my forever-young aunts Esther Mizrachi and Miriam Kadosh.
A huge thank-you to my dear friend Ronny Modan. I told Ronny that I dreamed about writing a novel, I showed her the first pages I’d written, and on the basis of what little she’d read, she’d decided to publish the book. It was an expression of faith I will never forget. And in the same breath I thank Shula and Oded Modan and the Modan family, especially Keren Uri, Naama Carmeli, Tali Tchelet, and Ada Vardi, for their unwavering support and the home they’ve given me since the day we met.
My heartfelt thanks to my superb Hebrew editors, Michal Heruti and Shimon Riklin, whose comments and clarifications were such a great help, and which constraints of space do not allow me to fully describe. Thank you, Michal, for your professionalism, meticulousness, direction, and support, and for the great interest you showed. Thank you, Shimon, for your patience, your accuracy, your attention to the smallest details, and your way of calming me. Without the two of you the book
would not have been the sum of all its parts.
Thanks to my wonderful translator, Anthony Berris, my English editor, Melanie Fried, and to Staci Burt, Karen Masnica, Brant Janeway, Nancy Inglis, and all those who worked behind the scenes at Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press. Thank you also to Vick Giasov, Tal Shoham, Aviad Ivri, and all those at the Israeli consulate who supported this book’s publication.
Thanks to a wonderful woman, the miracle worker, my beloved friend Raya Strauss Ben Dror. Thank you, Raya, for believing in me from day one, and for entrusting me with writing my first book, Strauss: The Story of a Family and an Industry, the story of your family. You believed in me when I did not yet believe that I could write an entire book. You gave me my first opportunity. I will be forever grateful.
Thanks to Chava Levi, Rocheleh Kerstein, Kami Wahaba, and Ariella Aflallo. Each of you is unique in her own way for me, and I deeply appreciate the fact that you’re always there for me, enveloping me with unconditional love.
My thanks to my colleagues at Olam Ha’isha, Avi Dassa, Haggai Malamud, and Michal Hamri, and especially editor in chief Mary York, for the years of working together and for the many things I’ve learned from you.
And to my beloved children, Maya, Dan, and Uri—thank you.
About the Author
SARIT YISHAI-LEVI is a journalist and author of four nonfiction books. Her debut novel, The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, was a #1 bestseller and won the Publishers Association’s Gold and Platinum Prizes and the Steimatzky Prize for bestselling book of the year when it was published in Israel. She lives in Tel Aviv. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
THE BEAUTY QUEEN OF JERUSALEM. Original text copyright © 2013 by Sarit Yishai-Levi and Modan Publishing House Ltd. English translation copyright © 2016 by Anthony Berris. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Published by arrangement with the Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Michael Storrings
Cover photography by Win-Initiative/Getty Images
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07816-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-9050-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466890503
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Originaly published in Israel in 2013 by Modan Publishing House Ltd.
First U.S. Edition: April 2016