The Fairest Among Women

by Dalya Bilu

  She would go home hungry as an ox and gladly obey Shraga when he urged her discreetly to dig in. “You have to eat. Think of all the energy you used up today,” he would say to her. On the days she visited the health club she would devour everything he set before her voraciously, until she grew so fat that she was tactfully asked to leave the club, since her prodigious weight was ruining the expensive equipment.

  She began to find it difficult to cope with the housework, and Ruthie and Dror would show up every day to help her with Angel, who—just as the doctors had predicted—had stopped growing at the age of two. Ruthie would feed her, bathe her, and diaper her, and Dror would play with her and try to get her to walk on her thin legs. And since she was slow in talking, he would patiently teach her the names of the objects surrounding them in the house.

  Freed from the burden of caring for the child, Rosa would drag herself to the plants on the balcony, pluck off dead leaves; water, fertilize, and prune the aromatic bushes; pack the herbs in rustling cellophane bags, and give them to Ruthie for distribution in the shops.

  In her grateful love for her husband, Rosa made up her mind to cook delicious new dishes for him every day, and when she ran out of recipes she began to invent dishes of her own. For hours she would stand in the kitchen steaming the semolina in the special couscous pot; cleaning the mutton and roasting it; and boiling potatoes, beets, and zucchini on the side. Then she would roast squabs and chickens and stuff them with rice studded with raisins and almonds, and make sugared almonds and pecans for dessert.

  She was particularly fond of making sesame sweets. First she would brown a few handfuls of the delicate seeds in a pan, shaking it with a practiced hand and breathing in the delicious smell of the oil they gave off. Then she would put two cups of sugar in a saucepan with a cup of water and bring the sweet solution to a boil, and when it began to seethe with transparent bubbles, she would add a little lemon juice and go on cooking the mixture until what Angela called “the right moment.” This fragile and elusive moment was impossible to measure by the clock, but had to be sensed in the guts. It was the fraction of a second when a drop of the solution splashed onto the marble counter set into a tiny transparent column and stood upright by its own unaided efforts. Then she removed the sticky, honeyed solution from the flame, added the roasted sesame seeds, and stirred. Next she would prepare the marble for the syrupy task ahead of it: sprinkle it with water, flatten the mixture out on it, and press down with the rolling pin to join the sesame seeds tightly and irreversibly together: After the paste had cooled, she would cut it into triangles and rectangles with sure, rapid movements of a particularly sharp knife, crunching the leftover pieces between her strong teeth. She would store the rectangles and triangles piled up on the counter in a large tin bearing the modest legend, “Hadar Biscuits,” hiding its true contents from visitors dropping in to “see if everything was all right” and looking around for something to munch. And when Shraga came home he would flare his nostrils at the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchen, nibble at the delicacies on his plate, and sit at the table with her for hours, urging her to eat in order to replenish her energy, pressing her to take another spoonful, another slice of meat, another sweetmeat, and watching her lovingly until her plate was clean.

  And Rosa grew and swelled, with only her hands, feet, and head immune from the process. To Shraga’s satisfaction she hardly ever left the house, and spent hours sitting and panting for breath in the vast armchair he had bought especially for her. Her flesh, which had not been exposed to the sun for months, turned an ivory white, and sometimes when she opened the shutters her eyes, accustomed to the gloom of the house would be blinded by the dazzling light. At night he would help her to get undressed, measuring the new tires of fat encompassing her body, and congratulating himself on his big, beautiful wife, and the fact that he alone could see and touch her, and no other man could contaminate her with his eyes or thoughts.

  Since she hardly ever left the house, Ruthie and Dror would arrive every morning to dress and feed Angel. When the little girl was ready, Shraga would take her downstairs, Dror would go to school, and Ruthie would stay to help Rosa with the housework. Until the van arrived to take Angel to her day care, Shraga would hold her in one hand and wave the other vigorously to shoo away the crows assembling round them. In the evening he would wait for her downstairs, hoist her onto his shoulders, and climb lightly up the stairs to the third floor. At the door he would cry: “We’re home,” carry the little girl to Rosa’s armchair, and offer her cheek to her mother’s kiss. After supper he would carry her in his arms to the bathroom, put her in the bath, stroke her transparent skin with his soapy hands, tickle her under her armpits, and tell her funny stories, and she would reward him with her chiming laughter. When her body was shining with cleanliness he would dress her in her pajamas, and when she was safely tucked into bed he would turn his attention to Rosa.

  On the night that Rosa’s rolls of fat spread over the entire bed and pushed him so far to the edge that he was in danger of falling to the floor, he came to a decision and explained to her as tactfully as he could that tonight he would sleep in one of the children’s beds. Every night from then on, before he retired to his bed, he would go into her bedroom, tuck her in, stroke her body, and kiss her goodnight. And, whispering words of love, he would promise her that if Angel cried in the night he would go to her himself, and there was no need for Rosa to get up. And Rosa would lie on her back, her arms and legs outspread, and fall asleep with a contented smile on her face.

  One morning, when she rolled heavily out of bed and waddled to the bathroom, she discovered that she couldn’t get through the door. With a mighty effort she drew in her stomach, flattened her breasts, and tried to squeeze in sideways, but to no avail. With her bladder bursting she dragged herself to the boys’ bedroom where Shraga was sleeping in Leslie-Shimon’s bed, and shook him awake. He woke up immediately and tried but failed to push her through the bathroom door. Weeping and wet with urine, she lowered herself into her armchair, while Shraga summoned Shlomo the Building Contractor, who arrived with Daoud the Builder from Beit Safafa. Armed with sledgehammers, they widened the door, and Rosa squeezed in and stayed there all day. A few days later, when she complained that she was having difficulty getting through the kitchen door and the doors to the rooms, Daoud was called in again and widened all the doors of the house, except for the front door, which Shraga said there was no need to alter, since in any case Rosa never left the house. And since she couldn’t get into the bath, he knocked down the wall separating the bathroom from the back porch, enlarged the bathroom, and that same summer he installed a large oval Jacuzzi for her use.

  Every evening, after Shraga had put Angel to bed, Rosa would get undressed in front of him and he would raise his eyes to heaven and utter the cries of excitement and admiration she loved to hear. And when she stood before him naked, he would lower his head and kiss the scar left by Angel’s birth. With his lips and tongue he would glide over the long scar crossing her stomach as if intent on absorbing some of the pain of the operation into himself. Then Rosa would step carefully into the Jacuzzi, sink into the foaming water, and like a giant hippo in a fountain she would sit and delight in the currents of warm water lapping her body, tickling her breasts, and making her backside tingle. And Shraga would sit opposite her, staring at her admiringly, stroking bit by bit her smooth, rosy flesh, and tell her that nothing would happen if she peed in the water. And when he saw her eyes go glassy, the lines of her face relax, and the little yellow stain spreading until it disappeared in the warm water, he would kiss the nape of her neck and lovingly soap her back, which was free of cruel lines since she could no longer find a bra to fit her.

  When the entire expanse of her back was covered by a layer of foam, he would lean back and marvel at the spectacle of her bathing: First she would take one magnificent breast in both her hands, hoist it over her shoulder, and scrub the skin beneath. Then she would take the other and repeat
the performance. And as he would watch from behind, he would find himself gazing into the eyes of her pink nipples surrounded by dark haloes that had suddenly grown on her back.

  And, with her breasts resting on her back, he would help her soap her armpits. Like a man making an important sacrifice, he would take his private, expensive French razor, blow off the superfluous stubble clinging to it, and carefully shave her armpits, first the left and then the right, tickling her and eliciting bursts of uncontrollable laughter as he did so. She would raise her hands alluringly and put them on her head, and Shraga would inspect his handiwork at close quarters, cluck his tongue approvingly, and go on to the next task.

  Then he would take up his position in front of her feet and ask her to set one of them in his lap. Gently he would part her toes, trim her toenails one by one, and collect the hard clippings in his hand. After throwing them into the toilet bowl and flushing them away, he would take the pumice stone and get rid of the hard skin on her soles.

  Only then would he turn his attention to her hair. With the expertise of a professional hairdresser he would carefully wet her long fair hair, not letting the water get into her eyes, pour a little fragrant shampoo into the palm of his hand, and rub it into her hair until her head was covered in a cap of lather. At the same time he would massage her scalp gently with his fingertips and listen gratefully to her gurgles of pleasure, which encouraged him to continue with the massage until his wrists swelled and the skin on his fingertips was as wrinkled as a plump prune. After rinsing her hair he would anoint it with a conditioner, and comb the soft tresses with a wide-toothed comb, lamenting the loss of every hair it uprooted.

  And when she rose from her ablutions he would wrap her body in four towels and pat her dry. And when she stood before him dry and naked, he would inspect her pubic hair for any wayward curls, then bend down and clip the offender off with the nail scissors. And when his mission was accomplished, he would raise his head, and she would wait for him with pouting lips and cover his head, neck, and mouth with grateful kisses.

  * * *

  On their first wedding anniversary, Shraga came home early and handed her two parcels tied with red ribbons. As enthusiastically as a child receiving her first present, she undid the ribbons and tore the paper off the first parcel. With bated breath she lifted the lid and gazed at the two twin bracelets made of links of gold glittering on their velvet bed. The second box contained a collar to match.

  “You shouldn’t have, you shouldn’t have,” she murmured, and offered him the boxes with outstretched hands. Shraga took the first bracelet and fastened it around her right wrist, and quickly did the same with the second bracelet on her left wrist, as if loath to lose a second’s time. Then he stepped slowly backwards to view the bracelets encircling Rosa’s wrists like a pair of golden handcuffs, and turned to the second box. He lifted the thick gold collar reverentially from its velvet bed and fastened it around her neck. It fit perfectly, without enough room for even a finger to insert itself.

  “I want you to wear them always,” he announced, and Rosa, her head giddy and her face red from the pressure of the collar on her throat, nodded wordlessly.

  A month later, on her birthday, he arrived with a large gift-wrapped box containing a pair of immense, flimsy-looking red leather shoes with spindly spike heels.

  “How did you know my size?” she asked shyly as he knelt down before her with the ease of an experienced shoe seller, and slipped the shoes onto her feet with a regal flourish, like Prince Charming in the animated movie Cinderella. The shoes fit as if they had been made for her.

  “I want you to wear these shoes when I come home from work,” he whispered into her ear with his eyes glazed. “High heels improve the shape of the calves and the backside.”

  Giggling bashfully, she waved her feet in the air as if she were riding a bicycle.

  “Stand up and let’s see if they don’t pinch,” he whispered hoarsely.

  Rosa stood up and towered above him.

  “If Angel wasn’t at home I would take you straight to bed,” he whispered. “Walk to the bedroom with me, I’m dying to hear the tapping of the heels on the floor. It’s such a sexy sound.”

  Rosa hobbled behind him, stumbling and twisting first her right ankle and then her left. Shraga took her in his arms, ready to waltz. Swaying heavily on her feet she tottered beside him. On the third turn the heels gave way and broke off neatly at the joint, leaving her flat-footed. Shraga stared at the slender heels, which had failed to bear her weight and were now lying on the floor, and announced that tomorrow he would buy her another, stronger pair. “Because the noise you made with the heels drove me crazy, and apart from that, you looked so unsteady that I thought you would fall into my arms at any moment, and I haven’t been so aroused for ages,” he told her after trying to penetrate her that night. The next day Rosa put the heelless shoes on her feet, and since they were so comfortable she decided to use them as slippers.

  Since she was no longer capable of going out to visit her friends, Rachelle and Ruhama would come to visit her every afternoon to drink coffee and eat salty sesame biscuits. And Rosa, delighted at being reunited with both her childhood friends, would tell them about Shraga’s kindness to her, about the presents he bought her, and about how he wouldn’t let her do anything apart from the cooking. They would look at her gigantic body, which was growing bigger every day, and tell her tactfully that it wasn’t healthy to be so fat and that she should start cutting down on her food. And she would look back at them pityingly and say: “But Shraga loves me like this.”

  “So what?!” Ruhama would explode. “You can’t even go out of the house! You’ve turned into a prisoner in your own body!”

  And Rachelle would nod in agreement.

  And after they left Rosa would sit in her armchair and muse that even though they were her best friends, since there were no men in their lives they were probably jealous of her happy life with Shraga. Then Joseph would creep slyly into her thoughts, and she would think of her life with him and compare it to her present life with Shraga, racking her brains in the effort to decide which was better. When she thought of Joseph she remembered the even course of her life until Angel was born, the happy moments she had had with him, and the delights of their lovemaking, with their bodies entwined at night and in the morning in perfect union. Then she would banish her memories of Joseph and turn her thoughts to Shraga, her old and present love, who although he did not satisfy her as Joseph had, was a better husband than he had been, looking after her like a loving father, bathing and dressing her, buying her gifts, and taking care of all her needs and those of Angel. And when she thought of them both and compared them with each other, she thought how wonderful it would be if only she could combine the virtues of each of them and construct a new man who would be perfect.

  fourteen

  THE FATTEST WOMAN IN ISRAEL

  That year Rosa became the subject of a renewed wave of publicity, which turned her into one of the most famous women in Jerusalem. It all began when a reporter on a local paper heard about Rosa from his brother-in-law Elimelech, owner of the Fresh Fruit greengrocer’s, was impressed by her dimensions, and wrote a two-page spread about her entitled “The Fattest Woman in Town.” The article was accompanied by photographs of her and Shraga with Angel in his arms, and led to an interview on the local television channel. A team of four—a reporter, a photographer, and a light and a sound man—turned up at her house and behaved as if it belonged to them. They opened and closed the shutters, filled the bed with embroidered silk cushions, and instructed Rosa to lie down. Then they rummaged in the closets, examined Shraga’s shoe collection, and snickered at the sight of Rosa’s vast panties. In the end the reporter had the nerve to ask her to get into the Jacuzzi, “with your clothes on, but so that it looks as if you’re naked.” At this request Shraga lost his temper and told the reporter that she should be ashamed of herself, and this too appeared in the program that was broadcast on the local channel
at half past seven in the evening.

  Two days later she received a visit from Danny Barakat, the talk-show host who had interviewed her during her pregnancy. He burst into the living room with his crew and crowned her with a new title: “The Fattest Woman in Israel.” Since he was the most popular TV host in the country, the house filled with the neighbors and their children, and many more gathered outside in the hope of getting a glimpse of him through the window. Rosa sat in her armchair, wearing her best silk dress, and wiped away a tear of excitement when Danny stroked her dainty little hands, praised her pure, fresh complexion, extolled her beauty, and begged her not to lose a single gram.

  “This is what a woman should look like,” he roared, trying to make himself heard above the hubbub. “A lot of woman, fresh and beautiful as a picture by Rubens.” Afterward he whispered in Shraga’s ear that he envied him, “because the area of her skin is enough for five men, and her flesh is sufficient to accommodate ten. If I had a woman like her she would keep me satisfied for a year, and I wouldn’t even look at another woman.” But when he asked to see Angel, he took one look and recoiled. And the offended Rosa saw that he regretted his request that she get in touch with him when she grew up.

  That night she was so excited she had difficulty breathing, and her loud wheezing woke Shraga, who was sleeping in the boys’ room on Jackie-Ya’akov’s bed. He found her blue in the face and struggling for breath, and rang for an ambulance in a panic. The ambulance men soon arrived, equipped with a stretcher and oxygen tanks to take Rosa to the hospital for tests. Since they were unable to fit her onto the stretcher, they were obliged to ask her to accompany them on foot. With harsh wheezes and whistles breaking out of her chest and frightening Angel, she hoisted herself out of bed and tottered toward the door, but she couldn’t squeeze through it.