The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem
Page 32
“And I still say, my love, that it’s none of our business.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me about David, Moise? You’re not behaving as if you can’t see or hear for no reason. I know you.”
“My love who is more precious to me than life itself, what I know about David is between me and him. I can’t talk to you about my best friend.”
“It’s long since not been between you and him.” Rachelika became annoyed and got up from the couch. “From the moment he marries my sister and doesn’t make love to her at night, it’s no longer a kid’s game.”
“My heart and soul, with all my love for you and the respect I have for you, I’m not prepared to talk about other people’s marriages.”
“And you think I am? Do you think it was easy for me to talk about it with my sister? Do you think it was easy for her to talk about it with me? We don’t talk about things like that in our family. No one ever explained to us what you do or don’t do on your wedding night. Once upon a time mothers would explain to their daughters, fathers would explain to their sons, but with us, nada. My mother didn’t tell me a thing.”
“So you didn’t know what to do, querida mia?”
“Moise, not every woman has a husband like you who’s considerate and gentle and loving. Not everyone loves the way we do. We’re very lucky.”
“I thought that Luna and David were lucky as well,” Moise replied.
“Shit is what my sister’s got, not luck. Your dreck of a friend is breaking her heart, and if you don’t tell me what’s eating him, I’m going out that door to my mother.”
“Calm down, my precious, you mustn’t excite yourself. Think of the baby.”
“Then start talking!”
Moise mulled over telling Rachelika the truth about David. Would she be able to keep his love for Isabella a secret from her sister? She was his beloved wife, and he wanted to share it with her, to reveal what lay behind David’s behavior, but words had their own way of always reaching the wrong ears. Words had the power to destroy, even when uttered with the best of intentions. He decided it would be better to keep it to himself. Perhaps the situation would change in time and the words would not hold the power they had now.
“Are you going to tell me or am I leaving?” she roused him from his thoughts. Moise cleared his throat and said, “When we were in Italy, David really did have a thousand women, maybe more. He’d change girls like he changed his socks. He was pretty wild, that David.”
Rachelika noticed that Moise was squirming in his chair. “Spit it out, Moise. What aren’t you telling me about David?”
“Don’t you understand anything I’ve just told you?” he replied. “How could you not understand, my lovely? I thought I married Senor Gabriel Ermosa’s smartest daughter.”
“I don’t understand because you haven’t explained it, troncho de Tveria. How is David having a million women in Italy connected with him not making love to his wife?”
“He’s used to being free, a butterfly. He’s not used to being with just one woman. He needs time to adjust to it.”
“God help us! What are you saying, that he’s cheating on Luna?”
“Heaven forbid, Rachelika! Did I say he’s cheating? God forbid anyone hears you. I’m saying he’s like a little boy, he needs time to get used to being married. He’ll grow up and you’ll see what a wonderful husband he is. I promise you we’ll be hearing good news before the month is out.”
Rachelika bought his story, and Moise breathed a sigh of relief. Now he had to have a talk with David and give him hell. He had to get the stupid ass in line before a disaster erupted and destroyed the whole family.
* * *
Luna brushed her bronze hair with her fingers, rolling a curl around one finger, then putting the finger into her mouth to wet the curl. She gazed at the mirror. She was still beautiful; it was just a pity that her husband couldn’t see it.
It was early evening. A short while ago she had come home from work, since Mr. Zacks had closed the shop early. He had been very depressed lately. The situation in Jerusalem had gotten to him, and even she hadn’t been in the mood to buy new clothes.
Instead of going to her parents’ home as usual, Luna had decided to head for her and David’s studio in Mekor Baruch. Her conversation with Rachelika weighed heavily on her. She shouldn’t have talked to her sister about their intimate life. That was a secret nobody else should know, not even her sister. And anyway, what had come of spilling her heart to Rachelika? What had come of seeing her sister’s horrified expression when she’d told her that David didn’t make love to her? How could her dear Rachelika help? She had only hurt her sister with what she had confided. And what if Rachelika couldn’t restrain herself and told Moise, and what if Moise told David, and what if David decided she had a big mouth and left her?
God Almighty, what had become of her? She who’d had it all, suitors just waiting for her to toss them a word, who stopped breathing as she passed, who swooned at a smile from her, now married to a man who hardly looked at her? How had such a disaster befallen her of all people? Perhaps it was because she had too high an opinion of herself? Because she felt she was queen of the world? Had she behaved badly toward people because she was so full of herself? Forgive me, God, forgive me for forgetting the upbringing I was given by my father.
Modesty in all things, that’s what her father had always taught her. Never be boastful, do not be prideful about what God has given you, always remember that there are people who have less than you. But she had forgotten and committed the sin of arrogance, which, so her father had told her more than once, was the most terrible of them all.
Despite the oppressive heat in the room, Luna was shivering. She put on a sweater over her dress, but it did not warm her. She went to the gramophone on the sideboard and put on a record. “Bésame, bésame mucho,” Emilio Tuero sang in his mellifluous voice, managing to thaw the cold that enveloped her. She began moving her body side to side to the rhythm, closing her eyes, her feet carrying her of their own volition lightly across the room. When the record finished, she put the needle back on and continued dancing, hugging her body, overcome by loneliness and a longing for the man who had not touched her in such a long time, longing for love of the kind she’d dreamed about but didn’t have. She danced and danced until she became exhausted, dropped onto the bed, and fell asleep.
That’s how David found her when he got home late that evening, at a time when young husbands were already making love to their wives. He’d gone to see a cowboy film and waited until it was late so that by the time he got home he’d find his wife asleep.
She was curled up on her side, so small in contrast with the wide bed. He brushed a red curl from her eye and studied his beautiful wife. He felt badly for her, miskenica. She’d probably waited and waited for him until she’d fallen asleep. The needle was still scratching the revolving record and he lifted it, switched off the gramophone, and replaced the record in its sleeve. What’s happening to me? He asked himself the question that had so troubled him since their wedding night. Why has my heart turned to stone? He took a blanket from the closet and covered Luna, then quietly changed into his pajamas and lay down beside her. She was lying in the middle of the bed, not leaving much room for him, and he was afraid to touch her accidentally. What would happen if she woke up? Would he have to talk to her? Would he have to hug her? Make love to her? He was so ashamed of himself. What would the guys from the brigade say if they knew he didn’t touch his wife?
* * *
“I have to talk to you,” Moise said to David when they went out to the yard for a cigarette after Friday-evening dinner at Gabriel and Rosa’s house.
“I can’t help with the shop,” David said quickly. “I don’t understand anything at all about it, so whatever you and our father-in-law decide is fine by me.”
“I don’t want to talk about the shop, David. I want to talk about Luna.”
“Luna? What do you have to say to me
about Luna?”
“Not now, David. Just the two of us need to talk, without all the family close by.”
“There’s nobody here now, there’s just you and me. So talk, Moise.”
“What’s going on between you and Luna?”
“Everything’s fine, thank God.”
“Are you sure everything’s fine, amigo?”
“Why wouldn’t it be fine?”
“Because her sister thinks that nothing is fine.”
“Her sister? Since when has her sister interfered in our business?”
“That’s it, she’s not interfering, I am. I think you’re ruining your life. I think you’ll bring down disaster on the family.”
“Hold it, Moise, stop right there! With all due respect to you being like a brother, I won’t let you speak to me like that!”
“Come on, David. What, you think that I want to interfere? I’m saying this because I care. You think that people can’t see that something’s not right between you and Luna? That people don’t have eyes?”
“If you mean that you’re ahead of me and got your wife pregnant first, then well done you, Moise, but I’m not competing with you. You’ve evidently forgotten that there are methods that prevent pregnancy.”
“Stop with the stories, David, I know exactly what’s going on. Get this into your head: There’s no more Isabella! Your life with her stayed in Italy! You’re married to Luna now, and listen well, amigo, you start behaving like a man, respect her and do your duty as a husband, be the father of her children, because if you don’t, you’ll have me to deal with. On my life, David, if you don’t come to your senses and get things back on track, I’ll break every bone in your body!”
David was stunned. Moise, his quiet, gentle friend, had never spoken to him so vehemently. Moise had always respected him, and it had always been David who had told Moise what to do, who had given advice, arranged things, taken him under his wing and even found him a wife.
But Moise was dead serious, and although his words had surprised and angered David, he knew there was truth in them. He knew that if he didn’t start behaving with Luna as a husband behaves with his wife, there would be a disaster and God only knew how it might end.
He stubbed out his cigarette and followed Moise back into the house.
“Heideh, Lunika,” he called to his wife. “Let’s go home.”
“What did you say to David?” Rachelika whispered to Moise.
“Me?” he asked, playing dumb. “I didn’t say anything to him. We just had a cigarette together.”
“Sure, sure,” she said and hugged him.
* * *
For many days the shop had been devoid of customers. Moise repeatedly cleaned the half-empty shelves, and Rachelika must have swept the floor a thousand times. They had stopped setting the larger sacks outside. They were empty and there was no way of refilling them, and even if there was, where would they have gotten the money to buy fresh supplies? They had let Avramino go. Gabriel had almost dug his heels in when she and Moise had told him there was no choice.
And times were so hard that shortly after they had to let Uncle Matzliach go too. And that was much harder. Matzliach was deeply hurt.
“After all I’ve done for my brother?” he told his niece. “After I’ve given my heart and soul to this shop you’re sending me home?”
“Forgive me, Tio,” Rachelika lowered her eyes to the floor. She couldn’t find the courage to look at her uncle. “We don’t have the money to pay you.”
“Does my brother Gabriel know that you’re throwing me into the street?”
“Papo is broken by it, Tio. We had to let Avramino go, we’re letting you go, and soon we’ll be left with no choice but to go as well.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Matzliach said, fuming. “I carried you in my arms when you were a baby. You should be ashamed that you’re throwing your old uncle out like this.”
“I am ashamed, Tio,” she said, wishing she could disappear, “but there’s no choice.”
Tio Matzliach spat on the floor, threw his apron at Rachelika, and left the shop. Her eyes filled with tears and she collapsed into Moise’s arms.
“Shhh … shhh, my sweet one. Think of the baby. This isn’t good for it,” Moise said in a soothing voice.
“I wish my father had done it and not given me this loathsome job.”
“Your father kept Matzliach on for many years even though he was a lazy worker.”
“And he never stopped complaining,” Rachelika added.
“And took home a tithe from the goods, and not only on the first of the month,” Moise went on.
“You saw that?” She laughed. “I thought I was the only one who noticed.”
“Your father knew about it too but turned a blind eye. Don’t feel bad. I’m sure that as soon as the situation improves your father will help. It’ll be all right.”
But nothing was all right. Matzliach was so angry at being let go that he broke off relations with Gabriel and his family. “I don’t want any favors from them,” he told Allegra when he went to Tel Aviv to vent his rage and inform his mother of Gabriel’s disrespect.
“Blood is thicker than water,” he said. “And if Gabriel treats me like water, he can go to hell.”
“Heaven help us, what are you saying, tfu-tfu-tfu!” Allegra said, upset.
“He threw me into the street like a dog. It’s as if he killed me!”
“Are you sure Gabriel knows that his daughter fired you?” Mercada asked, stepping in.
“What do you think, madre querida, that Rachelika would do something without her father knowing about it?”
“You never know,” Mercada said. “Gabriel is at home sick. He hasn’t gone to the shop in a long time. Now it’s Rachelika and her Maghrebi who are running it. Perhaps they sent you home on their own. The Maghrebis,” she said, spitting contemptuously, “are Scots, they’re misers. You go to your brother’s house now, tell him that they’ve left you without food! Do you hear me? You won’t give in to his daughter and the Maghrebi. You’ll talk to your brother, your flesh and blood. One brother doesn’t go against the other. Behaving like that with family is not in our blood.”
“It’s not in our blood? Madre querida,” Allegra intervened, “if it’s not in our blood, how is it that for years you haven’t been to Jerusalem to see how your favorite son is and you haven’t shown any interest in his health, when now, God forgive my sins, it’s as bad as ever?”
“Don’t be insolent!” the old woman scolded her, but Allegra, who had long since lost patience with her irritable mother, went on. “You have to go and see Gabriel in Jerusalem yourself. Tell him you’ve forgiven him, and maybe he’ll get out of the chair he sits in all the time, go back to the shop, and together with Rachelika and the Maghrebi he’ll get it back on its feet, and then he’ll take Matzliach back.”
“I’m not going to Jerusalem even if the Messiah comes!” the old woman retorted, banging her cane on the floor.
“If you don’t go and see Gabriel, then don’t send Matzliach to him. I’m sure that Rachelika consulted him before firing Matzliach, so why send him now? To rub salt in his wounds?”
“Why are you defending him?” Matzliach asked angrily. “I gave him years of loyal service. For years I carried sacks on my back, I worked with the broom, with dusters. I covered for him when he took his afternoon nap, looked after the shop so nobody would steal, God forbid, and now look at me—a man who’ll soon be a grandfather left without a livelihood. Is that how a brother behaves?”
“I’m sure it’s because he has no choice. You said yourself that the shop’s in bad condition, that there’s almost nothing to sell and no customers to sell to,” Allegra said, trying to defuse his anger.
“Well, at least he could have kept me on out of respect.”
“His respect for you doesn’t allow him to keep you on without paying you. You have to go to him, kiss his hand, and ask him to forgive you for your behavior.”
“Do what you want,” Mercada said. “I have nothing to say in the matter. Nobody respects my opinion.”
“And you’ve brought that on yourself, madre querida,” Allegra said and flounced out of the room.
* * *
The falling-out with his brother hurt Gabriel very much, but his body hurt him more than anything. From day to day it became harder for him to move, and he stumbled with his speech, on many occasions choosing to keep quiet rather than utter such heavy, clumsy words.
Rosa too was not the woman she had been. Even though Gabriel was increasingly engrossed in himself, he could not help but notice how old age had crept up on her, how wrinkles now furrowed her face. It pained him to see that not only had her relationship with Luna not improved since his daughter’s wedding, it had worsened.
For years he had ignored how his favorite daughter treated Rosa as if she were nothing. After Luna married and left the house, he’d hoped that she would change her attitude toward her mother. He’d thought that now she was a wife herself and had her own home to run, and with God’s help would become a mother and give him and Rosa a grandchild, she would finally grow up and stop being the child who bickered with her mother about every little thing. But Luna didn’t change. Even though it vexed him, he was in such pain and so weak that he was unable to speak to her about it, and his heart filled with great sadness. The child who had restored light to his life, the joy, the love who had filled his most difficult times with happiness, who had to some extent eased the pain of longing for that woman whose name he didn’t even want to remember, had grown into a woman whose personality he despised, a woman whose only interest was clothes and having a good time, who lived in a world of her own as if people weren’t getting killed every day, as if war wasn’t on the horizon, as if the whole world was her stupid magazines and Hollywood. She wasn’t even carrying a child in her belly yet, and it had been months since the wedding at the Menorah Club that had cost him almost all the money he’d had left.