The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

by Sarit Yishai-Levi

  “We’re selling him the shop at a loss, but who’ll pay us the cost of our shame, Papo, who’ll pay it?”

  “Enough!” All at once Rosa’s voice stopped her crying. “Enough crying, go and close the deal with him and behave with dignity. He’s won our shop, but he will not win our respect. Go, queridos, go and get it over with and let Papo rest now. Heideh, go.”

  “Mother, I’m not going,” Rachelika said. “I’m not going even if you force me.”

  “You’re not going where?” said Luna, who had just come in, surprised to see Rachelika crying. She hadn’t seen her sister cry since she was five. “What’s the matter, hermanita?” she asked anxiously.

  “We’re selling the shop to the Kurd,” Rachelika replied through her tears. “And at a loss. He’s robbing us, the bastard, robbing us shamelessly.”

  The hurt in Luna’s eyes was so palpable that it paralyzed Gabriel. “Over my dead body! Starving to death would be better than selling to him. If anything, give it to Tio Matzliach for nothing, but not to that Kurd who from the day he came into our life has turned everything black. Papo, it’s our great-grandfather’s shop. We grew up with that shop, Papo!”

  “Stop it, stop it, Luna, you’ll harm the baby. What’s all this outburst about?” Rosa said, trying to pacify her. “It’s only a shop. Your father’s health, your and Rachelika’s health are more important.”

  “Only a shop?” Luna yelled at her. “For you it’s only a shop, but for us it’s our life!”

  “Silence, Luna!” Gabriel raged. “How dare you speak to your mother like that! What’s this ‘for you’ and ‘for us’? Who are you to be so insolent to my wife? Who put words as sharp as daggers into your mouth, who put a stone in your chest instead of a heart?”

  An intense silence followed. Rosa couldn’t believe her ears. Gabriel was defending her against Luna. The anger she felt toward her pregnant daughter was now replaced by a gentleness toward her husband. The Days of the Messiah had come. He was finally seeing her.

  Very quickly Luna regained her composure and headed for the door.

  “Where are you going?” David thundered.

  “I’m going home,” she said, her voice choked. “My father doesn’t want me here.”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” her husband ordered. “Not before you kiss your mother’s hand and beg her pardon. Not before you kiss your father’s hand and beg his forgiveness.”

  “You keep out of this,” she replied from the doorway. But David quickly blocked her path.

  “Let her go,” Gabriel said, “so she doesn’t harm the baby. Let her go home, lie on the bed, and think about the words that come out of her mouth.”

  David moved out of Luna’s way and she left, but to everyone’s surprise he didn’t follow.

  “Papo,” Rachelika said, defending her sister, “she didn’t mean it. She’s upset, you know how much she loves the shop.”

  “She never did anything for the shop,” Gabriel said. “She was too proud to sell in the market, and now she cares?”

  “Papo querido, that’s Luna. She likes working with clothes, but she loves you and the shop as much as she loves herself. For her, as for all of us, if we sell the shop, it’s as if we’re selling the family’s honor, and to the Kurd yet, whom she, more than any of us, hated right from the start.”

  “Mi alma, what a heart you’ve got,” Gabriel said, beckoning her over and kissing her forehead.

  “You’re a fortunate man, Moise,” he told her husband.

  “I know, Senor Ermosa,” he said and hugged his wife close.

  * * *

  From the day the shop was sold to Mordoch the Kurd, the Ermosa girls stopped going to the Mahane Yehuda Market. None of them had the strength to pass by the shop. Mordoch hadn’t bothered to take down the sign over the door of the shop, which had been padlocked and bolted since he’d bought it from Gabriel.

  “I hope he ends up without a grush to his name and never opens the shop,” Luna said when she heard the rumor that the shop was closed. “I’ve never hated anyone the way I hate that Kurd. He’s ended Papo’s life, he’s taken away the little dignity he had left, and for that I’ll never forgive him.”

  “Why are you taking it so hard?” Rachelika asked. “The shop’s been sold and that’s that. Life goes on. Now you have to stay calm and get ready to have your baby.”

  “How can I stay calm when I see Papo fading away from day to day?”

  “He’s sick, Lunika. It has nothing to do with the shop. He’s sick and nobody can help him.”

  Luna had forgiven her father for reprimanding her in front of the whole family. She’d gone to her parents’ house the next day, kissed his clenched hand that he could no longer open, straightened the beret on his head and the cushions behind him, and helped him drink some tea. And he, seeing the sorrow and remorse in her eyes, didn’t say a word about what had transpired the previous evening. Except for David, who scowled at her, everybody else acted as if nothing had happened. And to Rosa’s surprise, even she felt for her daughter. Poor Luna, even when she loves, it doesn’t come out clean. It’s always dirtied with hate, miskenica.

  As Gabriel’s illness worsened, Rosa’s standing in the household was enhanced. Now that Gabriel was unable to run the family’s life, the burden fell on her. Her daughters Rachelika and Becky and her sons-in-law Moise and David showed her immense respect, and though her rebellious daughter Luna had not changed her stripes, she had at least studiously avoided friction with her mother. It’s better this way, Rosa thought. Better she doesn’t say a word to me rather than be how she was before, when she only had to see me and her skin would become a porcupine’s.

  For Rosa, each day became as long as the Exile. She’d get up early in the morning, and after washing her face and before drinking a cup of mint tea, she’d go to Gabriel’s bed, help him sit up, plump the big cushions behind his back, bring him a cup of tea, and hold it to his lips until he’d taken the last sip. It was sad to see the handsome man sinking ever deeper into his illness.

  Yet into all this sadness shot a ray of light that brought a little joy into the Ermosa family’s house: Gabriel and Rosa’s first grandchild, Yehuda-Boaz, whose first name was given to him after his paternal grandfather Yehuda, and the second chosen by his mother because it had been a fashionable biblical name.

  “Why didn’t you give him Gabriel as a second name?” Luna had asked her sister.

  “How could I name my second child Gabriel, troncha, if his big brother’s second name is Gabriel?”

  Rachelika was grieved not only because she couldn’t name her son after her beloved father, but also because she couldn’t give Gabriel the honor of being her firstborn’s godfather at his circumcision, since tradition held that it was given to the father’s father.

  But on the eighth day after Yehuda-Boaz’s birth, when the whole family gathered for the circumcision ceremony, Rachelika’s husband surprised her. After he took the baby from her, instead of giving him to his own father, he laid him in Gabriel’s arms. Rachelika’s heart swelled on seeing her father’s joy. She looked at her husband and for the thousandth time thanked God for her good fortune. When she’d first met Moise she hadn’t thought she’d like him. After all, her dream man had been a Palmachnik, salt of the earth, a brave fighter, handsome and tousle-haired. She hadn’t believed that she could learn to love a simple, kindly boy with almost no education, heavily built and balding. But she loved him with every fiber of her being. She had no idea how he’d convinced his father to confer the honor of being her son’s godfather on Gabriel, but she was grateful and proud.

  The baby’s cry as the mohel circumcised him pierced her heart and she hurried out into the synagogue yard, her sisters consoling her in her wake.

  “Miskenico, only eight days old and already being cut.” Rachelika wept. “It must hurt him terribly.”

  “He can’t feel it,” Luna comforted her. “They dip the pacifier in wine. He’s as drunk as a lord.”

&
nbsp; “Miskenico, only eight days old and drunk already.” She sobbed.

  “He won’t remember anything. Do you know a boy who was cut when he was eight days old and remembers it?” Becky said, surprising her sisters with her logic.

  “You, how do you know what a boy remembers or doesn’t remember, little one? When did you become such an expert on boys?” Luna laughed, and Rachelika wiped away her tears.

  “Stop it, enough. I haven’t been little for a long time. I have a boy.”

  “Wai de mi, don’t tell me your boy tells you what he remembers or doesn’t remember from his circumcision.” Luna laughed.

  “If you weren’t pregnant I’d slap you, you idiot,” Becky replied.

  Rachelika’s weeping mingled with their laughter, and they all felt like three little girls again, sharing a room in their parents’ house, when life had been simple.

  And that’s how Rosa found them when she came to call them in to toast the new baby. As she looked at her three daughters, she thought, Ay, Senor del mundo, you have been good to me. Perhaps I should thank you every day, every hour, for marrying me to Gabriel and giving me three daughters and now a grandchild too, and with God’s help another one soon. Perhaps my life hasn’t been all that bad. God be praised, you’ve finally remembered me, Rosa the poor orphan from Shama, and even given me a little joy.

  * * *

  Six months later, on November 29, 1947, the family and all their neighbors gathered around Nono Gabriel’s radio and listened to the broadcast from the United Nations in New York. The fifty-seven member states were about to decide on the partition of Palestine. Everyone was entranced by the announcer’s voice. Though he was speaking English, there was no need for translation: the United States of America … Yes. Australia … Yes … With the name of each country, hearts skipped a beat. Thirty-three times the announcer said yes, and thirty-three times yells erupted from the Ermosa house in Ohel Moshe. Gabriel, who could barely move, was so overjoyed he jumped up from his cushioned chair. And once it was clear that there was a majority in favor of the resolution to partition Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, it also became clear that the English, may their name be erased, would finally be leaving Palestine, and the Jews would finally have a state of their own.

  While everyone went running out of the Ermosas’ house and through the Ohel Moshe gate toward Zion Square, where thousands were already celebrating in the street, Luna felt her baby kicking in her belly. And Luna, who wanted nothing more than to join them all and dance till dawn like she loved to do, was instead forced to go to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in an ambulance. There, after seventeen hours of painful labor, her firstborn, a daughter, finally emerged into the world.

  Luna was far too exhausted to feel happy when they laid the baby on her breast. All she wanted was to close her eyes and sleep. She wasn’t interested in the fact that she had just brought a living, breathing creature into the world. She was not interested in her husband, who was crying like a baby, almost collapsing onto the tiny body of his new daughter. She was not interested in the fact that while she was in labor, the Jewish people were celebrating their rebirth. She just wanted to be left alone to sleep.

  The next morning when they brought the baby to feed, Luna refused to nurse her. She was too tired and in too much pain to even open her eyes.

  “You have to try and feed your baby,” the nurse told her. “She has to eat.”

  But Luna couldn’t.

  The nurse helped Luna sit on a pillow and put the baby into her arms. But instead of feeling sublimely happy and bursting with love, she didn’t feel a thing. And when the nurse undid her gown and exposed her breasts, she was filled with terrible shame.

  “Bring her mouth to the nipple,” the nurse told her, trying to bring the baby’s lips to her mother’s nipple. But the baby wouldn’t take the nipple and started to cry. Luna closed her eyes and prayed that they would take the baby away and let her sleep.

  “God almighty, don’t drop the baby,” the nurse said as she quickly retrieved it from Luna’s lax arms. She lay back in her bed, covering her head with the sheet, trying to find a less painful position for her aching body.

  Rachelika, who had just arrived, hurried after the nurse who had removed the baby from Luna’s room. “Where are you taking her?” she asked.

  “If we don’t want her to starve to death, we have to feed her,” the nurse replied dryly.

  “Why isn’t my sister feeding her?”

  “In some cases the mother’s too tired and in too much pain to care for the baby. But don’t worry, your sister will be back to her old self in a few hours, and in the meantime we’ll give the baby a bottle.”

  “A bottle?” Rachelika was shocked. “Giving a baby a bottle isn’t healthy.”

  “So what do you want us to do, let her starve?” asked the tired nurse.

  “Give her to me,” Rachelika ordered.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Give me the baby!”

  She took the baby from the astonished nurse, sat down on a chair in the busy corridor of the maternity ward, took out a breast, and brought the baby’s mouth to her nipple. Only when the warm milk from her aunt’s breast had satisfied her hunger did she stop crying.

  When she’d finished, Rachelika laid the baby on her shoulder, pressing her tummy against it, gently patting her back until she heard the welcome burp.

  “Aaach,” said Rachelika, pleased with herself. “Now we feel better, now we’ve had a good burp we’re calmer.” She kissed the infant’s forehead, handed her back to the nurse, and told her, “I’ll pump my milk until my sister can feed the baby herself.”

  After filling several bottles with her milk, Rachelika went back to Luna’s room. David was sitting at the side of his wife’s bed.

  “What’s happening?” Rachelika asked.

  “She’s not speaking to me,” he replied. “She’s not talking at all.”

  “Go outside, David, leave me alone with my sister.”

  He got up and headed for the door, stunned by Luna’s behavior. He couldn’t fathom why she hadn’t even given their daughter a glance.

  Despite the fact that he hadn’t welcomed a son into this world, the emotion David felt when he’d held his daughter in his arms had erased any disappointment. He was filled with a love he couldn’t contain. For the first time since he had parted from Isabella, he felt happiness had reentered his life. He felt that the baby was reparation for the lost love he had left behind in Italy.

  After David went out, Rachelika sat beside Luna and stroked her hair.

  “I want to die,” Luna mumbled. “My whole body hurts, my down below is on fire. It was a nightmare, Rachelika, a nightmare. Why didn’t you tell me it’d be such a nightmare?”

  “Would it have helped if I’d told you?”

  “Did it hurt you like this too?”

  “It hurts everyone. It hurt Mother too, and it’ll hurt your daughter as well. It’s the curse that God gave our Mother Eve when she tempted Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children. You won’t remember a thing by tomorrow. It’s pain you forget. Otherwise would we have babies again and again?”

  “I’m not having any more!” Luna said. “This is the first and last.”

  “Lunika,” Rachelika laughed, “you’ll see that by your next pregnancy you won’t remember a thing. Your baby’s exquisite, a princess.”

  Luna didn’t reply.

  “Don’t you want to see her, Lunika?”

  “Not now. I’m tired.”

  “She’s the spitting image of you. She has green eyes and red hair like yours. You’ll love her.”

  “I want to sleep.”

  “All right, Lunika, go to sleep, but soon, when you wake up, they’ll be bringing her to you and you’ll see how she takes all the pain away.”

  But I didn’t manage to take away my mother’s pain. Every time they brought me to her to nurse I’d scream, almost choke. My lips couldn’t hold
on to her nipple, and when they did, I sucked and sucked, but the few drops of milk yielded by my mother’s small breasts didn’t satisfy my hunger, and I’d scream to high heaven. My tiny face, swollen from crying, turned red, and my frightened mother would call for the nurse to take me from her. And so, three days after I was born, it was clear to everybody that Rachelika would have to carry on providing me with her milk.

  Hadassah Hospital was situated on the eastern slope of Mount Scopus, a Jewish enclave in the heart of an Arab area that from day to day had become increasingly hostile. As soon as the United Nations passed the resolution on the partition of Palestine, traveling to and from Mount Scopus had become dangerous. Luna, who was in pain and depressed after a difficult birth, was deathly afraid of traveling the road from Mount Scopus into Jerusalem, and when the time came for David to take her and the new crown princess home, she adamantly refused to leave the hospital.

  “I’m not going in a taxi with the baby, it’s dangerous!” she told David.

  “They won’t give us an ambulance,” David tried to reason with her. “You’re not critically ill.”

  “Then I’m not going! I didn’t survive seventeen hours of hell so I could get killed by an Arab sniper.”

  She wouldn’t get out of bed, and not even the staff nurse who’d been called to her room and demanded she vacate the bed could do anything.

  “You can shout at me from now till tomorrow,” she said in an icy voice. “You can bring Ben-Gurion here in person. I’m not going down from Mount Scopus without protection. As far as I’m concerned”—turning to David—“you can find us a room and we’ll move here.”

  And David, who had been waiting for the minute when he could bring Luna and the baby home and finally get away to the war that was about to break out and join the forces defending the homeland and the struggle to establish a state, almost lost his patience. Each additional moment with his wife became an even more unendurable punishment.

  He had behaved impeccably since Moise had pulled him aside for a talk ten months before. He’d realized that if he wanted to hold his marriage together and not become, with Luna, the leading players in a scandal that would threaten not only their future but that of their family too, he would have to do everything he could to father a child, even though it would be hard for him, even though it would demand tremendous mental effort. After all, he was a rational man and wouldn’t give in to his emotions at his family’s expense.