The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem

by Sarit Yishai-Levi

  “Please, David, don’t leave me alone with the baby,” she begged him.

  “You’re not alone, you’re with your mother and sisters.”

  “Let him go,” my nono said. “Don’t make a scene. Everybody’s enlisting. We have to be part of the effort.”

  Gabriel was proud of the fact that his son-in-law had enlisted and wished he could have joined up himself. He was a man of forty-seven who felt like a one-hundred-year-old shuffler, and his health would not allow it. A short time after David, Moise enlisted, and now his two sons-in-law had become fighters in the Israel Defense Forces.

  Immediately after Moise enlisted, Rachelika also moved back to her parents’ house with baby Boaz. The house was small and crowded, but Nono Gabriel was happy that all his daughters were with him at such a fraught time, and even happier with the babies that filled the house. The little ones’ voices somewhat assuaged his pain, and at long last he could sit at a mesa franca, a king’s table, with his girls.

  And then what Nona Rosa called “the miracle” occurred. One morning the gate opened and into the yard strode a stocky, tanned man, his head crowned with curls, a thin mustache on his upper lip. “Dio mio! Ephraim!” Rosa screamed and fell into his arms, almost fainting. Years after his disappearance, Ephraim had returned. He was so different from the young drunkard who had left the house and slammed the door behind him. He’d left a confused youth and come back a real man.

  “Rachelika, Luna, Becky, look who’s here!” Rosa called. “Look who’s here, Tio Ephraim, Tio Ephraim’s come home!”

  Even Gabriel was happy to see his brother-in-law again. Many years had passed, and despite the animosity he felt toward anyone connected with the Lehi or Etzel, and despite the fact that he had sullied the family’s honor following Matilda Franco’s death, he was glad to see Ephraim safe.

  “You broke our mother’s heart, Tio Ephraim,” Rachelika said once the excitement died down.

  “Shhh, he didn’t break it at all. What happened is past,” Rosa said. “The main thing is that you’re back safe and sound. The main thing is that I’m seeing you with my own eyes.” She wanted to take her little brother into her arms, to hug him, kiss his eyes, until something in his look made her hold back. His boyish features now comprised the face of a man. The deep furrows in his cheeks, the wrinkle that formed a path on his forehead told her in one glance that the years that had passed since he’d walked through the gate and not returned had not exactly been paradise for him. Who knew what he’d been through, where he’d hidden from the damned Ingelish, how many times his finger had pulled the trigger. She didn’t dare ask him any of the questions whirling in her head, didn’t dare penetrate the armor he now wore. She just stood close to him, inhaling his new scent, so different from the smell of alcohol that engulfed him in the last year he’d lived with them.

  They sat around the table, the girls quietly holding their babies, still astonished by their uncle’s return. Only little Becky chattered away, asking him all the questions that Rosa, and perhaps Rachelika and Luna too, wanted to ask but didn’t.

  “Where did you disappear to for such a long time?” Becky said. “Mother almost went crazy because she was so worried that we didn’t know where you were.”

  “I was fighting for the Jewish people,” Ephraim replied. “I helped drive the British out of Palestine, and they left, thank God,” he said and pinched her cheek.

  “Did you scare them?”

  “Oho, and how I scared them.”

  “What did you do to them?”

  “Not now, querida Becky, it’s not yet time to tell. One day I’ll tell you, but now it’s too soon.”

  “Leave Tio Ephraim alone,” Rosa scolded her. “Stop talking his ears off. It’s time to eat.”

  Ephraim ate ravenously. “How I missed home cooking,” he told her. “And how I missed the family. I’d heard that Luna and Rachelika were married and I was sorry I couldn’t take part in the celebrations.”

  “Who told you?” Luna asked.

  “I was told.” He winked.

  “Who?”

  “I’ll tell you one day,” he said. “You’re a mother already and you’ve still got ants in your pants? Paciencia, all in good time.”

  Afterward he slept for half a day. He was so exhausted that the noise of the house and the babies’ crying didn’t wake him. Rosa watched him as he slept, stroking his face. He was her fourth child, the son she never had; that’s how she’d always felt.

  War was raging outside, cannons thundering, and yet she felt a peace she hadn’t known for as long as she could remember. Her girls were with her in the house, her grandchildren were with her, her husband was still alive, thank God, and now her little brother had come back to her. God be praised, she found herself thanking God for the second time that week. Gracias el Dio, thank you, thank you for bringing Ephraim back to me. She was curious about what he’d been through, but she knew he’d tell her in his own time. Now they had to make him feel he was wanted here, even if she had to sleep in the yard because there wasn’t enough room in the house.

  “At least we’ve got a man in the house now after the men went off to the war,” Becky remarked in the girls’ room later that evening.

  “Some man,” Luna snorted contemptuously. “Until I know that it wasn’t him who killed poor Matilda I’m not going to treat him like a man.”

  “Mother says it wasn’t him.”

  “Matilda’s mother saw him, and our mother who was fast asleep in her house knows it wasn’t him?”

  “Drop it, Luna,” Rachelika said. “Don’t you dare bring it up. What’s important now is that Tio Ephraim is back. Did you see how happy Mother is?”

  “I don’t think that Matilda’s death should be swept under the rug. I think he should tell us exactly what happened that night.”

  “Enough, Luna,” Becky said. “Why are you always looking for a fight? Isn’t the war outside enough for you?”

  “Oho, the child’s learned to talk,” said Luna. “You dummy, keep quiet. Until you grow up a bit we don’t want to hear from you.”

  “Dummy yourself,” Becky retorted and left the room, offended.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Rachelika asked. “What is it with you that you can’t shut up? Why did you speak to Becky like that? And why do you have to sadden Mother when she’s got a smile on her face at long last?”

  “Are you against me too?”

  “I’m against you? I’m for you more than anyone else in this house. I’m always defending you and explaining that your awful behavior is because you’ve just had a baby and your nerves are still on edge. But enough, Gabriela’s already five months old. When Boaz was five months old I was already trying to get pregnant again.”

  “You’re trying to get pregnant again?” Luna was shocked. “Boaz isn’t a year old yet.”

  “He’ll be a year old in a month’s time, and yes, I want another child. I want my children to grow up together, it’s what’s best.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Luna said. “You’ve just gotten back to your weight from before you had the baby, and you want to get as fat as a pig again?”

  “It’s natural,” Rachelika said patiently. “I’ll get pregnant, put on weight, have the baby, get pregnant again, put on weight again, and so on and so forth.”

  “How many children do you want, hermanita?”

  “Moise and I want four, God willing.”

  “God be praised, may you all be healthy.”

  “And how many do you want?”

  “One. I have one and that’s enough for me.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” Rachelika said, but deep down she feared that her sister meant every word.

  * * *

  Rosa’s joy lasted for just one day. The next day, right after he woke up and ate the breakfast she’d labored over for him, Ephraim announced that he was going back to the front.

  “Hermano,” Rosa pleaded, “you’ve only just come home.”

&n
bsp; “I’ll be back,” he assured her. “But first we have to finish the job. We got rid of the British. Now we have to get rid of the Arabs and establish our own state at long last. In fire and blood did Judea fall; in blood and fire Judea shall rise!” he proclaimed with great determination.

  He took his leave of Rosa, kissed Rachelika, Becky, and Luna, patted the babies, and then went to Gabriel in his chair.

  “Brother-in-law,” he said in Ladino, “I want to thank you for putting me up in your house for the night and to say good-bye again. I’m going to the war.”

  “Go in peace and return in peace,” Gabriel blessed him. He wanted to shake Ephraim’s hand but his knotted fingers and trembling hand wouldn’t rise from the chair’s armrest. And when Ephraim bent down to kiss his hand, Gabriel told him quietly, “Before you go, there’s something I want to know.”

  Ephraim tensed.

  “Who killed Matilda Franco?”

  “It wasn’t me who pulled the trigger,” Ephraim replied. Then he turned and went off to the war.

  “I knew it, I knew it,” Rosa said and sighed. “In my heart I always knew it wasn’t Ephraim.”

  “He didn’t say it wasn’t him, he said it wasn’t him who pulled the trigger. You always hear what you want to hear,” Luna said angrily and stormed out of the room.

  The question of whether Tio Ephraim had or hadn’t pulled the trigger when Matilda Franco was murdered remained a mystery in the history of our family. And Tio Ephraim, who until his death at a relatively young age remained as secretive as if he were still living underground, never provided a straight answer.

  But in Ohel Moshe they never forgot or forgave him for Matilda Franco, and they’d talk about the murder over and over. And only my nona would say, “My little brother que no manqui, everything they say about him should happen to them. The evil tongues can say what they want. To me he’s a hero of Israel.”

  * * *

  For many weeks now they hadn’t heard a word from David, Moise, and Handsome Eli Cohen, who had also enlisted. Becky didn’t stop crying.

  “You’re playing with your luck,” Rosa told her. “You’re crying before anything has happened, God forbid. Stop crying right now so you don’t have to cry later, God forbid.”

  But Becky’s tears flowed uncontrollably. Eli’s photograph was always close to her heart, and at every opportunity she looked at and kissed it. At night she slept with the photograph under her pillow, and inside her bedside table she’d hung a drawing of a huge red heart pierced by an arrow through the middle, and on it she’d written “Becky and Eli Forever.”

  The only one who brought a smile to her face was Luna’s baby, Gabriela. As soon as she got home from school she ran to the playpen and lifted Gabriela out. The baby held out her hands to her and laughed. What amazing dimples the child had when she laughed! Fortunately Luna gave Gabriela to Becky whenever she wanted, and not only that, it sometimes seemed to her that Luna was happy when she took Gabriela.

  “Mashallah, look at Becky,” Rosa would chortle, “playing with Gabriela like she played with her dolls when she was little.”

  Still, the atmosphere in Ohel Moshe was bleak and tense. Every day more and more people enlisted. They’d even started recruiting students, giving them a short period of training and then sending them to the front. Danger lurked in the streets. The Arabs destroyed the shops on Princess Mary Street, razed them to the ground, and burned down the Rex Cinema. The schools had been closed, and the youth movements had organized students to clean up shards of glass from the shops.

  “You’ll leave this house over my dead body!” Rosa yelled when Becky asked permission to join her friends in cleanup. “You’re not going anywhere at a time like this! You could get caught in a shelling.”

  “I’m going to buy bread then,” Becky told her mother. She didn’t have the strength to argue. She was spent from crying all the time for Eli. Her friends were all taking part in the war effort, and only she was stuck at home.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Rosa said.

  “But we’re out of bread.”

  “We’ve got flour, we’ll bake our own bread.”

  “There’s no flour either,” Becky said after searching the cupboard. “We’re out of milk too, and cheese, and there’s only a bit of rice left.”

  “We’re lucky that Rachelika’s got milk. At least we don’t have to worry about Boaz and Gabriela,” Rosa replied.

  The market was almost devoid of goods, and even if there was stock, the Ermosas didn’t have the money to buy. Of the five hundred lirot the Kurd had given them for the shop, there was hardly a grush left.

  “Did you talk to Papo?” Luna asked when Rachelika shared her concerns regarding the finances.

  “I don’t want to worry him. He doesn’t ask and I don’t tell. The money will last for another few months at best, but I don’t know what we’ll do then.”

  “Maybe I’ll go back to work at Zacks & Son,” Luna suggested.

  “Don’t talk nonsense, Luna, you can’t leave the baby.”

  Luna was silent. For what could she tell Rachelika, that what she wanted above all else was to leave the baby? That she didn’t have the strength to hear her mewling like a kitten anymore? Miskenica Rachelika, who had to fill bottles of milk for her. How much could one tiny baby eat? And if she was not given milk, wai de mi, what screams, you’d think she was being killed. And worst of all was when Luna tried to pick her up, the baby screamed even more, but when Rachelika or Becky or even Rosa went to her, she calmed down right away. Whoever heard of such a thing, a baby that didn’t want her own mother?

  “How many bottles have you filled for her today?” Luna asked.

  “Better you don’t ask,” Rachelika replied with a smile. “Your daughter, may she be healthy, eats for three. Even Boaziko eats less than her, God bless him. I just about finish nursing Boaziko and Gabriela’s already yelling for her bottle.”

  “So just give her a teta.”

  “God help us, Luna, what am I, her wet nurse? I’m her aunt, it’s out of the question!”

  “What’s the difference if she feeds from you or a bottle?”

  “Does a bottle have feelings, troncha?”

  “All right, don’t get angry. I just wanted to make it easier for you so you don’t have to fill bottles.”

  “You’re not making it easier, you’re making it harder. Go away now, let me be alone with Boaz. Take Gabriela and go out.”

  “Where to?”

  “Outside, the garden, take her for a walk.”

  “Are you crazy? It’s too cold for her outside.”

  “I don’t care where you go, just take her out and give me a little privacy!”

  “What privacy? Is there any privacy here? We’ve gone back to being three little girls, you, me, and Becky.”

  “Luna, enough!”

  Luna went out, forgetting Gabriela, who was lying in the playpen with Boaz.

  “Troncha de Tveria, where’s her head?” Rachelika muttered.

  It really has become too crowded in the house, thought Rosa, who had been eavesdropping on her daughters’ argument. Let this cursed war be over, let each of them go to her own house. She hadn’t raised girls so they’d be hanging around her neck forever. Not Rachelika, she was like light in the house, but Luna? Until she’s finally gone to her own house, praise God. But what was to be done? The men were in the war, and until the war was over they’d live like this, even though the crowdedness sometimes threatened to suffocate her.

  That evening Rosa went out into the yard and sat on a stool. A chilly wind was blowing and she pulled her big scarf more tightly around her. The sky was full of stars and everything was so tranquil and serene. Even the echoes of shooting had fallen silent. The babies had been put to sleep in their playpen, her husband had gone to bed, and her daughters were in their room, so why was this quiet so menacing? Why did she have the feeling that something bad was about to happen?

  She suddenly saw Luna standing i
n the doorway. She was so thin, she had the silhouette of a young boy, as if a baby had never been in her belly. Feeling stifled, Rosa hurried back inside and went to bed.

  Thank God she’s gone back in, Luna thought. I was worried I wouldn’t find anywhere to be alone for a moment. Gabriela’s inside, my mother’s outside, and Becky’s crying all the time because of Handsome Eli Cohen. You’d think she’s the only one who’s worried about her boy. Rachelika isn’t worried? She keeps her worries to herself, doesn’t let anybody in on her thoughts, keeps herself busy all day with Boaziko and Gabriela. Like a worker ant she runs around and takes more and more tasks on herself so as not to let her worries invade her life. And she, Luna, was she as worried about her husband as her sisters were about their men? God help them, sometimes entire days went by without her even thinking about David. God forgive her, but since he went off to the war she’d finally started breathing again. She’d needed distance from him. If he’d taken Gabriela with him, it would have been even better.

  God would repay her for these thoughts, but she couldn’t deny them. Ever since Gabriela had been born, Luna’s heart had been hollow. Everybody crowded around her like she was the center of the world, a rare and fragile creature, amazed by the rosy-cheeked, green-eyed baby, the one they all said was her spitting image. Only she couldn’t see any resemblance at all between them. And Gabriela, she smiled at everyone except her mother. You couldn’t fool babies. You couldn’t pretend with babies the way she’d pretended over the past year with David. Babies feel more than adults do, Luna recognized. And my baby must sense her mother’s heart is empty.

  At first she’d thought that it was because of the difficult birth. After the stitches were removed and her body gradually recovered from the trauma, she believed that now she’d fall in love with the baby, but it hadn’t happened. She had more of a bond with Boaziko than with her own baby. She wished she could get away and go sit in Café Atara, but all the boys had gone off to the war and all the girls were at home busy worrying about them, so there was nobody left to meet there. Her heart ached with sadness because she was such a bad mother. Miskenica the baby, it wasn’t her fault her mother was sick in the head, it wasn’t her fault that instead of being happy and proud that the baby enchanted everybody, she didn’t feel anything, just the opposite, she got angry. She should be put in a straitjacket and sent to the Ezrat Nashim Mental Hospital. She was surely going crazy. If she didn’t find a way out of this madness she’d kill herself. She couldn’t stand herself. How could it be that she didn’t love her baby, not even a tiny bit?