Jerusalem Maiden (2 page)

A mosquito buzzed near Esther's head. “Who's your groom?”

“Yossel.” Ruthi's tone turned dreamy. “I hear he's handsome.”

Yossel? Esther remembered a short boy with buckteeth. Ruthi was tall, as gentle as a reed by the Jordan River. Esther sometimes made her balance a jug on her head so she would move as gracefully as Rachel had when Jacob spotted her at the well.

“Well? A thief stole your tongue?” Ruthi's hands rested on her hips.

From the kitchen yard, a few meters away, came the snapping sound of sheets being shaken off the line. Esther's sister, Hanna, a year younger than she, was taking over her neglected task before the night mist would dampen them. “His Ima owns a Judaica shop,” Esther said, and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Once, they came to see my Aba about money American relatives sent them.”

“
Nu?
” Ruthi said.

“His teeth are like a shelf. You can dry garlic cloves on them—”

Ruthi leaned into Esther's face. “Jealousy is a sin! How can you speak such awful lies to me?”

On top of the bookcase in the school library, Esther had found a forbidden book of Chekhov's stories, permitted only to the secular students. The knowledge that in Russia, male and female cousins played together, that men and women talked, had fired her imagination. Men and women even “loved”—they walked with their arms touching, as she now knew they also did in Paris.

“Let's stroll on Shabbat between the Armenian monastery and Zion Gate,” Esther said. “Yossel might be there also, wanting to take a peek—”

“It's forbidden!”

“Other betrothed couples sneak one little
ankuken
—”

“—and ruin the brides' reputations. Only grooms might sneak a peek.”

“You must see him.” Hopefully, the repulsive boy wasn't Yossel, but rather one of his brothers. Esther's tone heated. “Maybe even talk to him.”

Ruthi sniffed with the air of someone chosen for a great destiny. “That's breaking the
tzni'ut
decree. Immodest and unbefitting a virgin.”

Ima's voice cut the air. “The night is as black as the Egyptian plague. Esther Kaminsky, is that you?”

“I'm coming!” Esther gathered her skirt and ran inside.

“Who were you talking to?” Ima asked. “A ghost? And where have you been? Who's to do all your work around here? You want to kill me?”

“Sorry. I'll do all the mending tonight—” Esther was about to say that the French teacher had been tutoring her, but halted. The sin of lying was almost as bad as the sin she was covering up.

“A day that passes without a misfortune is a miracle in heaven.” Ima batted down Esther's flyaway hair. Her body odor, of wine gone sour, mingled with the fumes of fried garlic and onion and the boiling compote of apricots, dates and figs. “Who will marry a wild girl who runs around in the streets? Go take care of the little ones. Make yourself useful until your wedding day.”

Esther groaned.

“What am I asking of you? To build the pyramids?” Ima muttered.

Esther stepped to the front room, where at the far end of the table her two older brothers bent over their holy books. Behind them, the mahogany rolltop desk that served as Aba's bank was locked for the evening. In the cast of the six-armed kerosene lamp on the table, Esther's three youngest siblings played on the floor, and she thought of the shadows she would want to paint in gray and green and highlight the light reflecting from four-year-old Gershon's reddish hair. Except that Ruthi's betrothal rang as a warning bell: a prelude to her own. Both of them were destined to follow God's path for Jerusalem maidens. Every week, the matchmaker spied by the lines behind the communal laundry shed, where the women hung their washed rags used for their monthly flow, for a sign that Esther was ready.

“Are you idling again? Go do the ironing.” Ima stepped out from the kitchen. “Hashem, why did You curse me with such a lazy daughter?”

“Not lazy.” Gershon tugged on Ima's apron. “Esther is good.”

Ima's water-soaked finger curled his reddish sidelocks. “We have a rabbi in the family!”

“Let's play pharaoh's daughter,” Esther told him, and assumed an Egyptian pose, with her elbows raised sideways, her head held rigidly to the right, and her wrists angled out. The toes of both feet facing right, she walked sideways, Gershon and her six- and eight-year-old sister and brother imitated her, giggling, as they circled the dining table. Esther's two older brothers stuck their fingers in their ears, not to be distracted from heavenly studies by earthly joys, and their lips moved with their reading. Prancing by the sofa, Esther grabbed Ima's silk shawl, the one worn on special occasions—indoors only so as not to defile modesty with vanity—and tied it around her chest, letting its tassels drag on the floor. “I'm the princess of Egypt,” she chanted, circling the dining table. “Hanna, you're Moses' sister, who defies the mighty pharaoh to save her baby brother from death.” Without halting her Egyptian-style strut, she grabbed Ima and continued her chant, “You're Moses' mother floating his basket on the Nile, saving the Jews for eternity.”

Blush flooded Ima's cheeks. “What am I, a Hassidic woman who dances? And you're disturbing your brothers' studies with this racket.” She adjusted her kerchief, and her hand rested on the shoulder of Esther's oldest brother with tenderness she reserved for this dwarf son. Her other hand stroked Esther's second brother's cheek. “Avram, your bar-mitzvah day will be the happiest of my life.”

“Last year you said mine was,” the dwarf Moishe grumbled.

“Don't you know a mother's heart? With Hashem's blessing, each child in turn gives her the happiest day of her life.” Her gaze held Esther's. “From a daughter, it's her wedding day.”

Not that wedding talk again.
Flinging her braid in defiance, Esther dropped the shawl and grabbed a lantern and her school notebook. She went to the outhouse. The stench assaulted her. Blue-bellied flies flew in and out of the open hole, and thumb-size cockroaches scampered about. In the semidarkness, her feet dancing to keep the cockroaches from climbing up her legs, she used her school pencil to transfer the family scene to paper. She was a defiant daughter to both her mother and God, she knew, but this new urge was stronger than anything she'd ever known. And more than anything now, she wanted to own colored pencils, so she could capture the magic of God's creations. As she continued to draw, she thought of the
grushim
her aunts and uncles had given her for Chanukah. She could buy colored pencils. But the only place to find those was the Old City souk, where no Jewish girl was permitted to venture.

W
hen the custodian's bell rang the end of the day, Esther ran up the hill across from school. The wind made her shiver, but this was only the start of winter; those who got accustomed to the cold early bore it better when it turned brutal. She surveyed the horizon, the undulating hills shimmering in the afternoon sun from the Augusta Victoria pilgrim lodging on the Mount of Olives to Damascus Gate in the Old City wall. In the Old City, adjacent to the Jewish Quarter, branched out the alleys of the Arab souk, a world of “others” filled with temptations unsuitable for the mind of a virgin.

The exhilarating afternoon at Mlle Thibaux's table came to Esther's mind. God's sanctified kingdom now spread in front of her, every detail so crisp and enthralling, as if an outer eye had been added to the 248 body parts the Bible said she already possessed. Was it possible that God had gifted her with this new vision of His world? Mlle Thibaux had told her she was talented. Wasn't talent God's special gift?

Fifteen minutes later, Esther entered the souk amidst braying goats with ropes tied around their necks, trachoma-blinded beggars extending their open palms, squawking chickens hanging by their feet, and women in Levantine, ground-length dark dresses with rich embroidery who balanced huge baskets on their heads. Esther's eyes devoured the eclectic merchandise in the small stores spilling onto the sidewalk as the merchants announced their wares at the top of their lungs. Colors and movements and noise and flies and waves of smells both pleasing and foul filled the market. She skipped over animal droppings and wound her way around donkeys laden with sacks of vegetables and handcarts weighed down with earthenware jugs.

In the Byzantine Cardo, the ancient covered bazaar, the crowd was rumbling. Propelled by curiosity, Esther squeezed her way in, moving toward some action at the end of the alley. Soon, though, the river of people pressing forward carried her. She crossed her arms to reduce contact with bodies. Then she tried to turn back, to escape. But there were more people now, all larger than she, all closing in on her. The sour odors of men and beasts permeated the air.

Just as panic started to claw in her, she managed to disentangle from the crowd, pushing her way out in front of a store lined with open sacks of colorful, aromatic spices. With no fresh food, fewer flies hovered about. Relieved, Esther climbed on a barrel, and the view in the square just past the Cardo opened up to her.

Two Turkish policemen were flogging a man in a light blue shirt. Each time the end of the braided leather whip cut into his back, the man screamed and a gasp rose from the crowd. “Pity your hearts,” the man cried in Arabic. “Pity your hearts for a destitute man.” Blood streaked his sweat-stained shirt.

Esther covered her mouth in horror. “Poor man.”

“A thief. Better than chopping off his hand for a first offense.” Stepping from the shadows of his store, the spice merchant spoke Arabic. Esther glanced at him, uncertain she understood. The man smiled, revealing tobacco-browned teeth. “Second offense, not so lucky. Two hands.” His fingers made a chopping gesture over his other wrist.

Her expression must have shown her shock, because he chortled. “Third offense, hanging.”

At another collective gasp from the crowd, Esther turned back to the square, peeking through the gaps between her fingers. The dark red stains on the thief 's shirt covered most of the blue. He sprawled on the ground, writhing, and his begging turned to a monotonous wail.

Esther's stomach tightened. She swooned.

“Hey, you, girl! Don't faint in here.” The spice merchant offered her taffy, but she shook her head. The candy had surely been cooked in a
traife
kitchen.

“This?” He peeled sugarcane, chopped a section, then quartered it. Esther wiped her nose with her sleeve and accepted the stick. As the sweet flavor filled her mouth, the beating in the plaza stopped. The man lay in the dust, motionless except for the occasional jerking of his left leg. Two nuns in habits broke through the crowd and stepped toward the man. Would they carry the criminal to one of their hospitals? Esther wondered. Rumors claimed that miracles happened there, though the Haredi rabbis excommunicated any Jew who accepted Christian charity—

Suddenly, strong arms pulled her backward. She yelped, but a hand clapped her mouth. Choking, she was dragged into the darkness of the store. The aroma of spices thickened the air. “No!” Esther wailed as the spice merchant pushed her against the shelves of fruit cans, knocking her breathless. In the shock of terror, her mind froze with the thought: this was why she was forbidden to come here.

Pinning her to the wall, the man yanked her cardigan open, popping buttons. She screamed. With one quick sweep, he gripped her neck like a vise, reached and lifted her skirt. His large body choked her. His underarm smothered her face. His pungent odor pervaded her head. “You Jewish whore,” he muttered.

Fear exploded in her heart. He was too strong; his damp palms pressed everywhere on her body at once: thigh, hip, chest. She gasped for air. His fingers shoved above her knitted stockings, pinching and bruising her flesh. Esther tried to kick but her legs were pinned by his knees. She found her voice, but her scream, “Ima,” came out muffled against hairy skin.

“You've asked for it, little Yahud cunt.” The man's lips, thick and wet, sucked on her neck like leeches.

Esther bit wildly, sinking her teeth into his arm. He let out a roar, and blood gushed into her mouth. He yanked her braid, nearly breaking her neck, but Esther merely clenched her jaw.

“Your mother's cunt!” he screamed, trying to shake her off. “You whore!”

She heard a commotion, the shuffling of feet, and saw a mass of silhouettes in the open side of the shop. She choked at the pain as hard fingers forced her jaws apart. Her body was hurled onto a sack of ground cumin. The greenish spice flew up in a cloud, assaulting her eyes and nose and burning her lungs. She sneezed and coughed. “Ima—” Her cry was cut off as two men tossed her through the air. She landed in the gutter so hard she could feel the rattling of her bones.

She sensed the crowd gathering, and her fear mounted at their angry voices. “This Jewess has made a mockery of you,” one Arab shouted. “Look how she's destroyed the store,” said another and kicked her.

At the blow, white pain made her body contract. She would die now, for sure. “Hashem, help me,” she cried.

The spice merchant's howling went on uninterrupted as more voices spoke. “You're bleeding like a slaughtered goat.” “We must teach the Yahud a lesson. The infidels.” Then there were too many people and voices and noises to distinguish words.

Soft, foul-smelling garbage damped her face and legs. Pain radiated from all of her limbs, and her eyes were on fire. Blood coated her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She gagged. Her thighs were exposed in the torn skirt, breaking the
tzni'ut
decree. Something scampered up her arm. A mouse believing her dead! She jerked her hand, but the movement only hurled the creature onto her exposed thigh before it scrambled off. Her skin shrank in disgust. Her stomach heaved, but nothing came up.