The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (30 page)

And Luna, from day to day she'd become more coquettish. She looked like the girls in the magazines. Where had she gotten all her beauty from? Certainly not from her, and even her father, may he be healthy, was not as good-looking as Luna. There was nobody in his family as beautiful as Luna, nobody as beautiful as Luna in the whole of Jerusalem. God forgive my sins, only trouble will come from the beauty of that one, Rosa thought. God knows what streets she's roaming during the afternoon break each day.

One evening before Luna had gone out in heels as high as the Mount of Olives, Rosa had told her, “Be careful you don't fall off your heels and break your neck.” Luna had fixed her with an icy stare and replied, “Be careful you don't turn into an armchair, sitting at home all day,” and Rosa's face had paled. After all these years she was still not immune to her eldest daughter's venom. She'd taken off her sapatos and thrown them at Luna, who'd dodged them as she'd left.

Rosa needed to get the girl out of their house! She'd speak to Gabriel and tell him to find her a husband. It was time she had her own home, where she could make trouble for her husband and leave Rosa in peace. The ring of the doorbell shook her from her thoughts. They'd been living in the apartment on King George Street for almost a year, and she still hadn't gotten used to the bell. “Just a minute,” she called. To her surprise she found Gabriel standing at the door. Without even a hello he went straight into the bedroom.

Gabriel was tired and his body ached. Lately he'd felt as if his very bones had gotten heavier, and it was difficult for him to carry himself. The soles of his feet burned inside his shoes, and most of the time he felt weary and depressed. He attributed it to the situation in the country. He was worried about the unknown, the girls' safety. He had the terrible feeling that he was losing them. And he was troubled by the state of his business. The situation in the country had caused people to stop buying delicatessen, and the flow of customers was dwindling from day to day. Even the British soldiers who had been regulars had stopped coming to the Mahane Yehuda Market. Not only that, the demand for halvah was not what it had been in the past, and his stubborn partner Mordoch Levi insisted on continuing production as before.

“Don't worry, Ermosa, trust Mordoch, everything will be fine with God's help!” he'd said.

But Gabriel didn't trust Mordoch. His instincts told him that the man and plain dealing didn't go hand in hand. He didn't yet have proof, but something in Mordoch's behavior irked him. I'll have to keep an eye on the Kurd, he thought to himself before closing his eyes.

*   *   *

The winds of war were blowing in Palestine. A Hamekasher bus carrying children from the Old City to their school outside the wall was fired on. The windows were shattered and only by a miracle no one was hurt. A Jew named Mizrachi was murdered in the Old City while shopping in the market, Yosef Yechezkel was wounded by Jaffa Gate and lost his sight. Mr. Weingarten, chairman of the Jewish Committee in Jerusalem, went to the high commissioner's office and demanded increased protection of the city's Jewish residents, but it appeared that he could not find a sympathetic ear, and so the situation continued to deteriorate.

The winter of 1945 was a hard one. Torrential rain hammered the roofs of Jerusalem and the streets became fast-running rivers, blocking the approach roads. Gabriel's health was declining. He couldn't sleep and sweated like an animal at night. He was irritable, impatient, and quick to anger. He found it hard to get up in the morning and was already exhausted before his afternoon break. His legs didn't carry him as they used to, and he no longer walked every day to Franz the fat newspaper seller or visited the halvah factory. His movements had gradually become slower, and sometimes he lost balance.

“Go and see Dr. Sabo,” Rosa told him. “Perhaps you've caught cold or eaten something bad.”

But he, who had taken to a sickbed only once in his life, waved away her suggestion. “I'm just tired. I'm working too hard in the shop. It'll pass.”

But it didn't pass. The girls and Rosa noticed that every time Gabriel tried to get up from his chair, he trembled slightly. Sometimes his speech became soft and slow, as if he couldn't find the words, but then he recovered.

“There's something not right with Papo,” Luna said to Rachelika one day.

“I know,” she replied. “Sometimes he sits in the chair in the shop and just stares as if he's not seeing anything. Sometimes his hand shakes so much he can't put a piece of cheese on the scales.”

“Papo, you have to go and see Dr. Sabo,” Luna appoached him later that day.

But he persisted with his story. “I'm just overworked. It'll pass.”

“Papo, this has gone on for far too long,” Rachelika chimed in. “Maybe Dr. Sabo will give you some medicine and then it'll pass.”

Gabriel lost his temper and almost stumbled as he got up from the table. Rosa ran over and took his arm, which angered him even more. His face reddened and he swore at her and called her names, much to everyone's shock. They had never seen their father behave vulgarly.

When the situation didn't improve, Gabriel finally consulted Dr. Sabo. The good doctor listened to Gabriel's complaints, examined him, and diagnosed rheumatism. He suggested hot baths and a visit to the hot springs in Tiberias, and assured Gabriel that everything would be fine.

That evening Rosa ran a hot bath for Gabriel. It indeed relieved the pain, but when he tried to get out, he slipped and fell. The sound brought Rosa rushing into the bathroom, where to her surprise she found her husband, naked as the day he was born, sprawled on the floor. She, who in all their years of marriage had never seen her husband naked, was filled with shame and fled.

“What happened?” Luna asked on seeing her rush out of the bathroom.

“Papo's there, he's fallen on the floor,” Rosa mumbled.

Luna hurried to the bathroom, grabbed a towel, and covered her father.

“Are you all right, Papo?” she asked, kneeling beside him to help him up. “Rachelika!”

Rachelika ran in and together they lifted his heavy frame. Little Becky, who had also heard the commotion, fetched Gabriel's robe from the bedroom. They helped him into it and sat him down.

“Papo querido, are you in pain?” Luna said.

Rachelika sat beside him and held his shaking hand. “Papo, what happened to you?”

He looked around and didn't reply. His soft, kind face was covered by a cloud, his eyes were glistening, and tears were falling from them. The girls couldn't believe it. Their father, this tall, handsome, strong man, was crying. Luna rubbed his back, Becky leaned her head on his shoulder, and Rachelika didn't let go of his hand. Soon all three of them were crying with him.

Rosa was standing by the door. Her heart went out to her husband, to her daughters, but her feet did not carry her to them. She was incapable of joining this demonstration of love between her husband and her daughters. She lingered by the door, as if she was about to leave at any moment, as if she didn't belong in this house, to these girls, to this family. Never before had she experienced loneliness as powerful as this.

Gabriel's condition continued to worsen. He spent more and more time in bed and hardly went to the shop. Every morning Rachelika went without him and stood in his place behind the counter. She could see how stock was running low and how Matzliach, despite all the years he had been working at Gabriel's side, had not learned a thing. Her heart aching, she saw that from day to day fewer customers were coming in. Times were hard and people were buying only the bare necessities: bread, vegetables, and a chicken for the Shabbat table. Dried fruit, halvah, sweets, and even smoked fish were too luxurious in times like these.

She decided not to tell her father.

“I don't want to worry him,” she told Luna, “but I'm very worried. The situation is shit.”

“So what can we do?”

“We'll wait till Papo gets better and then we'll see. In the meantime, I'm keeping an eye on that troncho Tio Matzliach. Believe me, Luna, it would be better if he wasn't around.”

“We've got to take Papo to the hot springs in Tiberias,” Luna said. “Dr. Sabo said it would help him feel better.”

“But how can we get him to Tiberias? Papo can't drive in his condition.”

“So get a license and you drive.”

“Me? Papo would never let me drive the car.”

“Right now Papo can't interfere,” Luna replied with an assertiveness and common sense that surprised Rachelika. “Sign up at Asherov where Papo learned.”

And why don't you? Rachelika thought to herself. But she knew that her beautiful coquette of a sister kept her distance from anything to do with learning, and driving you had to learn, no? Luna was very close to Papo, she'd do anything for him, but she wouldn't stop living her life. Even now that he was sick, she continued going out and having a good time, dressing up, flirting with suitors at Café Atara. But how could you get annoyed with her? How could you not be captivated by her charm, her liveliness, her desire to devour the world? Even in such hard times, with Papo sick and the country on the verge of war, for her there weren't any problems in the world. What wouldn't Rachelika give to be able to laugh like Luna.

Now that she wasn't attending school and the Scouts, Rachelika sometimes went out with her sister to Café Atara or Café Zichel, saw how all eyes were always on her, how they all hung on her every word. Luna just had to ask for a light and all ten men at the table
and
other tables would whip out their lighters. She had only to get up for a moment and they'd all stand too as if they were English gentlemen. Hah, gentlemen, more like horanis from the tin shack neighborhood. And the cigarette? The first time she saw Luna smoking she was shocked.

“Luna, are you out of your mind?” she had asked her sister as they sat in the café that evening.

“Don't you dare tell Papo.”

“And why are you smoking all of a sudden? Only cheap girls smoke cigarettes.”

“Really? Even Golda Meyerson smokes cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes is modern, and I'm a modern girl.”

Modern. Rachelika laughed to herself. She barely finished elementary school, never reads a newspaper, and if she does read, it's only
Burda
or a film magazine. Yes, she's a real expert on that. If the Hebrew University taught fashion or Hollywood studies, Luna would have a PhD by now.

“Enough, Rachelika, don't be so old-fashioned,” Luna said. “Put a smile on your face and let's go dancing.”

“You have dancing in your head? I've got a thousand problems on my mind. The situation in the shop is horrible, Papo's sick, there's a shooting every day, and all you can think about is dancing!”

“Oh, come on,” Luna said. “What good will sitting at home with a long face do? Will it make Papo feel better?”

“And what if he needs me?”

“Mother and Becky are there. We aren't leaving him on his own. So come on, you nudnik, what do you want? Should I get down on my knees?”

“Why not? Let's see you do it and maybe I'll come along.”

That night they'd danced until midnight.

“Heideh, Cinderella,” Rachelika said to Luna, “it's time to go home before Papo calls the whole British police force.”

They left the café arm in arm followed by the excited gaggle of Luna's suitors, a band of young men, some of whom had recently returned from overseas after fighting with the British army's Jewish Brigade. They were young, well built, and full of life, and mainly full of stories that fired Luna's imagination.

“The world's so big and fascinating, and the farthest we've been is Tiberias,” she said to Rachelika after saying good-bye to the boys who'd walked them home.

“How can you think about the world when the situation here's so horrible? When war might break out at any moment? When our Jerusalem's a mess?”

“What good will it do if I think about Jerusalem's troubles? Is there a war right now? No! We'll worry about the war when it happens. Why not dream while you can? Does it cost anything?”

“Tell me about a dream of yours,” laughed Rachelika, who couldn't remain indifferent to her sister's charm.

“I dream that as soon as I'm married, the first thing I do is move to Tel Aviv. I'm not staying here in this hole! Since the first day we visited I've dreamed about living in Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv's young, easy, free, Tel Aviv's me! Jerusalem's old, it takes everything to heart, it thinks too much. Jerusalem, Rachelika, is you.”

“I'm old?” Rachelika was hurt. “Is that how you think of me?”

“You sit in Papo's shop all day, and then you come back from the shop and sit at home. Since you stopped going to school, you've become an old frump.”

“What do I have left? They took me out of the gymnasium, they took me out of the Scouts, so what can I do?”

“Do! If I were in your shoes I wouldn't have given up. I'd have argued with Papo, I'd have made his life a misery until he gave in. But you, Papo tells you to stop going to school and work in the shop, and like a little Goody-Two-Shoes you go and do what he tells you.”

“I can't disobey him. Even you don't.”

“The trick, my dear sister, is to make Papo feel that you're listening to him, giving him respect, but not giving up on what you want. The trick, Rachelika, is not asking permission to do every little thing. You just say good-bye and go out, and if he asks where to, you say I'll be back soon. By the time you get home he's already snoring.”

“But how can I go to school when he wants me to work in the shop? And how can I go to the Scouts if I'm not at the gymnasium?”

“You can't go to the gymnasium if he won't allow it, and he really needs you in the shop because he's sick. It's not like before when he wanted you there to punish you. Now that you're his right hand, forget the gymnasium. But if you want to study so badly, why not take high school evening classes? And who said you have to go to the gymnasium to be in the Haganah?”