The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (56 page)

Without a word she pushed the wheelchair toward the hotel, which during the Mandate period had been frequented by British soldiers and their slutty Jewish girls. The receptionist was sitting in a small room off the entryway. He came out and greeted them and told Luna to push Gidi's wheelchair to one of the ground-floor rooms. He showed them in, took his leave, and Luna closed the door behind him. The room was big. The floor was covered with painted tiles, and from the high ceiling hung a chandelier made from four stained-glass bowls. Dark drapes covered the windows overlooking the street, and most of the room was taken up by a wide iron bed with a thick wool quilt. Beside it stood a small dressing table with a mirror that had seen better days.

“Help me,” he said, indicating the bed. She held him around the waist and he leaned against her, and with a strength she didn't know she possessed, she transferred him to the bed. Then she took off his shoes and socks and lifted his paralyzed legs onto the bed. Using his elbows, he lay down, and she lay next to him. He turned to her, his blue eyes looking into the green ocean of hers, and began unbuttoning her dress very slowly as if they had all the time in the world. Excited, she lay beside him and shut her eyes tight as he took off her dress, revealing her white silk camisole.

“Look at me,” he whispered. She opened her eyes, and as they met his a flame kindled in her heart. His hands traced her body, his fingers tenderly stroking her face, down the length of her neck, around her nipples. She shuddered as he caressed her through the silk garment and felt a wave of heat between her thighs, a feeling of pleasure she had never experienced with David.

“Take your camisole off,” he whispered, and she shrank. God, how could she lie there naked before him? How could she expose the scar that had disfigured her body?

“Don't be shy,” he said.

“Look.” He lifted his shirt. “I have a scar just like yours. Feel it.” He took her hand and ran it along the scar that marked his wound.

“Now let me touch yours,” he whispered. He shifted his body and put his lips to the scar that crossed hers, kissing the length of it. She felt as if his lips were healing her, as if with each kiss the scar was fading and her body was as whole as it had been before she was wounded. She pulled him to her, pushing her body against his as if wanting to be engulfed by it, clasping him as if afraid of letting go.

“Can you feel,” he whispered, “can you feel your skin against mine?”

“I love you,” she whispered back.

“I love you more than my life,” he promised.

“Turn around,” he said, and she turned her back to him. He unhooked her bra and removed it, and she faced him once again, her upper body bare, her perfect breasts revealed to him. She took off the rest of her undergarments and lay beside him, not trying to hide her nakedness.

His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her beauty before him. “Come here,” he said, “close.” She moved closer and he held her face, not taking his eyes from hers. He brought her lips to his and kissed her in a way she'd never been kissed.

His hands felt her body from her waist upward—her belly, her breasts. He brought her nipples to his mouth and kissed them, and then began sucking them like a baby. She stroked his head, grabbing his hair, praying he wouldn't stop. He pleasured her with his lips for a long time, moving over her as much as his body allowed. She couldn't believe the groans that escaped her. She wanted him to touch her in that intimate place, the place she'd always hated David touching, and she didn't believe it when she took his hand and guided it between her legs. With his fingers he roamed inside her, his hands drowning in the nectar of her body, and she started trembling. Her back stiffened and her heart began pounding wildly, almost leaping out of her chest. She shouted like a madwoman and only his strong embrace could calm her shivering body. God almighty, she thought, what was that? She'd never experienced such a sensation and only with difficulty managed to regulate her breathing.

They lay in silence side by side, tears welling in her eyes. Of all the places in the world, this was exactly where she wanted to be, alone with him. There was no world outside. Everything happening outside the room had nothing to do with them: not the nearby taxi station, not their friends from the hospital, not David, not Gabriela, not Rachelika, not Becky, not her mother, and not even her father. She wanted this moment to last forever.

She opened her eyes to find him staring at her.

“How long have you been looking at me?” she asked with a smile.

“For all the time in the world,” he replied.

“I've never felt this way before. I've never been so happy.”

“Me too,” he said.

“I want to do to you everything you did to me. I want you to feel exactly what I felt,” she whispered.

“That's impossible, my love, I'll never feel the way you feel. I can't feel anything down there.” He took her hand and guided it to his flaccid body. “But I can feel here.” He pulled her hand to his chest. “Here I feel like I've never felt before. I love you, Luna. I love you, light of my life.”

“I love you too. I've never loved anyone the way I love you, and I never will.”

He kissed her again and again, their tears, their hands, their hearts mingling. She was beside herself with love. God, she thought, don't let this end, don't let this ever end.

*   *   *

Split into two parts, Luna's life moved between her time with Gidi and her regular life with her husband, daughter, and extended family. She was unable to avoid her daily chores, and on the contrary, she functioned as the perfect housewife and turned the studio apartment they'd moved to into a real gem. On the balcony she cultivated pots of white and red geraniums, cacti of various types, and pansies. She gradually added more and more pots until there was no more room on their side of the balcony and she'd encroached onto the neighbors' side, much to their delight. And to extend their living space, she put a small table and chairs on the balcony, covered the table with colored cloth, and set a plant pot at the center.

“Luna's apartment looks like a gift box,” her sisters laughed. “Just like her.”

As her relationship with Gidi deepened, Luna did her best to be a better wife to her husband and a better mother to Gabriela, though she found it hard. Almost everything the child did, almost every sentence her husband uttered, angered her. In David's case she'd bite her tongue and get over it, but with Gabriela, it was far more difficult.

“You don't understand that when you get frustrated with her, she annoys you more out of spite,” David told her. “You have to talk to her gently, kindly, show her you love her. That's the only way she'll behave nicely. If you carry on yelling at her, it'll only get worse.”

“But she starts it,” she complained. “I haven't even entered the room and she's already irritating me.”

“She starts it? Can you hear yourself? Where's your head, Luna? Who's the child here, you or Gabriela? She wants your attention, she wants you to see her. That's why she does everything she can to annoy you, because it's the only way you take any notice of her.”

“I don't notice her? Who takes her to school every morning? Who dresses her, brushes her hair, feeds her?”

“And who gives her a bath every evening and who puts her to bed? You?” he asked, raising his voice. “When have you sung her a lullaby before she went to sleep, when have you told her a bedtime story? Don't talk crap. The child shouts so you'll see her, and you, nada!”

The conversation with David depressed Luna. There was truth in what he'd said. She did all kinds of maneuvers so she'd be with the child as little as possible. Actually, she was often busy trying to find an alternative arrangement for Gabriela. She bribed Becky to collect her from school and bring her back to their parents' house so that she could run to Gidi. She always made sure to be back in time to pick Gabriela up before David got home from the bank, just as she made sure she was home at noontime with a hot meal when he took his afternoon break. Sometimes they'd meet for lunch at her parents' house, and sometimes she'd meet him at the bank and together they'd go for hummus at Taami. After lunch David would take a short nap and head back to work. And although she'd be counting down the minutes until Gidi finished his shift and they'd meet in their usual room in the hotel, she never left the house before David. She waited patiently for her husband to finish his afternoon break, and only then got herself ready for the love of her life.

She had a precise ritual. First she'd wash her body with a wet towel; then she'd dry her damp body with a dry towel. When she finished, she'd spray herself with perfume from the crystal bottle that stood on the dressing table, squeezing the bulb once or twice but not more so as not to overdo it, then put on one of her silk robes and go to the drawer where she kept her silk lingerie with sprigs of dried jasmine and lavender in muslin sachets she'd sewn herself. With her delicate manicured fingers she'd take out a matching set of underwear, bra, and camisole and lay them one beside the other on the bed. From her stocking drawer she'd choose a pair of fine nylons and place them beside the underwear. She'd take the time to slowly massage her feet with cream until it was fully absorbed and they softened, and then would sit in front of the mirror and start making up her face. After peering into the mirror again and again, pleased with the result, she'd start getting dressed. She'd gently roll the nylons over her feet and legs, making sure that the seam ran exactly up the middle of her calf and not, God forbid, deviate one millimeter to the right or left. She'd put on the delicate lace garter belt and close the clips on the top of the stocking, taking care not to pinch the flesh of her thighs. After making sure her stockings were perfect, she'd put on her silk camisole, and then would come the most difficult task of all: choosing the right dress. She'd try on a dress, discard it, try another and take it off until she'd been through her entire wardrobe and was finally satisfied with her choice. Once she was dressed, she'd sit down in front of the mirror again and apply lipstick. The lipstick was always the last link in the chain of preparations. After came another light spray of perfume and she'd be off.

Her heels tapping, she'd walk toward Jaffa Road. It would have been easier to take the Hamekasher bus that went the whole length of the street to Zion Square, not far from the hotel, but Luna didn't like being crowded on a bus with strangers. Until Gidi finished his shift she'd have time to dawdle by the shop windows on Jaffa Road and glance at the listings at the Eden and Zion cinemas to see what was showing and what was coming soon. Time would pass slowly, too slowly.

She could have walked to the taxi station and waited for him, but lately Luna had avoided going there as much as possible. She trusted her driver friends, but since she and Gidi were now lovers, she felt somewhat uncomfortable around them.

She knew that their relationship was forbidden, and that if her husband heard about it, he'd throw her out and she would bring down shame on her family. No woman she knew, not in her immediate or even distant circles, had divorced. The only divorcée she'd heard of was Vera, a very good-looking Hungarian woman who worked at the bank with David and was raising two children on her own.

At the same time, Luna never even thought about putting a stop to her affair with Gidi. It was the only point to her life, the perfect world she inhabited every afternoon. Just him and her in a shuttered room with dim light coming from a single lamp. Even the noise of the busy street outside didn't come through the walls. All that could be heard was their whispering voices, the sound of quiet breathing, and the beating of their hearts.

Luna couldn't get her fill of the feel of his hands and his lips, his company. He saw her as no one had seen her before. He saw all of her, inside and out, and was the only one who didn't judge her, the only one who understood who she really was. They talked about everything except her other life with her family. As soon as she'd try to tell him about what was going on in her home, he'd gently place a finger on her lips and say, “Here it's just you and me. You don't have another life except for this moment. I don't have another life. It's just you and me,” and she'd fall silent right away.

Luna too loved the feeling of being in a bubble, though she sometimes felt the need to share her feelings about the trouble Gabriela caused her. Only Gidi would understand that she felt helpless, that she didn't know how to be her daughter's mother. After all, she hadn't had time to be a mother. When she was wounded, she'd left Gabriela as an infant, and when she'd come home she'd found a ready-made child who was attached to her father, Becky, Rachelika, Rosa, Gabriel. Luna was the only one the child didn't want. She hadn't been there when Gabriela had learned to stand, hadn't held her hand when she'd learned to walk. She hadn't been there when Gabriela had begun saying her first words. It was as if she'd given birth to a two-year-old child and could not bridge the chasm of those two years apart. Dio mio, she wanted to talk about it with Gidi, she wanted to so much. But Gidi was firm, absolutely refusing to allow others into the room they rented by the hour. Not her husband, not her child, not her sisters, not even their friends from the hospital. Whenever she mentioned one of them, he'd cut her short and say, “Just you and me, remember?”

But there was one thing Luna had to talk to him about. She had to tell him she was having sex with her husband. For many weeks after they'd moved into their own home and slept in the same bed, which during the day was folded up and hidden behind a curtain to give them more space, David hadn't touched her. Every night they'd say good night, turn their backs to each other, and fall asleep. Until one night, without warning, he snuggled up to her back. Her body tensed, but she didn't move. He lifted her nightgown and began stroking her thighs, and she, who didn't want to prolong the moment, turned over onto her back and let him take off her underwear, spread her legs, and penetrate her. She shut her eyes tightly, trying to detach herself from what was happening. Her arms lay at her sides, her fists clenched involuntarily. The moment she noticed her position, she placed her hands on his back and moved them along its length, as if they were the hands of another woman lying beneath her husband's body. Happily for her he climaxed quickly, kissed her lightly, and fell asleep.