The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem (6 page)

A hand touched my shoulder. “
Chaytaluch
, what are you doing here, Gabriela?”

I turned and facing me was Mrs. Barazani, the neighbor my mother hated, in her big floral housedress and a rolled-up kerchief on her head. She clasped me to her warm body that surprisingly felt like my nona's.

“
Ma guzt akeh?
Where's your mother? How long have you been standing here? Your mother must have gone to the police by now.” She took my hand and led me to her house, sat me in a chair, and sent one of her boys to run and call my mother.

I curled up in the chair, watching my nona's neighbor running here and there, explaining in Kurdish and broken Hebrew to the other neighbors who'd followed us in that she'd found me in the yard, “trying to get into the house,
papukata
, poor thing,” she told them. “How she misses her grandmother.” And in the same breath she said to me, “Soon your mother will be here to take you home. Meanwhile, eat,” and she placed before me a plate of kubbeh swimming in yellow gravy. But I wasn't hungry. I just missed my nona terribly and still hoped that in another moment the door would open and she'd come in and hug me and take me to their side of the yard and sit me on her knee and tell me stories. But instead of my nona it was my mother who came through the door like a gale force wind, and before she even said “Shalom,” she slapped my face twice.

“What kind of a girl are you?” she hissed. “Who gave you permission to go to the Kurdish neighborhood on your own?”

I was so shocked that she'd slapped me in front of Mrs. Barazani and her neighbors that I didn't answer, didn't even cry. I just put my hand on my tingling cheek and stared hard at her.

“A street girl!” she went on, whispering so as not to embarrass herself in front of Mrs. Barazani any more than she already had. “Just wait and see what Father does to you. My slap was nothing. Just get your little bottom ready.”

“This child has given me a heart attack,” she said apologetically to Mrs. Barazani.

“Sit down, sit. You've probably been running around with worry,” Mrs. Barazani replied.

My mother released a deep sigh, swallowed her pride, and sat in the chair offered to her, straightening her posture as much as she could and smoothing her skirt that had ridden above her knees.

“Here, drink, drink,” Mrs. Barazani urged as she gave her a glass of water. I wondered how my mother could refuse to see what a good woman Mrs. Barazani was, how even though my mother detested her, even though my mother hadn't said a word to her for years, she was concerned for her and gave her a glass of water.

My mother didn't touch the glass of water. She shifted uneasily in the chair, and I could sense that she wanted to get out of the Kurdia's house as quickly as possible, but on the other hand, she didn't want to be rude. Despite the terrible pain in my cheek I smiled inwardly, pleased by my mother's discomfort. I didn't understand why my mother didn't like Mrs. Barazani, and why because some Kurd had screwed my grandfather a million years ago all the Kurds in the world were to blame.

Then Mother quickly rose, grabbed my hand, and roughly pulled me up from where I was sitting. She grasped my hand so tightly that I wanted to scream in pain, but I held it in as she dragged me toward the door, and for the first time since she had stormed in, turned and said reluctantly, “Thank you for looking after her and for sending your son to call me.” She didn't wait for a reply and pushed me outside, closing the door behind her. By the time we got to my father waiting in the white Lark, she had already managed to yell at me like a madwoman. “You do this to spite me, don't you? It's because you know I can't stand them, isn't it?”

“But I didn't go to the Kurds,” I said, trying to get a word in.

“You didn't go? I'll show you ‘didn't go,'” she said and shoved me into the backseat of the car. “She's driving me out of my mind, your daughter. She's killing me,” she told my father as she dramatically threw her hand across her forehead as if she was passing out.

My father didn't say a word. Every now and then I saw him glance in the mirror to check on me in the backseat.

“She's an embarrassment to me,” my mother went on. “What's she looking for in the Kurdish neighborhood? And to put me in a position where I have to say thank you to the Kurdia, where I have to stand there like a fool, and in front of who yet?” My mother carried on talking about me as if I wasn't sitting there, curled up with my nose pressed to the window.

“Why did we take out a loan and move to Ben-Yehuda? Why did I send her to the Rehavia school? Why did I send her to school with David Benvenisti in Beit Hakerem?”

Yes, why? I asked myself. Why do I have to take a bus to Beit Hakerem when all the children in the neighborhood go to school in Arlosoroff, a few yards from their house? But I didn't dare say out loud what I was thinking and only scrunched up in my seat even more.

“Just you wait and see what Father does to you when we get home,” she went on, threatening me. “Tell her, David. Tell her you're going to beat her until her bottom's as red as a monkey's in the Biblical Zoo.”

“Stop putting words in my mouth,” my father said, getting angry for the first time. My mother tried to go on, but he shot her one of his looks that always shut her up, and she straightened in her seat and patted down her hairdo. She took a red lipstick from her purse, twisted the mirror, and carefully applied the lipstick, even though her lips were already red, whispering Ladino words I didn't understand through clenched teeth.

When we got home she sent me to my room. I sat on my bed and waited. Father came in a short while later carrying the belt with the painful buckle, but instead of hitting me on the bottom like my mother had promised, he asked me quietly, “What were you looking for with the Kurds? You know your mother doesn't permit it.”

“I didn't go to the Kurds,” I whispered.

“So where
did
you go?” my father asked, not understanding.

“I went to Nona Rosa,” I replied and burst into tears.

“My darling,” my father said, dropping the belt, kneeling, and taking me in his arms. “My sweetie, you know that Nona Rosa won't be going back to her house anymore. She's living at Har Hamenuchot now.”

“I thought she'd gotten lost again and that she'd soon find her way back,” I wept. “But she didn't come. She didn't come.” My father kissed me and tried to pacify me, but the spring of my tears welled uncontrollably.

“Dio santo, David, I asked you to give her a little slap, not kill her,” my mother said from the doorway, looking astounded at the sight of her weeping daughter clasped in her husband's arms.

“She was missing Rosa,” my father said. “She went looking for her at her house.”

My mother looked at me as if she couldn't believe her ears, her stare morphing into an expression I hadn't seen before. Perhaps there was even some tenderness in it. But instead of hugging me like I wanted so much, instead of consoling me as my father had, she simply walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Then came the day when the family decided it was time to remove the furniture and belongings from Nona Rosa's house and return it to its owners, the Barazani family. Mother said we should sell it all to the junkman, because we'd already sold everything of value when we'd needed the money and everything leftover was worthless.

“Nothing's worth anything for you!” Becky exclaimed. “The dinner set is worthless? The Shabbat candlesticks? The chandelier? It's all worthless?”

“So you take them, but we'll sell the rest to the junkman.”

“Calm down, Luna,” said Rachelika, who was the most reasonable of the three sisters. “The cabinet's worth a lot. It has crystal mirrors and a marble surface.”

“So you take it. I'm not bringing junk into my house. I have enough garbage as it is.”

“All right,” Rachelika said, “I'll take the sideboard and the cabinet.”

“And I'll take the dinner set,” said Becky.

“No, actually I want the dinner set,” my mother blurted.

“You just said it's all junk,” Becky said, annoyed.

“No, the dinner set is from Father and Mother's wedding. It was a gift from Nona Mercada.”

“So why should you get it?” said Becky, not giving in.

“Because I'm the eldest, that's why. I've got rights.”

“Just listen to her. I'm going to explode!” Becky stood up and started shouting. “Just a moment ago it was all junk, and just when I said I wanted the dinner set, she suddenly wants it for herself. If Rachelika's taking the sideboard and you're taking the dinner set, what's left for me?” She was on the verge of tears.

“Whatever you want,” my mother said. “As far as I'm concerned you can take it all: the armchairs, the couch, the table, the pictures, everything.”

“I want the wardrobe with the mirrors and the lions,” I said.

The three of them looked over at me, astonished.

“What did you say?” my mother asked.

“I want the wardrobe with the mirrors and the lions on the top that was in Nona's room.”

“Don't talk nonsense,” my mother said.

“I want it,” I said, stomping my foot.

“And where are you going to put the wardrobe with the lions? On my head?”

“In my room.”

“All right, you've been heard, Gabriela. Don't interfere in grown-up matters. Go outside and play.”

“I want the wardrobe with the lions!” I persisted.

“And I want a Cadillac convertible,” my mother replied. “Go downstairs and stop getting in the way.” She turned her back on me and continued dividing up Nona's things as if I wasn't there.

“All right, we're in agreement,” she told her sisters. “Rachelika's taking the cabinet, I'm taking the dinner set, and Becky, you take whatever you want of what's left.”

“I want the wardrobe with the mirrors and the lions!” I repeated.

“You can want all you like!”

“What is it with you and that wardrobe?” Rachelika asked gently.

“I want a memento of Nona,” I said, weeping.

“But sweetie,” Rachelika said, “it's huge. Who's going to carry it up five flights to your apartment? Your mother's right. You don't have room for it. I'll take you to Nono and Nona's house and you can choose whatever you want.”

“But the wardrobe,” I wailed, “I want the wardrobe with the lions.”

“Enough, ignore her. Why are you even talking to her?” my mother said to Rachelika irritably.

“Luna, basta! Can't you see the child's sad? It's not the wardrobe. It's the sentimental value, isn't it, dolly?”

I nodded. I wished Rachelika were my mother. If only I could swap so that my mother would be Boaz's mother and Rachelika would be mine. My mother loved Boaz more than me anyway.

Rachelika held me to her and kissed me on the forehead. I sank into her arms. The softness of her belly and big chest enveloped me, and for a moment I felt I was being hugged by Nona Rosa. Feeling warm and safe surrounded by my aunt's big body, I finally calmed down.

They sold the wardrobe with the lions to the junkman as well as the chandelier, the couch, the table, the chairs, the armchairs, and the tapestries. Mother took the dinner set but gave in to Becky on the candlesticks and the rest of the porcelain crockery. Rachelika took the glass-fronted cabinet and the big grandfather clock that nobody else wanted.

As I stood in Nono and Nona's yard for the last time and watched the junkmen load their precious and cherished possessions onto a cart harnessed to a tired old horse, the tears flowed from my eyes. Rachelika wiped them away and showed me a bunch of items wrapped in an old tablecloth that in a moment would be heaved onto the cart. “Pick whatever you want,” she said, and I chose a big oil painting of a river encircled by mountains with snow-covered peaks that reached into a clear blue sky. I had never really paid the painting any attention before, but it was all I had left, and I clutched it close to my heart.

And when the junkmen finished emptying the house and it was time to load the wardrobe with the mirrors and the lions, I stood to the side as they struggled to get it through the door. It was as if the wardrobe was resisting, and they were left with no choice but to remove its doors. I couldn't stand the sight of the doors separated from one another, and as I ran toward the cart, my mother shouted to Becky, “Catch her! Why did we have to bring her here with us?”

*   *   *

Every day at two o'clock on the dot Father would come home from the bank. While he was still downstairs he would whistle to the tune of “Shoshana, Shoshana, Shoshana” so we'd know he'd arrived, and I'd run to the landing and look down over the railing. He always carried the rolled-up copy of
Yedioth Ahronoth
that he'd pick up on the way. Once he walked through the door, he'd go and wash his hands and then take off his jacket and carefully hang it over the back of a chair so it wouldn't crease. Father always took great care with his appearance when he went to the bank. Even in the summer when everybody was wearing short-sleeved shirts and sandals, Father kept his jacket on and wore shoes that he took extra care to polish. “A person should respect his place of work,” he'd say, “so that his place of work will respect him.”

After he'd take off his jacket he'd loosen his tie, and only then would he sit down at the table for lunch. One day, when Mother served macaroni with kiftikas con queso, cheese croquettes in tomato sauce, Father topped his macaroni with a respectable portion of kiftikas con queso and sauce, mixed it up, and ate it all together.

My mother lost her temper. “Why are you eating like a primitive, David? You should eat each thing separately, first the kiftikas and then the macaroni, and put the tomato and salted cheese sauce on the macaroni.”